Love Capri Style

by Reynolds, Lynn

  Amanda frowned. He’d been vague on the details.

  “Um, I assumed something like slander or libel or that sort of thing.”

  “Sweetie, you are such a babe in the woods. He can’t sue us for slander or libel if we haven’t printed anything. Good of you to offer the supreme sacrifice of dinner with a sex object out of loyalty to the magazine, though. I applaud you.”

  A little edge had crept into Danielle’s voice. “You need to bring me back a story, Amanda. I don’t know how much longer I can keep telling your dad what a great job you’re doing when you’re getting so few by-lines. He didn’t build one crappy Arizona newspaper into Tate Global Multimedia by being a gullible fool.”

  “I know,” Amanda replied.

  “Now, cheer up, honey.” Dan spoke more gently. “I know you’ve got it in you. You’re a good writer. You need more enthusiasm for your subject matter.”

  Amanda sighed. “I don’t suppose I could ask him about whitewater rafting in Nepal? Or snowmobiling in the Yukon? I could interview him about his daredevil hobbies and some of the unusual places he’s visited.”

  When she’d worked at the Lake Havasu Star, Amanda had loved reading the wire service reports about some of Eric’s wilderness adventures. She was no great athlete, but she wished she could see those unspoiled places he frequented. Until moving to New York and then getting the Capri assignment, most of her traveling had been entirely in her mind.

  “Sweetheart, focus,” Dan scolded. “That’s not the stuff our readers want to know. Here’s what you need to be asking yourself: What does Eric Greyford eat? What does he wear to bed? He turned thirty recently—is he thinking about settling down? Has he given Stacey Dakota a ring yet? Get the idea?”

  “Yes.” Amanda gritted her teeth. She got the idea all right, and it was boring her to death. “I’ll do my best, Dan.”

  The editor sighed heavily, but not unkindly. “I know you will, sweetie. I’ll talk to you again in a day or two.”

  Amanda hadn’t realized how late she’d slept. When she rang off from the conversation with Danielle, she checked her travel clock and discovered it was noon. She scrambled into the bathroom and fumbled with the annoying handheld shower attachment in the tub. It had been a hectic week, and the hot water felt good as it flowed over her tense shoulders and down her back. She thought about her initial excitement when Danielle had assigned her to the Capri Music Festival. She’d always wanted to visit Italy, but the first blush of enthusiasm had turned to disappointment and frustration.

  What a waste of time, to chase after Stacey Dakota and her playboy lover. Surely, there weren’t that many people interested in a complete stranger’s personal life? And yet, she knew that there were. Fame was the most profitable of all her absentee father’s many publications.

  “You’re a good writer, you could go far there,” her mother had said when he made the offer. “And think how thrilled I’ll be when people come into the café and I tell them you’ve gone to New York City to write for Fame.”

  Her mother had talked as if she would be well soon, as if she would go back to her little café in Lake Havasu and pick up right where she’d left off. Amanda had taken the job to please her dying mother, but she’d stayed on hoping to make a friend out of the man whose name was on her birth certificate. Unfortunately, after a few awkward attempts at including her in various social gatherings, her father had begun avoiding her. Now, he rarely came to the New York office at all.

  Amanda picked up her travel-size bar of Ivory soap. The scent jarred her, and her memories shifted to the more recent past. She felt Eric touching her hair again, leaning down and whispering in her ear. Suddenly, the mere thought of him made her red-faced with anger. He was a user like her father. She threw down the soap and shut off the tap, climbing back out of the tub.

  How dare that man order her around like some hotel maid? Easy for him to threaten her with jail and smirk about it the whole time. The man was an arrogant snob who’d never suffered a day in his life. And she was to spend her evening fawning over him, coaxing him into giving her a few thousand words of wisdom on—what? Sex with a movie star versus sex with a pop singer? His pornographic photo collection? Amanda had never dreamed that a promise to a dying woman could have made her own life unbearable in so many stupid, aggravating ways.

  Wrapping herself in a towel, she returned to her bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed, gazing out at the azure sky. A fluffy round cloud caught her eye, one of the few on the horizon. Amanda could swear it had the shape of a woman’s face. She’d begun to dreamily trace its outline in mid-air when a sudden sharp rap on her hotel room door made her leap up, dropping the towel as she did so. She let out an embarrassed shriek, even though no one could see her.

  “Signorina? Are you all right?” The alto voice of an older woman issued through the door.

  “I’m fine. Give me a minute.”

  Amanda wound the towel around her body, tucked in the flap, and went to unlock the door. Then she dashed for the bathroom

  “You can come in now,” she called over her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I guess you’ve been waiting all morning to clean this room. I got in late last night and overslept. You can start on the bedroom, and I’ll get dressed in here.”

  “Mi scusi? How will I measure you if you are in the bathroom and I am out here?”

  Amanda froze on the threshold of the bathroom. She spun round and found herself facing a severe woman in her late fifties. The stranger wore a silk blouse and black palazzo pants - hardly the wardrobe of a hotel maid, even on this island of the beautiful people.

  “Measure me?”

  “Signore Eric said you had no clothing, but I had no idea the situation was this severe!” The woman smiled at Amanda, inviting her to laugh at the little joke.

  “He didn’t!” Amanda growled low in her throat. “He was serious?”

  A part of her rose up in irritation—the man wasn’t even here, and he was trying to control her. But another part found room to be complimented. She’d told him she’d lost her luggage, and he’d said he would send someone with a whole new wardrobe. A girl could get used to that sort of attention. Maybe too used to it. Once withdrawn, that attention would be difficult to forget and even more difficult to live without.

  “Tell Mr. Greyford that’s very thoughtful, but I can’t accept his hospitality.”

  The woman looked crestfallen. “But you would be such a pleasure to dress! You are not very tall, but you have lovely proportions—a real womanly body, not like so many of the other ladies Signore Eric dates.”

  With some effort, Amanda ignored the dressmaker’s diplomatic allusion to her own too-ample figure. “Geez, do you dress them all for him? That’s a little creepy, don’t you think?”

  The elegant lady peered over the top of her large black-framed eyeglasses. Her look indicated she found Amanda’s line of questioning to be a trifle too forward. “I am Signora Claudia Ponti. My family has served all the fine ladies who come to this island for many generations. They come to me on their own, Signore Eric does not need to send them.”

  “That’s impressive,” Amanda replied. “But I’m not one of them, and I can’t afford you.”

  “Ah.” The woman’s face softened. “An admirable show of self-sufficiency, but the signore was prepared for that. I am to tell you that he does not want to be embarrassed by you at dinner tonight. Please do not show up in blue jeans in some misguided attempt to prove your independence, he says.”

  “He says that, does he?” Amanda thrust her hands onto her hips and bit her lower lip. “How about if I don’t show up for dinner at all? He wouldn’t have to worry about my embarrassing wardrobe then.”

  “No, Signorina,” the dressmaker agreed. She folded her hands in front of her stomach and waited, the perfect unflappable servant.

  Amanda nearly dismissed the woman, until she recalled her conversation with Dan. You need to bring me a story. And Dan was right—dinner with Eric Greyford would be qui
te a story, possibly worthy of the front cover. Possibly even worthy of a small morsel of approval from that stranger she rarely called “Dad.”

  “Fine,” she sighed. “Can I put on some underwear before you start measuring things?”

  *

  “Did you get my flowers?” Stacey Dakota asked in her squeaky Peppermint Patty voice.

  Seated beside her at a sunny table in the town’s Piazzetta, Eric frowned. He’d forgotten the flowers. Amanda Jackson had called them to his attention last night, but his mind had been otherwise occupied.

  “Why, yes, I did.” He smirked. “Wild time, indeed. What would the paparazzi think if they saw that card?”

  “What they’re supposed to think,” Stacey reminded him. “I thought it was pretty clever.”

  Eric cocked an inquisitive eyebrow at her. “How so?”

  “I had a wild time. The zoo. Get it? We went to the zoo in Rome before we got here, and I had a wild time! Get it?”

  She poked him in the side with her elbow. Eric stifled a laugh and pretended to be irritated with her. She gulped down a mouthful of orange soda and hiccupped. After a few seconds, she spoke again. One thing Eric had learned long ago was that Stacey could barely go three minutes without filling the air with her voice.

  “Hey, know what? I think Franco Battali likes me.” Stacey had the giggle of a little girl, high-pitched and bubbly. In many ways, she was twenty-three going on sixteen.

  Eric tugged his sunglasses down a bit so she could see his eyes when he spoke. “Of course he likes you, Stacey. That’s the whole reason we’re holding the festival here. My brother organized an entire music festival, and then strong-armed the selection committee into inviting you to be the headliner. All because he and Franco liked you so very much. And because Franco wants to have sex with you, not unlike three-quarters of the male population of the planet, he volunteered to host the festival on the grounds of his estate here. Positively chivalrous, he is.”

  “Well, you gotta admit, that’s a pretty impressive level of devotion.”

  “A bloody psychotic level of devotion, that’s what it is,” Eric retorted, settling his glasses back in place. His eyes watered from the intensity of the noonday sun beating down on the Piazzetta.

  “Come on. It’s neat, Ric.” Stacey had that bizarre penchant of some Southern Americans for inventing nicknames for everyone of her acquaintance. Eric had been shortened to Ric long ago. No doubt Franco would soon become Frank, or something even more absurd.

  “Did you say neat? Who above the age of twelve says neat?”

  “I do beg your pardon, sir.” Stacey answered him in quite a respectable upper crust British accent. “Mr. Battali’s level of attention is most gratifying to me.”

  She giggled and took another unladylike swig of her soda. A few yards away, Eric glimpsed a touristy-looking couple eyeing their table and knew they’d have to move soon. No doubt, they hoped to catch him in the act of snogging his celebrity sweetheart. Thinking the word “snog” in connection with Stacey made him laugh out loud. He swallowed it down and covered it with a fake cough.

  The touristy couple—Americans, judging by their baseball caps—headed in Eric and Stacey’s direction.

  “I think we need to move along now.” Eric caught his companion by the elbow and led her away from the table, towards an avenue lined with elegant shops and cafes.

  Stacey carried her soda with her and continued to sip at it. A few yards into their walk, she pointed her straw straight ahead.

  “Hey, look at that!” she exclaimed. “A lemon dress. Isn’t it gorgeous?”

  Eric dropped her elbow, snapping to alert like one of his father’s hunting hounds. His eye followed where Stacey pointed, picking out a raven-haired woman in a yellow sheath. Only then did he admit to himself that he’d been looking for Amanda all morning. Stacey’s comment had called up a vision of her in a lemon-covered sundress Signora Claudia had shown him that morning. He’d stopped by her salon after breakfast and asked the dressmaker to personally send it, along with several others, over to Amanda’s hotel.

  “That’s just some woman in a yellow dress,” Eric muttered in irritation.

  “Duh, yes.” Stacey rolled her eyes. “What other color would it be? But isn’t it gorgeous? I cannot wear yellow, I swear. I look like I have jaundice whenever I do.”

  Eric frowned down at her. “How fascinating.”

  “Boy, you are in one crappy mood today, buster,” Stacey sniffed.

  “Have I expressed to you my fondness for your peculiarly American vocabulary?” Eric took off his sunglasses and smiled into Stacey’s freckled face. The freckles were usually covered by makeup or airbrushed out in publicity photos, probably because they made her look even younger than her twenty-three years.

  “You sure have, pardner.” Stacey’s answer came with an exaggerated Texas twang. “Glad I can impress you.”

  Eric laid a hand on her back. “You do impress me, Stacey.”

  He hoped his sincerity carried in his voice. When he and his brother had met her a few years ago at a party, Stacey had been a chronic drunk and near suicidal. Her career had been heading for a downward spiral by the time Eric’s brother enlisted her to appear at the festival. Antony and Franco held Stacey’s music in much higher regard than Eric, who preferred classical or jazz. But he liked Stacey. She had an underlying native intelligence that might just save her from the greedy self-interest of her parents—or The Management, as she referred to them.

  In the past year, Eric had done his best to get her sobered up, and she’d done better than he’d expected. He realized now that he’d made Stacey a charitable project, a mission to focus on in the wake of his brother’s sudden death ten months ago. Now that the festival was a few days away, though, Eric found he had mixed feelings about Stacey’s progress. A brotherly pride in her comeback warred with a genuine fear that Stacey was too emotionally delicate to stay in show business.

  Stacey shifted under his hand, looking away from his intense gaze. “Man, you’re not getting the hots for me after all this time, are you?”

  Eric shook his head and laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Let’s go and get a gelato.”

  He threw an arm across her shoulders in a playful headlock, and Stacey heaved an exaggerated sigh of relief.

  “You and the gelato,” she muttered.

  They strolled down the Via Camerelle together, planning what Stacey would say and do in the television interview she had scheduled for later that afternoon. Eric kept his arm around Stacey’s shoulders, and they walked with their heads close together, so that they could keep their voices low.

  As they entered the perimeter of the little outdoor gelateria, a glint of sunlight reflecting off glass flashed in the corner of Eric’s eye. Looking over Stacey’s head, he spotted the source—a photographer seated at one of the tables and changing the lenses on his camera.

  Sensing he was being observed, the photographer glanced up and spotted Stacey. He lunged towards them.

  “Can I get a photo, Ms. Dakota?”

  Stacey laughed out loud, but Eric was caught in mid-frown. No doubt the unflattering image would be prominently featured in Fame’s next issue. Eric had seen the scruffy cameraman at a host of other events and knew he worked for Tate Global. Snapping away, the photographer followed in their footsteps. Eric hated these moments. He’d experienced a modicum of celebrity as the handsome son of Sir Lucas Greyford, but nothing on the level of what Stacey endured daily. Traveling in her orbit could truly exhaust a man. Yet much of the time—now, for example—Stacey thrived on the attention. She beamed at the cameraman, striking a few playful poses.

  Eric released his hold on Stacey and stepped up to the gelateria counter.

  “Doesn’t try to avoid the glare of the spotlights, does she?” came a tantalizingly familiar voice.

  Looking to his right, Eric found himself face to face with Amanda Jackson once again.

  She was wearing one of his dresses, one Signora C
laudia had shown him this morning. A little knit slip of a thing with V-shaped stripes down the front. One of her bra straps peeked out from beneath the strap of the dress, and Eric could barely resist the urge to reach over and shift it back into alignment.

  “No, she doesn’t,” Eric admitted.

  As he spoke, his mind raced, wondering what it meant that Amanda was wearing one of the dresses he’d sent over. It could mean she was pragmatic and practical, the sort of girl who never refused expensive gifts no matter how she felt about the giver. Stacey was like that; he doubted Amanda was the same. Had wearing his gift excited her? It excited him to see her in it. He scanned her up and down, noting how the dress skimmed her generous curves. She wore black sandals with ankle straps, which called attention to her shapely, tan legs. He envisioned himself stroking his hands up their silky smooth length, coming to the hem of her very short skirt and going farther, touching all her hidden places, feeling the moist heat of her.

  “Melon-kiwi, Signorina,” said the rotund man behind the gelateria counter.

  “Grazie.” Amanda turned away from Eric and retrieved her cup of gelato.

  In his turn, Eric ordered a chocolate-hazelnut for Stacey and another melon-kiwi.

  Amanda had stepped off to the side but remained near. Her eyebrow shot up in amusement.

  “Copycat,” she teased.

  “Not at all,” he told her. “It’s my favorite.”

  “Mine too.” Her face turned an attractive shade of pale pink.

  Eric was delighted that a woman could blush simply because they both liked the same flavor gelato.

  “Your girlfriend gobbles up the spotlight,” Amanda added.

  Eric’s jaw twitched as he resisted the urge to correct Amanda’s choice of word.

  “She does, at that,” he admitted. “I can’t say I enjoy it nearly as much.”

  “Come on.” Amanda’s lips parted in a flirtatious smile. “You were already pretty famous.”

  “Nothing like this,” Eric insisted.

  The rotund man brought him the two cups of gelato. Eric handed over his money and stepped away from the counter. Amanda fell into step beside him, heading towards the table occupied by the bearded, shabbily dressed photographer.