“Ah that…” Kat shrugged. It was nothing, he told me he had an emergency operation on his toe.”
“His toe, I thought he was dying?”
“Yeah, it sounded like it when you told me, so I had to ask him about it, but apparently it was quite the trauma for him.
“Trauma? Emergency operation? How can you get a trauma from surgery on your toe? And how can one even think it might make you end up on life support?” Vanessa shook her head.
“I know,“ Kat said beaming. “Isn’t it adorable? He’s so sensitive and in touch with his emotions.”
“If you say so,” Vanessa wanted to get back to the subject of Alex and urged Kat to tell her what she had found out.
“Okey Vanessa, are you ready? This is how it all played out; everything Alex do is directed by that guy Brunetti. Mitch told me he decides everything for Alex, who now has gotten so used to it he hardly notices.”
Vanessa nodded; this was no news for her.
Kat continued, “Mitch´s theory is that when you came into the picture, Brunetti felt threatened. He wants Alex to stay a royal and he fears that if he doesn’t marry another royal he will lose his privileges as a Prince, and maybe even his title.”
Vanessa tried to make sense of all the information, she felt overwhelmed.
“How come Mitch knows all of this?”
“He knows because he’s been a victim himself by Brunetti's scare-tactics. When he and Alex first became friends, Brunetti did everything he could to end their friendship. Mitch feels deeply ashamed for letting himself being manipulated by Brunetti and going after you as he did in France. But he was in a very vulnerable state of mind at that moment.”
“Yeah I’m sure he was, go on.” Vanessa was eager to know exactly everything.
“So when I told him about how Alex had behaved going off to that cocaine party with the Playboy Bunnies, he knew! Brunetti set it all up, he’s one hundred percent sure of this Vanessa, Alex would never ever touch any kinds of drugs. Mitch knows because he had been trying to make him try out all kinds of drugs during their party years, but Alex always passed on it,” Kat explained.
“How did he explain the bunnies?”
“Well, He didn’t have an explicit explanation for them but one can assume it was Brunetti as well.
“I guess,” Vanessa's thoughts were circling her head. “But he still sent me a letter and fired me as an answer to my letter to him spilling my heart out.”
“Don’t you think that could be Brunetti also?” Kat wondered.
“I could be, but how can we be sure?”
“I know,” Kat said, “Let’s go and ask him.”
“Ask him? Who, Alex?”
“Of course Alex,” Kat stood up and walked around the room impatiently.
“But he’s in Italy,” Vanessa sounded wobbly and near tears.
“Mitch can arrange for us all to go on his private jet.”
“Seriously? This is crazy!”
“It is but it's also so exciting isn’t it?”
“A little,” Vanessa admitted.
“But oh, what about him dating that movie star?
“Nah, Mitch just laughed at that. He knows who it is, he told me she was an old stalker of Alex, and that she’d been obsessed by him for ages. He´s sure that that Brunetti used her to get PR for the Prince and his new foundation in Hollywood. Apparently Alex is now in the movie-business.”
“This is too much Kat. I mean how can someone be so mean and set up all these lies to get an adult man to do as he wants?”
“Apparently, Brunetti can. But you know what Vanessa, we should not let him win. Let’s go to Italy, let’s go talk to Alex and at least get an explanation from him and after you can decide if you still want to be involved with him. I think it’s worth a shot, don’t you?”
Vanessa stood up, “Get that plane ready! We’re going to Italy!”
Chapter 22
Vanessa sat curled up in the huge plush seat at Mitch Private Jet trying to block out the sound of Kat and Mitch making out in the seat next to her. It was not an easy task ask they both seemed to be both murmurs and talkers when it came to snogging. At few times Vanessa couldn’t help but laughing out loud.
“Hey guys, keep it down a notch will you?” Vanessa hissed at the pair. But she couldn't be too mad at them, they were actually quite cute together.
“So what's the plan when we arrive to Venice?” Vanessa asked feeling a tad nervous.
“Don’t worry about it,” Mitch said with his guru-like soft voice. “We’ll go to the festival area and find Alex.”
“Yeah, don’t worry Green,” Kat chipped in. “Mitch will stage an intervention on your behalf to make Alex see clear on Brunetti.”
“What? An intervention?” Vanessa's eyes widened. “Are you guys sure that’s such a good idea? I mean Alex doesn’t seem like the guy who would appreciate interventions.”
“Oh, Vanessa he will, afterwards. He just needs to find…”
“His inner peace?” Vanessa cut in before Mitch could finish his sentence and shook her head.
What was she doing? What if Alex would be furious and completely angry with her? Perhaps he was in love with that actress and she was going to make a fool of herself trying to win him back?
“Listen Vanessa, We have been talking about interventions at the Garden of Peace and I’ve picked up a lot of the different techniques,” Mitch explained.
“But aren’t interventions for drug addicts? Vanessa looked doubtful.
Kat and Mitch assured her their plan was bulletproof and she could just relax, they had it all under control and got back to making out. Vanessa closed her eyes, she wasn’t at all convinced this would go as smoothly as they thought. She had a disturbing vision of Mitch all dressed in flowing, white clothes, talking in a low melodious voice and bringing harmony to the fractured souls of Alex and her. Maybe she should buy some healing crystals for the occasion she thought dryly. And some scented candles and a cd with soothing chants.
“But shouldn't we get someone specially trained at least?”
Vanessa still felt dubious and couldn’t let the subject go. She felt as she sat on needles. Her whole body was on high alert as she tried to mentally prepare to meet Alex.
“I mean, do you really have all the knowledge that takes to handle this Mitch?”
“I’ve got loads of knowledge,” Mitch said sounding a bit offended. “I’ve done conflict resolution, and everything. To understand everything is to forgive everything, to quote Buddha,” Mitch said sounding more spiritual and strange than ever before.
“But how are you going to confront him?”
“Stop worrying Vanessa, I’ll use a variety of techniques.”
Vanessa felt like she couldn’t argue anymore, sank down into her seat, and put on the headphones that one of the flight attendants had been so compassionate to sneak by and hand her. Apparently, Mitch and Kat’s tongue rolling was heard even in the far end of the plane.
The three of them stood at the balcony of a suit at the Ritz looking out over Piazza San Marco. If she had been here for any other reason than stage an intervention for her ex-boyfriend she would love it. Now she couldn’t let the spectacular view ease her mind. She felt so nervous her legs were trembling and her stomach was in uproar.
“Ok, we have a problem,” Mitch turned to them with brows creased.
“I told you…” Vanessa said with a gloomy voice.
“Don’t let negative thoughts cloud your mind,” Mitch told her.
She was on the edge to scream at him to stop being so god damn calm but she bit her lip and just stared out on the grand Piazza where she could see a crowd of women of all ages had begun to gather. All chanting his name. The word had spread that Michelangelo DeLeo was in town and Mitch was clearly concerned on how this would effect his intervention. How were they supposed to get past them unnoticed and into the festival area to find Alex?
“Can’t you just call him and ask him to get to the h
otel,” Kat suggested to Mitch.
“Absolutely not, that would destroy the whole idea of an intervention. The ground rule is that it must be a surprise.”
“I see,” Kat sounded as a good pupil listening to her teacher. “We have to go undercover.”
“Undercover?” Vanessa suddenly flipped out. “How are we supposed to do that?”
“Calm down, your negative attitude are messing with my Zen,” Mitch began sounding a bit annoyed at her and she realized she had to tone it down as this mission was all in Mitch’s hands right now.
Apparently, Alex was attending a set outside the center of Venice of a new movie that he was financing. Mitch had made a few phone calls and then got back with the news that they should all be on the set as extras and from there they would be able to find Alex without him being altered. Vanessa had asked Mitch what the problem was for him just to contact the producers of the movie and then go over there, as normal people would do. He had just shook his head at her and in a low voice explained to Kat the procedure on how an intervention must play out and asked her to brief Vanessa. He had given her a concerned look, as she was a lost cause on finding her inner peace. Well, that was probably true because she felt as hyperactive and nervous as she’d ever been before in her life.
An intervention, according to Mitch must be a surprise for the person who would be intervened and that was the reason for why they had to sneak into the dinner party undercover as extras and also for Mitch to be able to go incognito.
Vanessa and Kat had done their research on the internet and felt well prepared. They would be the best extras ever. No, not extras, the proper term was background actors. Normally you should bring a variety of outfits but that didn’t apply in this case, as their costumes apparently would be provided. A limo had also been provided to take them to the film set, which was definitely not standard practice. Everyone that they´d met since they arrived in Venice had been super nice and treated them as royals and it was all because of them being with Mitch.
Kat had even confessed that she secretly hoped for them to be so nice to them that they would give her a speaking part; she had after all been to drama school. Vanessa knew that Kat always had dreamt of being an actress and since it was a sensitive subject, she was always very tactful when it came to Kats “Drama School.” It wasn’t exactly Juilliard. It was the kind where your father pays huge fees and you spend the summer term at the school beach house in the Hamptons, and no one actually goes into acting as they all have family business to inherit or something.
The movie people hadn’t really given them much to go on when it came to what the movie was about, but Mitch had told them it was a period drama set in the 1600th century in Italy. They would be dressed as people crowding a square during an execution. Most likely, they would never even be seen on the screen after all the cutting, Mitch had assured her. However, she wasn’t sure Kat had realized this as she had spent the last hour doing all these loads warm-up exercises and shaken her hands out “to loosen herself up.” Vanessa knew it would be pointless telling her as she knew the answer would be, “Green, I went to Drama School remember.”
The limo had parked right outside the entrance so Mitch could jump in unseen from the crowd of people gathered outside on the square. Vanessa couldn’t believe they were still there, chanting and jumping when the limo drove by to try to see who was in it.
“There he is! I love you, Mitch!” A girl shouted and pointed in a whole other direction than their car.
At once, hundreds of heads looked around excitedly as if Mitch might appear somewhere and some of them even started snapping their cameras at empty space.
As they were whisked into the area of the movie set Vanessa looked in astonishment at all the motions going on. Girls with clipboards and earpieces were running around in what looked like total panic, and a guy walked past them carrying what looked like a marble statue under his arm and there was a woman in a crinoline standing in a corner practicing her lines. Three model-like girls, hands full with enormous bags filled with clothes and makeup greeted them. They were stylists working international and had worked with Mitch on several of his movies and seemed to know him quite well. She could see that Kat also thought they appeared to be a bit too close for her taste so she quickly jumped in the middle and gave Mitch a huge kiss and wrapped her arms around him, property style.
The girls looked a slight taken aback at this sudden motion by the purple haired women in yoga clothes, but when Mitch put his arms around her waist and indulged in a heavy make out session right in front of them they began moving around the room setting up their workplaces.
Wigs, hats, coats, even fake-noses came out from their bags.
“Let’s get started,” they said and pushed Vanessa into a hair-salon chair and put a blonde short wig over her light brown locks.
It all took about five minutes but afterwards she was transformed. She looked at herself in the mirror in disbelief, she was dirty, grim and wrinkled and kind of scary. Kat looked like an old crone, she had on a black wig and some kind of tooth plate that changed the shape of her mouth, and she had warts all over her face and walked around trying to fake a limp. Mitch stood in the middle of the room with a cane in his hand all dressed in gold and green, apparently he had the good part and was dressed as a 1600th century lord. He was smiling as he hadn’t had this much fun in ages.
After a while, they were rushed into another area of the set and Vanessa could see a director’s seat and a bunch of other people running around fixing the props and the fake scenery of a farm. Kat and Mitch were making out again and Vanessa felt quite uncomfortable in her ridiculous outfit. The other extras in the room were reading books or looked as if they were about to fall asleep, but Vanessa couldn’t relax, somewhere in this area was Alex. What would happen when they found him? Would Mitch just jump in front of him and stage the intervention on the spot. Alex would hate that. She hoped Mitch had a plan for it all but she doubted it.
All though the minutes went by and nothing happened except for what looked like a thousand takes on a single scene, Vanessa stayed alert. Where was Alex? She tried to get Mitch and Kat’s attention but they completely ignored both her and everyone else while making out so intense that Kat’s tooth plate loosened and made her face look even more misshaped. It was somewhat funny actually. She was jet-legged, she was hungry, she was desperate to find Alex and just get on with the intervention, but here they were stuck at a movie-set in Venice. It was all unreal. She couldn’t’ help it, but she burst out in a hysterical laugh. She was half-aware that people around her stood up and hushed at her and that the director screamed to his staff to make the noise stop. However, she couldn’t stop, this was just too crazy.
“Enough!” The director on the set suddenly lost it! “Who’s that laughing?” He shouted and stood up from his chair.
Hair standing all over his head and his face bright red from anger. He looked a little like Woody Allen, Vanessa thought. Then she saw that the entire ensemble of extras synchronously pointed at her, even Kat and Mitch pointed blameful fingers on her and she felt her cheeks burning from shame. What had she done? Laughed at movie set so they had to cut the scene, she was really losing her grip.
“Ok, get her out of here! She’s fired!” The director yelled.
Vanessa and Kat exchanged shocked looks.
“But we're going to be extras,” Kat said in dismay.
They were ushered of the set area and out in the evening lights of Venice Canal.
“Why did you do that for?” Kat asked Vanessa with a disappointed voice and took of her wig in a dramatic pull. “I so much wanted to do that background acting”
“I’m sorry,” Vanessa said, she really was and now they would never be able to find Alex.
She pulled of her wig and began wiping her make-up of with a tissue she’d found in her pocket.
Mitch who was still in full costume spoke to someone on the phone. Vanessa thought she could even hear a slight Italian a
ccent as he still was in character for his background role.
“Don’t worry girls,” Mitch said after a while. Alex wasn’t here anyway. He's gone off to a film premiere at the Ritz.”
“What? He’s at the same hotel we just came from?” Vanessa blurted out.
“So what have we been doing here, playing dress up just for fun?”
“Calm down Green,” Kat came up to her and placed an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go back to the hotel and find him.”
Back in the limo, they did their best to clean off their makeup and tone down their clothes. But they still looked ridiculous.
“Don’t you think we need to get cleaned up before we try and enter a movie premiere?” Vanessa asked Mitch.
My Italian Prince: Clean Romance Page 15