Kate Hewitt - The Italian's Bought Bride

‘My driver is waiting outside. Make sure no one sees you.’ Isabel gave her a little push, the closest she’d probably ever come to an embrace. ‘Go!’

Allegra stumbled back to the door, then inched her way down the hallway. Her heart thudded so loudly she was sure the whole villa could hear it.

What was she doing? She felt like a naughty child sneaking out of bed, but it was so much more than that. So much worse.

She slipped on the stairs and had to grab on to the banister.

Somewhere a floorboard creaked, and she could hear a distant sound of snoring.

She tiptoed down the rest of the stairs, across the slick terracotta tiles of the hall. Her hand was on the knob of the front door and she turned it, only to find it was locked.

Relief poured through her for a strange, split second; she couldn’t get out. She couldn’t go .

So she would go quietly back to bed and forget she’d ever had this mad, mad plan. She’d half-turned back when the door was unlocked from the outside. Alfonso, her mother’s driver, stood there, tall, dark, and expressionless.

‘This way, signorina ,’ he whispered.

Allegra glanced back longingly at her home, her life. She didn’t want to leave it, yet she would have been leaving it all tomorrow anyway, and for a fate surely worse than this.

At least now she was in charge of her own destiny.

‘ Signorina? ’

Allegra nodded, turning back from the warm light of her home. She followed Alfonso into the velvety darkness, her trainers crunching on the gravel drive.

Wordlessly, Alfonso opened the back door and Allegra slipped inside.

As the car pulled away, she gazed at her home one last time, cloaked in darkness. Her eyes roved over the climbing bougainvillea, the painted shutters, everything so wonderfully dear. In the upstairs window Isabel stood, her pale face visible between the gauzy curtains, and Allegra watched as her mother’s mouth curved into a cold, cruel smile of triumph that made her own breath catch in her chest in frightened surprise.

Tears stinging her eyes, her heart bumping against her chest in fear, Allegra pressed back against the seat as the car moved slowly down the drive, away from the only home she’d ever known.

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