Sold to the Spaniard by Trish Morey

13

The wedding day dawned misty and damp, an early- morning shower leaving the air fresh and crisp, the clear sky bearing promise of a sun-kissed spring day. A perfect day for a garden wedding. Mackenzi stood on the balcony of her suite and breathed in the cool, clear air, relishing being back in the Adelaide Hills again, letting the classic atmosphere of Ashton House wrap its way around her. It was good to be home.

She’d spent the night alone, as tradition dictated, and already she was anticipating the thrill of spending tonight and every following night with Dante, this time as neither his mistress nor his fiancee, but as his wife.

Excitement fizzed in her veins, radiating out along her limbs until even her fingers and toes tingled. She hugged the feeling to herself. She was the luckiest woman alive.

The morning passed in a blur of appointments—hairdresser, manicurist and make-up artists all wanting a piece of her, her mother clucking around organizing things like a good mother should. Mackenzi loved every minute of it. She was still in her robe, preparing to put on her dress, her mother and bridesmaid in the midst of having their hair done, when there was a buzz at the door. One hairdresser made a move to answer it but Mackenzi put a hand up. ‘I’ll get it,’ she said, as she was closest to the entry lobby. ‘That should be the flowers.’

‘Just make sure it’s not Dante!’ they called out in a chorus behind her. She laughed as she peered through the spy hole, her stomach dropping when she saw who it was.

Adrian. Holding a box of flowers. She hadn’t seen him since that day he’d been ordered on the next flight out of Auckland. She hadn’t been looking forward to seeing him again, but he had organised her wedding, and today of all days she couldn’t be churlish.

She opened the door, forcing something of a smile to return, although the way his eyes narrowed as they scanned her from top to bottom told her his view of her hadn’t improved any. She wished she had more than scanty underwear on under her robe.

‘Your flowers have arrived,’ he said tightly, holding out the box towards her.

‘Thank you,’ she said, giving them little more than a glance through the cellophane window. There would be time to admire them later. ‘By the way, I haven’t had a chance to thank you for everything you’ve done for me in organising this wedding.’

His mouth angled up as his lips pressed together. ‘It was my job,’ he said, as if he undertook such menial impositions every day whether he wanted to or not.

‘Oh, well, thanks anyway.’ She put out her hands to take the box and he made a subtle movement, tugging it away. ‘I was surprised, quite frankly.’

‘Oh?’ she said, watching the box, wondering if she’d merely imagined or misinterpreted what had just happened. ‘What about?’

‘To find you still hanging around.’

Now he had her full attention. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Only that I thought you would have given up, now that your cause is lost.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The deal you had with Dante, to sleep with him in exchange for him thinking about the future of this fine establishment.’

The hackles at the back of her neck rose. Adrian knew the details of their deal? No wonder he looked at her as if she were soiled. But she wasn’t about to take the dirt from him. ‘But that’s old news, Adrian, it isn’t an issue any more. Ashton House is safe.’

‘Is it, indeed?’ His eyes grew malicious, his smirk more knowing. ‘You mean he hasn’t told you?’

Fear washed through her, threatening to buckle her knees, not wanting to hear more but needing to ask. ‘Told me what?’ ‘That the hotel is closing.’ He pressed the box into her hands and sneered. ‘Enjoy your wedding.’

She turned and walked blindly back into the room, placing the flowers on the bed to the appreciative ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s from the womenfolk. She left them to it and picked up the phone, Reception picking up a few rings later—it couldn’t be true.

‘Natalie?’ she said, recognizing the girl and ignoring as tactfully as she could her questions as to how everything was going and how it was all so exciting. ‘What’s happening with the hotel? I just heard a whisper that it’s closing?’

It’s a lie, she told herself while she waited, her heart thumping so loud she was sure Natalie would be able to hear it. It has to be a lie.

‘That’s right,’ said Natalie, and then with some trepidation, ‘I thought you would have known—’

He 'd lied to her!Mackenzi dropped the receiver in a clatter, turning, not bothering to check if it had landed on the cradle as she made her way to the wardrobe.

‘The flowers are simply magnificent,’ she heard her mother say behind her. ‘Don’t you think so, dear?’

She grunted something in response as she dragged on a pair of jeans, pulling off the robe and throwing on a T-shirt and zipper jacket, slipping her feet into moccasins.

‘Mackenzi,’ her mother called. ‘What are you doing? The wedding...’

She turned then, barely able to see anyone through a fog of tears. ‘I don’t think there’s going to be a wedding.’ And she fled.

‘What do you mean,she’s gone?’ Dante’s gut clenched down in panic. ‘Where?’

‘We don’t know,’ Mackenzi’s mother said. ‘She just rushed out of here like the devil was at her heels. And Dante?’

‘Yes?’

‘She said she didn’t think there was going to be a wedding.’ He put down the receiver and roared his frustration. What had happened to make her take off like that? There’d been no indication, no clue that she was feeling disgruntled, quite the reverse. In fact, he’d never seen her happier than the last few days leading up to the wedding. What on earth had gone wrong?

‘Anything wrong?’ He turned to see Adrian letting himself into the room with their buttonholes.

‘It’s Mackenzi,’ he said, jabbing numbers into the phone. ‘She’s gone.’

‘Gone?’ he said, putting the flowers down on the coffee- table and pouring himself a shot of whiskey. ‘You mean she’s changed her mind?’

‘I don’t know,’ Dante said, frowning when he glanced at the time. ‘Not until I talk to her. Pick up. Pick up,' he urged the other end.

‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ Adrian conjectured, tossing back his whiskey in one neat action, baring his teeth as it hit the spot. ‘Maybe you’re better to find out how flaky she is now, before you tie the knot.’

‘Shut up, Adrian.’ The phone picked up. ‘Natalie! Is that you? Have you seen Mackenzi?’

‘Isn’t she in her room? She called from there a little while ago?’

‘What did she want?’

‘It was really strange. She just asked if the hotel was closing. I thought it was odd she didn’t seem to know...’

Oh my God!‘And what did you tell her?’

‘Just that it was. She didn’t give me a chance to say anything else.’

Could it be any worse? He thanked her and hung up in the space of less than a second, reaching for his car keys the next.

‘Where are you going?’ asked Adrian, already pouring his second whiskey.

‘To find her.’

‘Are you sure she’s worth it? You could do better than some slapper who exchanges sex for favours.’

Dante had picked him up and slammed him up against the bureau before Adrian knew what had hit him, his glass of whiskey flinging contents in a sweeping golden arc around the room before tumbling down onto the carpet. ‘You don’t know anything about her!’ he said, regretting the moment on the plane when he’d trusted Adrian enough to share the secret of their intimate deal. And now Mackenzi was missing. Coincidence?

‘What do you know about Mackenzi running away?’

Adrian’s arms flailed helplessly as he shook his head. ‘Me, boss? Nothing.’

Dante snarled at him, smelling his fear, knowing he was lying. ‘Whatever possessed me to think you’d ever make a best man?’ He pulled him suddenly towards him and gave him a shove sideways that sent him tumbling into the sofa. ‘I want you out of here by the time I get back. And I never want to see you again.’

‘But boss—’

‘Never!’

He powered the car out of the driveway, turning onto the tangled hills road on a hunch, hoping he was right. He had to find her. He had to bring her back.

But the roads looked different from the last time he’d followed her; the fog had cleared away, the views over the surrounding hills were long and everything looked different. Every last thing.

She must have left the hotel in a complete state. God, if anything had happened to her! If anything had happened before he had the chance to tell her.

He thumped the heel of his hand on the steering wheel. Why had it taken him so long to realise? Adrian was so far off the mark, and yet it had been like a wake-up call, forcing him to realise what she meant to him. She was no slapper ready to exchange sex for favours, he knew that now.

She was a passionate, vibrant woman.

The mother of his child.

The woman he loved!

He shot past the turnoff before he’d realised, cursing as he had to double back, hoping it was the turnoff he needed.

But was it already too late?

Misty mether at the door, winding her way around her legs, pretending it was dinner time already like she always did, even though it was barely midday. Mackenzi reached down and picked her up, stroking her as she let herself into her house.

‘You might love me for my cat food, but at least you love me,’ she said, feeling a fresh batch of tears welling up and pressing to be launched. She forced the feeling back. She would not cry. Damn Dante Carrazzo to hell and back, but she would not cry!

She put the cat down on the back of the sofa and went to her room. She’d left her better suitcase back at the hotel, but she had an older one on top of her wardrobe. She stood on a chair and pulled it down, blowing off the fine coating of dust before setting it down on her bed. She’d go away somewhere. She didn’t know where, but somewhere nobody could find her.

Especially if nobody’s name was Dante Carrazzo.

The phone rang and she jumped at the sound, but she didn’t answer it. It was better if people didn’t know where she was. She’d call her parents later, when she’d found herself a bolthole. She’d tell them she was sorry but it had been a mistake. She’d tell them she’d be okay. And somehow—somehow—she’d make them believe it.

She tossed the last of her clothes in, not overly concerned what was there, and zipped the bag up, remembering the trouble she’d had last time when she’d packed to leave this house. No such difficulty this time. Wherever she was going, she wasn’t out to impress.

Mackenzi was just lugging the suitcase down the hallway when she heard it—the powerful engine roaring closer, and the spew of gravel as it pulled to a screeching stop outside. A feeling of deja vu cementing her insides. Dante! She turned, fleeing the other way down her hallway even as she heard the sound of a car door slamming and running footsteps up the path. She didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to listen to any more lies. Didn’t want him to know how much he’d hurt her.

Because she was under no misconception why he was here. It wasn’t for her sake. It was because he wanted their baby. That was when this whole marriage idea had arisen. It had never had anything to do with her. And she’d tried to convince herself that he loved her.

Fool!

Her front door flew open. ‘Mackenzi!’

She stiffened and turned slowly, watching him come closer, feeling like a rabbit caught in the headlights. ‘Go away!’

‘You have to listen to me.’

‘No! I’m done with listening to you. You lied to me. You did before, you will again.’

‘Mackenzi, please?’

‘Get out of my way. I’d like to leave now.’

‘I can’t let you do that, not like this, not before you give me a chance to explain.’

She gave up trying to move anywhere down the corridor and fled into the relative space of her living room, aware he would follow her, knowing the second he did. Misty looked up warily as the warring factions drew nearer, the end of her tail flicking dangerously. ‘I told you, I don’t want to hear it! We had a deal and you broke it.’

‘I didn’t break it.’

‘You damned well did. You promised me you’d save Ashton House and I believed you. But you’re closing it. Adrian told me you’d already decided.’

Dante cursed out loud. ‘Adrian is a malicious bastard. He’s toxic. I’ve told him to clear out.’

‘Oh, does that mean you got rid of Natalie too? Because she said the same thing. Don’t try to blame Adrian for your failings, Dante, because I’m over it. I’m over everything, as of right now.’

He sighed then and she almost thought he was conceding defeat, his expression softening so markedly. ‘I wanted it to be a surprise,’ he told her, his tone almost imploring.

‘What—that you’d decided to pull Ashton House down after all? I just bet you wanted it to be a surprise.’ But her tone was less savage than she’d intended, his change of mood throwing her off-balance.

He shook his head. ‘I’m not closing it to pull it down.’ She tilted her head. ‘But you are closing it?’

‘Yes.’

‘But why? We had a deal. You promised me you’d save Ashton House. You promised! And I don’t matter to you.

This baby doesn’t matter to you. No matter what you say or what you promise, all you’re interested in doing is in pulling Sara and Jonas Douglas down.’

He covered his upturned face with his hands, but it couldn’t mask the agonized roar that sent chills down Mackenzi’s spine and had Misty fleeing from the room.

‘Yes,’ he said, his eyes wild in his flushed face, his neck corded and tight. ‘That was all I wanted. To pull them down. To make them pay for what they’d done.’

More chills descended her spine, ripping her throat of voice, leaving her only with a croaking whisper. She wrapped her arms around her midriff. ‘What did they do?’ He shook his head, his eyes closed, raking one hand through his hair. Then he opened his eyes.

‘Mackenzi,’ he said softly, looking suddenly exhausted, gesturing to the sofa. ‘I have to tell you something. Maybe something I should have told you before now. But something I need to tell you if only you’ll understand. Will you hear me out?’

She stood there uncertainly, not knowing if she wanted to listen, knowing she couldn’t listen if it meant hearing more lies.

He smiled, if it could have been called that, crooked and halfway resigned. ‘Please,’ he insisted. ‘It’s important.’ She nodded briefly and sat down on the sofa, thinking that maybe something in what he had to say would make some sense out of what had happened, realising it was important that for once he wanted to open up about the past.

‘I never knew my parents,’ he started. ‘My mother was young, of Italian descent, apparently. My father I have no knowledge of, but he was probably young too. But her family were ashamed and put me in foster care, preferring someone else to take care of their mistake, and to preserve the worth of their daughter.’

‘Dante,’ she said, her heart going out to him. A child no one had wanted, so different from her own conception where her parents had been so desperate to have a child they’d almost bankrupted themselves in the process. ‘I had no idea.’

‘There’s more,’ he said. ‘When I was barely two years old a family came to see me. They were professional people, older and both workaholics, but they’d had a child late in life, a boy the same age as me.’

Her skin prickled. ‘You don’t mean Sara and Jonas?’ He flicked her a look that told her she was right. ‘They took me in to live with them.’

‘But that can’t be. The Douglas family had only two boys, Jake and—’ cold shivers descended her spine as she put two and two together ‘—Danny. Daniel Douglas,’ she whispered, her mind fixing the pieces together, latching onto the truth while her eyes searched his face. She tried to remember the old photos she’d seen, tried to see the similarity. ‘Jake was the brother killed in a car accident, but Danny disappeared without trace.’

He looked down at her, his expression bleak, and she saw something akin to pain flash through his eyes. ‘You’re Danny, aren’t you?’

He looked bereft and she wanted to reach out and comfort him, to take him in her arms and cradle him, this man who had been a boy unwanted. But he hadn’t been totally unwanted—he’d been taken in by one of the wealthiest families around.

‘Sara and Jonas adopted you. And yet this is the way you repay them? I don’t understand.’

‘They didn’t adopt me!’ he shouted, jumping to his feet, holding his hands upside down like claws. ‘They harvested me! They chose a child the same age as theirs for the sole purpose of giving their progeny a playmate, a diversion, a distraction. Someone that would keep him company when Sara and Jonas weren’t there. Because they were never there.

‘I used to wonder why it was that we never had sleep- overs with friends, never were allowed to join school sports teams. We were closeted in the grounds before and after school. And I was there solely to keep Jake amused.’

She was shaking her head. ‘But that’s so cold-blooded. It’s too horrible. Surely nobody could do that to a child— to children?’

‘I wanted to think that too. I knew they were busy. They were making millions. And I had been selected to live in the lap of luxury after being rescued from foster-care obscurity. Who was I to complain?’

He trailed off, and in the ensuing quiet Misty ventured back into the room, curling her way around Mackenzi’s legs before exploring further, sniffing out their visitor warily before getting too close. ‘So what happened?’

‘It was Jake’s seventeenth birthday,’ he said. ‘His birthday was two months before mine and there was a big party. They’d given him a Porsche, and we couldn’t wait to take it for a spin, but we had the party to get through first. We couldn’t wait.

‘But, before the party was over, Sara and Jonas called me into their office. It seemed odd, though at the time I wondered if they just wanted to find out what I’d like for my birthday, or whether it had to do with the trip overseas we’d both planned together at the end of the year. I wasn’t worried about the cars; thrill-seeking was always Jake’s get-out. He was always my hero, the big brother, the risk- taker. Always the thrill-seeker.’

‘And what about you? What were you like?’

He looked at her, his eyes misty with remembrance. ‘I had dreams. I was fascinated by what Sara and Jonas had achieved. I used to listen to them talking late at night when I was supposed to be in bed, talking about property and rates of return and discounted cash-flows. I longed to go to the university they’d tried to talk Jake into and study business and be just like them.’

‘Then why did you disappear?’

He gave a sad laugh. ‘I didn’t exactly “disappear”. On that night, the night of Jake’s birthday party, they told me. They didn’t need me any more, they both said. I’d served my purpose and it was time for me to go.’

‘They threw you out?’

‘That very night. They gave me a cheque for ten- thousand dollars and told me not to bother to say goodbye to Jake, because he knew and he didn’t care, but just to get out of their lives.’

‘They did that to you?’

He nodded. ‘But not before telling me my real name wasn’t Daniel Douglas, as I’d grown up believing, but Dante Carrazzo. To preserve my heritage, they told me that night—but I know it was so that I could have no claim on them, no link, no connection by name with the family that had taken me in only to cast me out when my purpose was fulfilled.’

‘And so you left.’

‘I had money,’ he said. ‘The money they’d given me. And I had a passport they’d applied for in my real name, using a photograph intended for the passport that I thought I was applying for to accompany Jake.

‘So I took the money. I was so shellshocked I took the money and left that night, and never saw them again. But I didn’t blow the money like I’m sure they were convinced I would. I didn’t end up fading into obscurity like they would have hoped. I bought a one-way ticket to London, finding a job as a clerk in a real-estate business, looking after plumbing callouts and rental short-payments and gradually working my way up through the ranks until I could start my own business.’

‘No wonder it seemed like you’d come from nowhere. And you never got to go to university?’

He gave a wan smile as Misty started patrolling his legs, first carefully around the perimeter, before venturing in between, curving her spine up around his shins.

‘No. And maybe I should be grateful to Sara and Jonas for that. Because I’m sure I learned one hell of a lot more doing property boot-camp. I know they must have been surprised by how much I learned. I broke out and started my own property-management business, adding investment and property-development strings to my bow.’

‘You used that strength to get back at them.’

‘I did,’ he said, without a trace of noticeable remorse. ‘I’d been in my first job two years when I learned that Jake had died three months before, and then only through a tiny article on the newspaper wrapped around my takeaway fish and chips. I couldn’t believe it. Jake had been the chosen one, the heir, he’d been given everything he wanted and more, and yet it hadn’t done him any good. And they’d never let me say goodbye. I should have said goodbye. I know he never would have wanted me to leave.’

He took a deep breath. ‘And it was then that I decided that I’d make them pay—for Jake, for me, for the parents they’d made out they were and yet had never been.’

‘And so you set out to destroy them.’

He smiled then. ‘It took a while. They were streets ahead of me, but with time I gradually caught up, especially once Jonas started gambling. It must have blown them away when they found out who it was who’d come courting. I often wondered about that, and whether they’d spill the beans to the press and tell them who I really was.’ He looked at her, his eyebrows raised. ‘But they couldn’t, could they? Not without revealing the whole sorry story. And who would possibly feel sorry for them then?’

Mackenzi was speechless for what seemed like minutes, the ticking of her ancient mantel clock the only noise—that and Misty’s purr as she settled on Dante’s lap and pushed her head into his large hand, almost as if she sensed that right now Dante needed something physical, something real, to mend the pain.

‘It’s horrible,’ she said at last. ‘I had no idea. They always seemed such nice people.’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe they were. They just should never have had children.’

‘So that’s what you have against Ashton House,’ she whispered. ‘Their final holding, the star in their crown.’

He gave a hard, grating laugh. ‘Oh yes. Not to mention it was the site of Jake’s seventeenth-birthday party.’

She looked at him in horror, suddenly realising the full depth of his abhorrence. ‘Oh my God,’ she said, unable to sit down any longer, reaching out a hand to his. ‘No wonder you hate it so much. No wonder you can’t wait to see it tom down.’

He shrugged and smiled strangely. ‘It used to seem important, but just lately it doesn’t seem to matter so much.’ ‘But you’re closing the hotel, you said that. Why would you do that?’

‘It’s true,’ he said, leaning closer, collecting her other hand and enclosing them both in his own. ‘You see, I had this idea. You kept telling me I should be building things and not destroying them, and I knew you wanted me to save the hotel. But the world has more than enough hotels, don’t you think?’ She laughed a little too nervously, trying to keep up, unsure where he was going but appreciating the change in tone, the enthusiasm he was demonstrating. More than anything appreciating the warm of his skin against her own. ‘So what did you have in mind?’

‘This is probably crazy,’ he admitted. ‘God knows, Adrian tried to talk me out of it. But, when I think back on it, that first foster-family was the only family who ever really wanted me. They took me in and gave me a home and cared for me when no one else would. And for no other reason than because I needed it. And so, when you made me promise to keep Ashton House, I thought about turning it into a place where families could go—foster families, with kids who didn’t belong anywhere or to anyone, but who’d been taken in anyway. To give them a break and a chance to breathe some fresh air and get a new outlook on life.’ He looked at her expectantly.

She smiled. ‘So that’s why you’re closing the hotel? So you can turn it into a respite-care centre for foster kids and their families?’

He was nodding. ‘Yes. Would you mind? You made me promise not to close Ashton House, but you never said it had to stay a hotel. What do you think?’

‘I think it’s the most wonderful idea I’ve ever heard.’ His smile widened, his eyes glinting with pleasure. ‘You do?’

‘I’m so proud of you,’ she said, throwing her arms around him. ‘To go through what you’ve been through. I had no idea. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you when you promised to save Ashton House.’

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in tight. ‘You were right not to believe me. I was determined to destroy it all along—I’d instructed Adrian to close the hotel even before you found out you were pregnant. But when you made that marriage ultimatum I finally had to look at what I had in mind. And suddenly it didn’t matter any more. I tried, but I couldn’t hang onto that hatred, and your words made sense to me—that I could build something, rather than destroy it.’ He looked down at her and smiled. ‘You taught me that, and I will never know how to thank you enough.’ She beamed up at him, suddenly biting her lip. ‘I’m sorry I ran out on you today.’

‘I’m not.’ And when she frowned and pulled away he tugged her back. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I meant that until today I didn’t realise what you meant to me. I knew I liked having you around, and I had the bonus that you were carrying my child, but until today—until I thought I’d lost you forever—I never realised just how much you meant to me.’

Her heart jumped, skipped a beat and resumed again, louder than ever. ‘You mean... ?’

He smiled. ‘I love you, Mackenzi Rose. I love you so much it almost killed me to think I’d lost you. Never do that to me again, promise?’

‘Only if you promise never to scare the hell out of me with any of your surprises, okay? If you’ve got something good to tell me, please tell me.’

He laughed and squeezed her tighter. ‘It’s a deal.’

‘And while we’re on the subject of being honest...’ She looked up at him and decided there were better ways than words. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, pouring every bit of herself and her love into it.

He growled when finally she withdrew. ‘Does that mean what I think it means?’

She purred. ‘It does. I love you, Dante Carrazzo. For now. And forever more.’

‘Hmmm,’ he said, moving into the next kiss. ‘I like the sound of that.’

There was a rattling at the front door, a scrape and then the sound of rickety footsteps down the hallway. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ Mrs Gepp said, finding them in the lounge. ‘I heard a noise and thought I’d better come looking. I thought you were supposed to be off getting married.’

‘I was,’ she said, smiling. ‘I mean, we are.’

‘Goodness, girlie, you’d better get going then. So who’s this, then—not the fellow you’re marrying?’

Dante took her gnarled hand in his own. ‘Dante Carrazzo, at your service.’

‘Good,’ she said, holding on tight and pulling him down to her height like she was confiding in him. ‘Then you’re just the person I want to talk to. I get worried the time Mack puts into her job. She’s always working late and sleeping over. I can’t count the number of times she’s rung me to say she’s not coming home and asking if I can feed Misty for her. She needs a real reason to come home. She needs a man to set her straight about what’s important in life. I know she won’t listen to me—’

Mackenzi cut her off with a nervous laugh. ‘Thanks, Mrs Gepp, I guess we’d better be getting back to the wedding. You sure you won’t join us? You’re more than welcome, you know.’

‘Not with this dodgy hip,’ she complained, nursing her side. ‘Besides, weddings always make me cry. Not a good look when you’re pushing eighty-five or so. You two run along now.’

Mackenzi dipped to give her a kiss and a quick squeeze. ‘Thanks for everything, Mrs Gepp.’

‘One more thing!’ she yelled out as they ran for Dante’s car. ‘I always thought it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.’

Dante looked at Mackenzi and smiled. ‘Not this time,’ he said.

Barely at the end of the driveway, he suddenly braked the car to a stop and switched off the ignition. Then he turned to his bride-to-be, his eyes dark with self-recrimination. ‘You frequently stayed overnight at the hotel. Mrs Gepp said so.’

‘If I was working late, sure. It didn’t make sense to drive all the way home if it was really late or if the weather was bad.’

There was a too-long pause. ‘Like the night I arrived.’

She stole a lungful of air, hung onto it and then let it go in a rush. Because, in the scheme of things, the past didn’t matter. She loved this man. The past meant nothing any more, except for whatever demons Dante still had left to put to rest. She gave a brief nod. ‘Yes. Exactly like the night you arrived.’

‘You weren’t waiting for me at all that night,’ he said. ‘You weren’t lying in wait to seduce me. Like you told me before, you were merely making use of a vacant bed. I didn’t believe you.’

She looked away. She’d given him every reason to think what he had, but still the memory of that night’s disappointment—the fact he’d written her off so easily and accused her of being little more than a whore—was surprisingly still all too real. Looking over the gum-tree- studded hills around them, she said, ‘I worked late that night preparing the projections for you in preparation for your visit. And, with the Melbourne airports closed with the weather, nobody figured you’d get there until at least breakfast. I thought you’d never know if I borrowed your bed for a few hours.’ She shrugged as she turned back. ‘Nobody expected you’d drive instead. Nobody realised what it meant to you.’

He touched a hand to her neck, cupping her ear. ‘And I never even bothered to look at those projections.’

She swallowed, feeling her colour rising, sending him a shaky smile—thinking he’d got a look at far more that night than he’d bargained for. ‘Those reports are irrelevant now that you’ve decided on a different course. Whatever I prepared for the hotel, it doesn’t matter, not now you have something better planned.’

He frowned. ‘I accused you of orchestrating the whole situation. I was so wrong. And I was wrong to take advantage of you, to assume you were no more than a wh—’

‘Oh no,’ she said, stopping him with a hand to his lips. ‘It doesn’t matter now. You didn’t take advantage of me. You didn’t.’

He looked away. ‘But I gave you no choice.’

She grabbed hold of his jaw and yanked it around until he faced her. ‘I had a choice. Yes, I was surprised to find you turn up that night. I was shocked and blown away to find a naked stranger making moves on me—but I had a clear choice. I could have screamed blue murder when I came to. I could have fled from that bed right then and there.’

His eyes creased at the comers. ‘But you didn’t. And that would be because...?’

She let her hand slide from his jaw and screwed round ninety degrees in her seat. There were some things she couldn’t admit face to face. ‘For me,’ she said. ‘Because I didn’t want you to stop.’

There was hushed silence in the car.

‘Why did you let me do that to you, to put you in that position?’

She looked out the windscreen at gum-tree tops amid blue sky and gave a wan smile. ‘Because nobody had ever made me feel as good as you had, awake or asleep. And, even when I’d woken up and realised who you were, and knew I was risking everything, I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t say no. I wanted to feel more.’

‘You thought I was your ex-boyfriend.’

‘If I did it was only because I felt so different to how I

felt with him! He’d always told me that I was an ice queen, unfeeling and cold.’ She instinctively hugged her arms around herself and, like a weighted pendulum, started to rock forward in her seat.

His arms came around her like a vice, dragging her off course and against him instead. ‘He was an idiot.’

She tried to smile. Tried and failed miserably. ‘He knew I was an IVF baby. He told me that’s why I couldn’t feel anything with him,’ she said. ‘Because I wasn’t a real woman. Because I’d been manufactured.'

Dante sighed roughly and hugged her closer. He wanted to kill the bastard. He pressed his lips to her hair. ‘You couldn’t have believed him?’

She tightened in his arms but she didn’t pull away. ‘You think I wanted to? But in a way it made sense. Maybe I was frigid. Because I’d never found someone who made me feel like a woman, who made me want to have sex.’ She tilted her head up towards him. ‘Not until you—and that night.’

If the moon had been out, he would have howled at it. She was his woman and his alone, and his heart was so swollen it threatened to burst from his chest.

He lifted her hands in his, pressing the backs of them to his mouth. ‘Listen to me, and believe it—you are the hottest woman I’ve ever known, and you are a real woman in every sense of the word.’

She smiled back at him. ‘I used to have a dream lover who visited me some nights. I think he was trying to tell me that.’ He tilted her chin up and focused on her lips. ‘You don’t need a dream lover any more.’

‘No,’ she agreed, her lips dancing enticingly under his. ‘Now I’ve got the real thing.’

They were only a couple of hours late for the wedding and nobody seemed to mind. At her neck she wore the emerald necklace, the matching earrings swaying in time as she walked. Dante had kept them for her, knowing they were perfect for her, knowing the time was right. He’d presented them to her before the ceremony as his wedding gift, a token of his love, and Mackenzi had accepted them, knowing it was true.

Stuart Quinn had happily agreed to act as best man and stood alongside Dante, his sun-and-salt-battered features beaming with pride. But it was Dante who drew her eye as her father led her down the blossom-lined walkway to the outdoor altar. Dante whose eyes smouldered with a rare emotion that drew her towards him like a magnet. Dante, whose slightly upturned lips spoke volumes as she came closer.

‘You always told me the view from here was beautiful,’ he whispered, taking her arm in his and looking her in the eyes as she drew alongside him. ‘But this view is the very best. I love you, Mackenzi.’

She looked back at him and felt his love embrace her, wrapping around her, warm and real. ‘As I love you, Dante. Forever.’

And then he dipped his head and kissed her. Deeply. Thoroughly. Shamelessly.

Thunderous applause broke out behind them, but it was only the polite coughing of the celebrant that finally brought about an end to the kiss.

‘Most unconventional,’ he said, his broad smile at odds with the shaking of his head. ‘But perhaps now we can get this show on the road.’

He looked over his Bible to the gathering of guests. ‘Dearly beloved...’