Lucy reached out her hands, as if imploring him to engage his softer feelings. Her entreaty was wasted. Any remaining softness inside him had suffered its final death throes.
‘You knew as well—maybe not about the violin, but about my grandfather. We’ve both been hiding from this, Stefano. But I was always going to say something. My grandfatherlovedLasserno. He talked endlessly about it. I said to you before that I believe he left a part of himself here. I genuinely came here to...to learn about you and your family.’
Her words were pretty, but they didn’t change the truth. ‘One thing is clear. You didn’t find me worthy enough to tell the story.’
‘That’s not what I said. And if you believed my family had the coronation ring why didn’t you say anything to me?’
He gritted his teeth, fighting the bile that rose in his throat. ‘There’s an Italian saying:To trust is good; not to trust is better. It’s now my motto to live by. I wouldnevertrust the words of someone like you, whose relative stole from my family. My country. Who didn’t say anything until she was caught out.’
All this time Lucy had looked as if she was ready for a fight. She had been standing tall and proud, almost regal in her demeanour—and he knew royalty. But after those words it was as if she was a tree, felled by the fatal blow of an axe. There was a desperate final teeter and then she seemed to topple.
‘And I thought I’d fallen...’ Her voice hitched. Her mouth was downcast, her gaze hollow and blank, her eyes glistening. ‘We...we made love and you didn’t trust me at all.’
‘What we did hadnothingto do with love.’
The lesson was a painful one, but it was one she should learn. All her talk of him being a good man... She couldn’t have meant any of it. Because if she’d trulybelieved he was good she would have said something to him before he’d confronted her. Well, he’d show Lucy now. Her faith in him was utterly misguided. There was no good left in him.
‘And now you learn the man I truly am,cara. You know it all.’
‘You’re right. Trusting someone’s good intentions hurts too much. Not trusting ismuchbetter.’ She dropped her head. Scuffed at the floor with her booted foot. All the brightness in her had died, like a candle snuffed out. ‘Now the snow’s gone I assume Bruno can reach the castle? I’ll call him and leave.’
She turned. Began walking to the door. Stopped. Her shoulders rose and fell but she still faced away from him, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him ever again.
‘My grandfather always said the violin saved his life. Recently, to me, it’s felt like an impossible burden. For you, Stefano... I hope it sets you free.’
Stefano sat outside Alessio’s office in the palace visitors’ area. He’d never thought he’d be waiting like a stranger when this place had once been so familiar to him it had been a second home. He hadn’t wanted to walk through these doors again until his self-appointed work was complete. The call had come too early. He only hoped he’d done enough, since he hadn’t retrieved all the Crown Jewels yet. And as for the coronation ring...
Distraction had come into his life, taken him away from what he had to do. An arrow of pain shot through him. He wouldn’t think of that distraction now. He wouldn’t think ofher. He tried to shut down the visions tripping through his mind of sunshine, of strawberry blonde hair. Of freedom and allowing himself to dream rather than settling himself into cold reality.
The cold was where he belonged.
In his hands he held what he hoped would be his family’s redemption. That was all that mattered. His brother and sister would be free. They would leave Lasserno, and be able to escape any misplaced censure for his personal failings. It was what he wanted for them. His own future was meaningless now. He’d held a glimmering possibility in his hands for the briefest of moments, shining brighter than the gemstones he’d recovered, till he’d rejected it all.
He would never forget the lines of hurt etched on her beautiful face as he’d said what he had.
Lucy.
He gasped against the pain, like a soul torn in two. It was nothing.Shewas nothing. She couldn’t be. Who would want someone like him? He simply wouldn’t think about her.
Yet as Stefano placed the precious violin case on the ground, he almost doubled over with the agony of it all.
The ornate door in front of him cracked open. It was time, but his ruined heart barely changed its rhythm. He wasn’t sure it knew how to beat. It was as cold and dead as it had been when Lucy had first walked into his home.
‘Your Excellency...’ Alessio’s private secretary hesitated for a moment. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Of course.’ The lie slipped easily from his lips, when in truth he didn’t know what ‘all right’ felt like. Not now. Not since he’d ejected the only person who had made him feel human again from his home.
Not ejected. She’d left. Without turning back. Without a fight. Just as she should have. He’d as good as forced her. Because he really wasn’t worth fighting for.
‘If you’d like a moment—?’
‘No.’
Stefano grabbed the case from the floor and stood. He might be broken but he wouldn’t be cowed. Some pride remained. It was hanging by the thinnest of gossamer threads, but it was there, and he clung to it because it was all he had left.
He walked into the room and Alessio’s secretary slid out behind him. Shut the door with a solid click.
Alessio sat behind his desk, looking as regal as his title dictated. He’d always worn the weight of his role with distinction, born to it and accepting of it. His only flight of fancy had been his wife, Hannah. A saving grace, it seemed, because Alessio looked well.