AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That explained some of the phone calls then. “I wasn’t answering the phone.”
“Obviously. They asked if I would come over and make sure you were okay. Good thing, too, considering you were about to have an unwanted visitor.”
He filled his glass and drank the contents in one swallow. “This is the point in our conversation where you suggest that I’m an unwanted visitor.”
“What can I say? I’m off my game today.” She sank into her corner and watched as Nico drank a second glass. When he finished, he sat the empty glass on a shelf and turned around. He wore a much calmer expression now. Back in control once again.
“Why didn’t you say anything about your former husband?” he asked.
And say what? My ex is Steven Clark. You know, the guy who ran the billion-dollar investment scam. I’m the wife who turned him in. Maybe you’ve read about me? They call me Luscious Louisa? She plucked at the piping on one of the throw pillows. “The idea was to make a fresh start where no one knew anything about me,” she replied.”
“You know how unrealistic that is in this day and age?”
“I managed it for nine months, didn’t I?” She offered up what she hoped passed for a smile. Nine wonderful months. Almost to the point where she’d stopped looking over her shoulder.
When he didn’t smile back, she changed the subject. “You said a reporter came into the restaurant?”
“This morning. That’s how Dani knew to turn on the television.”
She could just imagine the questions he’d asked, too. “Tell them I’m sorry. Things will die down once they realize I’m not in Monte Calanetti anymore.”
Nico’s features darkened again. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m catching the bus to Florence tonight.”
“You’re running away?”
He made it sound like a bad thing. “I certainly can’t stay. Not anymore.”
“But the palazzo... What about all your plans for restoring the property and turning it into a hotel? Surely, you’re not planning to abandon Palazzo di Comparino again?”
His voice grew harsh on the last word, causing Louisa to cringe. His feelings regarding the palazzo were no secret; to him, the fact she allowed the property to sit unclaimed for so long was as big a crime as anything Steven had done. Of course, she had good reason for the delay, but he didn’t know that.
“Have you seen what they are writing about me?” she asked him. The stories would only get worse. “That guy you threw off my terrace is probably down in the village right now trying to dig up dirt. And what he can’t find, he’ll make up. Whatever he can do to sell papers.”
“So?”
“So, I’m doing Monte Calanetti a favor by leaving. The town is on an economic high. I don’t want to do anything to take that away.” Unable to stand the way his eyes were bearing down on her, Louisa pushed herself to her feet and walked toward the rear corner of the room, as far from the windows—and Nico—as possible. A tapestry hung on the wall there, and she focused on the intricate weave of brown thread. “Better I leave the palazzo empty than stay and let the town become branded as the home of Luscious Louisa,” she said.
“How noble of you, running away without saying goodbye to your friends. I mean, that’s what you were going to do, no? Leave without saying goodbye?”
“Like people would care.” Rejection hurt enough when it was people you didn’t like. The idea of walking down the street and seeing disdain in the eyes of people she cared about made her sick to her stomach. “Trust me, everyone will be more than happy to see me gone.”
“Happy? Did you say we would be happy?” There was the sound of footsteps, and suddenly a hand was on her shoulder, yanking her around and bringing her face-to-face with a pair of flashing brown eyes. So angry; so ready to correct her.
It was instinctive. The corner of her vision caught his hand starting to rise, and she couldn’t help it.
She flinched.
* * *
Madonna mia, did she think he was going to strike her? As he raked his fingers through his hair—completing the motion he’d started before Louisa recoiled—Nico felt his hand shaking. What scared him was that he did want to hit something. Not Louisa. Never Louisa. But something. The wall. That miserable paparazzo’s face. So much for the liquor calming his nerves. The swell of anger that he’d been fighting since seeing the news was pushing hard against his self-control. Mixing with another emotion, one he couldn’t identify but that squeezed his chest like a steel band, the feelings threatened to turn him into someone he didn’t recognize.
