Hired: Mistress: Wanted: Mistress and Mother / His Private Mistress / The Millionaire's Secret Mistress. Carol Marinelli

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      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.’

      And it was so refreshing to hear it, a completely different perspective, her doubts about opening up to him quashed now as she saw the last painful months through different eyes.

      ‘In the end he spent so much time at work there really wasn’t much room for anything else…’

      ‘Anything else?’ Dante asked, painfully direct, and Matilda took a gulp of her drink then nodded.

      ‘You know, for months I’ve been going over and over it, wondering if I was just imagining things, if Edward was right, that it was my fault he couldn’t…’ She snapped her mouth closed. In an unguarded moment she’d revealed way, way more than she’d intended and she halted the conversation there, hoping that Dante would take the cue and do the same, but he was way too sharp.

      ‘What was your fault?’

      ‘Nothing.’ Matilda’s voice was high. ‘Wasn’t what I told you reason enough to end things?’

      ‘Of course.’

      Silence hung in the air. As understanding as Dante might have been, he certainly couldn’t help her with the rest. There was no way she could go there, the words that had been said agony to repeat even to herself. It was none of his damn business anyway.

      ‘You know, people like Edward normally don’t respond too well to their own failings—they’d rather make you feel like shit than even consider that they had a problem.’ His voice was deep and unusually gentle, and though she couldn’t bring herself to look at him she could feel his eyes on her. His insight floored her. She felt transparent, as if somehow he had seen into the deepest, darkest part of her and somehow shed light on it, somehow pried open the lid on her shame. And it was madness, sheer madness that she wanted to open it up more, to let out the pain that was curled up inside there…to share it with Dante.

      ‘He said that it was my fault…’ Matilda gagged on the words, screwed her eyes closed, as somehow she told him, told him what she hadn’t been able to tell even some of her closest friends. ‘That maybe if I was more interesting, made a bit more effort, that he wouldn’t look at other women, that he wouldn’t have…’ She couldn’t go there, couldn’t tell him everything, she could feel the icy chill of perspiration between her breasts, could feel her neck and her face darkening in the shame of the harsh, cruel words that had been uttered.

      ‘I would imagine that it’s incredibly difficult to be amazing in bed when you’ve been ignored all evening!’ Her closed eyes snapped open, her mouth gaping as Dante, as direct as ever, got straight to the point. ‘I would think it would be impossible, in fact, to give completely of yourself when you’re wondering who he’s really holding—whether it’s the woman in his arms or the one you caught him chatting to at the bar earlier.’

      And she hadn’t anticipated crying, but as his words tore through her only then did she truly acknowledge the pain, the pain that had been there for so long now, the bitter aftermath that had lingered long after she’d moved out and moved on with her life. But they were quiet tears, no sobs, no real outward display of emotion other than the salty rivers that ran down her smeared cheeks, stinging her reddened face as Dante gently spoke on, almost hitting the mark but not quite. She’d revealed so much to him, but her ultimate shame was still locked inside.

      ‘It was him with the problem, not you.’ His accent was thick.

      ‘He said the same thing—the other way around, of course.’ Matilda sniffed. ‘I guess it’s a matter of opinion who’s right! I spent the last few months trying to get back what we’d once had, trying to make it work, but in the end…’ She shook her head, unwilling now to go on, the last painful rows still too raw for shared introspection. Thankfully Dante sensed it, offering her another drink from the bottle they’d practically finished, but Matilda declined. ‘What about you?’

      ‘Me?’ Dante frowned.

      ‘What about your relationship?’ Matilda ventured.

      ‘What about it?’

      ‘You said that it wasn’t perfect…’

      ‘No.’ Dante shook his head.

      ‘You did,’ Matilda insisted.

      ‘I said that I knew that they were not all perfect—it doesn’t mean I was referring to mine.’

      Matilda knew he was lying and she also knew that he was closing the subject, yet she refused to leave it there. СКАЧАТЬ