‘Of course!’
‘Well, why didn’t you say so then?’
Sergio regarded her with bleak dark-as-night eyes. A faint veil of colour accentuated his hard cheekbones. ‘I felt very guilty about what happened and guilt made me lash out. She upset you before our wedding and almost ruined the day—’
‘How did she even find me that night?’
‘The nightclub manager tipped her off.’
‘She knew about Ella.’
‘But not from me,’ Sergio countered, letting her know that he understood her concerns.
‘Grazia said you told her to divorce Abramo.’
‘No, that was a lie. But it was my fault that she made you the target of her venom,’ Sergio said gravely.
‘How could it be your fault?’
‘Grazia’s a vulture. When she tried to get back into my life, I didn’t discourage her as much as I could have done and her vanity was her undoing,’ Sergio revealed with visible reluctance. ‘Her pursuit amused me. It was before I met you and I didn’t see why I shouldn’t play her along as she had once done to me—’
‘You wanted revenge?’ Kathy was startled by a possibility that she had not considered before, and uplifted by the belated awareness that he was no longer interested in the beautiful blonde.
Sergio shifted a dismissive brown hand. ‘I would never have sought her out on my own behalf; I didn’t care enough. But I was angry when she dared to approach me last year. I didn’t have to do anything to settle old scores—just stand back and watch while Grazia plotted and planned to get me back.’
Kathy released a shaken sound of consternation. ‘But she was Abramo’s wife.’
‘Grazia goes where the money is and the minute Abramo lost his, he was yesterday’s news. He knows that as well as I do and I do believe he is over her now. What kind of a woman deserts her husband when he’s ill?’
‘A ruthless one—the sort of woman I thought you admired.’
‘But she’d never beat me at chess in a million years, delizia mia. She’d never dream of telling me I can’t climb Everest because it’s too dangerous and I might get killed—by the way, I did it a few years ago. I think it’s fortunate that I took in certain experiences before I met you because there’s a long list of manly sporting pursuits which bring you out in a rash of anxiety, isn’t there?’
Kathy had turned pink with mortification, not having appreciated that her terror at the prospect of anything happening to him was quite so obvious.
Sergio rested dark golden eyes on her and reached for her hands. ‘Grazia would have encouraged me to follow dangerous sports because she’d have enjoyed being a merry widow more than wife. How could you think I’d want her back for even five minutes when you were around?’
‘You and I sort of fell into a relationship. Nothing was planned—especially not Ella.’ Kathy’s voice was uneven. ‘But you chose Grazia. You wanted to marry her.’
‘Per meraviglia,’ Sergio sighed in a tone of regret. ‘I was twenty-one and she was a trophy my friends envied. I loved her to the best of my ability then. I was a boy, but now I’m a man and I have a very different take on what I want in a wife. But until I met you I didn’t know what I wanted—’
‘All you wanted was sex,’ Kathy told him bluntly.
‘That may be how I first saw us, but you taught me to want other things that I didn’t even know that I needed.’
‘Like what?’ she prompted.
‘Ordinary things like laughter, honest opinions, arguments…’
‘You think you needed someone to argue with?’
‘Opposition is good for me now and again. And the occasional intelligent dialogue that did not relate to jewellery, clothes or diet was very welcome, amata mia,’ Sergio confided. ‘Of course, I didn’t properly appreciate what a catch you were until you vanished for seven and a half months and I found out what it was like to miss you.’
Kathy was enthralled, for at first she had thought he was teasing her but now she was recognising the sincerity that lay behind the self-mocking delivery. ‘You missed me?’
‘And it was too late. You were gone. Now if Grazia had played that card she would’ve shown up again within a couple of weeks, but, you being you, you were gone for good.’
‘I thought it was for the best at the time.’