Thank you.”
“I don’t mind. I’d do the same for any friend.”
“Did you do it for Rafe when he opened the restaurant? That’s what I thought,” she said before he could answer. Rafe would have had his head if he’d interfered.
So would she. “Look, I appreciate your wanting to help, but it’s very important to me that I do this 100 percent on my own.”
“I understand,” he said. Except that he didn’t. Louisa could tell from how his brows knit together. He was studying her, looking for the reasons behind her need for independence. Louisa said nothing. She’d already revealed more about her past than he needed to know.
“But,” he added, “I hope, if you need a reference, you won’t hesitate to give Dominic my name. I’m told I have influence in this town. With some people, that is.”
Louisa couldn’t help but return his smile. “With some people.”
They chatted for a few more minutes, mostly about superficial things. Rafe’s committee, plans for the harvest festival. A series of nice safe topics that would prove they’d put the awkwardness of the kiss behind them. Nico had just started describing the traditional grape-stomping ceremony when his cell phone rang.
“Mario, the student who is working for us this summer,” he explained when he hung up. “He’s finished with the task I assigned him and wondering if I’m coming back before lunch.”
“Is it that late?” Louisa looked to her bare wrist. They’d let time get away from them. Her bank appointment was in the early afternoon.
“Only for people who had breakfast before sunrise,” Nico replied. “The rest of the world is safe.”
“Good to know, seeing as how I just finished breakfast.”
“And my second.”
“Such as it was.” She nodded to his untouched coffee. “Guess you’re not as fond of American coffee as you claimed.”
“I must have confused it with something else American, then. Good luck with Dominic.” With a parting wink, he jumped over the walk.
He was lucky he didn’t break his leg leaping off terraces like that, Louisa thought as she watched him disappear into the vines. She decidedly didn’t think about how graceful he looked when he moved. Or about how firm and muscular his arms looked while supporting his weight.
She always did have a weakness for men with nice biceps, she thought with a shiver.
Too bad Nico Amatucci was every mistake she’d vowed not to repeat. She’d had her fill of charismatic, dominating men, thank you very much.
She checked her bare wrist a second time. Her Rolex was long gone—sold to pay off bills—but the habit remained. Didn’t matter—Nico’s comment about lunch told her the morning was getting on. If she wanted to be prepared for her meeting, she’d best get her act together.
Gathering her plate and the coffee cups, she headed into the palazzo, where the latest draft of her business plan lay spread on the coffee table. Nico must not have noticed, because he wouldn’t have been able to resist commenting if he had.
Pausing, Louisa scanned the numbers on the balance sheet with a smile. A solid, thorough plan, but then she’d always been good with numbers. Sadly, she’d forgotten how much she enjoyed working with them. Once upon a time, she’d had a promising career in finance. Until Steven had talked her into staying home shortly after their marriage, that is. Cajoled, really. For appearance’s sake, he’d said. People were already gossiping about how the CEO was dating his extremely young employee. Made sense not to add fuel to the fire. “Besides,” he’d told her, “as my wife, you have far more important things to focus on.”
Like making sure she looked and behaved perfectly at all times. She should have seen the signs then, but she’d been too in love to notice. Lost in her personal fairy tale. The little nobody Cinderella swept off her feet by the silver-haired billionaire Prince Charming.
It wasn’t until the feds took him away that she wondered if he hadn’t been afraid she’d figure out what he was up to.
Oh well, that was in the past now.
It had taken her a while to settle in at the palazzo, but over the past few months, she’d developed a very comfortable routine. First came breakfast on the terrace, where she would practice her Italian by reading the local papers. The language immersion tape she’d bought in Boston had turned out to be useless—fluent in two weeks, ha!—but nine months in, she was getting pretty comfortable. After breakfast, she would go online to catch up on the American news and check her email. Usually her inbox didn’t contain more than a handful of messages, a far cry from the days when she would get note after note. Now her messages were mostly from Dani, who liked to forward jokes and pictures of baby animals. On the plus side, she didn’t have to worry about whether the message was some kind of ruse arranged by Steven to catch her in a lie.
At first she didn’t look twice at the internet alert, the helpful online tracker she’d created to stay on top of the news. Another reference to the wedding, she assumed. Every day brought two or three mentions. It wasn’t until she was about to log off that she realized the alert was one she’d set up before leaving Boston. The words Louisa Clark leaped from the screen in boldface type.
Her heart stopped. A year. A whole year without mention. Why now?
She slid her fingers to the mouse. Please be a coincidence, she prayed.
And she clicked open the link.
SCAM KING’S EX HOSTS ROYAL WEDDING
Is Luscious Louisa Looking for a New Partner?
After nine months under the radar, Louisa Clark, the blonde bombshell who seduced and ultimately brought down bogus financier Steven Clark has reappeared. This time in Europe under the name Louisa Harrison...
A BIG FAT PHOTO of her smiling at the royal couple ran under the headline.
The article went on to list her as the owner of Palazzo di Comparino and suggested that hosting the wedding had been her way of snagging a new billionaire husband. Because, after all, that was how she’d landed Steven, right? She was the young femme fatale employee who’d seduced her older boss, only to sell him out when the feds began closing in. Never mind that the narrative didn’t remotely resemble the truth. That she was the one who had been seduced and betrayed. Just as long as the story sold papers.
Louisa tried to breathe, but an invisible hand had found its way to her throat and was choking the air out of her. The site even used that god-awful nickname. Stupid headline writers and their need for memorable alliteration. No way would this be the only article. Not in the internet era when every gossip blog and newspaper fed off every other.
Sure enough. A few shaky keystrokes later, the search results scrolled down her screen. Some of the stories focused on rehashing the case. Others, though, created all-new speculation. One politician in Florence was even demanding an investigation into the al fresco discovered in the palazzo chapel last summer, claiming it could be part of an elaborate
