The Venetian One-Night Baby. Melanie Milburne

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      Sabrina lay back down with a sigh. ‘Yeah, well, hate to tell you but your parents have been doing the same about you.’ She kicked out the rumples in her bed linen with her feet and added, ‘Anyone would think you were a saint.’

      ‘I’m hardly that.’

      There was another silence.

      ‘Thanks for letting me share your room,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t offered. I heard from other people at the cocktail party that just about everywhere else is full.’

      ‘It’s fine. Glad to help.’

      She propped herself back on her elbow to look at him. ‘Max?’

      He made a sound that sounded like a God, give me strength groan. ‘Mmm?’

      ‘Why did you and Lydia break up?’ Sabrina wasn’t sure why she’d asked the question other than she had always wondered what had caused his fiancée to cancel their wedding at short notice. She’d heard the gossip over the children issue but she wanted to hear the truth from him.

      The movement of his body against the bed linen sounded angry. And the air seemed to tighten in the room as if the walls and ceiling and the furniture had collectively taken a breath.

      ‘Go to sleep, Sabrina.’ His tone had an intractable don’t push it edge.

      Sabrina wanted to push it. She wanted to push him into revealing more about himself. There was so much she didn’t know about him. There were things he never spoke about—like the death of his baby brother. But then neither did his parents speak about Daniel. The tragic loss of an infant was always devastating and even though Max had been only seven years old at the time, he too would have felt the loss, especially with his parents so distraught with grief. Sometimes she saw glimpses of his parents’ grief even now. A certain look would be exchanged between Gillian and Bryce Firbank and their gazes would shadow as if they were remembering their baby boy. ‘Someone told me it was because she wanted kids and you didn’t. Is that true?’

      He didn’t answer for such a long moment she thought he must have fallen asleep. But then she heard the sound of the sheets rustling and his voice broke through the silence. ‘That and other reasons.’

      ‘Such as?’

      He released a frustrated-sounding sigh. ‘She fell in love with someone else.’

      ‘Did you love her?’

      ‘I was going to marry her, wasn’t I?’ His tone had an edge of impatience that made her wonder if he had been truly in love with his ex-fiancée. He had never seemed to her to be the falling-in-love type. He was too self-contained. Too private with his emotions. Sabrina remembered meeting Lydia a couple of times and feeling a little surprised she and Max were a couple about to be married. The chemistry between them had been on the mild instead of the wild side.

      ‘Lydia’s divorced now, isn’t she?’ Sabrina continued after a long moment. ‘I wonder if she ever thinks she made the wrong decision.’

      He didn’t answer but she could tell from his breathing he wasn’t asleep.

      Sabrina closed her eyes, willing herself to relax, but sleep was frustratingly elusive. Her body was too strung out, too aware of Max lying so close by. She listened to the sound of him breathing and the slight rustle of the sheets when he changed position. After a while his breathing slowed and the rustling stopped and she realised he was finally asleep.

      She settled back down against the pillows with a sigh...

      * * *

      Max could hear a baby crying...the sound making his skin prickle with cold dread. Where was the baby? What was wrong with it? Why was it crying? Why wasn’t anyone going to it? Should he try and settle it? Then he saw the cot, his baby brother’s cot...it was empty... Then he saw the tiny white coffin with the teddy bear perched on top. No. No. No.

      ‘Max. Max.’ Sabrina’s voice broke through the nightmare. ‘You’re having a bad dream. Wake up, Max. Wake up.’

      Max opened his eyes and realised with a shock he was holding her upper arms in a deathly grip. She was practically straddling him, her hair tousled from being in bed or from him manhandling her. He released her and let out a juddering breath, shame and guilt coursing through him like a rush of ice water. ‘I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?’ He winced when he saw the full set of his fingerprints on her arms.

      She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, her cheeks flushed. ‘I’m okay. But you scared the hell out of me.’

      Max pushed back the sheets and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, his back facing her. He rested his hands on his thighs, trying to get his heart rate back to normal. Trying not to look at those marks on her arms. Trying not to reach for her.

      Desperately trying not to reach for her.

      ‘Max?’ Her voice was as soft as the hand she laid on his shoulder.

      ‘Go back to sleep.’

      She was so close to him he could feel her breath on the back of his neck. He could feel her hair tickling his shoulder and he knew if he so much as turned his head to look at her he would be lost. It had been years since he’d had a nightmare. They weren’t as frequent as in the early days but they still occasionally occurred. Catching him off guard, reminding him he would never be free from the pain of knowing he had failed his baby brother.

      ‘Do you want to talk about your nightmare?’ Sabrina said. ‘It might help you to—’

      ‘No.’

      Sabrina’s soft hand was moving up and down between his shoulder blades in soothing strokes. His skin lifted in a shiver, his blood surging to his groin. Her hand came up and began to massage the tight muscles of his neck and he suppressed a groan of pleasure. Why couldn’t he be immune to her touch? Why couldn’t he ignore the way she was leaning against him, one of her satin-covered breasts brushing against his left shoulder blade? He could smell her flowery fragrance; it teased and tantalised his senses. He felt drugged. Stoned by her closeness.

      He drew in a breath and placed his hands on either side of his thighs, his fingers digging into the mattress. He would not touch her.

       He. Would. Not.

      * * *

      Sabrina could feel the tension in his body. The muscles in his back and shoulders were set like concrete, even the muscles in his arms were bunched and the tendons of his hands white and prominent where he was gripping the mattress. His thrashing about his bed had woken her from a fitful sleep. She had been shocked at the sound of his anguish, his cries hadn’t been all that loud but they had been raw and desperate and somehow that made them seem all the more tragic. What had he been dreaming about? And why wouldn’t he talk about it? Or it had it just been one of those horrible dreams everyone had from time to time?

      Sabrina moved her hand from massaging his neck to trail it through the thickness of his hair. ‘You should try and get some sleep.’

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