The Italian’s Miracle Family

‘Does it work well with business negotiations?’ she asked wryly.

He nodded. ‘I’ve bullied people before,’ he sighed. ‘But I should have remembered that it doesn’t work with you.’

‘No, I bully back too well,’ she said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Why don’t we go back now?’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

AS THEY walked back to the villa Drago smiled and talked pleasantly, but Alysa felt with a heavy heart that the sun had gone in for them. He was no longer at ease with her, and she couldn’t blame him. She wasn’t at ease with herself. She didn’t even begin to understand herself.

She had thought of him ceaselessly, had felt close enough to be his other self, despite the miles apart. Yet when the moment had come she’d backed off, driven away from him by a force too strong for her to resist.

Am I crazy? she thought. Or just reasonable? We’ve only spent a little time together. It’s an illusion that we know each other-a beautiful illusion, but the risk is too great. Why can’t I take risks any more?

As they were drinking wine after dinner that evening, Drago said, ‘The day you arrived you said there was something you wanted to say to me. We never did get round to discussing that.’

For a moment she couldn’t think what he meant. The events of the last few days had blotted out everything but him. Then it came back to her.

‘Oh yes. Something happened that day-I suddenly knew what I want to do most. If only I could make you understand…’

‘Try me,’ he said gently.

She was too distracted to look at him closely, or she might have seen the renewed hope in his eyes.

‘It’s about James,’ she said. ‘I want to make my peace with him.’

He frowned and drew back a little. ‘But how can you do that?’

‘I went to the cemetery again. He looked so lonely among the rejects, and I was the person who put him there.’

‘Nonsense. He put himself there.’

‘In a sense, yes, but when I denied all knowledge of him just after he died I banished him. Now I’d like to take him home.’

His head shot up. ‘What?’

‘I want to have him returned to England and buried there. It’s terrible to see him in that corner when Carlotta is still honoured. At least he should have a little kindness. What are you staring at?’

‘I think you must have taken leave of your senses.’

The light had died out of his eyes and a kind of ferocity had taken its place.

‘After all this time,’ he said, ‘everything that’s happened-you still haven’t freed yourself from him. Have you learned nothing?’

‘Yes, I’ve learned that I have to forgive him before I can find peace.’

‘You don’t owe him anything.’

‘You don’t owe Carlotta anything, but you still cover her with flowers. I know it’s partly for Tina, but there’s more to it. You’ve forgiven her, and this is my way of forgiving James. But I need you to help me.’

‘How?’

‘You know people, you can use your influence to get me the necessary permissions.’

‘Not in a million years,’ he said flatly.

‘But why?’

‘Have you any idea what you’re asking? Do you think it’s easy to raise a coffin and send it to another country? I thought you’d got beyond this point and put him behind you,’ he said angrily.

‘He is behind me.’

‘I don’t think so. Not if you’ll go to all this trouble to keep him with you.’

‘It’s not like that.’

‘Isn’t it? Are you sure?’

She could see that he was really angry, and disappointment swept her. She’d been so certain she could rely on him, and now he was letting her down. Something stubborn rose within her. If that was how it was, she wouldn’t beg.

‘Fine. I’ll manage this on my own. That’s what I should have done from the start.’

‘Then maybe that’s it-the thing that was keeping you away from me. The truth is you still love him.’

‘No! I don’t love him, but I’m still not free of him, any more than you’re free of Carlotta.’

‘Don’t try to pretend it’s the same thing,’ he growled. ‘We were married for ten years. She gave me the child I love. She was a good wife, except for the end.’

He was looking at her with hard, challenging eyes. Remembering what she knew, Alysa felt her temper flare.

‘That’s just it,’ she raged. ‘She was “a good wife” because she had a family who wanted to think of her that way, but James had no family, nobody to defend him except me.’

‘He rejected you.’

‘And she rejected you, but you haven’t faced it. That’s why her grave is still covered in red roses, because you have to cling to your image of her.’

‘Then how come I told you I love you?’ he shouted.

‘Maybe you do, but I’m second best, and I always will be as long as you have this fantasy picture of her as the perfect wife-except for the fact that she left you.’

‘Suppose I do think of her like that. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.’

The challenge took her breath away. She could do exactly what he suggested, if only he knew. One sight of that letter and his illusions would vanish. For a moment she hovered on the verge of temptation.

‘Well?’ Drago persisted. ‘You think you know her better than I did. Why don’t you tell me why?’

Alysa let out her breath slowly.

‘I’m not saying that. All I know of her is what happened at the end.’

‘You mean when she took James from you. I understand why you hate her, but don’t expect me to hate her as well.’

The air seemed to be singing in her ears. She had only to tell him the brutal truth, and back it up by fetching the letter from its hiding place in England. It would be so easy to do.

‘No,’ she said at last with a sigh. ‘It wouldn’t be right to hate her.’

The moment had passed. She wouldn’t tell him now.

His phone rang. It was Tina. Alysa went into the kitchen and began washing up. She was just finishing when he came in.

‘Tina seems to be finding Elena rather hard-going,’ he said.

‘Then you should get back to her as soon as possible,’ Alysa advised at once. ‘She comes first. And I have to be going home.’

‘Ah yes, Brian and the partnership. I’m surprised he could let you go.’

‘I told him I was touting for business.’ With a little laugh she showed she wasn’t troubled. ‘In a sense it was true. There were a lot of amazing people in your house, some with business interests in England, so I may do very well out of this visit.’

‘I’m glad it wasn’t a complete waste,’ he said stiffly.

‘Nothing’s ever wasted with me. I can always turn things to good account.’

He took a step forward and seized her shoulders.

‘Stop it! Don’t talk like that. Who do you think you’re dealing with?’

‘I’m trying to make this easier for both of us.’

‘Like hell you are. You’re turning yourself back into her, aren’t you?’

She didn’t need to ask who he meant by ‘her’: that other self who’d lived behind a wall of ice, and who might