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‘Well, if there was anything left over after she was done shooting up, she considered buying food for her son. If there wasn’t...’ He shrugged. ‘Let’s just say that the moment I learned to talk and reason for myself I was left to my own devices.’

Her eyes softened with sympathy. ‘Joao.’

He swallowed a curious lump in his throat and fought the need to bury his face in her throat, inhale her very essence.

‘Did you see much of her before she died?’

‘No. She severed the umbilical permanently when I turned ten years old.’

Saffie raised her head, pain patent in her eyes. ‘She left when you were that young?’

He pressed his lips together. ‘Sim. Much like you were,’ he murmured, finding it strangely comforting that they had that in common.

Her lovely eyes shadowed. ‘But you knew your parents. I...never knew mine.’

‘Consider yourself lucky, then.’

‘Well, I don’t,’ she said sharply, then took a deep breath. ‘Maybe knowing and enduring what you did feels like the worst torture—’

Joao couldn’t help his derisive snort.

She pressed on regardless. ‘But not knowing where you came from or why you were abandoned on a park bench with a note that said you were better off without your mother is also a hell of its own, trust me.’

Trust me. A dart of discomfort pierced him.

As a rule he didn’t trust anyone. That had served him well. Not trusting meant no one could let him down.

‘Did you ever attempt to locate your mother?’

Her eyes grew darker and something twisted inside Joao. He wanted to take her pain away, he realised with a stark, sharp kind of clarity.

‘I spent the better part of a year’s salary chasing leads that went nowhere,’ she said. ‘But then I realised she never tried to find me either, so perhaps I needed to honour her wishes and stay away.’

‘And you’re satisfied with not knowing? With honouring the wishes of a woman who made the choices she made?’

He was aware his tone was harsh but she shrugged. ‘I have to be. It hurt for a long time but I can’t blame her when I don’t know the whole story.’

‘How very magnanimous of you,’ he said dryly.

‘Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. I just knew I had to find a way to be okay with it for my sanity’s sake. Besides, I promised my foster mother I would look forwards instead of in the past.’

He had no answer to that, nor could he fault her for it. After all, he’d had to find his own way to contain the bitterness and pain, to rise above it in order to move forward. But he was aware it was very much a part of him, that most times it fuelled his ambition. For a moment he envied Saffie her simple circumspection. Her acceptance. Her willingness to create something...unique from her experiences.

Joao realised his hand had wandered over her belly, was stroking the smooth skin beneath which his seed grew. That pulse of ownership returned, stronger than ever.

‘But that doesn’t explain how you got this, though.’ She brushed her fingers across his palm once again.

He shuddered, partly from her seductive touch, partly from memories he couldn’t avoid any longer.

‘I spent the better part of my youth running away from gangs. In the favela you were either with a gang or against them all. When things got desperate I joined one for a few weeks but I always drew the line when they tried to get me to sell drugs or rob tourists.’ He stopped, his heart thudding as he stared at the scar. ‘One particular gang leader didn’t take kindly to me joining up just to get something to eat and then disappearing. He found me and decided to teach me a lesson.’

Saffie gasped in horror. ‘By cutting your hand?’

He smiled grimly. ‘His intention was to cut off a few fingers. He didn’t get the chance to finish the job.’

‘How... Who stopped him?’

‘Um anjo negro, if you believe in that sort of thing.’