TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

       AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

       STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

       PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

      All about the author…

       Lucy Gordon

      LUCY GORDON cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Gielgud. She’s also camped out with lions in Africa, and had many other unusual experiences that have often provided the background for her books. She is married to a Venetian, whom she met while on holiday in Venice. They got engaged within two days.

      Two of her books have won Romance Writers of America Rita^® Awards, Song of the Lorelei, in 1990, and His Brother’s Child, in 1998, in the Best Traditional Romance category.

      You can visit her Web site at www.lucy-gordon.com

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER ONE

      WHOis he? Why has this stranger come to my husband’s funeral and why does he stand there, staring at me across the grave?

      ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust—’

      In a corner of a London cemetery the preacher intoned the words over the open grave, while the mourners shivered in the cold February drizzle and the dead man’s widow wished it could all soon be over.

      Ashes and dust, she brooded. A perfect description of my marriage.

      Elise ventured a glance around the others and saw only blank faces, just as she’d expected. Ben Carlton had had business associates, but no friends. His life had been a litter of shady deals and shabby relationships.

      Including ours, Elise thought. A wretched marriage, for wretched reasons, brought to a wretched end.

      Many of the people here were unfamiliar. Some she’d met at the lavish dinner parties Ben had enjoyed giving, and she vaguely recalled their faces. Some she’d seen at functions hosted by his firm. Others she’d never seen. They all looked alike, except for one man.

      He stood on the other side of the grave, his lean face expressionless, his eyes hard as they watched her. As the last rites dragged on, Elise realised that he never looked at the coffin, only at herself. He had a fixed gaze, with something unyielding about it, as though by staring her down he could find the answer to a question.

      She tried to tear her eyes away, but she couldn’t. It was almost as though he was ordering her to look at him, refusing to release her. She fought him but, to her dismay, she could feel her will yielding to his.

      He was in his late thirties, tall, dark-haired, with a commanding air that seemed to reduce everyone else to insignificance. He spoke briefly as he stepped aside to let a lady pass. It was only a few words, but Elise heard the Continental accent and wondered if he was attached to Farnese Internationale, the great Italian-based firm that had recently hired Ben, an act that still baffled her.

      Elise hadn’t known much about her late husband’s business affairs, beyond a vague suspicion that others considered him an oaf. Nothing had surprised her more than seeing him head-hunted by a powerful multinational corporation.

      Ben had told her about it, smirking with self-congratulation. He’d known about her poor opinion of him and had relished the chance to prove her wrong.

      ‘You just wait until we’re living in Rome, in the lap of luxury,’ he crowed. ‘The apartment will make your eyes water.’

      That was how she discovered that he’d already bought the apartment, without consulting her. Worse, he’d even sold their London home, behind her back.

      ‘I don’t want to go back to Rome,’ she told him furiously. ‘And I’m amazed that you do. Do you think I can forget—?’

      ‘Don’t talk rubbish. That business was over long ago. I’ve got an important job and we’ll have to do a lot of entertaining. You should be looking forward to it. It’ll give you a chance to use your Italian again. You always spoke it well.’

      ‘You said yourself, that was a long time ago,’ she reminded him.

      ‘Look, I’m going to need you,’ he said in the brusque way he always used to end arguments. ‘I don’t speak the damned language and you do, so don’t give me a hard time.’

      ‘Plus you got one jump ahead by getting our money out of the country before I found out.’

      He looked pleased.

      ‘Just in case you were getting any ideas about divorce—’ he chuckled ‘—I know what’s been flitting through your head.’

      ‘Perhaps I’ll decide to go my own way and earn