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

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—anything—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—’

‘That guy,’ Dante broke in, ‘was proved innocent in a court of law.’

‘I know.’ Matilda nodded but it changed midway, her head shaking, incredulity sinking in. She certainly wasn’t a legal eagle, but you’d have to live in a cupboard not to know about some of the cases Dante Costello handled. They were Big, in italics and with a capital B. And even if that man she had read about really had been innocent, surely some of the people Dante had defended really were guilty. His job was so far removed from hers as to be unfathomable, and bewildered, she stared back at him. ‘Do you ever regret winning?’

‘No.’ Firmly he shook his head.

‘Never?’ Matilda asked, watching his lips tighten a touch, watching his eyes darken from dusk to midnight.

‘Never,’ Dante replied, his single word unequivocal. She felt a shiver, could almost see him in his robes and wig, could almost see that inscrutable face remaining unmoved, could see that full mouth curving into a sneer as he shredded seemingly irrefutable evidence. And anyone, everyone, would have left it there, would have conceded the argument, yet Matilda didn’t, green eyes crashing into his, jade waves rolling onto unmovable black granite.

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Then you don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I know I don’t,’ Matilda admitted. ‘Yet I still don’t believe you.’

And that should have been it. She should have got on with her meal, he should have resumed eating, made polite small talk to fill the appalling gap, but instead he pushed her now. As she reached for her fork he reached deep inside, his words stilling her, his hand seemingly clutching her heart. ‘You’ve been proud of everything you’ve done.’

‘Not everything,’ Matilda tentatively admitted. ‘But there’s certainly nothing big league. Anyway, what’s that got to do with it?’

‘It has everything to do with it,’ Dante said assuredly. ‘We all have our dark secrets, we all have things that, given our time again, we would have done differently. The difference between Mr or Ms Average and my clients is that their personal lives, their most intimate regrets are up for public scrutiny. Words uttered in anger are played back to haunt them, a moment of recklessness a couple of years back suddenly relived for everyone to hear. It can be enough to cloud the most objective jury.’

‘But surely, if they’ve done nothing wrong,’ Matilda protested, ‘they have nothing to fear.’

‘Not if I do my job correctly,’ Dante said. ‘But not everyone’s as good as me.’ Matilda blinked at his lack of modesty, but Dante made no apology. ‘I have to believe that my clients are innocent.’

She should have left it there, Matilda knew that, knew she had no chance against him, but she refused to be a pushover and refused to be swayed from her stance. She wasn’t in the witness box after all, just an adult having an interesting conversation. There was no need to be intimidated. Taking a breath, she gave him a very tight smile. ‘Even if they’re clearly not?’

‘Ah, Matilda.’ He flashed her an equally false smile. ‘You shouldn’t believe all you read in the newspapers.’

‘I don’t,’ Matilda flared. ‘I’m just saying that there’s no smoke without fire…’ She winced at the cliché and began to make a more eloquent argument, but Dante got there first.

‘There are no moments in your life that you’d dread coming out in court?’

‘Of course not!’

‘None at all?’

‘None,’ Matilda flushed. ‘I certainly haven’t done anything illegal, well, not really.’

‘Not really?’ Nothing in his expression changed, bar a tiny rise of one eyebrow.

‘I thought we were here to talk about your garden,’ she flared, but Dante just smiled.

‘You were the one who questioned me about my work,’ Dante pointed out. ‘It’s not my fault if you don’t like the answer. So, come on, tell me, what did you do?’

‘I’ve told you,’ Matilda insisted. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m sorry if you find that disappointing or boring.’

‘I’m never disappointed,’ Dante said, his eyes burning into her, staring at her so directly it made her squirm. ‘And I know for a fact that you have your secret shame—everyone does.’

‘OK,’ Matilda breathed in indignation. ‘But if you’re expecting some dark, sordid story then you’re going to be sorely disappointed. It’s just a tiny, tiny thing that happened when I was a kid.’

‘Clearly not that tiny,’ Dante said, ‘if you can still blush just thinking about it.’

‘I’m not blushing,’ Matilda flared, but she knew it was useless, could feel the sting of heat on her cheeks. But it wasn’t the past that was making her blush, it was the present, the here and now, the presence of him, the feel of his eyes on her, the intimacy of revelation—any revelation.

‘Tell me,’ Dante said softly, dangerously, and it sounded like a dare. ‘Tell me what happened.’

‘I stole some chocolate when I was on school camp,’ Matilda admitted. ‘Everyone did,’ she went on almost immediately.

‘And you thought that you’d look an idiot if you didn’t play along?’

‘Something like that,’ Matilda murmured, blushing furiously now, but with the shame and fear she had felt at the time, reliving again the pressure she had felt at that tender age to just blend in. She was surprised at the emotion such a distant memory could evoke.

‘So, instead of standing up for yourself, you just went right along with it, even though you knew it was wrong.’

‘I guess.’

‘And that’s the sum total of your depraved past?’ Dante checked.

‘That’s it.’ Matilda nodded. ‘Sorry if I disappointed you.’

‘You didn’t.’ Dante shook his head. ‘I find you can learn a lot about a person if you listen to their childhood memories. Our responses don’t change that much…’