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She swiveled the laptop around and aimed the built-in camera at her foot.
“The pain is gone, too,” she said, wiggling her toes. “If I take it easy and use the cane today, I ought to be able to manage at least one waltz tomorrow night. Although …”
She repositioned the laptop and saw her own face screwed up in a grimace.
“I was pretty ambivalent about attending the big bash after meeting Her Excellency yesterday.”
“What changed your mind?”
The grimace morphed into a catlike grin. “Marco. The man can be pretty convincing when he wants to.”
Her partner smiled but still had doubts. “From what you told me about his mother, I have to say she sounds rather formidable.”
“She is.”
Caroline bit her lip. She and Devon knew all too well the scars Sabrina had acquired over the years in her fierce battles with her father.
“You’ve spent a good part of your life fighting to hold your own against a domineering parent. Are you sure you want to enter into battle with another?”
“I’m not engaging in a protracted battle. I’m just attending a party with my studly doc-slash-duke, after which we’ll go our separate ways.”
She shrugged aside the disconcerting twinge that caused and cocked her head.
“The shower just cut off in the bathroom. Gotta go, Caro. I need to confirm the ticket change, get dressed and hit the road. I’ll e-mail a spreadsheet with the final cost estimates for the sites here in Italy as soon as I nail down the last one.”
“Okay. I’ll do the same for the sites in Spain.”
“Ciao for now, girl.”
She ended the videoconference and sent her fingers flying over the keyboard. She’d have to pay a hundred and eighty dollar differential in airfare plus another hundred in penalties for changing her ticket. Add in the cost of a gown and the necessary accessories, and this was turning out to be an expensive stopover.
Since these weren’t business-related expenses, Sabrina intended to cover them from her personal account. Good thing she’d built up a healthy savings before walking away from the board of the Russo Foundation.
Marco emerged from the bathroom just as she clicked the confirm button to purchase the new ticket. “It’s done. I’ve changed my … Yowza!”
She froze with her fingers still curved over the keyboard, speechless at the sight of six foot one of nearly naked male.
He had a towel draped around his hips. Above the fluffy cotton his chest hair gleamed dark and damp. Below, his muscular thighs narrowed down to strong calves and disgustingly healthy ankles. With his bronzed skin and short, curling hair, he could leave a string of broken hearts from Naples to Nashville to Nepal.
“You should give a girl some warning before you stroll into a room looking like that! I almost swallowed my tongue.”
“Tongue swallowing could be symptomatic of a serious medical condition,” he said solemnly. “You’d better let me have a look.”
He had to drop the towel in order to make the necessary examination. For some reason, he also had to peel off Sabrina’s borrowed shirt.
The laptop got shoved onto the bedside table. The duvet slithered over the side of the mattress. Marco curled his hands under her thighs and tugged her down until she was stretched out under him.
“Open your mouth and say ah.”
“Now that,” Sabrina gasped when they came up for air some time later, “was what I call a thorough examination. I might have to hire you as my personal physician.”
Marco rolled onto his side and propped his head in his hand. Christ, she was beautiful. With her tangle of tawny hair and her long, supple body lying limp beside his, she made him feel smug and sated and hungry, all at the same time.
“It would be difficult for me to make house calls to the States. You’d have to stay here, in Italy.”
He said it with a lazy smile but as soon as the words were out the idea took hold. Suddenly thoughtful, he let his gaze drop to her mouth, still swollen from his kisses, and brought it up to meet hers again.
“Why not stay longer, Sabrina?”
“I wish I could. Unfortunately, my partners and I have a company to run.”
Marco curled a tendril of tawny gold around his finger and feathered the ends with his thumb. Just a few days ago he’d driven down from Rome with nothing more than a week of rest and relaxation in mind. Then this woman had dropped into his life. They’d spent less than a week together, but all he had to do was look at her to know he wanted more.
“Since your company provides support for executives doing business in Europe,” he said slowly, “perhaps you should consider the cost effectiveness of establishing a forward operating location in, say, Rome.”
Chuckling, she dropped a kiss on his chest. “That would certainly make house calls more convenient for my personal physician. Now I suggest we postpone any further doctor/patient consultation until later. We gotta get it in gear, fella.”
Marco let the subject drop, but the idea of keeping Sabrina in Italy remained fixed in his mind during the drive to the last conference site on her list, a resort some forty kilometers south of Salerno.
The Villa d’Este sat all by itself on a rocky promontory jutting into the sea. It was a new condo/time share/vacation resort that had been constructed for guests who wanted to avoid the bustle of the more popular tourist locales. The facilities were top rate and the prices comparable to the other sites Sabrina had scouted, but she left ready to cross the place off her list.
“Too isolated and difficult to get to,” she commented as the Ferrari slowed for a truck spewing a black cloud of diesel fumes. “Good thing I made a previsit. On paper, the resort looked perfect.”
With a blind curve ahead, Marco couldn’t pass. He dropped back, his nostrils flaring at the noxious fumes.
“So, which of the other three locales tops your list?”
She flipped through her notes. “I really liked the facilities and unique setting in Ravello, but that estimate came in considerably higher than either Sorrento or Capri. I e-mailed Signor Donati yesterday and asked him to take another look at his catering costs.”
Marco didn’t offer to weigh in with Donati. He’d made that mistake once, and felt the bite of Sabrina’s prickly independence. Yet he knew one phone call from him could resolve the issue.
The knowledge bothered him. He wasn’t used to sitting back while someone else took the lead. He headed a highly skilled surgical team with unquestioned authority. He made life and death decisions daily in the operating theater, and made them fast. In addition to chairing the neurosurgery department at his hospital, he sat on the board of directors for the International Pediatric Neurosurgical Association and the Gamma Radioknife Institute. He routinely loaned his name, his title and his reputation to any number of charitable enterprises. That combination carried as much weight here in southern Italy as it did in Rome.
At Sabrina’s specific request, however, he’d stayed in the background while she met with the hotel personnel in Capri, Sorrento and at the Villa d’Este. He’d shrugged off her stubborn determination to handle matters herself at the time. Now it put a decided dent in his ego. She was foolish not to use his influence, he thought as the truck in front of them belched another wave of noxious fumes.
Muttering a curse, Marco pulled out to pass. A long line of oncoming cars forced him to cut back.
“At this rate, we’ll eat his exhaust all the way back to Salerno.”
The irritated comment drew a quick glance from the woman beside him. She stuffed her notes in her briefcase with a rueful smile.
“I told you before, but I’ll tell you again. I really appreciate you playing chauffer for me this week.”
Marco didn’t want her appreciation. He wanted her. The more he thought about keeping her in Italy, the more determined he was to make it happen.
He needed to lay some groundwork first, and he couldn’t do that with this damned truck spewing fumes in his face. He caught sight of a brown sign ahead denoting the turnoff for a place of historical interest.
“Have you been to the Temple of Poseidon at Paestum?” he asked as the sign flashed by.
“No.”
“It’s too close by for you to miss.”
“Marco, we don’t have a lot of time for sightseeing. It’s almost three o’clock now and we’re still several hours from home.”
He slowed for the turn and cut the wheel. “This won’t take long.”
Sabrina stifled a dart of annoyance. After his good-natured chauffeuring, she could hardly insist they save Paestum for another day.
Still, she couldn’t help thinking of all she needed to get done. At the top of the list was putting her notes in order and e-mailing Caroline the results of her site surveys. When she received the input from Caro’s surveys, she’d have to get to work on a comparative analysis. And sometime before the ball tomorrow night she needed to squeeze in a few hours of shopping. The last thing she was interested in right now was a side trip to view some ruins.
Her minor annoyance evaporated at her first glimpse of the temples. The three massive Doric structures rose from a grassy plain dotted with the scattered remnants of the ancient city built by the Greeks around 600 B.C.
“The one in the center is as large as the Parthenon!” she gasped. “And so beautifully restored.”
She got a better view of the main temple when they pulled into the visitor’s parking lot. Awed, she let her gaze roam the starkly beautiful rows of columns topped by an elaborate frieze and a pitched roof. Marco hooked an arm over the steering wheel, content to sit for a few moments while she absorbed the incredible sight.
“The center temple was dedicated to Poseidon,” he told her. “The god of the sea. He was known as Neptune to the Romans, who took the city from the Greeks and occupied it until well into the ninth century.”
“Why did they leave?”
“Some say it was malaria, some believe it was a Saracen assault. That’s the Temple of Hera on the right. On the left is the Temple of Ceres, goddess of agriculture. Are you up to walking in for a closer view?”
“Most definitely.”
Her ankle had barely given her a twinge all day, but she was more than willing to tuck her arm in Marco’s for the short stroll to the temples. Her fingers curled into the sleeve of his jacket. She was developing a real attachment to this soft suede. A cold breeze came in off the sea, bringing with it wispy fingers of fog and making her glad she’d worn a black cashmere sweater under her jacket.
She spotted only two other visitors in the distance, wandering among the ruins of a small amphitheater. With a little thrill, she saw that she and Marco had the temples to themselves. They approached slowly and mounted the steps at the entrance. Their footsteps echoed on the marble floor. Standing amid columns that had tumbled and been rebuilt gave her the eerie sensation of being part of man’s unceasing battle against time and the forces of nature.
“I can almost see a procession of white-robed priests and priestesses,” she murmured. “They must have made offerings to Poseidon in hopes he would fill their nets with fish … then wondered how the heck they’d offended him when a storm blew up and sank their ships.”
“Something I’ve wondered, too.”
Stricken, she glanced up the man beside her. “Oh, Marco, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to evoke unhappy memories.”
“You don’t need to apologize.” His gaze drifted around the ring of inner columns. “The people who worshipped here thousands of years ago recognized the capriciousness of the gods. That’s as good an explanation for Gianetta’s drowning as any I’ve been able to come up with.”
The quiet comment mirrored Sabrina’s thoughts of a few moments ago. Somehow, putting his wife’s death in such a timeless historical context made it a little more understandable. But only a little.
When they exited the temple, Sabrina hugged his arm tight against her side.
“Shall we sit for a moment?” he asked, steering her toward a stone bench strategically positioned for contemplation of the decorative frieze. “I want to follow up on our conversation this morning.”
“Which one?” A mischievous smile tugged at her lips. “The one where you told me to open up and say ah? Or the one where we discussed making you my personal physician?”
“The possibility isn’t as remote as it sounds. I think you should consider my suggestion of setting up a forward operating location in Rome.”
Surprised, she twisted around to face him. “Are you serious?”
“Very much so. Think of the cost savings if you and your partners didn’t have to fly back and forth from the States to survey locales or provide an on-site presence for your clients.”
The calm reply left Sabrina scrambling for breath. She’d thought they were just indulging in postcoital banter this morning. She had no idea he considered the forward location a viable possibility.
“Caroline and Devon and I just started European Business Services six months ago,” she explained. “We don’t have the contracts or the resources yet to open an office in Rome.”
“I could help. I have a great many connections within the medical community. I also belong to a number of professional associations. Each of these associations rotates their annual conference to various countries.”
Her brow creased. “You’re offering to steer business my way?”
“If it will keep you in Italy, yes.” He held up a palm to forestall her instinctive protest. “I know, I know. You’re determined to make a success of EBS on your own. You also don’t want me meddling in your negotiations. But entrepreneurs exploit their personal and professional contacts all the time. You’re shooting yourself in the foot by not taking advantage of my connections, my so lovely, so enchanting Sabrina.”
She couldn’t argue with that. EBS had landed their first really big contract because one of men she’d dated in her wilder years had referred his old college buddy. The fact that his buddy just happened to be Cal Logan, CEO of Logan Aerospace, had made for a nice chunk of change.
She wasn’t sure why she kept resisting the idea of using Marco’s influence. At first, she’d worried his title and obvious wealth would affect her negotiations with the hotel managers she’d come to meet with. Now …
Now she worried her hunger for this man might well be clouding her judgment. All he had to do was toss out the idea of setting up an office in Rome and she was ready to sign a lease!
The thought of staying close to him, of letting this undeniable attraction sizzle into something even hotter, made her heart skip a few beats. Then her gaze shifted to the temple looming just over his shoulder.
Their brief conversation about his dead wife leaped into her head. So did an almost photographic image of the portrait the duchess had shown her. Gianetta, the beautiful. Gianetta, the tragic. Gianetta, Marco’s lost love.
He swore the resemblance was only skin deep. His mother seemed to think otherwise. At this moment, Sabrina didn’t know who was closer to the truth.
As if sensing that he’d thrown her a curve ball, Marco lifted her hand and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “I’m not asking you to decide right this moment. We have until the fourth of January together. Use the days ahead to think about my proposal, yes?”
Right. Uh-huh. Sure.
Like she was going to think of anything else?
Nine
The next morning they kicked off their New Year’s Eve celebrations with a slow, delicious session between the sheets.
Sabrina couldn’t think of any better way to end the old year and get ready to ring in the new—until she joined Marco on the terrace for breakfast. Signora Bertaldi’s cappuccino and fresh-baked brioche had her salivating even before she greeted the older woman.
“Buon mattina, signora.”
“Buon mattina.” Beaming, Marco’s housekeeper placed a foam-topped porcelain cup before Sabrina. “I don’t cook the lentils and sausage this morning because you will eat them tonight, at Palazzo d’Calvetti, yes?”
“I, uh, think so.”
Sabrina looked to Marco for guidance. His nod confirmed lentils and sausage were on the menu.
“You must be sure to have both,” the cook instructed. “For luck.”
“I will.”
When she went into the kitchen for the plates she’d kept warming in the oven, Sabrina turned to Marco.
