What did you do when your life had crashed into a stone wall?

At last her steps took her to her bedroom where she undressed like an automaton, got into bed and lay staring into the darkness.

Angelo seemed to be there, looking at her with love and reproach. He had loved her, and she’d caused his death. Vincente had been right about that. However it had happened, she had killed him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered to him. ‘I’m so sorry.’

But the reproach was still there in his eyes, and she knew they would haunt her for the rest of her life. The truth would destroy her, as Vincente hoped. And she couldn’t even blame him.

Hours passed. Only half realising, she was listening for the phone to ring, but there was only silence.

When morning came she was still awake, still in the same position. She wanted to weep but couldn’t. Her heart was frozen.

She managed to get up long enough to splash some water on her face and make some tea. But after one cup she lost interest and returned to bed. She was shivering now and couldn’t stop, although the day was warm.

She tried to sleep but there was no escape from the images chasing themselves around her brain in a merciless circle. Angelo had faded now, but there was no relief because his place was taken by Vincente and his deception that had undermined everything, poisoning each memory, leaving her with nothing.

With a sense of horror she recalled their very first meeting, when Vincente had seemed to defend her against Mary by mounting a subtle attack.

‘She has a heart of stone and a brain of ice.’

The words had seemed a clever device but now they returned, imbued with a hideous new meaning.

‘There’s always justice in the end, however long the wait.’

Vincente had sought her out, hating her for what he took to be her heart of stone, looking forward to a ‘justice’ too long delayed. And his words had been a threat and a warning, if only she could have seen it.

Now there was a hard pain inside her where her heart should have been. It was growing every moment despite her attempts to hold it back. But she was stronger now. She knew the truth, so logically there was no cause for weeping. She would hold on to that thought and make her plans to leave this place, so that she need never see him again.

But the words dissolved into thin air while the pain grew and grew until at last a cry that was almost a scream broke from her, and after that nothing would hold back the sobs.

Elise didn’t know how long she wept, but at some point she fell asleep and when she opened her eyes it was light. Tears were still pouring down her cheeks and she wondered if she’d cried as she slept.

‘But no more,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll never cry for him again. That’s finished. Everything is finished.’

Soon she would get up and resume her normal life. But the minutes passed and she didn’t move. She wondered if she would ever move again.

Another day and night passed like this. Distantly she could hear the traffic from the road outside, but there was no other sound. The phone never rang. She felt dead. Her heart was dead, her body was dead. Only her brain lived and it was full of scorn for herself and how easily she’d been deluded.

The signs had been there from the start. On the first evening she’d even jokingly accused him of coming for revenge, and his startled reaction should have warned her that something was amiss. But she’d been too deluded by her attraction to him to heed the signs.

And when he’d returned, months later, she’d told herself that he was as attracted to her as she to him-that was why he couldn’t stay away.

Fool! Idiot!

From outside she could hear the rain begin, growing louder as it turned into a thunderstorm. She could hear the water pounding against the window and it seemed to blend with her tears, which wouldn’t stop. She fell asleep again, but the storm pursued her so that the thunder and lightning became part of her own grief. When she awoke she had the feeling that she’d slept the clock round, perhaps twice. She no longer knew anything.

At last she managed to stand up and make her way to the kitchen, where she poured herself some mineral water, but suddenly she become nauseous and ran for the bathroom.

After so long without food, all she could do was heave helplessly, but at last it stopped and she managed to get back to the kitchen and make some tea. The hot liquid soothed her insides, giving her a brief rush of energy.

She needed to get out of this echoing place where his malign ghost seemed to mock her. Anywhere would do. Another cup of hot tea strengthened her enough for her to dress and leave the building. She found that it was later than she’d thought, with the light already fading as she made her way along the street.

Elise was vaguely aware that people were looking at her but she didn’t care. Lights swirled about her, traffic roared in her ears, but she had only one thought. She must get to the Trevi Fountain. Angelo was waiting for her there, and there was something she must say to him. He’d waited too long to hear it, and if she delayed he might be gone and never hear the words-if only she could remember what they were.

She quickened her pace, turning across the road in the direction she was sure led to the fountain. But halfway across she became confused. A huge truck was bearing down on her. There were shouts and screaming from the side of the road, and the next moment she was lying unconscious on the ground.

CHAPTER NINE

FOR four days Vincente’s staff had been regarding him nervously. He arrived early, stayed late and worked with a face like thunder. He spoke briefly, seemed impatient of company and seemed abnormally conscious of the telephone.

The only person he trusted was his secretary, well briefed on the calls to be blocked and those to be put through. One call, she knew, never came.

Vincente was set on being patient. She would call him. He was certain of that. Too much was left unresolved between them, and she had no choice but to call.

He had only one thing to cling to, and that was the fact that he’d managed to hide his true feelings. His shock and confusion at the first sight of her in his mother’s home must have been visible, but after that he was sure he’d kept his defences in place.

His plan to track her down for revenge had begun to go wrong on the day he’d met her. She’d been so different from the cheap floozy of his expectations that he’d been disconcerted, fascinated. When she’d rejected him that evening he’d known frustration but also satisfaction that she couldn’t be so easily seduced.

Through the months apart he’d worked to stop the sale of her apartment, determined to lure her to Rome. He’d told himself it was because his revenge must be achieved, refusing to face the true reason-that he’d met the one woman he couldn’t forget, who physically enticed him without boring him even for a moment.

There had been too many women in his life. They hurled themselves at his money and his looks, and laid themselves out to please him. But Elise challenged him, fought with him, cheerfully insulted him, and he always went back for more. Not for Angelo’s sake. For his own.

Since she’d come to Rome he’d thought of little else but being with her, when he would see her again, the feeling of having her in his bed. At times he’d almost forgotten about Angelo, and the things he needed to know. It was always there, but less important than the shine of her eyes, the feel of her body against his and the cry of fulfilment in the dark that mingled with his own.

But what really stood out in his mind wasn’t their sexual encounters, sweet though they were. It was the time sex had been denied them, when he’d lain in her bed for days, almost helpless, reliant on her assistance. And in the long nights they had talked, coming close to understanding each other.

No, honesty checked him. His deception had denied her any understanding of him. It was he who had got to know her, and learned that he’d misjudged her.

The turning point had come when she’d told him how Ben had forced her hand. It meant that she was innocent, he could think well of her, and this had caused a leap of joy in his heart that warned him where his feelings were heading. Looking back to those days and nights now, he knew it had been the best time of his life.

But he’d found himself trapped. The longer they were together, the more his plans for revenge had seemed like nonsense. Somehow he would find a way out of the mess, tell her the truth and clear the air between them, but without revealing the extent of his plotting. He’d never doubted that he would be able to do this. He’d always been able to do anything that he set his mind to.

But then she’d discovered everything in the worst possible way, forcing him to see that he was lost in a labyrinth of his own making. Taken by surprise, he’d hesitated, briefly unsure how to confront her.

But then she’d attacked him with scorn, jeering at him as a lover, and he’d snapped, turning on her, returning cruelty for cruelty. Inwardly he groaned to recall how he’d laid all the blame for Angelo’s death on her, when the truth was that she, as much as Angelo, had been Ben’s victim. He’d known that, yet still he’d hurled it at her with a savage satisfaction that shamed him now.

Why the hell didn’t she call him?

For him to call her was impossible. She would gain the upper hand-something he couldn’t afford.

Unless the call was strictly business.

It would make sense to let her know that he would no longer block the sale of her apartment, so that she could sell up and leave. That would show her that he was unrelenting, while still allowing him to hear her voice.

‘I don’t want to be disturbed until I call you,’ Vincente told his secretary.

When he was alone he dialled her cellphone but it was switched off. He tried her apartment but there was no reply.

After half an hour he called again, but couldn’t get through on either phone. At his secretary’s insistence he accepted an urgent business call but dealt with it only from the top of his head. Then he tried once more. But there was nothing.

After so long this might mean anything; she might have left the country.

‘Hold all my calls,’ he said, rising abruptly. ‘I’ll be out for the rest of the day.’

‘But you have a meeting with a government minister-’

‘Cancel it.’ He was halfway out of the door.

Twenty minutes later he reached her apartment and rang the bell impatiently, planning what he would say when he saw her, but there was no response. Suddenly filled with dread, he pressed hard on the bell, keeping his finger there.

‘You’re wasting your time,’ said a woman’s voice from further along the corridor. ‘She isn’t there.’

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘In hospital, since yesterday. She was knocked down in the street, by a truck.’

The elderly doctor looked up at the man who came racing down the corridor as though all the devils in hell were after him.

‘I’m here to see Signora Carlton.’

‘Are you a relative, signore?’

‘No, does it matter?’

‘I mean, you are not her husband?’

‘Her husband is dead. My name is Vincente Farnese.’

Most people reacted to that name-impressed or even scared. The doctor seemed barely to have heard it.

‘I see. She hasn’t been able to speak much, you understand. She drifts in and out of consciousness.’

‘Dear God!’ Vincente whispered. ‘What did that truck do to her?’

‘Nothing, signore. It didn’t hit her. She merely collapsed in the road in front of it. Luckily the driver had sharp reactions and braked in time to avoid her.’

‘Collapsed? What do you mean?’

‘She seems to be suffering some severe trauma, apart from not having eaten anything for days.’

Vincente closed his eyes. But the doctor’s next words made him open them sharply.

‘We’re doing our best to save the baby, but I must warn you that nothing is certain.’

‘A baby?’ he whispered.

‘You didn’t know, signore?’

‘I had no idea.’

‘Well, it’s very early days. She didn’t know about it herself until I told her. But I’m afraid that it may already be too late.’

‘I want to see her,’ Vincente demanded.

‘I’m not sure that will be possible.’

‘What do you mean, not possible?’ he snapped. ‘That’s my child she’s carrying-’

‘But you’re not her husband. There are rules about these things. I can’t let you in without her consent.’

Vincente was about to lose his temper in the way that had served him so well before with people who needed to be shown who was boss, but mercifully something stopped him.