MELANIE MILBURNE - The Scandalous Sabbatinis - Scandal - Unclaimed Love-Child

And yet he seemed to love Ella…

Bronte strode out of the bedroom to get away from her traitorous thoughts but they followed her, just as the paparazzi had done earlier. Click, click, click went the shutters of her brain, bringing up the touching moment when Luca had seen Ella for the first time the night before.

Bronte had always found Luca to be so emotionally distant, but last night she had seen a side to him she had never glimpsed before. He had looked down at the child in his arms, his eyes so full of wonder and amazement that she was his. Bronte had thought she had seen a hint of moisture when he’d turned and faced her, but in a blink it had gone so she didn’t know if she had imagined it.

The door of the penthouse suddenly opened and Luca came in carrying a briefcase and a toy shop bag bulging with toys. ‘Bronte,’ he said, frowning. ‘The concierge told me there was a bit of scene with the press outside the hotel. Is Ella all right?’

Bronte folded her arms across her chest. ‘She was terrified. It took ages to calm her down. She’s sleeping on your bed.’

He put the briefcase and toys down and reached up to loosen his tie. ‘I should have warned you,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure how they found out. I was going to make an announcement once I had informed my family.’

‘Have you told your family?’

He shrugged himself out of his jacket and laid it over the back of one of the plush sofas. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They were shocked, as you can imagine, but pleased, especially my mother. She can’t wait to meet Ella. I have promised to email some photos. Did you bring them with you?’

Bronte gestured to the bag on the floor near the sound system. ‘I’ve brought everything I could find. I even have a lock of her baby hair in a matchbox. I found another one this morning and divided the lock in two. I thought you might like one of your own.’

He picked up the bag and found the matchbox. He set the bag back on the floor and looked at the commonplace box for a moment. Bronte watched as his long tanned fingers opened it, his dark eyes homing in on the tiny curl of silky hair. He touched it and smiled, but there was sadness in it.

She swallowed and moved forward, taking the bag off the floor to ferret out the first album of pictures of Ella. ‘I haven’t had time to make copies of everything. I thought you might like to have it done professionally or something. This one is of the first few months of her life.’

Luca took the album and sat down on the sofa. Bronte didn’t know what to do with herself. She wasn’t sure if she should go and sit beside him or leave him alone to view the photos by himself. ‘Um… I think I’ll go and check on Ella,’ she said and darted out.

When she finally came back in, Luca was sitting with his eyes glued to the huge flat screen TV where he had put in one of the DVDs. The sound of Ella’s tinkling laughter as Bronte lifted her high in the air filled the room. The next clip was of Ella having her first swimming lesson at the age of six months. They were tears and screams and then happy splashes as she gradually got used to the water on her face during the mother and baby class.

Luca looked up and pressed the mute button on the remote control. ‘I can’t find a DVD with Ella as a newborn. Do you have one?’ he asked.

Bronte went through the bag, feeling self-conscious about how disorganised this was making her appear. Was he criticising her for being a bad mother? Was he thinking a devoted mother would have everything filed in neat, beautifully scrapbooked albums, or DVD cases in chronological order, not stashed haphazardly in a green shopping bag? No doubt his mother would have her sons’ locks of hair in priceless heirloom velvet boxes with the family name inscribed on the outside, not in a run-of-the-mill matchbox. She chewed at her lip as she hunted through the bag, the stretching silence shredding at her already overwrought nerves.

‘Can’t find it?’ he asked.

She sat back on her heels. ‘I must have missed it when I gathered the others up from Mum’s place.’

‘I would like to see it,’ he said. ‘I will come around and get it tomorrow, that is if you can find it by then.’

Bronte got to her feet and glared at him. ‘I know what you are implying, so why don’t you come right out and say it?’

He didn’t rise from the sofa; instead, he sat back and returned her look with the elevation of one of his midnight-black brows. ‘And what would I be implying?’ he asked.

She hissed out a breath. ‘You think I’m doing a bad job of being Ella’s mother. I can see it in your eyes. You think because I haven’t got all this stuff organised properly I can’t possibly be a good mother to her.’

This time he did rise from where he was sitting. His increase in height made the room shrink, irrespective of its commodious proportions. ‘I think you are projecting your own insecurities on to me,’ he said. ‘You are the one who thinks you are an inadequate mother, not me.’

Bronte felt her back come up at his too close to the truth summation of what she felt a lot of the time. ‘You don’t know anything about parenting,’ she threw back. ‘You don’t know what it’s like trying to earn a living and bring up a baby. You don’t know what it’s like to be so tired at the end of the day or sick and overwrought and still have to get up half the night, if not all the night, to see to a baby’s needs. You live in a cotton wool world, Luca, you always have. You don’t even have to make your own bed, for God’s sake.’

His mouth tensed as if he was holding back a stinging retort, the silence going on and on and on until the air felt thick and too heavy to breathe.

Bronte wondered if she had revealed a little too much of her struggles and if he would go on to use it against her in a custody battle. She was making things so much worse by losing control of her emotions. Like last night, falling so readily into his arms, demonstrating so conclusively how much she still wanted him. She bit her lip and moved to the other side of the room, staring down at the view below rather than see the light of victory shining in his dark eyes. She needed to get away to garner her self-control. She needed to regroup. Her feelings were getting the better of her. Next thing, she would be on her knees begging him to take her back, marriage or no marriage.

‘I admit I have a lot to learn,’ Luca said. ‘But at least I am willing to do so. A lot of men simply walk away from their responsibilities. But I will not. I want to be involved in every way possible with Ella.’

Bronte spun around. ‘Well, why don’t you start right here and now?’

He frowned as she stalked towards the door, only stopping long enough to take out her purse from the change bag she had brought for Ella. She practically shoved the bag against his abdomen, her eyes flashing at him in frustration and fury. ‘Have the rest of the evening with her,’ she said. ‘You can feed her and change her and try and settle her when she won’t be settled. I will be back in a couple of hours.’

Luca flinched as the door swung shut on her exit. He let out a long breath and sent his hand through his hair. He heard a little whimper coming from his bedroom and went through to see if Ella was waking.

She was sitting up in the middle of his bed, surrounded by pillows, two big fat tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘Mummy?’ She scrubbed at her blue eyes and looked so forlorn Luca felt his heart tighten to the point of pain. ‘Mummy gone?’

‘Mummy’s gone out for a while, mio piccolo, ’ he said and gently lifted her off the bed. ‘But Papà is here. Papà is always going to be here. You will never be alone, my little one.’