by Anne Stuart
He’d been everything to her. A father, a protector, someone who worshipped her, someone who needed her. He gave her a home and stability after years of trailing around after her rootless mother, and he’d used his legendary charm with devastating effect. And she’d loved him.
Knead, push, pull. Turn, slap, punch. The newspapers would start calling again. She kept changing her number—they didn’t have her most recent one, but she knew it wouldn’t be long before they tracked her down. They’d be lying in wait outside her restaurant, with film crews shoving microphones in her face and lights blinding her. The world’s most famous living artist was now dead. What did his former wife think of it all?
She didn’t want to think at all. She was strong, a survivor, and she’d learned to put the pain into separate compartments in her brain so she could concentrate on the job at hand. Denial was an underrated tool for coping, and she used it well. Turn, slap, punch. The dough was developing a nice elastic sheen—the kneading was almost finished. She didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want to put it in a bowl to rise on the back of her six-burner stove, didn’t want to wash the flour and butter from her hands and put the canary diamond back on her slender finger.
She’d tried to give it back to him when she’d left him, but he had refused to take it. He had insisted it was only hers, it matched her mysterious yellow eyes, and in the end she couldn’t say no to him. So she’d worn it for him, even though she never saw him. In fact, she hadn’t seen him once in the five years since she had left him. And she’d wear it today, in his memory.
The shrill ring of the telephone made her jump, and she grabbed it, holding on to her self-control by a thread. It was her mother.
“You’ve heard?” Olivia said abruptly, her voice cool and controlled on the transatlantic phone call.
“I’ve heard.” Charlie could be equally cool. She’d learned long ago that it was the only way to survive her overwhelming mother.
“I’m coming to New York. You’ll be needing me.”
“I don’t see why.” Fat lot of good needing her mother had ever done her, Charlie thought as a shiver of emotion sliced through her icy calm. Olivia wasn’t the type to be around when the going got tough. Charlie was certain she’d never understood or forgiven her daughter for realizing how empty her life was and walking away from Pompasse. Or for walking off with him in the first place.
“For the memorial service, Charlie,” Olivia said with veiled patience. “There’ll be tributes in Manhattan, and then he’ll be buried in Tuscany. At La Colombala. You’ll want to be there.”
The memory of the farmhouse swept over her with blinding clarity—the clear light, the smell of the vineyards, the warmth of the sun. Filling her with both dread and longing. “I don’t think so,” she said.
“Baby,” Olivia drawled, “you’re still his executrix, not to mention one of his heirs. The lawyers haven’t tracked you down yet, but they got in touch with me. He never changed his will.”
“Shit.”
Olivia’s amused snort carried across the Atlantic Ocean. “I’m glad money means so little to you, darling. Trust your mother—there’s no such thing as too thin or too rich.”
Trust your mother. Charlie had made any number of mistakes in her thirty years, including marrying an old man, but that wasn’t one of them. She had learned early whom she could trust in this life, and Olivia Thomas wasn’t one of them.
Charlie took a deep breath. “Look,” she said, “it’s early in the morning and I’ve just barely heard. Why don’t you call me back in a few hours and we’ll discuss—”
“I’m already at the airport. I’ll be on the next flight and we can discuss it in person.” And she hung up before Charlie could form another protest.
She set the phone back in its cradle. The bread dough lay on the marble counter, a round, plump mass. She picked it up and tossed it in the trash, then washed her hands, scrubbing at them. She had flour beneath her short fingernails, and she kept scrubbing, mindlessly. Her hands were raw and red by the time she finished. She dried them quickly, then reached for the dish of rings. She put the silver rings on her right hand, the gold on her left. Then she slid the huge, winking yellow diamond onto her ring finger, staring down at it blindly.
And she began to cry.
2
He shouldn’t have listened to Gregory. He seldom did—his own instincts usually served him well—but this time his editor had been adamant, and he was footing the bill, as well.
“You’ve got to get to New York for the memorial service,” Gregory had insisted. “Just to check out the lay of the land. You can stay undercover—we have camera crews and reporters there to do the main work. But you need to see what’s going on firsthand. How the widow’s bearing up. Whether any former lovers decide to appear out of the woodwork and make a scene.”
“What if someone sees me? How the hell can I talk my way into the villa when someone might remember me from the service?” he’d argued.
“I don’t need to tell you how to do these things, Maguire,” Gregory had replied. “You’re an old pro—you can talk your way into and out of anything.”
“I’m planning on passing myself off as an insurance adjuster once I get to the villa. Why would I be in New York?”
“Afraid you can’t handle it, Maguire? Lost your nerve?”
“I can handle it,” he’d drawled. “I just don’t like needless complications.”
“Consider this a needful complication. Pompasse was a famous man, and there’ll be media from all over the world looking for a story. We’ve already got an inside edge—you’ve been working on him for weeks now. But we can’t afford to let anyone else get the jump on us.”
And so he’d gone. He’d stayed in the background, watching, blending in with the ability he’d perfected over the years. And everything would have been fine, if the widow hadn’t looked up at one point and, as luck would have it, met his gaze.
He’d ducked behind a pillar in the huge, crowded church a second later, and by the time he dared emerge her attention was once more on her lap. The place was jammed—with mourners, with curiosity-seekers, with paparazzi like himself. She probably hadn’t even focused on him in that split second. There’d be no way she’d remember him after all those people.
He’d stayed in the background just to be sure, listening to the tributes that sounded more suited to Mother Teresa than a monstrously self-indulgent artist, and Maguire took note of several key phrases for later use. He’d get the full transcripts eventually. Right now he only needed local color, impressions. Like the widow’s firm step and straight, narrow back. Like the fact that for all the flowery tributes, there wasn’t a damp eye in the house. As far as he could see, no one mourned the old man.
Least of all Connor Maguire.
He didn’t dare spend more than a few minutes at the private reception afterward. He had no trouble talking his way into the place despite the tight security, but he couldn’t risk running face-to-face with Pompasse’s widow. Not if he planned to pass himself off as someone else later.
He paused near the crowded entrance of the determinedly upscale La Chance for one last look at Charlie Thomas. He couldn’t quite figure her out. On the one hand, he knew all the statistics. Married Pompasse at seventeen, left him at twenty-five, came to New York and opened a trendy restaurant that actually thrived in the competitive world of New York eateries. She was a self-made woman, calm, determined, eerily serene and in charge of her life. And yet, even from a distance he could sense the streak of fragility that ran through her, surrounding the iron core that kept her going.
It would be interesting to find out which was the more influential, the strength or the vulnerability. Right now she looked as if she was protected by a coat of ice. What would it take to smash that frigid defense?
He had every intention of finding out.
The worst part wasn’t the memorial service or the desperate paparazzi, Charlie thought. The worst was the reception.
&n
bsp; “That’s my brave, darling girl,” Henry said, patting her hand as it rested on his impeccably tailored arm. “You’ve been an absolute brick through all this.”
Charlie managed a faint smile. Henry was doing his best to be sensitive and soothing, and she could see the strain it was having on his usual imperturbable calm.
“I’m fine, Henry,” she said in a low voice. And indeed, she was surprisingly calm. The reception was going well, but how could it do otherwise, since it was catered by La Chance, Charlie’s own restaurant? Maurice had gone out of his way with the food. The various mourners who’d fawned over Pompasse in life now gossiped viciously about him as they ate and talked and drank and sent covert glances Charlie’s way. She didn’t mind. As long as they didn’t plague her with anything more intimate than the prescribed words of sympathy, she could move through this day, this endless day after a series of endless days, with Henry’s strong, elegant arm beneath her hand.
Her mother was across the room, her flame-red hair tossed back, brown eyes sparkling. She looked magnificent, as usual, and Charlie wondered whether she’d had any more cosmetic surgery done. If so, she had had plenty of time to heal, and Olivia was looking like the legendary beauty that she was.
Her only child was a pale substitute for Olivia’s dramatic charms, but Charlie had always counted that as a blessing. Until she met Pompasse, a man who preferred subtlety, and then she was lost.
No, marrying Pompasse hadn’t been a loss, she reminded herself sharply, her fingers tightening on Henry’s sleeve. He wouldn’t like her wrinkling his impeccable suit, but he wouldn’t say anything. Henry was always the gentleman.
Unlike Pompasse, who could throw a hysterical fit with the best of them. He’d chosen wisely when he’d married her. She was already adept at dealing with temperament—her mother had taught her well. After Olivia’s histrionics, Pompasse was a lamb to deal with—for the simple fact that Pompasse, unlike her mother, had loved her.
Henry loved her as well, with dignity and affection and admiration. He was everything she wanted and needed in a man—tenderness, charm, sophistication, maturity. He would take care of her when she needed to be taken care of, and let her fly free when she needed her wings. She would take off the canary-yellow diamond and put on the antique Venetian pearl ring that Henry had searched high and low for, claiming it matched her serene beauty. And this time her husband would only be twice her age.
“I wish you’d let me come to Tuscany with you, darling,” Henry murmured in her ear. “It’s too much for you to take on.”
She looked up into his solicitous gaze. “I told you that you could come, Henry. As soon as you’re able. I just don’t want to wait until you can free up your schedule. I want to begin dealing with the estate as soon as possible, get it into the right hands. The longer I put if off the more it will prey on my mind.”
“But surely you can wait a week? Your mother won’t even be able to come with you.”
Charlie didn’t blink. Olivia’s hectic schedule was one of her own reasons for haste. The more time she had at La Colombala without her mother’s overwhelming presence, the happier she’d be.
But of course, Henry would be horrified if she said any such thing. Olivia seemed to approve of Henry as her second son-in-law, and he was determined to keep that approval. He would never even begin to comprehend the tension that lay between mother and daughter, and Charlie had no interest in enlightening him.
“But she’ll be following soon,” she said in her calm voice. “And really, I don’t know why you think I’m such a fragile creature. I’ve been an independent woman for years now, and I’m perfectly capable of taking care of things. Lauretta is still there, and so are most of the others. They were always devoted to Pompasse, and he looked after them. He’ll have left them well-provided for. I think they’d want his estate settled quickly.”
“You’ll be selling the villa,” Henry said, only the trace of a question in his voice. “You could get a pretty penny for it, given how popular Tuscany is nowadays. And even that ruin behind the farmhouse will add to the value.”
“Of course,” she said. There was no alternative—it was hideously expensive to keep up, and her life was in New York now. With Henry. What did she need a rambling farmhouse in Tuscany for?
For the light, a tiny voice whispered inside her. For the scent of the air and cool evenings and the luscious grapes. For the first place you ever felt safe.
But she was a practical woman now, and she made practical choices. “Of course,” she said again, trying to convince herself. “As soon as the estate is settled.”
Had she imagined it, or was there a tiny sigh of relief from Henry? It didn’t matter. He smiled at her approvingly. “And I’ll do everything I can to help you, darling. We might even get married there, if you’d like.”
She’d rather eat fried tarantulas, but she wasn’t about to say so. She’d married Pompasse in the grape arbor in the hot Italian sunshine. She wasn’t going to start her life with Henry the same way.
But Henry was looking at her as if he’d offered her a great treat, and she remembered his almost childlike awe of Pompasse, combined with a lawyerly disapproval of Pompasse’s flagrant lifestyle and his own protectiveness toward Charlie. He’d like nothing better than to marry Pompasse’s wife in Pompasse’s vineyard, and it would take everything she had to convince him it was a bad idea.
“We’ll talk about it,” she said. And then she tensed.
Her mother was bearing down on her, a determined expression marring the perfect planes of her face. Her green gown flowed around her model-thin figure, but for once Olivia wasn’t concentrating on her performance. Something unpleasant had happened, and Charlie held her breath, half waiting for Olivia to make a dramatic announcement.
“Did Henry tell you?” she hissed. Only her mother could manage to hiss a sentence without any esses in it.
“Tell her what?” Henry demanded.
“That bastard Pompasse,” Olivia said bitterly, snagging a glass of wine from a passing waiter.
“He’s dead, Mother,” Charlie said calmly.
“But he’s not finished messing up my life,” Olivia said, with a blatant disregard for her own daughter’s well-being.
“What’s happened now?”
“He never divorced you,” Olivia said flatly. “He never signed the damned papers.” She drained her champagne glass and set it down hard on the marble-topped credenza. “Here’s to Charlie, the happy widow,” she muttered. “Looks like this time she hasn’t landed on her feet.”
“And this is a problem?” Charlie asked.
“You’re inheriting his debts as well, darling. Which might amount to a hell of a lot more than his meager estate, since a number of his most important paintings are missing. He always lived the high life, and now it looks like you’ll be paying for it. You’ll lose the restaurant.”
“Don’t be absurd, Olivia,” Henry said after a brief silence. “Even if they were never divorced they were legally separated. There’s no court that could hold her—”
“You’re an expert on Italian law, Henry?” Olivia demanded.
“Are you?” Henry shot back.
“I’ve got a headache,” Charlie broke in, trying to keep calm. For five years she thought she’d managed to break free of Pompasse, only to discover that he’d never let her escape, after all. She should have known. He never let anyone leave, not willingly. Those few who had managed to leave him had simply disappeared with no warning, wise enough to sneak away before he could stop them.
“Don’t worry, Charlie,” Henry murmured. “You’ll just put off your trip to Italy until I can come, and we’ll settle this very smoothly.”
“Pompasse needs to be buried.”
“He doesn’t need you there.” Henry’s voice took on a brittle tone.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Charlie said.
“I can’t possibly be ready by then,” Olivia broke in.
“You can both join me when
you’re able. In the meantime the funeral is set for Saturday morning, and I intend to be there.”
And “be there” she was. By the time she stumbled off the small commuter flight in Florence she was beyond exhaustion and into a strangely dreamlike state of denial. All that mattered was that she got back to the villa, to the warmth and sunlight.
And then maybe things would begin to make sense.
It was a perfect autumn day in Florence. The sun was shining down, gilding the Duomo, and the Arno River moved through the city like an elegant serpent, twisting and turning in the light. It was the scented air that got to her first, though. The unmistakable fragrance that was Italy, even with the smell of the city. Charlie took in a deep breath and closed her eyes in momentary pleasure.
Renting the right car had proved more difficult than she expected. She deliberately hadn’t let the people at La Colombala know when she was arriving. She knew from Henry that Pompasse’s servants were still in residence, including Tomaso, the combination handyman and chauffeur, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he still drove Pompasse’s beloved Rolls-Royce.
But she didn’t want to return to La Colombala in a Rolls. For some reason it was important for her to come back on her own terms. Besides, she’d learned to drive on the narrow roads leading to the villa, and she wanted the rare pleasure of traveling them again.
She hadn’t wanted to come back in a stodgy old Fiat, either. She’d wanted a sports car, something fast and dramatic, and it had taken her too much time to find one. But the Alfa was perfect, fast and sleek and powerful. The way she wanted to be.
She put the top down on the small Alfa, and the radio blasted passionate Italian pop music. She tied a scarf around her head, Audrey Hepburn-style, and put on her oversize sunglasses. She drove fast and well, out of the city, into the countryside, heading northeast to the tiny town of Geppi. La Colombala, Pompasse’s sprawling estate, lay just beyond the town limits, and Charlie had always loved it there. In truth, it may have been harder to leave Tuscany than to leave her difficult husband.