The Italian's Christmas Miracle. Lucy Gordon

      ‘True. It comes from another age, but so does Elena. She actually found a man with a title and tried to get Carlotta to marry him. When that didn’t work, she told me that Carlotta was engaged to the other man. I didn’t believe her and told her so. She was furious.’

      ‘So you really had to fight for Carlotta?’

      ‘There was never any doubt about the outcome. As soon as I saw her, I knew she was mine.’

      ‘Was’, not ‘would be’, Alysa noted.

      ‘How did you meet?’ she asked.

      ‘In a courtroom. She’d just qualified as a lawyer and it was her first case. I was a witness, and when she questioned me I kept “misunderstanding” the questions, so that I could keep her there as long as possible. Afterwards I waited for her outside. She was expecting me. We both knew.’

      ‘Love at first sight?’

      ‘Yes. It knocked me sideways. She was beautiful, funny, glowing—everything I wanted but hadn’t known that I wanted. There had been women before, but they meant nothing beside her. I knew that at once. She knew as well. So when Elena opposed us it just drove us into an elopement.’

      ‘Good for you!’

      ‘Elena has never really forgiven me. It was actually Carlotta’s idea, but she won’t believe that. She never really understood her own daughter—how adventurous Carlotta was, how determined to do things her own way—’

      He stopped. He’d gone suddenly pale.

      ‘How did you manage the elopement?’ Alysa asked, to break the silence.

      ‘I’d bought a little villa in the mountains. We escaped there, married in the local church and spent two weeks without seeing another soul. Then we went home and told Elena we were married.’

      ‘Hadn’t she suspected anything?’

      ‘She’d thought Carlotta was on a legal course. To stop her getting suspicious, Carlotta called her every night, using her mobile phone, and talked for a long time.’

      So Carlotta had been clever at deception, Alysa thought. She hadn’t only been able to think up a lie, she’d been able to elaborate it night after night, a feat which had taken some concentration. The first hints had been there years ago. In his happiness Drago hadn’t understood. She wondered if he understood now.

      He’d turned his back on her to stare out of the window into the darkness.

      Images were beginning to flicker through Alysa’s brain. She could see the honeymooners, gloriously isolated in their mountain retreat. There was Drago as he must have been then: younger, shining with love, missing all the danger signals.

      Suddenly he turned back and made a swift movement to his desk, unlocking one of the drawers and hauling out a large book, which he thrust almost violently towards her. Then he resumed his stance at the window.

      It was a photo album, filled with large coloured pictures, showing a wedding at a tiny church. There was the young bride and groom, emerging from the porch hand in hand, laughing with joy because they had secured their happiness for ever.

      Carlotta was dazzling. Alysa could easily believe that Drago had fallen for her in the first moment. And James? Had he too been lost in the first moment?

      She closed the book and clasped it to her, arms crossed, rocking back and forth, trying to quell the storm within. She’d coped with this—defeated it, survived it. There was no way she would let it beat her now.

      She felt Drago’s hands on her shoulders.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he said heavily. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

      ‘Why not?’ she said, raising her head. ‘I’m over it all now.’

      ‘You don’t get over it,’ he said softly. She turned away, but he shook her gently. ‘Look at me.’

      Reluctantly she did so, and he brushed his fingertips over her cheeks.

      ‘It was thoughtless of me to show you this and make you cry.’

      ‘I’m not crying,’ she said firmly. ‘I never cry.’

      ‘You say that as if you were proud of it.’

      ‘Why not? I’m getting on with my life, not living in the past. It’s different for you because you have Tina, and the home you shared with your wife. You can’t escape the past, but I can. And I have.’

      He moved away from her.

      ‘Maybe you have,’ he agreed. ‘But are you sure you took the best route out of it?’

      ‘What the devil do you mean?’

      ‘“Devil” is right,’ he said with grim humour. ‘I think it must have been the devil who told you to survive by pretending that you weren’t a woman at all.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘You crop your hair close, dress like a man—’ She sprang to her feet and confronted him.

      ‘And you call Elena nineteenth-century! You may not have heard of it, but women have been wearing trousers for years.’

      ‘Sure, but you’re not trying to assert your independence, you’re trying to turn yourself into a neutered creature without a woman’s heart or a woman’s feelings.’

      ‘How dare you?’ She began to pace the room, back and forth, clenching her fists.

      ‘Maybe it’s the only way you can cope,’ Drago said. ‘We all have to find our own way. But have you ever wondered if you’re damaging yourself inside?’

      ‘You couldn’t be more wrong. I cope by self-control, because that’s what works for me. Without it I might have cracked up, and I wouldn’t let that happen. So I don’t cry. So what? Do you cry?’

      ‘Not as much as I used to,’ he said quietly.

      The answer stopped her in her tracks. It was the last thing she’d expected him to say.

      ‘The emotions and urges are there for men as well as women,’ he added.

      ‘Maybe you can afford to give in to them,’ she snapped. ‘I can’t. This is how I manage, and it works fine. I’m over it, it’s finished, past, done with.’

      ‘Do you know how often you say that?’ he demanded, becoming angry in his turn. ‘Just a little too often.’

      ‘Meaning?’

      ‘Meaning that I think you’re trying to convince yourself—say it enough and you might start to believe it.’

      ‘I say it because it’s true.’

      ‘Then what were you doing at the waterfall today? Don’t try to fool me as you fool yourself. If it was really finished, you’d never have come here.’

      ‘All right, I wanted to tie up a few loose ends. Maybe I needed to find out the last details, just to close the book finally. It troubles me a little, but it doesn’t dominate me, and it hasn’t destroyed me because I won’t let it.’

      But she heard the shrill edge to her own voice, and knew that she was merely confirming his suspicion. He was actually regarding her with pity, and that was intolerable.

      ‘Stop pacing like that,’ he said, taking hold of her with surprisingly gentle hands. ‘You’ll fall over something and hurt yourself.’

      She stood, breathing hard, trying to regain her self-control. She wanted to push him away, but the strength seemed to have drained out of her. Besides, there was something comforting about the hands that held her: big, powerful hands that could lift a stone or console a child.

      ‘Sit down,’ he said quietly, urging her back to the chair. ‘You’re shaking.’

      After