‘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 your father?’ Rafael asked after an endless moment of silence. ‘Don’t you...aren’t you angry for what I did?’
Was she? ‘I understand why you wanted to take over his business,’ she said slowly. ‘And I wish I understood more fully what happened back then. Did my father blame yours on purpose, knowing he was innocent? Who else could have embezzled the money?’
Rafael stiffened. ‘It wasn’t my father.’
‘I know,’ Allegra soothed. ‘And maybe we’ll never know who was truly responsible. But let’s put it behind us, Rafael. For ever.’
He stared at her, and Allegra held her breath, waiting, everything in her aching. She’d given him everything. Her love, her heart, her body, her soul, her music. Everything. And she still didn’t know what he was going to do with it.
‘I want to try,’ Rafael said at last, and Allegra nodded as she blinked back tears.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Let’s try.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE REALISATION WAS like a thunderclap, startling her awake. Allegra stiffened in bed, her heartbeat coming in thuds. Next to her Rafael slept on. They’d gone to bed together, holding hands, silent and accepting. It felt like a new start, fresh and fragile. Allegra hoped it would endure. That they would.
And then, in the midst of sleep, she’d had that sudden thought slam into her, leaving her breathless and reeling. Her mother. Her mother had embezzled that money. It made such horrible sense. Someone close to her father had taken the money; that same person had pointed the finger at Rafael’s father. And it made her parents’ sudden divorce understandable too, along with the lack of alimony, her father’s concern for his own reputation. But where had the money gone?
Although Jennifer had always claimed poverty, after the divorce they hadn’t been exactly destitute. It wasn’t as if they’d been out on the streets. Looking at the situation now, a grown woman, Allegra doubted that a few pieces of jewellery could have really kept them afloat. Even the embezzled money wouldn’t have lasted long in Jennifer’s hands—the woman was a spending machine—but it would have tided them over for a while...until she’d found another man to fund her lifestyle. It seemed, all of a sudden, entirely, horribly possible.
If it was true...what would it mean for her mother—but far more importantly, for her and Rafael?
Allegra slipped from the bed, throwing on a dressing gown before reaching for her laptop. She typed in the Internet search box and within seconds she had the dates of both Marco Vitali’s suicide and her parents’ divorce. Weeks apart. Weeks.
Allegra pushed the laptop away as she stared unseeingly into the distance, her mind racing. If her mother had taken the money...if her father had discovered it...if he’d divorced her so abruptly because of that, wanting to separate himself from his wife but unwilling for his reputation to suffer...
There was only one way to find out. One way to truly know. She needed to talk to her mother. Allegra toyed with the idea of a phone call but she knew she wouldn’t be able to get the truth over a telephone line. She needed to see her mother face to face, and see the truth, or lack of it, in her eyes. She needed to know. Because perhaps then she and Rafael could finally put the past to rest and move on as a family. Perhaps then he could find the closure he so desperately needed.