Uncovering the Silveri Secret by Melanie Milburne Read Free Book Online Page A

measures everything by checks and balances,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Don’t you do things sometimes just because it feels right?’
    His eyes remained steady on hers. ‘Gut feeling doesn’t cut it with me,’ he said. ‘It’s too easy to allow your emotional investment in something or someone to cloud your judgement. The heavier the investment, the harder it is to see things and people for what or who they are.’
    ‘How did you get so cynical?’ Bella asked.
    His eyes moved away from hers as he reached to top up their wine glasses. The sound of the wine making a glock-glock-glock noise as it poured out of the bottle was deafening in the silence. ‘Born that way,’ he said.
    ‘I don’t believe that.’
    He met her gaze, his mocking half-smile back in place. ‘Still trying to save my sorry soul, Bella?’ he asked. ‘I thought you gave up on that little mission years ago.’
    ‘Have you told anyone about your childhood? About where you came from?’ she asked.
    A mask slipped over his features like a dust sheet over a piece of furniture. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’
    ‘You must have had parents,’ she said. ‘A mother, at least. Who was she?’
    ‘Leave it, Bella.’
    ‘You must remember something about your childhood,’ Bella pressed on. ‘You can’t have blocked everything out. You weren’t born a teenager with authority issues. You were once a baby, a toddler, a young child.’
    He let out a short, impatient-sounding breath and reached for his glass. ‘I don’t remember much of my childhood at all,’ he said and drank a deep mouthful of his wine.
    Bella watched his Adam’s apple go up and down. Even though his expression was masked, there was anger in the action as he swallowed the liquid—anger and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on. ‘Tell me what you do remember,’ she said.
    The silence was long and brooding, the air so thick it felt like the ceiling had slowly lowered, compressing all the oxygen.
    Bella continued to search his features. The stony mask had slipped just a fraction. She could see the flicker of a blood vessel in his temple. The grooves beside his mouth deepened as if he was holding back a lifetime of suppressed emotion. His nostrils flared as he took a breath. His eyes hardened to granite. His fingers around his glass tightened until she could see the whitening of his knuckles.
    ‘Why did you get kicked out of all those foster homes?’ she asked.
    His eyes collided with hers. They were dark with a glitter that made the backs of her knees go fizzy again. ‘Why do you think I was kicked out?’ he asked with a tilt of his lips that looked more like a snarl than a smile. ‘I was a rebel. A lost cause. Bad to the core. Beyond salvation.’
    Bella swallowed a thick knot in her throat. He was so intimidating when he was in this mood but she was determined to find out more about him. His enigmatic nature intrigued her. She had always found his aloof, keep-away-from-me manner compellingly attractive. ‘What happened to your parents?’ she asked.
    ‘They died.’ He said the words as if they meant nothing to him. He showed no emotion at all. Not even a flicker. His face was like a marble statue, a blank, impenetrable mask.
    ‘So you were an orphan?’ Bella prompted.
    ‘Yeah, that’s me.’ He gave a little laugh as he swirled the contents of his glass. ‘An orphan.’
    ‘Since when?’ she asked. ‘I mean, how old were you when your parents died?’
    It seemed like a full year before he spoke; Bella waited out each pulsing second of the long, protracted silence. It was a silent battle of wills, but somehow she suspected the battle was not between her and him. It was between two parts of himself: the aloof loner who didn’t need anyone and the man behind the mask who secretly did.
    ‘I don’t remember my father,’ he said with the same blank, indifferent expression.
    ‘He died when you were a baby?’ she guessed.
    ‘Yes.’ There was