Her words seemed to have piqued more than his curiosity. That gleam in his eyes wasn’t too far from satisfaction-possibly even amusement. If he hadn’t been looking so tall and lean and intelligent, so edible with his black hair and olive tan in contrast with his Armani suit, blue shirt and purple silk tie, she could have slapped his handsome face.

She restrained herself, only just, but couldn’t eliminate a certain tinge of sarcasm from her voice. ‘How very noble of you to make such a sacrifice.’ She saw his brows lift in aristocratic query, but her indignation spurred her on. ‘Why couldn’t she have gone to the police, or the courts? They have them in Italy, don’t they?’

‘Do they always work here in these cases?’ he asked mildly.

‘Oh…well…’ She dismissed that point with a shrug. ‘Why couldn’t she hire a security firm? Surely she didn’t have to marry you.’

‘This was Italy.’ His deep voice was dry and quiet and even. ‘And she tried hiring a private firm. The guy bribed her security guard and broke into her flat. He broke all the bones in her face.’

‘Oh.’ She shuddered in spite of herself. ‘That’s horrible.’

‘Yes, it was.’ He grabbed her shoulders, and held her firmly, his gaze suddenly stern. ‘And it wasn’t noble of me. It was no sacrifice. I had nothing to lose, had I, Lara? It was an act of friendship, pure and simple. I have known Giulia since childhood. At one time we were like-brother and sister. She’d tried everything else. She thought that perhaps Gino would finally give up if he believed she belonged to another man.’ His hands tightened on her shoulders, then, as though realising that he was manhandling her like the wild beast he truly was, he let go. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, waving his hands in placatory gestures. ‘As it happened-Giulia knew of my-upbringing and my feelings about violence against women, so I guess she thought she could come to me.’

Oh, great. Kicked off the moral high ground by a victim of domestic violence. Shame and embarrassment flooded in to dilute her anger and turn her into a confused mess.

‘Oh,’ she said brusquely, straightening her jacket. ‘Right. Well, then. She was very-fortunate to have you, wasn’t she?’ She forced a faux gracious smile, and made a stilted effort to recover some ground. ‘And I guess, if you were fancy free…if you had no commitments anywhere else, why not?’

His eyes glinted. ‘What commitments did I know that I had, carissa? Weren’t you the girl who needed time to think?’

She gasped. ‘Look, that wasn’t a no.’

‘In what way wasn’t it one?’

‘Well, why couldn’t you have been more…?’ She gave herself a little shake and sighed in exasperation. ‘All right, so what happened when you-ended the marriage?’

‘Her ex was a racing driver. You might have heard of him. Gino Ricci? No? He died in a crash soon after the wedding.’ He shook his head. ‘Not so surprising, if you knew him. Our marriage was entirely a sham. It was intended to last just as long as it took Gino to move on. Tragically, he went one step too far. When he killed himself there was no further need for it, so…’ He shrugged and opened his hands.

‘Well, you certainly went to a lot of trouble for a sham. Designer wedding gowns, if I remember correctly, the press invited in, spreads about your palazzo. The gold leaf on your ceiling frescoes, your old family retainers…Your town house in London, your view of the Thames, your red Ferrari…’

He looked apologetic. ‘You need to understand, Larissa. In many ways it’s a different world over there from what you are used to here.’

Flushing, she cast him a glowering glance. ‘No doubt. The Meadows family doesn’t quite run to palazzos, I suppose.’

He made a rueful twitch of his brows, and stared thoughtfully at some passers-by, then flashed her a smile. ‘That would have been the old Lamborghini, I think. And there is only one family retainer.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned his big frame against the shop door jamb. ‘That gold leaf is flaking, by the way. It needs restoring quite badly.’ He flickered a glance over her. ‘If you were following it I’m surprised you didn’t read about our annulment. It was reported quite widely in the Italian press.’

‘Maybe I lost interest,’ she said coldly. ‘I probably had other things on my mind.’

He winced and turned away, just as the florist returned with the mass of freesias, attractively wrapped now in purple tissue, and counted the change into his hand with adoring eyes. Anyone would have thought the silly woman was in love with him.

He accepted the bunch, then with a small ironic flourish passed it to Lara.

‘Oh,’ she said, taken aback. ‘Well. Well, thank you.’

The florist tore herself away to retreat into the shop, and Lara said in a gruff, constrained voice, ‘You-mentioned your-your upbringing. What did you mean? Are you saying there was domestic violence?’

‘You could say so.’

Mortified, she said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound-dismissive.’

His dark eyes gleamed. ‘Dismissive? No, I’m not sure dismissive is quite the word, carissa.’

She raised her brows coolly, though her voice sounded as rocky as sections of the Bindinong Bypass. ‘No? What then, in your opinion?’

He glanced at her, a faint curl to one corner of his mouth, then looked at his watch. ‘Talk as we walk. I have someone waiting to be interviewed.’

She strode silently beside him, clutching the flowers, waiting for the verdict though she knew it would be scathing, at a loss to understand how she had managed to land herself in the wrong, when she was the one left holding the baby.

How could she have lost all control? Still, she seethed to know what he’d been going to say, however unflattering it might be. She glanced at him a couple of times, but his expression had grown pensive, his sexy mouth set firm.

Was he planning to answer her? Did he want her to beg?

He remained silent all the way to the Stiletto building, while her curiosity to know what he’d hinted built to bursting point. At one time she was completely disconcerted when she noticed him shoot her a narrow, thoughtful glance. Just what did that mean?

Inside the glass entrance doors, her shaky patience snapped. ‘All right, then. Let me have it. How did I sound?’

The gleam was back in his eyes. ‘Jealous,’ he said instantly. ‘Like a jealous, spoilt little girl.’

‘Oh!’ A red hot tidal wave swept from her toes to the top of her head. ‘All right, yes,’ she hissed, ‘I was jealous. But let me tell you something, signor. That was no little girl’s jealousy. That was big girl’s, big time. And if you think I blamed Giulia, you’re wrong. I blamed you.’ She jabbed the freesias at his chest. ‘You promised to come back, and, yes, I was waiting for you.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘Like a stupid, dumb idiot I believed in you. I trusted you.’

Danger flashed from his dark eyes. ‘That is a lie. You were not at the Centrepoint Tower. I waited there for you for three solid days. I combed this town for you. I phoned and phoned. No reply. I went to your flat…Nothing. Other people were living there. Some guy who told me you’d moved to Queensland with your boyfriend. Your boyfriend, Lara.’

She gasped as the world whirled around and around her in a crazy kaleidoscope. ‘What?’ she said faintly, crushing the flowers in her grasp. ‘Are you saying…? You came back from America?’

The lift pinged. A crowd of businessmen piled out, and Alessandro waited coolly, then strode in to occupy the vacant lift. He leaned forward to press the button, his glance flicking outside to where she was still standing in a state of stunned bemusement. The doors started their slide.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I came back for you. And you weren’t there.’

He said those last words so accusingly, at the last moment she sprang forward in sudden urgency and wailed, ‘But, Sandro. Sandro, don’t you understand?’