Melanie Milburne - The Scandalous Sabbatinis

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.’