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Hannah thought of Michelle and Angus and her life in Australia and dropped her gaze. ‘I miss a lot of things. It’s hard, having the rug pulled out from under you.’ She lifted her eyes to his, sympathy softening her features as she remembered his own harrowing past. ‘As you would know.’
A warning light glinted in his eyes. Don’t go there.
‘Who was the other woman?’ His voice was gruff.
Hannah’s heart constricted with now familiar pain. ‘That was the really hard part.’
‘Harder than your fiancé cheating on you?’
‘Yeah.’ She angled her face, so Leonidas had a perfect view of her profile, delicate and ethereal.
‘Who was she?’ he repeated, and Hannah sucked in a soft breath.
‘My cousin, Michelle. More like a sister, really. After Mum and Dad died, I went to live with my aunt and uncle, and Michelle.’
He let out a soft whistle. ‘Christós.’
‘Yeah.’ Her laugh was a low rumble. ‘You could say that, and I did—worse, in fact. I was devastated.’
Admitting that felt good. Saying the word aloud, Hannah recognised that she hadn’t spoken to another soul about the affair.
‘I lost everything that afternoon.’
‘What did your aunt and uncle say?’
Hannah lifted her gaze to his, and a ridiculous sense of shame made it difficult to maintain eye contact. Hannah shook her head, that awful afternoon burned into her brain like a cattle brand. ‘Do you mind if we don’t go down this particular memory lane?’
She flicked her gaze back to his face, catching surprise crossing his features. But it was banked down within a moment, and he stepped back, almost as though he hadn’t realised how close they were, how he was touching her.
‘Of course.’ His smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Have a seat.’ He gestured towards the table. ‘There is much we have to discuss.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘WHAT WORK WERE you doing in London?’
Hannah sipped her fruit juice, a pang of guilt scrunching her chest when she thought of her boss, Fergus, and how she planned to leave him completely in the lurch.
‘I’m a legal secretary.’
‘Have you done this for long?’
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Since I left high school. My aunt and uncle lived in a small town. There weren’t a lot of options for work. I would have loved to go away to university but it just wasn’t practical.’
‘For what reason?’
‘Money, mainly.’
‘I thought universities in Australia were subsidised?’
‘They are,’ she agreed, lifting a piece of fish from the platter. ‘But I’d have had to move to the city, found a place to rent. Even with governmental assistance, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to live out of home, to cover textbooks and rent.’
‘Your parents left you nothing when they died?’
She felt censure in his voice and her back straightened, defensiveness stirring inside her. ‘They left a little. My aunt and uncle took a stipend each year, and what’s left I can’t claim until I’m twenty-five.’
At this, Leonidas was completely still. ‘Your aunt and uncle took money from you?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she said quietly. ‘They took money to cover the cost of raising me.’
