StrokeofMidnight Read Online Free PDF Page B

along Newbury Street. Even though she’d lived in Boston all her life, it
had been years since she’d taken the leisure time to explore and enjoy her
hometown. Not only was she seeing the historical landmarks and colorful sights
through Darius’s eyes, but through her own as well.
    Something else to thank him for.
    “Thank you,” Darius said as he studied the quaint shops,
vendors and buildings edging the banks of the Charles River before bringing his
gaze back to her. He lifted his arm and stroked his free hand down the long
tail of hair brushing her shoulder blades. She fought to not close her eyes at
the gentle caress. The small tug on her scalp reverberated in her belly. God . She was thankful she’d chosen the more casual ponytail over the professional
chignon. “The most experienced tour guide couldn’t have treated me to the day
you have.”
    Rowyn shrugged and pleasure at his praise coursed through
her like a slow-moving current. This time she didn’t ignore the fluttering in
her stomach—she’d stopped the futile exercise hours ago.
    “Blackmail aside,” she drawled, “I’m glad I came. I’d
forgotten how beautiful and fun Boston could be.” Memories overwhelmed her as
if the lock containing them had been picked and the mental images sprang free.
A steel band constricted her chest and Rowyn fought to drag air into her lungs.
“The last time I walked this trail was with my father. We’d spent the day together
celebrating my fifteenth birthday.”
    “Are you close?” Darius asked, popping the last bite of his
cone in his mouth.
    “Were,” Rowyn corrected. And the pain throbbing in her heart
vibrated in her voice. “He died eight years ago.”
    “Oh sweetheart,” he murmured and reached toward her. His
larger hand engulfed her smaller one and held tight. “I’m so sorry.” He drew
her closer and she didn’t resist, needing his comforting nearness. “I didn’t
know.”
    “No.” She shook her head. “It’s okay. And to answer your question,
no, we weren’t very close. Before he died, we were trying to rectify that.”
    Rowyn paused beside a trash bin, pitched in her
half-finished cone and accepted Darius’s napkin to toss as well. Inside, the
words she’d never verbalized churned in her chest like a furious cyclone,
gathering momentum, ready to burst free. But fear corked the flood. She wanted
to talk to Darius—confide in him—but an invisible hand covered her mouth,
trapping the words.
    With a light tug, he guided her back to the middle of the
path. They resumed walking, her hand still firmly clasped in his.
    “You know, I grew up in a family not so different from
yours. We were prominent, well-to-do, in the clothing business. My father is
third-generation Italian. His grandfather had emigrated from Italy and founded
a department store that started with a wheeled cart full of shoes.”
    “He sounds like a remarkable, determined man.”
    “From the stories, that description’s pretty accurate. He
died when I was a baby. But my grandfather was just like him. Proud.
Hard-working. Not free with praise, but when he gave it, it felt like the sky
had just opened up and beamed down a gift.” Darius chuckled. “I loved him, and
though he never uttered the words, I know he loved me. Unfortunately my father
could not say the same.”
    Caught up in his story, Rowyn hadn’t noticed he’d paused
beside one of the benches that dotted the trail. Darius lowered to the seat and
gently pulled her down beside him. The wood warmed the underside of her thighs
through the thin material of her dress and she leaned a shoulder against the
back of the bench, her body turned toward him.
    She hung on every word, hungry to learn more about this man
who had captivated her from the first moment she’d noticed him standing at the
end of the nightclub’s bar.
    “My father disappointed my grandfather. From his choice of
wife, to anglicizing his name to ‘Fury’, to how he ran the family business. So
he