The Count's Christmas Baby. Rebecca Winters

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ but I can’t help my misgivings.” Pat sounded convinced Sami had come to Italy on a fool’s errand. Maybe she had.

      “Tell you what. If he’s not in Genoa, then I’ll be on the next plane home.”

      “I’m going to hold you to that. Forgive me if I don’t wish you luck. Before you go to bed tonight, call me. I don’t care what time it is. Okay?”

      “Okay. Love you.”

      “Love you, too.”

      Sami hung up, wondering if her sister was right. Maybe she shouldn’t be searching for the grandfather of her baby. If she did find him, he might be so shocked to find out he was a grandfather, it could upset his world and make him ill. Possibly their meeting could turn so ugly, she’d wish she’d never left home.

      That’s what worried Pat.

      If Sami were being honest, it worried her, too. But as long as she’d come this far, she might as well go all the way. Then maybe she could end this chapter of her life and move on.

      She looked at the number she’d written down on her pad and made the phone call. The man who answered switched to English after she said hello. “Yes?”

      His peremptory response took her back. “Is this the traveler’s assistance department?”

      “Yes—”

      “I wonder if you could help me.”

      “What is it you want?”

      Whoa. “I’m trying to find a man named Alberto Degenoli who’s supposed to be living in Genoa, but he’s not listed in the city phone directory. I’ve come from the United States looking for him. I was hoping y—”

      But she stopped talking because the man, whom she’d thought was listening, was suddenly talking to another man in rapid Italian. Soon there was a third voice. Their conversation went on for at least a minute before the first man said, “Please spell the name for me.”

      When she did his bidding, more unintelligible Italian followed in the background. Finally, “You come to the station and ask for Chief Coretti.”

       Chief?

      “You mean now?”

      “Of course.” The line went dead.

      She blinked at his bizarre phone manners, but at least he hadn’t turned her away. That had to account for something.

      Next she phoned the front desk and asked them to send up the hotel’s childminder. Sami had interviewed the qualified nurse yesterday and felt good about her. While she waited for her to come, she refreshed her makeup and slipped on her suit jacket.

      Only four people knew the private cell phone number of Count Alberto Enrico Degenoli. When the phone rang, Ric assumed it was his fiancée, Eliana, calling again to dissuade him from leaving on a business trip in a few minutes. She was her father’s puppet after all.

      Now that Ric was about to become the son-in-law of one of the wealthiest industrialists in Italy, her father expected to control every portion of Ric’s life, too. But Ric had crucial private business on Cyprus no one knew about, and it had to be transacted before the wedding.

      Love had no part of this marriage and Eliana knew it. The coming nuptials were all about money. However, once they exchanged vows, he planned to do his part to make the marriage work. But until Christmas Eve, his time and business were his own concern and his future father-in-law couldn’t do anything to stop him.

      When he glanced away from his office computer screen long enough to check the caller ID, he discovered it was his private secretary phoning from the palazzo.

      He clicked on. “Mario?”

      “Forgive the interruption, Excellency.” The older man had been in the service of the Degenoli family as private secretary for thirty-five years. But he was old-fashioned and insisted on being more formal with Ric now that Ric held the title. “Chief of Police Coretti just called the palace requesting to speak to you. He says it’s extremely urgent, but refused to tell me the details. You’re to call him back on his private line.”

      That would have irked Mario, who’d been privy to virtually everything in Ric’s life. In all honesty, the chief’s secrecy alarmed even Ric, whose concern over the reason for the call could touch on more tragedy and sorrow for their family. They’d had enough for several lifetimes.

      “Give me the number.”

      After writing it down, he thanked Mario, then clicked off and made the call. “Signor Coretti? It’s Enrico Degenoli. What can I do for you?”

      He hadn’t talked to the chief since the funeral for his father, who’d died in an avalanche in January. The chief had been among the dignitaries in Genoa who’d met the plane carrying his father’s body. The memories of what had happened that weekend in Austria would always haunt Ric and had changed the course of his life.

      “Forgive me for interrupting you, but there’s a very attractive American woman in my office just in from the States who’s looking for an Alberto Degenoli from Genoa.”

      At first his heart leaped at the news, then as quickly fizzled. If this American woman had been looking for him, she would have told the police chief she was looking for a man named Ric Degenoli.

      Ric and his father bore the same names, but his father had gone by Alberto, and Ric went by Enrico. Only his siblings ever called him Ric. And the woman who’d been caught with him in the avalanche.

      “Does she know my father died?”

      “If she does, she has said nothing. To be frank, it’s my opinion she’s here on a fishing expedition, if you know what I mean.” He cleared his throat. “She’s hoping I can find him for her because she says it’s a matter of life and death,” he added in a quiet voice.

       What?

      “Since she’s being suspiciously secretive, I thought I should let you know before I told her anything.”

      The intimation that this could be something of a delicate nature alarmed Ric in a brand-new way. He shot out of his leather chair in reaction. Up to now he’d done everything possible to protect his family from scandal.

      Unfortunately he hadn’t been able to control his father’s past actions. No matter that Ric was a Degenoli, he and his father had differed in such fundamental ways, including the looks he’d inherited from his mother, that the average person wouldn’t have known they were father and son.

      One of Ric’s greatest fears was that his father’s weakness for women would catch up with him in ways he didn’t want to think about. With his own marriage coming up on New Year’s Day, it was imperative nothing go wrong at this late date. Too much was riding on it.

      His father had been dead less than a year. It wasn’t a secret he’d been with several women since Ric’s mother’s sudden and unexpected death from pneumonia sixteen months ago. He recalled his mother once confiding to him that even if his father were penniless, he would always be attractive to women and she had overlooked his wandering СКАЧАТЬ