The Italian's Bought Bride
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Stefano acknowledged this statement with a brusque nod. He knew Allegra would not be busy. He would make sure she was not. If she was the best, if she’d helped a child like Lucio, he would have her.
Even if it was Allegra.
Especially if it was Allegra.
The past, he vowed, would not matter when it came to helping Lucio. The past would not matter at all.
Allegra Avesti gazed into the mirror of the ladies’ powder room at the Dorchester Hotel and grimaced. Her hair was meant to be in a carelessly elegant chignon, but it looked as if she’d only succeeded with the first part of that plan.
At least her dress hit the right note, she decided with satisfaction. Smoky-grey silk, cut severely across the collarbone and held up by two skinny straps on each shoulder, it was elegant and sexy without being too revealing.
It had cost a fortune, far more than she could afford on her earnings as a therapist. Yet she’d wanted to look good for her cousin Daphne’s wedding. She’d wanted to feel good.
As if she fitted in.
Except, she knew, she didn’t. Not really. Not since the night she’d fled her own wedding and left everyone else to pick up the scattered pieces.
With a little sigh she took a lipstick and blusher out of her handbag. She didn’t think of that night, chose never to think of it—the shattered dream, the broken heart. The betrayal, the fear.
Yet her cousin’s wedding this evening had brought her own almost-wedding to the forefront of her mind, and it had taken all her energy and emotion to push it back into the box where she liked to keep those memories. That life.
The wedding had been lovely, a candlelit ceremony at a small London church. Daphne, with her heart-shaped face, soft voice and cloud of dark hair, had looked tremulously beautiful. Her husband, a high-flyer at an advertising firm in the City, seemed a bit too self-assured for Allegra’s taste, but she hoped her cousin had found happiness. Love. If such things could truly be found.
Yet, during the ceremony, she’d listened to the vows they’d spoken with undisguised cynicism.
‘Will you love her, comfort her, honour and protect her, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?’
As the words had washed over her, Allegra couldn’t help but think of her own wedding day, the day that never happened, the vows she’d never spoken.
Stefano hadn’t loved her, wouldn’t comfort her or honour her. Protect her? Yes, she thought wryly, he would have done that. Faithful? Doubtful…
Yet she still felt, sitting in that dimly lit church, an unidentifiable stab of longing, of something almost like regret.
Except she didn’t regret anything. She certainly didn’t regret walking out on Stefano. Although her uncle—and sometimes it seemed the rest of society—blamed her for that fiasco, Allegra knew the real fiasco would have been if she’d stayed.
But she was free, she told herself firmly. She was free and happy.
Allegra turned away from the mirror. She’d survived Daphne’s wedding, slipping out before anyone could corner her, but she wasn’t looking forward to the reception tonight. She was in a melancholy mood, didn’t feel like chatting and laughing and dancing. And although she loved Daphne and her Aunt Barbara, her relationship with her Uncle George had always been strained.
She hadn’t spoken to her uncle more than a handful of times in the seven years since he’d first sheltered her when she’d fled Italy, and those conversations had been uncomfortable at best.
Straightening, she left the luxurious powder room. It had been a hell of a day—running from appointment to appointment at the hospital, grappling with one serious and seemingly hopeless case after another. There had been no breakthroughs, no breath of hope.
Not today.
She loved her job, loved it with an intensity that some said should be replaced with the love of—and for—a man, but Allegra knew she was happy as she was. Happy and free, she reminded herself again firmly.
Still, the hopelessness of some of her cases, the children who had seen far too much suffering, too much sorrow, wore her down. She only had a few moments with them, perhaps an hour a week at most, and doctors expected breakthroughs. Parents expected miracles.
Once in a while, God was good. Once in a while they happened.
But not today.
The reception was being held in the Orchid Room, with its walls of delicate blue and ornate painted scrollery. A string quartet had been arranged near a parquet dance floor, and guests circulated amidst waiters bearing trays of hors d’oeuvres and sparkling champagne.
Allegra surveyed the glittering crowd and lifted her chin. She wasn’t used to this. She didn’t go to parties.
The last party she’d attended—a party like this, with society in full swing—had been for her own engagement. She’d worn a poufy, pink dress and heels that had pinched her feet, and she’d been so happy. So excited.
She shook her head as if to banish the thought, the memory. Why was she thinking—remembering—those days now? Why was she letting the memories sift through her mind like ghosts from another life—a life that had never happened? A life she’d run away from.
It was the wedding tonight, she decided. It was the first one she’d attended since she’d abandoned her own.
Forget it, Allegra told herself as she plucked a flute of champagne from one of the circulating trays and made her way through the crowd. Her cousin’s wedding was bound to stir up some unpleasant memories, unpalatable feelings. That was all this mood was, and she could deal with it.
Allegra took a sip of champagne, let the bubbles fizz defiantly through her and surveyed the milling crowd.
‘Allegra…I’m so glad you could come.’
She turned to see her Aunt Barbara smiling uncertainly at her. Dowdy but cheerful, Barbara Mason wore a lime coloured evening gown that did nothing for her pasty complexion or grey-streaked hair.
Allegra smiled warmly back. ‘I’m glad to be here as well,’ she returned a little less than truthfully. ‘I’m so thrilled for Daphne.’
‘Yes…they’ll be very happy, don’t you think?’ Barbara’s anxious gaze flitted to her daughter, who was chatting and smiling, her husband’s arm around her shoulders.