Page 16 of The Billionaire's Seduction Revenge

She frowned.

“Isn’t that true of all of us?”

He leaned forward, silently entreating her to continue.

“I’m not the same person I was a year ago,” her voice cracked almost imperceptibly, but Vasilios, attuned to every minute shift in her features noticed it. “Nor two years ago, five years ago. Life changes all of us. Are you saying, though, that the man he was even two years ago I might not have cared for?”

He dipped his head. “Perhaps.”

“Well, whether that’s true or not, it’s not particularly relevant, given that I’m not equipped with a time-machine.”

The rejoinder brought an unexpected smile to his lips. Her approach was prosaic and sensible. She didn’t seem at all interested in hearing of Costa’s exploits, and yet it was suddenly important to Vasilios to make her understand. Vasilios wasn’t suspicious for the sake of it, he hadn’t jumped to a conclusion because he was a cynic—it had been the logical presumption, all things considered. He wanted Emma to know that—and didn’t wish to analyse why it mattered so much that she did.

“My grandfather has always been a great lover of women. A womaniser. When I would come to stay with my grandparents in the summer, when I was younger, I had a room in the main house, with them.” It was once he’d finished school that Vasilios had claimed the pool house. To stop his grandfather from using it? “There was almost always a woman installed exactly where you are staying.”

That did draw a furrow on Emma’s brow. “Are you saying that while he was married, he would…”

“Oh, yes. My grandmother was old fashioned and quiet by nature. They met when she was very young; she came from a dirt poor family, on the outskirts of Bari. I think she was probably always a little grateful for the attention of Costa, and the financial support he offered her family. Whether because of her personality or owing to that gratitude, she’d have been the last person in the world to complain about his public affairs.” He sipped his wine, anger making it difficult to meet Emma’s eyes. “I know it hurt her though. I know she carried that pain, all her life.”

He felt Emma’s eyes on him and knew he was completely failing in provoking her into a reaction—it was he, Vasilios, who was showing his feelings, but he wasn’t capable of stopping, now that he’d started.

“He loved her, in his own way, but he was far from faithful.”

When he looked at Emma it was to see her teeth sinking into her lower lip, massaging it from side to side, her eyes assumed a faraway look as though she was lost in thought. Vasilios pushed on.

“My father—Ricardo—inherited Costa’s propensities. He was even less discreet, and far less smart about it all. Where Costa at least took measures to ensure his wealth was beyond the reach of his mistresses, my father made no such endeavour. He entered into a string of short-term affairs, gifting generously, including shares of the business. He was both indiscreet and stupid. My mother left him when I was just a baby.”

“You were raised by her, then?”

Costa’s jaw clenched. He took a moment to marshal his thoughts, to speak with easy calmness, as though nothing was capable of phasing him. “For a few years. She died when I was five.”

Emma gasped, her eyes softening, and she leaned forward, her hand lifting to the tabletop, hovering there before quickly returning to her lap. For a moment, though, he’d been sure she was going to touch him, to offer her condolences with a light grasp. Instead, she shook her head, let out another shaking breath. “I’m very sorry to hear it. How awful for you.”

His response was a cynical twist of his lips. What could he say in response? It had been awful, but it was a fact of life.

“And then you went to live with your father?” Her eyes were softened by sympathy, her whole demeanour gentle and kind, as though she’d completely forgotten all of the animosity that underpinned their relationship.

“I went to boarding school,” he corrected. “Ricardo’s lifestyle couldn’t exactly accommodate a child. My grandfather decided going away to school would offer more stability. In the holidays, I came back here, to Puglia, to live with Costa.”

“But what about your father?” She sipped her wine, eyes locked to his over the rim of her glass. “Surely he wanted to raise you?”

Vasilios lifted his brows heavenwards. “What do you base that assumption on?”

She began to frantically pleat her napkin once more. “On…I suppose…on…the way things should be? Surely….”

“There is no ‘surely’ about it, Emma.” He said her name slowly, the two syllables caressed in his mouth and rolled by his tongue before he let them drop into the air between them, and he had the satisfaction of seeing her cheeks heat and her eyes narrow. A desire to seduce her overtook everything else—to blot out the emotions of this conversation by indulging in an afternoon with Emma and her delightful body beneath him, his cock buried deep inside her, his hands free to wander and roam her stunning skin… He pushed the thoughts aside firmly, focussed on their conversation, but it wasn’t easy.

“My father never wanted children. I was a mistake.”

She refused to let him speak in such a way. “You mean an accident.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No, it’s not,” she said with a shake of her head. “The connotation is completely different.”

“I’ll leave the nuance of English to you,” he said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “Suffice it to say, my father wasn’t particularly happy about my existence, he became even less so during my mother’s pregnancy, and positively miserable once I was born. Crying babies, a breastfeeding wife, none of this was what he wanted in life.”

“Horrible man,” Emma said with a shake of her head. “You must hate him.”

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