by Anna Cleary
His eyes sharpened, then veiled. But she could feel the power of his attention like a high-voltage searchlight.
He lifted his shoulders. ‘It seemed sensible.’ But she could tell he was pleased.
‘Are you busy on Saturday?’ She cast him a glance from beneath her lashes. ‘I thought it might be best if we introduced you somewhere that’s very familiar to her.’
‘Not the schoolyard?’
‘No, not the schoolyard.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Heavens, will I ever be able to walk in there again without blushing?’
‘It’s probably safer for us to save that location for ourselves.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘In the midnight hours.’ He sipped his wine, his eyes dwelling on her face. ‘So you’re thinking-at your home? Mightn’t that be a bit confronting?’
‘Possibly. You may be right, that being her safe haven and everything.’ She gave her champagne a swirl. ‘There is of course the park. She knows it very well, and there’s play equipment there. If necessary she could play while we talk.’
‘Ah, yes, now that sounds good. Does she-does she have a lot to say?’
‘When she’s happy and comfortable she chatters like a tree full of cockatoos.’
He smiled, and sat there thinking. ‘Is there something else we should do? Perhaps go on a trip, visit the zoo, or…What do you suggest?’
‘Why don’t we see how it goes? If we get on, we might make a plan for Sunday.’
His smile illuminated his entire face. ‘Molto bene. I will keep Sunday free.’ He hesitated a moment. ‘So…how will you tell her?’
‘I told her about you this afternoon after we saw the flowers. And thank you for those, by the way. You must have been feeling very-They’re gorgeous.’
He waved his hand. ‘The least I could do. So…How did she-how did she take it?’
She smiled in recollection. ‘Very matter-of-factly, actually.’ She broke into a laugh. ‘You’re not quite up there with Santa Claus, but that’s because she hasn’t seen you yet. Once she meets you…’ She lowered her lashes to conceal a sudden mistiness, and said huskily, ‘Once she meets you, she will know.’
‘What will she know?’ he said softly.
‘How-how you are.’
‘And how is that?’
‘Among other things-hot.’
He laughed and took her hand and kissed it. ‘Thank you for the compliment. Likewise.’
She clasped fingers with him, savouring the warmth and strength of his firm grasp, a tremulous glow in her heart. She glanced at him. ‘And there’s something I must explain to you. About what happened six years ago.’
Though sitting quite still, he seemed to immobilise to an even deeper stillness, while his gaze grew darker and more unfathomable. She could sense a tension in his lean, lithe frame, and realised that everything she said now was in some way crucial.
‘I’m sorry about today, Alessandro. Those things I said. Blaming you and shrieking at you like that in the lobby like a-a-when I know now it wasn’t your fault, at all. I can’t explain why those feelings all had to come boiling up again, after all this time. I’d thought they were all dead and buried. I guess because of the way I felt then-Although you know, I probably only felt the way any woman would feel, when I read you were married.’ She lowered her gaze, then glanced up at him. ‘The truth is, I really intended to meet you at Centrepoint that day.’
His eyes sharpened in incredulity. ‘Cosa?’
She nodded. ‘I was all ready to go with you. Suitcase packed and all. And I would have, except that I was in hospital at the time.’
He swivelled his body around to face her in full. ‘Per carità. In hospital? Why was that?’
Despite her resolve to stay calm, when she saw his concerned expression she felt the tears well in her throat. ‘I told you about the summer of the bushfires. Well, that was the summer.’
‘You mean-that summer? When your father died?’
‘Yes, that summer. After we made that pact…’ His jaw hardened, and he drew breath to speak, but she waved her hand to prevent him. ‘My fault, I know, I know. If you only knew how much I regret it…’ Her voice started to tremble. She snapped open her purse for a bunch of tissues, and wiped her nose, then took a further moment to calm herself.
He hastened in with, ‘No, no, please, don’t be upset.’ He added, a little stiffly, ‘I know-I may have said some things about that pact. Perhaps I sounded negative. Well, it was an outrageous demand, wasn’t it, an absolutely incredible test of a man’s-!’ He broke off and breathed rather hard for some seconds. ‘But…’ He recovered his composure and threw up his hands. ‘I have to accept that I did agree to it. In the end.’ His lips tightened. ‘Against my better judgement.’
She winced. ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea at the time that you felt so strongly about it. But you know, I was quite young. I didn’t know you all that well…’
He stemmed her defences with a hasty gesture. ‘All right, yes, yes, I know, I know. Let’s not dwell too much on the whys and wherefors, now. So…’ His brilliant dark gaze was intent on her face. ‘What happened?’
She was silent for a moment, gathering her thoughts. ‘Well, after you left, I worked out my notice in my job. Then I gave up my flat and travelled up to Bindinong to spend the final week with my parents. There’d been fires around, as there are every summer. But with the weather conditions a few days before I was due to meet you it all suddenly exploded out of control. This huge fire swept down from the ridge and right through the town. Our street was cut off, and our house went up along with some others. Dad and I and a few other people were trapped. Most of us survived, only Dad…’
Even thinking of it brought back the choking smell of smoke, the fearful roaring of a world engulfed in flame, the searing, terrifying heat. Her throat closed and she broke off and allowed a gesture to take the place of words. Alessandro leaned across and took her arms, stroking her and making concerned, soothing murmurs.
When she could speak again, she said, ‘I was one of the lucky ones. The Fire Service got me out.’
‘But you were injured?’
She glanced at him, hesitating. ‘Oh, well, I had-you know, a bump on the head. What they call a little hairline fracture, and a small, insignificant-burn…’ Conscious of his fixed, querying gaze, she steeled herself to lift her hair. Ignoring her drumming heart, she flashed him a glimpse of the scar running down her nape to her shoulder.
He gave a sharp exclamation. She risked a glance at him, and saw that his dark eyes looked stricken. Though perhaps not with the horror she’d dreaded. And not revulsion either, apparently, to her extreme relief. It seemed to be more concern and sympathy he was feeling, because he put his arms around her and kissed her forehead, then her cheeks, then her lips with the most fervent tenderness.
‘Oh, Lara,’ he said thickly. ‘My poor Larissa. If only I had known this. If only…’ His arms tightened around her and she responded in kind, hugging him, pressing her lips to his strong neck, enjoying the wonderful masculine scents of him and the feel of his powerful heartbeat, thundering away next to hers. ‘How long were you in the hospital, tesoro?’
‘A couple of weeks. It took me a few days to wake up.’
‘Per carità. You could have died.’
‘Oh, no. Heavens, I was lucky. Look, this is nothing,’ she said when he finally released her, to her intense regret. Well, he had to. They were in a public restaurant, and after last night there were definite risks. Even under such teary conditions she felt pleasantly stimulated by the contact with his big, warm body.
‘A little scarring, is all,’ she went on, dismissing it with an airy gesture. ‘Compared to what some people suffered it’s-minuscule. A bagatelle.’ He reached to lift her hair for another inspection, but she moved sharply aside. ‘No, don’t. Please.’
Comprehension gleamed in his dark eyes, and he grew contrite. ‘I’m-sorry.’ Then he added, his face a little stiff, ‘I am-I am devastated by all of this, tesoro, but in some way
so relieved to know.’ His hands lifted as if he needed to touch her, grab her, but he put them down again. ‘It changes everything. To know that at least you tried to…’ He bunched his fists. ‘If only I had known sooner.’ He sat back against the banquette, shaking his head and exclaiming in Italian. After a few seconds he glanced enquiringly at her. ‘You mentioned that fire the other night, but I never connected it. You should have explained.’
‘Should I?’ She made a slight grimace. ‘You hadn’t been so very pleased to see me earlier, though, had you? I guess I felt-wary of saying too much.’
‘Ah.’ He looked remorseful and lifted his shoulders in acknowledgement. ‘When I saw your name on that list the first day, I admit it was a shock. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about seeing you. But…’ he exhaled a long breath ‘…I understand now.’ He turned sharply to rake her with a serious gaze. ‘And-when did you find out you were pregnant?’
She grimaced. ‘In the hospital.’
He closed his eyes. ‘Oh. How it must have been for you. What you have suffered…You and your mother. Losing your poor father…’
‘I admit it was hard at first.’ She gave a rueful shrug. ‘But we’re over it now, and we’re fine. Really.’ She met his gaze fleetingly, conscious of his intent scrutiny. ‘The first year or two were pretty challenging, but, you know, life goes on. Even the worst grief softens. We made it through the bad time.’ She glanced at him and said softly, ‘Well, you know, we had Vivi to live for.’
He met her gaze, a warm shimmer lighting his eyes.
The waiter appeared again and swooped down with the selection of small dishes of fragrant, steaming delicacies.
Alessandro dealt with him with his usual courtesy, but his expression was serious and distracted. As soon as the man was out of earshot, he turned to her with more avid questions, about that time in hospital, her recovery, her ability to communicate.
‘Everything the Meadows family owned was lost,’ she explained. ‘My phone, et cetera, with your number in it.’ She shook her head in wry remembrance. ‘You’d have thought yours would be one number I’d remember, but for weeks after the event it was as if my brain was paralysed. I could hardly remember my own name. It was the trauma of the blow mixed with the shock, they said.’
‘Well, that certainly explains why I couldn’t make any connection when I phoned you. Dio, how frustrated I was.’ He took up the servers and spooned some truffled tortellini with lobster sauce onto her plate. ‘Would I be right in guessing that later on when you’d recovered enough to try you couldn’t find me?’
She nodded. ‘When I phoned Harvard, the university refused to release any information. Finally, after about the tenth call, someone told me you were no longer a student there. I felt so…I didn’t know where you were in the world. Where to look.’ She grimaced. ‘And I really needed to find you, of course…’
She paused and, drawing another preparatory breath, heard Alessandro cursing softly to himself.
‘Oh, fool that I was. And then you learned of my marriage.’
She shrugged and smiled at him through her mist. ‘I might as well admit that back then, I was-in love with you, I suppose. Well…’ She cast him a sidelong glance. ‘I was much younger then, I’d had no experience of sophisticated affairs with citizens of the world. So when I saw about your-your wedding…in that magazine…’ Her throat swelled at the remembered pain.
He sighed. ‘If I had only known this. I could have…’ could have-Everything would have been different.’
‘Would it?’ She swallowed. ‘Oh, well. It’s all water under the bridge now.’ She shrugged and raised rueful eyes to his. ‘Call it Fate, or whatever. And when I think of what you must have gone through when you came to meet me and I wasn’t there…Oh, poor Sandro, I’m so, so sorry. What you must have thought…And all these years I’ve been thinking such harsh things about you.’
He looked rueful, and in the muted light of the restaurant she thought she could detect a faint flush under his olive tan. He made a small grimace. ‘You have thought harsh things.’
With a stab of remorse she bit her lip, reaching to take his hand again. ‘Oh, of course you must have felt like that, of course. Flying all that way and thinking I’d let you down. Oh, that ridiculous pact. I’m so ashamed to have insisted on it. Why did you ever agree?’ She caught his darkening gaze and quickly moved the conversation on. ‘And I understand now.’ She looked at him through her lashes. ‘This is why you were so hostile the other day. No wonder. Who could ever blame you?’
He took immediate issue with her reading. ‘I wouldn’t say hostile. I may have been-reserved. I needed to-consider the situation.’
A silence fell while she considered the implications of everything. All her misconceptions had suddenly turned themselves around to stand the right way up.
She glanced at him. ‘Is-that why you said you had nothing to lose? When you-married Giulia? Because you felt-let down?’
He frowned, then lifted his shoulders and said in a gruff voice, ‘There may have been-some sort of rebound response in my thinking at the time.’
She looked wonderingly at him, her over-full heart fluttering in her chest like a cricket. ‘So-you did want me, back then?’
He gazed at her for a long intense moment, while her pulse rushed faster than a white-water torrent, and said very quietly, ‘I think I must have.’ Then his mouth relaxed and his eyes lit with an ironic gleam. ‘Well, I was quite young.’
Her heart skipped a few bars and she put her trembling hands to her cheeks. ‘It’s all so unbelievable, I can hardly think straight. I think we’ll both need time to process it all.’
Despite his gently mocking response, the air felt suddenly charged with questions. If he’d truly wanted her then, did that mean he would now? One thing was certain. Despite his reserve she could sense a burning turbulence behind his lean, intelligent face, as though her revelation had detonated a major realignment of his ideas. Maybe it was as cataclysmic as the one she was experiencing herself.
His dark eyes scanned her face, then he leaned across and kissed her lips. ‘What you need now is to eat some of this delicious little supper, and then I think we should walk.’
She smiled. ‘Walk where?’
‘To the Seasons,’ he said firmly.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IN A few short days, the world had changed, Alessandro marvelled to himself as he hustled Lara the few tree-lined blocks past Circular Quay and into George Street. Soon he would meet his daughter, his own flesh and blood.
He contemplated that shining truth, his heart filled to bursting with the miracle of it. Why had he ever found it so threatening?
He cringed to think of his behaviour to Lara that first night. That whole first day.
He grilled her with questions about the hardships she’d faced as a single parent, possessed of a burning need to make up for it all and show her what was in his heart. Unfortunately, the English language, excellent as it was, lacked the versatility of Italian when it came to expressing such powerful emotions, and a man could hardly sing in a Sydney street. There was only one true way he could be sure of.
Fortunately, the short walk to the Seasons was peppered with shadowy nooks and crannies. Perfect for a man eager to demonstrate his gratitude and affection to a woman without causing her public embarrassment.
Once or twice, laughing, he swept her into the shadows, dragged her into his arms and kissed her until her sweet, shuddering breath mingled with his, and she trembled and panted for more. Once he kissed her so ruthlessly, so thoroughly, none of the secret, thrilling places of her supple body escaped his bold, marauding hands.
By the time he inserted the room key into the lock, he was hard, and he could sense her desire as tangibly as his own. Her eyes were the dark, smoky blue that turned his blood into molten lava.
Inside the softly lit room, her initial reticence the previous evening, with her shy request to dim the lights, flooded back to him, poignant with a meani
ng that twisted his heart. But his instincts for what was right asserted themselves. There would be no more secrets between them. No forbidden areas.
He took her in his arms, and she linked hers around his neck in captivating compliance while he backed her towards the bed with a kiss.
‘Now,’ he said, gently removing her pashmina.
On the edge of a heavenly suspense, Lara surrendered to the electric pleasure of his touch as he stroked her hair back from her forehead, and traced the line of her cheekbones with his finger.
‘You are just as I remember you that very first time.’ Desire darkened his eyes, his voice. ‘Still so beautiful.’
‘Not quite, I’m afraid.’ She made a wry little grimace.
His dark eyes filled with ardent tenderness. ‘More so, tesoro,’ he said fiercely, his voice thickening. ‘Even more.’
He drew her to the bed, and she sat beside him while he yanked off his shoes and socks. Then he reached under her hair for the zip on her dress and drew it down. She felt cool air on her bare back, and felt his supple fingers trace the ridge of her spine all the way to her nape, then pause to linger at one point, before reversing to trace the scar where it slewed across her shoulder.
She tensed and would have jerked away, but he murmured, ‘No, don’t flinch.’
She sat very still, forcing herself not to react. Not to shy away from his sure touch, although her insides were clenched in a knot.
The scar was smooth after all this time, but it had a different smoothness from the surrounding skin, almost a slippery, satin feel. Trembling, she felt his fingers trace the shape of it, all the way up her nape and into her hair. He pushed the hair aside.
He must have been able to see the puckered skin quite clearly, yet he didn’t shudder away, or show disgust. She sat bolt upright, her breath coming in tiny shallow gasps as she stared at the carpet and tried to dissociate. A tremor rocked her when, to her absolute shock, she felt him bend and press his lips to the damaged tissue. He continued, kissing the entire length of the scar, up into her hair and back again. After the first paralysed moments, she closed her eyes, willing herself not to shudder and flinch, and gradually allowed the knot inside her to dissolve.
