Royally Romanced (18 page)

“Aww.” She smiled up at him.

“Well, anyway…” Giorgio reddened slightly under his tan. “He says to visit his cousin’s wine shop on the main square and tell him Carlo sent us.”

“Sounds great. And maybe something to eat.”

“Of course.” They shook hands all around and headed uphill again. “Carlo also said we passed the nudist beach a while back.”

“Really? I don’t remember that.”

“No, I didn’t see any nudists, either. It must not be nudist tourist season yet.”

Renata shuddered at the idea of full-frontal sunbathing. All the money in the world couldn’t make her risk sunburned breasts and even worse…a sunburned…no, that would never happen.

“Carlo said that back in the seventies, the locals, not being fond of nudist tourists, stormed the main beach and gave them the boot to that smaller beach farther away.”

“Tourists without anywhere to carry their wallets are never welcome,” she informed him.

“Apparently the national park service may buy the current beach and kick them out again.”

“Oh, those poor nudists. Whatever will they do?”

“Go to one of several hundred other clothing-optional beaches around the Mediterranean.” He shrugged. “I know you Americans think they are full of centerfold models, but really, they are not that interesting. Imagine people your parents’ age, your grandparents’ age, lying naked on towels and you can see how it is very far from arousing.”

Renata made a horrified face. “I’m gonna have to drink a
lot
of Corniglian wine to get that image out of my head.”

“Poor, sheltered girl.” He grabbed her hand to help her up a particularly narrow stretch of trail. “Let’s go get you some wine.”

A while later, Renata straggled into Corniglia. “This is so pretty.” A wide town square with some sort of war memorial in the middle overlooked an old stone church and that all-important Italian village institution, the soccer field. A bright yellow school building stood to their left, and she realized it had been turned into a hostel. Right now, she just wanted to get off her feet. “Let’s find Carlo’s cousin.” Sensible shoes or no, the dogs were barking.

“You did a good job.” Giorgio pulled her in close and kissed her. “As a special treat, we will take the train back.”

She sagged against him. “Oh, thank goodness.”

They found a table at the local wine bar in the main square, the Largo Taragio, under the shadow of an ancient gray-and-white stone church. It looked almost like a birdhouse with its round dark window above a tall narrow pair of dark doors. A curiously modern verdigris bronze statue of a boy looked over the square. Renata tried to figure out what he was supposed to be and gave up under the mental strain.

Giorgio quickly ordered a bottle of water, a bottle of the famous local white wine and the fixed-menu lunch for both of them. Renata closed her eyes and drank a glass of water. “Ah, that tastes good.” She picked up her wineglass and sniffed the fresh aroma. “But that will taste better.” Had her ancestors made similar wine? Maybe even using fruit from the same vines, since the plants could live hundreds of years.

Giorgio raised his own glass. “To Renata—on this very special occasion of her return to Corniglia.”

She leaned over to kiss him. “Thank you, Giorgio. That was lovely.”

“This visit, everything, has always been for you. I want you to remember this day always.”

“I will,” she promised. Every day with Giorgio would be burned into her memory.

The waiter quickly brought them an
antipasto misto,
a mixed appetizer plate consisting of delicious mussels stuffed with buttered breadcrumbs and saffron, sweet prawns in lemon juice and a ringlike dish that Renata couldn’t quite identify.

Giorgio asked the waiter. “He says it is
una insalata,
a chilled squid salad with olives and tomatoes.”

“Really.” She jabbed one of the rings, and boy, the tines of her fork bounced back like she’d poked a rubber ball.

“Do you dare?” he teased her.

“What the hell,” she muttered, forking a tentacle segment into her mouth. Couldn’t be that much different from octopus, could it?

Several minutes of chewing later, she realized cold squid was a bit tougher to eat than warm, cooked octopus. At least it was tasty, the olives, superfresh tomatoes and hint of capers and oregano jazzing it up.

She abandoned the squid when her pasta came, a mix of steamed mussels, clams and prawns tossed in a tomato-parsley sauce.

Giorgio went for the local fresh anchovies over pasta. “Want one?” He offered her one of the tiny fish.

She accepted, eating it with gusto. “I can’t believe I’m eating anchovies. My brothers would laugh their asses off if they saw me. I used to gag when they’d get them on a pizza.”

“Ah, but this was swimming in the sea last night. Those that make it to New York are processed in unmentionable ways before they are shipped—mashed into a tin can and handled roughly.”

“Ah, kind of like my flight out of Genoa the day after tomorrow.” She meant it as a joke but it came out flat. That was the one topic they had avoided discussing—her leaving.

He cleared his throat. “Yes, I have had flights like that.” He changed the subject back to food and she went along with him, not wanting to spoil their afternoon, either.

They passed on a main course but Renata couldn’t resist the homemade gelato, flavored with honey from local bees. It was so creamy and sweet she had a hard time resisting the urge to lick out the bowl. Giorgio didn’t order any dessert but consented to her feeding him a couple spoonfuls.

After finishing her dish, she leaned back in her chair. “Listen, Giorgio, I won’t need a train ticket. You can just roll me down the hill.”

“No rolling. Time to walk it off.” He left money for the tab and pulled her to her feet.

Despite his threat to walk off her lunch, he set a leisurely pace hand in hand through the town, stopping to peer into various small shops. They also strolled into the surprisingly bright birdhouse church, which was actually something called the Oratory of St. Catherine, a meeting place for various Catholic groups in the village, but not specifically a church.

The ceiling above the white-and-gold altar was painted a cool sky blue with white clouds. Right below the main dome was a large round oil painting of a cheerful woman sitting on a green throne and surrounded by fat blond cherubs. Presumably St. Catherine, if her memories from Catholic school didn’t fail her.

Just standing in the not-quite-a-church took some of the buzzing thoughts out of her head. She would figure out what to do about her growing feelings for Giorgio later. They had each other for the time being, and she wouldn’t sandbag her last couple days with worry.

She sighed out a big breath of relief. Giorgio looked down curiously at her. “Are you all right?”

She smiled up at him. “Great. Now this is art, isn’t it?”

He laughed, obviously remembering the barbed wire and cornstalk mess that passed for art in some circles. “It’s beautiful. We have a similar chapel in Vinciguerra. My ancestor built it in penance for sacking a neighboring principality. Unfortunately that prince was the Pope’s cousin.”

“Oops!” Feudal Europe certainly had been a different world.

“Yes, that particular ancestor was more a man of action than a man of thought. And he kept half of what he had looted, figuring the other prince got off lightly.”

“And in the meantime, my ancestors were making wine in their huts and trying to avoid being sold in a Turkish slave market. That is, if the slavers could even make it up the hill without collapsing.”

“Probably easier to go elsewhere, I imagine.” They drifted out of the oratory and around the village. Renata tried to imagine living here all her life, marrying a local boy and raising a crop of kids along with the grapes.

There was something about Italy that made her think of fertility. The fruit of the land, the fish in the sea, the bright sky. She sneaked a look at Giorgio. And of course, Mr. Sex God in person. Everything about him spoke of potency and reproduction. He would make some beautiful babies, dark-haired with pretty green eyes. A little girl with beautiful black curls that would look great with a gold satin head-band…

Whoa. That was a weird thought. Yes, of course she knew the connection between sex and babies, but aside from an occasional chill down her spine, the idea of small, adorable children did not cross her mind at all.

Was she looking at Giorgio as a possible baby-maker? She stopped dead in her tracks. So did he. “Are you all right?”

Hell, no! She’d taken the batteries out of her biological clock as soon as she hit puberty. That sucker had never ticked in her life. It wouldn’t start now. Would it?

“Renata?” He gently brushed a sweaty lock of hair off her face as if she were all fancied up for a formal ball.

She stared at him. “Yes, yes, I’m fine. Maybe a bit thirsty.”

“We’ll find a drink for you. How about a bottle of lemonade?”

“Sounds good.” She shoved her disturbing thoughts deep down and smiled. “Lead the way as we sack Corniglia for its lemonade.”

T
HE NEXT DAY
, Renata had only dressed and made it out to the terrace after a couple pain relievers, a hot shower that strained the goodwill of an Italian water heater and two pastries with coffee. Giorgio had offered to give her a massage, but she had put him off until later when she could hopefully enjoy it more.

Giorgio had gone out to check if her packet of sample Italian fabrics and laces had arrived from his assistant yet, so Renata had some time to laze around the apartment on her own.

She was enjoying an Italian soap opera that seemed to involve evil twins, secret babies and husbands returning from the dead when her phone rang. She answered it. “Hey, Flick.”

“Hey, yourself. How goes sunny Italy?”

“It’s going, going, gone—just like me the day after tomorrow.”

“Well, yeah. All vacations come to an end. Otherwise we’d be living on the beach in a cardboard box.”

Renata grunted.

“Don’t bail on me now, Renata. I’ve been smiling at these brides so long my mouth’s dried out. Any more time here and I’ll have to grease my teeth with Vaseline like those Amazon beauty queens.”

That momentarily distracted her. “Really? That’s what they do in beauty pageants?”

“Gross, isn’t it? I saw it on the reality TV channel. They also use double-stick tape to keep their dresses and swimsuits in place.”

“Holy crap. I would think a flash of skin would get extra points.”

“A wardrobe malfunction is a dangerous thing, Renata. It’s been known to topple entire civilizations.”

They both had a good laugh, but Renata quickly fell silent.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how your precious business is doing while you bop your brains out?”

“How is my business doing?” she asked dutifully, but her heart wasn’t in it. How nuts was that? She’d worked eighty-hour weeks the past several years to make it a raging hipster success and now she couldn’t even remember to ask about it.

“You don’t want to come back, do you?”

“What? That’s crazy. Why wouldn’t I want to come back to New York? Everything important is there, after all.” Not Giorgio, though.

“Not your prince,” Flick uncannily echoed her thoughts.

“His sister lives there. He’ll be in New York sometimes.”

“If they’re planning a big hometown wedding, it’ll be more likely for her to go back to Vinciguerra to work on things instead.”

“Oh. I guess.” She’d never considered that possibility, and it was an unpleasant one. “Wow. Well…” Her eyes started to fill and she brushed them with displeased amazement. Really…what was wrong with her?

Flick, perceptive as she was, had an answer. “Babe, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you know what I think?”

“What?” Renata forced out between dry lips.

Flick cleared her throat, her usually flip mood totally absent. “I think you went and fell in love with the guy, Renata.”

“No,” her mouth said, while her head and her heart said
Nyah, nyah, yes, you did!
“No,” she repeated loudly. “No, I didn’t! People don’t fall in love like this after only a week. This is a vacation fling. The real world doesn’t come into play. I came to Italy for a lighthearted, fun vacation and, dammit, I am having lighthearted fricking fun!” She realized she was shouting absurdities into the phone but couldn’t help herself.

“Okay, okay,” Flick said soothingly as if Renata were the crazy lady who lived in a box across from their subway stop and was starting to see purple aliens pop up from the sidewalk. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. Nobody falls in love like that. It takes weeks, months, years. Hell, some people never fall in love—like you and me, right, Renata?”

“That’s right, Flick!”

Flick blew out a loud sigh that she probably didn’t mean to carry quite so well over the phone lines. Great, Flick thought she was a basket case and was probably already blocking out time in her schedule to buy wine—non-Italian, of course—to commiserate with her as she bawled into her wine, and then hold her hair back as she barfed up her overindulgence in wine. And a good time was had by all—not!

Renata took a deep breath. Her mental whine/wine scenario was frighteningly possible. And why would that be? Why, perchance, would a former Goth girl turned hardnosed New York entrepreneur need alcohol and sympathy on her parting from a guy she’d only met eight days earlier?

Because she’d fallen in love with the jerk! “Shit.”

“What?” Flick asked cautiously.

“You know damn well,” she said crossly. “I did. I did go and fall in love with him.” Her stomach churned. “I think I’m going to puke.” How stupid could she have been? She flopped back onto the bed and banged her head on the pillows a couple times.

“Renata, are you there?”

“Yeah,” she muttered sullenly.

“If it makes you feel any better…” Renata rolled her eyes. She’d never heard a good ending to a sentence that started with that phrase, but Flick continued bravely, “If it makes you feel any better, you really had the deck stacked against you. Your prince is good-looking, swept you off your feet to a wonderful seaside resort and is fabulous in the sack from what I can read between the lines, since you never did tell me the really good parts, Renata!” Flick sounded pissed for a second and then laughed. “That should have been a clue right there for you.”

“What?”

“You didn’t want to spill any details because you were starting to care for him and didn’t want to giggle with me over your sweet lovin’.”

“Don’t be silly. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Okay, what position does he like best? How big does he get? What’s his personal record for rocking your world?”

Renata clamped her lips together before she realized what she was doing.

“Oh, ho, ho!” Flick crowed. “I never got one good story out of you—not even from the first day you met, and I bet that was a doozy.”

She couldn’t help grinning at her memory of a certain limo ride. “But wait—does that mean I loved him even then?”

“Love at first sight—who ever heard of such a thing? Oh, yeah, every single goober who ever wrote any poem about love.”

Renata’s eyes began to sting and she bit her lip. “Promise me you won’t tell him, Flick.”

“You think I’d rat you out? Call up the Royal Palace in Vinciguerra and leave a message with his secretary?”

“No, of course not.”

“You need to rat yourself out.”

“What?” Renata jumped to her feet. “Tell him? Oh, no, oh, no.”

“Oh, yes, oh, yes. Tell the man how you feel and you too can be saying that, only under much pleasanter conditions.”

Renata clutched the phone and sank back onto the chair. “Flick, he’s a
prince.
I’m a dress designer.”

“Hey, it worked pretty well for Cinderella, didn’t it? And besides, what are you, a stupid peasant girl, bowing down before royalty? Or are you a strong, Italian-American girl from Brooklyn who bows to no one? Grow a pair and tell him how you feel.”

Renata sat up straight. “Yeah. But what if he says, ‘I’m flattered but here’s your ticket back to New York’?”

She sighed. “Do I have to spell out everything? Then say thanks for the trip and come home, Renata. Sheesh. I think you’ve been out in the sun too long.”

“Oh, Flick.”

“Go on. Stop whining to me and move it. Where did Prince Charming go, anyway?”

“He said he had to run some errands, so he just left a few minutes ago.”

“Go after him, Renata.”

Renata jumped to her feet. “Chase after a man? I have my pride.”

“Great. I’ll see you at the airport tomorrow. Be sure to pack up your pride nice and snug so the baggage handlers don’t damage it on your return trip.”

Renata grimaced. Flick was right, dammit. She’d never been a coward, and it was embarrassing to admit she might chicken out. “All right, Flick. Off I go. There’s only a small shopping area so I can find him easily.”

“Get going. Text me when you can.”

A
CROWD WAS GATHERED
around the newsstand talking excitedly and waving their hands. Renata craned her neck to see what was going on. Had someone been caught passing off bad fish? Did the local team lose a major soccer match? Had Italy declared war against Vinciguerra?

Renata didn’t really care, but an older woman at the edge of the crowd spotted her and jabbed her neighbor in the ribs, both falling silent. A few more jabbed ribs and quickly hushed conversations, and the whole crowd of locals was staring at her.

“Ah.
Buon giorno.
” She waved awkwardly at them. Maybe the cat was out of the bag about Giorgio’s celebrity status and she was being eyeballed as the companion
du jour.
Well, fair enough. It was none of their business anyway.

One of the older gents pointed at her and said loudly,
“Si, è lei.”

Yes, it’s her?
Renata looked around but she was the only one standing there.

As if by some prearranged signal, the crowd parted and she saw a rack of garish-looking tabloids. Her stomach flipped as she slowly approached the rags, her knees stiff.

No way! The Italian
and
the British ones both had front page shots of Giorgio as he’d swum with the dolphins. Judging from the angle, probably one of those sailors had taken the photos. If she found out which one, she’d toss him overboard and let the fish nibble him to death.

So why did the locals recognize her? She picked up the British one, even tackier than American tabloids if that were possible, and flipped to the inside story.

Yep, there she was climbing up the boat ladder, wet red hair and white bikini with the cherries looking like polka dots.

She forced her eyes to read the text. Usual stuff about sexy prince and mysterious redhead frolicking in the sunny Italian Riviera, etc, etc. Thankfully she was too pasty to go topless and they hadn’t gotten any shots while she and Giorgio “frolicked” on the apartment terrace.

But then—now her stomach was really cramping—the part she hadn’t known.

Chest pains?” she muttered. Giorgio acted as healthy as a horse.

Renata read further.

She wrinkled up her mouth. “‘Gal pal,’ my ass.” And what was that crap about a prescription for R & R? She’d known he’d needed a vacation, but it had been medically necessary?

“Signorina?”
the old lady running the newsstand asked cautiously. Renata could feel a flush creeping up her neck.

“Here.” She tossed a handful of euros onto the counter and took a copy of each colorful publication. She spun on her heel and stalked back to their apartment, the villagers watching her with wide eyes.

She crashed the door open. “Giorgio!”

“Ah, Renata.” He came toward her with open arms, slowly dropping them to his side as she clutched the tabloids to her chest. “What is wrong? What do you have there?”

She shook the papers at him. “One of those sailors sold photos of us to this British magazine. And this Italian one, too, although I couldn’t read the story. God only knows what
that
one says.”

“Renata
mia,
I am so sorry. I thought we might avoid their notice by coming to such a small town before the busy season started.”

“That’s not the point. Read the article.” She shoved the British one at him.

He read the article, his face darkening.

“Is that true? You went to the emergency room with chest pains?” Her own chest hurt at the thought of what must have been his pain and fear.

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

“When?”

For the first time, he looked embarrassed and unsure of himself. “The day we met.”

“Before or after we met?”

“After,” he admitted.

Her eyebrows shot up into her hair. “So after our wonderful day in New York and some heavy-duty stuff at night, you dropped me off and Paolo rushed you to the emergency room.”

“Yes.”

“With chest pains.”

“Yes. But not a heart attack, fortunately.”

“Fortunately,” she echoed. “So what was it?”

“Chili dogs.”

“Indigestion? And anything else?” She wanted to see if the tabloid report of his overwork and stress was true. “Not really.”

“Why did you go to the E.R.? Certainly you’ve had indigestion before?”

“Paolo was worried.”

“And after you left the E.R., you called me to invite me to Italy with you. Were you even home by then or did you call me from the car?”

He shifted. “The car.”

She was getting mighty sick of his short answers. “Giorgio, something’s not adding up here. God knows these magazines are not the fount of truth, but they say the E.R. doc told you the chest pains were partly caused by too much work and not enough play.”

He winced again. “Renata, I am a busy man. I do have much work and I haven’t had a vacation in several years.”

“That’s not what I mean!” She threw the papers on the floor. “We met and had a great time. Then you decided to invite me to Italy to blow off some steam and I accepted because we really hit it off. But I’m missing something here. You never told me anything about your hospital trip. You never said the doctors told you to take it easy. That’s why you wouldn’t eat much bread or pasta, right? They even put you on a diet.” She started to tear up. “We never took it easy. All that hiking, swimming and sex. I could have killed you.”

“Ah, but what a way to go.” He gave her a devilish grin.

“Jerk!”

He looked confused. “The doctor never told me not to have sex.”