New Year Fireworks

Not until her gaze had made a complete circuit of the library did something begin to nag her. She couldn’t put a finger on it right away. Frowning, Sabrina made another sweep of the bookcases before glancing at the long table that served as Marco’s desk.

A maroon leather paper tray and blotter sat squarely in the center of the slab of polished oak. A gold Mont Blanc pen jutted from its holder beside the blotter. Next to it was his sleek laptop and a cordless phone propped up in its charger.

What was missing, Sabrina realized after another puzzled moment, were photographs. Most desks contained at least one, framed and positioned for optimal viewing. Usually of the owner’s spouse or family.

Intensely curious now, she glanced around again. Nope. No snapshots. No formal portraits. Not even one of those cartoonlike caricatures sketched by the street artists who plied every piazza in Rome.

Apparently Marco didn’t choose to surround himself with visible reminders of the wife he’d lost three years ago. Was her death still so painful?

Although intensely curious, Sabrina wouldn’t poke her nose into his past. God knew enough people had poked into hers over the years.

Maybe he’d open up a little when they knew each other better. The prospect of spending the next few days getting to know the handsome doc had Sabrina humming along with Sarah Brightman.

Five

“You invited one of your patients to recuperate in your villa? An American?”

Marco smiled at the sniff that came through the phone. A Neapolitan born and bred, his mother had a native’s disdain of foreigners. That included Sicilians, Sardinians and Corsicans as well as everyone west of the Apennines and north of the Abruzzi.

“Who is this woman?”

“Her name is Sabrina Russo. She’s in Italy on business. Since I was partially responsible for her injury, I felt I should offer the hospitality of my home.”

That touched on another sore spot. His mother understood why Marco preferred to stay at his own villa during his infrequent trips down from Rome instead of the palazzo in Naples his family had called home for generations. He still had apartments there, an entire floor. He and Gianetta had occupied the apartment most of their marriage, until Marco had accepted his current position as chief of neurosurgery at Rome’s prestigious Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital.

Palazzo d’Calvetti was still his home, but these days he preferred the simple solitude of this villa he’d had constructed after Gianetta’s death. His mother understood, but she didn’t like it.

Marco dined with her regularly, which mollified her somewhat. And dutiful son that he was, he made the requisite appearances at her numerous charity and social events, including the big New Year’s Eve gala. That reminded him …

“If Ms. Russo is still in Italy on the Feast of St. Silvestro, I’d like to bring her to your ball.”

The request produced a startled silence. Marco understood his mother’s surprise. He hadn’t escorted any woman to the ball since Gianetta. With good reason.

The media had gone into a feeding frenzy after Gianetta’s death. Even now the paparazzi hounded him mercilessly, and one disgusting rag insisted on trumpeting him as Italy’s most eligible bachelor. He preferred to keep his private life private and was careful to avoid the appearance of anything more than casual friendship with the women he dated. Until now, that had meant not escorting any of them to the ball so steeped in his family’s history and tradition.

Marco could rationalize the break with his longstanding policy without much difficulty. Sabrina would be in Italy for a short time. Her life and her business interests were on the other side of the Atlantic. At best, the attraction sizzling between them could spark only a brief affair.

But spark it would.

He’d already decided that.

He’d gone to bed last night hungry for this long-limbed American with the sun-kissed blonde hair and laughing eyes. The hunger hadn’t abated after a restless night’s sleep. Just the sight of her limping into the library this morning had given him an unexpected jolt.

She wanted him, as well. He’d seen it in her flushed cheeks and heard it in the flutter of her breath after their kiss in the elevator last night.

The memory of that urgent fumbling made him shake his head. He would handle her with more finesse next time, with more care for her injured ankle. He was plotting his moves when his mother recovered from her surprise.

“Yes, of course you may bring her. I’ll have my secretary add her to the guest list. What is her name again?”

“Russo. Sabrina Russo.”

“Russo.” His mother sniffed again. “Her ancestors must have come from northern Italy. In the south, she would be Rossi.”

“I don’t know where her ancestors came from.”

In fact, Marco realized, he knew very little about her other than she was in business with her two friends and in Italy to scout locations for a conference.

“Bring her to dinner,” the duchess ordered. “Tomorrow. I want to meet her.”

He returned a noncommittal reply. “I’ll see if she’s available and get back to you. Ciao, Mama.”

“Tomorrow,” his loving mama repeated sternly before hanging up.

He had to smile at the autocratic command. Maria di Chivari had married into her title more than forty years ago. Since then it had become as much a part of her nature as her generous heart and fierce loyalty to those she loved.

He reentered the library some moments later with a cold compress. Sabrina was lying on the sofa as ordered, her foot elevated, humming off-key to the mournful solo coming from the iPod. Mr. Mistoffelees, Marco identified absently, from the hit show Cats.

“The car is on the way,” he said as he draped the compress over her ankle, “but I’m afraid I may have opened a Pandora’s box. My mother wants to me to bring you to dinner tomorrow night.”

“Is that bad?”

He answered with a rueful smile. “Only if you object to someone probing for every detail of your life, past and present. She has an insatiable curiosity about people.”

“People in general? Or the women you invite to stay at your villa?”

Marco hesitated a few seconds before replying. “Other than a professional colleague or two, you’re the first woman I’ve invited to stay.”

He could see that surprised her. Shrugging, he offered an explanation.

“This place is my escape. My refuge. I had it constructed after my wife died. Unfortunately, I don’t get down here often, and then only for short stays.”

Her expression altered, and Marco kicked himself for mentioning Gianetta.

His guest didn’t use the reference as a springboard to probe, but the question was there, in her eyes. He could hardly refuse to answer it, given the heat that had flared between him and this woman last night. He moved a little away from the sofa and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

“Before we moved to Rome, Gianetta and I lived in Naples. We kept a boat at the marina there. A twenty-four-foot sloop. She took it out one afternoon and a storm blew up.”

His gaze went to the library’s tall windows. The bright sky and sparkling sunshine outside seemed to mock his dark memories.

“Searchers found pieces of the wreckage, but her body was never recovered.”

“Oh, no!”

The soft exclamation eased some of tension holding Marco in its iron grip. He’d heard so many platitudes, so many heartfelt expressions of sympathy, that they’d lost their meaning. Sabrina’s soft cry was all the more genuine for being so restrained.

Inexplicably, he felt himself responding to it. With the haunting strains of Mr. Mistoffelees’s lament in the background, he forced the memories.

“Gianetta loved to sail. Her family had made their living from the sea for generations. I used to joke she had more salt than water in her blood. She was—she was almost insatiable in her need to feel the wind on her face and hear the sails snap above her.”

She had craved other thrills, as well. Downhill skiing on some of the Alps’s most treacherous slopes. Fast cars. The drugs she’d flatly denied taking even after Marco discovered her stash.

At his insistence she’d gone through rehab. Twice. She swore she was clean, swore she’d kicked her habit. Yet he knew in his heart she’d driven down from Rome that last, fatal weekend to escape his vigilance. To escape him.

“I had a difficult surgery scheduled that week. A two-year-old child with a brain tumor several other neurosurgeons had deemed inoperable.”

He’d been exhausted after the long surgery, mentally and physically, and wanted only to fall into bed. Gianetta flatly refused to cancel her planned trip to the coast. She’d been cooped up in the city too long. She needed the wind, the sea, the salt spray.

“I stayed in Rome until the boy was out of danger and in recovery, then drove down to join my wife for the weekend.”

To this day Marco blamed himself for what followed. If he’d postponed the surgery … If he’d paid as much attention to his wife as he had his patients …

“I could see the storm clouds piling up when I hit the coast. I called Gianetta on my cell phone and begged her not to take the boat out.”

Begged, cajoled, ordered, pleaded … and sweated blood when he arrived to find she’d disregarded his pleas and launched the sloop.

“As soon as I reached the marina, I contacted her by radio. By then she was battling twenty-four-foot swells and the boat was taking on water.”

He could still hear her shrill panic, still remember the utter desperation and helplessness that had ripped through him. He could save the life of a two-year-old, but he couldn’t save his wife.

“The last time I heard her voice was when she sent out an urgent S.O.S. The radio went dead in midbroadcast.”

“How sad,” Sabrina whispered. “You never got to say goodbye.”

He flashed her a quick look, startled by her insight. For all their ups and downs, all the arguments and hot, angry exchanges, he’d never stopped loving his passionate, temperamental Gianetta. He’d sell his soul to be able to tell her so.

“You remind me of her,” he said after a long moment. “You have the same color hair, the same eyes. Yesterday morning, on the road … For a second or two I thought perhaps I was seeing a ghost.”

“So that’s why you almost ran me over!”

Sabrina struggled upright on the sofa. She wasn’t sure she liked being mistaken for a poltergeist, even briefly. And now that she thought about it, she realized Marco wasn’t the only one who’d made that mistake.

“Now I know why Rafaela gaped at me at the clinic. Why her mama stared at me when I first arrived. Do I look that much like your Gianetta?”

His gaze roamed her face. “The resemblance is startling at first glance, but I assure you it’s merely superficial. As I’ve discovered in the course of our brief acquaintance, Ms. Russo, you are very much your own woman.”

“You got that right.”

His slow smile banished the ghosts. “And very, very desirable.”

Well! That was better. Mollified, Sabrina sank back against the cushions. She would have liked to draw Marco out a little more about his wife but she sensed his need for a shift in both subject and mood.

A quick glance at her watch indicated they still had some time to kill before the car arrived. She should get on her laptop. She needed to reconfirm her appointments for the next few days and update Devon and Caroline on the latest developments in her changing-by-the-minute schedule.

With Marco standing so close, though, Sabrina couldn’t force her mind into work mode. Instead she nodded to the small, square table in the corner.

“I see you have a chessboard set up. We still have some time before the car arrives. Do you want to take me on?”

“You play?”

“Occasionally. When I do,” she warned, “I usually draw blood.”

“Ha!” He crossed to the table, lifting it with ease, and moved it into position beside the sofa. “We shall see.”

Seen up close, the pieces drew a gasp of delight from Sabrina. They were medieval warriors from the time of the Crusades, with armor and weaponry depicted in exquisite detail. The Christian bishops carried the shields of fierce Knights Templar. The Muslim king was mounted on an Arabian steed. Even the queens wore armored breastplates below their circlets and veils.

“White or red?” Marco asked.

She chose white and saw that that the box containing the pieces also included a timer.

“The game will go faster if we play speed chess. How about two minutes max per move?”

When Marco nodded, she hit the timer to start the clock and moved a pawn in the slightly unconventional Bird’s Opening, named for the nineteenth-century English master, Henry Bird.

Marco glanced up, his eyes narrowed, and countered with From’s Gambit. Four moves later, Sabrina put him in check and had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at his stunned expression.

“You weren’t joking about drawing blood. Who taught you to play like this?”

“My father. Chess is about the only thing we share a common interest in.”

He lifted his gaze from the board. Sabrina deflected the curiosity she saw in his eyes by tapping the button on the timer.

“The clock’s ticking. Your move, fella.”

Frowning, he moved his rook to protect his king. She smothered a grin and countered with her knight.

“Checkmate.”

Marco’s brows snapped together. He scowled at the board, searching for another move, but she had him boxed in.

“I demand a rematch.”

Sabrina took him three games to two and was about to put him in check again when the notes of a door chime cascaded through the intercom.

“That must be my mother’s chauffeur. We’ll finish this game when we return.”

“Some folks are just gluttons for punishment.”

While he went to trade car keys with the driver, Sabrina descended to the guest suite to slip on her jacket and grab her briefcase. The briefcase thumped awkwardly against her crutch as she hit the elevator again.

Marco was waiting when she emerged on the top floor. He’d pulled on his buttery suede bomber jacket and hooked a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses in the neck of his black sweater.

Oh, man! Oh, man, oh, man, oh, man!

Suddenly, avidly eager to complete her business and get back to the villa, Sabrina let him take the briefcase and went through the door he held open for her.

She stopped just over the threshold. Her eyes widened when she took in the gleaming Rolls parked under the portico. “This is your mother’s sedan?”

“One of them,” Marco answered calmly as he opened the passenger door of the chrome-plated behemoth. “She likes to travel in comfort.”

Sabrina was no stranger to limos or Rolls Royces. Her father never drove anywhere when he could be driven. This baby, however, was a classic. With its massive grill, elongated body and top folded down into an oversize trunk, it had been crafted before the automobile industry cared about such minutia as weight and fuel efficiency.

The prospect of taking the narrow, hairpin turns in this monster made Sabrina gulp. Resolutely, she quashed her nervousness and handed Marco the crutches.

“Do you have enough room?” he asked when she sank into cloud-soft leather.

“More than enough.” She waved an imperious hand. “Drive on, McDuff.”

Tourists of all nationalities had made the arduous ascent to the mountaintop town of Ravello for centuries. First by donkey cart, then by motorized vehicles, they climbed roads so steep and narrow that traffic had to back up in both directions to let a tour bus pass.

The views alone were worth the nerve-bending trip and the reason Ravello had drawn so many artists over the years. Their ranks had included D. H. Lawrence, who wrote Lady Chatterley’s Lover while ensconced in a villa overlooking the sea, and composer Richard Wagner. Wagner’s works had become the centerpiece of the town’s annual music festival. The festival now drew thousands, according to the research Sabrina had done on the site.

Throughout the climb she caught awe-inspiring glimpses of sky and sea and rugged, rocky coast. The higher they went, the more stunning the vistas. Finally, Marco nosed the Rolls around the last steep curve and she caught her first view of the town itself. The twin towers of its cathedral dominated the jumble of whitewashed buildings perched high atop the cliff. Red-tile roofs and a profusion of flowering vines and trees added bright spots of color.

A sign indicated the town was closed to all vehicles except those belonging to residents and hotel guests. Another sign directed visitors to a parking lot at the base of the town walls. Marco bypassed the visitor lot and made for the main square. The Rolls bumped across the cobbled plaza crowded with tiny cafés, gelato stands and shops displaying beautifully crafted pottery.

The hotel Sabrina wanted to visit sat smack in the historic center of the town, almost in the shadow of the cathedral. When Marco pulled up at a facade adorned with weathered arches and belfry towers roofed in red tiles, a valet rushed forward to open Sabrina’s door.

“Good morning. Are you checking in?”

“No, we’re not staying,” she replied in her shaky Italian. “I’m Sabrina Russo. I have an appointment with your hotel manager.”

The well-trained valet switched to English as she swung out of the car. “Ah, yes. Mr. Donati, he says to expect you.”

He supported her while she balanced on one foot, waiting for Marco to retrieve her briefcase and the crutches from the backseat.

“Do you wish a wheelchair, madam? I have one, just here.”

“Thank you, but these are fine.”

When she had the crutches under her arms, he tugged open the hotel’s ornately carved door. “Please to go in and be comfortable. I’ll call Mr. Donati to tell him you have arrived.”

With Marco carrying her briefcase, Sabrina entered a lobby filled with light and terrazzo tiles and arches that opened on three sides to a courtyard with a magnificent view of the sea. In the center of the yard was a splashing fountain surrounded by lush greenery and tall palms nourished by the warm Mediterranean breezes.

They’d crossed only half of the lobby when a thin individual in a business suit and red-silk tie hurried out to greet her. He stopped short when he saw the man at Sabrina’s side.

“Your Excellency! I didn’t know … I wasn’t aware …”

Flustered, he smoothed a hand down his tie and bowed at the waist.

“Please allow me to reintroduce myself. I am Roberto Donati, manager of this hotel. We met several years ago, when you and your most gracious mother opened Ravello’s summer music festival.”

“So we did. And this is Ms. Russo. She’s come to survey your excellent establishment.”

Donati took the hand Sabrina extended, obviously wondering how an American businesswoman had hooked up with the local gentry.

“Would you care for an espresso or cappuccino before we begin?”

“Perhaps later,” she replied. “May I leave my coat and briefcase in your office while we tour the conference facilities?”

“But of course. Allow me to take them for you. And yours, Your Excellency.”

Before handing over the briefcase, Sabrina extracted a pen and notepad. She skimmed her notes on Global Security’s conference requirements and was ready when Donati returned with a folder.

“This contains our catering menus and the floor plans of our guest rooms and meeting facilities.”

Marco took the folder. “You have your hands full, Sabrina. I’ll carry this for you.”

“Thanks.”

With the men adjusting their pace to hers, she let Donati escort them across the open courtyard.

“Luckily, February is our off-season,” the manager commented. “I indicated in my initial e-mail that we have fifty-three rooms available the week you specified. We’ve had several cancellations, so the number is now fifty-six. I have assurances from the hotel across the square that they can accommodate the remainder of your conference attendees.”

“I’ll want to see those rooms, too, before I leave.”

“Of course. Once we finalize the meal plans, I’ll provide a revised estimate incorporating those room rates.”

“Hold on, I need to make a note of the numbers.”

When she fumbled with the pen and pad, Marco stepped forward. “Let me do that for you.”

She had to grin. “Doc, duke, chauffeur and secretary. You’re a man of many talents.”

His dark eyes smiled into hers. “Ah, but wait until I present my bill.”

Damn! The man could melt her into a puddle of want without half trying.

Heat spreading through her veins, Sabrina handed him the pad and glanced up to catch the manager watching them. His goggle-eyed stare gave way to a combination of speculation and calculation.

Uh-oh! Maybe arriving at the hotel in a vintage Rolls with His Excellency in tow wasn’t such a smart move. Good thing she had Donati’s original estimate in writing. He’d better not try to pad the final figure. Sabrina would hold his feet to the fire.

She and Marco departed the hotel after lunch on a gorgeously landscaped terrace overlooking the sea. During the drive back down to the coast, she mulled over the revised estimate Donati had provided.

“How does it look?” Marco asked.

“The numbers seem high at first glance. I’ll have to compare them to the final estimates from the other hotels.”

“I’ll call Donati and see if he can do better.”

“No!”

Her sharp negative drew a surprised glance.

“Thanks,” Sabrina said, tempering her tone, “but I prefer to handle these negotiations myself.”

“My apologies. I merely wished to help.”

She winced at the ice-coated reply. When he wanted to, the doc could wield one hell of a scalpel.

“Now it’s my turn to apologize. It’s just …”

She paused, chewing on her lower lip. The stubborn need to assert her independence had driven her for so long. She couldn’t shake it, even now.

“My father doesn’t believe I can make it on my own,” she said finally. “I’m determined to prove him wrong.”

“I see.” Marco thought about that for a moment. “This is the father who taught you to play chess?”

“One and the same.”

“He underestimates your killer instinct. I have your measure now, however. You won’t win this evening as easily as you did this morning.”

She couldn’t resist the challenge. “Maybe we should up the stakes.”

“Maybe we should. What do you suggest?”

Laughing, she waggled her brows. “Ever play strip chess?”

She was kidding. Mostly. And completely unprepared when Marco dug into his jacket pocket.

One handed, he flipped up his cell phone and punched a speed-dial button. His conversation was in Italian, but Sabrina caught enough to experience a sudden shortness of breath.

“The meeting took longer than anticipated,” he informed his housekeeper. “There’s no need for you to wait for our return.”

He listened a moment and nodded.

“That will be fine. Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow. Ciao.”

The phone went back into his jacket pocket. The slow, predatory smile he gave Sabrina told her the night ahead could prove extremely interesting!

Six

Marco lost one of his loafers in the first game. He forfeited its mate in the second.

“I’ve never seen such unorthodox moves,” he protested. “You sacrificed a queen and a knight to gain a pawn.”

“Thus opening the back door for my bishop. Stop whining and pay up.”

He gave a huff of laughter and kicked off the loafer. As they reset the chess pieces for the next game, Sabrina calculated how many additional wins she’d have to score before she had him naked.