It was an Italian translation of the charity named in the opera programme—the charity Dominic had pretended to know nothing about.
The bitter truth stabbed at her stomach like a rusty blade. So he’d lied about that too.
The door opened, and a middle-aged woman in jeans and a jumper stood in front of her, her warm caramel eyes widening in surprise.
Marlena.
Ally recognised her immediately; she was striking, even though she looked considerably older than she had in the picture on Dominic’s phone Ally had glimpsed a half-hour ago.
Ally almost smiled at the shock on the woman’s face. This situation would have been comical if it weren’t so tragic.
‘Signora LeGrand?’ she said, and Ally realised she must have recognised her from the press photos, but as Ally nodded, unable to speak round the boulder of misery in her throat, the woman didn’t look remotely guilty or abashed.
A tiny portion of the pain faded. So Marlena wasn’t Dominic’s lover. She had been wrong about that. But the relief she ought to have felt didn’t come.
Why had Dominic deliberately let her assume the worst? Exactly how much contempt did he have for her and their marriage? And how much more pathetic could he make her feel? When she had chased him across Rome simply to have the truth confirmed.
‘Buena sera,’ the woman said, her expression changing from surprise to concern. ‘Come,’ she said, gesturing for Ally to step into the lobby of the building. ‘Dominic is here—you are looking for him, yes?’
The lobby was warm and bright, modern and colourful. Framed children’s paintings covered the walls. There was a chalkboard pinned with a series of flyers and messages in Italian. She could hear rap music playing and see what looked like a rec room through a glass partition, where a group of teenagers lounged, some watching a football game on a large flat-screen TV, others competing with each other on a computer console.
‘I told him he did not need to come,’ Marlena said from behind her, her English perfect. ‘Enzo absconded earlier, but the police have found him. I am so sorry your evening has been interrupted.’
‘Enzo? Who’s Enzo?’ she said, blankly.
‘Enzo is the homeless boy Dominic caught trying to pick his pocket this afternoon.’ The woman smiled, but her puzzled expression said it all; clearly she had expected Dominic to mention this boy to Ally.
‘Dominic brought him to us earlier. He is one of the many children Dominic has helped with his patronage of la fondazione,’ the woman added.
Her explanation was drowned out by the pounding in Ally’s ears when Dominic appeared from a door at the back of the lobby, staring at his phone as he spoke in a stream of Italian. The only word she understood was ‘polizia’.
‘Dominic?’ Marlena interrupted him and his head jerked up. ‘Your wife has arrived.’
His whole body stiffened, and Ally felt the rusty blade in her stomach twist.
‘Alison, why are you here?’ he said, the edge in his voice sharpening the knife. She wasn’t wanted here, in this part of his life, that much was obvious.
‘I... I came to find you,’ she managed to get out as he marched towards her.
‘Come.’ His fingers closed over her bare arm like an iron band. ‘We should leave.’ He said his goodbyes to Marlena, but didn’t give her a chance to do the same before he had escorted her out of the building.
‘Get in the car,’ he said as he opened the door to the large black SUV.
She slid into the seat, and stared out of the window as she heard him get in behind her. Her stomach felt as if it were a ship in a storm, being tossed on the undulating waves of her emotions. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t even think as the car pulled away from the kerb.
‘I cannot believe you followed me here,’ he said, sounding both angry and incredulous. ‘When I asked you to stay at the opera.’
She ought to say something, in her own defence, but as she gazed into the night she decided for once she had nothing to apologise for. If he hadn’t wanted her there, he shouldn’t have left her with the impression he was running off to see another woman.
‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do that again.’ He bit off the words in staccato bursts of temper. ‘I prefer not to be humiliated in front of people who work for me.’
Wouldn’t we all prefer that? she thought bitterly.
Silence descended over the dark interior of the car as they made their way back through the city. The tension became like a living breathing thing as she refused to look at him. But finally the one thing that had always failed her in the past began to burn in her gullet like a comet, choking off everything else—the heartache, the pain, the humiliation, the embarrassment, the confusion and panic—until all that was left was the rage.
The rage that she had learned to bury deep, during the years spent watching her mother die.
The car pulled up at the kerb, but, instead of waiting for Dominic to get out and walk around the car to open her door, Ally got out on her own and marched towards the hotel entrance.