by Nora Roberts
was jumpy enough. "As you may already know, my mother has some influence over there. Lieutenant DeMarco has been as forthcoming as possible with information. I'm aware that my cousin contacted Jeremy DeMorney yesterday, and that Jerry informed the New York Police of the phone call. Jerry was concerned enough to call my stepfather to tell him directly."
"If you're that well informed, I don't know what we can tell you."
"Detective Claremont, this is my family." Pilar let that statement hang. "I know that the authorities were eventually able to trace Don's call to the Lake Como area. I also know he was gone when they arrived to take him into custody. I'm asking you whether, in your opinion, my cousin killed my… killed Anthony Avano."
"Ms. Giambelli." Maguire set her coffee aside. "It isn't our function to speculate. We gather evidence."
"We've been connected, you and I, for months. You've looked into my life, into the personal details of it. While I understand that the nature of your business requires a certain professional distance, I'm asking for a little compassion. It's possible Donato is still in Italy. My daughter's in Italy, Detective Maguire. A man I care for very much was nearly killed. A man I was married to for half my life is dead. My only child is six thousand miles away. Please don't leave me helpless."
"Ms. Giambelli—"
"Alex," Maguire began before he could finish. "I'm sorry, Pilar, I can't tell you what you want to hear. I just don't have the answer. You know your cousin better than I do. Tell me."
"I've thought of it, of little else, for days," Pilar began. "I wish I could say we were close, that I understood his heart and his mind. But I don't. A week ago I would have said, oh, Donato. He can be foolish, but he has a good nature. Now there's no doubt he was a thief, that he and the man I was married to were in league together stealing from the woman who allowed them to make a living."
She picked up her coffee cup to fill her hands. "Stealing from me. From my daughter. But even then, even knowing this, when I try to picture him sitting in my daughter's living room, facing a man he'd known all those years and killing him. I can't do it. I can't put the gun in Don's hand. I don't know if that's because it doesn't belong there, or because I can't bear to believe it."
"You're worried he'll go after your daughter. There's no reason for him to do that."
"If he's done all these things, isn't the fact that she exists reason enough?"
In her office, behind closed doors, Kris Drake raged. The Giambellis, headed by that little bitch Sophia, were still trying to ruin her. Sicced the cops on her, she thought as she pounded a fist into her palm. It wouldn't do them a damn bit of good. They thought they could weasel it all around, pin her with Tony's murder. Even tie her to the product tampering, to big-shot Cutter's little accident in Venice.
Shaking with fury, she thumbed open a pill bottle, dry-swallowed a tranquilizer.
They couldn't prove she'd been the one to give Sophia that helpful shove on the terrace. They couldn't prove anything. So what if she'd slept with Tony? It wasn't a crime. He'd been good to her, appreciated her, understood her and what she wanted to accomplish.
He'd made her promises. Promises the Giambelli bitches had seen to he couldn't keep. The lousy cheat, she thought with affection. They'd have made a good team if he'd just listened to her. If he hadn't let that whore talk him into marriage.
But it all lay down on the Giambellis, she reminded herself. They'd made certain that slut Rene Foxx knew about her, too. Now her name was being tossed around in the press, and she was getting smirking looks from coworkers.
Just as she had at Giambelli.
She'd come too far, worked too hard to let those Italian divas ruin her career. Without Jerry's support, she might already be out on her ear. Thank God he was standing up for her, that he understood she was a victim, a target.
She owed him the inside information she was passing on. Let Giambelli try to sue her over it. La Coeur would fight for her. Jerry had made that clear from the beginning. She was valued here.
La Coeur was going to give her everything she'd always wanted. Prestige, power, status, money. By the time she was forty, she'd be listed as one of the top one hundred women in business. She'd be the fucking female executive of the year.
And not because someone had handed it to her in the cradle. Because she'd earned it.
But it wasn't enough. Not enough payback for the interrogations by the police, for the smears in the press, for the slights given her when she'd been at Giambelli.
Giambelli was going down, she thought. But there were ways to make the family tremble as it fell.
It was a long flight across an ocean, across a continent. He slept through most of it, and when he'd revived himself with coffee, called in for an update. Though he reached Eli and got filled in on what happened in Italy since he'd left, he was disappointed to have missed his kids and Pilar.
He wanted home. And by the time he landed at the Napa airfield, he resented even the short drive that separated him from it.
Then he crossed the tarmac to where he'd been told his driver would be waiting, and found it.
"Dad!"
Theo and Maddy sprang from opposite doors of the limo. The rush of emotion had him dropping his briefcase as he lunged toward them. He grabbed Maddy with his good arm, then had a line of pain spurting through his shoulder as he tried to hug Theo.
"Sorry, bad wing."
When Theo kissed him, surprise and pleasure flustered him. He couldn't remember the last time this boy, this young man, had done so. "God, I'm glad to see you." He pressed his lips to his daughter's hair, leaned into his son. "So glad to see you."
"Don't ever do that again." Maddy kept her face pressed against his chest. She could smell him, feel his heart beat. "Not ever again."
"That's a deal. Don't cry, baby. Everything's okay now."
Afraid he was going to blubber as well, Theo pulled himself back, cleared his throat. "So, did you bring us something?"
"You've heard of Ferraris?"
"Holy shit, Dad! I mean… wow." Theo looked toward the plane as if he expected to see a sleek Italian sports car unloaded.
"Just wondering if you'd heard of them. But I did manage to pick up a couple things that actually fit in my suitcases, which are right over there." David jerked his head.
"Man."
"And if you haul them for me like a good slave, we'll go car shopping this weekend."
Theo's jaw dropped. "No joke?"
"No Ferrari, but no joke."
"Cool! Hey, why'd you wait so long to get shot?"
"Smart-ass. It's good to be home. Let's get out of here and…" He trailed off as he looked back toward the car.
Pilar stood beside it, her hair blowing in the wind. As their eyes met, she began walking toward him. Then she was running.
Maddy watched her, and took her first shaky step toward adulthood by moving aside.
"What's she crying for now?" Theo wanted to know as Pilar clung to his father and sobbed.
"Women wait until it's over before they cry, especially when it's important." Maddy studied the way her father turned his face into Pilar's hair. "This is important."
An hour later, he was on the living room sofa being plied with tea. Maddy sat at his feet, her head resting on his knee while she toyed with the necklace he'd brought her from Venice. Not a little-girl's trinket—she had a good eye for such things—but a real piece of jewelry.
Theo was still wearing the designer sunglasses, and occasionally checked himself out in the mirror to admire his European cool.
"Well, now that you're settled, I've got to get going." Pilar leaned over the back of the sofa, brushed her lips over David's hair. "Welcome home."
He might have been handicapped, but his good arm was quick enough. He reached back, grabbed her hand. "What's your hurry?"
"You've had a long day. We're going to miss you guys over at the main house," she said to Theo and Maddy. "I hope you'll keep coming around."
Maddy r
ubbed her cheek on David's knee, but her eyes were on Pilar's face. "Dad, didn't you bring Ms. Giambelli a present from Venice?"
"As a matter of fact."
"Well, that's a relief." Pilar gave his uninjured shoulder a squeeze. "You can give it to me tomorrow. You need to rest now."
"I rested for six thousand miles. I can't handle any more tea. Would you mind taking that into the kitchen, give me a minute here with the kids?"
"Sure. I'll give you a call tomorrow, see how you're feeling."
"Don't run off," he said as she began to clear the tray. "Just wait."
He shifted on the couch, tried to put the words he wanted to use together in his mind as she took the tray out. "Listen… Theo, you want to sit down a minute."
Obligingly, visions of sports cars dancing in his head, Theo plopped down on the couch. "Can we look at convertibles? It'd be so cool to tool around with the top down. Chicks really dig on that."
"Jeez, Theo." Maddy turned herself around until she was kneeling, her hands resting on David's knees. "You don't score a convertible by telling him you're going to use it to pick up girls. Anyway, shut up so Dad can tell us how he wants to ask Ms. Giambelli to marry him."
David's grin at the first half of her statement faded. "How the hell do you do that?" he demanded. "It's spooky."
"It's just following logic. That's what you wanted to tell us, right?"
"I wanted to talk to you about it. Any point in doing that now?"
"Dad." Theo gave him a manly pat. "It's cool."
"Thank you, Theo. Maddy?"
"When you have a family, you're supposed to stay with them. Sometimes people don't—"
"Maddy—"
"Uh-uh." She shook her head. "She'll stay because she wants to. Maybe sometimes that's better."
A few minutes later, he was walking Pilar home, across the edge of the vineyard. The moon was beginning its slow rise.
"Really, David, I know the way home, and you shouldn't be out in the evening air."
"I need the air and the exercise and a little time with you."
"Maddy and Theo are going to need a lot of reassurance."
"And how about you?"
She laced her fingers with his. "I'm feeling considerably steadier. I didn't mean to fall apart at the airport. I swore I wouldn't."
"You want the truth? I liked it. It's good for the ego for a man to have a woman cry over him."
He brought their joined hands to his lips, kissed her knuckles as they stepped onto the garden path. "Remember that first night? I ran into you out here. Christ, you were gorgeous. And furious. Talking to yourself."
"Sneaking a temper cigarette," she remembered. "And very embarrassed to have been caught at it by the new COO."
"The new, fatally attractive COO."
"Oh yes, that, too."
He stopped, pulled her gently into an embrace. "I wanted to touch you that night. Now I can." He skimmed his fingers down her cheek. "I love you, Pilar."
"David. I love you, too."
"I called you from St. Mark's, talked to you while the music played and the light faded. Remember that?"
"Of course I do. It was the night you were—"
"Ssh." He laid a finger over her lips. "I hung up, and sat there thinking of you. And I knew." He took the box out of his pocket.
She stepped back. Pressure dropped onto her chest, leaden weights of panic. "Oh, David. Wait."
"Don't put me off. Don't be rational, don't be reasonable. Just marry me." He struggled a moment, then let out a frustrated laugh. "Can't open the damn box. Give me a hand, will you?"
Starlight glittered on his hair, bright silver on deep gold. His eyes were dark, direct and full of love and amusement. As her breath jerked, she could smell a hint of night jasmine and early roses. All so perfect, she thought. So perfect it terrified her.
"David, we've both been here before, both know it doesn't always work. You have young children who've already been hurt."
"We haven't been here together, and we both know it takes two people who want to make it work. You won't hurt my kids, because as my odd and wonderful daughter just told me, you won't stay because you're supposed to, but because you want to. And that's better."
Some of the weight lifted. "She said that?"
"Yes. Theo, being a man of few words, just told me it was cool."
Her eyes wanted to blur, but she blinked tears away. It was a time for clear sight. "You're going to buy him a car. He'd tell you anything you want to hear."
"See why I love you? You've got him nailed."
"David, I'm nearly fifty."
He only smiled. "And?"
"And I…" Suddenly it felt foolish. "I suppose I just had to say it one more time."
"Okay, you're old. Got it."
"Not that much older than—" She broke off this time, blowing out a breath when he laughed. "I can't think straight."
"Good. Pilar, let me put it this way. Whatever your birth certificate says, whatever you've done or haven't done up to this moment, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, to share my family with you, and to share yours. So help me open this damn box."
"I'll do it." She expected her fingers to tremble, but they didn't. The pressure in her chest was gone, and a lightness took its place. "It's beautiful." She counted the stones, understood the symbol. "It's perfect."
He took it out of the box, slid it onto her finger. "That's what I thought."
When Pilar went into the house, Eli was brewing tea in the kitchen. "How's David doing?"
"Well, I think. Better than I'd imagined." She ran her thumb over the ring that felt so new, and so right, on her finger. "He just needs to rest."
"Don't we all?" He sighed. "Your mother went up to her office. I'm worried about her, Pilar. She's barely eaten today."
"I'll go up, take her some tea." She rubbed a hand over his back. "We'll all get through this, Eli."
"I know it. I believe it, but I'm starting to wonder at the cost. She's a proud woman. This is damaging that part of her."
Eli's worry wormed its way into Pilar as she carried the tray to her mother's office. It occurred to her that it was the second time in one evening she'd brought tea to someone who probably didn't want it.
Still, it was a gesture meant to soothe, and she would do her best.
The door was open, and Tereza was at her desk. A logbook was open on it.
"Mama." Pilar sailed in. "I wish you wouldn't work so hard. You put the rest of us to shame."
"I'm not in the mood for tea, Pilar, or company."
"Well, I am." She set the tray on the table and began to pour. "David's looking remarkably well. You'll see for yourself tomorrow."
"It shames me, one of my own would do such a thing."
"And of course, you're responsible. As always."
"Who else?"
"The man who shot him. I used to think, used to let myself think, that I was responsible for the shameful things Tony did."
"You weren't blood."