by Trish Morey
They could have been any other couple walking the bay that day, and anyone else would have believed they were just a normal couple in love. The moment was so tender and sweet, and the risks that she would spoil this fragile sense of camaraderie between them too great, that she chose to say nothing.
The nights were too precious, their love-making so passionate, exquisite and explosive, never failing to rock her world and deliver her, fully sated, into the arms of sleep.
And before she knew it they were back in Auckland and he’d whisked her off on a launch to visit Waiheke Island and inspect more property. This time it was residential, although the properties he showed her looked more like palaces than every-day houses, with their sprawling, tropical gardens complete with tennis courts and swimming pools, and the all-too-necessary helipad for the daily commute to the city.
Then it was back to the endless round of meetings and dinners with architects, financiers and lawyers and there was no time to think of anything but the matters at hand.
Until it occurred to her. The twinges and cramps that had started out so promisingly had faded away to nothing.
She was four days late.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MACKENZI STARED down at the bold blue line and knew her life had changed forever.
Because she was no longer just late.
She was pregnant.
Fear jagged through her like the slash of a bread knife, throwing her off balance, so that she had to grab hold of the marble bathroom vanity just to keep herself upright. Dante’s bedroom bargain had just got a whole lot more complicated.
It wasn’t just bad enough that she was pregnant. She was pregnant with Dante Carrazzo’s child. And somehow she would have to find a way to tell him.
Now she couldn’t put off talking to him. Now there could be no waiting for the right moment, no giving way to the worry that she might spoil something precious. Because everything was ruined. She was pregnant to Dante Carrazzo. And things couldn’t possibly get any worse.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror, looking for changes, seeking any telltale sign that she should have noticed, something that could have alerted her to the possibility that she was pregnant. But her nose looked as asymmetrical as it ever had, and her eyes blinked back at her as green as ever, maybe just a little jaded. But she was bound to be tired, surely, with the hectic pace Dante kept up day and night?
God, a baby. What the hell was she going to do with a baby? How would she cope, a single mother trying to work the crazy hours of a job in the hospitality industry? Assuming she could get a job when she got home. Applying, pregnant and single, for a senior position like she’d held before was not going to win her any favours.
What the hell was she going to do?
She took a couple of deep breaths. First things first. She’d need to see a doctor and have her discovery confirmed. There was no point saying anything about it until then, because it could be a false positive, couldn’t it? Her weary eyes looked back at her. Fat chance, they said.
Dante called from outside, interrupting her thoughts and letting her know their breakfast had arrived. Her stomach instantly rebelled at the prospect of food. Or was it just at his voice, knowing what lay in store for her? If the doctor did confirm the worst then she knew she was going to have to tell him. She just wished she knew how she was going to do it.
Mackenzi turned on the shower she should have finished five minutes ago and let the water cascade over her, vacantly soaping herself, one hand unconsciously coming to rest over the place underneath where a brand-new life was taking shape. What kind of mother would she be? Her own parents had struggled for years to have a child, finally resorting to technology in a bid to achieve their dream. She had known she was wanted, and desperately so, for her entire life. She had been loved. Was loved.
And yet here she was, pregnant through misadventure. Through an act of carelessness, if she wanted to be honest. Did that mean she would love her child any less? Please God, no.
And how would Dante take to fatherhood? She had no way of knowing, no hint as to his background, upbringing or family life. All she did know was that he was passionate and driven, and yet he could be tender, could be so achingly tender. But there was an ugly side to Dante, something twisted and bitter, something that turned him into an agent of destruction.
Steam fogged the room, turning the air thick and way too sultry. One thing, though, was crystal clear: a child of hers deserved better than a father who was hell-bent on destruction. Any decision Dante made on the future of Ashton House was going to determine how much he had to do with his baby’s life.
Maybe he’d surprise her. Maybe that tenderness he’d displayed to her of late meant something more than mere respect. And maybe there was a chance, if he could relent on the fate of the hotel, that they might be able to work out a way to share custody of the child.
But, if he was going to go ahead with his plans to destroy the hotel and the building, she’d make sure his child had as little to do with its father as possible.
In her heart of hearts she dearly wished it wouldn’t come to that.
She snapped off the shower and dried quickly, wrapping herself in her robe. She hid the stick and packaging in her toiletries bag and let herself out of the bathroom, feeling shaky and breathless with the aftershock of her discovery, her mind almost overcome from trying to unravel the sudden tangle her life had become.
Dante was seated at the table, poring over the business pages. ‘You took your time,’ he said without looking up. He’d poured her coffee and for the first time ever the smell of the dark, rich roast he preferred threatened to turn her stomach. She clamped down on the feeling, pushing the cup away.
‘Dante, we need to talk.’
‘That sounds ominous,’ he said in a voice that sounded like he was expecting to hear news that was anything but. He picked up his cup and took a long sip of the steaming black fluid, and looked up at her, his brow puckering when he saw her face.
She turned her face away. Now she couldn’t even bear to look at a cup of coffee. What was happening to her? She heard the sound of his cup meeting the saucer. ‘What’s on your mind?’
Too much to think straight. ‘A couple of things.’
‘Spit them out, then.’ He already sounded impatient.
Her head bowed, she turned her eyes up towards him. ‘You know the deal we made, the promise you made to me to reconsider your decision to close Ashton House?’
She had his full attention now. She could see it in the hardening of his eyes, the firming of his jaw and the body language that turned his shoulders and chest warrior-like.
‘Do we have to discuss this now? We have a meeting with Quinn in an hour.’
‘Dante, this is important. It can’t wait any longer.’
He ground his jaw. ‘What about our deal?’
She took a deep breath. ‘Well, you thought this arrangement would last a week, maybe two…’
‘And?’
‘And it’s been that and longer! I’ve been your mistress, I’ve slept in your bed. I’ve kept up my end of the deal.’
‘I haven’t noticed you complaining.’
‘I’m not complaining. It’s just that I’m not sure I can do this any more.’
‘So you’re calling the deal off?’
‘No! I just need to know where you stand. You promised me you’d think about your decision to destroy Ashton House. I’ve kept up my end of the bargain. Have you?’
His eyes glared back at her, glazed and frosty. A muscle in his jaw popped. ‘I’ve thought about it, yes.’
As if she’d picked up the temperature from his eyes, her blood ran ice-cold with foreboding.
‘And?’
‘My decision stands.’
She stood, her body unable to take the shock of his announcement sitting down, every part of her at war with his words. ‘What? You can’t mean that, not after everything that’s happened. You’re actually going to go ahead and clos
e Ashton House?’
‘That’s my decision.’
‘But you can’t do that. Not now—’
‘The decision has been made.’
‘When was it made? You didn’t tell me you’d already decided. You let me go on thinking…’
‘You unexpectedly proved quite useful in business, and were a very pleasant diversion after hours. Why shorten the affair unnecessarily?’
His callous assessment of her worth was like a body blow. ‘“Useful in business”? Aren’t you forgetting that I saved your deal? Without me you wouldn’t have one.’
‘And I tried to thank you and you threw your gift back in my face!’
Blood hammered in her ears, the drumbeat of fury and turmoil and utter devastation as something fragile and hopeful inside her crumpled, leaving only anger in its wake. ‘I don’t believe you even thought about it. I think you had your mind made up from day one and you were never going to change it!’
He stood, tossing the unfinished newspaper aside. ‘You can believe what you like. But that was a risk you took when you agreed to this deal.’
‘But if you’d thought about it you’d see how utterly insane it is. That there’s no point—’
‘The matter is closed. I take it that means our arrangement is at an end?’
His ice-cold rapier words sliced through her, but it was the question contained in them that incensed her more than anything.
‘How can you possibly imagine I’d want to stay now?’
A shadow moved across his eyes, something fleeting and unreadable. ‘A shame, though. It was good while it lasted.’
She gulped. ‘If you say so.’
His eyes turned to a glare. ‘I’ll let Quinn know to tell Christine you’ve had to fly back suddenly to Adelaide.’ He tossed her a card from his wallet. ‘Adrian will take care of your travel arrangements.’
She tore the card in pieces and let them scatter where they fell. ‘He damn well won’t! I’m quite capable of making my own flight bookings.’
He stood there, as hard as a statue, the barely restrained fury emanating out from him not in a heated rage but in a cold, dank aura. Then he reached up on a breath and straightened his tie. ‘So be it. I want you packed and gone when I get back.’
Mackenzi stood watching him, unable to believe what had just happened as he strode to the office to organize his briefcase. So it had come to this? She’d outlived her use by date and now it was time for him to discard her. Even though she’d always known it could end this way—had from the very first day realized that she’d been kidding herself and that he’d been using her, determined never to change his mind—she’d never expected the gut-wrenching agony that accompanied her worst fears coming true.
Where had the tender Dante gone, the man who’d kissed ice cream from her lips and kindled the faint hope of something worthwhile in her heart? Now, where once there’d been hope, there was only grief.
Because she’d not only lost the hotel.
Her baby had lost its father.
Forever.
‘I thought you’d changed,’ she said to his broad, resolute back as he shoved papers and spreadsheets and plans into his briefcase. ‘I thought you’d learned something with the Quinn contract—that you don’t have to destroy things, that there’s worth in building instead.’
‘Ashton House is different.’
‘You’ve said that before. Why is it different?’
‘It just is!’
‘But look at what you’re doing. You’re not just destroying a building and a heritage, you’re messing with peoples’ lives, the people who work there, the people who were married there and who love the old place, like my parents and half the rest of the local community.’
He threw her a look that came with an acid burn, like he didn’t want to hear it, like he didn’t want to know. Too bad. He was going to hear it anyway. He deserved to hear it!
‘And what do you think it’s going to do to the former owners, Jonas and Sara Douglas, when they learn what you have planned for Ashton House? They were devastated merely to lose control of the property. What do you think it will do to them to see their pride and joy lie in ruins?’
He turned towards her then, his eyes like black holes, his features desolate. ‘Destroy them, I hope.’
Shock transfixed her, his voice so bleak, his expression so nightmarish and his words like a curse.
Which was the real Dante, she wondered—the passionate lover with a streak so tender it brought tears to her eyes, or this tormented creature, little more than an animal in pain?
‘What happened to you?’ she asked, putting voice to the questions in her mind, ‘To turn you into such a monster?’
The way his lips curled into what she took to be a smile almost sickened her. ‘You think I’m a monster?’
‘How else would you describe what you have planned? Especially when the Douglases have already had such a tragic life.’
‘Tragic? Jonas gambled his fortune away. What’s tragic about that?’
‘And who could blame him? They’d lost both their sons! What parent would survive that intact? And now they’ve seen their property fortune whittled away bit by bit. They’re going to be left with practically nothing. And why? What have they ever done to you?’
He laughed then, if it could have been called that, and she winced at the sound, discordant, like nails scraping on a blackboard. ‘It’s more than they ever left me.’
A premonition of something dark and fetid rolled through her, and she shuddered, torn between wanting to know and fearful for what he might say. ‘What do you mean?’ she whispered. ‘More than they ever left you?’
He clicked his briefcase shut and the sound seemed to rouse him. ‘I have a meeting to go to. Let yourself out.’
‘Dante! No.’ She met him at the door, reaching out a hand to his arm to stop him. She couldn’t let him go, not like this, not when he was so tortured. His anguish was so real and so raw that, in spite of every last hurtful thing he’d said to her today, her heart just wouldn’t let him walk out of here. She cared too much to see him go this way.
And like a thunderbolt it hit her.
She’d fallen in love with Dante Carrazzo.
He looked down at her hand on his arm, then to her face, as if expecting her to say something, to plead, to beg, to remonstrate some more. But she was dumbstruck, rendered mute by the realization that, against all her best intentions, she’d fallen in love with a man who could be a monster. Silence hung between them, the quiet drone of the air conditioning unit the only sound.
He shrugged off her hand, pulled open the door and marched out of her life.
The lift descended like a stone, his gut along with it, until when he reached the ground floor he felt he’d hit rock bottom.
Damn!
Why had she had to do that when everything had been going so well? Why had she had to ask? He was going to miss her input into his daily business dealings. He was going to miss her after hours even more.
Dante stepped out into the lobby, the taste of coffee stale in his mouth, the bitter finish to an unsatisfactory breakfast. The smell of rain met him, a gust of wind slamming into him as the lobby doors opened, releasing him into the grey outside world. Beyond the covered drive-through the rain-lashed city looked bleak and drab. Damn right.
He walked past the driver who’d been waiting for him, signalling that he wouldn’t be needing him, shrugging away his proffered umbrella. It was the perfect day to walk.
Why had she had to ask? She hadn’t seemed unhappy the last few days, quite the reverse. Lately she’d been less like a mistress and more like an extension of himself, a part of him. He’d got used to having her around. What had prompted her to do it? Stupid.
In the street the wind-driven rain struck his face, needle sharp and icy cold. It should hurt, he registered somewhere through the fog in his mind. It should at least sting. But he felt nothing, nothing but the anger. A different anger, he recognized, or
at least a different flavour of the anger.
He’d felt the familiar heat rising at her mention of Ashton House, but somehow the edge had been missing, that almost quintessential hatred, the pinnacle of loathing. He’d had to fight to find it, had had to fight her to feed his need.
And, to Mackenzi’s credit, she’d not failed him. She’d defended Ashton House with that undying loyalty she’d shown from day one, but her real pièce de résistance had been in beseeching him to care about what happened to Jonas and Sara Douglas.
Oh, he cared all right, but not in the way she wanted. He cared so much he’d see them rot in hell, even if it meant he’d be rotting right there alongside them, it would be worth it.
The rain grew heavier, pedestrians fleeing for cover, their umbrellas turned inside out, car headlights fighting the gloom and making crazy patterns on the slick road, and still he walked on. Uncaring. Unfeeling.
Mackenzi had tightened the screws and had found the one thing that could turn his anger incendiary.
So why did he feel so bad? Why did it taste different? Inside him his gut still felt as solid as a stone, like a cannon ball set loose, weighing him down. Rain streaked down his face, running trails past his collar down his neck and beyond, until he could feel the wet patches soaking into his shirt, his coat no protection against the remorseless weather. His shoes hit a puddle and filled with water, squelching between his toes.
It should feel cold. The thought came from nowhere, yet somewhere, deep in the jumbled fog of his mind. He should feel something. Instead he just felt empty.
He remembered her face then, her upturned face as she’d tried to stop him. He’d thought she was going to say something, but her parted lips had halted halfway to a word and she’d looked up at him with something akin to terror in her eyes.