The Unclaimed Baby

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Luca raked a hand through his hair. He didn’t want to think about her love-child. It wasn’t that he didn’t love kids; he did and had always hoped he would have a family of his own one day. He just couldn’t get used to the idea of Bronte being a mother to someone else’s baby.

  Had she had the child as a result of a rebound affair? That somehow made it so much worse. If things had been different, he would have loved to have married Bronte and had the family he knew she wanted. She had hinted at it once or twice but he had deliberately avoided picking up the bait. It had been too painful back then to think about the life he wanted and the life he had been given. The bond of a child was a big deal. What if she still felt something for this guy? The kid was adorable. How could Bronte not feel something for the father of her little baby girl?

  Luca had a bigger fight on his hands than he had thought. If he was to somehow convince her to get involved with him again he would have to learn how to be a stepparent. And it was not the easiest of relationships either. He had several friends who had never got on with their parents’ partners. It had caused numerous arguments and resentments, some of which went on over years. Bronte’s little girl was very young, but nothing could change the fact that Luca was not her real father. Circumstances had prevented him from having that privilege and there was nothing that he could do to change that now.

  ‘How old is she?’ he asked.

  Bronte pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear and almost but not quite met his gaze. ‘She recently turned one.’ Recently, as in two months ago, she silently added.

  His forehead creased as he did the numbers in his head. ‘So you hooked up with her father what…a couple of months after you came back to Melbourne?’

  Bronte hated lying outright but what else could she do? She hadn’t had time to think this through. Everything had happened so quickly. Luca suddenly turning up at the studio—was it only that afternoon? And this evening’s awkward meeting and the careless loss of her phone had not given her time to get her head around everything. ‘Is that so wrong?’ she asked, taking an evasive approach. ‘You would have moved on just as, if not more quickly.’

  ‘But to get pregnant to some guy you hardly knew—’

  ‘Don’t preach at me, Luca,’ Bronte said in irritation. ‘I did know him. I thought I knew him well. It just didn’t work out.’

  ‘Do you still see him?’ he asked. ‘Does he have contact with the child?’

  Bronte realised now how many lies it took after you told one to keep the others in place. There was going to be no way out of this other than more and more lies. She hated herself at that moment. It seemed so wrong to lie to him and yet the alternative was too terrifying. Maybe she could work up the courage over time. Maybe there would be a right time to tell him. Maybe they could become friends first and then she could tell him he was Ella’s father. Yeah, right, maybe she was kidding herself. She looked at his brooding frown and inwardly gulped. Yep, she was definitely kidding herself. ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘What? You mean he doesn’t want contact with his own flesh and blood?’ he asked with an incredulous look.

  ‘Look, Luca, I’d rather not talk about it,’ she said. ‘If I could just take my phone and—’

  ‘So how do you manage?’ Luca asked. ‘Does the father contribute financially to the child’s upbringing?’

  The child. How impersonal he made it sound, Bronte thought. ‘Her name is Ella,’ she said. ‘And I manage perfectly fine without help from anyone.’

  ‘How do you work and look after a little child?’ he asked, still frowning darkly.

  ‘The same way thousands of other working single mums do,’ she said, ‘juggling, compromise and guilt.’

  ‘So that’s why you live with your mother.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It works out for both of us. She works part-time and I work on her days off so she can mind Ella.’

  He continued to look at her with a frown pulling at his forehead. His hands were thrust in his trouser pockets, the sound of his change and keys rattling the only sound breaking the heavy silence.

  ‘I really should get going,’ Bronte said. ‘Mum stays in the granny flat with Ella. She can’t go to bed back at her house until I get home.’

  ‘If I hadn’t ended things with you the way I did, do you think you would be in this situation now?’ Luca asked, looking at her intently.

  Bronte felt the pull of his magnetic gaze, her heart stumbling like a long-legged horse stepping into a deep pothole. ‘There’s no point in discussing it,’ she said. ‘Life happens. It’s not as planned as we would like to think it is.’

  ‘Did you plan to get pregnant?’

  ‘No, that was an accident,’ she said. ‘But it’s not one I regret. Ella’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’

  Luca took the phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. ‘I guess you will need this,’ he said. ‘She’s very cute by the way. She looks exactly like you.’

  Bronte felt a thick lump lodge in her throat. ‘Th…thank you.’ She clutched the phone to her thumping chest, blinking back tears of relief, regret and deep self-loathing.

  He stepped closer and cupped her cheek, holding her face so tenderly more tears came to her eyes. ‘Why are you crying, cara?’ he said softly.

  She swallowed and gulped back a sob. ‘It could have been so different…’ She blinked a couple of times but the tears still fell. ‘I wanted it to be so different…but now it’s too late…’

  He brought her head against his chest, his fingers splayed in her hair, the deep rumble of his voice as he spoke tearing Bronte’s heart in two. ‘I know, but that is my fault, mio piccolo. I wasn’t ready. I was in a bad place in my life. I wasn’t able to give you what you wanted. But then I wasn’t even able to give myself what I wanted. It was just not our time.’

  Bronte stood in the circle of his arms, wishing she could stay there for ever. But after a moment he stepped back from her. His expression was hard to read. He was smiling but it wasn’t a smile that reached anywhere near his eyes. There were shadows there instead, flickering shadows that gave no hint of what he was feeling.

  ‘I should let you get home to your little girl,’ he said, sliding his hands down her arms to her wrists, holding them loosely with his long fingers.

  A pain deep inside her chest made it almost impossible for Bronte to speak. ‘It was…it was nice to see you again, Luca.’

  He brought one of her hands up to his mouth, pressing his lips to her bent fingers. ‘I hope one day you will forgive me for how I ended things,’ he said.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Bronte said. ‘I should have accepted your decision. I think I made a terrible fool of myself. Actually, I know I made a terrible fool of myself. I practically stalked you. I was so desperate to tell you I was…’ She stopped and quickly regrouped. ‘I mean…I was so desperate to know if there was something I had done to upset you. I should have realised our relationship had run its course. You had never offered anything permanent and I was a fool to hope and dream you would. I was caught up in the whole romance of my first real love affair. I was too immature to see it. Perhaps I didn’t want to see it.’

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it, Bronte,’ he said. ‘We have this chance now to see if we can make a better go of it.’

  Bronte felt her heart give a flutter like a startled pigeon. ‘Y-you want to… I mean you still want to… I can’t, Luca. I can’t see you. I told you that.’

  His jaw took on an uncompromising set. ‘You told me yourself there is no one else in your life. What’s to stop us revisiting our relationship if it’s what we both want?’

  ‘It’s what you want,’ she said. ‘It’s not what I want at all.’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ he said, tightening his hold on her wrists as she tried to get away. ‘The way you kissed me earlier told me how much you still want me.’

  ‘You made me kiss you,’ she argued.

  ‘Don’t split hairs, Bronte,’ he sai
d. ‘We were kissing each other. We want each other just as much as we ever did.’

  ‘I can’t have a casual affair with you,’ she said. ‘I have responsibilities now. I haven’t got room in my life for you.’

  ‘Make room,’ he said and, tugging her close, brought his mouth down on hers.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘GOSH, you look like you didn’t get any sleep at all last night,’ Rachel said as Bronte came into the studio the next day. ‘Was it your hot date or your darling daughter who kept you up all hours?’

  Bronte gave her a don’t-speak-to-me-about-it look.

  ‘Come on, Bronte,’ Rachel pleaded. ‘You didn’t even return any of my texts. What happened? Did you tell him about Ella?’

  Bronte blew out a sigh. ‘No, I didn’t get around to it.’

  Rachel’s brows went up. ‘What did you get around to?’ She leaned closer and peered at Bronte’s chin. ‘Hey, is that what I think it is?’

  Bronte put her hand up to the reddened patch on her chin where Luca’s evening stubble had left its mark. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said.

  Rachel folded her arms in a you-can’t-fool-me pose. ‘Beard rash only happens when you get up close and personal,’ she said. ‘So the spark is still there, huh?’

  Bronte pulled her hair back into a high ponytail, all the while trying to avoid her friend’s eyes. She felt so conflicted about last night. That final kiss had burned her like fire. The stubble rash on her chin was nothing to what she felt inside. She was still smouldering with want, a hot needy craving for more of Luca’s touch. He had ended the kiss and sent her on her way, only after he had extracted a promise to meet him for dinner this evening. She had practically stumbled back to her car, her emotions on a roller coaster ride as she thought of the danger she was dancing with.

  She had spent most of the night once she got home arguing with herself over whether she should have told him from the get-go about Ella. But then the counter argument was always the same: how could she trust him not to take Ella away from her? After all, he had left her in London without a single explanation as to why their affair was over. What was to stop him doing the same thing again, but this time taking Ella with him? It was just too risky. She had to protect her daughter. She had to protect herself.

  ‘So are you seeing him again?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Bronte said, slipping out of her street shoes to begin her stretches. ‘Dinner tonight. I don’t know why I agreed to it. I know it’s only asking for trouble. He wants to resume our relationship as if nothing happened.’

  ‘That’s men for you,’ Rachel said, rolling her eyes. ‘So did he tell you why he broke things off before?’

  ‘Not really,’ Bronte said, frowning. ‘Just that it was a bad time for him or something.’

  ‘You think there was someone else?’

  Bronte let out another long breath. ‘I don’t know what to think. When I spoke to the housekeeper at his place in Milan she was adamant he was involved with someone in LA.’

  ‘But?’

  Bronte met her friend’s grey gaze. ‘I get the feeling Luca is not being totally straight with me. I don’t trust him. I don’t think I will ever trust him after what he did. He could have a woman in every country for all I know.’

  ‘You said he wants to resume his relationship with you,’ Rachel said. ‘But how are you going to do that without telling him about Ella?’

  ‘He knows about Ella,’ Bronte said. ‘He just doesn’t know she’s his. I left my phone behind and he saw some of the pictures I’d taken of her lately. I let him assume she was someone else’s child.’

  Rachel frowned. ‘How’d you do that?’

  Bronte gave her a sheepish look. ‘I sort of lied about her age.’

  Rachel shook her head in disapproval. ‘That could come back to bite you, Bronte. You should have told him. It will only make things much worse the longer you leave it.’

  ‘I can’t tell him,’ Bronte said, pressing a hand to her aching head. ‘He could take her off me. You don’t know what the Sabbatinis are like, Rachel. They’re one of the most powerful dynasties, not just in Italy but all over Europe. They’re practically royalty. They have money and prestige and power beyond belief. I spent a bit of time on the Net last night when I couldn’t sleep, looking them up. His father died about three years before I met Luca, but Giancarlo and Giovanna Sabbatini brought their three sons up with more silver spoons than you could possibly count. Luca’s grandfather, Salvatore, is reputed to be one of the richest men in the whole of Europe. Luca told me very little of his background when we were involved. I’m not sure why, maybe because so many women were attracted to him and his brothers because of their wealth. I didn’t even know who he was when we met. He thought that was highly amusing. I think it might have been one of the reasons he let our relationship continue as long as it did as it was such a refreshing change from what he was used to. He was sick of people fawning over him. He once said to me it is hard to really know who your friends are when you have money.’

  ‘You do realise that Ella is by birth entitled to some of that money, don’t you?’ Rachel said. ‘She’s got Sabbatini blood in her veins. And, according to what I read in the papers about Luca’s older brother’s marriage breaking up without an heir, Ella is so far the only grandchild.’

  Bronte pressed her lips together. She hadn’t thought of it quite like that. She hadn’t thought about Ella’s rights and entitlements as a Sabbatini heir. What if some time in the future her daughter resented her for not allowing her to get to know her father and his family?

  ‘Look, Bronte,’ Rachel went on. ‘I know Luca hurt you and you don’t trust him not to hurt you again, but you can’t keep his own flesh and blood a secret from him for ever. For all you know, he might be surprisingly good about it. After all, he was the one who cut you from his life. You did your best to contact him so if anyone’s to blame for him not being a part of Ella’s first year and a bit, it’s him.’

  Bronte’s shoulders sagged. ‘I know I have to tell him some time. It’s just finding the right time to do it.’

  ‘There’s probably never going to be a perfect time to drop that sort of news into the conversation,’ Rachel said. ‘But it’s better he hears it from you rather than from someone else or, worse, stumbles across the truth himself. Photos are not the same as seeing someone face to face. As soon as Luca walked in here yesterday I realised who he was. That’s why I kept my mouth shut. Ella might favour you primarily, but no one could ever question she wasn’t his daughter. Once he sees her in the flesh, he’s going to see it for himself.’

  Bronte tried to put her fears aside as she got on with her day but it was impossible to ignore the prospect of the evening ahead. She got home early enough to feed Ella her dinner and bathe her and have some play time before putting her to bed. Ella was a little grizzly and out of sorts and kept gnawing on her fingers, which made Bronte feel uneasy about leaving her.

  ‘I think she might be teething again,’ Bronte’s mother said as she came into the granny flat to babysit. ‘She was a bit grumpy yesterday too.’

  Bronte placed her hand on her daughter’s forehead, frowning as she felt its clammy heat. ‘I’d better check her temperature. She feels hot.’

  Tina produced the rapid test ear thermometer and handed it to Bronte. The reading was normal but still Bronte felt in two minds about leaving her daughter in such an unsettled state. ‘Maybe I should ring Luca and cancel,’ she said. ‘He gave me his contact details. Or I could just leave a message with the concierge at the hotel.’

  Tina plucked the whining child from Bronte’s arms and cuddled her close. ‘Get it over with, love,’ she said. ‘Have dinner with him and then say goodbye and leave it at that. He’ll soon get the message you’re not interested. I know Rachel thinks you should tell him about Ella but I think you’d be better to let this particular sleeping dog lie.’

  Bronte knew why her mother was so adamant about keeping Ella’s paternity a se
cret from Luca. Tina was frightened her little granddaughter would be taken to live far away in another country. Apart from Bronte and Ella, Tina had very little in her life. A single mother herself from a young age, all she had was her work at a machinery parts factory, which could hardly be called a fulfilling career. Bronte and now little Ella were the entire focus of her life. She had never dated, rarely socialised and had few hobbies. Rachel had warned Bronte many times that her mother was living her life vicariously through Bronte but it had been too hard for Bronte to do anything about it. She had needed her mother, just as much if not more than her mother needed her.

  ‘If she doesn’t settle, promise you’ll ring me,’ Bronte said as she rummaged through her wardrobe for something to wear.

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Tina assured her. ‘I’ll nurse her for a while until she drops off.’ She looked down at the infant in her arms and continued wistfully, ‘I love watching her sleep. It reminds me of when you were a baby. It was just you and me in those days. I don’t know what I would have done if anything had happened to you. You were my whole world.’

  Bronte smiled and leant down to kiss her mother and her little daughter. ‘I won’t be late,’ she said softly. ‘And thanks, Mum, for everything.’

  Tina smiled back but Bronte could see there was a tinge of worry in her eyes as she watched her leave.

  Luca straightened his tie and shook down his shirt cuffs, freeing them of his dinner jacket. He had had meetings all day and his head was buzzing with all the things he had to do over the next month. This trip to Melbourne was proving to be one of the best decisions of his career in the family corporation. He had begun the negotiation for plans for a boutique hotel development in the city as well as two more commercial property investments: a large office block in the CBD and a parking lot with the potential for expansion.

  And then there was Bronte. He had found it hard to sleep last night once she had left. He still couldn’t believe he had let her leave. He had been so close to pulling her back towards his bed and solving the issues over the past by doing what they had always done best. The trouble was he wanted her to come to him willingly. Seduction was easy; working on a relationship was harder. He didn’t want to end up like his brother Giorgio with a bitter estrangement from his wife and very likely a costly and acrimonious divorce pending. Luca wanted to get it right this time. He wanted to start again, put the past aside and work on his future—the future he hadn’t been sure he would have. Life for him now was about living. Taking each day as a blessing and moving forward with renewed purpose. Bronte was his stumbling block to moving on. He had to know if he had a chance to make things right with her. To see if what they’d had was still there.