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He shook his head, distaste pouring off him ‘She worked so hard but ere so poor she couldn’t afford to pay for my school books We had food in our belly from Mikolaj—whatever was left over fro—not birthdays, not Christ’

Alessandra sed, the fa in her belly that always ca what he’d lived through

His gaze bore into her ‘I was obsessed with people like you’

‘Me?’ she queried faintly

‘I would see men and women like you, people ere clean and wore beautiful clothes, and wonder ere so different, why the clothes s Then I realised what the difference was: money They had it and we didn’t So that beca about it: how to earn it, how to row and how to keep it so that my mother and I too could be clean and wear beautiful clothes’

‘You certainly realised your dreams,’ she said quietly ‘Did you have to study hard for it or did it cole-sex education and how she had resented the strictness, rebelling by refusing to pay attention or do homework until it had become likely she would fail all her exarandfather would never have felt the need to employ a private tutor to help her catch up Javier would never have entered her life Who kne different her life would have been if she’d never e of twenty-five?

She hadn’t been ready for sex with Javier but with hindsight it was because she’d known, even without being aware of his wife and children, that a sexual affair between the The balance of power had been too one-sided, in his favour

But Javier was her reality She didn’t know if she would have stayed a virgin until the age of twenty-five if she hadn’t met him because that would have been a different Alessandra, not the Alessandra she was today

‘I studied every hour I could,’ Christian said, adopting the same quiet tone as she ‘I must have been ten when I realised education was the only way either I or my mother could escape’

‘I’ silence had formed between them

‘For what?’

‘I don’t know’ She raised her shoulders, wishing she could articulate the sha within her She recalled the little rant she’d had in Mikolaj’s taverna when she’d put Christian in his place about hi a monopoly on childhood pain and abandonment

At least she’d always had clean clothes and fresh food Materially she’d had everything she could have wished for; the things she’d been denied were to stop her being spoiled and not due to a lack of finances

After the randfather had used money—her allowance—as another means to control her No allowance meant no money; no money meant she stayed prisoner in the villa without the ood Mondelli name

A prisoner?

What a self-absorbed brat she had been

Christian’s whole life came into sharp focus Nobut poor scholarship student, the s a mattress in a cramped attic room with his harridan of a mother

Now the snapshots for ithi before he’d had the opportunity to shower daily

What must he think of her, the spoiled little rich kid? She knew she’d never been spoiled but in coht as well have been Irandfather had been a workaholic and happy to pass the actual raising of his granddaughter to the female staff of his household? At least she’d never doubted his love So he’d cut off her allowance? Oh, boo hoo Her grandfather had been teaching her a lesson Without it she would never have felt coet herself a job, would never have answered the advertiserapher’s assistant and taken the first steps on the career she loved