by Carol Grace
HER ITALIAN MILLIONAIRE
Chapter One
She was lost. All the streets looked alike and all the street signs were in a foreign language. Perspiration dripped down the side of Anne Marie's face as she pulled her Samsonite suitcase through the back streets of Sorrento. It was early September, but by ten o'clock the Italian sun was so hot her money belt was plastered to her waist. The guidebooks warned not of violent crime, but of petty theft. Thieves were everywhere, they said, looking for innocent tourists. Tourists like her, dragging suitcases, weighted down with visas and passports and Italian phrase books and still unable to say more than a few words to anyone. She heard footsteps behind her. With a swift glance over her shoulder, she noticed a man in a dark suit with a long loaf of bread under his arm following her.
She made a quick turn down a narrow cobblestone street with laundry hanging from a line above her and prayed he wouldn't come after her. But he was right there behind her, slowing down when she slowed, speeding up when she sped up. Her heart pounded. Even if she knew the word for help, who would hear her? He might take everything she had - cash, travelers' checks and credit cards.
After all, there would be no witnesses. No one to see him drag her body away where it would lie in an alley for days until stray dogs gnawed at her bones, and who would ever find her and notify her family? Her family, which now consisted only of her eighteen-year-old son.
Two little boys in tattered T-shirts came around the corner, bouncing their ball off the cobblestones and casting curious glances in her direction. The man with the bread passed her by without a second glance. A man on his way home with bread, that was all. She was paranoid, that was all.
“Buongiorno,” she said to the boys.
They stared. She hauled out her Italian phrase book to ask directions. She was not only lost, she was late. If she didn't find the station soon, she'd miss the bus to the Amalfi Coast.
“Dov'e el termini?” she asked .
The boys burst into laughter at her accent and she felt her face turn red. With a glance at her watch, she repeated the phrase, and they pointed back the way she'd come.
“Grazie,” she said and with her suitcase clattering behind her, she turned around and headed down the hill.
Ten minutes later she had a sinking feeling she was no closer to the bus station than before. She felt like giving up, like sitting down on her suitcase and giving in to tears of frustration. Instead she kept going. Block after block, street after street.
Suddenly there it was - the termini! Swamped with relief, she checked her watch. She'd missed the bus. When she went in to buy her ticket she learned there would be another in an hour. She would still make it in time to meet Giovanni.
There was already a line outside across the street and she stood at the end of it. She didn't mind waiting. She was in Italy. If she could handle a ten-hour plane flight squished in a center seat between two Sumo wrestlers, followed by a second class train ride from Rome to Sorrento seated in the aisle on her suitcase while the train swayed and lurched, an hour in line under the sun was nothing.
She sniffed the air, laden with the scent of lemon blossoms. She had to remember everything to tell Evie, who'd insisted she make this trip, even when Anne Marie said she couldn't afford it.
“Borrow money against your retirement fund,” she'd urged. “You must have at least six months of vacation accrued. Do you think the library will close without you? Do you think people will stop reading, stop dropping in to use the Internet because you're not there?”
“No, but maybe I should just go to Oregon or Yosemite...”
“You've always wanted to go to Italy. Now go.”
So she'd gone.
Though she wouldn't be here without her friend's encouragement, the person she had to thank most was Dan. Funny she could thank him for anything, after what he'd done to her, but she was no longer bitter about the divorce.
How could she be bitter about anything when she was in Sorrento, a gorgeous old town wedged between the mountains and the Mediterranean where tourists had been coming for hundreds of years for the climate, the views and the relaxed atmosphere of dolce far niente? The hills were dotted with lemon groves and olive trees. Her senses sang in the fragrant breeze that came up and cooled her face. She was here. She was really here. At last.
The guidebooks said to arrive early to land a seat on the right side of the bus for one of the world's most spectacular drives along a winding road with views of the cliffs and the sea below. But she'd be lucky if she got a seat at all.
When the bus finally came, it belched diesel fumes that clouded the air. Just as she feared, Anne Marie didn't get a seat on the right side or the left. She stood between a solid German man with a mustache and a young Italian man who was listening to music on his i-Pod. With her suitcase at her feet, her hand wrapped around the strap from the ceiling, she felt the bus lurch and they were on their way.
The bus rumbled onto the coast highway and hugged the first curve, only inches from the cliff that dropped five-hundred feet straight down to the sapphire blue sea that sparkled below. She gasped and gripped the strap so tightly her knuckles turned white. She told herself no bus had ever gone over the side and crashed on the rocks before. But there was a first time for everything. She wondered if it would be front page news in the Oakville Times.
Anne Marie Jackson's Vacation Ends in Disaster.
“Just like her marriage,” the gossips would say.
Ex-Husband on Honeymoon With New Wife.
The bus went around another bend. While others brought out their cameras and leaned out the windows taking pictures, Anne Marie was too terrified to look. Her heart pounded. She pictured the tires exploding, she imagined the expression on the driver's face changing from calm assurance to the terrified realization that the unthinkable had happened. Maybe it was his first trip on this road. Maybe he was still a trainee, unused to the curves and bends in the road. Or maybe this morning his wife told him she was leaving and he wanted to make a statement and show her he was leaving first. For good.
Then the bus would go tumbling over and over until it crashed on the rocks below. She could almost hear the screams of her fellow passengers. Screams that would blend with the cries of the gulls, which would pick their bones clean as their bodies lay broken and bruised on the sand. Her own throat was too dry to scream, her palm was so sticky it stuck to the strap above her head.
She turned her head, only to see the bus was so close to an oncoming car they were certain to scrape sides. By some miracle the driver avoided both going over the cliff and taking the paint off the Fiat. This kind of close call didn't just happen once, but about twenty-five times during the next hour, always accompanied by the honking of horns and shaking of fists. She resolutely stared straight ahead at the back of the bus driver's head, channeling her thoughts on something more pleasant. On Giovanni.
If he was surprised that she was coming to Italy to see him, he didn't say so in the brief note she'd received the day she was leaving. He just suggested they meet at a hotel in San Gervase today which had caused her to change her plans of spending her first night in Rome.
If he was afraid she'd expect him to be her tour guide the way he'd promised so long ago, he didn't have to worry. She had no such unrealistic expectations. She was a grown-up, divorced woman now, on her own. She'd gotten herself this far, she could get herself around Italy too.
She didn't know if he remembered the way she'd clung to every word he said about Italy when he was an exchange student back in high school. He wouldn't know that she'd kept every post card he'd sent afterwards. Then his cards became fewer and further between. Anne Marie went off to college, and got married.
But finally sh
e was here to do what he'd told her to do: let Italy soak into her skin like the sun. She wanted to see it all, the canals in Venice, the Coliseum in Rome, Michelangelo's statue of David in Florence. But first she had a date to meet him. After fantasizing about him off and on for some twenty years, it was time to put the dreams to rest and get on with her life. But if by chance dreams did come true, well...it couldn't happen at a better time.
As they approached San Gervase, she craned her neck to the right for a quick look out the window. It was everything she'd imagined: a picture-perfect town squashed into a ravine with shops and white-washed villas perched on the cliffs. Scarlet bougainvillea tumbled over balconies and climbed walls and wild poppies covered the ground. There was a small sand beach below, and best of all there was the sea, sparkling in the sun, cool and inviting, impossibly blue.
Anne Marie stumbled off the bus, grateful to be on firm ground at last. She rolled her suitcase behind her down narrow, winding streets, inhaling the scent of jasmine and mint and lemons, of lemon candy and lemon granita.
On her way down the street, she accepted a free sample of limoncello in a small paper cup, the local lemon liqueur that was so strong it burned her throat. Her stomach was doing flip flops at the thought of meeting Giovanni.
What if he didn't recognize her after all this time? What if she didn't recognize him? Maybe they'd just have coffee and she'd give him the high school yearbook he'd left behind when he returned to Italy, and that would be it. She wasn't naive enough to think he'd throw his arms around her and confess he'd always been in love with her; that he'd never forgotten her and had been waiting for her all these years.
But if he did that and said that, they'd go up to her hotel room overlooking the Mediterranean, and with the air filled with wild herbs and flowering vines from the hillside below and the sea breeze blowing in the window, cooling their over-heated bodies, he'd tell her that he'd never forgotten her. He'd never been able to love anyone else.
He was so strong, he'd literally sweep her off her feet. When they took their clothes off, she'd blush when he told her for a forty-one-year-old woman she looked good, no... great. He'd fondle her breasts that were still firm, caress her still flat stomach, admire her hips that were wide but not too wide. And he...He'd look like the statue of David on the post card he'd given her long ago. Her skin tingled just thinking about it.
Her skin tingled, and perspiration trickled annoyingly between her breasts. Her long hair lay heavy on the back of her neck. She had to get it cut. Right now, even if she was late for their meeting. She was beginning to adopt an Italian attitude. If she was late, he'd wait for her.
Miraculously, she came to a cool dark shop with a sign on the door: Salone de Bellezza. When she went inside, the smell of shampoo and hair spray hung in the air. A woman in a blue apron motioned for her to take a seat. Anne Marie nodded, and while she was waiting, thumbed through an old fashion magazine with a picture of a Sophia Loren look-alike. The model's hair was reddish brown, cut in layers that brushed her high cheekbones.
“Like that,” she told the stylist, surrendering herself into the woman's hands.
What hands they were. Anne Marie rested her head against the edge of the sink, while those hands rubbed, massaged, sprayed hot water, then rinsed with cool water. She gave a shiver of pleasure as the hands worked in shampoo and conditioner and something else that exuded the essence of lavender and mint.
She forgot her worries about losing her husband and finding Giovanni. She forgot she was on a schedule and just let herself float away on a cloud of fragrance and sensual pleasure. She'd never known how sensitive her head was until this woman took charge, with her magic hands and her potions. Every bone is her body had turned to jello; every remnant of the tension of the last twenty-four hours melted away. Anne Marie closed her eyes while the hands cut and shaped and blew her hair dry and then sprayed it.
“Prego, signora.” The stylist lifted the smock off, and Anne Marie opened her eyes at last.
She blinked at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was no longer dull brown with streaks of gray. It was the color of the hair in the magazine. It brushed against her cheekbones, making them look higher, giving her an exotic look she'd never had before. They'd misunderstood. She'd only wanted it cut. The entire staff of three women appeared behind her, beaming at her reflection with pride. They murmured things like “bella,” and “grazioso.” What could she say? She forced herself to smile and thank them.
She paid a ridiculously small amount for such a total transformation and walked out into the afternoon sunlight, feeling its heat on her bare neck. She felt naked; she'd had long hair forever.
If only Evie could see her now. “You have the perfect excuse for skipping Dan's wedding,” Evie had said. “You're no longer the pathetic ex-wife; you are a woman on a romantic tryst to meet her lover. Out of all the girls in our class who were in love with him, he chose you. He heard about the divorce. Now he wants you. He even sent you a ticket. First class.”
“Who's going to believe that?” Anne Marie scoffed, shaking her head.
“Okay,” Evie conceded. “Business class.”
So she'd borrowed the money, packed and left. She would have gone steerage class on the first boat. She would have mortgaged the house. Anything to escape the wedding of the year, when Dan married his dental hygienist with the perfect teeth and the perfect size eight figure. Since the divorce was so “amicable,” the whole town expected good old Anne Marie to show up with a smile on her face and a gift under her arm. Hah!
Instead, she was on her way to a rendezvous.
But what if Giovanni had changed? What if he weighed three-hundred pounds? What if he brought a wife and five children to meet her? What if he was single and wanted to marry her so he could get a green card? What if he wore his shirt unbuttoned to the navel and had four gold chains around his neck? She'd find out very soon; it was almost two-thirty.
Anne Marie found a taxi on the main street, across from the small sandy beach with bright blue and white beach umbrellas. As the well-aged Fiat with an equally well-aged driver made its way up into the hills above the town, her ears popped and she felt dizzy.
Finally they pulled into the circular driveway of the four-star Hotel Athena on the edge of the cliff. It looked just like the picture on the Internet which was followed by rave reviews from previous guests.
“Elegance and panoramic views.” “Great ambiance.” “Exceeded our expectations.”
She’d decided then and there to stop worrying about spending too much. After all, how many times did a person get to fulfill her wildest fantasy in a once-in-a-lifetime trip?
When she got out of the taxi, Anne Marie’s knees buckled. Nerves? Altitude? Vitamin deficiency? The driver set her bag at the hotel's open glass doors. She held out a handful of euros, and he carefully picked out what she hoped was the right amount.
For a long moment after the taxi had pulled away, she stood alone in the quiet tiled driveway, taking slow, deep breaths. When the world finally stopped spinning around, she felt almost normal.
There were no cars parked in the driveway. Through the open doors she peered into the cool, elegant lobby. There was no one there. No dashing Italian with a sexy grin. She reminded herself he was Italian and he'd be late.
Suddenly, she was aware she was not alone. The sensitive skin on the back of her neck felt as if someone had brushed it with a feather; she felt someone's eyes on her. She whirled around.
There he was, leaning against the brick wall that separated the street from the driveway. Tall, lean, and muscular, he was wearing wrap-around sunglasses, black jeans, and a blue shirt. It was not unbuttoned to the navel. He wore no gold chains. He was taller than she remembered. Harder, older. Well, what did she expect? She hadn't seen him in more than twenty years.
She didn't realize she was holding her breath until she exhaled.
“Giovanni?” she said walking slowly toward him.
He took off his sung
lasses. There was a long silence. “No,” he said.
His gaze locked with hers. Her bare arms were covered with goose bumps. The air was warm but a chill ran up her spine. Of course it wasn't Giovanni. This man’s eyes were not black, they were a light brown or..or...green or something. She couldn't tell without getting closer, and there was no reason to get any closer. His face was all angles, with enough character lines to be interesting and squint marks at the corners of his eyes that showed how much time he'd spent in the Mediterranean sun. She stood rooted to the spot, while doves nesting in the cliffs above swooped and twittered.
She had to say something, or move or walk away. Anything to break the spell he'd cast on her. What must he think of her, standing there staring? An American woman desperately looking for an Italian to make her vacation dreams come true? How could he know how she'd been looking forward to this moment for the past twenty-three years but he wasn't the one she'd been waiting for?
Too bad, a little voice inside her said.
“Welcome to San Gervase,” he said in Italian-accented English that made every word sound like a caress.
“Thank you,” she managed. “Are you...?” He must be somebody, something...Chamber of Commerce? Bureau of Tourism?
“No,” he said again.
Okay, it was time to stop staring. She gave him a brief smile, turned around and crossed the driveway and tripped on a crack in the tile. But she wasn't overly excited or nervous, just because a sexy Italian man had looked at her with interest and spoken to her. She'd been in this country for only a day and already knew Italian men were like that. It didn't mean anything.
She picked up her suitcase and looked over her shoulder before she carried it inside. Just one more look, to make sure he wasn't a figment of her over-active imagination. The man was still standing there, draped against the stone wall as if he were part of the scenery. Like an extra in an Italian movie, the quintessential Italian stud, hired to give the place ambiance or give tourists a photo opportunity.