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Dain carefully passes Lukas back to me. ‘I need to make a couple of arrangements.’
It’s a relief that he puts his intense focus onto his phone. He taps several messages before making a call.
‘Do you have a car seat for him?’ He interrupts his flow to ask me.
I nod, I was loaned one. I’m glad Romy isn’t on shift at the café, so I don’t have to explain anything to her in person. I’ll leave a message for her in a bit.
Ten minutes later I carry Lukas and my backpack downstairs. Dain carries Lukas’s bag and his bassinet. On the pavement, a driver waiting beside a gleaming black car hastens forward to assist. I don’t know if I’ll be coming back. Again, that’s something that’s all too familiar.
Bitterness wells and I blink back tears. I’m used to upheaval like this and I’m a survivor, but I didn’t want Lukas to experience it ever. I want him to have stability and security. So I have to work this out with Dain.
I’ve never forgotten that night and part of me is still deeply attracted to him—the hormonal, basic breeding instinct part. You’d think it would have been satisfied already. Yep, I’m a fool. It’s not that I don’t think relationships can ever last but a guy like Dain—rich and entitled—isn’t a commitment king. Yet I went with him anyway—blinded by looks and charisma and the impetuousness sparked by that stormy night. And if it had been for just that one wild night I might’ve got away with it, but for my precious child.
It’s a twenty-minute, awkward-silence-filled drive out of town.
I frown. ‘I thought we were going to a hotel?’
Instead we pull up at a stunning mansion on a large section. Established trees shield it from the road, yet once we’re inside I clock the amazing views of the vast landscape.
‘This place belongs to a friend,’ he says.
‘Does she hire it out?’
‘What?’ He looks blank. ‘No.’
I could kick myself. She’s wealthy—another world where you can have a holiday home bigger than most people’s houses and keep it empty most of the year round. I’ve no reason or right to be jealous yet the feeling rising within me is nothing but ugly. I make myself say something polite. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘We’ll have privacy here,’ he says crisply.
He cares so very much about privacy. I wonder what happened to make him value it so acutely. Is it simply the pressure of being a high-net-worth individual? That poor-rich-boy thing? That isn’t happening to Lukas.
There was an image of Dain and his grandfather on the history section of the company website. Nothing of his parents. Dain looked about eleven in the photo.
‘You don’t need anything else for Lukas?’ he asks as he carries in the bags. ‘I thought there were all kinds of things babies needed, but this doesn’t seem like much.’
Shame burns. I don’t have the money for anything more than the basics.
‘We’ll get whatever else we need in Australia,’ he says.
‘Don’t think that by repeatedly mentioning it, I’ll suddenly agree to move.’ I follow to see where he’s taking Lukas’s bed. ‘I’m used to sleeping near him.’
‘Sure.’ He walks forward. ‘While we’re here, he’s in the room between each of ours.’
Lukas is restless and needs some playtime. I lay him on the warm rug in front of the wood-burner that was lit before we arrived. I kneel beside him and pull out his favourite rabbit toy to play and let him kick out his legs.
Dain appears in the doorway but doesn’t venture in. ‘He’ll be okay if we watch him from here while we talk?’
My stomach sinks. I feel as if I’ve been summoned to the principal’s office. He’s watching Lukas but as I approach his gaze lifts. Heat crawls over me. Suddenly clumsy, I almost trip over my own feet.
‘What’s the project you have in Queenstown?’ I mumble to distract us both from my humiliating loss of co-ordination.
‘The new apartments by the golf course. That’s why I was here a year ago. Simone wanted my investment.’
I know the ones. According to the sign they’re all sold already and they’ve barely begun building them.
‘Why did you run off so quickly that night?’ he asks bluntly.
‘I had another job to get to.’
