Page 18 of How To Tempt The Off-Limits Billionaire

Most of us? That had to mean that something catastrophic must’ve happened to his and Keane’s relationship along the way. Seeing that Muzi didn’t cross the restaurant to greet the man he was raised with, that much was obvious.

“Tell me what happened between you two...”

Muzi sighed as he leaned back in his chair. His body language told her that he was trying to retreat from the question or the subject and when he crossed his arms, she knew he was feeling defensive. There was no way that Muzi, proud and reticent, was going to open up to her.

And why should he? If he needed a sounding board, he could talk to Digby or Pasco...why would he want to confide in a woman he’d only known for a day or so?

Punching above your weight bracket, O’Keefe. Big-time.

She held up her hands, signaling to him that she was backing off. Muzi’s shoulders immediately dropped and the tension in his face eased.

Muzi was not going to allow her to delve into his private business but maybe he could help her with hers. He was one of a handful of people who knew she was the Tempest-Vane heir, he’d known Digby for over twenty years and, best of all, he could give her an outsider’s view, a nonpartisan view of her birth parents.

Digby and Radd were too close to the situation and the press were known to exaggerate. Her brothers called Gil and Zia materialistic and wild, extreme narcissists, children of Satan. Maybe Muzi could give her a more levelheaded assessment of the people whose DNA she carried.

“Did you ever meet my birth parents? Maybe when they came to visit Digby at school?”

Muzi looked thoughtful and took a while to answer her questions. “I think Gil and Zia only came to the school maybe once, possibly twice in the whole five years we were there.”

“They didn’t visit him?” Ro asked, appalled.

Muzi shook his head. “Digby was, as the third son, possibly the most neglected of the brothers. They didn’t seem to care about him at all.”

Ro rubbed the space between her eyes with her fingertips. “What lovely blood flows in my veins,” she quipped, trying for sarcasm but failing.

She picked up her fork and drew patterns on the tablecloth. “Digby and Radd do not have anything nice to say about them, and I understand why, but they couldn’t have beenallbad. They must’ve hadsomeredeeming qualities.”

She heard the note of hope in her voice, the optimism and cursed herself. She wanted them to be better than what she heard, what she’d read, because who wanted to be the biological daughter of two monsters?

Muzi’s eyes connected with hers and she saw the empathy within those dark depths. “Are you waiting for me to sing their praises?”

Ro shrugged. “Not sing their praises but... God, I just want someone to tell me they weren’t completely irredeemable.”

Muzi stayed silent and Ro scratched her head. “You can’t tell me that, can you?”

Muzi topped up her wineglass as he slowly shook his head. “I wish I could but...no, I can’t. They were completely, horribly, equally narcissistic.”

Ro sighed. “Excellent news.”

“Are you worried that you inherited their tendencies?”

Ro shrugged. “Wouldn’t you be?”

Muzi placed his forearms on the table and leaned forward, his fleeting expression suggesting that he wished he could remove all her pain and frustration. “If it’s any consolation, I choose to believe that nurture is a lot stronger than nature. Tell me about your parents.”

Ro smiled. It was easy to tell him about the loving, outgoing, passionate people who had raised her. “They are great, very affectionate and a lot of fun,” Ro told him. “They’re a little hippy, a little dippy but very warm and very, very smart.”

“What do they do?” Muzi asked, looking interested.

“My dad is a college professor, he teaches constitutional law, and a political consultant. My mom is a pediatric surgeon.”

Muzi raised his eyebrows, impressed. “As you said, smart. How old were you when they told you that you were adopted?”

“My adoption was always openly discussed between us, so I don’t remember them ever sitting me down and telling me I was adopted.” Ro ran her finger up and down the side of her wineglass. “I had a very happy childhood and they loved me, they gave me a lot of time and attention.”

“But?”

How was he able to discern the hesitation behind her words? He didn’t know her but he seemed to be able to look beyond what she said to what she believed, how she felt. Despite being together for eight years, Kelvin never mastered the ability to recognize subtext, to look beyond her words to her emotions. Yet this big, imperturbable, muscled stranger could.

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