Melanie Milburne - The Scandalous Sabbatinis

Bronte felt a frisson of fear run through her like a trickle of ice-cold water. ‘You don’t have to do that,’ she said quickly. ‘I mean… it’s no trouble getting a cab. I would prefer it, actually…’

His eyes narrowed just a fraction. ‘What is the problem, Bronte? You surely trust me to get you home safely? I do know which side of the road to drive on here.’

‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘I would prefer to make my own arrangements.’

‘Is there someone waiting for you at home?’ he asked.

‘My private life has nothing to do with you, Luca,’ she said. ‘Not any more.’

He continued to watch her, his eyes dark and inscrutable. He didn’t speak, which made the silence open up like a chasm between them.

‘Look,’ Bronte finally said, moving from foot to foot with impatience, ‘I have to work tomorrow. And I don’t want my mother to worry.’

‘Your mother?’ A deep frown appeared between his brows. ‘You live with your mother?’

She straightened her spine. ‘What’s wrong with that?’ she asked. ‘Property is horrendously expensive in Melbourne. I can’t afford the studio rent and a mortgage. I’m just starting out.’

‘How long have you been teaching at the studio?’ he asked, still frowning.

‘About a year,’ Bronte said. ‘Rachel and I trained at the same academy together. She broke her ankle in a car accident a couple of years ago and had to give up dancing. We decided to set up our own ballet school.’

Another silence passed but to Bronte it felt like hours. Each second seemed weighted; even the air seemed heavy and too thick for her to breathe.

‘The audition you said you missed,’ he said, watching her steadily. ‘Did that by any chance have anything to do with me?’

Bronte felt her heart trip and carefully avoided his gaze. ‘W… why do you ask that?’

‘We broke up, what, about four weeks before you were due to audition, right?’

She gave a could-mean-anything shrug and fiddled with the catch on her clutch purse. ‘I didn’t see the point in trying for the company when my heart wasn’t in staying in London,’ she said. She brought her gaze back up to his. ‘It was time for me to go home, Luca. There was nothing in London for me. The competition was tough, in any case. I didn’t have a hope of making the shortlist. The audition would have been yet another rejection 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.