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‘Why should I have?’

‘Because …’ She tried to think of a reason, a safe one. ‘Because I deserve to know,’ she finally said. ‘We’ve acknowledged the past and forgotten about it, but …’

‘But it’s still there.’

‘Yes.’ Allegra bit her lip. ‘I never heard that you’d married.’

‘Did you ever ask?’

‘No, of course not. Why would I …?’ She trailed off, not wanting to follow that line of thought and its inevitable conclusions.

‘You wouldn’t have heard,’ Stefano said after a moment, his voice resigned, ‘because it was kept quiet. By me.’

‘Why?’ she whispered.

He turned around and Allegra was surprised and alarmed by the weariness etched into his features. ‘Because I regretted it almost as soon as the ceremony was over.’

He ran a hand through his hair before sinking into a cream silk armchair. ‘If you want the facts, Allegra, I’ll give them to you. I suppose I should have considered that someone might mention my marriage to you tonight, but I didn’t want to deal with it. Not yet, anyway. So I just pushed it away and didn’t think about it.’ A smile flickered and died, and his eyes were shrewd. ‘A habit I believe we share.’

Allegra looked down. The man in front of her was one she wasn’t used to. Here was Stefano being candid, open. Vulnerable. He sat sprawled in a chair, his tie loosened and the top two buttons of his shirt undone, his whisky tumbler still held loosely in one hand.

‘So what are the facts?’ she asked in a low voice.

‘I was married to Gabriella Capoleti for six years.’

‘Six years!’ It came out in a shattered, shocked gasp. Six years. ‘When did you marry her?’

‘Three months after you left me,’ Stefano said flatly.

Left me. Not Italy, not the wedding, no innocent, innocuous phrases. Left me. Because that was what she’d really done.

Allegra felt dizzy, and she steadied herself by placing one hand on the back of a chair. ‘Why?’ she whispered. ‘Why so soon?’

Stefano shrugged, gave the ghost of a smile. ‘My first marriage didn’t happen, so I planned another.’

‘That simple,’ Allegra whispered.

Stefano smiled, although his eyes were hard. ‘Yes.’

She swallowed. Why did this hurt? This was old ground they were covering. She’d raked it over in her own mind years ago, had laid it to rest. Yet now it felt fresh, raw, achingly painful.

It hurt.

‘I meant to marry you for your name, Allegra, remember? The Avesti name.’ He laughed dryly, without humour. ‘Not that the Avesti name has any standing these days.’

‘Don’t—’

‘No, you don’t like to face that, do you?’ Stefano said, his voice as sharp and cutting as a blade. ‘You don’t like to face the facts. Well, neither do I. I try not to think of my marriage. Ever.’

‘Why not?’ Her throat felt like sandpaper; her eyes were dry and gritty. ‘Did you love her?’

‘Does it matter?’ Stefano asked in a soft hiss. ‘To you?’

Yes. ‘No.’ Allegra drew herself up. ‘No, of course not. I just wondered.’

Stefano was silent; so was she. Waiting. Wondering. Outside she heard the muted blare of a car horn, the trill of a woman’s laughter.

‘I married Gabriella for the Capoleti name, just as I was going to marry you for yours,’ Stefano finally said. His voice was as flat as if he were reciting a list of dry, dusty facts. ‘I needed someone from an old, established family.’

‘Why did you need a name so much?’ Allegra asked, wondering even now why she hadn’t asked this, thought this before. She’d just shut it all out.

His lips curved in a smile and his eyes glittered like topaz. ‘Because I don’t have one myself, of course. I have money. That’s all.’ She heard a bleak note in his voice that she didn’t completely understand.

‘And so Gabriella accepted this arrangement?’ Her voice sharpened as she added, ‘Or did you deceive her as well?’

Stefano gazed at her for a moment, his expression assessing. Knowing. ‘As I deceived you?’ he finished softly. ‘How you cling to that, Allegra. How you need to believe it.’

‘Of course I believe it,’ Allegra snapped. ‘I heard it from my father’s mouth, from your own! Our marriage was nothing more than a business deal, brokered between the two of you.’ Rage and self-righteousness made her stand tall, straight. Proud. ‘How much was I worth in the end, Stefano? How much did you pay for me?’

Stefano laughed softly. ‘Didn’t you realize? Nothing, Allegra. I paid nothing for you.’ She blinked; he smiled. ‘But I would have paid a million euros for you, if you’d shown up that day. A million euros your father had already gambled away. That was why he killed himself, you know. He was in debt—far more than a million euros in debt. And, when you didn’t marry me, he got nothing.’

Allegra closed her eyes, wished she could close her mind against what Stefano was saying.

‘More facts,’ Stefano said softly, ‘that you’ve never wanted to face.’

He was right, she knew. She’d never wanted to face the fallout of her flight, had never wanted to examine too closely why her father had killed himself, why her mother had run.

‘It’s not my fault,’ she whispered, and her voice cracked.

‘Does it really matter?’ Stefano returned.

She shook her head, shut herself off from those memories, those emotions. ‘What of Gabriella, then? Tell me about your marriage.’

‘Gabriella was thirty years old then—two years older than me at the time. Desperate, to be blunt. She agreed to the marriage, to the arrangement, and it all happened rather quickly.’

‘So it would seem.’ Allegra sank into a chair. She felt sick. She’d always known that Stefano had his reasons for marrying her … Hadn’t her mother said, Our social connections, his money? Yet here was the proof, right in front of her that he’d never loved her, had never cared in the least. He was giving it to her.

He was telling her, and he didn’t even sound sorry. Just resigned.

‘Why did you keep it quiet,’ she finally asked, ‘if you wanted her name? Shouldn’t you have … let people know?’ Her voice wobbled with uncertainty and Stefano raised his eyebrows.

‘Cash in on my investment? In theory, yes. But I realized after I married Gabriella that I didn’t want her damned name. I didn’t want her, and she didn’t want me.’ He laughed dryly, but Allegra heard something else in that sound, something sad and broken. ‘And, in the end, I realized I didn’t want to build my business on someone else’s shoulders. I’d got as far as I had by myself, or nearly, and I’d continue the same way.’ He gave the ghost of a smile.

Allegra gave a little jerk of assent, her eyes sliding from Stefano and the bitterness and cynicism radiating from him in icy, intangible waves.

‘So what happened?’ she finally whispered. ‘She … she died?’

‘Yes.’ Stefano raised his eyes to meet her startled gaze. ‘But six weeks after the wedding Gabriella left me. I don’t blame her. I was miserable company and a poor husband.’ He leaned his head back against the chair. ‘She went to live in Florence, in a flat I provided for her. We agreed to live completely separate lives. When she died in a car accident six months ago, I hadn’t seen her for nearly five years.’

‘But … but that’s horrible,’ Allegra whispered.

‘Yes,’ Stefano agreed bleakly, ‘it is.’

‘What … what did you do that made her so miserable? To leave you?’

He raised one eyebrow, his smile darkly sardonic. ‘My fault, is it?’

‘You admitted it was!’

Stefano was silent for a long time, his head back, his eyes closed. Allegra wondered if he’d actually fallen asleep.

Then he spoke, his eyes still closed. ‘I realized I wanted something else from marriage. Something more. And so did Gabriella. Unfortunately, we couldn’t give it to each other.’

‘What was it?’ Allegra asked in a whisper.

Slowly Stefano raised his head, opened his eyes. Allegra felt transfixed by his sleepy gaze, gold glinting in his irises. ‘What do you think it was, Allegra?’

‘I …’ She licked her lips. She didn’t know. What more did Stefano want from a marriage? He’d got the social connections, he had the money. What more was there to be gained? ‘I … I don’t know.’

‘I wonder,’ Stefano mused, turning his tumbler around and around between his palms, ‘why you were so startled by the fact of my marriage. It almost seemed as if you were hurt.’

Allegra jerked back. ‘Of course I was startled! It’s rather a large fact to keep secret—’

‘But you’ve kept secrets, Allegra,’ Stefano interjected softly, ‘haven’t you? I haven’t been celibate for the last seven years. Neither, I believe, have you.’

Allegra felt as if she’d been nailed to the chair. The last thing she’d expected now was for him to turn the spotlight on her.

‘What does that matter?’ she finally asked, trying to keep her voice cool. Logical.

‘Exactly. What does that matter? If I choose to ignore your past, then you should ignore mine, don’t you think? Because it doesn’t matter, since you’re merely here in a professional capacity.’ His eyes glittered and he leaned forward. ‘Does it?’

‘No,’ Allegra said, her voice sounding hollow to her own ears, ‘it doesn’t.’

She felt the truth of what he was saying, what he was implying, like a series of electric shocks to her heart. Because it did matter. It did hurt.

And the only reason it could was because Stefano still mattered.

To her.

‘How many lovers have you had, Allegra?’ Stefano asked softly.

Allegra felt as if an icy finger had trailed along her spine, drifted across her cheek. She didn’t like the look in Stefano’s eyes, the intent, the anger. ‘Stefano,’ she said, her face pale, her voice thready, ‘it doesn’t matter. I never married you, I was free. I’m not yours to command, to possess. It doesn’t matter how many lovers I’ve had.’ Her voice shook. ‘You shouldn’t even ask.’

‘But it does matter,’ Stefano replied, his voice still so soft, so dangerous. ‘It matters to me.’

‘Why?’ She was trembling—actually trembling—under the onslaught of his blazing gaze.

He didn’t answer, just smiled. ‘Who was the man who touched you first?’ he asked softly. ‘Who touched you where I should have touched you?’

Allegra closed her eyes. Images danced in the darkness of her closed lids; imaginary images that had never taken place, memories of Stefano and her that had never been made.

‘Don’t, Stefano,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t want to do this.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Stefano agreed, his voice pleasant, a parody. ‘I know I don’t, and I shouldn’t. But I’m going to do it anyway. Who was he? When did you have your first lover?’

Her eyes were still closed, but she heard—felt—him move. He closed the small space between them and she knew he was standing before her. She heard him drop down to kneel in front of her, felt his hands on her knees. She tensed, he waited.

The moment was endless. They were so close, yet a yawning chasm had opened between them, a chasm caused by memories they’d both claimed didn’t matter. Memories they’d said they’d forgotten.

Allegra felt them tumble through her mind; she saw Stefano smile, she remembered the light touch of his carefully chaste kiss, she even felt the exploding joy within her at being loved.

She’d thought she’d been loved.

But, of course, she hadn’t. Not then, and certainly not now.

She gave a little gasp as she felt his fingers skim her knees, testing, teasing. Touching.

And his touch, as it had all those years ago, caused sensation to explode in her stomach, to spiral upwards from her heart. Her heart.

‘Stefano …’ she whispered, and stopped, because she didn’t know what she was saying. She didn’t even know what she was wanting.

She knew that if they continued down this path it would be dangerous. Deadly. How could they recover, continue the polite parody of their relationship, when this had happened?

This. Desire. Regret. Wonder.

Slowly, Stefano slid his hand along the tender, untouched skin of her thigh. Allegra shuddered lightly, but kept her eyes closed. She didn’t want to open them, didn’t want to see the expression on Stefano’s face. She was afraid of what it would be, what he was feeling.

What she was feeling.

‘Did he touch you here?’ he whispered. His hand slipped along her thigh, his fingers drifting higher, closer. Allegra felt her legs part, leaving her passive to his calculated caress.

She shook her head, not even sure what she was denying, admitting. Wanting him to stop, yet also wanting him to continue. Treacherously, terribly, wanting him to continue, even now.

‘What about here?’ Stefano whispered. His fingers played with the elastic of her underwear, his thumb skimming over her most sensitive flesh. ‘Did you enjoy it? Did you …?’ His finger slipped beneath her underwear. ‘Did you think of me?’

She gasped aloud, whether in pleasure or shame even she didn’t know. Her eyes were still closed, clenched shut. She gave a little shake of her head.

She opened her eyes, saw his blaze into hers with feeling. Anger. Hatred.

Shock reverberated through her at the savage expression on his face, his soul reflected so openly, so terribly, if only for a moment.

‘What is this?’ she choked out. ‘Some kind of revenge?’

Stefano’s eyes burned into hers for one fiery second before he cursed under his breath and jerked back. Allegra watched him stalk across the room, his back to her, heard the clink of glass as he poured himself another whisky.

She sagged against the chair, limp, lifeless. He was treating her like a possession, she thought. Just as she’d feared he would all those years ago, just as she’d always known. A possession. His. His to punish.

He was punishing her, she knew with a cold fury quite apart from the desire he’d sent spiralling through her.

Punishing her, for having had a lover when he’d been married. The realization of such a disgusting double standard cleared her head, gave her strength.

‘It was a doctor at the hospital where I was training,’ she said, and her voice was clipped and cold. Stefano stilled but did not turn around. ‘David Stirling. We were lovers for two months, until I realized he was just about as controlling and possessive as you are. And,’ she added, her voice shaking, ‘we didn’t sleep together until last year. So I waited six years to give myself to someone else, Stefano. You waited three months.’

He still didn’t turn around, and she wanted to hurt him, wound him, as he’d wounded her. Yet she knew she couldn’t, because he didn’t care.

And she did. Damn it, she did.

‘And you’re right, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because you don’t care about me, Stefano. You never did. You never loved me. The only thing that was hurt when I left was your wretched pride. You showed it tonight—someone else got to play with your toy! That’s all I am, have ever been, to you. And,’ she continued, trembling with emotion, with the river of suppressed feeling coursing through her in a terrible, unrelenting stream, ‘even if you had loved me, I didn’t want the kind of love you were prepared to give—a kind that didn’t involve honesty or joy or anything that really matters.’

Protection. Provision. What more is there?

He still didn’t turn around, didn’t acknowledge her in any way but the stiffness of his shoulders.

Allegra felt a blinding anger driving through to a needlepoint of pain, anger and pain that fuelled her words. ‘The kind of love you offer, Stefano, isn’t love. It’s nothing! It’s worthless.’

Stefano jerked, though he didn’t turn around. For a triumphant second Allegra actually thought she’d got to him. Hurt him. Yet even as she felt a blaze of victory, she realized it didn’t feel the way she wanted it to—deep and satisfying, a direct hit.

She felt low, cheapened somehow by her own actions as well as Stefano’s.

She took a breath, trying to calm herself. ‘Coming here was obviously a mistake but it’s also a business arrangement.’ She laughed, a sharp, brittle sound. ‘Just like our marriage was meant to be! Funny, how it all comes round. I’ll stay, Stefano, for Lucio’s sake. I want to help him. But when I have, and the next few months, or however long it takes, are over, I’ll thank God that I never have to see you again. A welcome thought for you as well, I’m sure.’

Trembling, still aching to hit him, hurt him, make him at least turn around and acknowledge her, Allegra left the room. She slammed the door on the way out.

Stefano knew he shouldn’t have a third whisky but he felt like it. He wasn’t a man who normally drank, but now he needed the fiery relief burning all the way to his gut.

Rage and remorse coursed through him in an unrelenting river of emotion. Emotion he didn’t want to acknowledge, much less feel.

Damn it. Why had he talked to her, treated her like that?

Allegra. The woman who was going to help Lucio. The woman meant to be his wife. He hadn’t forgotten. He could never forget the moment when he’d realized, when he’d known that she’d left. And she hadn’t bothered to say goodbye, to explain.

Nothing but a note.

That moment was burned into his memory, into his very soul. It felt as much a part of him as his family, his job, his every ambition or fear. He’d carried it around with him for seven years; he wasn’t about to let it go.

Yet, for Lucio’s sake, he had to. He had to try.

When he’d decided to seek Allegra out, to hire her, he’d convinced himself that the past didn’t matter. She didn’t matter.

There was no reason to care what she’d done, who she’d been with, who she’d loved. He’d been married, of all things; he could hardly accuse her for taking a lover. She was twenty-six years old and she had every right to find romance, love, sex, with someone else.

Someone other than him.

Yet the reality of it had been much harder to bear than the mere possibility.

It wasn’t the idea of another man touching her that wounded, Stefano realized with profound bitterness, although that certainly stung. It was the fact that Allegra had chosen—had preferred— someone else. She’d walked away from him to seek solace in another’s arms, and nothing—nothing—could change that.

Even worse, perhaps, was the cold, hard knowledge that he’d done the same thing. And failed.

The only solace he’d found was in knowing he’d made a mistake, and doing his best to rectify it. Giving Gabriella her life, her freedom back had been a relief for both of them.

Stefano dragged in a long, laborious breath and set his tumbler down. He walked slowly from the room, up the stairs to Allegra’s bedroom.

He didn’t try the knob; he had a feeling it would be locked and he didn’t want to find out. He placed his palm flat on the door, leaned his forehead against the smooth wood. All was silent, but he spoke anyway.

‘Allegra.’

He thought he heard a tiny sniff, a little gasp. He continued. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said or done what I did downstairs. It was wrong of me. I …’ He paused, his throat closing against the clamour of things he felt but didn’t know how to say. ‘Goodnight,’ he finally managed, and walked slowly down the corridor to his own empty bedroom.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE NEXT MORNING the town house was silent as Allegra made her way downstairs, but after a few seconds she heard the quiet clink of china from the dining room and saw Stefano in the mahogany-panelled room, drinking a cappuccino, his head bent over the newspaper.

She watched him silently for a moment, the hard plane of his cheek and jaw, the soft sweep of his hair, the way he absently ran his long-fingered hand through it before turning a page.

Looking longer she saw lines of strain on either side of his mouth, shadows of fatigue under his eyes.

What had kept him up last night? she wondered. His own behaviour, or hers? The past or the future?

It was wrong of me.

She’d heard him through her door, as she huddled on her bed. She’d heard the regret in his voice, but it barely made a dent in her hardened heart.

He’d treated her like an object. A possession. He’d revealed himself in that one cold, calculated caress—what he thought of her, what he couldn’t forget.

And even though the light touch of his fingers had made her tremble, had made her want, she wouldn’t let it weaken her will.

She was not Stefano’s possession. She would not let him treat her as one. Ever.

And, Allegra resolved as she stood in the doorway of the dining room, she would tell Stefano so. Now, not with whispered words of regret through a closed door, but face to face, eye to eye.

‘Stefano.’

His head jerked up, his eyes wary, hooded before he smiled. ‘Buon giorno.’

‘Buon giorno.’ She sat at the table and picked up a cornetti, taking a knife and buttering it with fingers that only trembled a tiny bit. ‘We need to talk.’

He folded his paper and placed it on the table, a look of polite expectancy on his face. ‘Of course. What is it?’

She shook her head slowly. Was he going to pretend that last night hadn’t happened? That the truth, painful and broken as it was, hadn’t been revealed?

‘When we both agreed to this business arrangement,’ she began, keeping her voice firm and purposeful, ‘you told me that we were different people. That the past didn’t matter.’

‘Yes,’ Stefano confirmed, a touch of coolness in his voice. He took a sip of his coffee and Anna bustled in from the kitchen with a cappuccino for Allegra.

‘Grazie,’ she murmured, her gaze still fastened on Stefano’s. ‘But that wasn’t true, was it, Stefano?’ she asked softly when Anna had left. ‘The past does matter, and perhaps we haven’t changed as much as we think we have. As much as we want to have changed. And I won’t allow the past to affect the present or the future. Not my future, not yours, and certainly not Lucio’s.’

‘I wouldn’t expect it to,’ Stefano drawled. He sounded bored.

‘You may have hired me,’ Allegra continued, her voice still thankfully firm, ‘but I’m not your possession. I won’t be treated like one—’

‘Allegra, I apologised for my behaviour last night,’ Stefano cut her off coldly. ‘I was angry with what had happened, not seven years before, but a few hours ago. You behaved in a childish way at the dinner, and I responded by behaving in a childish manner here. Again, I’m sorry.’ He gave her a tight, perfunctory smile that sent fury coursing through her in a cleansing stream.

‘I’d accept that,’ she said, ‘if you’d called me names or thrown a tantrum. Childish behaviour. But that wasn’t it, was it, Stefano? It was something more.’ She paused, took a breath. Stefano waited, one eyebrow raised in scathing scepticism. ‘The truth is,’ Allegra continued, ‘you can’t forget the past, you can’t pretend it doesn’t affect the present and any future. I believed we could because I wanted to believe it, because it was easier. But in the end ignoring it will only make it more difficult, for you, for me, and for Lucio—’

‘That’s quite an interesting load of psychobabble,’ Stefano cut her off. ‘Did you learn it on your art therapy course?’

‘No, I learned it through dealing with you,’ Allegra snapped. ‘The way you treated me—’ She stopped, pressed her lips together and refused to think about how his fingers had sought her, punished her, thrilled her. And then, worst and most hurtful of all: the blazing look of contempt, cruelty in his eyes. ‘But last night proved to me that you’re the same man you were seven years ago, treating me the same way.’ The words rang with contempt and condemnation, but Stefano didn’t react. He merely stilled, his face blank, his eyes hard. Silence. Yet again the only response to her words, her plea for understanding, was silence.