Read Online His Poor Little Rich Girl by Melanie Milburne - Free Book Online Page B

coffee.
    ‘Have you been back to Australia since you left?’ she asked as she poured them each a cup of the rich fragrant brew.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why not?’
    He stirred his black coffee even though she hadn’t seen him put in any sugar. ‘It is a good country—a great country,’ he said. ‘I have never said it wasn’t, but my heart is in Italy. As soon as I got off the plane I felt as if I had come home.’
    ‘Your father was Italian, wasn’t he?’
    ‘Yes.’ He picked up his cup and took a sip. ‘He travelled to Australia on a working holiday but ended up staying after he met my mother.’
    Rachel had never heard him speak of his parents before. ‘So why did you end up in foster homes?’ she asked.
    His expression was remote. ‘My father died in a workplace accident when I was a small child. Things came unstuck after that.’
    ‘Do you remember him?’ she asked.
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He was tall like me and had the same colouring. He worked hard trying to get ahead but he never quite made it. Everything seemed to work against him, including my mother.’
    ‘Is she still alive?’ Rachel asked.
    ‘She died a few years ago,’ he said. ‘I didn’t hear about it until the funeral was over.’
    ‘You mean you didn’t try to keep in touch with her?’ His eyes met hers, dark, veiled and deep. ‘I tried but itdidn’t always help matters. In the end I thought it best to keep out of her life.’
    ‘Why was that?’ Rachel asked.
    ‘She was totally unreliable,’ he said ‘She was always changing addresses and or partners, most of whom were her dealers. She was the reason my father had to work three jobs to keep food on the table. She shot most of what he earned up her arms. It was a problem she couldn’t fight alone. Once he died she spiralled out of control without him there to support her.’
    Rachel’s throat constricted. She had always known he had come from a difficult background but she had never bothered to ask how difficult. She had heard rumours that he had been kicked out of numerous foster homes and thus assumed he had always been a rebel of some sort, that
he
was the problem. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, her voice coming out as soft as a whisper. ‘I had no idea things had been that bad for you. I thought you were just one of those hard-to-manage kids. You never said anything.’
    ‘My father was a fool for falling in love with my mother,’ he said. ‘Her first love wasn’t him, it was her next high. He should have realised there are some people who are beyond help. He got caught in the addiction web and it cost him his life.’
    ‘It must have been so awful for you having no one to rely on after your father was killed,’ Rachel said. ‘How did you manage?’
    ‘How does any kid manage?’ he said. ‘The survival instinct kicks in. I was a bit wild for a time until I made a decision to follow my father’s dream of a better life. I got off the streets and got an education.’
    ‘I am sure he would be very proud of you,’ Rachel said.
    Alessandro gave an indifferent shrug. ‘I am not proud of my background but it has made me the man I am today. I suppose I should be grateful,
sì?
I could have followed my mother’s example. So many people do. It is all they know. It’s as if it is somehow programmed into their genes. Generational dysfunction or some such thing it is called.’
    ‘How did you change the cycle when so many can’t or won’t?’
    ‘I wanted to win, Rachel,’ he said with a determined set to his features. ‘I have always wanted to win because my father’s chance was thrown away.’
    ‘So winning at any cost is important to you?’
    His eyes burned a pathway to her soul. ‘Very important,’ he said. ‘I will not stop until I get what I want.’
    Rachel picked up her coffee cup for something to do with her hands. She wanted to reach out and lay her hand on his arm as he had done to her earlier but she wasn’t sure how it would be interpreted. When it