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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.

She heard the ticking of the clock, the clink of china as Stefano carefully, slowly stirred his coffee. ‘Think what you like,’ he finally said. He looked up, smiled in a way that was utterly chilling to Allegra. It was the smile, she thought numbly, of a person who didn’t care at all. And, she realized, even now she wanted him to care.

‘It doesn’t really matter. I apologised for my behaviour, and it won’t happen again. As you said,’ Stefano continued in a voice of determined pleasantness, ‘you’re here to help Lucio. We don’t need to deal with each other at all.’

‘It’s not that simple—’

‘It will be,’ Stefano said, and there was hard finality to his words, his face. ‘It will be.’

Allegra tried once more. ‘Unless we deal with it, with our feelings—’

Stefano laughed. Allegra didn’t like the sound. ‘But I don’t have feelings for you, Allegra, remember? I bought you. I treated you like a possession. I thought of you as a possession … you told me so yourself. Why should I have feelings for an object?’

Allegra opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. ‘But …’

‘So if I didn’t have feelings for you then,’ he continued, cutting across her useless, incoherent denial, his voice horribly soft, ‘why should I now?’

But he wasn’t finished. His eyes glittered as he leaned forward, his voice thrumming with power and knowledge. ‘You want to talk about feelings, Allegra?’ he challenged. ‘What about yours?’

Allegra drew back. ‘What about mine?’

‘You think I’m the only one who doesn’t like to talk about the past? What about you? What about the fact that you haven’t seen your mother or your father since that night you ran away?’

‘My father’s dead,’ Allegra said. ‘Stefano, this has nothing—’

‘To do with it? Perhaps it does. You don’t want to face what you’ve done. Well, neither do I.’ His voice was quiet and controlled, yet Allegra felt as if he were shouting. She felt as if he were shouting at her. ‘Why did you cut off all contact with your family? You stayed at your father’s funeral for less than an hour. I know. I was there.’

Her mouth opened, yet no words came out. He gave her a faint feral smile, yet she saw a bleakness in his eyes, a bleakness Allegra felt herself.

‘I watched you from afar. You never saw me.’

‘Why did you come?’

‘I knew your father too, Allegra. I shared in the guilt for his death. He was a foolish man, even an immoral one, but no one deserves to suffer such despair.’

Allegra held up one hand as if to ward off his words, as if they were blows. ‘Don’t—’

‘It hurts, doesn’t it?’ Stefano said softly. ‘To remember.’

‘Stefano—’

‘You cut yourself off from everything and everyone you’d ever known, Allegra,’ Stefano said, every word a condemnation. ‘Even yourself.’

‘You don’t know—’

‘Because you couldn’t face it. You don’t want to face it. So don’t ask me to face anything, when you’ve been running from the past for seven years, and you still haven’t stopped.’

‘This is not about me!’ Allegra shrieked. Her voice felt as if it had been ripped from her lungs and her chest, heaving with emotion, hurt. ‘This is not about me,’ she said again, and this time her voice cracked.

‘No? None of it’s about you?’ Stefano rose from the table, his face harsh, his voice utterly merciless. ‘What about your father, Allegra? Did he have nothing to do with you? I know he was crushed by your betrayal. I know it was one of the reasons he killed himself.’

‘No.’ She wouldn’t think of it. She wouldn’t allow him to make her think of it. Like a steel trap, the lid of the box Stefano had ripped open snapped shut. Allegra felt herself go numb—numb and cold, blessedly blank. She rose from the table too, curling her hands around the back of her chair to steady herself. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said in a flat, cold voice quite unlike her own.

Stefano laughed shortly. ‘I think I know all too well. But it’s better this way, isn’t it? For both of us.’ He turned away. ‘We leave for Abruzzo within the hour.’

‘Fine.’ Allegra nodded, still numb. It was so much easier not to feel. Not to feel anything.