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The question was polite, but the slight if unmistakable emphasis on the last word almost made Sabrina do a double take.
Good grief! Did the woman think she’d tumbled down a cliff in a deliberate attempt to snare her rich, handsome son? Had that—or some similar ploy—been tried before? She’d have to ask Marco later.
“I’m recovering quite well, Your Excellency. Your son has taken excellent care of me.”
She would have loved to add that his bedside manner was improving every day, too. Wisely, she refrained.
“Indeed.”
With a regal nod, the duchess led the way past the marble staircase to the west wing of the palazzo.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be able to mount the stairs so I’ve ordered an aperitif tray to be set up in the Green Salon. It’s on this floor and there’s a water closet just there, across the hall, if you wish to use it.”
“Thank you, I do.”
“We’ll wait for you in the salon,” Marco said. “It’s the third room on the left.”
Sabrina didn’t dawdle. Her lip gloss and hair restored to order, she left the powder room and counted the rooms as she passed them. The first looked like it might have been once been the palazzo’s armory and now served as a museum for antique weapons displayed in locked cases. The second was an office of sorts, with glass-fronted cabinets containing tall, leather-bound volumes of documents. Sabrina’s partner, Devon the history buff, would salivate at the sight of those musty volumes.
“… do you know about her?”
The duchess’s sharp question came through the open door of the third room, as did Marco’s reply.
“I know enough, Mama.”
The exchange was in Italian but clear enough for Sabrina to follow easily. She took another step before she realized her soft-soled flats and the rubber tip of her cane masked her approach.
“You say she’s in Italy on business?”
“She and her partners provide travel and support services for executives doing business in Europe. She’s scouting conference sites.”
Time to announce her presence, Sabrina thought. She lifted the cane, intending to thump it on the parquet floor. The duchess’s next comment stopped her cold.
“If half the articles my secretary pulled off the Internet about this woman are true, she’s scouting more than conference sites.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s the daughter of Dominic Russo, the American telecommunications giant. He put her on the board of the foundation that oversees his charitable interests, but subsequently removed her. The rumor is he’s disinherited her. Cut her off without a cent.”
“Ah,” Marco murmured. “So that’s why she’s so determined to make it on her own.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. Don’t you think it’s just a little too coincidental that she fell right at your feet?”
Sabrina had heard enough. Bringing the cane down with a loud thud, she entered the salon.
Marco stood behind a tray holding an array of bottles, a silver martini shaker in his hand. His mother was seated in a tall-backed armchair and had the grace to appear chagrined for a moment. But only for a moment. Her chin lifted as Sabrina gave her a breezy smile.
“Your information’s accurate, Your Excellency, except for one point. My father didn’t remove me from the board of the Russo Foundation. I quit. Are those martinis in that shaker, Marco?” she asked with cheerful insouciance. “If so, I’ll take two olives in mine.”
“Two olives it is,” he confirmed with a gleam of approval in his dark eyes.
His mother was less admiring. “I’m sorry if I offended you, Ms. Russo,” she said coolly. “I wish only to watch out for my son’s welfare.”
“I understand, Your Excellency. No offense taken.”
“I’m perfectly capable of watching out for my own welfare,” Marco drawled as he handed his mother a tall-stemmed martini glass. “But I thank you for your concern.”
The duchess merely sniffed.
She unbent a little over dinner served in a glass-enclosed conservatory that looked out over the lights of the city.
“Have you visited this part of Italy before, Ms. Russo?”
“Only once, when I was a student at the University of Salzburg. One of my roommates was a history major. We drove down from Austria one weekend to explore the ruins at Pompeii and Herculaneum.”
“So you’ve not spent time in Napoli.”
“No, Your Excellency.”
“You must call me Donna Maria.”
Sabrina’s lips twitched at the royal command. “Certainly. And please, call me Sabrina.”
“We have a painting by Lorenzo de Caro in the gallery. It depicts the city as it was in the early eighteenth century. You must let me show it to you after dinner.”
The rest of the meal passed with polite queries concerning Sabrina’s year in Salzburg and her current business. Not until she and the duchess had made their way to the galley, leaving Marco to look over a document his mother wanted his opinion on, did she learn the ulterior motive behind the invitation to view de Caro’s masterpiece.
The painting was small, only about twelve by eighteen inches, but so luminous that it instantly drew the eye. Lost in the exquisitely detailed scene of a tall-masted ship tied up at wharf beside the fortress, Sabrina almost missed Donna Maria’s quiet question.
“How much has my son told you about his wife?”
“Only that she died in a tragic boating accident. If Marco wants me to know more,” she added pointedly, “I’m sure he’ll tell me.”
The duchess hiked a brow. “You are a very direct young woman.”
“I try to be, Donna Maria.”
“Then I will tell you bluntly that I love my son very much and don’t wish to see him hurt again.”
“I don’t plan to hurt him.”
“Not intentionally, perhaps.” Her forehead creasing, the duchess studied her guest’s face. “But this resemblance to Gianetta …”
“It can’t be that remarkable,” Sabrina said with some exasperation.
“Come and judge for yourself.”
Donna Maria led the way to the opposite wing of the gallery. It was lined with portraits of men and women in every form of dress from the late Middle Ages onward. Cardinals. Princesses. Dukes and duchesses in coronets trimmed with fur and capped with royal red.
“These are my parents.” She stopped in front of a portrait depicting a willowy blond and a stern-looking man in a uniform dripping with medals. “And here are my husband and I in our wedding finery.”
The painter had captured the couple in the bloom of youth. There was no mistaking the love in the young Donna Maria’s eyes or the pride in her husband’s as he gazed down at her.
“How happy you both look.”
“We were,” the duchess said softly.
Her gaze lingered on the portrait for a long moment before moving to another. This one showed her seated on a garden bench with her two children standing beside her.
“This is Marco at the age of eight, and my daughter AnnaMaria at age six.”
Sabrina could see the man Marco would become in the boy’s erect posture and intelligent eyes.
“And this is Gianetta,” the duchess said, her tone hardening. “Marco had this painted shortly after they were married.”
Unlike the other portraits in the gallery, this one was an informal collage of sky and sea and sail. At its center was a windblown, laughing woman manning the helm of a sleek boat. The colors were vivid, the strokes bold slashes of sunlight on shadow.
Disconcerted, Sabrina leaned forward for a closer look. She might have been looking at a portrait of herself in her younger, wilder days. The hair, the eyes, the angle of the chin … No wonder everyone close to Marco gawked when they saw his houseguest!
“She was beautiful,” the duchess said, making no effort to disguise her bitterness. “So beautiful and charming and unpredictable that everyone fell all over themselves to find excuses for her erratic behavior. Everyone except me. I could never … I will never forgive her for putting my son through such hell.”
Whoa! That was a little more information than Sabrina had anticipated. Donna Maria didn’t give her time to process it before zeroing in for a direct attack.
“Is the resemblance between you and Gianetta more than physical, Ms. Russo? Are those other stories my secretary pulled from the Internet true?”
Sabrina’s eyes narrowed. “As I said earlier, you shouldn’t believe everything posted on the Internet.”
The duchess refused to be fobbed off. Like a lioness protecting her cub, she went straight for the jugular.
“Which story isn’t true? The one that claims you seduced the son of a sheik? The one that says you like to party until dawn at nightclubs in New York and Buenos Aires and London?”
The gloves were off now, Sabrina thought grimly. Like they’d been so many times with her father. Well, she was older and a whole lot wiser this time around. The body blows didn’t hit as hard or hurt as badly as they did when her father threw them.
“Sorry, Your Excellency.” Her shrug was deliberately careless. “I’m well past the age of having to defend my actions. To you or anyone else. Shall we join Marco for coffee?”
With Sabrina’s ankle so improved, Marco returned his mother’s Rolls and reclaimed his Ferrari. The powerful sports car ate up the miles between Naples and his seaside villa in less than an hour.
Sabrina was quiet for most of the trip, more shaken than she wanted to admit by the exchange with his mother. Her past had come back to haunt her with a vengeance. All those wild parties … All those torrid affairs … She couldn’t deny them and was damned if she’d try.
She wondered whether the duchess had poured the juicy stories into her son’s ears. Marco gave no sign of it when he accompanied her to the guest suite.
Or when he took her in his arms.
Or when his mouth came down on hers.
The heat was instant and so intense Sabrina knew she was in trouble. Her bones had never liquefied like this. Her blood had never bubbled and boiled. She wanted this man more with each breath she took but, somehow, found the strength to ease out of his embrace.
“Your mother showed me Gianetta’s portrait. She looked so vibrant. So full of life.”
“She was,” he said simply. “I loved her with all the passion of my youth.”
Sabrina hugged her waist. She’d tasted passion, too. Many times. But with the brutal clarity of hindsight, she saw that she’d never truly loved. Not the way Marco described.
She could love this man, though. She knew it, deep in her heart. She was already halfway there.
She was still dealing with that disconcerting realization when he unbelted the jacket of her pantsuit and undid the buttons, one by one.
“Ah, Sabrina.”
He dipped his head and kissed her nose, her mouth, her chin, the swell of her breasts above the lacy chemise.
“You enchant me,” he murmured in Italian, his voice low and rough. “You enthrall me. You make me feel alive again.”
Eight
“He said that?”
Amusement rippled across Caroline’s heart-shaped face, displayed next to Sabrina’s on the laptop’s screen.
“You enthrall him?”
“It didn’t sound as corny in Italian.”
Sabrina scooted up a little higher and balanced the computer on her bent knees. She’d decided to laze amid the rumpled sheets and duvet while Marco showered. After the night just past, she wasn’t sure she’d have enough strength to roll out of bed and take her turn.
At least she’d managed to reach over the side of the mattress for his discarded shirt and pull it on before powering up the computer. She could smell the faint tang of his aftershave mingling with the scent of their lovemaking as she queried her partner.
“Are you sure you don’t mind if I stay in Italy until January fourth, Caroline? That’s the first day I can get out on a new ticket.”
It was also the last day she could spend with Marco before he headed back to Rome. Sabrina shoved that nasty thought aside. They still had today and the Feast of San Silvestro tomorrow and New Year’s Day and …
Caroline interrupted her mental count. “Of course I don’t mind. I won’t get home until late on the third myself. Zap me your estimates and I’ll send you mine. We can do the comparative analysis by e-mail and work up the final proposal when we get home.”
“Will do. I just have one more site to check out. Marco and I are going to hit it today. Then I have to do some serious shopping.”
“For?”
“A ball gown.”
“You’re going to a ball?”
“Yep. We’re going to celebrate the New Year in style.”
“Answer me this, my friend. How will you dance on that ankle?”
Sabrina raised her leg and examined the joint in question.
“The swelling’s gone. I can actually see the bones again. They’re still covered in ugly green and purple, but what the heck. Here, have a look.”
