She took a tiny sip of her champagne and then held the glass with both of her hands around the stem. ‘I do, yes,’ she said. ‘The children are lovely.’
He patted the sofa, indicating for her to sit down. She sat on the edge of the seat again, ready for instant flight. ‘How many students do you have?’ he asked, trying to put her at ease.
‘We have sixty at the moment but I would like to see it go to about two hundred,’ she said. ‘I have plans for extension of classes. I would like to hire a couple more teachers for jazz and tap, and I want to incorporate some adult classes.’
Luca took a sip of his champagne. ‘You teach adults?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t it too late for an adult to learn? I thought ballet was something you had to learn at a very young age, the younger the better.’
‘That’s true, but there are lots of women and some men, when it comes to that, who have studied dance in the past and have let it slip,’ she said. ‘Doing a weekly or twice weekly class with other adults is a good way of keeping in shape.’
Luca let his eyes run over her slim form. ‘Yes, well, it certainly hasn’t done you any harm,’ he said with a crooked smile. ‘You’re as slim as ever. How often do you practice?’
A light blush shaded her cheeks and she looked down at the contents of her glass again. ‘A couple of hours a day,’ she said. ‘I would like to do more but with El…’ She stopped mid-sentence and sank her teeth in her lip before continuing falteringly, ‘… I mean with everything there is to do around here I… I haven’t got a lot of time.’
Luca watched as her colour deepened even further.She reminded him of a shy schoolgirl, nervous, timid, not sure of herself in spite of all of her talent. It was so endearing he felt as if a large hand was pressing down on his heart. He thought of all the streetwise women who had thrown themselves at him in the past. They had used their looks and glamour and wily ways to get his attention. Bronte, on the other hand, had done nothing of the sort. She had always been reserved and held a lot of herself back. It made him all the more determined to draw her out of herself. She was such a rare find, so pure and unblemished. Like a rare diamond.
She got up from the sofa and put the glass down. ‘I’m sorry, Luca, but I have to go.’
‘What’s the hurry?’ he asked, rising to his feet.
She turned and faced him, her gaze quickly falling away from his as she searched again for her clutch purse. ‘My mother will be wondering what’s keeping me. I said I was only going out for a quick drink.’
‘Bronte, you are twenty-five years old,’ he pointed out. ‘Do you really have to check in and out with your mother as if you were fifteen?’
Her eyes gave him a hard little glare. ‘My mother has been very good to me. She has stood by me and supported me unconditionally. I don’t have to answer to her, but I choose to out of respect for all the sacrifices she has made for me.’
‘Surely she won’t begrudge you a night out,’ he said. And then, after a beat, added with a curl of his lip, ‘Or has it more to do with this other man you’re seeing?’
She sent him a challenging look. ‘What if it does?’
Luca felt a rush of jealousy hit him like a tsunami. His stomach clenched as he thought of her with another man. His skin broke out in a sickening sweat as he imagined them together. He felt nauseous thinking about it. He didn’t want to think about it. He wouldn’t think about it. ‘What is his name?’ he asked in a cool unaffected tone when inside his guts were churning.
Her small chin rose. ‘I don’t have to tell you.’
Luca put his glass down before he snapped the fragile stem. He surreptitiously clenched and unclenched his hands, fighting for control. She was deliberately goading him, dangling her lover in front of him like a red rag to a raging bull. ‘Are you sleeping with him?’ he asked, not wanting to know but asking anyway.
‘That is none of your business.’
He watched as she snatched up her purse, which had slipped down between the loose cushions of the sofa. She clipped it shut and stalked to the door, throwing over her shoulder, ‘Thank you for the drink. Goodbye.’
‘We have a date for tomorrow,’ he reminded her.
She stiffened as if she had been snap-frozen from head to foot. ‘I won’t be able to make it,’ she said, not bothering to turn around and face him.
‘Damn it, Bronte, I am only asking for one night,’ he said in rising frustration. ‘Is that so very much to ask?’
She turned then, slowly, meeting his eyes with a glare of deep, bottomless blue anger in her own. ‘Yes, Luca, it is too much to ask. You never gave me a single night of your time the whole time we were together.’
Luca felt his jaw snap together like a steel trap. His teeth ached with the pressure of forming the words to speak. ‘So this is payback, is it?’
‘No, Luca,’ she said, opening the door. ‘This is justice.’
And then she shut the door in his face.
CHAPTER FOUR
LUCA didn’t find the mobile phone until an hour after Bronte had gone. He had paced the floor in anger for half an hour before he stopped to pour himself another drink from the barely touched bottle of champagne.
He took the bottle and his glass over to the sofa where Bronte had been sitting earlier. He tossed the first glass down and then poured himself another, barely tasting it before he swallowed. Right at this moment he didn’t care if he got drunk. It would certainly be preferable to this.
He swore viciously and pushed his hair back off his forehead. He had hoped the night would have turned out differently but he had obviously been fooling himself. Bronte was well and truly over him. She had walked out and made it clear she wasn’t coming back. He had hoped she still felt something for him. It was a wild hope, a vain, perhaps even an arrogant hope, but a hope all the same.
She had taken a long time to admit to loving him but when she had finally said it he knew she had meant it. Back then he hadn’t been entirely sure if what he felt for her was love; all he knew was he felt different when he was with her, unlike he had ever felt before. But at that time he hadn’t been sure he had a future to offer her. So he had kept his feelings to himself. He knew he had often come across as cold emotionally. He was often irritable and short-tempered with her on the days after he had been unwell and, while he knew it had confused her and made her feel insecure, he had never told her why he was feeling out of sorts. He hadn’t wanted her to feel obligated towards him. She was the sort of person who would sacrifice herself and he hadn’t been prepared for her to do that. It was his burden, his cross to bear and he had borne it and finally, thank God, got rid of it.
He reached forward to pour himself another glass of champagne, when something hard pressed against his thigh. He looked down and saw a slimline black mobile phone poking up through the cushions.
He smiled a slow smile as he pulled it out. It was the same model as his, only his was the newer upgraded one. He turned it over in his hand, pressing the silent switch on the side to ringtone. It immediately buzzed with messages; one by one they came up on the screen. It was impossible not to read them, even if his conscience told him it was an invasion of privacy.
How did it go?
What’s he like?
Did you tell him about you know who?
Call me!!!!!
Luca