Her Italian Millionaire (32 page)

“Is that all?”

“Isn't that enough? I also felt like an outsider, different from everyone else. I didn't have a boyfriend. It was only later I hooked up with Dan.”

“I mean is that all you brought? Didn't you bring something else for Giovanni? Didn't he expect something else, something more?” His face was set in a grim line, his mouth was tight, his eyes were suddenly colder than the walls of the cellar.

She shivered. “It's cool in here. Let's go up.”

“You didn't answer my question.”

“The answer is, it's none of your business what goes on between me and Giovanni,” she said briskly and went back up and out into the sunshine.

They went to the youth hostel next, but right away Marco knew it wasn't the right place for them to stay. He had something else in mind, a place with some privacy, soft lights and a soft bed. A place to make love.

He chided himself. Which was more important? Finding the diamond or sex with Ana Maria? Obviously it was the diamond. But that was hard to remember when she was around. It was only a hard, cold stone, while she was a warm, desirable woman. In the grand scheme of things, what was really more important? If he had to ask, maybe he shouldn't be in the business of catching criminals.

Just one more time, one more chance to do it right, to show her how good sex could be and then he could forget her and concentrate on his work. He could have her and catch Giovanni too. If he was careful. But he didn't want to be careful. He wanted to be young and crazy and reckless.

He wanted to make love to Ana Maria because she made him feel young and carefree. No doubt about it, she'd gotten under his skin. He didn't know what to make of her and that made her irresistible. He'd resisted temptation at every turn for so long, but he'd never known what temptation was until he met Ana Maria.

She wasn't vain, she didn't require or demand his attention. She didn't dwell on past disappointments, like Giovanni or her room being trashed. She started each day expecting the best even though the day before hadn't quite lived up to her expectations. She didn't need fancy clothes or jewelry. She didn't mourn the loss of her suitcase, though any other woman would have been frantic.

The hostel was completely unsuitable for her, with its bare-bones dormitories and used linen. Even though she was as low-maintenance as a Fiat, she was as classy as a Lancia and deserved to be treated as well as he would a fine car. Besides, the hostel wasn't safe - they couldn't leave their bags there, locked or not; one never knew who might wander in and out. Wherever the damned diamond was, he didn't want it stolen by some small-time crook. He pictured someone taking Ana Maria's ring off her finger while she slept in her bunk in the women's dorm. And if they couldn't get it off... he shuddered to think of what someone might do to take it from her.

 Had she really bought it on the street? He had to keep an eye on it, regardless. Certainly that was why they had to sleep together tonight. Maybe she was telling the truth; perhaps it was just a cheap souvenir. Maybe she was just what she seemed. He wanted to believe that. He also wanted to catch Giovanni.

He himself was an oaf, a
stronzo
, an asshole for demanding to know what she'd brought Giovanni. She wasn't going to tell him. Why should she? Why had he pushed her? Because he was frustrated, that was why. He took a deep breath and nudged Ana Maria with his good hand.

“Let's go,” he said.

“Where?”

“Anywhere but here at the hostel.” He didn't give her a chance to voice her opinion. He didn't need to. The place wasn't good enough for her. He pulled a list from his pocket where the garage mechanic had written possible rooms for rent. Dragging their suitcases, they stopped a half dozen times to ask directions. They visited two houses. One was full of children with a macho, bare-chested father yelling at them. The next was a pale, quiet widow who proudly showed off her guest room on the second floor. It was spotlessly clean with a double bed and a small balcony overlooking the vineyards in the distance. The whole scene was bathed in a golden light from the setting sun.

“Ask her if she has another room,” Ana Maria said.

“Why, what's wrong with this one” he asked.

“We can't sleep in the same room.”

“Why not? We did last night.”

“But you slept in a chair.”

“I can sleep in a chair again.” He looked at a large, overstuffed chair in the corner.

“Ask her anyway.”

“Vorei una altra stanza o una stanza con due letti,”
he said.

The signora asked him how many people in his party. When he said it was just the two of them, she threw up her hands and professed amazement. She smoothed the bedspread and told him the bed was perfect for a couple, a married couple. He nodded.

“No, she doesn't have anything else,” he said. “She thinks it's perfect for us.”

“Tell her we're not married,” she said.

“She's a very conservative old lady and I'm not going to send her into shock,” he said. His gaze was focused on the bed. He hoped it wouldn't be necessary to sleep in the chair. But if he had to...

Ana Maria didn't protest any further, and he paid in advance for the room. At least Ana Maria was resigned to sharing the room with him. One step at a time, he told himself. He was beginning to adopt a fatalist attitude; if it was meant to happen, it would. They left their bags and went out to look around the town.

“I need to make a phone call to my son,” Anne Marie said. She wanted to find out how Tim was doing after his first week of college. She also needed a distraction so she wouldn't think about that bed in that room back there with the little balcony and the fresh air blowing in from the vines below.

She knew she could trust Marco. If he said he would sleep in the chair, he would. But she couldn't trust herself. Making love with Marco in a real bed would be... would be...a different experience. Just the thought of how different caused her mouth to go dry. Sleeping together in a bed would definitely be more serious than rolling around on a picnic blanket.

 It might, just might, mean something more than it should mean. She couldn't allow that to happen. She needed to keep this whole affair casual. Any day, any moment, Marco might disappear from her life. If she'd learned one thing, it was not to get attached to another man. Not for a long time.

Marco took her to a café where he went to the bar and ordered an espresso for her. Then he left and went to the
edicola
, the kiosk around the corner to give her some privacy.

“Tim, how's college?” she asked her son.

“Mom, how are you? Where are you? Dad's been trying to reach you,” he said.

“Why, is something wrong?” she asked. Had the house gone up in flames or had he been fired?

“Nothing except he got stood up,” Tim said.

“I can't do anything about that,” she replied.

“He wants to go to Italy.”

“Italy? What for? He's never wanted to go to Italy.” She'd suggested it many times over the years and he was never interested.

“To see you. He's worried about you, all alone in a foreign country.”

She choked on a laugh. Dan was worried about her? It was a little late for that.

“And he has the time off,” Tim said.

“For his honeymoon, I suppose,” she said. “The honeymoon that didn't happen.”

“I think he misses you,” he said. “Anyway, where are you?”

“I'm in a little town you've never heard of.”

“How did you get there?”

“In a Lancia. I've also been on a Motoguzzi.”

“A Motoguzzi and a Lancia? Mom, you're livin' large.”

She grinned. “At last, I get some respect from you.”

“Dad wants me to get your number.”

“I don't remember what it is. I have a special overseas deal.  Tell him I'll call him when I get a chance, but I'm pretty busy. There's so much to see and do. Like wild donkey races and crushing grapes with my feet.”

“By yourself?” he asked

“Oh, no. I'm just helping out. The whole village participates and a few tourists, too.”

“I mean are you traveling by yourself? Who's driving the Lancia and the Motoguzzi?”

“I have done some driving,” she said proudly. “But don't worry, I'm not alone. I'm in good hands.” It wasn't entirely a lie, Marco's hands were more than good. “Now tell me about school.”

He told her about his classes, about his astronomy teacher, and a girl he'd met.

“Mom, I think I'm in love,” he said.

“In love? How long have you known her, three days?”

“About that,” he said.

“Take it slow,” she cautioned, as much to herself as to Tim.

Tim had a good head on his shoulders and he wouldn't do anything rash. But what about Dan? Would he really take off and come to Italy? The old Dan wouldn't have. But a man in the middle of a mid-life crisis might. Even if he did, he wouldn't be able to find her. It was a liberating feeling, knowing no one knew where she was.

She hadn't realized she wanted to be free. She was sincere when she told Marco she'd loved being married, being part of a whole. But freedom was an intoxicating feeling. Of course, her feeling of intoxication might have something to do with the wine she'd been drinking, and the man she'd been with for the past two days.

She and Marco had dinner together in a small restaurant where an accordion player went from table to table playing requests. When he came to their table, Marco spoke to him in Italian.

He immediately began to play That's Amore.

She put her fork down and stopped eating her pumpkin-stuffed ravioli in wild mushroom sauce.

“Don't you like it?” Marco asked. “I asked him to play something American. I thought maybe you were homesick.”

“You requested a love song?”

“For you,” he said.

“I don't think you're the cynic you pretend to be.”

He didn't bother to answer. He just looked at her across the table, like she was the sexiest woman he'd ever seen. Of course wearing an off-the-shoulder, form-fitting red dress of Isabella's, she could almost believe she was.

After dinner they walked around the town square under a full moon in the cool night air. People were sitting on benches in the square. Marco took her hand and they walked up a dirt path above the town. Donkeys brayed in a nearby field and crickets chirped. It was the essence of village life, a never-ending, never-changing cycle. Villagers sat outside on the steps where their grandparents had sat and where their grandchildren would sit, and talked about the same things year after year.

Anne Marie wanted to hold the sights and the smells in her heart and mind forever. Maybe on some dull, lonely, winter evening back in California she'd remember this night, this place and this man. This man who made her feel more alive than she'd ever felt.