The Italian's Bought Bride

‘Yes,’ Isabel agreed after a short, telling pause, her face a blank mask, ‘I could do that.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Allegra, can you give this up? Your home, your friends, the life you’ve been groomed to lead? You won’t be allowed back. I won’t risk my own position for you.’

Allegra blinked at her mother’s obvious and cold-hearted warning. She looked around her room. Suddenly everything seemed so beautiful, so precious. So fleeting. She sat hunched on her bed, hugging her old patched, pink teddy bear to her chest. In her mind she heard Stefano’s voice, warm and confident.

Tomorrow is…a new beginning, for both of us.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was overreacting. If she talked to Stefano, asked him…

Asked him what? The answer she’d been hoping for, desperate for, but he’d failed to give. He hadn’t told her he loved her; he’d reprimanded her for asking the question in the first place.

There could be no future with him.

And yet what future was there for her without Stefano?

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she whispered, her voice cracking. ‘Mama, I don’t know.’ She looked up at her mother with wide, tear-filled eyes, expecting even now for Isabel to touch her, comfort her. Yet there was no comfort from her mother, just as there never had been. Her face looked as if it were carved from the coldest, whitest marble. Isabel gave a little impatient shrug. Allegra took a deep breath. ‘What would you have done? If you’d had a choice back then? Would you still have married Papa?’

Her mother’s eyes were hard, her mouth a grim line. ‘No.’

Allegra jerked in surprise. ‘Then it wasn’t worth it, in the end? Even with children…me…’

‘Nothing is worth more than your happiness,’ Isabel stated, and Allegra shook her head in instinctive denial. She’d never heard her mother speak about happiness before. It had always been about duty. Family. Obedience.

‘Do you really care about my happiness?’ she asked, hearing the naked hope in her voice.

Her mother gazed at her steadily, coldly. ‘Of course I do.’

‘And you think…I’ll be happier…’

‘If you want love—’ Isabel cut her off ‘—then yes. Stefano doesn’t love you.’

Allegra recoiled at her mother’s blunt words. Yet it was the truth, she knew, and she needed to hear it. ‘But what will I do?’ she whispered. ‘Where will I go?’

‘Leave that to me.’ Her mother strode to her, took her by the shoulders. ‘It will be difficult,’ she said sternly, her eyes boring into hers, and Allegra, feeling as limp and lifeless as a doll, merely nodded. ‘You would not be welcome in our house any longer. I could send you a little money, that is all.’

Allegra bit her lip, tasted blood, and nodded. Determination to act like a woman—to choose for herself—drove her to reckless agreement.

‘I don’t care.’

‘My driver could take you to Milan,’ Isabel continued, thinking fast. ‘He would do that for me. From there a train to England. My brother George would help you at first, though not for long. After that…’ Isabel spread her hands. Her eyes met Allegra’s with mocking challenge. ‘Can you do it?’

Allegra thought of her life so far, cosseted, protected, decided. She’d never gone anywhere alone, had no prospects, no plans, no abilities.

Slowly she returned the pink teddy bear to her bed, to her girlhood, and lifted her chin. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I can.’

She packed a single bag with trembling hands while her mother watched, stony-faced, urging her on.

She faltered once when she glimpsed on her dressing table the earrings Stefano had given her the day before, to wear with her wedding gown.

They were diamond teardrops, antique and elegant, and he’d told her he couldn’t wait to see her wearing them. Yet now she would never wear them.

‘Am I doing the right thing?’ she whispered, and Isabel leaned over and zipped up her bag.

‘Of course you are,’ she snapped. ‘Allegra, if I thought you could be happy with Stefano, I would say stay. Marry him. See if you can make a good life for yourself. But you’ve never wanted a good life, have you? You want something great.’ Her mother’s smile was sardonic as she finished, ‘The fairy tale.’

Allegra blinked back tears. ‘Is that so wrong?’

Isabel shrugged. ‘Not many people get the fairy tale. Now write something to Stefano, to explain.’

‘I don’t know what to say!’

‘Tell him what you told me. You realized he didn’t love you, and you weren’t prepared to enter a loveless marriage.’ Isabel reached for a pen and some lined notebook paper—childish paper—fromAllegra’s desk. She thrust the items at her daughter.

Dear Stefano, Allegra wrote in her careful, looping cursive. I’m sorry but… She paused. What could she say? How could she explain? She closed her eyes and two tears seeped out. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Allegra, you need to start acting like an adult!’ Isabel plucked the pen from her fingers. ‘Here, I’ll tell you what to write.’

Isabel dictated every soulless word, while Allegra’s tears splashed on to the paper and smeared the ink.

‘Make sure he gets it,’ she said as she handed the letter to her mother, scrubbing the tears from her eyes with one fist. ‘Before the ceremony. So he’s not…not…’

‘I’ll make sure.’ Isabel tucked the letter in the pocket of her dressing gown. ‘Now you should go. You can buy the ticket at the station. There’s money in your handbag. You’ll have to stay at a hotel for a night at least, until George returns.’

Allegra’s eyes widened; she’d forgotten her uncle was staying in the villa. ‘Why can’t I just go with him?’ she asked, only to have her mother tut impatiently.

‘And how would that look? You can manage a hotel. I’ll tell him tomorrow what’s happened. They’ll be back by the next day, no doubt. Now go, before someone sees you.’

Allegra gulped down a sudden howl of panic. She was so afraid. At least marriage to Stefano had seemed familiar, safe. And yet, she asked herself, would it have been? Or would it have become the strangest, most dangerous thing of all—being married to a man who neither loved nor respected her?

Now she would never find out.

Isabel picked up the small bag that held nothing more than a few clothes, toiletries and keepsakes and thrust it at her daughter.

Allegra, now dressed in a pair of jeans and a jumper, clutched it to her chest.

‘My driver is waiting outside. Make sure no one sees you.’ Isabel gave her a little push, the closest she’d probably ever come to an embrace. ‘Go!’

Allegra stumbled back to the door, then inched her way down the hallway. Her heart thudded so loudly she was sure the whole villa could hear it.

What was she doing? She felt like a naughty child sneaking out of bed, but it was so much more than that. So much worse.

She slipped on the stairs and had to grab on to the banister.

Somewhere a floorboard creaked, and she could hear a distant sound of snoring.

She tiptoed down the rest of the stairs, across the slick terracotta tiles of the hall. Her hand was on the knob of the front door and she turned it, only to find it was locked.

Relief poured through her for a strange, split second; she couldn’t get out. She couldn’t go.

So she would go quietly back to bed and forget she’d ever had this mad, mad plan. She’d half-turned back when the door was unlocked from the outside. Alfonso, her mother’s driver, stood there, tall, dark, and expressionless.

‘This way, signorina,’ he whispered.

Allegra glanced back longingly at her home, her life. She didn’t want to leave it, yet she would have been leaving it all tomorrow anyway, and for a fate surely worse than this.

At least now she was in charge of her own destiny.

‘Signorina?’

Allegra nodded, turning back from the warm light of her home. She followed Alfonso into the velvety darkness, her trainers crunching on the gravel drive.

Wordlessly, Alfonso opened the back door and Allegra slipped inside.

As the car pulled away, she gazed at her home one last time, cloaked in darkness. Her eyes roved over the climbing bougainvillea, the painted shutters, everything so wonderfully dear. In the upstairs window Isabel stood, her pale face visible between the gauzy curtains, and Allegra watched as her mother’s mouth curved into a cold, cruel smile of triumph that made her own breath catch in her chest in frightened surprise.

Tears stinging her eyes, her heart bumping against her chest in fear, Allegra pressed back against the seat as the car moved slowly down the drive, away from the only home she’d ever known.

CHAPTER THREE

STEFANO WATCHED ALLEGRA stiffen, her fingers stilling on the buttons of her cheap coat. Her head was bent, her face in profile so he could see the smooth, perfect line of her cheek and jaw, a loose tendril of hair curling on to the vulnerable curve where her neck met her shoulder.

When he’d come here tonight—finagled an invitation all too easily from the ever striving Mason—he’d intended to speak to Allegra about business only. All he cared about was obtaining the best care for Lucio.

He didn’t—wouldn’t—care about the past, wouldn’t care about Allegra. She was simply a means to an end.

Yet now he realized their history could not be so smoothly swept away. The past had to be dealt with…and quickly. Easily. Or at least appear as if it was.

He moved forward so his breath stirred that stray tendril of hair—as darkly golden as he remembered—and said, ‘You’re not leaving so early, are you?’

Slowly, carefully, she turned around. He saw her eyes widen, her pupils flare in shock as if, even now, after he’d spoken, she was surprised—afraid?—to see him there.

Stefano smiled and slipped the coat from her shoulders. ‘It’s been a long time,’ he said. The memories, which pulsed between them with a thousand unnamed emotions, he firmly pushed to one side.

He saw Allegra gaze up at him, her eyes wide and luminous, reminding him so forcefully of the girl he’d known too many years ago. He felt a lightning streak of pain—or was it anger? flash through him at that memory and he forced himself to smile.

All he could think about, care about, was Lucio. Not Allegra. Never Allegra. He let his smile linger as he asked, ‘Won’t you come into the party with me?’

It was bound to be a shock. Allegra knew that. Yet she still hadn’t expected to be so affected, so aware. Of him.

Even now, she found herself taking in his appearance, her eyes roving almost hungrily over his form, the excellently cut Italian suit in navy silk, the lithe, lean strength of him, the utter ease and arrogance with which he stood, holding her coat between two fingers.

‘Stefano,’ she finally said, drawing herself up, bringing her scattered senses back into a coherent whole. ‘Yes, it has been a long time. But I was actually just leaving.’

She’d envisiaged a scenario such as this many times—how could she not? Yet in each one she’d imagined Stefano furious, indifferent, or perhaps simply unrepentant. She’d never, in all of her imaginings, seen him smiling, looking like an old acquaintance who wanted nothing more than for them to catch up on each other’s lives.

Yet perhaps that was precisely what they were. Seven years was a long time. Who knew how either of them had grown, changed? And Stefano had never really loved her in the first place; his heart hadn’t been broken.

Not like hers had.

He hadn’t given her her coat, she realized. He hadn’t said a word, just smiled faintly in that aggravatingly arrogant way.

‘My coat, please,’ she said, trying not to sound annoyed, even though she was.

‘Why are you leaving the party so early?’ he asked. ‘I’ve just arrived.’

‘That may be, but I’m going,’ she said firmly. She couldn’t help but add, as curiosity compelled her, ‘I didn’t realize you knew my uncle’s family that well.’

‘Your uncle and I do business together.’ His smile, still faint, now deepened. ‘Did you not realize I’d been invited?’

‘No,’ she said shortly.

‘From what I’ve gathered, your uncle and you are not on favourable terms.’

Allegra’s gaze jerked up to his; he was staring at her with a quiet understanding that quite unnerved her.

‘How do you know that?’

‘I hear things. So do you, I imagine.’

‘Not about you.’

‘Then let me take this opportunity to fill you in,’ he said, smiling easily. Too easily. Allegra shook her head in instinctive, mute denial.

She wasn’t prepared for this. She’d expected to encounter hostility, hatred, or perhaps at worst—or at best—indifference.

Yet here he was, smiling, relaxed, acting like her friend.

And she didn’t want to be his friend. She didn’t want to be anything to him.

Why? Was she still angry? Did she still hate him? Had she ever hated him? The questions streaked through Allegra’s mind like shooting stars and fell without answers.

‘I don’t think we really have anything to say to each other, Stefano,’ Allegra said when she realized the silence had gone on too long, had become pregnant with meaning.

Stefano raised his eyebrows. ‘Don’t we?’

‘I know a lot has passed between us,’ Allegra said firmly, ‘but it’s all in the past now and I—’

‘If it’s in the past,’ Stefano interjected smoothly, ‘then it doesn’t matter, surely? Can’t we share an evening’s conversation as friends, Allegra? I’d like to talk to you.’

She hesitated. Part of her howled inside that no, they couldn’t, but a greater part realized that treating Stefano as a friend, an acquaintance, was the best way to prove to him, and to herself, that that was really all he was.

‘It’s been a long time,’ he continued quietly. ‘I don’t know anyone here but George Mason, and I’d rather have more congenial company. Won’t you talk with me for a while?’ His smile twisted and the glint in his eyes was both knowing and sorrowful. ‘Please?’

Again Allegra hesitated. All those years ago she’d left Stefano, left her entire life, because he’d broken her heart.

Yet now was her chance to show him, herself, the world, that he hadn’t. Or, even if he had, she’d come out of the experience wiser, stronger, happier.

‘All right,’ she whispered. She cleared her throat and her voice came out stronger. ‘All right, for a few minutes.’

His hand rested on the small of her back as he guided her back into the Orchid Room. Even though he was barely touching her, she burned from the mere knowledge of those fingers skimming the silk of her dress.

His touch. She’d once craved it, although in all of their engagement he’d never given her more than the barest brush of a brotherly kiss.

And now her body, treacherous as it was, still reacted to him, her senses screaming awake from the mere brush of his fingers.

At least she knew, Allegra told herself, and recognized it. At least she was aware of his power over her body. That, in itself, was power.

And after tonight, she would never see him again.

‘Let me get you a drink,’ he said as they entered the ballroom amidst a flurry of speculative looks and murmurs. ‘What do you drink now? Not lemonade any more, is it?’

‘No…’ She found herself cringing at the memory of just what a child she’d been. ‘I’ll have a glass of white wine, dry, please.’

‘Done.’

Allegra watched him disappear towards the bar and resisted the urge to plunge back through the crowd, through the double doors, out of the hotel. Away from here…from him.

No, she needed this reckoning. Perhaps she’d been actually waiting for it, waiting for the day when she saw Stefano face to face and showed him that she was no longer the silly, star- struck girl who’d thought herself so lucky, so blessed, to have someone like him fall in love with her.

Just the memory of her own naïveté, of Stefano’s deception, was enough to stiffen both her spine and her soul. Seeing him had been a shock; that was to be expected.

But she was different now, and she would show him just how different. How changed. They would have a drink for old times’ sake, and then…

And then what?

Turning her back on the crowd, as well as the unfinished thought, she found another innocuous spot to station herself.

‘There you are.’ Stefano stood in front of her, two glasses of wine cradled in one hand, his smile wry. ‘I thought you’d given me the slip.’

Allegra swallowed. Her throat felt too tight and dry to make any kind of reply. Given him the slip—as she had once before?

She reached for the glass of wine. ‘Thank you.’

Stefano glanced at her, shrinking in the shadowy corner of the ballroom, and quirked one eyebrow. ‘Why are you hiding, Allegra?’

‘I’m not,’ she defended herself quickly. ‘This isn’t exactly my crowd, that’s all.’

‘No? Tell me what your crowd is, then.’ He paused before adding, ‘Tell me about yourself.’

She glanced up at him, saw him looking down at her with that faint, cool smile that chilled her far more than it should. She found her own gaze sweeping over his features, roving over them, looking for changes. His hair was shorter and threads of silver glinted at his temples. His face was leaner, the lines of his jaw and chin more angular and pronounced. There was a new hardness in his eyes, deep down, like a mask over his soul. Or perhaps that had always been there and she hadn’t known. She hadn’t seen it, not until that last night.

‘You’re being rather friendly,’ she said at last. ‘I didn’t expect it.’

Stefano rotated his wineglass between strong brown fingers. ‘It’s been a long time,’ he said finally. ‘Unlike your uncle, I try not to hold grudges.’

‘Nor do I,’ Allegra flashed, and Stefano smiled.

‘So neither of us is angry, then.’

‘No.’ She wasn’t angry; she just didn’t know what she felt. What she was supposed to feel. Every word she spoke to Stefano was like probing a sore tooth to see how deep the decay had set in. She didn’t feel the lightning streak of pain yet, but she was ready for it when it came.

Unless it never did. Unless she’d really healed her heart, moved on, just like she intended to show him. Just as she’d always told herself she had.

He took a sip of wine. ‘So, what have you been up to these last few years?’ he asked. Allegra suppressed the impulse to laugh, even though nothing felt remotely funny.

‘I’ve been working here in London,’ she finally said. She could feel him gazing at her, even though her own eyes were averted.

‘What kind of work?’ His voice was neutral, the carefully impersonal questions of an acquaintance, and for some reason that neutrality—that distance—stung her.

‘I’m an art therapist.’ He raised his eyebrows in question and Allegra continued, genuine enthusiasm entering her voice. ‘It’s a kind of therapy that uses art to help people, usually children, uncover their emotions. In times of trauma, expressing oneself through an artistic medium often helps unlock feelings and memories that have been suppressed.’ She risked a glance upwards, expecting to see some kind of sceptical derision. Instead he looked merely thoughtful, his head cocked to one side.

‘And you enjoy this? This art therapy?’

‘Yes, it’s very rewarding. And challenging. The opportunity to make a difference in a child’s life is incredible, and I’m very thankful for it.’ Her mouth was dry and she took another sip of cool wine. ‘What about you?’

‘I still own my company, Capozzi Electronica. I do less research now it has grown bigger. Sometimes I miss that.’

‘Research,’ Allegra repeated, and felt a surprising pang of shame to realize she’d never known he’d done any research at all. He’d never told her all those years ago, and she’d never asked. ‘What kind of research?’

‘Mostly mechanical. I develop new technology to improve the efficiency of industrial machinery.’

‘You’ve lost me,’ Allegra said with a little laugh and Stefano smiled.

‘Most of it wouldn’t concern your day-to-day living anyway. My research has been centred on machinery in the mining industry. A selective field.’

‘Capozzi Electronica is a big business though,’ Allegra said, ‘isn’t it? I’ve seen your logo on loads of things—CD players, mobile phones.’

Stefano shrugged. ‘I’ve bought a few companies.’

She opened her mouth to ask another question, but Stefano plucked her wineglass from her fingers and gave her a teasing smile. ‘Enough of that. The music is starting again and I’d like to dance. Dance with me?’

He held one hand out, just as he’d done all those years ago on her eighteenth birthday, when she’d walked down the stairs and into what she’d thought was her future.

Now she hesitated. ‘Stefano, I don’t think…’

‘For old times’ sake.’

‘I don’t want to remember old times.’

Stefano smiled faintly. ‘No, neither do I, come to think of it. Then how about for new times’ sake? New friendships.’

She stared at his hand, outstretched, waiting. The fingers were long and tapered, the skin smooth and tanned. ‘Allegra?’

She knew this was a bad idea. She’d wanted to chat with Stefano like an old friend, but she didn’t want to dance with him like one. Didn’t know if she should get that close.

And yet something in her rebelled. Wanted to see how they were together, how she reacted to him. Wanted, strangely, to feel that lightning streak of pain…to see if it was there at all.

Mutely she nodded.

His hand encased—engulfed—hers and he led her on to the dance floor. She stood there woodenly, her feet shuffling in a parody of steps, while couples danced around them, some entwined, some holding themselves more awkwardly, all of them sliding her and Stefano speculative glances.

‘This isn’t a waltz, Allegra,’ Stefano murmured and pulled her gently to him.

Their hips collided in an easy movement that was far too intimate…more intimate than anything that had passed between them during their engagement.

She felt the hard contours of him against her own softness, unyielding and strong. Allegra stiffened and jerked back even as her limbs went weak.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, ‘I don’t dance that often.’

‘Nor do I,’ Stefano murmured back, his lips close—too close—to her hair. ‘But I hear it’s like riding a bike. You never forget.’

His arms were around her waist, his fingers splayed on her lower back. ‘Do you remember how we danced? On your eighteenth birthday?’ A glimmer of a smile lurked in the mobile curve of his mouth, although his eyes were shuttered. ‘You clung to me for balance because you’d never worn heels before.’

Allegra shook her head, closed her eyes before snapping them open once more. ‘I was a child.’

Stefano frowned, his eyes flickering across her face. ‘Perhaps,’ he said at last. ‘But you aren’t one now.’

‘No,’ Allegra agreed, ‘I’m not.’

They danced in silence, swaying to the rhythm, their bodies— chests, hips, thighs—all too tantalisingly close. Allegra felt herself relaxing, even though there was a taut wire of tension running through her core, vibrating with awareness.

She’d never expected it to happen like this. And yet, she realized, she’d expected to see Stefano again. A part of her, she acknowledged now, had been waiting for their reunion since the night she’d fled.

Why? she wondered, and her heart knew the answer. To show him how strong she was, how healed and healthy and happy she was…without him.