Bronte’s long heavy sigh stirred the soft feathery dark brown hair on the top of her baby daughter’s head. ‘Mum, I’ve always worried about the timing of it all. He broke things off before I knew I was pregnant. If I had found out just a week earlier it might have changed everything. Perhaps if he had known he might not have been so…so adamant about never seeing me again.’
‘Darling, what was a week either side going to do?’ her mother asked. ‘He had clearly already made up his mind. He wouldn’t even agree to talk to you on the phone let alone see you face to face. What were you supposed to do? Tell him via a third party?’
Bronte bit her lip as she looked at her mother. ‘Maybe that’s what I should have done,’ she said. ‘Perhaps then he would have agreed to see me again. We could have at least discussed options.’
Tina Bennett gave her daughter a streetwise look. ‘And what options might those have been? It’s my guess he would have marched you straight off for a termination. A man with that sort of lifestyle would not want a love-child to support. It wouldn’t suit his lifestyle.’
‘I would never have agreed to that,’ Bronte said, holding Ella even closer to her body. ‘I would never have allowed anyone to talk me into getting rid of my baby.’
‘Darling, you were young and madly in love,’ Tina said. ‘I know plenty of young women who have done things they later regretted just because the man they loved insisted on it.’
Bronte looked down at her little daughter, who was now snuggling against her chest, her dark blue eyes struggling to stay open as she fought against sleep. It worried Bronte that there might be some truth in what her mother had said. She had been young and madly in love. She would have done almost anything to keep Luca by her side. As it was, she had made a pathetic fool of herself chasing after him like a lovesick teenager, leaving countless ‘call me’ messages and texts on his phone, not to mention pleading emails that made her cringe to think about now.
‘You’re not going to tell him about Ella, are you, love?’ her mother asked.
Bronte gently brushed the soft hair off her sleeping baby’s face. ‘When he came into the studio unannounced like that today, all I could think was how much I hated him.’ She looked up at her mother. ‘But one day Ella is going to be old enough to realise she doesn’t have a father. She’s going to want to know who he is and why he isn’t a part of her life. What am I supposed to say? How will I explain it to her?’
‘You’ll explain it the way I did to you,’ her mother said. ‘That the man you thought would stay by you deserted you. Remember, Bronte: a father is as a father does. As far as I see it, Luca Sabbatini was nothing more than a sperm donor. One day you’ll meet some nice man who will love you and Ella. He will be a far better father to her than a man who cut you from his life without a backward glance. What’s to say he does it again if not sooner rather than later? He won’t be just hurting you this time, but Ella too.’
‘I guess you’re right,’ Bronte said on a sigh as she rose to her feet, carefully cradling Ella in her arms. ‘But there’s a part of me that thinks he has a right to know he fathered a child.’
‘Men like him don’t even like children,’ Tina said matter-of-factly. ‘They see them as too much responsibility. Believe me, I know the type.’
A small frown tugged at Bronte’s brow. ‘When my junior class arrived at the studio this afternoon he looked at them…I don’t know…almost wistfully, as if he was imagining being a parent one day.’
‘Bronte—’ her mother’s voice sounded stern ‘—think carefully about this before you do something you might regret. He’s a very rich man. A very rich and powerful man. He might take it upon himself to pay you back for not telling him about his child. He could take you to court. You’d have no hope of fighting him and, even if you did, you’d have the burden of paying for the legal work. And, don’t forget, given his pedigree background, he would have the best of lawyers at his disposal. The family court is much more accommodating when it comes to fathers these days, especially well-to-do ones. Even if he got partial custody, it would mean Ella would have to fly back and forth to Italy or wherever he currently lives. You might not see her for months on end, and then one day when she’s older she might decide not to come back to you at all.’
Bronte felt her heart contract in fear at such an outcome. Luca came from such a powerful dynasty. The Sabbatini clan would be the very worst sort of enemy to take on. Their power and influence reached all over the world. She hadn’t a hope in taking Luca on in a custody battle, let alone his family.
The bitter irony was she had never intended to keep Ella’s existence a secret. In spite of Luca’s insistence that he never wanted to see her again, as soon as Bronte had found out she was pregnant she had tried to contact him. After a couple of fruitless weeks of not getting through to him, she had eventually flown to his villa in Milan but the household staff had refused her entry. The housekeeper had told her rather bluntly that Luca was in America with a new lover.
The news had hit Bronte like a fist in the face. It had devastated her that he had moved on so quickly. She even wondered if he had had his American mistress the whole time he had been seeing her in London. After all, he had never once stayed the full night with her at her flat and he had never allowed her to spend the night with him at his luxurious London home. He had never taken her away for a weekend; she had never even stayed in a hotel with him. He had always insisted on driving her home, his excuse being he was an extremely early riser and didn’t want to disturb her. In hindsight, she realised she had been so naïve in accepting his explanation. How gullible of her to have never questioned why he would not spend a single night with her after making love. What sort of lovers didn’t spend the night entwined in each other’s arms? Street workers and the men who paid them, that was who, Bronte thought bitterly. Luca had treated her like a whore and she had been too blind to see it. But this time she would not be making the same mistake. She would meet him and that would be that. It would be a form of closure for her, something she had longed for when their affair had ended so abruptly. Saying goodbye and meaning it would be very satisfying. She would be finally free of the man who had caused her so much heartache and bitterness, and then and only then would she be able to move on with her life.
Bronte caught a cab to the city rather than worry about parking. She wanted to be able to make a quick escape if things got tricky. She reasoned that an anonymous cab was a much safer exit plan than her battered car with its baby seat full of crumbs and juice stains in the back.
She had dressed for the occasion with deliberate care. Although not exactly destitute, she didn’t have the sort of money to throw around that allowed her to fill her wardrobe with designer clothes. But she had a few select items she had bought on sale that made her feel feminine and elegant without being overdressed or too showy.
The hotel was one of the premier ones in the Southbank Complex along the Yarra River. The luxurious marble foyer with a sweeping two-sided staircase with a fountain as its centrepiece gave the hotel more than a touch of Hollywood glamour. Bronte felt like a movie star arriving for a glamorous event as one of the uniformed doormen opened the doors for her with a flourish.
The staircase led to a classy bar area with deep leather sofas placed in intimate formations to give privacy to guests as they socialised over a drink. Bronte saw Luca rise the moment she stepped into the bar. She felt a flutter in her chest as he came towards her and she noted that practically every female head turned to look at him as he moved across the carpeted floor.
He was dressed in a charcoal-grey suit, teamed with a snow-white business shirt and wearing a tie that was red with stripes of silver. He seemed even taller than he had in the studio earlier that day, even though Bronte was now wearing heels.
She felt his gaze move over her, taking in her little black dress, cinched in at the waist with a black patent leather