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“Work,” the prince scoffed. “Is that what you call running around with celebrities?”
Alessia looked at her father. They stood on the verandah that spilled from the rear of the centuries-old villa that was her ancestral home.
“I work for a public relations firm,” she said evenly. “I do not ‘run around,’ I deal with clients.”
“Which means that handling public relations for your very own father should take you no effort at all.”
“It is not a matter of effort. It is a matter of time. I don’t have any.”
“Perhaps what you do not have is the wish to be a dutiful daughter.”
There were endless answers to that but the hour was late. Alessia decided to let the gauntlet lie where her father had thrown it.
“You should not have agreed to a visit from this American if you knew you would not be available for it.”
“How many times must I explain? Something’s come up. I cannot be here for Signore Orsini’s visit and it would be impolite to cancel it.”
“You mean, it would be dangerous to disappoint a gangster.”
“Cesare Orsini is a businessman. Why believe the lies of the tabloid press?”
“Your staff can handle things. Your accountants, your secretary—”
“And what of the dinner party I arranged?” The prince raised an eyebrow. “Would you have my housekeeper assume the role of hostess?”
“I have not been your hostess for years. Let your mistress play the part. She’s done it before.”
“Signore Orsini was born in this country.”
“He was born in Sicily,” Alessia said, with all the disdain of a Tuscan aristocrat.
“And Sicilians often cling to the old ways. Being entertained by my mistress might offend him.” The prince’s eyes turned cool. “Did you expect me to deny that I have a mistress? You know of your mother’s condition.”
Alessia looked at him in disbelief. “My mother is in a sanatorio!”
“Indeed.” The prince paused. “A very expensive sanatorio.”
Something in her father’s tone sent a chill down Alessia’s spine. “What are you saying?”
The prince sighed. “Without an infusion of capital, I am afraid I will have to make some difficult choices. About your mother and the sanatorio.”
“There are no choices.” Alessia could feel her heart pounding. “There is the sanatorio, or there is the public hospital.”
“As you say, my dear. There is the one—or there is the other.”
Alessia shuddered. She knew he meant it. Her father was a man with no heart.
“I see the condemnation in your eyes, daughter, but I will not lose what has been in our family for five centuries.”
“You should have thought of that before you brought the vineyard to the edge of bankruptcy.”
The prince made an impatient gesture. “Will you do as I ask or not?”
Was there a choice? Alessia thought bitterly.
“Two days,” she said. “That is all I can give you.”
“Grazie, bella mia.”
“A blackmailer does not thank the person he blackmails, Papa.”
It wasn’t much of a rejoinder, she thought as she went into the villa, to the room that had once been hers, but it would have to do.
Chapter Two
THERE was no woman waiting in Nick’s bed, but she’d left a note.
Call me.
Nick sighed and tossed the note aside. He’d call, but not until he’d returned from this pointless trip. Call, send flowers and say goodbye. It was definitely time to end things.
He stripped off the tux, showered, put on a set of well-worn Marine Corps sweats and went into the kitchen. It was a decorator’s dream but he pretty much used it only for making a sandwich or a pot of coffee, as he was now, spooning the stuff into a French press, putting the kettle on to boil, then settling in to wait.
The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that he’d been suckered into going to Italy. That story about his mother…Even if it were true, and that was a stretch, why would his father have waited forty years to give her, as he’d put it, a little bit of Tuscany?
Not that it mattered.
He’d said he would do this thing. A man was nothing if he broke his word.
The kettle whistled. Nick made the coffee, gave it a few minutes, then poured some into an oversized mug. Too much champagne or maybe too much Cesare. Either way, a couple of sips and he felt the caffeine kicking in as he emptied the contents of the envelope his father had given him onto the polished stone counter.
He picked up a document, read a couple of paragraphs, then shook his head in dry amusement. He was due to meet with Prince Vittorio Antoninni the next day.
“Would have been nice if you’d consulted me first, Father,” he muttered, but a quick meeting would serve his purpose. The sooner this was behind him, the better.
He drank a little more coffee, then reached for the phone. The Orsini jet was taking Falco and his bride on their honeymoon. No problem. The company used a travel agent; Nick had the guy’s home phone number. It was one of the perks of doing seven figures worth of business with him every year.
To his surprise, there were no nonstop flights from Kennedy Airport to Florence. He would have to change planes in Rome. That meant the travel time would be longer than he liked, but still, two days for this would be enough. He arranged for a first-class ticket that would get him into the city by 2:00 p.m., arranged for a suite at the Grand Hotel and a rental car he’d pick up at the airport.
Okay.
Nick punched a speed-dial number, ordered pad thai from a little place a few blocks away. While he waited for it to arrive, he went through the rest of the Antoninni Vineyard papers, but he learned little more than he already knew. The Antoninni family had owned the land and the winery for five centuries. Prince Vittorio had taken over from his father; his daughter would eventually take over from him, though she seemed disinterested in anything to do with business.
Alessia Antoninni was a party girl. She called herself a publicist but she spent her time in Rome, running with a fast crowd of people too rich for their own good. He knew what she was like without half-trying. Self-centered. Self-indulgent. And bored out of her empty mind. New York was filled with young women like her.
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