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No matter what he said now, what arguments he so reasonably gave her, he should have told her.

She should have known.

Why didn’t she know? Allegra wondered. Why had she never heard? Surely, somewhere, somehow she should have known.

Perhaps she should have felt it.

And yet, a mocking voice asked her silently, why should you have known? Didn’t you sever all ties when you left that night? She’d never seen her parents again; her father had died less than a year after, and her mother …

Her mother had got what she wanted. She lived her own life now in Milan, bankrolled by a steady stream of lovers.

As for anyone else who might have known of Stefano’s marriage … who? Who were those people? The girls she’d known at convent school? The relatives who’d shunned her?

She’d made choices in life, instinctive choices that had kept her well away from Stefano and his circle. And, really, she hadn’t wanted to know, had never asked anyone about Stefano, had avoided talking or even thinking about him. It was precisely this kind of information that she’d never wanted to hear.

Yet, in the end, none of it had worked, for here they were together, in this very car, the silence freezing and hostile, their knees still touching. And her heart was hurt, crying out once more.

The car pulled up to the town house and Allegra followed Stefano inside. She watched as he stalked into the drawing room and poured two fingers of Scotch into a glass and tossed it back.

He stood in front of the fireplace, one hand braced against the marble mantle. Outside, a car drove past and washed the room in sickly yellow light. Allegra closed the double doors, drew the curtains and turned on a lamp. All tasks to keep her from the reckoning she knew would come. What she knew she had to say.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘For what?’ Stefano asked, a trace of sarcasm sharpening his tone. ‘For seeing me again? For agreeing to help Lucio? Or perhaps for walking out on me in the first place?’

There was such savagery in his voice that Allegra could only push it away, refuse to consider the implications of his words, the turn in his tone.

‘No,’ she said quickly, ‘for my behaviour tonight. I was shocked that you were married and I … I overreacted at the party.’

‘Yes, you did.’

Her fingers nervously pleated the silk of her gown. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘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?’