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"Just a quick bus
iness trip. I'd been taking a few days off in Portofino."
"Oh, that's right." She moved into the parlor to pour him a glass of the sparkling mineral water that Templeton bottled. The curtains were open, as she preferred them, forming frames around window seats made welcoming with colorful pillows. "That's where I hunted you down when I heard about Margo."
"Um-hmm." He'd already been hard at work on Margo's behalf when Laura had called. But he didn't pass that information along. Instead he gave a sprig of freesia tucked with its fellows into a Meissen vase a careless brush. "So how is she?"
"I talked her into sitting by the pool for a while, to get some sun. Josh, this is so terrible for her. She looked so beaten when she came home. Bella Donna is going to drop her as their spokeswoman. Her contract with them was coming up for renewal, and it's pretty much a given that they'll let her go."
"It's rough." He sat in the wide wing chair nearest the hearth, stretched out his legs. "So maybe she can tout someone else's face cream."
"You know it's not that easy, Josh. She'd made a mark in Europe endorsing Bella Donna. It was her main source of income, and now it's cut off. If you've paid any attention to the press, you know that the chances of her being offered anything like it here in the States is slim to none."
"So, she'll get a real job."
Loyalty had her jerking up her chin. "You've always been so hard on her."
"Somebody has to." But he knew that arguing about Margo with his sister was useless. Love always blinded Laura. "Okay, sweetie, I'm sorry for what happened to her. The fact is, she got a raw deal, but life's full of them. She's been raking in the lire and francs for the last few years. All she has to do now is sit on her portfolio, lick her wounds, and figure out what comes next."
"I think she's broke."
That shocked him enough to have him setting his glass aside. "What do you mean broke?"
"I mean she asked Kate to look over the figures. Kate hasn't finished yet, but I have a feeling it's bad. Margo knows it's bad."
He couldn't believe it. He'd taken a good long look at the Bella Donna contract himself, and he knew that the salary and benefits should have set her up comfortably for a decade.
Then he let out a sound of disgust. Why couldn't he believe it? They were talking about Margo, after all.
"For Christ's sake, what has she been doing, heaving her money into the Tiber?"
"Well, her lifestyle… after all, she's a celebrity over there, and…" Wasn't she worried enough without having to explain? Laura wondered. "Hell, Josh, I'm not sure, but I know she had that slime who got her into this mess managing her for the last few years."
"Pinhead," he muttered. "So she comes crawling home, sniveling."
"She did not snivel. I should have expected you to take this line," she went on. "It must be men. None of you have any loyalty or compassion. Peter wanted to toss her out as if—
"Let him try," Josh murmured with a dangerous glint in his eye. "It's not his house."
Laura opened her mouth, closed it again. If this emotional roller coaster she was stuck on didn't stop soon, she was going to jump. "Peter didn't grow up with Margo the way we did. He isn't attached to her the way we are. He doesn't understand."
"He doesn't have to," Josh said shortly, and rose. "She's out by the pool?"
"Yes. Josh, you're not going out there and start poking at her. She's unhappy enough."
Josh shot her a look. "I'll just go and rub some salt in her wounds, then I think I'll run out and kick some puppies on my way to foreclosing on my quota of widows and orphans."
Laura's lips curved. "Just try to be supportive. We'll have lunch on the south terrace in about half an hour." It would give her time to have his luggage taken upstairs and properly unpacked.
* * * * *
Margo knew the moment he stepped off the flagstone path onto the skirt of the pool. She didn't see him, hear him, smell him. Her instincts when it came to Josh went into a sixth sense. When he didn't speak, merely sat on one of the padded lounges on the pool terrace, she continued to swim.
It was too cold to swim, of course. But she'd needed to do something. The water was warm enough. Steam rose from it into the cooler air, and every stroke
she took brought her arms into chilly contact with the freshening breeze.
She cut through the water in long, slow strokes and risked a quick glance at him. He was staring off toward the rose garden. Preoccupied, she thought.
