Read Online The Man Behind the Mask by Maggie Cox - Free Book Online Page A

His piercing blue eyes bored into hers, and Marianne’s stomach fluttered hard.
    â€˜Thank you.’
    Tearing off a hunk of bread from the generous-sized, still warm loaf on the bread board, he experimentally chewed some, then laid the rest on his side plate.
    â€˜You really know how to cook. This is delicious too.’
    â€˜They say necessity is a great teacher. There wasn’tmuch money around when I was growing up, but my parents had a small vegetable patch for a while, and one year we had an abundance of leeks, carrots and turnips. Something had to be done with them. Soup was the easiest solution. After that I got quite interested in cooking and experimented a little. Making bread was therapeutic, too, I found.’
    The interest in her companion’s face deepened. ‘I thought you had no parents?’
    â€˜That was a long time ago.’ Feeling her chest tighten, Marianne scooped a small portion of soup into her mouth, then fell silent.
    â€˜What happened to them?’
    Clearly not deflected from pursuing the subject, Eduardo stilled as he waited to hear her answer.
    â€˜My mother left when I was fourteen to go to America with a man she’d been having an affair with. My father—?’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜Right now my father is probably lying dead or drunk beneath a bridge some where in London. Tower Bridge was a particular favourite. At least…that was where I saw him last.’
    â€˜When was that?’
    Marianne lowered her gaze. ‘About three years ago. He was— is —a hopeless alcoholic. That’s why my mother couldn’t stay with him. Eat your soup. It will get cold.’
    Pushing to her feet, she strode across the ample-sized kitchen to the butler sink to pour herself a glass of coldwater. Her throat felt as if it had swelled to twice its size at the tormenting tide of child hood memory that washed over her. Talking about it only deepened her distress.
    As if realising the discrepancy in her parenting of her only daughter, her mother had beseeched Marianne to go with her to America. But even at the tender age of fourteen years old she’d found she could not abandon the dejected wreck bent on self-destruction that her father had become. Not when at the back of her mind some where had been more loving memories of him hugging her, playing childish games with her when she was little, calling her his angel. Afterwards, when there had just been the two of them in a house that was no longer a home, there were sadder, hear trending recollections—him crying un bearably, begging Marianne to forgive him for losing his business, needing to drink to dull the pain of driving her mother away.
    Yes, she under stood why her mother hadn’t been able to stay with such a man—even at fourteen she’d seen that she was in an un tenable situation—but that hadn’t made it any easier for her to cope. And it hadn’t lessened the sense of betrayal she felt either. The brutal reality of being left behind to be responsible for a man who no longer seemed to care whether he lived or died as long as he could have the next drink was something that she would never forget.
    â€˜Marianne?’
    â€˜I’m sorry. I just needed some water.’ Returning to the table, she sat down. Inadvertently catching Eduardo’s eye, she made a valiant attempt to smile.
    â€˜You should eat something,’ he said brusquely, but the expression in his disturbing glance was compassionate and steady, and even more unsettling was the supreme difficulty Marianne had in tearing her gaze from his. ‘Children need fathers…I am sorry that yours was not able to care for you as he should have done.’
    â€˜Do you have parents? Siblings?’ she asked.
    â€˜My parents live in Leblon, which is west of Ipanema where I have my beach house. They are retired now. Unfortunately I was not blessed with brothers or sisters. I am their only