‘When you say abused...?’
‘Physically, mentally, emotionally. Shaun was never fussy when it came to laying down laws. He used whatever methods suited him at the time.’ She tilted her chin defiantly. She had come to say her piece and he could save his contempt for after she’d left. That was what her expression was telling him.
‘He was very clever when it came to making sure he hurt me in ways that weren’t visible. He let me out of his sight to attend lectures and tutorials but I was under orders to return home immediately, not to hang around and certainly never to cultivate any sort of friendship with any of the other students. I was just glad to be out of his presence. Anything was better than nothing and, besides, I thrived on the academic work. I found it all ridiculously easy.
‘One of the first things I’m going to do when I leave London is to find the teachers who encouraged me and tell them how valuable their input was.’ She made sure that he got the message that she wasn’t looking for anything from him, that she was moving on, that she had her independence, whatever her story was.
‘You say you were...in love with me. Why didn’t you leave him?’ Because, Alessandro thought, I was certainly head over heels in love with you. I would have protected you.
It was the first time he had ever really and truly given that notion house room and, now that he had, everything seemed to fall neatly into place. The manner in which she had departed from his life had altered his view of women and had, more profoundly, altered the sort of women he went out with. He had developed a healthy mistrust of anything that remotely smelled of commitment and had programmed every single relationship he’d had to fail by systematically dating women in whom he was destined to lose interest after very short periods of time. In the wake of losing his heart to a woman who had deceived him, he had simply pressed the self-destruct button inside him.
And then she had returned to his life under extraordinary circumstances. He had held her to ransom and told himself that he was exacting revenge. In fact, he had told himself a lot of things. The one single thing he had failed to tell himself—because he could see now that he just couldn’t have brought himself to even think it—was that he still wanted her because, quite simply, he was still in love with her.
Chase sensed the infinitesimal shift in him. Was it too much to ask that he at least believed her?
‘I couldn’t,’ she said, flushing. ‘I’ve become very independent over the years. It’s been so important for me to stand on my own two feet, to give nothing of myself to anyone, to make sure that no one had control over me. But back then there was no way that I had the inner strength to try and escape. He had sapped me of all my confidence. Anyway...’
She stared down at her fingers, drained from the confidences she was giving away. ‘I haven’t come here to make excuses, just to tell you things as they were. I met you and it was wonderful but Shaun found out. He got hold of my mobile phone; I had been stupid enough to have one of your text messages there. I had forgotten to delete it. It was arranging to meet for lunch. He went crazy. I can’t tell you, but I was terrified for my life. He threatened to kill us both if I didn’t end it and, to make sure I did what he said, he made me arrange the location we were supposed to meet. He told me exactly what I was to say to you, and he was sitting at the table behind us the whole time I gave you that little speech about being a happily married woman...’
‘My God.’
‘I could never have told you about how things really were and I still didn’t want to when I saw you again because I was...ashamed. I knew how you’d react. I knew all your opinions of me as a strong career woman with a mind of her own would evaporate and I would be just a pathetic, abused woman, like all those women you didn’t give a hoot about when you were going to buy the shelter and have them dispossessed.’ She took a deep breath and made eye contact with him but what she saw there was far from contempt. The silence stretched between them until it was at breaking point.
‘If we had met later...’ she said in a low voice, half-talking to herself ‘...then things might have been different. Even if I’d still been with Shaun, I would have had more self-confidence. I would have had my degree, a good job; I would have had the courage to walk away from him, but at that point in my life it just wasn’t there.’
‘And then,’ Alessandro said heavily, ‘we met again and I hardly inspired the trust you needed to open up. I blackmailed you into sleeping with me...’
‘I wanted to sleep with you,’ Chase confirmed in a driven voice. ‘I would never have let myself be blackmailed into doing anything. I said so at the time and I meant it. I’d learnt the hard way not to let anyone else have control over me. I wanted to sleep with you and I don’t regret it.’