Deserving of His Diamonds Read Online Free PDF Page B

our relationship broke up because I didn‘t trust you,‘ he said. ‗If
    anyone is to blame it is me.‘ Gisele met his gaze in the long silence that
    ensued. ‗You know what really upsets me?‘ she asked. ‗Tell me,‘ he said,
    still holding her gaze. ‗How did they choose?‘ she asked. ‗You mean who
    got which twin?‘ he asked. Gisele blew out a hissing breath. ‗I can‘t get it
    out of my mind,‘ she said. ‗How did they do it? How could my mother, my
    biological mother, give me up? And how could my father ask it of her? And
    not only that, what was my adoptive mother thinking by agreeing to bring up
    her husband‘s love child? Did she have no self-respect?‘ Emilio bent his
    forearms on his thighs so he could reach Gisele‘s tightly knotted hands. He
    took them both in one of his, stroking the tension away as best he could.
    ‗Have you asked her about it?‘ he said. She looked at him with flashing
    eyes. ‗Of course I‘ve asked her,‘ she said. ‗She said she did it to keep my
    father happy. She spent their whole married life trying to make him happy
    but it never worked.‘ ‗From what you told me, your family always seemed
    so perfect to me,‘ Emilio said, still stroking her hands. ‗You never said
    anything about them being unhappy together.‘

    Gisele looked down at their joined hands and hastily pulled hers away. She
    sat straighter in her seat, ramrod straight, angry straight, keep-away-from-me
    straight. ‗I never liked admitting it to anyone but I always felt I wasn‘t good
    enough for either of my parents,‘ she said. ‗I tried my best but nothing I did
    or achieved seemed to please them. My mother wasn‘t the maternal type.
    She never liked cuddling me or playing with me. She employed a nanny to
    do that. Now I understand why. I wasn‘t her child.‘ She drew in another
    painful-sounding breath and continued, ‗My father was just as bad. Deep
    down, I think he really wanted a son. My mother certainly couldn‘t give him
    one, but then his mistress gave him two daughters so he chose one. But I‘ve
    often wondered if he thought he‘d chosen the wrong one or whether he
    wished he had just walked away from both of us. He was stuck in a loveless
    marriage until the day he died, out of guilt presumably. All of those long
    stonewalling silences between him and my mother over the years suddenly
    made a whole lot of sense.‘ Emilio frowned. He had never heard Gisele talk
    so honestly about her childhood. He had thought she had come from a
    reasonably happy and stable home. He had envied her background, given the
    bleak misery of his. It made him realise how little he had known her, even
    though he‘d been days off marrying her. He had been struck by her beauty
    but had given little thought to who she was, what she valued and how she
    wanted her life to run. He had swept her off her feet, dazzled her with his
    wealth and charm, and yet had not known for a moment how deeply insecure
    she really was. It was like looking at her for the first time. The same beauty
    was there but so too was a fragility that he had not seen the first time around.
    But then she had been devastatingly hurt and he, to his shame, had done that
    to her, even more so than her parents. He wasn‘t sure how he could ever fix
    that terrible mistake but he was determined to try. ‗How is

    your sister dealing with this?‘ he asked. Gisele let her stiff shoulders drop.
    ‗She‘s a lot more chilled about it than me,‘ she said. ‗I guess growing up
    with a single mother who was known to be a bit of a tearaway has toughened
    her up rather a lot. It sounded like Sienna was the parent rather than the child
    most of the time. She told me there were always a lot of men coming and
    going in her mother‘s life. It can‘t have been an easy childhood but she just
    made the best of it.‘ ‗Is she disappointed she didn‘t get to meet your father?‘
    ‗Yes and no, I suppose,‘ Gisele said, frowning a little. ‗I