He heard a sound, something he couldn’t quite identify. She was moving or opening something, and he didn’t know what it was. He stayed with his back to her, willing her to leave him alone even as a deeper part of him ached for her to stay.
Then he heard the first sorrowful note hover in the room, steal into his soul, and shocked blazed through him. She was playing the cello.
He turned slowly, his glass dangling from his slack fingertips as he took in the sight of Allegra, her hair tumbling about her shoulders in a fiery halo, her expression serious and intent as she drew the bow across the strings of the cello and another sonorous note flowed through the room.
‘But...’ His voice was hoarse, breaking the stillness. ‘You said you didn’t play. Hadn’t played for ten years.’
Her gaze lifted and something deep in him trembled at the expression in her eyes, silvery and huge, clear and full of sadness. Full of love.
‘I haven’t. But I want to play for you, Rafael. Music...’ She paused, her voice choking. ‘Music has been the greatest comfort to me. And I don’t know of any other way to comfort you.’
She bent her head again and began to play once more, the notes sure and true and piercingly beautiful.
Rafael’s throat thickened with emotion and he sank into the sofa as the music washed over him, note after perfect note, the music haunting and powerful, breaking him. He was broken inside, nothing but jagged pieces, his heart a handful of splinters. He let out a sound, a choking cry that would have shamed him if he hadn’t felt so overwhelmed.
Allegra kept playing, each note touching his soul, undoing him. He let out another choked sound, and then Allegra was kneeling there in front of him, her arms around him, her face pressed against his chest as she whispered words that felt like sweet, sweet arrows, piercing the armour he’d surrounded himself with for so long.
‘I love you, Rafael. I love you. Nothing matters to me but that. But you. Please believe me. Please.’
He let out a groan, defenceless against the onslaught of her heartfelt words. ‘How can you love me...?’ The words spilled from him, heedless.
‘How can I not?’ She pressed her lips against her jaw. ‘I fell in love with you the night of my father’s funeral.’
‘I was only trying to seduce you...’
‘And I wanted to be seduced. I saw glimpses then of the man you really are, the man you want to be. Don’t turn away from me now, simply because you’re afraid.’ She laid her hand against his jaw, her skin silky and cool. ‘Because that is why you’ve been keeping your distance, isn’t it, these last few weeks, and even more so since we went to Naples? Because you’re afraid of being hurt.’
He closed his eyes, not wanting to admit it, knowing it was true. He’d tried to separate his body from his heart but it hadn’t worked. Allegra affected him in every way, right down to his core. And yet still he found himself saying, ‘I didn’t think anyone would love me. That anyone could love me...after my father...’ He shook his head, his eyes closed, and Allegra kissed him again, her lips soft against his jaw. ‘How could he do that? How could he walk away from me and kill himself? I begged him, Allegra. Pleaded with him with everything I had, pounded on the door, and still he did it, knowing the cost of it on me, on my mother and sister. How could he do that?’
The question rang out, the cry of a hurt child. It had festered inside him for twenty years, until his heart was nothing but scar tissue, barely healed over the old, old wound. And Allegra, and her love, had broken it all—him—open.
‘I asked you something similar,’ she whispered, her lips moving against his cheek. ‘Do you remember? And you told me it wasn’t my fault. Now I say the same thing to you, only even more so. Your father was a desperate man, Rafael, driven to terrible things because—because of my father. It wasn’t your fault, just as my father leaving wasn’t mine. Let’s leave the past behind us and make our own future, for the sake of our child and for the sake of us.’
‘But it was my fault,’ Rafael groaned, his voice breaking on the word. ‘Not his death, perhaps, but my mother...my sister...the choices they made, the fact that they felt compelled to make them. That they didn’t trust me to provide for them, to see us through the darkness and the mess. That was my fault. I was the man of the family, I was in charge, and I failed utterly. I can’t forgive myself for that. How can anyone else?’
* * *
Allegra squeezed Rafael’s hands, holding on tight, wanting to imbue him with her strength, her love, because she felt as if everything teetered on this moment. Whether he would pull away for good or if the walls would finally come down for ever.
She recognised the core of honour and compassion that he’d kept hidden for so long, realised now that his withdrawal from her had not been from indifference but because he’d cared too much.
She knew that he now suffered from both guilt and hurt—just as she did, with her father’s abandonment. Because when you were hurting, you assumed it was something in you that drove a person away. Something bad or wrong. And she would give anything now to show Rafael that there wasn’t.
Slowly she leaned forward, still holding his hands, her bump pressing against him as she brushed her lips across his in a kiss of acceptance and healing. A kiss where she offered her whole self, there for the taking.
His body was still, his lips slack under hers, and her heart trembled at the terrible thought of his rejection, but then he opened his mouth and made the kiss his own, one hand coming to rest on the back of her head, and he took what she offered and gave even more back.
Moments later they broke apart and with a shuddering breath Rafael leaned his forehead against hers. ‘When my father died,’ he murmured, his breath fanning her face, ‘I felt like my world had shattered...not just because we lost everything but because I’d lost him. Because he’d been driven to such despair, and I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop him.’
‘I’m so sorry, Rafael...’
‘I felt powerless and out of control. And I never wanted to feel like that again. But then I cruelly inflicted that pain on another family. I killed your father too, Allegra.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘If what Caterina said was true...then your father died of a heart attack when he heard the news about me taking over the company. I killed him—’
‘No, you didn’t,’ Allegra said quietly. ‘You can’t know exactly what happened, and in any case you can’t blame yourself for my father’s death along with everyone in your family.’
His eyebrows rose in disbelief. ‘You absolve me?’
‘I’m not the one to do that, Rafael. You don’t need my forgiveness.’
‘Whose then?’ The question was genuine, yearning.
‘Your own,’ Allegra said softly. ‘Rid yourself of these ghosts and demons. Your father chose to kill himself—there was nothing you could have done. Despair leads people to feel there’s no way out, no hope. That was not your fault.’ He opened his mouth to protest but she continued, her voice rising in strength and conviction. ‘And your mother—that was her choice too. Perhaps she didn’t want to live without her husband. It’s not a reflection on you—’
‘It is—’
‘No. Maybe she should have wanted to live for her children, but some people are not strong enough. Don’t blame her, Rafael, but don’t blame yourself either. For your mother’s death or your sister’s addiction.’
‘And