the world. I wanted to be a father, to have someone who was really mine. My parents died when I was a child. I was adopted by an uncle and aunt who treated me properly but—well, we were never really close. I believed my wife and I were close, but that proved to be an illusion.
‘Now I realise she was already sleeping with another man, but I never thought of it. Then, suddenly she was gone, demanding a divorce on the grounds that we were incompatible. I found out afterwards that she’d set spies on me to see if I had other women. But I hadn’t. I’d been boringly faithful, which must really have disappointed her.’
‘It certainly weakened her case,’ Ellie agreed.
He gave a grunt of mirthless laughter.
‘And she dumps this news on me on Valentine’s Day. She could hardly have timed it more cynically.’
‘Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day in Italy?’
‘A little. Not as much as you do in England, but enough to make me see the irony. The great day for lovers, except that it’s smothered in snow, both physically and—well, there’s more than one kind of snow.’
‘Yes, it couldn’t have worked out worse, could it?’ she said sadly. ‘I don’t suppose she thought of that—’
‘Of course not. She never thinks of anything except what suits her. But her pregnancy made it all different. The world changed. For the first time ever there was somebody who would be mine, connected to me in a way that nothing and nobody could deny. I told her that I couldn’t let her go. She made a dash for it and came to England because she must have thought divorce would be easier, since we married over here.
‘I followed her, determined to keep her, and if not her then at least my child. But now I learn that the baby’s not even mine—’
‘And I’m afraid it isn’t,’ Ellie murmured.
A tremor went through him. ‘Then I have nothing.’
The way he said ‘nothing’ made her want to reach out to him.
‘You think that now,’ she said gently, ‘but you’ll come through it. There’s always something else in life.’
‘Only if you want something else. What I want is my child. Mine and only mine.’
He spoke like a man used to bending the world to his will. But there was a blank despair in his face, as though even he knew that he couldn’t control this situation.
She guessed that such helplessness was alien to him, and he was finding it frustrating. He was used to giving orders, demanding total subservience, which was why this left him at a loss. Ironically, the strength he was used to wielding had undermined him now. She felt a surge of pity for him.
‘There are other things to care about,’ she urged. ‘You’ll find them.’
But he shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said softly. ‘Nothing.’
She gingerly placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. ‘What will you do now?’ she asked.
He sighed.
‘Accept reality in a way I’ve never had to before.’ He frowned. ‘I’m good at arranging things the way I want, or at least persuading myself that I’ve done so.’ He made a wry face. ‘Meet the biggest self-deceiver in the world.’
‘No, you’re strong. And you’ll be strong now.’
‘Why are you so sure? You don’t know me.’
‘Do you know yourself?’
‘I guess not,’ he sighed. ‘Oh, heavens!’
He dropped his head into his hands. Touched, Ellie drew him closer, enfolding him in both arms, her instinct to offer comfort to him overwhelming. He raised his head so that their eyes met, hers gentle and tender, his full of confusion and despair.
‘That must be how it seems now,’ she said gently. ‘But your life isn’t over. You’ll meet someone who’ll love you and give you a child. And the two of you will be united in that child for ever.’
‘You make it sound so easy,’ he whispered.
‘When the time comes it will be easy,’ she promised.
‘For other men perhaps. Not for me. I said I didn’t know myself, but I do know a few things. I know I can come across as overbearing, so that even if I like a woman she recoils from me.’
His words caused a pain in her heart. Driven by an impulse she barely understood, she took his face in her hands.
‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she said softly. ‘Life is treating you cruelly, not the other way around.’
‘How do I stand up to life and fight it back? And if I win, how will I know?’
‘You might never know. Sometimes the fight goes on for ever. But you don’t give in. There’s always something to fight for.’
A new look came into his eyes and he leaned forward until his mouth almost met hers.
‘Yes, there’s always something to fight for,’ he whispered.
The soft touch of his lips sent a tremor through her, then another, with such power and intensity that she had no choice but to return the caress. And then again, responding helplessly to the sweet excitement of the feeling.
‘Ellie,’ he murmured.
‘Yes—yes—’
She could not have explained what she was saying ‘yes’ to. She only knew that the desire to continue doing this had taken possession of her.
She felt his arms going around her tentatively, as though leaving the next move up to her. She returned the embrace, moving her mouth softly against his.
‘Yes,’ she repeated. ‘Yes.’
Then his arms became stronger, his embrace more desperate, and she felt herself drawn into a new world.
THE FLIGHT FROM London to Rome took two and a half hours. Ellie spent the time gazing out of the window, trying to escape the thoughts that haunted her. But in her heart she knew there was no escape.
She had thought of herself as sensible, controlled and disciplined. These were the characteristics that had enabled her to keep command of her life. Years of watching the aching unhappiness that had destroyed her parents’ marriage had made her overcautious. Feelings were dangerous things to be kept to herself.
Yet Leonizio had destroyed her caution without even knowing he was doing it. He was a hard man, protected from the world. That was how she saw him, how he preferred to be seen. But suddenly there had been a crack in his armour, giving her a glimpse of the pain concealed within.
Even more surprising had been the sympathy he’d shown for her own troubles. It was the last thing she’d expected from him, and it had softened her heart, making her reach out to him even more intensely.
The result had been devastating. She had meant only to offer him comfort. Yet the touch of his lips had sent desire and emotion blazing through her, destroying common sense, destroying caution, destroying everything but the need to travel this road to the end.
Night after night the memories returned as she lay alone. The sudden cool air on her skin as he’d stripped away her clothes and laid his lips against her breasts; the fierce yearning for him to touch her more—then more—and more. Finally the great moment when he had taken her completely, and everything in her had rejoiced.
It was something she would never forget: the fierce pleasure, unlike anything she had ever known before, the blazing satisfaction as they both climaxed. The feeling of empty desolation as they’d parted, each avoiding the other’s