A laugh escaped Bella and she snapped her mouth shut because it held an edge too close to hysteria to be comfortable. ‘I’ve seen a ghost, and if I don’t do what he wants he’s going to take my lifelong dream from me.’
Soph peered at her for all of a second, then grabbed the cordless phone off the coffee-table and punched a speed-dial number. ‘Can you come? I think we need a family council.’
‘I’m fine, Sophia. There’s nothing to worry about.’ Bella stepped away from the door and tried to pull herself together.
But it was too late. Soph had already ended the call, and their sister arrived not long after, and Bella wasn’t pulled together, anyway.
Chrissy stepped inside the flat while Bella was brewing a pot of chai and trying to sort out her thoughts. Her sisters both stared at her, and Bella realised she couldn’t avoid this. She would have to explain.
Maybe it would help to talk about it…
‘I saw Luchino Montichelli today.’ She got through two cups of tea and half a Pilates routine in her comfortable black catsuit before she finished her story with an explanation about his child. ‘He—his daughter was with him. Not with him with him, but there, waiting by the car when we got back to it, with a nanny at her side.’
‘He’s taken the child back?’ Soph’s tone made it clear she found this incomprehensible. ‘Didn’t you just say he deserted her after his divorce?’
Bella fought to overcome the upsurge of pain Soph’s simple question invoked. ‘I find it hard to believe, too, and I have no idea if the girl is with him permanently or what. With everything else, I’d had it by then and I just left.’ In fact, she had reacted in a blind panic. Bella still didn’t know why she had rushed off like that!
‘I wonder if he loves the child now.’ Chrissy’s hand caressed her distended tummy in a gentle, circling motion, but her gaze was fierce as she asked the question. ‘Because a child needs to be loved and if a parent can’t give it that, they have no right to even be near it.’
Soph slid her arm around Chrissy’s shoulders and squeezed. ‘You love your baby to bits. We all do. I can’t wait to be an aunty.’
‘What are you going to do, Bella?’ Chrissy accepted her sister’s hug, but her gaze remained fixed on Bella. ‘You can’t accept his ultimatum. You’d have to see him constantly, put up with his ridiculous view that you’re money-hungry and used Maria.’
‘I don’t see that I have any choice.’ Bella began to pace the floor in front of the TV.
Chrissy stepped towards her. ‘Nate and I can buy your gowns back so you can leave Maria’s altogether. We can set you up on your own, Bella, so you can start again. Your own shop, any location, whatever you want. I’m sure Nate would see it as a good long-term investment, and at least then you wouldn’t be beholden to this Montichelli man.’
‘It’s either that, or the three of us all get loans for whatever the banks will lend us, and pool it to take care of the problem.’ Soph nodded so that her bright pink hair flew in all directions around her face. ‘That’s doable as well.’
‘That might work to get Bella out of Maria’s.’ Chrissy pushed her glasses up her pert nose as she considered Soph’s suggestion. ‘But I don’t think we’d get enough money to set her up in a new shop. It would be rather a lot.’
‘I suppose so.’ Soph turned her face up and blew at a strand of hair, then looked directly at Bella. ‘I guess it has to be Nate, then, and I know you and he didn’t get off to a great start what with him getting Chrissy pregnant and everything, but look how well it turned out. Anyway, he’d help, and the main thing is, we don’t want you back near the creep who hurt you when you were in Milan.’
‘One of the creeps,’ Chrissy reminded her. ‘Remember the show manager lured Bella to his room that final night, too.’
‘You should have told us the whole truth when you came back from that trip.’ Soph launched into a protective tirade over the sleazy show manager’s behaviour.
Chrissy added her voice to it.
Bella stood between her sisters and ached inside. She loved them. They wanted to help her but ultimately she couldn’t let them. And why was it so hard to have them try to care for her?
Because the order’s been reversed and you don’t know how to cope with that.
‘Have you told us everything now, Bella?’ Chrissy’s eyes behind the glasses sparked with demand for the entire truth.
‘Yes, that’s all of it. I know I could have told you much more about what happened in Milan at the time, but I wanted to put it behind me.’ She hadn’t learned of the divorce and Luc’s abandonment of his child until almost a year later, either, and by then, hadn’t wanted to talk about it ever again.
Now her sisters knew everything, except just how much of her heart Bella had given to Luchino in that whirlwind week overseas.
Bella drew a deep breath. ‘I appreciate the offer to help me out, Chrissy, but it wouldn’t be right to ask you and Nate to tie up so much money that way. It would be bucket-loads, much more than even just the cost of repurchasing the gowns, and I admit I got a good price out of Maria for them.’ When she named the figure, both sisters gasped.
Bella shrugged. ‘I put every spare cent into creating that stock of gowns, and they are designer-wear.’
She hesitated as she considered her situation, and then admitted in a low tone, ‘Right now I’m wondering if I should have given up modelling. It’s true it was never my dream job, but maybe I miscalculated the risks in branching out into fashion. Just because I’ve created all our clothes for years—’
‘You’ve created the most amazing outfits on a shoestring budget. Anything from jeans to stunning stuff fit to wear to a palace. You have the talent, Bella,’ Chrissy insisted.
And Bella remembered that even Luchino admitted she had ability. She had to believe that, too. Now was not the time to doubt! Bella held Chrissy’s gaze. ‘I can’t let you and Soph get loans to help me, either, although I appreciate both thoughts very much.’
‘But you have to get out.’ This came from Soph.
‘No. Luchino said I have no choice, and he’s right. I have to sell the gowns quickly. If working with Luchino is the only way to do that—’ she shrugged ‘—I’ll have to cope, that’s all.’
‘It will fix the problem.’ Chrissy gave a reluctant nod. ‘Provided he doesn’t try to encroach on the business arrangement, make it more personal or anything.’ She gave Bella a searching look. ‘Is that likely to happen?’
‘Not when he thinks I’m money-hungry, and when I know all he is capable of. Distrust on both sides is not fertile ground for the development of anything personal.’ Refusing to think of the twinges of awareness that had passed between her and Luchino, Bella hugged first one sister, then the other, being careful not to squash Chrissy’s baby bump in the process. ‘Thanks for the talk and for what you both offered to do to help.’
‘What—what about his daughter?’ It was Soph who asked the question, who tried hard to hide her vulnerability as she waited for the answer.
