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‘She’ll be fine,’ Tina assured her. ‘I’ll nurse her for a while until she drops off.’ She looked down at the infant in her arms and continued wistfully, ‘I love watching her sleep. It reminds me of when you were a baby. It was just you and me in those days. I don’t know what I would have done if anything had happened to you. You were my whole world.’
Bronte smiled and leant down to kiss her mother and her little daughter. ‘I won’t be late,’ she said softly. ‘And thanks, Mum, for everything.’
Tina smiled back but Bronte could see there was a tinge of worry in her eyes as she watched her leave.
Luca straightened his tie and shook down his shirt cuffs, freeing them of his dinner jacket. He had had meetings all day and his head was buzzing with all the things he had to do over the next month. This trip to Melbourne was proving to be one of the best decisions of his career in the family corporation. He had begun the negotiation for plans for a boutique hotel development in the city as well as two more commercial property investments: a large office block in the CBD and a parking lot with the potential for expansion.
And then there was Bronte. He had found it hard to sleep last night once she had left. He still couldn’t believe he had let her leave. He had been so close to pulling her back towards his bed and solving the issues over the past by doing what they had always done best. The trouble was he wanted her to come to him willingly. Seduction was easy; working on a relationship was harder. He didn’t want to end up like his brother Giorgio with a bitter estrangement from his wife and very likely a costly and acrimonious divorce pending. Luca wanted to get it right this time. He wanted to start again, put the past aside and work on his future—the future he hadn’t been sure he would have. Life for him now was about living. Taking each day as a blessing and moving forward with renewed purpose. Bronte was his stumbling block to moving on. He had to know if he had a chance to make things right with her. To see if what they’d had was still there.
The issue of her child was something he found challenging but it wasn’t the child’s fault and he knew he would learn to love her as his own once he spent some time with her. His family might not see it quite that way but he would deal with them if and when the time came. The pressure for the acquisition of a Sabbatini heir had already caused the breakdown of his brother’s marriage. Giorgio and Maya, in spite of several gruelling IVF attempts, had failed to produce the grandchild and great-grandchild his mother and rapidly ageing grandfather longed for.
There was a tentative knock at the door and Luca gave his hair one last finger-comb before he went to answer it. He had wanted to pick Bronte up but she had insisted on meeting him here. The restaurant was only a short walk along the Southbank complex so he had agreed, knowing that pressuring her too much would only bring her back up. It wasn’t his intention to antagonise her. His intention was to get her back into his life and into his bed as quickly as possible, to reawaken the feelings he hoped she still had for him. It was a gamble but he couldn’t rest until he knew for sure. He saw the way her eyes flared when they met his, and the way she sent the tip of her tongue out over her lips as if anticipating his next kiss. He felt the tension in the air, the way the invisible current of energy drew them together, as it had always done in the past. She might have slept with another man since, but he felt sure she still wanted him.
He opened the door and she was standing there in a cocktail dress of an intriguing shade of blue. The colour made the dark blue of her eyes look like fathomless lakes. She smelt divine: a mixture of orange blossom and ginger this time, spicy and fragrant and intensely alluring. Her straight dark brown hair was loose about her shoulders, glossy as silk, held back from her face with a slim black headband. Teamed with the cocktail dress, it gave her a child-woman look that was amazingly sexy. She was wearing heels but she still had to crane her neck to meet his eyes. Her mouth was soft and shiny with lipgloss, but in those first few moments he noticed how her teeth nibbled at the inside of her mouth, as if she was nervous.
‘Bronte,’ he said, leading her into the suite. ‘How do you manage to always look so beautiful and elegant?’
She gave him a tentative smile but it was so fleeting he wondered if he had imagined it. ‘I picked this up at a second-hand clothing store. At ten dollars it was a steal. I don’t have too many fancy clothes.’
Luca wondered if she was deliberately reminding him of the different worlds they lived in. He had always found it amazing how money had never impressed her. She found pleasure in the simplest things. He had learned a lot from the short time he had been with her. He had learned that money could bring comfort to your life and privileges but it didn’t necessarily bring happiness and fulfilment and it certainly didn’t guarantee good health.
He led the way to the lounge area and, once she was seated, he handed her a gift-wrapped package.
She looked up at him with rounded eyes. ‘What is this for?’
‘Open it,’ he said. ‘I thought after last night it might come in useful.’
She unpeeled the satin ribbon tied around the package and then carefully peeled back the layers of tissue to reveal the designer clutch purse he had bought in between meetings earlier that day. He watched as she ran her index finger over the designer emblem, before lifting her gaze to his. ‘It’s beautiful… thank you… but you shouldn’t have spent so much money.’
‘You’d better check to see if the catch works,’ he said with a wry smile.
She bit down on her lip and she opened and closed the purse with a snap that sounded like a gunshot. He saw her slim throat rise and fall over a tight swallow and the way her fingers trembled slightly as she refolded the tissue around the purse. A small frown had lined her smooth forehead and when she looked up at him again he saw a shadow of uncertainty in her eyes. ‘Luca…’ She moistened her lips and started again. ‘There’s something we need to discuss… I should have told you last night but there didn’t seem to be—’
Luca moved to where she was sitting and placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘If you’re going to make a fuss about me buying you things, then don’t,’ he said. ‘I know you can’t be bought with money. I shouldn’t have pulled that stunt over the rent. I admire your independence. But this time just accept this in the spirit in which it is given.’
She rolled her lips together and looked down at the purse lying on her lap. ‘It’s very kind of you. I really needed a new purse. Thank you.’
He held out a hand. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get going to the restaurant. I made an early booking as I figured you would probably need to get home at a reasonable hour to your little girl.’
Her eyes darted away from his. ‘Yes… yes, I will.’
Luca took her hand as they walked down to the restaurant. Her small fingers interlaced with his, but he sensed tension in them, a fluttering nervousness that made him wonder if she was having second thoughts about this evening. He had told her no strings, just dinner, but the pulse of electricity that already charged between their bodies was a heady reminder of all they had experienced together in the past. Was she thinking of how many times dinner together had led to mind-blowing sex soon after? His body twitched in memory, his blood surging to his groin as he walked his mind back through the images he had stored of them together. He had clung to those memories during his darkest hours. They had been a powerful motivation for him to fight his demons, to wrestle them to the ground so he could finally reclaim his life.
The restaurant overlooked the Yarra River and the city beyond. There were clouds in the night sky, brooding clusters of tension that crackled in the eerily still air.
‘Do you think there is going to be a storm?’ Luca asked, pointing to a particularly furious-looking cloud bank in the distance. ‘It certainly feels like it, don’t you think?’
‘I heard something about it in the weather report in the taxi,’ she said.
Luca stopped to frown down at her. ‘I thought you were going to drive in. I would have picked you up. Why didn’t you call me and tell me you’d changed your mind?’
She turned her gaze to the grumbling clouds. ‘I was running late. Ella was a bit unsettled. I wasn’t sure I’d find a parking spot.’
Luca waited until they had resumed walking before he asked, ‘Is that why you’re so tense this evening? Are you worried about being away from her?’
‘It’s hard not to worry at times,’ she said, not looking his way, nor at the view but at the ground at her feet. ‘It’s part of being a parent. You never stop worrying from the moment they are born.’
‘I guess you’re right,’ Luca said. ‘My brothers and I are all in our thirties but my mother is always worrying about something or other to do with one or all of us. Mind you, I think there have been times when she has had good cause to be worried. The three of us have had our fair share of mishaps, and then, of course, there was the death of our sister when she was a baby that really did the damage.’
Bronte stopped in her tracks and looked up at him in shock. ‘You never told me you had a sister.’
He gave a shrug. ‘It was a long time ago. I hardly even remember her, or only vaguely. She died when I was three and Nic was eighteen months old. He doesn’t remember her at all. Giorgio remembers her the most clearly. He was six at the time. It really affected him. He won’t talk about it, even after all these years.’
‘What happened?’ Bronte asked.
‘Sudden Infant Death Syndrome,’ he said. ‘Or cot death, as it was called back then. My parents went through a terrible time, my mother especially. There wasn’t the knowledge about the cause of it then. My mother felt everyone blamed her. The truth is, she blamed herself. The police who came to the villa after Chiara died didn’t help matters. It was a long time before my mother got over it, although, at times, I wonder if she really ever did get over it. She’s completely obsessed about having grandchildren, my grandfather too, especially after my father died. It’s made things extremely difficult for Giorgio and his wife. I am sure it’s one of the reasons they have separated. Maya couldn’t take the pressure of not being able to conceive.’
Bronte felt a hammer blow of guilt assail her. She even stumbled slightly, as if the blow was physical. Luca’s hand tightened on hers as he steadied her, his brow creasing as he looked down at her.
‘Careful,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you to break an ankle on our first date.’
She gave him a strained smile and continued walking. ‘I’m sorry about your family’s loss,’ she said after a moment. ‘I’m sorry too about your brother and his wife. It must be a very difficult time for both of them.’
‘It is,’ Luca said. ‘As much as I’d like to knock both their heads together at what they are throwing away, I’ve had to stay out of it. Giorgio can be very stubborn and once his mind is made up, that’s it. He’s too proud for his own good. But then, who I am to criticize?’
Bronte mulled over that while he led her into the restaurant. It was a while before they were alone again. The waiter brought drinks and discussed the menu and the day’s specials and then reappeared with warmed olives and freshly baked bread and a tiny dish of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, before discreetly moving away to leave them in their intimate corner.
Luca raised his glass to Bronte. ‘Here’s to new beginnings.’
Bronte’s hand shook as she touched her glass against his. ‘To… to new beginnings.’
The silence fell like a thick suffocating blanket.
Bronte could barely breathe as each second passed. The restaurant noise of dishes and cutlery and glassware faded and her ears filled with a roaring sound of impending doom. Outside, a loud crack of thunder sounded, making her flinch and almost spill her glass of wine.
‘Hey.’ Luca took her free hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘Are you OK? Is the storm bothering you? Are you frightened of them?’
Bronte shook her head. ‘No, not really.’
He studied her for a moment. ‘You seem really on edge, cara. You don’t need to be. Just relax. We’re just two friends having dinner, remember? I’m not going to put the hard word on you at the end of the evening. We can take things as they go. No pressure, OK?’
Bronte felt sick with nerves. There was no easy way to say what she had to say. She had only made things worse by leaving it this late. She should have told him as soon as he saw the photos of Ella. Why had she made it so hard for herself by dragging it out so torturously? She took a large sip of wine to garner her flagging courage. The crisp dry wine moistened her dry throat but the shot of alcohol did nothing to settle her frazzled and frayed nerves. ‘Luca,’ she began, ‘I have something to tell you.’
‘Don’t say you don’t want to see me again,’ he said before she could continue. ‘We both know that is not the case. I know I stuffed things up before but I want to make it up to you. I think we have something special, Bronte. I think it could work if we just give it a try.’
Bronte toyed with the stem of her wine glass. ‘Are you saying you… you have feelings for me?’
His small smile was enigmatic. ‘You wouldn’t be sitting here with me now if I didn’t feel something. As to exactly what it is, well, isn’t it a bit early to be talking about that?’
She ran her finger around the base of her glass this time, her eyes falling away from his. ‘I’m not sure how to tell you this, Luca. I never thought I would be in this situation.’ Her heart felt as if it was weighted. It ached with a bittersweet pain that made her want to break down and cry for how unfair life was. She had longed for him to give her some clue of his feelings in the past and yet, now he had, she was about to destroy them, she was sure.
She looked up and met his gaze across the table. ‘When you left me in London I was devastated. I know you never promised me anything. I know I was much more in love with you than you were ever going to be with me. You never said what you felt. I know a lot of men are like that. Most of my friends experienced the same frustration of never knowing what the man they were dating felt about them. To be frank, sometimes I thought you didn’t even like me, that you were just there for the sex. You seemed to give me so many mixed signals. We were all set for a date and then you would suddenly cancel half an hour before. And then you were grumpy and difficult one day and yet charming and attentive the next. I never knew where I stood with you, but I tried to be patient because I loved you so much.’
Luca reached for her hand again, lacing his fingers with hers. ‘Back then, I wasn’t in the position to offer you the sort of commitment you wanted, Bronte. I know that’s not much of an explanation but I’d rather not go into the reasons why I acted the way I did. It’s not relevant to here and now. All that matters is we are together again and both committed to working at what we had before. We’ve been given a second chance. Let’s not blow it. Let’s work on getting to know who we each are now, not who we were back then.’
Bronte looked down at their joined hands and let a few more seconds thrum pass. It was like waiting for a bomb to go off, watching the timer countdown second by agonising second and being able to do nothing to stop it. She knew once she said the words nothing would ever be the same. She slowly raised her eyes to his, her aching throat going up and down over a convulsive swallow.
‘Bronte!’ A female voice spoke from behind her in the restaurant.
Bronte pulled her hand out of Luca’s and turned in her seat as one of the young mothers from the studio approached the table, her husband in tow. It took Bronte a moment to gather herself and she worried that her smile might not have seemed wholly genuine. ‘Hi, Judy… hi, Dan.’
Judy waggled her brows expressively as she glanced at Luca before returning her gaze to Bronte’s. ‘So… who’s your date?’
‘Um… sorry,’ Bronte said. ‘Judy, Dan, this is Luca Sabbatini. Luca, Judy and Dan’s daughter Matilda does ballet at the studio.’
Luca rose and politely shook the couple’s hands. ‘I’m delighted to meet you both,’ he said, smiling that killer smile.
Bronte saw the way Judy’s knees practically buckled. ‘Lovely to meet you, Luca,’ Judy said. ‘Wow, Bronte’s been keeping you a big secret. How long have you known her?’
‘We met a couple of years ago in London,’ Luca said.
‘You’re here for work, aren’t you?’ Judy’s husband Dan asked. ‘I’m an architect. The firm I work for are bidding for the contract for your hotel development.’
‘Give me your business card,’ Luca said, reaching into his jacket pocket for one of his own and handing it to Dan. ‘I would be happy to look over your proposal with you. I have a temporary office in the city. My secretary will tee up a time for you to come in and have a chat.’
‘That’s very good of you, Luca,’ Dan said, beaming.
‘Does your daughter enjoy her ballet dancing?’ Luca asked after a tiny silence.
‘Oh, yes,’ Judy gushed. ‘She’s mad about it, has been since she was Ruby’s age. That’s our other daughter, the baby. Well, not so much a baby now but we always call her that. They seem to grow up so fast. She’s the same age as Ella. That’s how Bronte and I met. It was in hospital having our babies, wasn’t it, Bronte?’
Bronte nodded, barely able to get her voice to work. ‘Um… yes.’
Judy prattled on, ‘Ella and Ruby have the same birthday. They were born at exactly the same hour. Isn’t that the most amazing coincidence?’
There was a split second as Bronte watched helplessly as the pin was finally pulled out of the grenade.
Judy said, ‘They were both born on the fourth of July last year, Independence Day. And at fourteen months old they are both headstrong and independent, aren’t they, Bronte?’
CHAPTER SIX
‘Y-YES,’ Bronte said lamely. ‘They are…’
Judy smiled up at her husband. ‘I guess we should get going to our table. It’s our anniversary.’ She turned back to Bronte and Luca, who hadn’t said a word, nor moved a muscle. ‘Lovely to meet you, Luca. I hope we’ll be seeing more of you.’
‘I am very sure you will,’ Luca said, shaking both of their hands once more.
‘And thanks for that offer,’ Dan chipped in. ‘That’s amazingly generous of you.’
‘Not at all.’ Luca brushed Dan’s thanks aside.
The couple moved on and Luca remained standing.
Bronte was looking down at her place setting, her slim shoulders rolled forward, with her teeth gnawing at her bottom lip.
‘We’re leaving,’ he clipped out, throwing some money down on the table to cover their ordered meal.
She looked up at him with a pinched look. ‘But… but people will wonder what’s—’
Luca snatched at her hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘I don’t give a flying you-know-what for what people think,’ he bit out savagely. ‘I am not going to discuss this in a public restaurant.’
Bronte stumbled out of the restaurant with him, desperately hoping Judy and Dan wouldn’t notice from their seats towards the back of the room. The tension in Luca’s hand as he held hers was almost brutal. His fingers were like savage teeth biting into hers as he pulled her along beside him, his mouth set in a hard flat line. His dark eyes were dangerously brooding, his frown equally so. Once they were outside, every step he took pounded the pavement with his fury. The storm that had been brewing earlier was now in full force, as if it had sided with Luca. The flashing lightning and booming thunder mimicked the expression on his face, the electrifying hatred in his gaze zapping her like lightning each time he looked at her.
Bronte ran her tongue over her dry lips. ‘Luca… I was trying to tell you when Dan and Judy arrived.’
His hand tightened like a vice as he swung her to face him. ‘You were trying to tell me what?’ he asked. ‘That you deliberately lied to me from the moment you saw me yesterday? You told me the child was one year old. I did the calculations and you knew I would, didn’t you? That’s why you cut a couple of months off so I wouldn’t suspect she was mine.’
Bronte hung her head. ‘I’m sorry…’
He wrenched her back along the pavement. ‘It’s a bit late for an apology, damn it. You have a hell of a lot of explaining to do. I am so angry at this moment you should be thanking God we are in a public place. But you just wait until we get back to my hotel. You had better have your excuses handy.’
Each of his words was like a blow to Bronte’s chest. She had known he wouldn’t take the news well, but to have heard it the way he did had made it so much worse. He was shocked and angry and rightly so. He had missed out on the most precious first months of his child’s life. Even though he had refused to see her after he ended their relationship, Bronte knew she’d had a responsibility to tell him, even if it had to have been in a letter addressed to his villa or house in London. He would have got it eventually. But her hurt at his rejection had made her act in a passive aggressive way. She could see it now. How she had secretly relished the fact he didn’t know about Ella. It was her little payback for the heartbreak he had caused her. It was an appalling thing to do and she was deeply ashamed.
She couldn’t give back what she had stolen from him. Each day of the fourteen months of Ella’s life was irreplaceable. Sure, she had photos documenting every little milestone, but how could that compensate for the real thing? Even if he had not wanted a part in his child’s life, he should at least have had the right to choose. She had denied him that right and now he was after revenge. She just knew it. Luca Sabbatini was not the sort of man to walk away from something like this with a shrug of his shoulders. He would want her to pay for what she had done and pay dearly.
The lift journey up to Luca’s penthouse felt to Bronte as if she was being led to the gallows. As each floor number flashed past, her heartbeat escalated. She felt sick with anguish, guilt and nerves. Her stomach was curdled with the fear he would take Ella away from her. He’d already said how much his mother longed for a grandchild. And what could be more perfect than a little girl to replace the one she had lost in babyhood? The odds were stacked against Bronte keeping custody. How could she afford to contest such a case? She earned too much to qualify for legal aid and too little to take on the Sabbatini dynasty. But she was not going to give up without a fight. She would do anything to stop him from taking her little girl away from her.
Absolutely anything.
Luca activated the swipe card and practically frogmarched Bronte into the suite. He shut the door with a bang that reverberated like a cannon boom. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?’ he asked.
She looked at him with stricken features. ‘I tried to contact you time and time again but you refused to meet me face to face.’
Luca felt a knife jab of guilt but he pushed it aside to make room for his burgeoning anger. ‘How did it happen? You told me you were on the Pill and, in any case, I always used protection.’
‘I don’t know how it happened,’ she said. ‘I must have missed a dose or something. And then there was that time when the condom broke.’
Luca remembered that time as if it had happened yesterday. He had been so eager to see her after being away on a business trip. He had barely got the condom on in time and then it had broken. ‘When did you find out you were pregnant?’
‘A week after you told me our relationship was over.’ She bit into her lip again and another flick knife of guilt caught him off guard.
Luca took a breath but it felt as if he was breathing through barbed wire. His throat felt raw and his chest so tight it ached unbearably. He scored his hair with his fingers, not surprised to see how unsteady his hand was. He could feel the tremors of rage rolling through him. Rage and remorse, a juxtaposition of emotions that made it hard for him to think clearly.
He had a child.
A little girl.
Fourteen months old and he had not shared a second of it. He had not seen her growing in Bronte’s womb; he had not been at the birth. He knew nothing about the birth, how long the labour was, whether she had given birth naturally or by Caesarean. He didn’t know whether she had fed the child herself or given her a bottle. He knew nothing about his daughter: the sound of her voice, the feel of her baby skin, the softness of her hair or the touch of her little hands. How could he ever get that time back? How could he forgive Bronte for stealing it from him? It had already poisoned what he felt for her. He had come back with such hope at resuming their relationship. But now he felt as if he didn’t know Bronte at all. She had changed. She was a scheming little thief, and his loathing of what she had done made him want to cut her from his life all over again. But he couldn’t because of his little daughter. His heart tightened again at the thought of that little girl in the photos he had seen.
