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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.