by Anna Cleary
‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I came back for you. And you weren’t there.’
He said those last words so accusingly, at the last moment she sprang forward in sudden urgency and wailed, ‘But, Sandro. Sandro, don’t you understand?’
The doors closed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ALESSANDRO strode from the lift, giving way to a need to loosen his collar after feeling such unaccustomed heat. In an attempt to retrieve his habitual tranquillity, he tried to rationalise the events of the last few days by explaining them to himself in the cool, rational language only a man could understand.
So. A man meets a woman who tells him she has his child. The man wants to help the woman…No. The man is eager to know and help the woman and the child.
He offers the woman-against his better judgement after what happened the last time-but in total honesty and sincerity-his passion, his affection, but the woman has fears, despite her obvious passion for him. Irrational, certainly, but fears nonetheless-that the man will in some way harm the child.
Alessandro felt his blood pressure jump a notch.
The man sees his child…At the memory the breath caught in his throat, and he had to stand still as he did every time he thought of those heart-stopping moments. That small, exquisite girl. Her fingertips. That pure, soft skin.
He sees her, but knows very well, all the signs are there, that he, the father of the child, is excluded from that female circle. An invisible barrier has been erected around the woman and the child. And what for? Is it to do with the past? A past he is in no way responsible for?
Alessandro gritted his teeth.
Dio mio, he will smash that barrier with his bare hands if it kills him.
He walked into his office and met Tuila’s assessing gaze over the tops of her glasses. He scowled. What was that narrow-eyed look about?
‘Did you want to run through the people we’ve seen so far?’ Tuila said.
‘What people?’
Tuila’s brows shot up. ‘Are you kidding?’
He shrugged and kicked out his chair, though he didn’t sit down. ‘Sure, sure. Whatever.’
She started on the list of interviewees while he paced, hands shoved into his pockets. He would have to be firm. If Lara wouldn’t lower her guard he might have to show her the steel edge of his resolve.
‘Strike him,’ he commanded, raising an imperious hand when Tuila broached the first candidate. She arched her brows, and started in on the next one. ‘No, no, forget her,’ he ordered. ‘Dizzy.’
Lara’s behaviour was mystifying. He could see well enough why she’d be upset if she was pregnant and saw that he’d married someone else. But now, everything was different. Here he was, back in the country, quite prepared to…
‘Dexter Barry?’ Tuila enquired.
‘Per carità. Are you mad? The man was hopeless.’
‘How about Steve Disney? I rather liked him. He was young, bright, well qualified.’
He gave Tuila a long, steel glance. With a shrug she lowered her eyes.
He dragged a hand through his hair. Tonight could have been so fine. The music, the arrangements…He’d actually been looking forward to the planning.
Like-a couple of parents. Then afterwards, he’d have taken her to the hotel, and shown her how fantastic, how joyful it could be.
Sacramento, if he had time, if it were up to him he would show them the world, shower them with palazzoes lined with frescoes and gold leaf, scatter rose petals at their feet.
He realised with a cold chill that time was running out. In a few days he’d have settled on the managing director, and he’d be boarding that plane for Bangkok without having made Lara understand the first thing about him.
She still had no idea.
Although last night…Hadn’t there been that moment in the light of the street lamp when her eyes had been filled with emotion…? And then again afterwards, during the love…?
He closed his eyes while the vision of her loveliness, nude apart from those black stockings, swam before his eyes. Dio, the love.
Or had she just given him a little taste of herself to taunt him? The turmoil in his chest deepened. If he hadn’t been an optimist, he’d be starting to think they were doomed to end up like the last time. Just like the last time.
He had a grim feeling that he’d be forced to leave soon with everything unresolved with Lara, and without knowing Vivi.
His chest panged. His one child in the world.
And…
He realised in a sudden galvanising panic that if he didn’t take matters in hand, in no time Lara would be working for some other guy, who’d inevitably fall in love with her. He could picture it now. Some big, sunburnt, cricket-crazed Australian who’d be spending every minute of every working day plotting to seduce her. Next thing she knew she’d be marrying the guy, while his daughter, his little girl…
‘What about Roger Hayward? He wasn’t so bad, was he? Strong, clever, proactive…’
He started from his meditations. ‘Tuila,’ he snarled. ‘Get a grip.’ He slammed his fist on the desk and Tuila jumped. ‘None of those clowns will do. Not one of them.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LARA let herself in the gate, still in a stunned haze. All the way home on the train, all she’d been able to think of was Alessandro at the Centrepoint Tower, waiting into the night for the woman who never arrived.
How he must have suffered. His hurt, the disappointment. And, oh, what a bitter assault to his pride. She shied away from imagining his emotions on that return flight without her. Any man would have been seething with fury. No wonder he’d been so hostile on his first day at Stiletto.
The amazing thing was that he was still so-giving. He must have really wanted her then. While now…She had a panicked sense that today she’d used up her last chance with him. Somehow she had to find a way to explain at once.
After the flower-shop fiasco she’d found it impossible to see him again before she left work to straighten the record. He’d been ensconced with Tuila all afternoon, and then he must have slipped out while she was lingering at her desk for an opportunity to see him. If Vivi and Greta hadn’t been waiting for her she’d have gone to the Seasons after him.
Funny thing was that, now she was allowing herself to dream of it, she could see how wonderful a father he would be. If only there were some way she could stop him from getting on that plane to Bangkok.
Oh, face it, face it, Lara. In deep, all over again. In love with him as hopelessly and passionately as ever. Only now her needs weren’t just her needs. They were Vivi’s as well, and more urgent than ever before.
As usual, at home her mother’s eagle eye didn’t miss a thing.
‘How’d it go?’ Greta asked, the minute the hugs and kisses were over and Vivi had made her report on the Year One sandwich selection and the lunchtime tussle in the sandpit. ‘Any progress?’
Lara knew exactly what she was referring to. She wanted to know Alessandro’s reaction to seeing Vivi. She framed her reply carefully, conscious of small ears having major flapping ability.
‘A little.’ She met Greta’s eyes. ‘He wants to-further the acquaintance. He wanted me to meet him tonight to discuss it, only-I didn’t think it would be fair to-everyone.’ She glanced significantly at Vivi.
A thoughtful look came over Greta’s face. ‘What if I see if I can swap shifts?’ Her eyes glistened. ‘Oh, and did I mention? See what came for you.’ She pointed Lara up the stairs to her flat, and Lara climbed the stairs, Vivi bounding up ahead of her, Greta bringing up the rear.
She opened her front door and spring burst upon her. Flowers. Dozens of stocks, looking as perky as ever and done up in several heavenly arrangements, along with masses of jonquils, daffies, more of the delicious freesias, purple lisiandras, and roses, roses, roses. The florist must have been cleaned out.
The flat was as fragrant as a hothouse.
‘Oh,’ Lara gasped. ‘Oh.’
She needed n
o reminding of her ungracious behaviour at the florist’s, but in spite of that her heart bounded up in hopeful joy. It was probably natural Alessandro would have had some of them sent to her, since she was the one who’d sat in them-but there was no way she’d sat in all of them. Not the lizzies. And she’d certainly have remembered sitting in roses.
How could he have wanted to do something so wonderful, so romantic, after those things she’d snarled at him in the lobby?
Vivi whirled from bunch to bunch, rapturously cooing. ‘It’s Christmas. It’s Christmas.’ She turned and looked eagerly up at Lara. ‘Is it Christmas, Mummy? Did Santa bring them?’
Lara gazed at her, hesitating. This was a moment in time, she realised. A pivotal moment in Vivi’s life. ‘Ah. No, well…actually…’ She took Vivi’s hands. ‘Come and sit down over here, my darling, and I’ll tell you who sent them.’
A little later, Lara sat on her bed and flipped open her mobile, her urgency to talk to Alessandro sooner rather than later overwhelming all other considerations. Those flowers had to mean something. The outcome could be fantastic, or it could be a disaster. But what was she? A craven coward, or a strong, warm mother with her child’s interests at heart?
With her breath on hold, she dialled. Immediately, the number switched to the message service.
All right. Alessandro could be anywhere. She sprang up and paced. He might, or might not, keep to his plan of attending the opera. If she couldn’t find him there, she’d visit him at the hotel. Sure, it would be a gamble, but if she did nothing she’d never sleep.
It was definitely a moment to be seized. She checked the phone directory, and dialled the Opera House’s enquiry number.
Vivi was asleep long before Lara climbed into the taxi, the skirt of her red chiffony dress flaring from the big, warm, black pashmina she’d wrapped around herself. If Greta had been curious as to where she was headed, she kept it to herself, restricting herself to some warmly approving comments about Lara’s appearance.
Lara felt a nervy, optimistic excitement. The danger of the operation had ignited a turbulence in her blood like hot, seething lemonade. The last glimpse she’d had of herself in the dressing-table mirror had shown a reckless sparkle in her eyes that she had to admit was really rather flattering.
The taxi cruised through the night into the city, swept down the boulevard of Macquarie Street and circled the roundabout at the Opera House forecourt. She leaned forward, nervously scanning the trickle of people who’d already started to issue from the exits. Limos were queuing at the pick-up bay, but she doubted if Alessandro would have any use for a car.
She paid off the driver, stood getting her bearings for a second, then climbed a little way up the broad sweep of stairs to the platform on which the giant shells of the building rested. While she couldn’t cover all the exits, she felt certain Alessandro would choose to walk back to his hotel, and would be bound to pass close enough to this spot for her to see him.
She tried to damp down her nerves. It was important she remain poised and calm. Confident, assured. A woman to be reckoned with. A mother. The mother of his child.
The trickle swelled to a stream, and soon the concourse was a throng of opera patrons, scurrying to snatch taxis, or strolling off in groups and couples towards elegant suppers on Circular Quay. She cast about, hugging her pashmina to her, straining for a sight of one tall man among the many.
Alessandro avoided getting caught up in the crowd at the hatcheck, and strolled out onto the concourse, the rich Puccini melodies singing in his blood. And they weren’t all that stirred his blood. The sky was clear and cold, the night still young, and desire stalked his veins like a leopard.
The way he remembered it, six years ago Lara had been as passionate and enthusiastic about the evenings they’d shared at the opera as he himself. She’d been so eager to learn. She’d soaked up the music, adored all the stories he raked up from his memory to tell her about the opera legends-the divas, the conductors.
She’d have loved it tonight, he felt sure. And he’d have enjoyed it a thousand times more experiencing the spectacle and the drama through her fresh, bright eyes.
He shook his head, and realised with a heavy ache in his chest that his opportunities were diminishing.
He turned towards the Quay and the stroll to his hotel, resisting the glimpse of the future that of late had kept opening before him with a grim, unwelcome persistence. More cities, more hotels. More solitary evenings. More hollow friendships, made in transit. Empty, meaningless career triumphs. Offices that were other people’s workplaces. Nowhere of his own. No life to cling to.
Next thing he knew, he’d be an old man retreating to Venice to live in a mouldering ruin with his mother. What he needed…What he longed for…
‘Alessandro. Sandro?’
His heart, his feet, rocked to a sudden halt and he stood stock still, then turned his gaze upwards and to his right. Unless he was hallucinating, Lara was standing right there, on the Opera House steps. Her smile was a little uncertain, but her gaze didn’t waver. He watched her take a step down, then another, and he felt joy burst in his heart like a blaze.
‘Oh, hi,’ she said, an audible breathlessness in her voice. ‘I was just passing. I wasn’t sure if you’d really be here, but I thought-if you were, maybe you wouldn’t mind some company for the little supper?’
‘The little supper,’ he repeated hazily, his head reeling at how beautiful she looked, wrapped in some black lustrous wool thing that framed her face’s delicacy, while some gorgeous flash of red peeped out at her breast and swirled around her knees.
She was all lit up-eyes, lips, her glossy hair-as if by some internal flame.
Anxiety flickered in her eyes. ‘That’s if-that’s if you are still planning to have the little supper.’
His wandering brain made a snap recovery. ‘Oh, sure. Sure I am. The supper, of course.’ He smiled. ‘Lucky for me this was the moment you happened to pass by.’
‘It must be Fate,’ she said with a gurgle of a laugh that rippled through him.
She stepped down to his level. He was almost unbearably tempted to take her in his arms, hold her vibrant body to him, smell her fragrant hair, but the risk of arousal in such a public place, with the crowd still whirling about them, was far too dangerous.
‘Where were you thinking of going?’ she asked.
‘Here,’ he said firmly, pointing up the stairs, hoping there’d still be a table available. He started up a step and held out his hand.
Her eyes sparkled. ‘Oh, here.’ The thrilled note in her voice caught at his heart. ‘Do you remember that night we had dinner here? You know…’ she lowered her lashes and her voice faltered a little ‘…before?’
‘I do remember,’ he said steadily, holding her hand. ‘I’ll never forget it.’
‘It should be excellent for doing some planning, don’t you think?’
In Lara’s view, Guillaume’s was the most exciting restaurant in Sydney. Positioned in the southernmost shell of the Opera House, it had enormous windows facing the harbour, and more facing the city. With night craft glimmering on the water all around them, the Bridge and city towers a blaze of lights, it was easy to believe the restaurant was afloat.
And there was an excitement in the atmosphere, as if its glitzy clientele were as thrilled to be indulging themselves in fine wine and cuisine amidst the sophisticated decor as she was herself. It was a pity no one she knew from Newtown was present to see her walk in with the hottest marquis currently in Australia.
She and Alessandro were shown to a discreet booth angled to face the glittering night panorama on the harbour. Their table, swathed in white linen, gleamed with silver and crystal. She slipped off her pashmina and felt Alessandro’s gaze on her throat and arms.
‘Oh, dear.’ She grinned, though she felt the warmth rise to her cheeks. ‘Long tablecloths.’
Alessandro broke into a laugh, then he grew silent, the sensual hunger in his dark eyes stirring her, whi
le the emotions of the day rose between them, twanging with the echoes of discord.
She indicated their window. ‘Is it as good as your view of the Grand Canal?’
‘Oh, sure, sure it is. Definitely. Absolutely.’
She laughed. ‘Careful not to protest too much.’
They examined the wine list together, but the truth was Lara hardly needed wine this evening. With the excitement in her heart, she wasn’t even sure she could eat.
She wondered where she would begin. She smiled and made her choices, conscious of how precious was this time with Alessandro, tense with the knowledge that it could all disappear in a few days.
She let her gaze rest on his beautiful, lean hands as they made an occasional eloquent gesture, and her confidence faltered. He led such a sophisticated life with his constant travel, his pleasure in the finer things, it was hard to imagine him embracing the nitty-gritty of child-raising.
‘Dom Perignon, sir.’
Lara’s eyes widened as the drinks waiter presented the distinctive bottle to Alessandro for inspection, then with a professional flourish removed the cork and decanted the foaming champagne without spilling a drop.
Alessandro picked up his glass. ‘Salute.’
‘Wow.’ The glasses clinked. ‘What are we celebrating?’
His eyes smiled into hers, dark liquid fire. ‘Finding each other again.’
Her insides surged in excited anticipation. The words augured well. She sipped the golden, sparkling liquid. The zing foamed through her bloodstream, or maybe it was Alessandro’s shimmering, intent gaze.
‘Delicious.’ She sat back against the banquette, glass in hand. ‘I’m so glad I ran into you tonight. I’ve been er-thinking…’The warmth and sensuality of his gaze was so flattering, with his smile reflected in his eyes, it was hard to catch her breath. She hoped she wasn’t about to ruin everything by broaching the inflammatory subject. She hesitated, then said with some constraint, ‘I really appreciate your thoughtfulness in what you suggested today. You were quite right. About-deciding on a suitable location where you can meet Vivi.’