Climbing onto soft sandstone rocks, she hugged her knees as she gazed out, watched the early-morning swimmers race in the ocean pool, and shivered at the very thought. Yet there was no sight more beautiful than Coogee in the morning. Surfers waiting patiently in the distance for the wave that would carry them to the shore, lone joggers getting their fix of nature before they headed to their offices and computers.
All this she could have.
All this their child could have.
She could almost picture it—a child as blonde as herself or as dark as Zarios, laughing, running…
And Emma stilled.
Only her eyes moved—scanning, processing the colourful scene before her and trying to condense it into a grainy snapshot.
The same snapshot she had seen at Rocco’s.
Of the slice of time when Zarios had been happy.
Craning her neck, she stared up at his windows, pondered the demons that haunted him, this most difficult and complicated man.
And vowed that together they’d face them.
The raised voices that greeted her as she pushed open the front door had her hesitating. The thick throaty sobs of a woman crying had every one of her hackles up. Miranda, perhaps—or another ex-lover come to plead for a second chance? All these thoughts whirred through her mind as she walked through the hallway.
All were laid to rest before she even got to the lounge.
Rapid words were being fired in Italian by Zarios.
The throaty sobs of their recipient told Emma they were brutal.
‘Per favore…’
She was as beautiful as her son, her black eyes desperate, pleading with him to just listen, but Zarios was having none of it.
‘Fuori!’ He shooed her away as if she were a gypsy come begging, and when that didn’t work, when she grabbed at his arm, he dusted her off as if she were some filthy fly. ‘Out!’ He bundled her bag in her arms, dismissing her so absolutely that Emma felt her blood run cold.
‘Zarios…’She was torn, wanting to go after his mother but desperate to talk sense to him. ‘She’s your mother!’
‘Mother?’ He spat the word out. ‘Puttana, more like. Now she is back—now, when my father is near his grave, she decides she loves him, decides she made a mistake. It is thirty years too late…’
‘For who?’ Emma pleaded. ‘It’s not too late for your father—he never stopped loving her.’
‘Then he’s a fool!’ Zarios snarled. ‘All she wants is his money. It’s all any of you want—’ He stopped talking then, halted himself mid-sentence. But it was too late, the words were already out, his poison free. And she tasted it, glimpsed a future that was only as good as his most recent apology.
‘I’ll pay you back.’ Oh, she would—she’d rather lose everything to Jake than be indebted to Zarios. ‘On Monday you’ll get every cent back.’
‘Don’t bother.’ He stared right at her as he flung the final knife. ‘We agreed that if I was unfaithful then you didn’t owe me anything.’ It hit her right between the eyes—the pain, the humiliation, all repeated—and she hated, loathed herself that she had let him do it to her again.
‘You bastard.’
‘Nothing’s changed, then.’ Zarios gave her a black smile. ‘Go on—off you go…’
‘Just like that.’ She couldn’t believe the callousness of him—that after all they’d shared last night he could so easily eradicate her, could loathe her so readily when so recently he’d adored her. ‘Zarios, what about your father? The board?’
‘I don’t care!’ Zarios roared. ‘I don’t care what they think any more. I am the one who made them rich—I am the one who lined their greedy palms. If they think they are better off without me then let them try.’
‘You don’t care about anyone.’ She was scooping her stuff into a handbag, desperate to just get the hell out. ‘You’re so busy looking for the worst in people—’
‘Where’s the good?’ Zarios interrupted. ‘Tell me, where is the good?’
‘I loved you!’ Words that should had been said gently were instead hurled. ‘I loved you right from that first night—but finally you’ve succeeded in convincing me that I was a fool.’
But fools still had feelings, fools still glimpsed paradise—and last night she had.
And she’d have given anything to reclaim it.
‘I’m pregnant, Zarios.’ She was trembling, shaking as she said it—hoping, praying, the words would slam some sense into him, would halt the row long enough so that they could at least talk. But he was unreachable.
For Zarios it was as if he were staring at Miranda, as if he were having his skull split with an axe. He had braced himself to be felled two weeks ago—he had never expected it today. Her last frantic attempts to salvage the situation made him sick to the stomach. So sick, he couldn’t even look at her, struggling to even utter a single word.
‘So?’
It was the cruellest of responses, and on behalf of their child she hated him for it. Yet there was a quiet dignity to her as she countered his poison.
‘I’m letting you know just so you can’t say I didn’t tell you.’
‘Put it in a letter from your lawyer.’ Zarios shrugged.
‘That’s it?’
‘Send me the bill…’ Zarios jeered. ‘But for now—get the hell out. You make me sick, just looking at you.’
He even had the gall to offer her his driver, but pale, nauseous, she declined, unable to even look at him, too numb even to be stunned at his sheer callousness.
‘It’s okay…’
She must have looked like a madwoman—dressed in his clothes, with bare feet and a sparkly handbag, and talking to herself.
Except she wasn’t talking to herself. She was talking to their child.
Her child.
‘We’re going to be just fine, little one.’
Waving down a taxi, Emma asked to be taken to the hotel, then told the driver to wait as she grabbed her things, then headed to the airport.
It was her baby now, and Zarios could take her to court to prove otherwise.
He’d have to fight for the right to call it his now—he’d lost that privilege an hour ago.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘DOVE?’ Incensed, furious, Rocco pounced on his son, demanding to know where he’d been. Thoroughly un-together, and reeking of brandy fumes, Zarios was present if not correct for the board meeting on Monday morning. ‘Dove siete stato?’
‘Enjoying the fruits of my labour.’ Zarios stared at his father. ‘I work hard, so I play hard.’
‘The paper says your engagement is over—’
‘You believe the papers?’ Zarios shrugged.
‘You were to behave!’ Rocco roared. ‘All I asked was that for a couple of months you pulled your head in—instead you shame me. Engaged one minute, broken off the next—and what about Emma?’
‘You were the one who warned me off her!’ Zarios pointed out.
But Rocco refused to back down. He was so incensed he could hardly get the words out. ‘Because I knew what you’d do! And now—now when my life’s work is to be decided—you arrive ubriaco—’
‘I am not drunk,’ Zarios interrupted. ‘I wish I were drunk—it would be easier to face those buffoons. Instead I will do it with a hangover! You should be the one doing this—you should be reminding them that you built this company, that this has been your life, this is what you chose over raising your child. And yet you let them walk all over you.’
‘I will not be here soon. I am trying to make sure they accept you as their leader—that things—’
‘Lead, then!’ Zarios said. ‘Lead me into the boardroom now and they can make their choice. But I will tell them what I am now telling you—I will never serve to appease!’
The blinds hadn’t even been opened in the boardroom. Unshaven, dishevelled, and with bags under his eyes so heavy they looked like bruises, Zarios faced those who considered themselves his peers and smiled darkly at them.
<
br /> ‘My father founded this company forty years ago—here in Melbourne. Now it is multinational, now it is a world leader—and now, when my father is due to retire, you question whether its name should remain D’Amilo. Now you question the leadership of the family that has enriched your lifestyle. There is no question.’
Zarios snapped open the blinds, drenching the boardroom in sunlight, and, despite his dishevelled state, somehow he was the most dignified of all of them.
‘With the massive returns last year, while you were adding to your retirement fund or purchasing your beachside home, I, too, was securing my future.’ He jabbed a finger at the office block beyond. ‘In every D’Amilo boardroom around the world, if you look out of the window the view will be the same: I have secured prime office space in every city where this company trades, and I am telling you now that I can and I will take my family name and start again. And I will succeed—because that is what the D’Amilo name means.’ He eyeballed every one of his colleagues. ‘You are either behind me one hundred percent, or you can sit at your desks and wave to me from this window.’
He didn’t even wait for their response—just stalked out of the boardroom and back to his luxurious office, telling his assistant he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances. Flicking off the lights, he lay on his leather sofa and tried to turn off his thoughts, tried not to go down that path. But at every turn the map led the same way, her face was the only thing he could picture. The only solace was sleep—at least in his dreams she was laughing.
‘They are behind you.’
‘Of course they are.’ Zarios had shaved and changed, his hair was gleaming. He was utterly together.
‘You are right.’ For the first time ever Rocco praised his son. ‘I am proud of you.’
‘I will not let your company down.’ Zarios accepted his compliment with backhanded grace. ‘I may let myself down at times, but it will never translate to our shareholders.’
‘Your mother is coming back to me.’
As Zarios opened his mouth to tell his father exactly what he thought of that decision the older man got there first.
‘Thirty years later in life than you, my son, I have worked out that I don’t care what others think any more. Just as you will not appease them—I will not appease you. I love your mother. I have missed her for half of my life…’
‘Can’t you see she is just back now you are ill—now there is money?’
‘Perhaps…’ Rocco shrugged—the same shrug he had inadvertently handed down to his son. ‘But is it better to die cold and alone in bed with your pride intact, or warm and caressed and believing that love exists?’
‘What if she is using you, Pa?’ They both knew Zarios wasn’t talking about his mother as for the first time he begged his father’s advice. ‘What if you know she is trouble? What if you know?’
‘Then you ask yourself if the good outweighs the bad.’
Oh, and it did. Closing his eyes, Zarios recalled Emma’s scent, the sound of her laughter, and knew that he would lie for a week in the gutter with banshees wailing over him if it meant he could spend one night by her side.
‘People don’t have to be perfect for us to love them,’ Rocco said. ‘Emma is proof of that.’
‘Emma?’ Zarios frowned; they were supposed to be talking about him.
‘You’re the buffoon.’ Rocco smiled. ‘When will you get it in your head that Emma loves you?’
He would tell her.
Sitting at his desk, Zarios rested his head in his hands, his fingers bunching in his cropped hair as he prepared himself for the hardest task—to trust her, to forgive her, to tell her he was sorry.
He didn’t care about the money, and he could help her with her problems—because what they had found, what they had shared, albeit briefly, was priceless.
‘Zarios!’ Jake knocked on his office door, his smile wide. ‘Have you seen Beth or Emma? We were supposed to be meeting in the coffee bar opposite before coming to sign all the papers and tidy everything up.’
‘Not yet…’ Zarios dragged himself from his introspection and forced a smile, then glanced at his watch. ‘There’s still a while yet.’
‘I can’t get hold of Beth, that’s all—maybe she’s having trouble with the babysitter.’
‘Maybe.’ Zarios shrugged, because talk of babysitters and the like was a foreign language to him. ‘Jake, I wanted to talk to you. When I rang you the other day about Emma—’
‘Actually—’ Jake gave a tiny grimace ‘—when we discussed Emma’s problem—well, I didn’t feel comfortable anyway. But given you were practically family…’ He dropped the apologetic smile. ‘And now you’re not.’
‘I still have your sister’s best interests at heart.’
‘Really?’ Jake frowned in distaste. ‘I think it would be better for everyone if you kept your distance.’
Which made sense, Zarios told himself. After all, Jake was just looking out for his sister—but he hadn’t seemed too concerned moments before.
An uneasy feeling was building inside Zarios. Emma had said Jake was the one with the problem, and he’d dismissed it as her being in denial. Jake with the beaming smile and gleaming shoes. Jake with his fancy car and nice city lifestyle.
Jake with the depressed wife and out-of-control twins.
Damn.
His mind was racing, he was dialling her number, leaving rambling messages on her message bank. He attempted to filter their every conversation, trying to discard, dismiss, verify, trying to assimilate the facts…
Charging out of his office, he was just in time to glimpse the meeting room door close, Zarios rueing the fact he’d removed himself from the management of their parents’ estate. Pacing the floor like a caged animal, he wanted to be in there, wanted to be on the other side of the door, sitting beside Emma.
Emma halted her own pacing for a second and stared at her bleeping phone. There had been several frantic messages from Jake, asking where she was, and now Zarios had joined in—ringing her, texting her. Well, they’d all know soon enough.
‘Thanks for coming…’ Emma felt like the biggest bitch in the world as she let Beth into her tiny flat. ‘Where are the twins?’
‘I’m having them looked after today.’ Shy, evasive, Beth declined a drink and then perched on the edge of Emma’s sofa. ‘You know, don’t you?’
‘Know?’
‘That I’m leaving him today.’
Emma felt the thud as the rest of her world crashed.
‘I’m not after his money.’ Beth shook her head. ‘He can have it—he can go throw it up the wall or put it on black—I just don’t care any more…’
And Emma saw it then. If she had danced on the edge of Jake’s addiction then Beth had lived in the full clutch of it. Here was a woman who was ready to walk away with nothing more than the clothes she was wearing and her babies—who deserved so much more.
‘I love your brother…’ Her tired, puffy eyes met Emma’s. ‘But as much as I love him I hate him. I know there isn’t a good time to leave. I’ve tried…’ great sobs heaved at her body ‘…but there was always something to get past first—the twins’ birthday, Christmas, your dad’s sixtieth, your parents’ funeral—I keep waiting for the moment to be right. And it’s not coming. Today,’ she sobbed, ‘he gets a million dollars. Please, God, today I can go…’
There was nothing she couldn’t tell this woman, Emma realised as she put her arms around tired, weary shoulders—nothing she could say that would hurt her more than she already was.
‘I know.’ She felt tension, denial in her sister-in-law’s shoulders. ‘I know how hard this has been on you, and I’ll do what I can for you and the twins. Beth…’ She felt the mingling of grief and relief flood through her sister-in-law as she offered her support. ‘I know about his habit. I’ve lent him my share of the inheritance…’
‘More fool you, then.’ Beth’s voice was bitter, but Emma knew it wasn’t aimed at her. ‘You know you won’t get i
t back?’
‘I’ve hired a lawyer.’ Emma’s voice was shaking as she admitted to her sister-in-law what she had done. ‘He’s representing me today—Jake’s just about to find out.’
As Jake marched out, his face like thunder, Zarios knew his hunch had been right. The nice-guy act had vanished and, not even acknowledging Zarios, he brushed past, banging his hand on the lift button, impatience in every cell. He finally gave in and took the stairs.
‘You did the right thing!’ Jed, one of the directors, rolled his eyes as the exit door slammed. ‘Removing yourself—I don’t think I’ve ever seen a nastier handover of assets.’
But Zarios wasn’t listening. His eyes were looking over his colleagues’ shoulder as the members of the meeting tripped out, desperate to see her, to offer his late support.
‘Where’s Emma?’
‘She sent a lawyer on her behalf. The transaction went ahead, and then Jake was served with notice. She’s suing him for the money he owes her, and all his assets have been frozen. He owes money everywhere.’ Jed’s lips were grim. ‘Can’t help but feel sorry for him, really. Not only did his pay-day not come, he’s just found out that his wife’s left him, too.’
Zarios could feel the blood pounding in his temples as realisation struck. The problem he had brushed aside when she’d tried to tell him, so sure had he been that the debt had been hers, had been her trying to help her brother. Ice seemed to be running through his veins and yet he was sweating, Zarios realised, as he recalled Jake’s murderous expression as he left the office.
A man at rock bottom was a dangerous one.
‘It’s not his fault, of course…‘ Irony laced Jed’s words. ‘We’re trying to contact the wife to warn her…’
But he was speaking to an empty space. Zarios was two steps ahead, jumping into the lift that had appeared, desperate to get to Emma—to warn her, to tell her, to protect her.
He could taste bile in his throat, the bitter, acrid taste of fear, and it was swirling in his stomach and rising as full realisation hit.
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