I just wasn’t up to facing.’
‘So you preferred to not show up at all rather than to fail.’ It was not a question but a rather good summation of what she had been feeling at the time.
Bronte hadn’t realised he had known her quite so well. She hadn’t spoken to him of her doubts about making the grade. Their relationship hadn’t been the sort for heart-to-heart confessions. She had always felt as if he was holding himself at a distance, not just physically but emotionally, so she had done the same. ‘Yes,’ she said, deliberately holding his gaze. ‘I did, however, speak to the head of auditions in person and explain I was withdrawing my application. I had at least the common decency to do that.’
There was another long drawn-out silence.
‘I know you took it hard, Bronte,’ he said in a husky tone. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you but I am afraid it was unavoidable. I had to end it. I had no other choice.’
Bronte blinked back the smarting of tears. She was not going to cry in front of him. She had cried all the tears she was ever going to cry over him two years ago. ‘Was there someone else the whole time?’ she asked in a cool crisp tone. ‘You can be honest with me, Luca. I am a big girl now. I can take it. I wasn’t enough to satisfy you, was I? I wasn’t worldly enough for your sophisticated tastes.’
He gave her a brooding frown. ‘Is that what you thought?’
She flattened her mouth. ‘It’s what I know,’ she said. ‘I was a novelty for you at first but it must have become annoying after a while. I was good enough to have sex with but not good enough for you to take on any of your trips abroad. But no doubt you had plenty of women to step into my place.’
He continued to frown at her. ‘That is not the way it was, Bronte.’ He raked one of his hands through his hair, making it look as if he had just tumbled out of bed. ‘I’ve always preferred to travel alone. It’s less complicated.’
Bronte bit the inside of her mouth to control her spiralling emotions. Why hadn’t she left five minutes ago before it had got to this? ‘We went out for close to six months,’ she said. ‘Not once did you spend a whole night with me. Not once, Luca. You never even took me for a weekend away. Not even into the country. I was your city mistress. The easy girl you could bed any time you liked. You only had to pick up the phone and I was available.’
Luca came over and captured Bronte’s flailing hands, holding them firmly in his grasp. ‘Stop it, Bronte,’ he said. ‘You were no such thing. Not to me.’
She looked at him with tears shining in her eyes. ‘You used me, Luca. You can’t deny it. You used me and when you got tired of me you let me go.’
Luca looked down at her hands, struggling to get away from his. His hands were so olive-skinned and dark and big compared to her slim, small creamy ones. Her hands reminded him of small doves fluttering to get away. Her body was so slight. Everything about her was so dainty and elegant. Her dancer’s body, the way she carried herself, the way her eyes looked so big and dark in the perfect oval of her face.
He looked into those big dark eyes and wondered how he could repair the damage he had done. He could see the pain his rejection had caused. It glimmered there amongst the sheen of tears she was so determined not to shed in front of him.
She was so unlike any other woman he had been with in the past. He had loved the fact he was her first lover. She had seemed embarrassed about it but he had secretly delighted in it. He wondered if that was why he could not forget her. She had touched him in a way no one else had ever done. There was a place deep inside of him no one had ever been able to reach and yet he had felt as if she had come so very close. He had not wanted to fall in love with anyone, not with his health the way it had been back then. But with Bronte he had come close. Too close. That was why he’d had to back off before he was in so deep he wouldn’t be able to think rationally. The more time he’d spent with her, the more he’d realised how unfair it would be on her to tie her to him when there was no guarantee he could give her anything in return.
Luca released one of her hands so he could put his other hand in the small of her back, bringing her up against him again. He loved the feel of her body flush against his. She fitted against him as if she had been made for him. He felt his body stirring and wished he could show her what he found so hard to say out loud. But it would only scare her away. It was too soon. He had to take things slowly and carefully this time. She was like a shy fawn with an innate sense of danger. She needed time and careful handling. He had the patience for the careful handling, but time was something he didn’t have at his disposal. A month was all he had to get her to come back to him, to see if the magic was still there so they could build some sort of future together. Would it be enough?
‘Don’t fight me, Bronte,’ he said softly. ‘You are angry at me and I know I deserve it, but we still have something between us. You know we do.’
Her eyes flared like a cornered animal facing a dangerous predator. ‘W… we share nothing,’ she stammered. ‘I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to be your sex slave. I don’t want to be your… your anything.’
He brought her other hand to his mouth, kissing each of her stiff fingertips until he felt them tremble against his lips. He kept his eyes trained on hers, watching as the point of her tongue darted out nervously to anoint her lips. ‘I am not asking you to be anything but my partner for dinner tomorrow evening,’ he said.
She swallowed tightly. ‘And… and after that?’
He kissed the backs of her bent knuckles, still holding her gaze. ‘If you don’t want to see me again I will have to accept it,’ he said.
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘You’ll let me go? Just like that?’
Luca stroked away the frown that had appeared between her brows. ‘If you frown all the time you will get wrinkles.’
She arched her head away from his touch. ‘You didn’t answer my question, Luca.’
Luca let out a sigh as he dropped his hand back by his side. ‘I didn’t have to blackmail you into my bed in the past,’ he said. ‘I don’t see why I should need to do so now.’
Her chin came up and her eyes flashed blue fire at him. ‘So you think I’ll just dive in head first then, do you?’
He examined her taut expression for a moment or two. ‘I think what will happen will happen, cara,’ he said. ‘We should leave things to fate, sì?’
She continued to regard him warily. ‘Fate, huh? Like it’s fate that you’re suddenly my landlord.’
‘You’re not in any danger of being kicked out on the street,’ Luca said.
‘Can I have that in writing?’ she asked.
He stood looking down at her for a long moment, breathing in her scent, that hint of honeysuckle and sun-warmed sweet peas that unfurled inside his nostrils, making them flare to take more of her in. ‘You really don’t trust me, do you?’
She folded her arms across her chest. ‘No, strange as it may seem, I don’t trust you. I don’t like you and I can’t wait to see the last of you.’
Luca felt his spine tighten with irritation. Did she have to keep reminding him of how much she hated him? Did she think it would make him want her less? If anything, it made him want her more. Or was that her intention? Was she playing hard to get to teach him a lesson, or to get more out of the relationship this time around? Maybe the last couple of years had toughened her up. Maybe she had enrolled in the academy of gold-diggers and now knew how to use men to serve her own ends. Either way, it didn’t matter. He wanted her any way he could get her. If she had changed, well, so had he. He was not the same person he had been two years ago. How could he be? Too much had happened.
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