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I don’t want him to see how we’re living. I don’t want any of this. We live in different countries. We have vastly different lives. So I have no idea what he’s going to want or how it’s going to work. But I will stay in Lukas’s life and so I have to be calm and stay in control. I have to do my best for my son.
I don’t answer Dain verbally. I simply stand and start walking, cradling my precious son, hating the heat that’s coursing through my body as this tall, devastating man wordlessly falls into step alongside me. Well, he stalks really—like a barely leashed predator. For the first time in months I feel revitalised—fury fills me with the energy I’ve been lacking in so long. As we walk I lift my head and breathe deep and when we finally arrive...
I’m ready to fight.
CHAPTER SIX
Dain
I’VE HAD ONE serious concussion in my life from a skiing accident when I was fourteen. Back then I lost three hours but right now I’m more stunned and confused than when I woke up and found myself in a hospital hundreds of kilometres from the ski field. Today it seems I’ve lost months. I can’t see straight, let alone think. My thundering pulse deafens me to anything—any excuse—she might try to make.
She’s had a baby. My son. And this is the first I’ve heard about it and that’s only because I happened upon them by accident.
I barely register the walk back to the café. She leads me through the crowded tables to the rear. Behind a door marked Private there’s a narrow flight of stairs. Climbing them, I feel the echo of that small storeroom where we first met. The room at the top of these stairs is even smaller. The first thing I see is a narrow bed. A baby bassinet is pulled up beside it. Everything is clean and neat but spare—it’s minimal in decor, devoid of luxury. Bare necessities only.
Anger churns but desire adds a vicious twist right at the most wrong of moments. I want her on that bed. With me. Which is ridiculous because it’s nowhere near big enough for the both of us. Yeah, cognitive function is fully impaired and anger is the safest option.
‘How long have you lived here?’ I growl.
‘I need to change Lukas,’ she mutters.
I watch. She’s efficient as she cares for the baby. Of course she is. She’s done this hundreds of times. I wouldn’t know where to begin. My anger sharpens as she picks him up again. The betrayal is intense and when she smiles at the baby I snap.
‘You need to start packing,’ I hiss and shove my hands into my jacket pockets.
‘Packing?’
‘You can’t stay another night here.’
It’s noisy. It’s tiny. Which is probably why she has to go for walks during the café’s busiest hours. It’s appalling.
She stares at me with such mistrust it burns. What did I ever do to deserve it? But I rein my resentment in. I need her to agree with me.
‘We can’t talk properly here. Not with people trying to enjoy their coffee downstairs.’ And not in front of the child. ‘Did I ever give you reason not to trust me, Talia? Because right now I feel like I’m the one who can’t trust you, given you never told me I have a son.’
‘I tried—’
‘Exactly where did you supposedly send all those messages?’ I ask.
‘Don’t you believe I sent them?’ she whispers furiously. ‘Why don’t you check?’
‘Why do you think I’m asking?’ I snap back. ‘A forensic IT search is about to be launched.’
She looks down at the baby and I see her striving to steady her breath. ‘There isn’t a direct email for you listed on your company website. You have no phone number. Your social media profiles are non-existent. You’re very well protected from the public.’
She’s right. I push for as much privacy as possible. ‘So you sent them to...?’
Coming from one of Australia’s most wealthy families—plus being single—provides challenges. All emails are filtered but surely hers should have been flagged.
‘I sent them to the information address.’
What did she say? How blunt was she? How many did she send? I can’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t as many as possible. ‘You should have tried harder.’
She lifts her chin defiantly. ‘Perhaps I should have gone to the media? Sold my story? Shamed you by saying we had sex in the middle of a thunderstorm and that as a result...’ Her eyebrows lift.
I’m on fire inside at the thought of that—I’m too aware of the ravenous public appetite for personal drama. I would have loathed it but the truth would’ve got to me at last. ‘Perhaps you should have,’ I say more calmly than I’m feeling. ‘It would have got my attention.’
‘And destroyed my reputation—my career—in the process. I’d have become known as Dain Anzelotti’s baby-mama. As far as I could tell, you weren’t interested. I needed to protect my own earning potential.’
