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He went over to where he had put their champagne glasses down before. He picked up her glass and brought it back to where she was standing. ‘It would be a shame to let such good champagne go to waste,’ he said, offering it to her. ‘Why not stay a few minutes more and help me finish it?’
She looked at the glass as if he was handing her a poisoned chalice.
‘It’s just champagne, Bronte,’ he said. ‘Let’s finish our drink and catch up on the last two years.’ He took a sip from his glass, hoping she would follow suit. Anything to prolong the time he had with her in case she didn’t show up tomorrow. ‘Tell me about your teaching. Do you enjoy it?’
She took a tiny sip of her champagne and then held the glass with both of her hands around the stem. ‘I do, yes,’ she said. ‘The children are lovely.’
He patted the sofa, indicating for her to sit down. She sat on the edge of the seat again, ready for instant flight. ‘How many students do you have?’ he asked, trying to put her at ease.
‘We have sixty at the moment but I would like to see it go to about two hundred,’ she said. ‘I have plans for extension of classes. I would like to hire a couple more teachers for jazz and tap, and I want to incorporate some adult classes.’
Luca took a sip of his champagne. ‘You teach adults?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t it too late for an adult to learn? I thought ballet was something you had to learn at a very young age, the younger the better.’
‘That’s true, but there are lots of women and some men, when it comes to that, who have studied dance in the past and have let it slip,’ she said. ‘Doing a weekly or twice weekly class with other adults is a good way of keeping in shape.’
Luca let his eyes run over her slim form. ‘Yes, well, it certainly hasn’t done you any harm,’ he said with a crooked smile. ‘You’re as slim as ever. How often do you practice?’
A light blush shaded her cheeks and she looked down at the contents of her glass again. ‘A couple of hours a day,’ she said. ‘I would like to do more but with El…’ She stopped mid-sentence and sank her teeth in her lip before continuing falteringly, ‘… I mean with everything there is to do around here I… I haven’t got a lot of time.’
Luca watched as her colour deepened even further.She reminded him of a shy schoolgirl, nervous, timid, not sure of herself in spite of all of her talent. It was so endearing he felt as if a large hand was pressing down on his heart. He thought of all the streetwise women who had thrown themselves at him in the past. They had used their looks and glamour and wily ways to get his attention. Bronte, on the other hand, had done nothing of the sort. She had always been reserved and held a lot of herself back. It made him all the more determined to draw her out of herself. She was such a rare find, so pure and unblemished. Like a rare diamond.
She got up from the sofa and put the glass down. ‘I’m sorry, Luca, but I have to go.’
‘What’s the hurry?’ he asked, rising to his feet.
She turned and faced him, her gaze quickly falling away from his as she searched again for her clutch purse. ‘My mother will be wondering what’s keeping me. I said I was only going out for a quick drink.’
‘Bronte, you are twenty-five years old,’ he pointed out. ‘Do you really have to check in and out with your mother as if you were fifteen?’
Her eyes gave him a hard little glare. ‘My mother has been very good to me. She has stood by me and supported me unconditionally. I don’t have to answer to her, but I choose to out of respect for all the sacrifices she has made for me.’
‘Surely she won’t begrudge you a night out,’ he said. And then, after a beat, added with a curl of his lip, ‘Or has it more to do with this other man you’re seeing?’
She sent him a challenging look. ‘What if it does?’
Luca felt a rush of jealousy hit him like a tsunami. His stomach clenched as he thought of her with another man. His skin broke out in a sickening sweat as he imagined them together. He felt nauseous thinking about it. He didn’t want to think about it. He wouldn’t think about it. ‘What is his name?’ he asked in a cool unaffected tone when inside his guts were churning.
Her small chin rose. ‘I don’t have to tell you.’
Luca put his glass down before he snapped the fragile stem. He surreptitiously clenched and unclenched his hands, fighting for control. She was deliberately goading him, dangling her lover in front of him like a red rag to a raging bull. ‘Are you sleeping with him?’ he asked, not wanting to know but asking anyway.
‘That is none of your business.’
He watched as she snatched up her purse, which had slipped down between the loose cushions of the sofa. She clipped it shut and stalked to the door, throwing over her shoulder, ‘Thank you for the drink. Goodbye.’
‘We have a date for tomorrow,’ he reminded her.
She stiffened as if she had been snap-frozen from head to foot. ‘I won’t be able to make it,’ she said, not bothering to turn around and face him.
‘Damn it, Bronte, I am only asking for one night,’ he said in rising frustration. ‘Is that so very much to ask?’
She turned then, slowly, meeting his eyes with a glare of deep, bottomless blue anger in her own. ‘Yes, Luca, it is too much to ask. You never gave me a single night of your time the whole time we were together.’
Luca felt his jaw snap together like a steel trap. His teeth ached with the pressure of forming the words to speak. ‘So this is payback, is it?’
‘No, Luca,’ she said, opening the door. ‘This is justice.’
And then she shut the door in his face.
CHAPTER FOUR
LUCA didn’t find the mobile phone until an hour after Bronte had gone. He had paced the floor in anger for half an hour before he stopped to pour himself another drink from the barely touched bottle of champagne.
He took the bottle and his glass over to the sofa where Bronte had been sitting earlier. He tossed the first glass down and then poured himself another, barely tasting it before he swallowed. Right at this moment he didn’t care if he got drunk. It would certainly be preferable to this.
He swore viciously and pushed his hair back off his forehead. He had hoped the night would have turned out differently but he had obviously been fooling himself. Bronte was well and truly over him. She had walked out and made it clear she wasn’t coming back. He had hoped she still felt something for him. It was a wild hope, a vain, perhaps even an arrogant hope, but a hope all the same.
She had taken a long time to admit to loving him but when she had finally said it he knew she had meant it. Back then he hadn’t been entirely sure if what he felt for her was love; all he knew was he felt different when he was with her, unlike he had ever felt before. But at that time he hadn’t been sure he had a future to offer her. So he had kept his feelings to himself. He knew he had often come across as cold emotionally. He was often irritable and short-tempered with her on the days after he had been unwell and, while he knew it had confused her and made her feel insecure, he had never told her why he was feeling out of sorts. He hadn’t wanted her to feel obligated towards him. She was the sort of person who would sacrifice herself and he hadn’t been prepared for her to do that. It was his burden, his cross to bear and he had borne it and finally, thank God, got rid of it.
He reached forward to pour himself another glass of champagne, when something hard pressed against his thigh. He looked down and saw a slimline black mobile phone poking up through the cushions.
He smiled a slow smile as he pulled it out. It was the same model as his, only his was the newer upgraded one. He turned it over in his hand, pressing the silent switch on the side to ringtone. It immediately buzzed with messages; one by one they came up on the screen. It was impossible not to read them, even if his conscience told him it was an invasion of privacy.
How did it go?
What’s he like?
Did you tell him about you know who?
Call me!!!!!
Luca scrolled past the other icons, but his finger stilled on the photo gallery one. He hesitated for a fraction of a moment before he pressed it to open it. There were a lot of pictures of a baby girl. He couldn’t determine the age but he thought she was under one year old. She was small, like a doll, with dark brown hair and big blue eyes.
His gut seized and his hand shook as he scrolled through a couple more photos. She was a miniature version of Bronte. She was still in nappies; it looked as if she had only just started to walk. Luca felt a pain like a thick metal skewer go through the middle of his heart. He hadn’t been expecting this. He hadn’t seen it coming. He felt a fool for not realising. No wonder she didn’t want anything more to do with him. Bronte had well and truly moved on with her life.
She’d had a baby.
She’d had another man’s child.
The knowledge was too painful. His chest cavity felt too tight, suddenly too small to accommodate his organs. He couldn’t breathe without pain. Each breath was like a knife between his ribs. His lungs felt as if they were going to explode.
He couldn’t bear to look at any more pictures. He couldn’t trust himself not to smash the phone if he came across the child’s father in one of them. He didn’t want to know who it was or what he looked like. No doubt it was some solidly dependable suburban type who had swept Bronte off her feet and offered her the security she longed for. Luca hadn’t noticed a wedding ring on her finger but having a child with someone these days often came first. She had said she lived with her mother but did her lover and the father of her child live there too? No wonder she hadn’t wanted him to pick her up or even know where she lived. Dio, he couldn’t bear the thought of her going home to lie in someone else’s arms. Even now she could be making love with the father of her child, perhaps conceiving another one with him right at this very moment.
His fingers clenched around the phone as he laid his head back against the sofa cushions. He closed his eyes tightly, almost painfully, trying to block out the taunting images his brain concocted, thinking instead of how a few months could have changed everything.
The phone began to vibrate in his hand.
Luca opened his eyes and looked down at the screen. He slid the answer arrow across and held the phone up to his ear. ‘Hello.’
There was a short silence marked by some rapid breathing.
‘Luca?’
‘Bronte,’ Luca drawled, idly crossing one ankle over his thigh. ‘How nice of you to call.’ Another tight silence.
‘You have my phone.’ The words came out like small, hard pellets. ‘It must have slipped out of my purse or something.’
‘Yes, it must have,’ he said. ‘You want to come and get it or shall I bring it to dinner tomorrow night?’
‘I…’
‘Or I could bring it around to your place now,’ he said.
‘No!’
Luca curled his lip, trying to ignore the pain in his gut. ‘It would be no trouble, Bronte. Where do you live?’
‘I don’t want you to come here, Luca,’ she said stiffly.
‘Lover boy wouldn’t like it?’ he asked.
The silence this time crackled with tension.
‘I need my phone,’ she said. ‘I will come and get it now… if that’s all right? I mean if it’s not too late or anything.’
Luca glanced at his watch and smiled. ‘I’ll be waiting for you.’
The call ended and he tapped his fingers against the phone where it rested on his thigh, his smile disappearing as a heavy frown pulled at his forehead.
Bronte pulled into the hotel’s arrival bay and reluctantly left the keys with the valet parking attendant. She had tried to explain she wouldn’t be long but hotel policy forbade parking out the front, even for short intervals. The tense exchange of words with the attendant on duty hadn’t improved her already overstretched nerves. The moment of panic when she’d realised she had left her phone behind had practically sent her heart into a fibrillation. A heart attack at twenty-five was unlikely but Bronte felt as if she was going to go very close.
Had Luca looked at the photos of Ella? There were literally dozens of them. Fortunately there were none of Ella’s firstborn ones or any from the first few months of her life. Bronte had transferred all her photos only a couple of weeks ago so she only had more recent photos on it.
But even so.
Would Luca see the likeness? Her mother had assured her it was unlikely. Ella was small for her age and had the same hair colour as Bronte and the same slate-blue eyes, dainty features and creamy skin.
Bronte wasn’t so sure her mother was right, however. At times she could see a lot of Luca in her daughter. When Ella was concentrating over a puzzle or a toy she couldn’t quite figure out, she frowned just like Luca frowned. And just lately, as Ella grew more and more adventurous now she was finally walking, she often gave Bronte a look of gleaming satisfaction that was Luca through and through.
Ever since she had realised she had left her phone behind Bronte had berated herself. Why hadn’t she noticed the clasp on her purse was faulty? She should never have agreed to see him. What was she thinking? What good could come of it? It was perfectly clear he was after a quick affair. She had seen the intention in his dark, smouldering eyes. He wanted her. And that kiss! What had she been doing, responding to him like that? What madness had overtaken her? He was testing the waters and they were as hot as he had arrogantly expected.
Fool, fool, fool! Why had she fallen for it? She should have been more determined, more strident, more…. more… in control of herself.
She rested her hot forehead on the wall of the lift, trying to get her breathing to calm down. All she had to do was pick up her phone and leave. Simple. Just take it and leave. Don’t talk, don’t linger and for God’s sake don’t look at him too long in case he saw more than she wanted him to see.
The lift seemed to take ages to climb to the penthouse floor, or perhaps that was because Bronte was sweating out each heart-stopping second in a rising state of panic.
Finally the lift arrived and she walked on legs that felt as spindly and unstable as a newborn colt’s. Her brief knock on Luca’s door was answered by him after an annoyingly lengthy interval. She wondered if it had been deliberate.
‘Come in,’ he said, holding the door wide open.
‘No, thank you,’ she said tightly. ‘I’ll just take my phone and leave.’
He folded his arms across his broad chest, rocking back on his heels in an indolent manner. ‘Since you’ve driven all this way back here, why not stay a while and chat?’
Bronte held out her hand. ‘My phone.’
Luca took her hand and tugged her into the suite, closing the door with a sharp click behind her. He smiled mockingly at her shocked and outraged expression. ‘My way, Bronte, or you won’t get your phone back at all.’
She glared at him with eyes as narrow as that of an embroidery needle. ‘That’s theft, you bastard.’
‘You can have your phone after we’ve had a little talk,’ he said, leading her into the suite.
She tugged at his hold to no avail. ‘I don’t want to talk to you, Luca.’
‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked, pointedly ignoring her attempts to pull away. ‘I’m afraid there’s not much champagne left. But I could always open another bottle.’
‘I am not here to socialise,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘I just want to get my phone and go home.’
He held her in front of him, looking down at her flushed features and tightly pursed lips. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about your child?’ he asked. ‘I’m assuming it’s yours? She looks the image of you.’
Her face paled and her eyes looked stricken. ‘You looked at my photos?’ she asked in a hoarse-sounding whisper.
‘There was nothing too incriminating there, I can assure you,’ Luca said. ‘No boudoir scenes, for instance.’
Her face regained some of its colour, two hot spots on each cheek. ‘You had no right to touch my phone.’
‘On the contrary, Bronte, it was on my sofa and it rang while I was holding it,’ he said. ‘Did you want me to ignore your call?’
She gave him an icy glare. ‘That’s what you would have done in the past, wasn’t it?’
Luca had to admit she had won that round. He could hardly tell her now how hard it had been to see his phone ringing with her number showing on the screen and having to restrain himself from picking it up just to hear her voice one more time. In the end he had changed phones and numbers so in a weak moment he would not be tempted. And there had been many weak moments over the following months. ‘How seriously involved are you with the father of your child?’ he asked. ‘You’re not wearing a wedding ring so I am assuming you’re not married.’
She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes flickering with something he couldn’t quite identify. Her teeth caught at her bottom lip, pulling at it until he was sure she was going to draw blood. ‘No, I’m not married… I… The thing is…’ She winced as if she found the subject painful to talk about.
‘You’re no longer together, is that it?’ he said.
She gave her lip another gnaw and finally released it. ‘Yes… something like that…’
‘Well, then,’ Luca said. ‘At least we’ve cleared up that little detail. There is a lot I would do to get you back into my bed, but taking on a jealous husband is not one of them.’
‘I am not going to—’
Luca put a finger against her lips. ‘Don’t speak so soon, cara,’ he warned.
Her eyes flared as he brushed his finger along her lips. The softness of her mouth had always amazed him. She had a classically bee-stung mouth, irresistibly kissable. He bent his head and gently brushed his mouth over her lips, tasting her sweetness, wanting more, but holding back to give her time to reveal how much he affected her. Her lashes came down over her eyes, her tongue darting out and depositing a light sheen of moisture over her lips before disappearing again. He felt her breathe, in and out, a ragged sort of sound that seemed to catch inside her chest.
He bent his head again, hesitating just above her mouth, waiting for her to meet him halfway. ‘Go on, cara,’ he whispered against her lips. ‘You know you want to.’
‘I don’t want to…’ Her eyes met his briefly before falling away again. ‘I don’t want to see you. I don’t think this is a good idea… you know… rehashing the past. It never works.’
He brought up her chin again, holding her gaze with his. ‘We could make it work. Just you and me. No one else needs to know.’
She pushed against his chest and slipped out of his hold, crossing her arms over her body, turning away from him. ‘There’s not just the two of us to consider any more,’ she said. ‘I have a child. I have to consider her. She is my first priority. She will always be my first priority.’
Luca raked a hand through his hair. He didn’t want to think about her love-child. It wasn’t that he didn’t love kids; he did and had always hoped he would have a family of his own one day. He just couldn’t get used to the idea of Bronte being a mother to someone else’s baby.
Had she had the child as a result of a rebound affair? That somehow made it so much worse. If things had been different, he would have loved to have married Bronte and had the family he knew she wanted. She had hinted at it once or twice but he had deliberately avoided picking up the bait. It had been too painful back then to think about the life he wanted and the life he had been given. The bond of a child was a big deal. What if she still felt something for this guy? The kid was adorable. How could Bronte not feel something for the father of her little baby girl?
Luca had a bigger fight on his hands than he had thought. If he was to somehow convince her to get involved with him again he would have to learn how to be a stepparent. And it was not the easiest of relationships either. He had several friends who had never got on with their parents’ partners. It had caused numerous arguments and resentments, some of which went on over years. Bronte’s little girl was very young, but nothing could change the fact that Luca was not her real father. Circumstances had prevented him from having that privilege and there was nothing that he could do to change that now.
‘How old is she?’ he asked.
Bronte pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear and almost but not quite met his gaze. ‘She recently turned one.’ Recently, as in two months ago, she silently added.
His forehead creased as he did the numbers in his head. ‘So you hooked up with her father what… a couple of months after you came back to Melbourne?’
Bronte hated lying outright but what else could she do? She hadn’t had time to think this through. Everything had happened so quickly. Luca suddenly turning up at the studio—was it only that afternoon? And this evening’s awkward meeting and the careless loss of her phone had not given her time to get her head around everything. ‘Is that so wrong?’ she asked, taking an evasive approach. ‘You would have moved on just as, if not more quickly.’
‘But to get pregnant to some guy you hardly knew—’
‘Don’t preach at me, Luca,’ Bronte said in irritation. ‘I did know him. I thought I knew him well. It just didn’t work out.’
‘Do you still see him?’ he asked. ‘Does he have contact with the child?’
Bronte realised now how many lies it took after you told one to keep the others in place. There was going to be no way out of this other than more and more lies. She hated herself at that moment. It seemed so wrong to lie to him and yet the alternative was too terrifying. Maybe she could work up the courage over time. Maybe there would be a right time to tell him. Maybe they could become friends first and then she could tell him he was Ella’s father. Yeah, right, maybe she was kidding herself. She looked at his brooding frown and inwardly gulped. Yep, she was definitely kidding herself. ‘No,’ she said.
‘What? You mean he doesn’t want contact with his own flesh and blood?’ he asked with an incredulous look.
‘Look, Luca, I’d rather not talk about it,’ she said. ‘If I could just take my phone and—’
‘So how do you manage?’ Luca asked. ‘Does the father contribute financially to the child’s upbringing?’
The child. How impersonal he made it sound, Bronte thought. ‘Her name is Ella,’ she said. ‘And I manage perfectly fine without help from anyone.’
‘How do you work and look after a little child?’ he asked, still frowning darkly.
‘The same way thousands of other working single mums do,’ she said, ‘juggling, compromise and guilt.’
‘So that’s why you live with your mother.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It works out for both of us. She works part-time and I work on her days off so she can mind Ella.’
He continued to look at her with a frown pulling at his forehead. His hands were thrust in his trouser pockets, the sound of his change and keys rattling the only sound breaking the heavy silence.
‘I really should get going,’ Bronte said. ‘Mum stays in the granny flat with Ella. She can’t go to bed back at her house until I get home.’
‘If I hadn’t ended things with you the way I did, do you think you would be in this situation now?’ Luca asked, looking at her intently.
Bronte felt the pull of his magnetic gaze, her heart stumbling like a long-legged horse stepping into a deep pothole. ‘There’s no point in discussing it,’ she said. ‘Life happens. It’s not as planned as we would like to think it is.’
‘Did you plan to get pregnant?’
‘No, that was an accident,’ she said. ‘But it’s not one I regret. Ella’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’
Luca took the phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. ‘I guess you will need this,’ he said. ‘She’s very cute by the way. She looks exactly like you.’
Bronte felt a thick lump lodge in her throat. ‘Th… thank you.’ She clutched the phone to her thumping chest, blinking back tears of relief, regret and deep self-loathing.