The Mistress: The Mistress\Wanted: Mistress and Mother (20 page)

“Happy?” Dante gave a disbelieving smile.

“Yes, happy.” Matilda nodded. “I happen to like my work, Dante.
I just want to make sure that you’re fine with me being there.”

“I’m fine with it.” Dante gave a short nod.

“Because Hugh’s sick?”

“Does it really matter?”

Matilda thought for a moment before answering. “It does to me,”
she said finally. “And whether it’s ego or neurosis, I’d like to think that when
I pour my heart and soul into a job at least my efforts will be appreciated. If
you and your wife are only doing this to pacify Hugh, then you’re doing it for
the wrong reasons. To make it effective, I’m going to need a lot of input as to
your daughter’s likes and dislikes. It needs to be a reflection of her and I’d
like to think that it’s going to be a place the whole family can enjoy.”

“Fair enough.” Dante gave a tight shrug. “I admit I do not
believe that a garden, however special, can help my daughter, but I am willing
to give it a try—I’ve tried everything else after all...”

“I clearly explained to Hugh that this garden isn’t going to be
a magical cure for your daughter’s problems—it might bring her some peace, some
respite, a safe place that could help soothe her...”

“If that were the case...” Dante said slowly and for the first
time since she had met him his voice wasn’t superior or scathing but distant.
Matilda felt a shiver run through her as she heard the pain behind his carefully
chosen words. “It would be more than worth it.”

“Look.” Her voice was softer now. “Why don’t I take the plans
and have a look? Then maybe on Sunday I could speak with your wife about
Alex...”

“My wife is dead.”

He didn’t elaborate, didn’t soften it with anything. His voice
was clipped and measured, his expression devoid of emotion as he explained his
situation, the pain she had witnessed just a second before when he’d spoken
about his daughter gone now, as if a safety switch had been pushed, emotion
switched off, plunging his features into unreadable darkness as she faltered an
apology.

“I had no idea,” Matilda breathed. “I’m so very sorry.”

He didn’t shake his head, didn’t wave his hand and say that she
couldn’t have known... just let her stew in her own embarrassment as their food
arrived, raining salt and pepper on his gnocchi until Matilda could take it no
more. Excusing herself, she fled to the loo and leaned over the basin, screwing
her eyes closed as she relived the conversation.

“Damn, damn damn!” Cursing herself, she relived every
insensitive word she’d uttered, then peeped her eyes open and closed them again
as a loo flushed and she was forced to fiddle with her lipstick as a fellow
diner gave her a curious glace as she washed her hands. Alone again, Matilda
stared at her glittering eyes and flushed reflection in the massive gilt-edged
mirror and willed her heart to slow down.

She’d apologise again, Matilda decided. She’d march straight
out of the bathroom and say that she was sorry. No, she’d leave well alone—after
all, she’d done nothing wrong. Of course she’d assumed his wife was alive. He
had a child, he wore his wedding ring. She had nothing to apologise for.

So why had she fled? Why didn’t she want to go back out
there?

“Everything OK?” Dante checked as she slid back into her
seat.

“Everything’s fine,” Matilda attempted, then gave up on her
false bravado and let out a long-held sigh. “I’m just not very good at this type
of thing.”

“What type of thing?”

“Business dinners.” Matilda gave a tight smile. “Though I
should be, given the number that I’ve been to.”

“I thought that your business was new.”

“It is.” Matilda nodded, taking a drink of her wine before
elaborating. “But my ex-fiancé was a real estate agent...”

“Ouch,” Dante said, and Matilda felt a rather disloyal smile to
Edward twitch on her lips.

“He was very good,” Matilda said defensively. “Incredibly good,
actually. He has a real eye for what’s needed to make a house sell well. It’s
thanks to Edward that I got started. If he was selling a deceased estate often
it would be neglected, the gardens especially, and I’d come in...”

“And add several zeros to the asking price!” Dante said with a
very dry edge, taking the positive spin out of Matilda’s speech. She gave a
rather glum nod.

“But it wasn’t like that at first.”

Dante gave a tight smile. “It never is.”

“So what do you do?” Matilda asked, chasing her rice with a
fork as Dante shredded his bread and dipped it in a side dish of oil and
balsamic vinegar, wishing as she always did when she was out that she’d had what
he’d had!

“I’m a barrister. My specialty is criminal defence.” Matilda’s
fork frozen over her fish spoke volumes. “Ouch!” he offered, when Matilda didn’t
say anything.

“Double ouch.” Matilda gave a small, tight smile as reality
struck. “Now you come to mention it, I think I know your name...” Matilda took
another slug of wine as newspaper reports flashed into her mind, as a lazy
Sunday afternoon spent reading the colour supplements a few months ago took on
an entirely new meaning. “Dante Costello—you defended that guy who—”

“Probably,” Dante shrugged.

“But—”

“I defend the indefensible.” Dante was unmoved by her obvious
discomfort. “And I usually win.”

“And I suppose your donation to the hospital was an attempt to
soften your rather brutal image.”

“You suppose correctly.” Dante nodded, only this time his
arrogance didn’t annoy her—in fact, his rather brutal honesty was surprisingly
refreshing. “I try to give back, sometimes with good intentions.” He gave
another, rather elaborate, shrug. “Other times because...”

“Because?” Matilda pushed, and Dante actually laughed.

“Exactly as you put it, Matilda, I attempt to soften my rather
brutal image.” She liked the way he said her name. Somehow with his deep Italian
voice, he made it sound beautiful, made a name that had until now always made
her cringe sound somehow exotic. But more than that it was the first time she’d
seen him laugh and the effect was amazing, seeing his bland, unfathomable face
soften a touch, glimpsing his humour, a tiny peek at the man behind the man.

They ate in more amicable silence now, the mood more relaxed,
and Matilda finally addressed the issue that they were, after all, there
for.

“It would help if you could tell me a bit about Alex—her likes
and dislikes.”

“She loves water,” Dante said without hesitation. “She also...”
He broke off with a shake of his head. “It’s nothing you can put in a
garden.”

“Tell me,” Matilda said eagerly.

“Flour,” Dante said. “She plays with dough and flour...”

“The textures are soothing,” Matilda said and watched as Dante
blinked in surprise. “I found that out when I was researching for the hospital
garden. A lot of autistic children...” She winced at her insensitivity, recalled
that it was only a tentative diagnosis and one that the family didn’t want to
hear. “I’m so—”

“Please, don’t apologise again,” Dante broke in with a distinct
dry edge to his voice. “It’s becoming rather repetitive. Anyway,” he said as
Matilda struggled for a suitable response, “it is I who should apologise to you:
I embarrassed you earlier when I told you about my wife. You can probably gather
that I’m not very good at telling people. I tend to be blunt.” He gave a very
taut smile and Matilda offered a rather watery one back, reluctant to say
anything in the hope her silence might allow him to elaborate. For the first
time since she’d met him, her instincts were right. She watched as he swallowed,
watched as those dark eyes frowned over the table towards her, and she knew in
that second that he was weighing her up, deciding whether or not to go on. Her
hand convulsed around her knife and fork, scared to move, scared to do anything
that might dissuade him, might break this fragile moment, not even blinking
until Dante gave a short, almost imperceptible nod and spoke on.

“Fifteen months ago, I had a normal, healthy daughter. She was
almost walking, she smiled she blew kisses, she waved, she was even starting to
talk, and then she and my wife were involved in a car accident. Alex was
strapped in her baby seat. It took two hours to extricate my wife and daughter
from the car...” Matilda felt a shiver go through her as he delivered his speech
and in that moment she understood him, understood the mask he wore, because he
was speaking as he must work, discarding the pain, the brutal facts, the horrors
that must surely haunt him. And stating mere facts—hellish, gut-wrenching facts
that were delivered in perhaps the only way he could: the detached voice of a
newsreader. “Jasmine was unconscious, pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.”
He took a sip of his drink, probably, Matilda guessed, to take a break from the
emotive tale, rather than to moisten his lips. But other than that he appeared
unmoved, and she could only hazard a guess at the torture he had been through,
the sheer force of willpower and rigid self-control that enabled him to deliver
this speech so dispassionately. “At first Alex, apart from a few minor injures,
appeared to have miraculously escaped relatively unscathed. She was kept in
hospital for a couple of nights with bruising and for observation but she seemed
fine...”

Dante frowned, his eyes narrowing as he looked across to where
Matilda sat, but even though he was looking directly at her, Matilda knew he
couldn’t see her, that instead he was surveying a painful moment in time, and
she sat patient and still as Dante took a moment to continue. “But, saying that,
I guess at the time I wasn’t really paying much attention...” His voice trailed
off again and this time Matilda did speak, took up this very fragile thread,
wanting so very much to hear more, to know this man just a touch better.

“You must have had a lot on your mind,” Matilda volunteered
gently, and after a beat of hesitation Dante nodded.

“I often wonder if I failed to notice something. I was just so
grateful that Alex seemed OK and she really did appear to be, but a couple of
months later—it was the twenty-second of September—she started screaming...” He
registered Matilda’s frown and gave a small wistful smile. “I remember the date
because it would have been Jasmine’s birthday. They were all difficult days, but
that one in particular was...” He didn’t elaborate, he didn’t need to. “I was
getting ready to go to the cemetery, and it was as if Alex knew. When I say she
was screaming, it wasn’t a usual tantrum, she was
hysterio
, deranged. It took hours to calm her. We called a doctor,
and he said she was picking up on my grief, that she would be fine, but even as
he spoke, even as I tried to believe him, I knew this was not normal, that
something was wrong. Unfortunately I was right.”

“It carried on?”

Dante nodded.

“Worse each time, terrible, unmitigated outbursts of rage, and
there’s no consoling her, but worse, far worse, is the withdrawal afterwards,
her utter detachment. I spoke to endless doctors, Hugh was concerned, Katrina in
denial...”

“Denial?”

“She refuses to admit there is a problem. So do I too at times,
but I could not pretend things were OK and Katrina was starting to get...” he
stopped himself then, took a sip of his drink before continuing. “After a few
months I took Alex home to Italy—I thought a change of environment might help.
And, of course, it did help to have my family around me, but Hugh and Katrina
were devastated,” Dante continued. “They’d lost their daughter and now it seemed
to them that I was taking away their granddaughter. But I had no choice and for
a while Alex improved, but then suddenly, from nowhere, it all started
again.”

“So you came back?”

“For now.” Dante shrugged. “I am back in Australia to try and
sort things out and make my decision. I have a major trial coming up in a week’s
time so I am still working, but I am not taking on any new cases. You see now
why it seemed pointless to renovate the garden when I do not know if Alex will
even be here to enjoy it. But I think that Hugh and Katrina are hoping if they
can do something—
an
y
thing
—to improve things, there is more chance that I will stay.”

“And is there?” Matilda asked, surprised at how much his answer
mattered to her. “Is there a chance you might stay?”

“My family is in Italy,” Dante pointed out. “I have two
brothers and three sisters, all living near Rome. Alex would have her
nona
,
nono
and endless
cousins to play with, I would have more family support, instead of relying on
Katrina and Hugh, but...” He halted the conversation then, leaving her wanting
to know more, wanting a deeper glimpse of him. Wondering what it was that kept
him here, what it was that made him stay. But the subject was clearly closed.
“It cannot be about me,” Dante said instead, giving a tight shrug, and there was
a finality to his words as he effectively ended the discussion. But Matilda,
wanting more, attempted to carry it on.

“What about your work?”

“I am lucky.” He gave a dry smile. “There is always someone
getting into trouble, either here or in Italy—and being bilingual is a huge
advantage. I can work in either country.”

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Matilda asked, knowing that she was
crossing a line, knowing the polite thing to do would be to leave well alone,
but her curiosity was piqued, her delectable salmon forgotten, barely
registering as the waiter filled her wine glass. “Defending those sorts of
people, I mean.”

“I believe in innocent until proven guilty.”

“So do I,” Matilda said, staring into that brooding emotionless
face and wondering what, if anything, moved him. She’d never met anyone so
confident in their own skin, so incredibly not out to impress. He clearly didn’t
give a damn what people thought of him; he completely dispensed with the usual
social niceties and yet somehow he managed to wear it, somehow it worked. “But
you can’t sit there and tell me that that guy who killed—”