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Damn.
With an ass like that, it’s a wonder he can put on pants at all.
Cautiously, I strip as well, then take the glass. The snow on the path feels like it’s burning, it’s so cold, and I scoot quickly to the spring.
Without looking to see if Marco is watching, I step down into the rocky spring.
The water is hot. It feels lovely, especially with the snow drifting down and the cold on my shoulders. I drink the champagne, and I feel the knot in my chest loosen slightly.
I can feel Marco watching me from across the spring, but I can’t look at him.
Not yet.
I sigh.
“So. This is your plan to… what? Get me naked and wet?”
“No,” he rumbles. “I just wanted to see you live again.”
That opens my eyes.
Marco stares at me, all intensity across the steam of the spring. He nods. “Finding out all that about your parents is terrible.”
I look down.
“When my parents died, I found my mom’s journal. She wrote in it about how she didn’t love my dad. The ways that he was cruel to her.”
I look at Marco.
He’s staring at me. “Eventually, they loved each other. But not at first. And not after she had a son by another man.”
“Dino,” I confirm.
He nods.
“Why are you telling me this?”
He shrugs. “Just thought you’d want to know you aren’t alone.”
It makes me feel…
The knot in my chest loosens further.
“You know, the whole reason I joined Interpol was to find my mum,” I whisper.
Marco’s gaze snaps to me, laser-like.
“I thought that she was in witness protection, or something. That if I was just in Interpol, and I worked in a similar agency, she’d come up. Eventually.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“My whole life. Literally all of it. Was a lie,” I whisper.
“No.”
I glance at Marco.
“It wasn’t a lie. You are who you are because of their choices. But you built yourself around the framework they gave. You are still yourself, Roisin. Even if the adults in your world lied to you.”