‘Th… thank you.’ She clutched the phone to her thumping chest, blinking back tears of relief, regret and deep self-loathing.
He stepped closer and cupped her cheek, holding her face so tenderly more tears came to her eyes. ‘Why are you crying, cara?’ he said softly.
She swallowed and gulped back a sob. ‘It could have been so different…’ She blinked a couple of times but the tears still fell. ‘I wanted it to be so different… but now it’s too late…’
He brought her head against his chest, his fingers splayed in her hair, the deep rumble of his voice as he spoke tearing Bronte’s heart in two. ‘I know, but that is my fault, mio piccolo. I wasn’t ready. I was in a bad place in my life. I wasn’t able to give you what you wanted. But then I wasn’t even able to give myself what I wanted. It was just not our time.’
Bronte stood in the circle of his arms, wishing she could stay there for ever. But after a moment he stepped back from her. His expression was hard to read. He was smiling but it wasn’t a smile that reached anywhere near his eyes. There were shadows there instead, flickering shadows that gave no hint of what he was feeling.
‘I should let you get home to your little girl,’ he said, sliding his hands down her arms to her wrists, holding them loosely with his long fingers.
A pain deep inside her chest made it almost impossible for Bronte to speak. ‘It was… it was nice to see you again, Luca.’
He brought one of her hands up to his mouth, pressing his lips to her bent fingers. ‘I hope one day you will forgive me for how I ended things,’ he said.
‘It’s OK,’ Bronte said. ‘I should have accepted your decision. I think I made a terrible fool of myself. Actually, I know I made a terrible fool of myself. I practically stalked you. I was so desperate to tell you I was…’ She stopped and quickly regrouped. ‘I mean… I was so desperate to know if there was something I had done to upset you. I should have realised our relationship had run its course. You had never offered anything permanent and I was a fool to hope and dream you would. I was caught up in the whole romance of my first real love affair. I was too immature to see it. Perhaps I didn’t want to see it.’
‘Don’t beat yourself up about it, Bronte,’ he said. ‘We have this chance now to see if we can make a better go of it.’
Bronte felt her heart give a flutter like a startled pigeon. ‘Y-you want to… I mean you still want to… I can’t, Luca. I can’t see you. I told you that.’
His jaw took on an uncompromising set. ‘You told me yourself there is no one else in your life. What’s to stop us revisiting our relationship if it’s what we both want?’
‘It’s what you want,’ she said. ‘It’s not what I want at all.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ he said, tightening his hold on her wrists as she tried to get away. ‘The way you kissed me earlier told me how much you still want me.’
‘You made me kiss you,’ she argued.
‘Don’t split hairs, Bronte,’ he said. ‘We were kissing each other. We want each other just as much as we ever did.’
‘I can’t have a casual affair with you,’ she said. ‘I have responsibilities now. I haven’t got room in my life for you.’
‘Make room,’ he said and, tugging her close, brought his mouth down on hers.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘GOSH, you look like you didn’t get any sleep at all last night,’ Rachel said as Bronte came into the studio the next day. ‘Was it your hot date or your darling daughter who kept you up all hours?’
Bronte gave her a don’t-speak-to-me-about-it look.
‘Come on, Bronte,’ Rachel pleaded. ‘You didn’t even return any of my texts. What happened? Did you tell him about Ella?’
Bronte blew out a sigh. ‘No, I didn’t get around to it.’
Rachel’s brows went up. ‘What did you get around to?’ She leaned closer and peered at Bronte’s chin. ‘Hey, is that what I think it is?’
Bronte put her hand up to the reddened patch on her chin where Luca’s evening stubble had left its mark. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said.
Rachel folded her arms in a you-can’t-fool-me pose. ‘Beard rash only happens when you get up close and personal,’ she said. ‘So the spark is still there, huh?’
Bronte pulled her hair back into a high ponytail, all the while trying to avoid her friend’s eyes. She felt so conflicted about last night. That final kiss had burned her like fire. The stubble rash on her chin was nothing to what she felt inside. She was still smouldering with want, a hot needy craving for more of Luca’s touch. He had ended the kiss and sent her on her way, only after he had extracted a promise to meet him for dinner this evening. She had practically stumbled back to her car, her emotions on a roller coaster ride as she thought of the danger she was dancing with.
She had spent most of the night once she got home arguing with herself over whether she should have told him from the get-go about Ella. But then the counter argument was always the same: how could she trust him not to take Ella away from her? After all, he had left her in London without a single explanation as to why their affair was over. What was to stop him doing the same thing again, but this time taking Ella with him? It was just too risky. She had to protect her daughter. She had to protect herself.
‘So are you seeing him again?’ Rachel asked.
‘Yes,’ Bronte said, slipping out of her street shoes to begin her stretches. ‘Dinner tonight. I don’t know why I agreed to it. I know it’s only asking for trouble. He wants to resume our relationship as if nothing happened.’
‘That’s men for you,’ Rachel said, rolling her eyes. ‘So did he tell you why he broke things off before?’
‘Not really,’ Bronte said, frowning. ‘Just that it was a bad time for him or something.’
‘You think there was someone else?’
Bronte let out another long breath. ‘I don’t know what to think. When I spoke to the housekeeper at his place in Milan she was adamant he was involved with someone in LA.’
‘But?’
Bronte met her friend’s grey gaze. ‘I get the feeling Luca is not being totally straight with me. I don’t trust him. I don’t think I will ever trust him after what he did. He could have a woman in every country for all I know.’
‘You said he wants to resume his relationship with you,’ Rachel said. ‘But how are you going to do that without telling him about Ella?’
‘He knows about Ella,’ Bronte said. ‘He just doesn’t know she’s his. I left my phone behind and he saw some of the pictures I’d taken of her lately. I let him assume she was someone else’s child.’
Rachel frowned. ‘How’d you do that?’
Bronte gave her a sheepish look. ‘I sort of lied about her age.’
Rachel shook her head in disapproval. ‘That could come back to bite you, Bronte. You should have told him. It will only make things much worse the longer you leave it.’
‘I can’t tell him,’ Bronte said, pressing a hand to her aching head. ‘He could take her off me. You don’t know what the Sabbatinis are like, Rachel. They’re one of the most powerful dynasties, not just in Italy but all over Europe. They’re practically royalty. They have money and prestige and power beyond belief. I spent a bit of time on the Net last night when I couldn’t sleep, looking them up. His father died about three years before I met Luca, but Giancarlo and Giovanna Sabbatini brought their three sons up with more silver spoons than you could possibly count. Luca’s grandfather, Salvatore, is reputed to be one of the richest men