CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

IADORETEASINGHER. It's so easy. She's so responsive. So satisfying. I race home early every day—well, the days I actually make it to work in the first place. Almost a week has passed in a fog of lusty laughter—it's light and crazy easy.

But it can't last much longer. The whispers have begun. It was inevitable—the leak wouldn't have been one of my staff but perhaps a delivery driver, or maybe someone saw us at the airport. Who knows? But I've had more calls to my private number in the last week than I've had in months and I can't continue to ignore their questions. While I try to maintain a low public profile, people pay attention. I'm worth a lot of money, plus I'm in charge of a lot of other people's fortunes. I have thousands of contractors counting on me plus high-paying customers, and we'll keep those customers only if the reputation of my company remains pristine. And I am my company. It's my name on the door. If my personal life becomes the story, then the company suffers. That's what happened with my parents and I won't let it happen again.

So I need to show my face at headquarters, do some site visits and restore balance—the pendulum has swing too far. I also need to own my new personal situation. The only way is to front-foot it.

I'll never bow to the external pressure to do that traditional ‘right thing', the sexist instruction to ‘make an honest woman of her'—it's old-fashioned and unnecessary. And it doesn't work. We won't make our parents' mistakes. We'll see this through then care for Lukas like the responsible adults we are.

I find her in the pool house and, confronted with her beauty, I can't resist kissing her so it's a few moments before I can speak.

‘Unfortunately, despite my best efforts at total privacy, the rumour mill is rumbling.' I sigh. ‘You need to meet my parents. We need to introduce Lukas to them first.'

‘Your parents?' She pulls back, stunned. ‘You're still in contact with them?'

Yeah, if I had more of a choice I wouldn't be. ‘They're shareholders.'

Her jaw drops.

‘Minority shareholders,' I clarify. ‘Part of the divorce settlement and my buy-out when I took over.' I reduced their impact but couldn't cut them out completely and they still talk. So even though I rarely see them I know I need to include them in this. But in my own way. ‘Confidence in the company—therefore in me—is essential. Curiosity has been roused. I need to take control of the narrative.'

‘Of course you do.' She rolls her eyes.

I laugh as I tug her closer. ‘Don't worry. They're too wrapped up in their own war to give a damn about you.'

‘They're still fighting?'

She has no idea.

‘They'll go to their graves fighting. The bitterness is next level.'

‘I thought they divorced when you were—'

‘Fourteen, yeah.'

‘That's a while ago.' She draws in a deep breath. ‘How will you introduce me? Am I a friend, casual acquaintance, captive?'

Oh, she makes me smile. ‘We don't need to define anything. They can think whatever they want.'

‘And how's that controlling the narrative?'

She's right but I don't like considering these details too closely. The complications my fractured family could bring stress me out. ‘We'll fake it.' I snap decide. ‘No reason they won't believe us. Like we did with Ava. You've only just agreed to come back with me. I've had to work at it. You took some convincing.'

‘No one's going to believe that.'

‘You don't think you exude cool indifference? That you're not an impervious, powerful woman?'

‘Cool indifference?' She looks sceptical.

‘Yeah. Infinitely capable and needing no one.'

‘That's not possible. Everyone needs someone sometimes.'

I'm distracted by her. ‘Do you ever need someone?'

She angles her head. ‘Sometimes in a dark, dangerous, life-threatening moment I don't want to be alone.'

Her mouth mocks but her eyes flicker and I know she actually means it.

‘You want someone's hand to hold?' I ask quietly.

She stares intently at me and her smile slowly softens. ‘Brief me on how you want me to handle them.'

I feel a wave of gratitude for her attempt to make this easy for me and suddenly I don't hold back on the truth. ‘They're coming tomorrow night.'

‘Tomorrow?' Her eyes widen. ‘Decisive.'

‘Best-case scenario it'll be a stilted and uncomfortable Cold War situation. My mother will ask me directly for money. My father will have a business idea he wants to run past me after dinner. A quick pull aside. It won't be quick. They'll both be disappointed. They'll each blame me for being too much like the other. It'll devolve into an argument between them.'

Honestly, it'll be a timely reminder of everything I don't want.

‘You don't want to invite them individually?' she asks.

‘And have one outraged because they weren't the one to meet Lukas first?'

‘That would happen?'

‘Absolutely.'

She looks wary now. ‘Do you want them to be a big presence in Lukas's life?'

‘I need to show respect and let them know he exists, but he won't become a pawn between them. Ever.'

She nods but her tension doesn't lessen. ‘Will they disapprove of me?'

My skin tightens. She's vulnerable. ‘One will, one won't. Purely to disagree with each other so it doesn't actually matter what you do or say, they'll just take a side as soon as one stakes a claim either way. Don't worry about it and for heaven's sake don't take it personally.' But of course there's no way she won't take it personally. I'm hit with a tardy premonition that this is a bad idea. ‘You know, maybe you don't have to be there...'

Now she looks even more tense.

‘I don't want to stress you out,' I explain quickly. ‘I find it stressful enough.'

But to my surprise the pinched look slowly leaves her face and she lifts her chin. ‘They're your parents, naturally it's more stressful for you.'

‘I'm used to it.' I shrug.

‘Well, now you don't have to face them alone.' She flicks her hair back like a diva. ‘I've dealt with the rudest, most obnoxious customers. Your parents will be a cinch.'

It was worse than I'd predicted. Stupid. I don't want to discuss it. Don't want to meet her eyes. Can't believe I let her see it. So stupid.

She's silent and the staff have taken away the barely touched dinner plates. We're standing on the veranda in darkness, having watched my parents drive off in their separate cars.

‘Can you not...feel sorry for me?' I mutter.

‘You don't want me to feel for you?'

Something inside me twists. I'm lost for words.

‘They treat you terribly,' she says. ‘It's shocking.'

Her saying it aloud makes it worse. I regret inviting my parents here more than ever. Not because I can't handle seeing them, but I can't handle Talia seeing the truth. ‘Don't—'

‘I'm sorry you went through all that with them.' She ignores my quiet plea. ‘At least I had Ava, but you were alone.'

‘Not completely,' I murmur. ‘I had my grandfather for a while.'

‘Lukas senior.' She leans against the veranda railing and gazes across the gardens even though it's too dark to see much. ‘You looked close in that photo.'

The one photo I allowed to remain on the company website. ‘Right.'

I thought we were.

Silence again. I chance a glance at her. In the moonlight she's so pretty. I've mostly seen her with her hair tied up—a messy top knot or a high ponytail—but tonight she let her hair loose. It's long and glossy and now I can't take my gaze off her. I ache to snake my arm around her waist and feel that contact with her. I want it to be like the gondola when the rest of the world disappeared and there was only the two of us.

Her expression softens as she looks back at me. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't pry any further and I appreciate that restraint.

‘I was sent to boarding school in my early teens. I appreciated it, to be honest. It got me away from the week about war with Mum and Dad. They were in separate houses by then and fighting over everything, including me. But neither really wanted me, I was just a useful weapon. Weekends and holidays were still a battleground, same with school events. They'd argue over who got to attend the sports day and then either they'd both show and cause a scene or neither would show up. That's when my grandfather stepped in.' I found solace with him for a time.

I don't know why I'm telling her when I can't stand the sympathy I already see in her eyes. But I can't stop myself babbling on because seeing my parents tonight brought it all back up. And being with Lukas and knowing I never, ever want him to feel anything like I did. Talia needs to understand why that is so we can be sure to work through this together. That's why she needs to know, right? For Lukas.

‘He was my escape from them. I'd go there for every holiday and every other chance I could. I adored him and we bonded over the business. He taught me a lot about it—the history, his dreams for it. I knew it was tearing him apart to see my parents neglect it because they were too busy fighting each other. It became both our hope for me to turn it around in the future.'

‘And you did.'

‘Eventually, yeah.' After he died.

She nods and we're silent for a while.

‘I wasn't told he had terminal cancer,' I mumble quietly.

She jerks and looks at me again.

Even though I now know the reasons why, it still hurts. ‘It was weird at first. He stopped replying to my messages, didn't take my calls. I got through to his secretary and was told he was too tired to see me. It was so sudden I didn't know what I'd done wrong. But it had to be something.' My chest tightens. ‘I wasn't to come home to his house from school. I was to stay and study because he was busy now and didn't have time to see me.'

‘Are you saying your grandfather ghosted you?'

‘Basically. Yeah.' I roll my shoulders, unable to ease the tension building inside. ‘I didn't study though. I spent the semester wondering what I'd done to make him stop—'

I break off. I don't use the ‘L' word. But that was how it felt—that he'd stopped loving me. He'd stopped letting me be in his life. Because I'd done something bad and I didn't know what.

‘It was Simone who told me in the end. The media were about to break the story that Lukas, the Anzelotti patriarch, was terminal and there was going to be all-out war between my parents for the company majority. It was salacious and cruel. Simone came to the boarding school and smuggled me out, furious that I hadn't been given any warning.'

‘Did you get to him?'

‘My parents met me. It was the one time I saw them united. They said the truth had been kept from me to protect me. They didn't want me to be distracted from my schoolwork. They wanted me to do well in my exams.' My fingers tighten on the railing. ‘This supposed concern from the people who'd been distracting me for years with their bitter fights.'

‘That must have been really—'

‘Shit? Yeah, it was. Because they'd done it at my grandfather's insistence. He'd said he would change his will if they didn't both toe the line on it.' I glance at her and can't get my voice above a whisper. ‘It was his call.'

‘Did you get to spend time with him before he died?'

‘No.'

‘Dain, that's... I'm so sorry.' Her eyes are bright. ‘So when you found I'd kept Lukas from you—'

‘Yeah, low moment.' I don't want to go there again. We're past it. I half regret saying anything at all.

‘And you were angry about my not having told Ava,' she says.

‘I felt for her.' I clench my gut. ‘I know what it's like to be kept in the dark. It makes you feel...incompetent.' Rejected.

‘No wonder you keep people at a distance.'

Her expression eases the ache in my chest but at the same time causes another to build. I ache to hold her. I ache for the balm of her soft body resting against mine. I've never needed physical comfort like this before. Sex is only fun. It's only a moment—a great release—then I walk away. But this isn't that. I freeze because I don't understand it. I don't welcome it. I don't want this change. I don't want to need anyone the way I need her right now. I grip the railing to stop myself moving to her. Only it hurts to resist the urge.

‘Dain...'

My throat aches. I can't answer her. But I can't send her away either. And I can't take my gaze from her.

Her smile is sad. ‘You're so guarded.'

Maybe. Yeah. I've never told anyone about my grandfather's decision. It was far too painful to utter aloud. I probably shouldn't have done it now. I make myself turn away and bow my head. I wait for her to leave. Expect her to.

There's silence. But then I feel her hand slide onto mine.

‘I don't blame you for that,' she breathes. ‘It's okay.'

On auto I release the railing and turn my hand to lace my fingers through hers. I lock them together. Us together. She wraps her other arm around me, her palm pressing flat just below my ribs, her stomach flush against my back. For a long time we stand linked like that. I'm silent, sandwiched between the railing and her, and it's oddly, overwhelmingly safe.

Compassion.It's an altogether different feeling from any I've felt with her. No less powerful. If anything, it's...more. I can't remember the last time someone just hugged me like this and the warmth and weight of her leaning against me is so soothing I don't ever want to move.

‘Sometimes families just suck,' she whispers.

I half laugh and that horrible tension, the agony, that's been twisting me up all night finally eases. ‘Yeah.'