Scandal: Unclaimed Love-Child

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  As the lift soared to the penthouse floor Bronte looked at Luca from beneath her lowered lashes. He had a frown of concentration on his forehead and there were twin lines of tension running either side of his mouth. His arms were hanging by his sides, but she saw him clench and unclench his hands as if he was mentally preparing himself for something.

  ‘I thought you would be used to the intrusion of the media by now,’ she said into the humming silence.

  He turned his head to look at her. ‘Believe me, Bronte, you never get used to it. Do you know what it’s like having every moment of your life documented? The lack of privacy is unbelievable. There are times when I cannot even have a cup of coffee without someone wanting to take a picture. It drives me completely crazy.’

  ‘I guess it’s the price of success,’ she said. ‘You were born into an extremely wealthy family. The public are fascinated by how the other half lives.’

  He gave her a quirky smile as the lift stopped at his floor. ‘Are you fascinated, cara?’

  She pursed her lips and stepped past him, holding her head at a proud angle. ‘You and your family hold no fascination for me whatsoever. I have too much to do in my own life to be keeping track of someone else’s.’

  As they came to the correct number he inserted his key card into the penthouse suite door and held it open for her to precede him. ‘So you haven’t kept yourself up to date on all my affairs over the last two years?’ he asked.

  Bronte spoke without thinking. ‘There’s been hardly anything about you in the papers and magazines. It always seems to be about your brothers. It’s as if you disappeared off the face of the earth the first year after we broke up.’

  He gave her a long thoughtful look as he closed the door behind him. ‘For a time that’s exactly what I wanted to do,’ he said, leading the way through to the large lounge. ‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked over his shoulder.

  Bronte was still thinking about why he’d wanted to disappear without trace. There had been something in his tone that seemed tinged with regret and a part of her wondered if it had something to do with her.

  Of course not! she chided herself crossly. He was a playboy who had had numerous affairs before she had come along. The only thing that might have set her apart was her innocence and naivety. He had obviously found that a novelty and was hoping for a rerun. She could see it in the dark depths of his eyes every time they meshed with hers. She felt the rush of her blood too, which reminded her rather timely that she was not quite as immune to him as she would have liked.

  ‘Bronte?’ he prompted, holding up a bottle of champagne.

  ‘Oh…yes, thanks,’ she said, feeling gauche and awkward.

  After a moment he handed her a fizzing glass of French champagne, the price of which, Bronte noted, would have paid her last electricity bill, not just for her granny flat but most probably the studio as well.

  ‘To us,’ he said, touching his glass against hers.

  Bronte hesitated before she took a sip. Luca watched her quizzically, one brow slightly elevated. ‘Not to your taste, Bronte?’ he asked.

  ‘The champagne, I am sure, is lovely,’ she said. ‘It’s what we’re toasting to that is not palatable.’

  He held her flinty look with consummate ease. ‘You choose, then,’ he suggested, holding his glass just in reach of hers. ‘What shall we drink to?’

  Bronte raised her glass and clinked it against his. ‘To moving on.’

  His brow went up a little higher this time. ‘Interesting,’ he said musingly. ‘Does this mean the man you are seeing is a permanent fixture in your life?’

  Bronte wished she could say yes. And if it was anyone but David Brougham she might well have done so. She felt she needed an excuse, a good excuse, not to see Luca again. It was just too dangerous; not because of Ella, but because of how he made Bronte feel. She could feel emotions bubbling under the surface even now. Dangerous emotions: needs that ached to be fulfilled, longings that wouldn’t be suppressed, no matter how hard she tried.

  She was supposed to hate him.

  She did hate him.

  He had abandoned her, leaving her when she was so vulnerable and alone. And yet one meeting with him and her mind was filling with images of them together: him kissing her, his lips sealing hers with such passion, his arms around her body, holding her against the surging heat and potency of his. How could she forget how he made her feel? Would there ever be a time when she would not feel her heart twist and ache when she heard his name mentioned or saw it in print? Would she ever be able to forgive him for not loving her, for not even respecting her enough to say goodbye face to face?

  ‘You seem to be taking rather a long time to answer my question,’ Luca observed. ‘Which can only mean one thing: you are not seriously involved with him. If you were madly in love with someone, surely you would have no hesitation in telling me.’

  Bronte drank some of her champagne, stalling for time, for courage, for anything. ‘It seems to me it wouldn’t matter to you how I answered. You have your own agenda. That’s what this little tête à tête is all about, isn’t it?’

  He wandered over to one of the massive leather sofas and indicated for her to sit down. He waited until she was perched on the edge of one of the cushions before he spoke. ‘I want to see you, Bronte. Not just tonight. Not even just now and again.’ He waited a beat, his eyes intense and unwavering on hers. ‘I want to see you as much as possible while I am here. I want you back.’

  Bronte’s hand trembled as she held the champagne glass. She tried to hold it steady by cradling it with both of her hands, her heart beating like an out of time pendulum. ‘I…you…I…I’m afraid that’s not possible…’ she faltered.

  He came to sit beside her, his hand removing the glass from her shaking ones. ‘I mean it, cara,’ he said and took both of her hands in his warm, dry ones. ‘I have never forgotten you.’

  Bronte felt anger come to her rescue. She wrenched out of his hold and jumped to her feet. ‘I am not some stupid plaything you can pick up and put down when you feel like it,’ she said. ‘You were the one to end things. You wanted a clean break and you got one. Coming back after all this time and telling me you’ve changed your mind is not just arrogant, it’s downright insulting.’

  Luca rose to his feet and pushed a hand through his hair. ‘Bronte, I wasn’t ready for a relationship two years ago. You came along at the wrong time. God, how I wish I could have met you just a year later. Even six months later. Everything would have been so different then.’

  She glowered at him and he felt a spike go through his chest. He had not expected her to hate him quite so much. This was going to be a little harder than he’d expected but he was prepared to work hard for what he wanted. If there were obstacles in the way he would remove them. If there was a way of winning her back to him he would do it, even if he had to resort to ruthless means. He had hoped he would not have to apply any sort of pressure. The rent thing was an insurance scheme on his part to get this far. First base was to see her again in private. He hadn’t even thought as far as second and third. He had just so desperately wanted to see her again.

  Bronte was still sending him looks with daggers and spears attached. ‘So what brought about this sudden change, Luca?’ she asked.

  Should he tell her? Luca wondered. He had told no one; not even his mother or brothers or elderly grandfather had known the truth about his trip to America until the deed was over and he was safely on the other side. He hadn’t wanted his family to go through the agonising heartache of knowing they could lose him or, even worse, have him come back to them damaged beyond recognition. He had seen his father propped up in a semi-conscious state in the last weeks before he’d finally died from the injuries he had sustained in a head-on collision. That had decided it for him. He had wanted to spare his mother and brothers from witnessing anything as gut-wrenching as that.

  Luca hated talking about that time, now that it was over. He liked to push it to the
back of his mind, inside a locked compartment inside his brain. In the weeks and months afterwards he would creak it open almost daily, marvelling that he was still here, functioning and breathing and talking. Now he just wanted to forget it had ever happened. The shame of his body letting him down so cruelly was something he no longer wanted to mull over. Telling Bronte about it would only make it come back to haunt him. It was too personal and too private and there was no way he could risk anything being leaked to the press if she wanted to try her hand at a payback. It was better she didn’t know. He just wanted his life to begin again from now. He was ready to move on and he wanted to do so with a clean slate.

  ‘I am at a time of life when I am looking for more stability,’ he said. ‘What we had was good, Bronte. Some of the happiest times of my life were those I spent with you.’

  Her slate-blue eyes were dark with suspicion. ‘Were those good times just with me, Luca? Or are you getting me mixed up with someone else?’

  ‘I never betrayed you, cara,’ he said. ‘There was only you during that time. No one else.’

  Her eyes rolled upwards as she swung away from him, her arms doing that barricade thing across her slim body, warning him off, shutting him out. ‘You betrayed me by ending our relationship without a single explanation as to why,’ she said in an embittered tone.

  Luca took a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds before he slowly released it. ‘I never intended to hurt you the way I did, Bronte. I accept full responsibility for it. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but I had no choice. It was not the time for us. We met too soon.’

  She turned back to look at him, her expression so scathing it actually hurt him to maintain eye contact. ‘So, now you’ve sown all your wild oats, you want what, exactly?’ she asked. ‘You’re not proposing marriage, are you?’

  Luca was not going to offer something that would be thrown back in his face, or at least not yet. There were other ways to bring about what he wanted. More subtle ways. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am not proposing anything long-term at this stage. I am here in your country and I would like to see if what we had before can be resurrected.’

  Her lips pressed so tightly together they went white. After a tense moment she expelled her held breath on a whoosh. ‘You are unbelievable,’ she said. ‘You think you can just pick up where you left off, all things forgiven? What planet did you just drop down from? As if I would agree to being involved with you again. As if!’

  It was the tone of her ‘As if’ that did it. Luca felt his temper snap to attention like an elastic band stretched to the limit. ‘You might not have any choice in the matter,’ he said.

  Her eyes flared as his words hit home. ‘You wouldn’t dare…’ She almost breathed rather than said the words.

  He pushed his jaw forward, his eyes locked on hers. ‘I want you back in my bed, Bronte. If you don’t agree then there is nothing more to be said between us. You will have one week to vacate the premises of your studio. If you don’t vacate in one week the rent will increase substantially.’

  Her soft mouth fell open, her eyes still as wide as saucers. ‘You can’t mean that…’ she swallowed and then swallowed again, her voice coming out even scratchier ‘…y…you can’t possibly mean that…’

  Luca came over to her and stood just within touching distance, his eyes pinning hers. ‘The decision is yours, Bronte,’ he said, running a hand down her upper arm from shoulder to elbow, each and every pore of her flesh rising in shivery goosebumps under his touch. ‘Which is it to be?’

  Chapter Three

  BRONTE couldn’t think. Her mind was whirling like a fairground ride that had been set at too fast a speed. He wanted her to sleep with him. He wanted to resume their affair. He didn’t want anything permanent. He was going to use her and discard her like he did before. Round and round the thoughts went until she felt dizzy and sick and heartsore. How could he do this to her? He was the one who had walked away. It wasn’t as if she had done anything to hurt him. He had broken her heart, he had all but ruined her life and yet here he was acting as if she owed him!

  She stepped back from him, biting the inside of her mouth until she tasted blood. She turned on her heel and began pacing the floor. She had to think of a way out of this. Was there a way out of this?

  ‘Come here.’

  Bronte felt his two word command like hammer blows to her heart. How ruthless he sounded! She was nothing but a chattel, a possession he had bartered for. She stopped pacing and stood her ground, her chin high, with her eyes flashing their hatred at him. ‘If you want me then you’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming for I will not come willingly.’

  His lips slowly curved upwards in a sexy smile. ‘Are you absolutely sure about that, tesore mio?’ he asked in a low husky drawl.

  Now that you mention it, Bronte thought in panic as she recalled his warm electrifying touch on her arm just moments ago. He had set spot fires all throughout her body with that one stroke of his hand along her upper arm. He had awakened every nerve of her skin, made her heart beat twice its pace and made a hole open up deep inside her, a hollow ache she knew from experience could only be filled by him.

  He came back to where she was standing; actually, shaking was probably a more accurate description. He placed a broad fingertip beneath her rigid chin and slowly but surely lifted it until her eyes had nowhere to go but meet his. ‘It’s still there, isn’t it, cara?’ he said. ‘The chemistry between us. I felt it the moment I walked into the studio this afternoon. I can feel it now. You can too. I can see it in your eyes. I can feel it when I touch you. You tremble all over.’

  Bronte stopped breathing when he brought his mouth to the corner of hers. He brushed his lips against her skin, a feather-light touch that made her quiver in reaction, fulfilling every word he had just spoken about her response to him. Her body was her betrayer; she had no hope of disguising how he affected her. His warm hint-of-mint breath skated over her lips before touching down on the other side of her mouth, the same soft brush of lips on sensitive skin evoking the same heady rush of feeling inside her body. She heard a soft whimper and realised with a little jolt it had come from her mouth. Her lips had softly fallen open, her mouth an open invitation for the plunder of his.

  But he didn’t do it.

  He smiled that lazy smile as he met her bewildered, uncertain gaze and then he slowly pressed a soft barely-there kiss to each of her eyebrows. ‘You have the most amazing blue eyes,’ he said, low and deep like a bolt of satin dragged across gravel. ‘Like the heart of a flame, dark and fiery. They burn one minute and the next they shine like the surface of a deep ocean.’

  She trembled all over as he ran his hands down both of her arms, his fingers encircling her wrists like handcuffs. She felt the soft tug that brought her flat against his body, her belly coming into contact with his arousal. Heat exploded inside her, pooling between her thighs, hot and fragrant with need. How could she still want him when she hated him so much? It didn’t seem fair that her body would betray her so shamelessly. She hated herself for being so weak. She hated him for making her want him. She hated that she wanted to lean into him and offer her mouth and body to his to pleasure. The pressure of want was building deep inside her: an ache, a pulse, a drumbeat that would not be ignored.

  ‘Beautiful, sweet Bronte,’ he said just above her mouth. ‘Do you have any idea how much I still want you?’

  Bronte felt the proud probe of his hot hard flesh and felt an answering quake of want in her inner core. It was like a hungry beast growling for satiation inside her. Her body stepped up its demand for assuagement, torturing her with tiny exquisite reminders of the pleasure she had felt with him in the past. Her mind was full of images of them locked in erotic poses: his body pinning her from above, from below, from behind or up against the nearest wall or even on the kitchen counter, his body pounding into hers, her arms locked around his neck or waist, her body coming apart time and time again.

  ‘Tell me you feel it too
,’ he said just above her mouth, his warm breath a caress, a temptation, a torture. ‘Tell me you remember how it was between us.’

  Bronte was beyond speech. She just wanted to feel his mouth on hers, even if it was for the last time. Surely it wasn’t wrong to want that? Just a taste, a reminder of how it felt to have him kiss her senseless. She pulled her hands out of the loose grasp of his and linked them around his neck. She looked him in the eyes, drowning all over again in their dark brown depths. And then she rose up on tiptoe and pressed her mouth to his, somehow knowing that in doing so she was passing a point of no return.

  It was like fire meeting fuel. A burn of longing that flickered and then roared, consuming everything in its path. Her mouth opened at the first searing, searching thrust of his tongue, her tongue dancing with his, darting away shyly at first and then flirting with his outrageously, boldly, wantonly. He groaned deeply as he deepened the kiss, his hands guiding her body as he backed her up against the nearest wall, his mouth increasing its pressure, its heat and its passion until she felt as if she was being sucked into a whirlpool of clawing, desperate need.

  With the wall at her back, his body had more leverage against hers. She felt the hard ridge of him against her belly, the pounding heat of his blood surging through his veins in primal response to his need to mate. She felt the urge too. It was beating inside her like a primitive tribal drum, the walls of her feminine core quivering in anticipation of the delicious friction of his commanding possession.