The Italian's Christmas Miracle. Lucy Gordon

he liked—a slinky dress that took advantage of her slim figure, hair flowing down to her waist so that he could run his fingers through the cascade and bury his face in its perfumed softness. Then they would go to bed, and afterwards, as they lay in each other’s arms, she would tell him her wonderful secret.

      If only he would get here soon!

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE cold February sunlight glittered over the place where fifteen people had died in one terrible moment.

      Far below, the crowd looked up to where the hanging chairs swung over the top of the waterfall. They were newly installed, replacing the ones that had broken suddenly, tossing the screaming occupants down, down to the churning water, to be smashed on the rocks.

      That had been one year ago today, and the crowd of mourners was there to remember the loved ones they had lost. Out of respect for the foreign victims the service was held in both Italian and English.

      ‘Let us remember them at their best—with pride. Let us rejoice in having known them…’

      Then it was over. Some of the crowd drifted away, but others remained, still gazing up, trying to picture the tragedy.

      Alysa stayed longer than the rest because she couldn’t think what to do or where to go. Something inside her, that had been frozen for a long time, held her prisoner.

      A young journalist approached her, microphone extended, speaking Italian.

      ‘Sono Inglese,’ she said quickly. ‘Non parle Italiano.’

      He looked astonished at someone who could deny speaking Italian in such excellent Italian, and she added, ‘Those are all the words I know.’

      He switched to English.

      ‘Can I ask why you are here? Did you lose someone?’

      For a wild moment she wanted to cry out, ‘I came here to mourn the man I loved, but who betrayed me, abandoned me and our unborn child, a child he never even knew about, then died with his lover. She had a husband and child, but she deserted them as he deserted me. And I don’t know why I came here except that I couldn’t stay away’.

      But she mustn’t say any of that. For a year she’d allowed nobody into her private grief, hiding behind steel doors that were bolted and barred against the world, lest anyone suspect not only her desolation but also her terrible fear that, if she let go, she might never regain control over the torrents of grief and anger.

      Let us rejoice in having known them…

      ‘No, I didn’t lose anyone,’ she said. ‘I’m just curious.’

      He was a nice lad. He gave a rueful sigh.

      ‘So you can’t point anyone out to me? Nobody wants to talk, and the only one I recognise is Drago di Luca.’

      She jumped at the name. ‘Is he here?’

      ‘He’s the man over there, scowling.’

      She saw where he pointed. Her first impression of Drago di Luca was of darkness. His hair was dark, and so were his eyes, which mysteriously managed to be piercing at the same time. Yet it wasn’t just a matter of appearance. This darkness was there inside him—in his mind, his heart, even perhaps his soul. Alysa shivered slightly.

      His face seemed to be made from angles, with no roundness or softening anywhere. The nose was sharp and distinctive, the mouth and jaw firm, the eyes ferocious, even at this distance. The whole effect was one of hauteur, as though he defied anyone to dare speak to him.

      ‘You wouldn’t want to get on his wrong side, would you?’ the young man said. ‘Mind you, he’s got a lot to scowl about. His wife died here, and the grapevine says she’d left him for another man.’

      It took a moment before Alysa could answer. ‘The grapevine? Doesn’t anyone know for sure?’

      ‘She was a lawyer, and the official story is that she was on a trip to see clients. If anyone dares to suggest otherwise di Luca comes down on them like a ton of his own bricks. He’s a builder, you see, takes on big projects—new stuff, restoring ancient buildings, that sort of thing.’

      She looked again. Di Luca was tall and powerfully built, with broad shoulders and large hands, as though he personally constructed his projects.

      ‘I can see that people could find him scary,’ she mused.

      ‘I’ll say. He’s a big man in Florence. Someone suggested that he stand for the council and he laughed. He has all the influence over the council that he needs without spending time in meetings. They say he has the ear of every important person in town, and he pulls strings whenever it suits him. I tried to speak to him earlier and I thought he was going to kill me.’

      She took a last look at Drago, and was disconcerted when he seemed to be looking back at her. Impossible, surely? But for a moment the surroundings faded to silence and all she could hear was a call that he seemed to be sending to her.

      Stop being fanciful, she told herself.

      ‘I must be going,’ she told the journalist.

      She drifted away, managing to keep Drago di Luca in her sights. She knew his face from a hundred obsessive searches of the internet. James had accidentally let slip that his new lover was called Carlotta. Then he’d clammed up.

      Three weeks later the tragedy at the Pinosa Falls, near Florence, in Italy, had hit the headlines and she had learned from a newspaper that he was dead. Going through the list of names, she’d discovered Signora Carlotta di Luca, a young lawyer of great promise. Searching the internet, Alysa had discovered several articles about her, and some photographs.

      They’d revealed a dark-haired, vivacious woman—not beautiful, but with a special quality. One picture had showed Carlotta with her husband and child, a little girl about four years old, who bore a strong resemblance to her mother. The man with them had been in his late thirties with a face that Alysa hadn’t been able to read—strong, and blank of emotion.

      Was he also a brutal husband whose unkindness had driven his wife into the arms of another man, and so to her death? Seeing him today, she could believe it.

      The internet had also contained depictions of the accident that no newspaper would have dared to publish—intimate, shocking pictures taken by mercenary ghouls, showing smashed bodies in terrifying detail. One had showed Carlotta and James, lying dead on the ground. James’s face had been covered with blood, but Alysa had recognised his jacket.

      They’d still been in the chair, leaving no doubt that they had travelled together. She’d just been able to make out that in the last moments before death he and Carlotta had thrown themselves into each other’s arms.

      Now it was over, she told herself. Ended. Finished. Forget it.

      One night, as she’d stared at the computer screen, she’d felt shafts of pain go through her like knives. What had happened then had been too fast for her even to call for help. Stumbling to the bathroom, she’d collapsed on the floor and fainted. When she’d come round, she had lost James’s child.

      Afterwards she’d been glad that she hadn’t confided in anybody. Now she could weep in privacy. But the tears hadn’t come. Night after night she’d lain alone in the darkness, staring into nothing, while her heart had turned to stone.

      After giving the matter some rational thought she’d decided it was for the best. If she couldn’t cry now she would never cry again, which was surely useful. When you loved nothing, feared nothing, cared for nothing, what was there to worry about?

      With that settled, she’d embarked on the transformation of her life. A shopping trip had provided her with a collection of trouser suits, all stunningly fashionable and costly. Next she’d lopped off the extravagant tresses that had marked her earlier existence. The resulting boyish crop was elegant, but she cared little. What counted was that it marked the end of her old life and the start of her new one.

      Or