She dreamed of him again that night.

Her heart raced in her chest; the dream coated her mouth with the bitter taste of metal. Adrenalin spiked in her blood, making her limbs heavy and her mind alert.

Her eyes flew open and she stared up at the ceiling without recognizing it. She flicked her gaze to one side, taking in the tasteful, modern furnishings cast in a soft glow. Then, she looked to the other side of the room.

Benedetto.

He was standing on his balcony, wearing only cotton boxers despite the coolness of the night.

But he was there.

And she was with him.

In his home.

She was safe.

Augustine was years in her past and thousands of miles from her person.

She sucked in a deep breath, waiting for her pulse to return to normal.

As if sensing a disturbance somehow, Benedetto turned, his eyes lancing her instantly.

“Kate?” He quickly took in her brow that was beaded with sweat, her skittish eyes and alert expression. He paced towards her like some kind of game cat; a leopard or panther. “What is it?”

She swallowed and angled herself away from him, reaching for her water glass. “A stupid nightmare,” she said simply, sipping the cold liquid with relief. Her body was warm. “Did I say something?”

His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. His weight depressed the edge of the bed as he sat.

“What is it that causes your eyes to look like that?” He murmured, staring into her soul as though he could see all of the pieces that formed her person.

The glass was cold in her hands. She held it for something to do, trapping the condensation in her palms. “What do my eyes look like?” It was an evasive response and they both knew it.

“You look like a tiny mouse about to be swiped at by a large cat.” A frown tugged at his lips. “And you look very young.”

She rolled her eyes. “Not that again. I’m twenty-two.”

He discarded her assertion. “I mean you look … vulnerable. Afraid. Why?”

She wasn’t vulnerable. Nor afraid. She was strong and independent.

She was free.

Her smile was reassuring, though it was ghosted by memories she didn’t like to focus on. “I’m neither, I promise. I just have an overactive imagination, that’s all, and my dreams have always been realistic. As a child I used to sleep walk, sleep talk. You name it, I was a weird kid.” She shuddered, to show that time was long gone.

Kate couldn’t have known, of course, that her childhood was of particular interest to him, for it was a marker to the past she shared with Augustine.

“Did you have therapy to stop this?”

Ten lashes if you dare get out of bed tonight, Katherine. Her expression was inscrutable. “Of a sort.”

If you make a single noise, you will not eat for two days. Understand?

“What does this mean? Of a sort?”

“It means I learned not to sleep walk. Nor to sleep talk. I learned to sleep normally, and if I couldn’t, to stay quietly in bed as though I were.”

He nodded slowly, though it seemed a strange way to have dealt with the poor sleep habits. “How did you learn?” He prodded.

“A torturous process,” she winked as though it were a joke. And because she couldn’t help herself, she reached out and ran her fingers over his hand. His skin was so dark, like burnt sugar. She knew his tan was all over, as well. How had he spent the summer? On a yacht somewhere?

That didn’t seem right. Though he was virile and active, she knew how hard Benedetto worked. His tan was more likely gathered by moving from his constructions sites around the globe rather than any vanity sun bathing.

“Why are you still awake?” She asked, shy suddenly.

Because he hadn’t been sure he could sleep beside her. Because he was literally climbing in bed with the enemy, and it felt foolish, cynical, cruel and wrong. And in the midst of that, it felt so excruciatingly right.

“It is still early, for me.”

She frowned. “It’s after midnight.”

“Si.” His eyes were drawn to her face as if by a magnetic force. “What was your dream?”

She dropped her gaze instantly and ran her thumb up the side of the glass. “I don’t remember,” she said after a beat-too-long.

“Why do you not tell me?”

Her sigh was barely a sound. “Have you ever noticed that some things gain power from speech?” She blinked her enormous blue eyes to his face and he startled for the sense that Augustine was looking back at him. With a noise of frustration, he stood from the bed and prowled to the balustrade on the balcony beyond. The night air was a cool rush over his half-naked body. He inhaled the evening deep in his lungs, waiting for calm to return to him.

But it didn’t.

This woman, this beautiful, young woman he had brought to his home was a window to the man he hated.

That was all. He padded back into his bedroom, his expression thunderous. “Such as?” He prompted, continuing their conversation as though he hadn’t physically left it only moments earlier.

She licked the outline of her full, lower lip, her eyes faraway. “The past.”

His sense that something with her was in pain grew stronger. He’d had so many warning signs, and he’d chosen to ignore them. Now, he stared across the moonlit floor at her, his mind pushing all the little statements she’d made together like a freight train to the truth. “What in your past, cara, are you running from?”

But he knew.

Realisation slammed into him like a bullet. “Someone hurt you.” And he’d put money on knowing who. The man’s temper had been obvious. His vitriolic rage had simmered behind his eyes. Staring now at Kate he saw that their eyes were as different as they were alike. For hers had no anger. Hers showed gentleness and vulnerability, humour and kindness.

“You are hiding here, in Rome, from someone. Or something.” A frown pushed across his face. Kate was stricken. Her face was pale. Her eyes, somehow, even bigger than usual.

“I … I didn’t have you pegged as a fantasist.”

It was a lame, weak demurral. He discarded it instantly. He was all ruthless businessman now, intent on extracting the information he sought. “I should have understood sooner. Why else would you be here, living like this?” Her life in England had been one of luxury and comfort. At least, it had appeared that way. Only a sinister undercurrent could have forced her to this life, surely.

“You told me you haven’t seen your father in years. You haven’t been home in years.” He nodded, to himself, as everything began to unfold into a crisp piece of knowledge. “Is it him you’re running from?”

The dream was still clogged in her brain. Fear and adrenalin were impossible to quickly wish away, and they coursed through her blood and her bones. She pushed the duvet from her body and stood, but her knees were weak. “You’re crazy,” she muttered. “You don’t know anything about my father.”

His sneer should have told her the opposite was true, but her eyes weren’t focused on him. Her flight instinct had been invoked. It was taking every ounce of her will-power to stop from pulling clothes on and walking away from him.

“I know enough,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his thick hair.

“What?” Her breath snagged in her throat. Had she misunderstood.

Benedetto opened his mouth as if to say something and then shook his head. “You have told me, time and time again, only I have not listened. You have let many little things slip. You have told me without telling me, and now I am asking you to confide in me.”

Kate’s mouth worked overtime, swallowing convulsively, but she couldn’t bring liquid back to her throat. She sat down on the edge of the bed, her naked back curled like a conch shell.

The silver of the moon glistened across her smooth flesh. Smooth, but for the scar that marred her perfection.

“He did this,” Benedetto demanded, pressing his finger lightly into the mark.

A sob tore through Kate. She’d never told another soul about her father. Never. Not a single person. Even here, far from Augustine’s power, she lived in complete fear that he might hurt her somehow.

“Just let it go.”

Benedetto lifted his fingers infinitesimally, so that his touch was as light as spider’s webbing. He traced a circle around the mark, his mind slamming with this new truth. What did it mean? Did it change anything?

And if true, what the hell had he done in exposing her to this man? His desperation to avenge the past could very well have put Kate’s present in jeopardy. Oh, he didn’t fear Augustine. Physically, the man was no match for Benedetto; unlikely for Kate, for that matter. But he apparently occupied a powerful place in her life, in her memories, and perhaps her heart, and that could continue to wound her now.

“I want to make this better for you.” He squeezed his eyes shut. He had made it so much worse; what she would never know was that it was now his responsibility to fix it.

“It is better,” she murmured. Her shoulders were shaking. “It’s better if I don’t talk about it,” she repeated, her words coming to him as if from a long way away.

“Did he hurt you often?” Benedetto continued, unwilling to be thrown off topic.

“No,” she lied.

God, had he done more than hit her? Had he raped her? Nausea perforated his gut. “Did he … was he … did he molest you?”

Her head whipped up. Her eyes were brimming with pain. “No. Never. He’s my father. Don’t be disgusting.”

He believed her. Not about the abuse, but about the molestation. That, at least, was something. “But he did hurt you?”

Kate stood once more, and forced her jelly-like legs to take her across the room. “He’s a good man,” she said stonily. “And he loves me more than anything else on earth.”

Benedetto cursed inwardly. This was not the direction he’d expected the conversation to take. Hearing her defend her father like this was making his heart pound and his blood boil.

“Oh, yes?” He pushed, his words dangerously silky.

“Yes,” she spat. “You could never understand how hard it was for him to raise me on his own.”

Benedetto didn’t speak. He was incapable of forming words. He simply stared at her and Kate, anxious and filled with emotions she hadn’t felt in a long time, went on the attack. She had always been powerless with Augustine and she would not be with Benedetto now.

“Who are you to judge?”

“Meaning?” He paced around to her, so that he was standing just before her. But he didn’t touch her. Kate was skittish and Benedetto never, ever wanted her to fear him. The primal need to convince her that she was safe with him surprised him, but he could not ignore it.  He forced himself to calm down, to relax his posture so that he wasn’t so large and intimidating. He relaxed his facial muscles, easing a look of bland disinterest across his expression.

“You work. You work really hard. You’re really great at making money. And you’re really great at … making love. But relationships? Looking after people? What of that?” She sucked in a deep breath, unable to countenance the realities she was confronting. “My father … isn’t … he’s a long way off perfect. But he never meant to hurt me. He just … I was … he worked so hard, Benedetto. He worked hard for me. So that I’d have everything I could ever want. And then he had to deal with me.”

“To deal with you? I do not think you would have been a difficult child, cara.”

“I was,” she responded, though in that moment she couldn’t think of a precise example as to why.

“In what ways?” He asked, as though sensing her confusion.

“I just was. Look, just drop it, okay?”

Benedetto shook his head. “If not your father, then what?” He tried to change the direction of his questioning, wondering if perhaps she might reveal more if she felt less threatened. “What do you do here? Why did you hide in this tiny apartment?”

“I’m not bloody hiding! Jesus! What are you talking about?” But the walls were closing in. It was all getting too real.

She spun away from him and lifted a shirt from the bag she’d brought with her. She pulled it on roughly, angrily, desperately. She held the secret tightly not because she didn’t want to share herself with him, but because she couldn’t make her past real again. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

“You obviously enjoyed a privileged childhood. Yet you live in a slum. You are private. You have an insecurity that is at odds with your personality. Why?”

“I don’t,” she said, and she was shivering uncontrollably now. He saw, and he felt as though a knife was cleaving through his chest.

“You don’t what?” He pushed, reminding her suddenly of her father in his relentless need for answers.

She swallowed. “I don’t know.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Please drop it, Benedetto.” Her stomach rolled with pain. She couldn’t look at him when she spoke and so she kept her eyes closed, her lashes forming two thick, black fans across her pale cheeks. “It was just a dream tonight. It’s all just a dream now.”

God, how he wanted her to stop speaking in riddles. But he put an arm around her back and crushed her to his body as though he could pour his own strength into her. He held her against him until slowly he sensed that she was no longer shivering. He felt Kate returning to him, and he held her until he was certain she had.

“You’re safe now,” he said simply, hoping that it was true and knowing he would do anything in his power to make it so.

The text message he’d sent to Augustine sat like a bullet in his mind though. Hours later, as Kate slept beside him, he stared at the ceiling. His mind spun like a wheel, trying to make sense of what was happening.

Augustine had never responded.

But the message had gone through.

And the fact that he hadn’t replied didn’t mean he wouldn’t, somehow, react. In fact, Benedetto knew that he would. Without a doubt.

He propped up on one elbow so that he could study Kate. She was so beautiful. So ethereally lovely. She was smart, too, with a quick wit. She had left Augustine. She had run to another country and buried herself in cheap obscurity.

Taking care to be quiet, he pushed his feet out of the bed and moved quickly from the bedroom. He made a coffee and took it to his study. The place was as well equipped as any of his offices; he’d made sure he had the highest speed internet cabled in, and replaced the computer systems every twelve months. It was state of the art. It needed to be, to keep him in touch with everything he was overseeing across the world.

He clicked into a file with a numeric pathname – designed to arouse no interest in anyone but himself.

And there she was.

Katherine Beauchamp on The Kings Road. His heart ricocheted around his chest. He stared at the computer screen and felt a heightening sense of desperation. It had been taken years earlier. She looked younger. And yes, he could see why he’d looked at her with a sense of searing hatred, for she embodied everything he thought he despised. She looked so expensive and cherished in this picture – expensive because of clothes Augustine had bought her, and cherished by the man who had ruined his father’s life.

But when had he decided to use her like this?

That moment he’d seen her at the gala, and he’d known he’d been handed the weapon he’d sought. The woman he’d wondered about for many years.

He groaned softly and closed the picture, then opened another. This was taken years earlier. It was Kate and Augustine together, walking towards a parked car. He was talking, and she was listening. He leaned forward, so that his face was only inches from the screen. What had she been feeling in that moment? She was looking straight ahead, giving the photographer a perfect angle on her face. Her eyes were impossible to read, even though he knew her now so intimately.

Benedetto transferred his attention to Augustine’s face. Had he been angry then? What had he been saying to this young version of Kate?

Benedetto swore softly and clicked out of the photos.

He’s a good man.

Kate couldn’t have known how those words would wound him to hear. How hearing Kate describe that bastard as a good man would virtually wrench him in two.

He slammed his coffee cup onto the desk and sat down heavily in his chair.

This was a mess of his own making. Unfortunately, there was only one way out of it, and he wasn’t sure he was ready yet to let her go.