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She stiffened. “Hi.” It was the first time they’d been alone since the day he’d left their flat.
“I feel like I’ve barely seen you.”
She tilted her face to look at him fully. “What do you mean?”
His smile was rueful – and so familiar. Everything about him struck a chord within her. Four years was a long time to care for someone.
“It’s kind of strange, that’s all.”
She stared at him. “What is?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Being here without you.”
A shiver ran down her spine. She turned to look out over the garden once more, just as the moon was swallowed by a cloud, darkening the view.
“You’re not here without me. I mean, I’m here, right?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes. And you’re also here with someone else,” she said pointedly.
“As are you.”
“Right.” Her heart stammered. Luca. Without her intention, Bronte’s eyes strayed towards the walled garden. Heat spread through her body. “That’s what happens when people break up, I guess.”
He kicked his toe against the railing, not speaking. Bronte’s stomach swooped. Suddenly, she didn’t want to be here. Not alone with Ashton and whatever soul searching he was doing. She straightened, pushing away from the balcony purposefully.
“Do you –?” His voice arrested her, somewhere near the door. She froze, not turning to face him.
“Do I what?”
He sighed heavily, a sigh she knew well. “Never mind.”
He was baiting her. She recognised that now – with the clarity that came from hindsight and perspective. It was a trick he’d implored often in their relationship, a way to make her the conversational aggressor, the one who said too much and encouraged him to speak. She’d changed though. Now, she didn’t take the bait. And she wasn’t really interested in anything he had to say, she realised as she walked away with a sense of unconcern.
With her shoulders squared, she walked back into the restaurant, her eyes immediately colliding with Luca’s. He was in conversation with her parents but he was evidently watching for her and the second their eyes met, something hot and urgent ran the length of her spine. His eyes narrowed when Ashton entered behind her, and for a second she felt some emotion bursting from him, something she didn’t recognise, before he turned to Charles and said something that made the older man laugh and nod.
As Bronte approached the table, Luca stood.
“Let’s dance.” The words were banal
on the surface but she felt the pull of something more in his suggestion.
She looked towards the centre of the room, where a dozen or so couples were moving slowly to the strains of a famous ballad, then nodded. But her approval was presumed; Luca was already leading her towards the dance floor, a firm hand in the small of her back.
“Are you okay?”
She blinked up at him, nodding. But she wasn’t. Seeing Ashton had unsettled her, and she couldn’t fathom why. Not for the reasons she might have expected. It hadn’t hurt to see him and know they were no longer a couple. It hadn’t hurt to know he was here with someone else.
There was something else moving through her, some other emotional response that made no sense. She lifted her shoulders. “It’s all just – strange.”
He drew her close, his arms low in the small of her back, so she lifted her hands around his neck, clasping her fingers there. The pose crushed her breasts to his chest and the nearness was a form of torture, a sensual question she knew he wouldn’t respond to.
“He followed you out there pretty fast.”
“Yeah.” She looked up at Luca, distracted. “I don’t know why.”
“Don’t you?”
