She pulled away from his touch. ‘What’s your history with Harold Westchester?’
He shoved his hand back into his pocket. ‘The connection between Hal and me is old news. It hasn’t got a damn thing to do with us.’
Kate acknowledged the hit. ‘Of course it does. I’m not about to jump into bed with a guy who might be doing something unethical.’
‘Unethical!’he shouted, genuinely outraged. ‘What the hell are you talking about? There’s nothing unethical about this deal. Westchester’s getting a good price for the resort, more than a good price. I would never cheat him, he means—’
He stopped abruptly, turned away. He gripped the terrace rail, his knuckles whitening. She wasn’t sure what she’d unearthed, but this was the first time she’d ever seen him lose that implacable cool. She wasn’t about to let it drop now.
He’d collected himself when he turned back. Crossing his legs at the ankle, he leant against the rail. She could see he was trying for casual indifference. ‘Look, Kate,’ he said. ‘It’s no big deal.’
‘If it’s no big deal, why are you scared to talk about it?’
He shot upright, casual biting the dust in a big way. ‘I’m not scared, damn it.’
‘Then tell me.’
‘All right. Fine.’He threw up his hands, frustration pumping off him. ‘When I was eight years old, my old man checked us in here, then split. He didn’t show up again for six months. That’s it.’
Kate didn’t know what she had been expecting, but whatever she’d been expecting it wasn’t the anger that blindsided her. ‘Are you saying your father abandoned you here?’
‘No, not exactly.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Jean-Pierre wasn’t a bad guy. He just wasn’t cut out to be anyone’s father. He was a gambler. When he was on a roll, he forgot about everything else. It’s no big secret. Now can we drop it?’
Not on your life, thought Kate. She’d caught a glimpse of the man behind that super-confident mask. It both stunned and fascinated her. ‘Where was your mother?’ she asked quietly.
He sat down opposite her, sighed. ‘Do we have to talk about this?’
‘Yes, we do.’ More than he could possibly know.
He shrugged and looked out at the dusky light. The evening was closing in, scarlet clouds bleeding into the blue of the ocean on the horizon. The shadows on his face weren’t just from the dying day, Kate realised.
‘My mother died when I was a baby. I don’t remember her.’ He looked back at her. ‘It was me and my old man and it worked fine, most of the time.’
‘Most of the time?’ she said, hating the feckless reprobate. ‘Did he forget about you more than once, then?’
‘Never for more than a couple of days.’ He shrugged. ‘Until we landed here.’
‘But that’s appalling.’ How vulnerable and alone he must have been. A little boy abandoned by the one person who should have been looking after him. Was that why he fought so hard for control now, because he’d once had so little of it as a child?
‘JP signed us in under false names, then did his vanishing act. After he’d been gone five days, I panicked.’
‘What did you do?’
He gave her a crooked half-smile. ‘I tried to steal some money from the motel register. Hal caught me and figured out the truth.’ He sighed. ‘I freaked out, swore at him, kicked him in the shins, tried to run away. I was a real brat.’
‘You were frightened,’ Kate said gently.
‘Maybe,’he said casually, as if his feelings hadn’t been important. ‘I thought they’d turn me over to the cops. But they didn’t. They took me in.’Astonishment tinged his voice. ‘Hal’s sitting room still looks exactly the same as it did back then.’
No wonder he’d been so tense when they’d walked into Harold Westchester’s parlour.
‘What happened when your father returned?’
He leaned his forehead on his open palm, ran his hand down his face. It seemed this memory was the hardest. ‘It wasn’t pretty,’ was all he said.
‘You should tell Hal who you are.’
He stiffened. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t want to,’ he said with a vehemence that shocked her. ‘I’m not that miserable brat any more. I left him behind years ago.’
She wanted to ask him why he hated that desperate child so much. From the closed look on his face, though, she knew he wouldn’t answer the question. She decided to approach the problem from a different angle. ‘Why did you want to buy The Grange so much, then?’
‘Honestly? I don’t have a clue. I decided a while back to sell up in Vegas. But I don’t know why I chose this place.’ He pushed his chair back, got up. ‘It was just some dumb impulse I couldn’t stop.’ He paced over to the rail, leaned against it, his body stiff with tension. ‘When Monty started the negotiations, I got him to check out what Hal knew. I didn’t want Hal connecting me with that kid.’
‘I can’t believe Hal would forget you so easily.’
‘Hal and Mary never knew my real name.’
‘You mean you never told them, all the time you were living with them?’
‘No, I never did.’ He paused, as if debating whether to tell her more. Was this where the guilt had come from? ‘They thought my name was Billy Jensen. At first I didn’t tell them my real name because I thought it’d be safer, but then…’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know. It was like I’d become a different person.’
‘You were a scared little boy,’ Kate said gently. ‘Believe me, Hal’s not going to hold it against you if he’s the man you described to me.’
‘How can you know that?’ His voice broke on the words, and she realised that inside the tough, commanding man there was still a tiny part of that abandoned child—who didn’t think he was worth the trouble to love.
She crossed to him, laid her hands against his chest, felt the hard pulse of his heart. Her own heart squeezed in response. ‘You have to tell him who you are,’ she whispered. ‘You have to tell him the real reason you’re buying The Grange.’
‘What do you mean, the real reason?’
‘You want a home,’ she said simply. ‘And this is the only one you’ve ever had.’
Zack was dumbfounded. It was as if she’d reached into his soul and pulled something out he didn’t even know was there. A secret yearning he’d never once admitted to anyone, not even himself. He turned away from her, stared out to sea, the conflicting feelings of guilt and remorse and longing making his stomach pitch like the surf below.
Her hand rested on his back, smoothed over his spine. ‘Hal’s the real reason you came back.’
He bent his head, his fingers clenching on the warm solid wooden railing. The earth had just shifted beneath his feet. It made him feel exposed and needy, the way he’d felt as a kid. The way he’d sworn he’d never feel again.
He swung round and her hand fell away. ‘You’re wrong. I don’t need a home and I don’t need Hal Westchester.’
And I don’t need you either, he thought desperately. He couldn’t. She’d made him feel things, think about things he didn’t want to think about. It was way past time he stopped messing about and took what he did want.