‘So Gianni got away with murder?’ Elise demanded angrily.
‘Not for long. He died three years later when someone did much the same to him that he’d done to Angelo. Only a lot nastier.’
‘Good,’ she said quietly, and Vincente gave her a look of admiration.
He handed a thick envelope to Razzini. ‘You’ve done a good job. Take this, and call me if you ever need anything.’
Razzini stared. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said you can come to me for help. I owe you.’
Razzini took the envelope, checked the contents and gave a satisfied grunt.
‘What about him?’ he asked, indicating Franco.
‘You can leave him with me.’
Franco had simply given up, sliding to the ground, muttering.
‘Go on, call the police. I could just use a nice comfortable cell.’
‘How about a nice comfortable bed in a rehab centre?’ Vincente suggested.
‘As if they’d have me!’
‘I think they will,’ Vincente said, looking up to where the priest was walking towards them. ‘Father, if you can find a place for him in one of the church’s centres I’ll pay all his expenses.’
‘You already make generous donations-’
‘This will be in addition. I think my family owes him something. Please get him away from here and into a safe place.’
Two young priests came hurrying out to help haul the now comatose Franco away. Elise stood watching them, unable to move. What she had just discovered had left her numb. From some distant place she had a sensation that everything was different. A burden had been lifted from her and, although it was too soon to feel relief, she knew that relief would come.
Not merely relief. Freedom. She’d hurt Angelo, but she hadn’t killed him. A miracle had saved her from a lifetime of suffering, and it was Vincente who had made it happen.
‘Elise.’ Vincente gently took her shoulders.
She opened her eyes.
‘Free,’ she whispered. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’
‘I think it must be. As I said, it explains things I didn’t understand at the time.’
‘Then it wasn’t my fault,’ she whispered.
‘No, it wasn’t. None of it was your fault. Let’s go home.’
She sat quietly in the car, trying to understand what was happening, that a brighter future was opening up for them, but what she felt most intensely was a feeling of joy that started deep inside her and grew until it filled the world.
But it was too soon to give herself up to it. As Mamma came to meet them they shared a glance, silently agreeing that she must be protected from this revelation. The truth cleared Elise, but would only increase Mamma’s grief. They both hugged her and spoke warmly of tomorrow’s celebrations.
When they all retired for the night Elise stopped at her bedroom door and held out her hand. He followed her in, but he didn’t immediately take her in his arms.
‘Did it really happen?’ she murmured.
‘Yes, it happened,’ he said, sitting beside her. ‘And it gives us a chance we might never have had. Now we can emerge from the shadows and find each other.’
‘I was crushed by the weight of my own guilt. I thought I’d killed him. I didn’t believe that you could ever truly forgive me.’
Vincente shook his head. ‘It’s you that needs to forgive. When I look back on myself, the things I did, the deception I practised on you-I’m filled with shame. My rage and bitterness were so great that I thought of nothing else. I told myself that whatever I did was right because my cause was just.
‘And so I shut down all decent feelings for years. By the time I found you I was so obsessed that I could think of nothing else but my revenge, and my own rightness. But you-you changed everything. That very first evening, I knew things weren’t as I’d thought for so long, but I wouldn’t let myself believe it.
‘I clung to my illusions even while you cast your spell over me. I had to find a way to draw you into my life because I needed you to save me.’
‘Save you?’
‘I know now that by that time I was almost beyond hope, dead to most normal human feeling. But you awakened me, brought me back to life, taught me how to love again, as only you could have done.
‘When I knew I was falling in love with you I fought it with all my strength. Thank God I failed. It was too strong for me, and when I gave in to it I knew such a blessed sense of ease and freedom. It was right as nothing else had ever been.
‘I knew I must soon tell you everything, but I always drew back because you would condemn me, justly. Then I might lose you for ever, and that would be the worst thing that could happen. I kept saying, just a little longer, trying to make you fall as deeply in love with me as I was with you.’
‘Love?’ she whispered.
A tender smile overtook his face as he softly brushed her cheek.
‘Didn’t you know long ago that I loved you? Wasn’t it obvious?’
‘There was a time when you took trouble not to let me know.’
‘Of course. I thought it would give you the whip hand over me, and I couldn’t risk that. I still had so much to learn in those days.’
‘Me too,’ she said wryly. ‘I wanted the upper hand as well-just in case.’
‘But where the love is real, there’s no “just in case”,’ he said urgently, ‘no putting up defences against the dangers of commitment. But the dangers have to be faced if the love is to last. I know that now, but in those days I was still finding my way to you, step by step.
‘When I was away I came back to you like a creature seeking its home. My body needed you, and I could know no peace until we’d lain together again, but my heart needed you a hundred times more. The more I loved you, the more worried I became, because I could see how easy it would be to lose you.
‘And I mustn’t lose you, my beloved, because that might send me back to the man I was becoming. And I don’t ever want to be like him again.’
‘So who are you now?’ she asked tenderly.
‘I’m the man you want me to be, whoever and whatever he is. I’m not even sure myself, but you can show me.’
‘That’s a terrible power you’re putting into my hands,’ she said. ‘It’s scary.’
‘I’m not afraid, as long as it’s your hands and nobody else’s.’
‘If I hadn’t learned the truth as I did,’ she mused, ‘I wonder what would have happened.’
‘Don’t remind me of that night,’ he said with soft vehemence. ‘I never meant to say those terrible things to you. I was reacting to your anger. I’d have said anything to hurt you, but I regretted it bitterly afterwards. I knew that I loved you, but I was trapped in my own web. Once I’d started, I didn’t know how to stop.’
‘I seem to recall that I gave as good as I got,’ she mused.
‘I think you were possessed by the devil. When you taunted me with the men you were planning to have in the future I nearly went insane. Since then I’ve been jealous to the point of madness. Even when you were heavy with child it made no difference. I saw men look at you, I read their minds and I wanted to kill.
‘And you enjoyed tormenting me. That day you sold the apartment and let me think-’ He broke off, shaking his head in confusion at the memory.
‘Of course I enjoyed tormenting you,’ she said, smiling. ‘And I always will. Don’t think the years ahead are going to be easy for you.’
‘Let them be anything you say. Only tell me that you can love me, that you can forgive me for everything I’ve done.’
‘I forgave you long ago,’ she assured him. ‘I was wrong to blame you as much as I did. It was as though we were both caught up in a whirlwind, neither of us in control.’
‘I know. I was in despair, thinking there was no way out.’
