The Italian Page 3

  Chapter Three

  Jamie had received flowers from a man before. But never at eight in the morning and never delivered by an armed police officer with a machine gun and a pistol.

  She’d slept badly for the first time since arriving in Palermo. Uneasy dreams of glittering dark eyes watching her in the shadows, of daggers and swords and lions. She woke up with a dry mouth, heart pounding to the rhythm of the pounding on her door.

  Quickly pulling on a silk robe that fluttered around her bare feet, she hurried to the heavy front door. The air was already thick with heat.

  She looked through the peephole then opened. A tough-looking soldier in full combat gear was incongruously weighed down by an enormous bouquet of flowers. The scent of roses, irises, lilies and carnations rose above the smell of leather and gunmetal. Tough dark eyes peeped through the riot of colorful blossoms.

  Smiling, Jamie accepted the huge bouquet from the arms of the soldier.

  Boot heels clicked. A hard look, a crisp salute and he was gone.

  There was a note attached on smooth, heavy cream paper, short and to the point. Maresciallo Buzzanca will call for you at eight o’clock this evening.

  Stefano had signed with his initials—SL—in bold black script. It wasn’t so much a dinner invitation as a royal summons.

  She inhaled deeply then went about her furnished flat looking for vases. One would never suffice for that enormous bouquet. She ended up filling five vases and a few jars. The entire flat glowed with blossoms.

  Jaime wound her way down the stairs in the rising heat with the intoxicating fragrance of the flowers in her nostrils.

  A heady sense of anticipation accompanied her all day. She had planned a full day of work at the Botanical Gardens, sketching the immense ancient palm trees and bougainvillea-covered trunks of Mediterranean oak. The large park, abandoned for many years, had the magical air of an enchanted garden. Even at the height of the midday sun it was cool and fragrant. The shimmering silver sea gleaming amidst the bright bougainvillea, the perfect cobalt sky overhead, the low hum of traffic along the Foro Italico, they all inspired her.

  She sketched all day, then quit when she realized she was drawing Stefano Leone’s hand in a cone of light, gripping a sword. Where on earth had that come from? She had wanted to sketch a giant palm tree, could see the golden-brown pattern she would design for an upscale series of bathroom tiles, but she’d drifted, thinking of him, and when she focused on the white paper there it was—his large, powerful hand drawn in fine detail on her sketchpad, brandishing a sword that gleamed in the light.

  She remembered that hand very well. Folded on his desk as he’d watched her walk in, holding her hand in his as he’d brought her fingers to his lips, the warm weight of it at the small of her back as he’d ushered her out…

  Her skin had prickled and even now, just the memory of that hand on her back was enough to speed her heart. Not much more work was going to get done today, so she sat on a wrought iron bench in the shade of a giant palm tree and let her thoughts drift…

  When the sun shone straight at her eyes, she started awake. She’d actually fallen asleep on a park bench. And dreamed. Again. Of a warrior with blazing eyes whose sword flashed in the light.

  Why hadn’t she paid attention when Gramps was talking about Stefano Leone? Gramps had gone on and on about what a strong grasp of the law Stefano had and what a good student he’d been, and all she’d seen in her head was a grind in a suit. Gramps had neglected to mention that Stefano Leone was heartbreakingly handsome, with a face made to be carved on an ancient bronze coin. He hadn’t said that Stefano had the air of command of an emperor, an aura of strength so powerful it was almost like a force field.

  What had Gramps told her?

  Stefano was very rich, Gramps had said. His family manufactured engines for ridiculously expensive sports cars and the company had been in the family for generations. He had been married to a woman from one of the great aristocratic families of Italy—a countess, no less, Gramps had said with a wink—but she had left him well before he’d accepted the post in Palermo to bring down some big-shot Mafia boss.

  He’d been posted to Palermo when one investigating magistrate had been convicted of accepting a million-euro bribe and the next had been blown to protoplasm by a bomb.

  Stefano had been considered incorruptible.

  It wasn’t much knowledge, but enough to realize that Stefano was a remarkable man. A man to admire. A man who could have lived a life of leisure but chose instead to risk his life to do what was right.

  A man who’d shocked her senses alive.

  She’d once read an article about the science of love at first sight. Eyes meet, hands touch and the body is flooded with natural endorphins. Sweaty palms, racing pulses and quickened breathing—biochemistry at work.

  She’d read about half the article then turned the page, thinking, what nonsense.

  No, it wasn’t nonsense at all.

  With a sigh, she rose and walked out of the park. The noisy crowds and honking horns just outside the gates made her blink. She’d spent the day dreaming of Stefano as some warrior of ancient times, but he belonged here, in the modern world. Machine guns and cellphones instead of armies and cannons. Those strong, tough, unlawyerly hands wielded computer keyboards rather than swords.

  Back in the apartment, she tried to call Gramps. It was four in the afternoon, ten in the morning back home. What was he doing now?

  She smiled. He was probably out pruning his prize roses. Or maybe he was already sitting down at his desk, working on that endless biography of some terminally boring French diplomat of the seventeenth century.

  She listened to the phone ringing at the other end. The garden it was. He rarely left the house in the mornings. She hung up, waited half an hour and tried again. She so wanted to talk to him. Gramps was sharp and would probably pick up on her interest in Stefano; still, she knew she could charm a lot of information out of him.

  Though not today, apparently. He just wasn’t answering. She put the phone down. It rang immediately, the noise loud in the silent room.

  “Yes?”

  “What will you be wearing tonight?” Stefano Leone’s deep voice sent shivers so intense down her spine, it took a moment to grasp what he’d said.

  “Wearing?” Her mind blanked. What would she be wearing? “Ah—” The shock of hearing his voice when she’d been half-expecting to hear her grandfather’s had her heart beating double-time.

  “Well?”

  The tone wasn’t impatient but she could imagine him on the other end of the line, dark eyes narrowed, awaiting her answer.

  “Green,” she managed. “A green dress.”

  “Short or long?”

  Baffled, she answered, “Short. Knee-length.”

  “I’ll see you tonight,” he said, and hung up.

  “Well,” she breathed, as she stared at the phone in her hand. She waited for her heart to slow down then went in search of her green dress.

  * * * * *

  It seemed as if eight o’clock would never come and then it came too soon. The doorbell rang as she was applying mascara. She rushed to turn out the lights and pick up her evening bag, then opened the door.

  She instantly stepped back, clinging to the edge of the door, eyes wide.

  There were five armed men, none familiar. A platoon had been sent to pick her up.

  “Signora.” One of the officers stepped forward and clicked his heels faintly before checking her purse. She hadn’t bothered putting her cell in. They’d just take it away like they had the night before.

  The officer was about her height and might even have been her age, but his eyes were old and cold. He took her key, locked the door for her and handed the key back. His face was set, disapproving. He’d locked her door not out of chivalry but for security.

  They moved in force down the stairs, Jamie in the center of a circle of armed men, the last two walking backward downstairs, guns cocked. At the bott
om of the stairwell, the lead officer shot out his arm.

  A redheaded woman in a green dress emerged from the shadows and, accompanied by two officers, rushed into a police car, which took off with tires squealing.

  Immediately afterward, Jamie was hustled into another, unmarked car, shooting off in the opposite direction.

  It happened so quickly. One minute she was in the cool lobby of her building and a heartbeat later, she was hustled through the intense heat and into the air-conditioned car, speeding away. The golden evening turned dim through the smoked windows. She was wedged between two large, armed men on the backseat. They had their weapons at the ready and were turned away from her, intent on the road outside. No one spoke.

  The driver drove at breakneck speed, back-tracking several times so quickly she leaned into the officers at her sides as the car rounded corners sharply, tires protesting. Jamie’s eyes widened when she saw the building where the driver finally brought the car to an abrupt halt.

  Palazzo Ravizza. A gorgeous baroque palace still inhabited by the original family, the princes of Calderone. It was the most private of private clubs, with only a few dining tables available by reservation only, and only if the prince approved. The chef had been lured away from the Tour d’Argent in Paris and a meal could cost a month’s wages.

  Again, she was hustled into the building surrounded by a living wall of broad-shouldered men. But just outside the enormous, ancient wood doors with iron studs and lit torches on either side, the officers stopped then stepped back.

  She was on her own.

  It felt like more than a step into a building, it felt like entering a new world. Clutching her small evening bag, Jamie took a deep breath and crossed the threshold.

  She was in an inner courtyard, blue-tiled walls with arabesque designs rising high, the only illumination huge, flickering torches set in wrought iron brackets on the walls. Under arches on the second story, a string quartet in formal evening wear played, the silver notes shimmering in the air as if they were torchlight made music.

  A man emerged from the shadows, tall, silver-haired, in formal eveningwear.

  “Ms. McIntyre. Welcome to Palazzo Ravizza.” His voice was low and pleasant. He brought her hand to his lips, released it, stepped back and smiled into her eyes. She’d seen his handsome face in countless articles in upscale travel magazines. What the photographs hadn’t shown was the utter charm of the man.

  Jamie looked around at the sumptuous setting. “It’s a pleasure to be here, Prince.”

  The man bowed his head, eyes crinkling. “Francesco, please, my dear. It’s an honor to have you.”

  She blinked. “How so, Prince? Er, Francesco?”

  He bowed his head again. “You are Judge Leone’s honored guest and therefore mine. We owe much to Stefano. He is helping to rid my beloved Sicily of a scourge. He has a standing invitation yet very rarely accepts. I was delighted to learn that he’d be dining with us tonight with a guest.” His smile broadened. “And now that I see his guest, I understand completely why he has come out of isolation.”

  It was a gift Italian men had, to make compliments without sounding smarmy. “Thank you.”

  The smile disappeared. “No,” he said soberly. “It is I who must thank you. Stefano is working much too hard. Anything that gives him an hour or two of peace is to be welcomed. But enough of this. Come, he is waiting for you. Allow me to escort you?” He held out an arm.

  Jamie took it, feeling very much as if she were in a Regency novel. A Regency set in Palermo.

  They walked up the dramatic flight of stone steps leading to the second floor, high enough to be the fourth floor in a modern building. The string quartet grew louder as they ascended. The musicians had been playing Mozart but as Jamie ascended, they started playing Pachelbel’s Canon, one of her favorites. She often put it on a loop when in the early stages of creating a new design. It calmed her then and it calmed her now.

  Because, well…her nerves were on fire.

  That was new.

  Jamie didn’t do nerves on dates. She either liked the man or didn’t and rarely worried about what was to come. This was different in every possible way. She’d never responded to a man in her life the way she did to Stefano Leone, everything in her going into overdrive. With each step up to wherever the prince was taking her, and where Stefano awaited, her heart pounded harder and harder. Her skin felt so alive, so sensitive, she thought she could feel the notes fall on her skin, feathering over it. Her head felt so light it could float away, and yet parts of her—her breasts, her sex—felt heavy, suffused with blood, swollen.

  She’d opted to go braless and the jersey top crisscrossing her breasts wasn’t much of a covering. She hadn’t counted on her nipples turning hard under the thin material. Thank God the folds of the top hid them.

  Jamie was used to the rhythm of her heart being calm and regular. Now it was tripping three times as fast as normal, as if she were running. There wasn’t enough air and her breath was short, almost panting. It felt as if she were walking to her death, but of course she wasn’t. She was walking toward a man who awakened her senses like no other man on earth. It felt like doom though. Or if not doom, like something momentous and uncontrollable, something utterly life changing.

  Every sense was on red alert. The shimmering notes of the music kept counterpoint to her heartbeats. She could smell the torches and the heavy wax of the huge candles placed along the balustrade and in the corners, mixing with the flowering night jasmine twining along the Doric columns on the ground floor to form a heady perfume. A warm, light breeze caressed her supersensitive skin, raising the hairs along her nape and forearms.

  Diners in the courtyard and under the columned arcade on the ground floor were conversing, the silvery peal of cutlery on fine china forming a percussive music of its own.

  At the top of the stairs, Francesco led her to the left, away from the musicians, away from the diners on the floor below, walking them by torchlight to the other side.

  It was all so magical, like some dream of other times.

  They stopped in front of huge, dark wood doors. Wrought iron brackets fixed the doors to the stone frame. There the magic ended, because the doors were flanked by police officers in uniform, guns holstered by their sides and short, ugly but terribly efficient-looking machine guns slung around their chests. One of the officers was the hard-eyed, hostile man who’d searched her the evening before. Buzzanca.

  Francesco stopped at the door and murmured a few words to the soldiers. They snapped to attention, then the hard-eyed soldier responded to the prince with a few harsh words. Jamie couldn’t follow the exact exchange but she realized it had something to do with her.

  Francesco was asking for something and Buzzanca was denying it. With a sigh, the prince turned to her.

  “I am sorry, my dear, but the officers are going to have to search you. I tried to get them to make an exception but they take their duties very seriously. And much as I regret the inconvenience to you, the criminals after Stefano are clever and cruel, and his men take his safety to heart.”

  If a prince wasn’t able to get them to make an exception, she certainly wasn’t going to. Jamie simply stepped forward, handed her purse to Buzzanca and held her arms out as if at the airport.

  It was ridiculous. The dress was form-fitting. Her evening clutch was only large enough to contain some euros, the house keys, a tube of lipstick. He checked her clutch carefully though, going so far as to feel between the two layers of silk. He checked her carefully too, a pat-down as formal and impersonal as a cop’s.

  Well, of course he was a cop.

  Jamie was used to men reacting to her. Luckily, she came into her looks late so she didn’t expect a man’s desire automatically. For much of her youth and most of her teens, she’d been small, thin, with untamable red hair waving wildly around her head, eyes and mouth too large for her face and no breasts at all. Flat as the economy. And then she shot up, filled out, her face took on normal pr
oportions and men started taking notice.

  She’d been taken aback at first, not knowing how to respond. Later, she discovered many men were jerks or whiners or manipulators, and sometimes there was the trifecta—all three. Regardless of type, they almost always reacted to her.

  What she was not used to was a man who treated her as if she weren’t a woman. As if she were barely human. As if he had a personal vendetta against her.

  That was exactly the attitude of Maresciallo Buzzanca. His hands were as proper as hands patting you down could be, but his face was grim, hostile, dark eyes boring coldly into hers.

  In a moment he’d verified what even a moron could tell him—she was unarmed. In fact, if anything, the man behind that ornate wooden door was more of a danger to her well-being than she could possibly be to his.

  The maresciallo stepped back, saluted the prince and murmured, “Va bene.”

  Francesco inclined his head gravely and thanked him. Jamie knew perfectly well that no exception could be made for her but she found it impossible to thank the officer. She merely inclined her own head and turned to face the prince.

  “Cara.” He took her hand in his. “It is my fondest wish that you pass a delightful evening. That you enjoy the food and wine my kitchen will provide for you. And that you convince Stefano to come back often. For you, he just might, and that would make me very happy.”

  The sound of the huge iron lock unlatching coincided with the touch of his lips to her fingers, as if the courtly gesture were the spell that unlocked the magic door.

  The right-hand panel was slightly open. Francesco pushed against it with one hand, the other at her back. “Avanti, cara,” he murmured, and she stepped into the room, both wary and excited almost beyond bearing. The heavy door closed behind her, locking out all noise from the outside world save for faint sounds of music.

  The room was sheer magic. It was lit by what looked like hundreds of candles. High overhead was a vaulted ceiling with frescoes, though she couldn’t see much beyond clouds and a few cherubs. A huge Murano chandelier hung from a heavy yellow silk cord from the center of the ceiling, its faceted crystal drops reflecting the candlelight.