grave she looked sadly at the headstone.
‘Dad,’ she whispered, ‘why did you have to die now? I put up with Ben for eight years, to stop you going to gaol. “Just a little fiddle”, you said. Only Ben got his hands on the evidence and he made it look not so little.
‘I should have left him when you died, but I was stunned. I needed time to make plans, and then everything caught up with me. Now he’s dead, I’m free, and you’d have been free too. But it’s too late. Oh, Dad, I miss you so much.’
She stayed a few minutes before walking away and getting a taxi back to the hotel. A plan was forming in her mind. First she would leave the extravagant suite Ben had insisted on hiring and move into a smaller, cheaper room for a week, while she finished tying up loose ends. Then she would find a less expensive place to live while she waited for the Rome apartment to be sold.
But first she must talk to Vincente Farnese and make it clear that what had happened between them the night before had been an aberration. After that, she would refuse to see him again, no matter how long he remained in England. It would be hard to make him understand that because he knew now that he could bring her under his spell, at least for a while. But she was resolved to be firm against all the persuasions he could muster.
Upstairs in her suite, she chose with care the words she would say to him, then stretched out her hand to the phone. But, before she could make the call, there was a knock at the door. Outside stood one of the hotel bellboys, holding out an envelope.
‘This was left for you, Mrs Carlton.’
Tearing it open, she found a page scrawled in a confident, masculine hand.
I fear urgent business calls me back to Rome with no time to say goodbye to you. Forgive me this discourtesy.
I wish you well for the future.
Vincente Farnese
There was silence, broken only by the sound of a piece of paper being torn to shreds.
CHAPTER THREE
FINDING a small hotel was easy enough and suited her mood. Elise was content to slip out of sight, unnoticed by any of the people she’d associated with during her marriage. They were acquaintances, not friends.
She found a job in a shop. By day she sold flowers, in the evening she walked without worrying much where she was going. It was good to be alone. She’d been so long without peace.
At the same time she was in limbo, unable to move in any direction until the Rome apartment was sold. But that should have happened before now.
‘The Via Vittorio Veneto is the heart of luxury in Rome,’ the agent had told her. ‘Anything there gets snapped up.’
But he’d been wrong. Three months had passed and for some reason there were still no takers.
‘I’ve had plenty of people to see it,’ he’d said, puzzled. ‘They say they like it, then back off. One man definitely wanted it. I tried to call to tell you but I couldn’t reach you and, by the time I could, he’d withdrawn his offer.’
‘I just don’t understand this.’
‘Perhaps you should come over here and move in for a while. If the place looked warm and lived in, people might like it more.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ she said. ‘But I’m sure it’ll sell soon.’
But it hadn’t, and the day she must return to Rome was growing closer. Elise flinched from the thought. She didn’t want to see that beautiful city again, with its memories of Angelo that would be everywhere-haunting her, torturing her with what might have been.
She’d told Vincente that she’d been there as a fashion student but she’d left out everything that mattered, especially the wild beauty of her love for Angelo Caroni.
She could have studied in England but she’d fled abroad to get away from the overbearing Ben Carlton and for a short glorious time she thought she’d escaped him.
Angelo had been as young and passionate as herself. They’d been like two kids, revelling in their first experience of love, giving each other silly nicknames. She was Peri and he was Derry. He’d lived in two rooms in Trastevere, the colourful, least expensive part of town. She’d moved in with him so that they could be together, away from the world.
Then Benjamin had arrived at her college, with the evidence that could have sent her beloved father to gaol. In a frantic phone call to her father she’d begged him to deny it, but he’d tearfully admitted that it was true.
At the sound of his weeping her own tears had dried. One of them had to be strong.
When she’d told Angelo that it was over there was a violent quarrel, for he was hot-blooded. He’d stormed out and for two days she hadn’t seen him. Then a hand on the door had made her heart leap. But it had been Ben, who’d tracked her down in Trastevere, had come to claim her, tired of waiting.
Even then, she realised, he hadn’t guessed how much he disgusted her. He’d acted like the hero of a bad movie, dragging her to the window and covering her with kisses for the world to see.
But the one who’d seen was Angelo, returning to plead with her, watching in horror as he’d looked up at the window from the garden below.
Ben had been exultant, yelling down at him, ‘She’s made her choice. Look!’
As long as she lived she would remember the scream Angelo had uttered before running away into the darkness. That was the last time she had ever seen him, as Ben had hustled her away and back to England that same night.
She knew that to the world it would look as if she was abandoning a charming young lover for an older man who could give her a wealthier lifestyle. She cared nothing for the world’s opinion, but Angelo’s condemnation broke her heart.
Her marriage had followed quickly. In the devastation of her honeymoon she had written a long impassioned letter to Angelo, telling him that she would always love him, giving him the number of her new cellphone, praying for him to call when she was alone.
He never did. After two weeks she’d called his cellphone. But it wasn’t Angelo who had answered. From the other end of the line came the tearful, desperate voice of a woman, screeching,
Then she’d shut off the phone.
Angelo was dead.
Frantically Elise had tried to call back, to find out how and when he’d died, but she’d got the engaged signal, again and again.
With Ben’s jealous eyes on her, there had been no chance to discover more. Angelo had been dead for years now and still she did not know how it had happened, or why. But her fears were terrible and after Ben’s death they had been partly confirmed. Going through his possessions, she’d been horrified to discover the letter she had written long ago. Somehow he had contrived to steal it. Angelo had died without ever reading her passionately contrite words.
When she’d realised that her heart had broken all over again. Feelings that had slept for years had awoken to vivid, painful life. She had loved him as only the very young know how to love, and she knew it had been the same with him.
Gone for ever. For him there had been death, for her the inner death of a frozen heart.
Now Elise seemed to have no energy to do anything but wait while her life was on hold. Going to Rome might have seemed sensible, but she couldn’t make herself do it. The apartment would sell, her last tie with that brilliant, painful city would be cut, and both Angelo Caroni and Vincente Farnese would be out of her life.
Not that Vincente had ever been in her life.
She had made a brief foray on to the Internet to learn something about his background.
Farnese Internationale was a conglomerate of many firms, with branches in several countries, but all sheltering under one umbrella in the Viale Dei Parioli in Rome.
At the centre of this web of power sat Vincente Farnese, who owned the largest single block of shares and had
