Page 75 of Tame Me

I’m so stunned I’m too honest in my answer. ‘I haven’t had parental support in years.’

‘They’re dead?’

‘It’s been so long since I saw my father he might as well be,’ I mutter. ‘My mother is around but...’

‘You’re not close.’

My mum’s way of coping with anything bad is to uproot and ship out. Unfortunately bad stuff happens to her frequently and usually involves some jerk. She’s been desperate for someone to depend on for my whole life and made way too many bad choices in that search. We had to move far too often, which impacted on my and Ava’s friendships and our education—not that Mum cared about those things. Or us.

But I did. I’d already been working part-time for years to supplement what little money Mum made and I didn’t want Ava to have to start over in yet another school. I dropped out and worked full time, that way I could afford a tutor to extend her. The school turned a blind eye to the fact no one turned up to parent-teacher interviews. But I don’t explain all this to Dain, he’s frowning enough as it is.

‘I’ve been supporting myself since I was a teenager.’ I lift my head proudly. ‘I work several jobs and work hard.’ It’s never been easy but I’ve supported Ava for years and now Lukas too. ‘My social media channel is building and income is trickling in from that. I don’t want to lose momentum.’

‘You don’t need to make money,’ he dismisses. ‘You can delete the channel.’

‘Pardon?’ If I had hackles, they’d be on end. ‘My career matters to me.’

‘You never have to work again if you don’t want to.’

‘What? And be completely dependent upon you?’ I’m appalled and a horrifying thought occurs to me. ‘I don’t want to be a kept woman. Certainly not your wife.’

Would he be that old-fashioned?

‘Have I asked you to be?’ he drawls.

Of course he hasn’t. I’m not the society sort of wife Dain Anzelotti would have. The beautiful model with the famous family pedigree that he was photographed with minutes after being with me, however, she’d be perfect. I grit my teeth.

‘I’m not interested in marriage,’ he adds.

‘That night you were unashamedly anti-kids too.’

‘What’s happened isn’t Lukas’s fault. I’ll be there for him.’

‘What does that even mean?’ I ask smartly. ‘Will you tolerate his existence? He won’t be too much of an inconvenience?’ I step forward. If there’s no commitment between us there’s an easy escape for Dain and I already know no one can be relied on. ‘You get one chance,’ I mutter fiercely. ‘If you ever walk out on Lukas then you’re out of his life for good.’

‘Right back at you.’ He steps forward to go toe to toe with me. ‘I don’t believe in marriage.’ He sneers through the word. ‘We’ll have an unbreakable, legally enforceablecontract. It doesn’t need to be difficult or emotive. We’ll agree to terms and we’ll get on with it.’

He means an access plan. He means a dictate on where we live and how long for. What school Lukas will go to. Which doctor. Every aspect of his life will be agreed in advance between us. I’m going to lose full autonomy and have to agree with a man used to getting his own way. He’s watching me closely and the longer I remain silent, the bigger the storms grow in his eyes.

‘My parents’ marriage was a mess,’ he suddenly whispers. ‘I was weaponised. Victimised. Blamed. That’s never happening to Lukas. We’ll work everything out between us well ahead of time so he never has to feel—’

He breaks off and takes a sharp breath. He glances away from me to look at our baby on the soft rug.

He doesn’t want to tell me more. Fair enough. There’s plenty I don’t want to tell him either.

‘Okay, we’ll work it out,’ I agree softly. With no marriage. No dependency. ‘We both want the best for him.’

The problem is we might not always agree on what that ‘best’ will be.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Dain

INEVERDISCUSSmy family, but this morning has been shock after shock and my new reality is so far from normal I’m spinning. I glance at Lukas to ground myself and remember the priority here. He has my eyes and colouring. But knowing that Talia stopped trying to contact me grates nerves already stripped raw. Instinct screams at me to scoop him up and squirrel him to the safety of my own home. But instinct doesn’t eliminate ignorance—I’ve no idea how to care for a baby, how to create the safety I fundamentally crave for him. It’s all emotion and no experience. I don’t like it. I don’t like any of it. Especially the fact that I can’t do this without her. And I’m angry with her. Yet every damn time I glance at her every damn atom within me heats. Ican’tlose control. She hasn’t allowed me any in all this and that’s not something I can tolerate. Family drama upended my life before and I’ll never let it happen again.

She says she doesn’t want anything from me, yet I see that same heat I feel in her eyes when she looks at me. She can’t hide it and I’m tempted to use whatever power I might have to engineer an advantage. But then I remember how quickly she ran that night. Was it me or is it something within herself?

It must be me. And it must be bad. Because it’s unbelievable that not even my money was a motivation for her to try harder.

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