‘Don’t matter?’ she echoed. ‘You don’t know what matters and what doesn’t. You say we’ve created something else, but what have we created? What can it be when it’s based on lies?’

‘I had to find you, Becky. I had to. I couldn’t let anything stand in my way.’

‘No, nothing stands in your way, does it, Luca? Not honour or fair dealing or decent behaviour, or other people’s feelings. Nothing. I’m seeing a lot of things now.’

‘I had to find you,’ he repeated stubbornly. ‘It was more important than you’ll ever know.’

‘So why not be honest? All those pretty delusions you fed me, about fate! And it was a lie because you set it all up.’

She looked at him curiously.

‘Luca, just how much did you know about me, that night at Philip Steyne’s house?’

‘A good deal,’ he admitted unwillingly.

‘Did you know I was going to be there?’

‘I was pretty sure. I knew Jordan was going to be there, and you were seeing him, so it figured. I also knew you worked for the Allingham, so I was bound to find you sooner or later.’

‘You knew I worked for the Allingham?’ she echoed. ‘Is that why you bought shares?’

‘Yes.’

She gave a wild laugh. ‘All that, just to find me again?’

‘Does it matter how it happened, as long as we found each other again?’

‘But we haven’t found each other, can’t you see that? No, you can’t, can you? And that means we’re further apart than we ever were. At one time you would never have deceived me.’

He flinched, and she knew she’d struck home.

‘I would have told you the truth eventually,’ he growled. ‘But this was important. I couldn’t take chances. It has to be you, it can’t be anyone else.’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve been pining with love for me all these years. You married, remember.’

‘Yes, and it was no good.’

‘It must have been good for part of the time.’

‘She had a son by a damned hairdresser,’ he snapped.

‘So she was unfaithful, but that doesn’t mean-’

‘Six years and never a hint of a baby. Barren for me, fertile for him. Dear God!’

He said the last words violently, his face distorted. Rebecca stared at him, aghast. She had partly known this from Nigel Haleworth, but now a dreadful suspicion had come into her mind. It was impossible. She was imagining crazy things. In a moment he would say something that proved it couldn’t be true.

He was still talking, but more to himself than her.

‘I had a child once. She died, but she need not have done. She would have been fifteen.’

‘I know,’ she said, stony-faced.

‘Fifteen! Think of it.’

‘I think of it all the time,’ she cried. ‘I think of it every year on what would have been her birthday, and I never stop grieving. But we can’t bring her back to life.’

‘But we can create new life. You and I. What we’ve done once we can do again.’

‘Luca, what are you saying?’

He turned on her, eyes blazing with intensity.

‘I want a child, Becky. Your child.’

‘And that was in your mind when you searched for me?’ she asked slowly.

‘Yes. It’s important.’

‘I can imagine it would be. And now, of course, I realise why you didn’t tell me at once.’

‘I could hardly do that,’ he said, misled by her reasonable tone.

‘Of course not,’ she agreed. ‘It wouldn’t be easy to say, would it? “Good evening Rebecca, nice to see you after fifteen years, and will you be my brood mare?”’

‘It’s not like that-’

‘It’s exactly like that, you cold-blooded, insensitive, calculating machine. Luca, I’ll never forgive you for this, and if you can’t see why, then you’ve moved further down the wrong path than any man I’ve ever known.’

‘All right, all right, I haven’t handled it well, but-’

‘Listen to yourself!’ she cried, tormented beyond endurance. ‘Handled it! Do you know how often you use that phrase? That’s how life is to you, something to be “handled”. Do this, and everything will work out according to the Luca Montese book of sharp practice. Do that, and it’ll all go wrong, because you weren’t ruthless enough. Well, nobody could accuse you of not being ruthless enough, but I promise you it’s gone wrong. And it’ll never be right again.’

‘You’re determined to misunderstand everything I say.’

‘On the contrary, I’ve understood only too well. You want a son-’

‘I want your son. Yours. Nobody else’s. No other woman’s child would mean the same to me.’

But her face was unforgiving.

‘You mean,’ she said bitterly, ‘that I’ve already proved myself with you, so I’m a safer bet than a stranger?’

He paled. ‘That’s a hard way of putting it.’

‘Tell me another way that comes anywhere near the truth.’

She turned away and began to stride the room.

‘I can’t believe myself. To think I actually let you touch me after what I heard from Danvers.’

‘But you did,’ he said harshly. ‘Doesn’t that prove how strong the bond between us still is?’

‘No, it only proves we’re good in bed together. There’s no true bond between us now, Luca. Just sex, sex and more sex. And then more sex. You’re the most sexually exciting man I’ve ever known, or ever will know, and it makes quite a bond, I admit. In fact it’s such a wonderful bond that I’ve told myself fairy tales about it ever since we met again. I’ve tried so hard to believe that it was enough, and I suppose that for your purposes it is enough.’

‘Becky, don’t-’

‘Why not? It’s the truth. If you want to impregnate a woman so that you can flaunt her fertility to the world, then you don’t need love or emotional connection. Cold, heartless lust will do the job just as well, won’t it, Luca?’

‘Stop it, Becky,’ he said savagely.

‘Sure, I’ll stop it. I’ve made my point. Sex isn’t enough, even when it’s as good as ours. But it’s all we have. Perhaps it’s all we ever had.’

‘No!’ It was a cry of agony. ‘No, that isn’t true. Never say it, do you hear?’

‘Still giving me orders. Still trying to arrange everyone like pawns on your chess board. Don’t worry. You’ll never have to hear me say anything again.

‘Go away, Luca. Leave the Allingham, sell your shares, go back to Italy, and tell yourself that you’re well rid of that awkward woman who wouldn’t fall into line. Find a woman you can be honest with-if you can take the risk.’

She was gone while he was still too stunned to speak. The slam of the door was a deliberate act of contempt.

The phone rang. It was Sonia, with a mountain of problems that had sprung up the moment he left Italy. He suppressed the impulse to slam down the telephone and pursue Rebecca, and was glad, afterwards. In her present mood it would have been the worst thing he could have done.

Despite her words his mind persisted on the old fixed track. He had handled it badly. The best thing was to give her time to cool down, then they would talk. She would see things his way. It was all a question of how you handled it.

He worked until late in the evening, talking to Sonia, sending emails. By the time he logged off the internet he was about half a million richer than he had been at the start.

He was wondering if enough time had passed for him to call her when he heard a knock on his door. He opened it, only half believing that it could be her. But it was.

She gave him a half-smile, as though considering whether to tell him a secret.

‘May I come in?’

‘Of course.’ He stood back, trying to decipher her mood. ‘Does this mean you’re going to let me explain?’

‘No, let’s not bother. We both know the score.’ She shrugged and turned to him, laughing. ‘We were keeping score in different ways, that’s all.’

He grinned. ‘We can put that right.’

The phone rang. He muttered something under his breath as he snatched it up. ‘Sonia, not now-’

‘Finish what you have to do,’ Rebecca said lightly. ‘There’s no hurry.’

But he did hurry, because there was a note in her voice that was unfamiliar to him and he wanted to know more. He had no idea what she was up to, but he was willing to find out.

He disposed of the call fast, and turned to find that Rebecca had closed all the curtains. She was standing there, arms folded across the buttoned jacket of her trouser suit, smiling at him in a way that could have only one meaning.

He took her into his arms, feeling her lean towards him. As her arms went around his neck he began to unbutton her jacket and immediately realised that she wore nothing underneath.

He had never before known her so bold and daring, and accepted the implied invitation with eagerness.

When she was naked she took his hand and led him to bed, falling onto it and opening her arms. As soon as he went into them she closed them around him with a movement that was almost as predatory as his own.

Their times together had given her a new confidence, and now she could guide and even direct him, urging him on to what pleased her. Her own caresses were almost casual in their skill, arrogant in their assumption that power lay with her, and she could please him at will. She succeeded beyond his wildest expectations.

Rebecca had an eerie sensation of being two people. One of them was floating above all this, looking down at the woman who seemed so immersed in making passionate love with this man, and who was actually detached from him, from everything that was happening, and-terrifyingly-from herself.

And she was cold, so cold that it was a wonder that the man didn’t turn to ice in her arms.

Luca caught a glimpse of her eyes and thought he detected a look of desperation. Then it was gone and all he knew was that she was surging against him, crying incoherently with pleasure.

His own pleasure was shattering, driven to new heights by her responsiveness, and by the skills that had lain, hitherto unsuspected, in her slim body. He guessed that she was not making love, but making sex, and it left him gasping and close to exhaustion.