Melanie Milburne - The Scandalous Sabbatinis

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?’

‘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?’