‘Except I couldn’t save Carla. All the money in the world, all the doctors and treatments and private hospitals and I couldn’t save her. Nothing could save Carla.’ He dragged in air. ‘When you arrived, it was like the fates were laughing in my face, taunting me. And why if not to remind me how powerless I really was?
‘I hated you then, hated what you represented, hated that you should turn up like you did and yet be claiming to carry my child.’
Waves crashed on the rocks below, seagulls wheeled in the sky and logic told her the world kept turning. But Angie could barely breathe for the tight bands wound around her heart and lungs.
‘I was wrong, though. You’re nothing like she was. I just thought you should know that. I was wrong and I’m sorry.’
He dropped his head onto his chest and dragged in a breath and finally turned his head towards her, his face devoid of expression. ‘Let’s go home.’
And he looked so defeated, so weary, that she didn’t dare ask him the questions uppermost in her mind—questions about how Carla had died—couldn’t put him through the agony of digging deeper into an obviously painful past. But as they made their way back to the car and through the streets of Sydney she absorbed what he had told her, not knowing why he had felt compelled today to tell her these things, but knowing that it helped her so much to make sense of the man—why he was driven the way he was. Why he needed so much to succeed in order to protect the ones he loved. What would that do to you, she wondered, if love had never worked in saving the people you loved, and then the money you’d thought would protect them hadn’t either?
She shivered, the temperature turning noticeably cooler as clouds scudded over the sun. But even the cooler air wasn’t enough to extinguish the tiny flickering flame his words had sparked inside her. He’d hated her once, as she’d known, but he didn’t hate her now. And out of the firestorm of accusation and bitter emotion that had accompanied their first meeting had finally emerged a kernel of respect.
‘You’re nothing like she was.’
His words played over and over in her mind. If she didn’t know how beautiful Carla had been, how perfect for Dominic she looked, she might almost have believed that was a good thing.
CHAPTER NINE
BONDING with the baby or bonding with Angelina? Dominic drove home not sure what had prompted his need to reveal so much about himself and his past, only that he knew to trust his gut sometimes, even when his head questioned his sanity. Besides, he owed her something for the assumptions he’d made when they’d met. She deserved at least some kind of explanation for that.
He came home from work the next day, a package under his arm. He found Angelina with Rosa in the kitchen, just as he’d suspected, a pile of sliced mushrooms on the bench between them with two big pots in readiness on the stove. It was a picture of domesticity he was still having trouble coming to terms with. The kitchen had been one of Carla’s least favourite places.
‘Good day?’ he asked, helping himself to a slice of foccacia and dipping it into the dish of oil and balsamic vinegar alongside.
Angie looked up across the table and smiled. ‘Rosa’s teaching me how to make risotto. I think I’m beginning to get the hang of this cooking thing.’
‘In fact, she’s so good,’ Rosa added, giving her wooden spoon a flourish, ‘I’m thinking of signing her up for the next round of MasterChef.’
‘Hey,’ Angelina protested, giving the older woman a playful smack on the arm with her own wooden spoon. ‘That was supposed to be a secret!’ Rosa laughed and dodged away.
He smiled, envying the easy camaraderie the two women had found in each other’s company and the laughs that seemed to come so easily between them. The house felt a better place somehow, more alive since Angelina had arrived, especially lately. Definitely a stark contrast to the drama and tension-filled days that had been so much the hallmark of Carla’s days here.
And Angelina herself had changed. Today she looked so happy, her eyes bright and bubbly, her colour high. She left her stool to check the pot on the stove and he realised she was wearing one of Rosa’s pinnies again with just shorts and a strappy top underneath. He enjoyed the view from the back and that long stretch of legs, but then she turned and he could see nothing but white pinny and honey-gold limbs and he imagined it was how she would look if she was wearing nothing at all underneath.