by Maya Banks
“Hi, Alex.” Matilda smiled at the little girl, not remotely fazed by the lack of her response, just enchanted by her beauty. “I know it looks a terrible mess now, but in a few days it will look wonderful.”
Alex didn’t even appear to be looking—her eyes stared fixedly ahead. A little rigid figure, she stood quite still as Matilda chatted happily to her, explaining what was going to happen over the next few days, pointing out where the water features would be, the sand pit and the enchanted castle.
“You’ve got a lot done today,” Dante observed. “What happens now?”
“The boring stuff,” Matilda answered. “I’ve got the plumber and electrician coming tomorrow and then the concreters, but once all that’s out the way, hopefully it will start to take shape a bit.” And though she longed to ask about his day, longed to extend the conversation just a touch longer, deliberately she held back, determined that it must be Dante who came to her now—she’d already been embarrassed enough. But the silence was excruciating as they stood there, and it was actually a relief when Dante headed over to his daughter and went to pick her up.
“Time for bed, little lady.” Something twisted inside Matilda at the tenderness in his voice, the strong gentle arms that lowered to lift his daughter. But Alex resisted, letting out a furious squeal that pierced the quiet early evening air, arching her back, her little hands curling into fists. Matilda’s eyes widened at the fury that erupted in the little girl, stunned to witness the change in this silent, still, child. But clearly used to this kind of response, Dante was way too quick for Alex, gently but firmly taking her wrists and guiding her hands to her sides.
“No!” he said firmly. “No hitting.”
With a mixture of tenderness and strength he picked Alex up, clasping her furious, resisting body to his chest, utterly ignoring the shrill screams, just holding her ever tighter. Finally she seemed to calm, the screams, the fury abating until finally Dante smiled wryly as he caught Matilda’s shocked eyes. “Believe it or not, I think you just received a compliment. Normally I don’t have to even ask to bring her in from the garden. Perhaps she is going to like it after all.”
Two compliments even! Matilda thought to herself. Was Dante actually saying he liked her plans as well?
“I’ll take her inside and get her to bed.” Matilda gazed at the little girl, now resting in her father’s arms. Not a trace of the angry outburst of only moments before remained, her dark eyes staring blankly across the wilderness of the garden. “Are you finishing up?”
“Soon.” Matilda nodded. “I’m just going to pack my things.”
“You’re welcome to come over for dinner...”
“No, thanks!” Matilda said, and she didn’t offer an explanation, didn’t elaborate at all, just turned her back and started to pack up her things.
“It’s no trouble,” Dante pushed, but still she didn’t turn around, determined not to give him the satisfaction of drawing her in just to reject her again, just to change his mind or hurt her with cruel words. “I just warm the meal up tonight. Janet has her Alcoholics Anonymous meetings on Mondays and Thursdays.”
“But she said she had...” Matilda swung around then snapped her mouth closed, furious with herself for responding.
“Everyone has their secrets, remember.” Dante shrugged then gave her the benefit of a very wicked smile. “Come,” he offered again.
“No,” Matilda countered. This time she didn’t even bother to be polite, just turned her back on him and started to sort out her things, only letting out the breath she had been holding when, after the longest time, she heard the click of the gate closing. Alex didn’t just have her father’s eyes, Matilda realised, she had his personality, too. They shared the same dark, lonely existence, cruelly, capriciously striking out at anyone they assumed was getting too close, yet somehow drawing them in all the same, somehow managing to be forgiven.
* * *
A cold shower mightn’t be so bad, Matilda attempted to convince herself as she gingerly held her fingers under the jets. All day she’d been boiling, all day she’d longed to cool down—but the trouble with her line of work was that there was absolutely no chance of a quick dart in the shower. Her hair was stiff with dust, her fingers black from the soil, her skin almost as dark as Dante’s.
Biting down on her lip, Matilda dived into the shower, yelping as the icy water hit her. Forcing herself to put her head under, she frantically rubbed in shampoo, praying that in a moment she’d acclimatise, that the freezing water might actually merely be cool after a couple of minutes’ more torture. Only it wasn’t. Her misery lasted long after she’d turned the beastly taps off and wrapped a towel around her, her poorly rinsed hair causing a river of stinging of water to hit her eyes. Shivering and cursing like the navvy Katrina had hoped for, Matilda groped for the door handle, wrenching it open and storming head first into a wall of flesh.
“When were you going to tell me?” Dante demanded. “I could hear you screaming...”
Matilda stood in shook. “Are you spying on me?” She felt embarrassed and enraged. Her bloodshot, stinging eyes focused on the walkie-talkie he was holding in his hand.
“It’s a child monitor,” he explained with infinite patience, as if she were some sort of mentally unhinged person he was talking down from the roof. But she could see the tiny twitch on his lips, knew that inside he was laughing at her, her misery, her embarrassment increasing as he carried on talking. “Janet left a note, telling me about the water. I just read it, so will you, please, collect your belongings so that I can help you bring your things over.”
“There’s really no need for that,” Matilda insisted, feeling horribly exposed and vulnerable and also somewhat deflated that even standing before him, her body drenched, clearly naked under a towel, she didn’t move him at all. “I’ve got a plumber coming tomorrow...”
“Matilda.” He gave a weary sigh. “My daughter is asleep in the house alone so could you, please, just...?” He faltered for just a fraction of a second, telling her in that fraction of time that she had been wrong—that Dante was very aware of her near-nakedness. She clutched the towel tighter around her, scuffed the floor with her dripping foot as immediately he continued. “Get dressed, Matilda,” he said gruffly. “I’ll come back for your things later.”
Which really didn’t leave her much choice.
Chapter 6
It was a very shy, rather humble Matilda that joined Dante at the heavy wooden table that was the centrepiece of his impressive al fresco area, the beastly child monitor blinking at her on the table as she approached, her face darkening to purple as she realised she’d practically accused the man of stalking her. She braced herself for a few harsh words Dante-style but instead he poured an indecent amount of wine into her glass then pushed it across the table to her.
“Is red OK?”
“Marvellous,” Matilda lied, taking a tentative sip, surprised to find that this particular red actually was OK, warming her from the inside out. Holding the massive glass in her pale hand, she stared at the dark liquid, anything rather than look at him, and started a touch when the intercom crackled loudly.
“Static,” Dante explained, pressing a button. “Someone down the road mowing their lawn or drying their hair. I just change the channel, see.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t have any experience with children, do you?”
“None,” Matilda answered. “I mean, none at all. Well apart from my friend,
Sally...”
“She has a baby?”
“No.” Matilda gave a pale smile. “But she’s thought that she might be pregnant a couple of times.”
He actually laughed, and it sounded glorious, a deep rich sound, his white teeth flashing. Matilda was amazed after her exquisite discomfort of only a moment ago to find herself actually laughing, too, her pleasure increasing as Dante gave a little bit more, actually revealed a piece of himself, only not with the impassive voice he had used before but with genuine warmth and emotion, his face softer somehow, his voice warmer as this inaccessible man let her in a touch, allowed her to glimpse another dimension to his complex nature.
“Until Alex was born, apart from on television, I don’t think I’d ever seen a newborn.” He frowned, as if examining that thought for the first time. “No, I’m sure I hadn’t. My mother was the youngest of seven children. All my cousins were older and I, too, was the youngest—very spoiled!”
“I can imagine.” Matilda rolled her eyes, but her smile remained as Dante continued.
“Then this tiny person appeared and suddenly I am supposed to know.” He spread his hands expressively, but words clearly failed him.
“I’d be terrified,” Matilda admitted.
“I was,” Dante stated. “Still am, most of the time.”
Her smile faded, seeing him now not as the man that moved her but as the single father he was, trying yet knowing she was failing to fathom the enormity of the task that had been so squarely placed on his shoulders.
“It must be hard.”
“It is.” Dante nodded and didn’t sweeten it with the usual superlatives that generally followed such a statement, didn’t smile and eagerly nod that it was more than worth it, or the best thing he’d ever done in his life. He just stared back at her for the longest time, before continuing, “I have a big trial starting next week, but once that it is out of the way, I need to make a decision.”
“Whether to move back to Italy?”
Dante nodded. “Every doctor I have consulted tells me that Alex needs a routine, that she needs a solid home base—at the moment I am having trouble providing that. Katrina is only too willing to help, but...” He hesitated and took a long sip of his drink. Matilda held her breath, willing him to continue, to glean a little more insight into the problems he faced. “She wants to keep Jasmine alive, doesn’t want anything that might detract from her daughter’s memory, which is understandable, of course, only sometimes...”
“It’s a bit much?” Matilda tentatively offered, relieved when he didn’t frown back at her, relieved that maybe she understood just a little of what he was feeling.
“Much too much,” Dante agreed, then terminated the conversation, standing up and gesturing. “I will show you the guest room, it’s already made up—then we can eat.”
“I might just grab a sandwich or something when I get my things,” Matilda started, but Dante just ignored her, leading her through the house and upstairs, gesturing for her to be quiet as they tiptoed past Alex’s room, before coming to a large door at the end of the hallway.
Clearly Dante’s idea of a guest room differed from Matilda’s somewhat—her version was a spare room with a bed and possibly an ironing board for good measure. But Dante’s guests were clearly used to better. As he pushed open the door and she stepped inside, Matilda realised just how far she’d been relegated by Katrina. Till then the summerhouse had been more than OK, but it wasn’t a patch on this! A massive king-sized bed made up with crisp white linen was the focus point of the fabulously spacious room, but rather than being pushed against the wall and sensibly facing a door, as most of the population would have done, instead it stood proudly in the middle, staring directly out of one of the massive windows Matilda had till now only glimpsed from the outside, offering a panoramic view of the bay. Matilda thought she must have died and gone to heaven—ruing every last minute she’d spent struggling on in the summerhouse when she could have been here!
“I won’t sleep,” Matilda sighed dreamily, wandering over to the window and pressing her face against the glass, like a child staring into a toy-shop Christmas display. “I’ll spend the whole night watching the water and then I’ll be too exhausted to do your garden. It’s just divine...”
“And,” Dante said with a teasing dramatic note to his voice that Matilda had never heard before, “it has running water.”
“You’re kidding.” Matilda played along, liking the change in him, the funnier, more relaxed side of him she was slowly starting to witness.
“Not just that, but hot running water.” Dante smiled, sliding open the en suite door as Matilda reluctantly peeled herself away from the view and padded over. “See for yourself.”
The smile was wiped off her face as she stepped inside. Fabulous it might be but she couldn’t possibly use it, her frantic eyes scanning the equally massive window for even a chink of a blind or curtain.
“No one can see.” Dante rolled his eyes at her expression.
“Apart from every passing sailor and the nightly ferry load on its way to Tasmania!” Matilda gulped.
“The windows are treated, I mean tinted,” Dante simultaneously explained and corrected himself. Even a couple of hours ago she’d have felt stupid or gauche, but his smile seemed genuine enough at least that Matilda was able to smile back. “I promise that no one will see you.”
“Good.”
“Now that we’ve taken care of that, can we eat?”
This time she didn’t even bother to argue.
Wandering back along the hallway, Dante put his fingers to his lips and pushed open Alex’s door to check on his daughter. Matilda stood there as he crept inside. The little girl was lying with one skinny leg sticking out of between the bars of her cot, her tiny, angelic face relaxed in sleep. Matilda felt her heart go out to this beautiful child who had been through so, so much, a lump building in her throat as Dante slowly moved her leg back in then retrieved a sheet that had fallen from the cot and with supreme tenderness tucked it around Alex, gently stroking her shoulder as she stirred slightly. But Matilda wasn’t watching Alex any more. Instead, she was watching Dante, a sting of tears in her eyes as she glimpsed again his tenderness, slotted in another piece of the puzzle that enthralled her.
When he wasn’t being superior or scathing he was actually incredibly nice.
Incredibly nice, Matilda thought a little later as Dante carried two steaming plates into the lounge room and they shared a casual dinner. And whether it was the wine or the mood, conversation came incredibly easily, so much so that when Matilda made a brief reference to her recent break-up, she didn’t jump as if she’d been burnt when Dante asked what had gone wrong. She just gave a thoughtful shrug and pondered a moment before answering.
“I honestly don’t know,” Matilda finally admitted. “I don’t really know when the problems started. For ages we were really happy. Edward’s career was taking off, we were looking at houses and then all of a sudden we seemed to be arguing over everything. Nothing I did was ever right, from the way I dressed to the friends I had. It was as if nothing I did could make him happy.”
“So everything was perfect and then out of the blue arguments started?” Dante gave her a rather disbelieving frown as she nodded. “It doesn’t happen like that, Matilda,” Dante said. “There is no such thing as perfect. There must have been something that irked, a warning that all was not OK—there always is.”
“How do you know?” Matilda asked, “
I mean how do you know all these things?”
“It’s my job to know how people’s minds work,” Dante responded, but then softened it with a hint of personal insight. “I was in a relationship too, Matilda. I do know that they are not all perfect!”
According to everyone, his had been, but Matilda didn’t say it, not wanting to break the moment, liking this less reticent Dante she was seeing, actually enjoying talking to him. “I supposed he always flirted when we were out and it annoyed me,” Matilda admitted. “We’d go to business dinners and I didn’t like the way he was with some of the women. I don’t think I’m a jealous person, but if he was like that when I was there...” Her voice trailed off, embarrassed now at having said so much, but Dante just nodded, leaning back on the sofa. His stance was so incredibly nonjudgmental, inexplicably she wanted to continue, actually wanted to tell him how Edward had made her feel, wanted Dante to hear this and hoping maybe in return she’d hear about him, too. “He wasn’t cheating. But I wondered in years to come...”
“Probably.” Dante shrugged. “No doubt when you’d just had a baby, or your work was busy and you were too tired to focus enough on him, not quite at your goal weight.” He must have registered her frown, her mouth opening then holding back a question that, despite the nature of this personal conversation, wasn’t one she had any right to ask, but Dante answered it anyway. “No, Matilda, I didn’t have an affair, if that’s what you are thinking. I like beautiful women as much as any man and, yes, at various times in our relationship Jasmine and I faced all of the things I’ve outlined, but I can truthfully say it would never have entered my head to look at another woman in that way. I wanted to fix our problems, Matilda, not add to them.”