The Italian's Bought Bride

‘Good,’ he replied shortly before moving off.

Allegra straightened proudly. She felt as if every eye in the faceless crowd was focused on her, seeing, knowing, condemning, even though she knew no one cared.

Except her uncle and his family.

A waiter passed and Allegra placed her nearly untouched champagne on his tray.

Murmuring her excuses as she moved through the crowd, she found a secluded corner of the ballroom and took her position there, half hidden behind a potted palm.

She took a deep breath and surveyed the circulating crowd. No one was paying any attention to her, she knew, because she wasn’t important. Her flight from Italy seven years ago was little cause of concern or even gossip these days.

She’d kept her head down and well out of society’s glare these last years, working two jobs to pay for her schooling. She was far, far from this glamorous crowd, the glittering lifestyle. Yet the people who knew her, who were supposed to love her…what had happened seven years ago still mattered to them. And it always would.

It didn’t bother her on a day-to-day basis. She didn’t need these people. She had a new life now, a good one. When she’d left that night, she’d gained her freedom, but the price for that freedom had been, quite literally, everything.

It had been a price worth paying.

The music died down and Allegra saw everyone heading to the tables. Dinner was about to be served.

Taking another deep breath, she moved through the crowds again and found her place card. She was at a table tucked in the back with a motley handful of guests who looked to be nearly as out of place as she was. Distant, vaguely embarrassing relatives, colleagues and friends who necessitated an invitation yet were not an asset to the sparkling and successful party George Mason intended for his daughter.

An art therapist with a disreputable past certainly fitted into that category, Allegra thought ruefully.

With a murmured hello, she took her place between an overweight aunt and a weedy looking businessman. The meal passed in stilted conversations and awkward silences as eight misfits attempted to get along.

Allegra let the conversation wash over her in a meaningless tide of sound and wondered just how soon she could leave.

She wanted to see Daphne but, with the cold, ambitious Charles Edmunds at her cousin’s side, Allegra wasn’t expecting a cosy cousinly chat.

The plates were cleared and her uncle stood up to speak. Allegra watched him posture importantly, talking about how he knew Charles Edmunds, cracking business jokes. At one point he pontificated on the importance of family and she smothered the stab of resentment that threatened to pierce her composure.

Soon after, the music started up again and Allegra excused herself from the table before anyone could ask her to dance. The junior from Charles’s office had been eyeing her with a determined expression.

She moved through the crowds, her head held high, her eyes meeting no one else’s.

Daphne stood apart with her husband, pale and luminous in a designer wedding gown that hugged her slight figure before flaring out in a row of ruffles.

‘Hello, Daphne,’ Allegra said.

Her cousin—the cousin she’d shared summers in Italy with, swimming and laughing and plaiting each other’s hair—now turned to her with a worried expression.

‘Hh… Hello, Allegra,’ she said after a moment, her apprehensive gaze flicking to her husband. ‘Have you met Charles?’

Charles Edmunds smiled coolly. ‘Yes, your cousin came to our engagement party. Don’t you remember, darling?’

He made it sound as if she’d crashed the party. She supposed that was what her attendance felt like. Still, she’d wanted to come, had wanted to show that no matter what they did or thought, she was still family.

‘Daphne, I only wanted to congratulate you,’ Allegra said quietly. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave a bit early—’

‘Oh, Allegra—’ Daphne looked both relieved and regretful ‘—I’m sorry…’

‘No, it’s fine.’ Allegra smiled and squeezed her cousin’s hand. ‘It’s fine. I’m tired anyway. It’s been a long day.’

‘Thank you,’ Daphne whispered, and Allegra wondered just what her cousin was thanking her for. For coming? Or for leaving? Or for simply not making a scene?

As if she ever would. She’d only made one scene in her life, and she didn’t plan on doing so again.

‘Goodbye,’ she murmured, and quickly kissed her cousin’s cold cheek.

In the foyer, she found the cloakroom and handed the attendant her ticket. She watched as the woman riffled through the rack of luxury wraps for her own plain and inexpensive coat.

‘Here you are, miss.’

‘Thank you.’

She was just about to pull it on when she heard a voice—a voice of cool confidence and warm admiration. A voice that slid across her senses and into her soul, stirring up those emotions and memories she’d tried so hard to lock away.

It all came rushing back with that voice—the memories, the fear, the regrets, the betrayal. It hurtled back, making her relive the worst night of her life once more, simply by hearing two little words that she knew, somehow, would change her world for ever.

‘Hello, Allegra,’ Stefano said.

CHAPTER TWO

Seven years earlier

TOMORROW WOULD BE her wedding day. A day of lacy dresses and sunlit kisses, of magic, of promise, of joy and wonder.

Allegra pressed one hand to her wildly beating heart. Outside the Tuscan villa, night settled softly, stealing over purple- cloaked hills and winding its way through the dusty olive groves.

Inside the warm glow of a lamp cast the room into pools of light and shadow. Allegra surveyed her childhood bedroom: the pink pillows and teddy bears vying for space on her narrow girl’s bed, the shelf of well-thumbed Enid Blyton books borrowed from English cousins, her early sketches lovingly framed by her childhood nurse, and lastly—wonderfully—her wedding dress, as frothy a confection as any young bride could wish for, swathed in plastic and hanging from her cupboard door.

She let out a little laugh, a giggle of girlish joy. She was getting married!

She’d met Stefano Capozzi thirteen months ago, at her eighteenth birthday party. She’d seen him as she’d picked her way down the stairs in her new, awkward heels. He’d been waiting at the bottom like Rhett Butler, amber eyes glinting with promise, one hand stretched out to her.

She’d taken his hand as naturally as if she’d known him, as if she’d expected him to be there. When he’d asked her to dance, she’d simply walked into his arms.

It had been so easy. So right.

And, Allegra thought happily, there hadn’t been a misstep since. Stefano had asked her out a handful of times, to restaurants and the theatre and a few local parties. He’d written her letters from Paris and Rome, when he was on business, and sent her flowers and trinkets.

And then he’d asked her to marry him…to be his wife. And he would be her husband.

Another giggle escaped her and she heard an answering echo of a laugh from outside, low, throaty, seductive. Allegra opened the shutter and peeped out; she saw a couple in the shadow of a tree, arms, bodies entwined. The woman’s head was thrown back and the man was kissing her neck.

Allegra shivered. Stefano had never kissed her neck. The few times he’d kissed her, he had been chaste, almost brotherly, yet the brush of his lips against her skin had sent a strange sensation pooling deep inside, flooding through her with an unfamiliar, new warmth.

Now she watched, fascinated, as the unknown couple’s bodies moved and writhed in a sensuous dance.