Saved by the CEO(7)

"Mario, the student who is working for us this summer," he explained  when he hung up. "He's finished with the task I assigned him and  wondering if I'm coming back before lunch."

"Is it that late?" Louisa looked to her bare wrist. They'd let time get  away from them. Her bank appointment was in the early afternoon.

"Only for people who had breakfast before sunrise," Nico replied. "The rest of the world is safe."

"Good to know, seeing as how I just finished breakfast."

"And my second."

"Such as it was." She nodded to his untouched coffee. "Guess you're not as fond of American coffee as you claimed."

"I must have confused it with something else American, then. Good luck  with Dominic." With a parting wink, he jumped over the walk.

He was lucky he didn't break his leg leaping off terraces like that,  Louisa thought as she watched him disappear into the vines. She  decidedly didn't think about how graceful he looked when he moved. Or  about how firm and muscular his arms looked while supporting his weight.

She always did have a weakness for men with nice biceps, she thought with a shiver.

Too bad Nico Amatucci was every mistake she'd vowed not to repeat. She'd  had her fill of charismatic, dominating men, thank you very much.

She checked her bare wrist a second time. Her Rolex was long gone-sold  to pay off bills-but the habit remained. Didn't matter-Nico's comment  about lunch told her the morning was getting on. If she wanted to be  prepared for her meeting, she'd best get her act together.

Gathering her plate and the coffee cups, she headed into the palazzo,  where the latest draft of her business plan lay spread on the coffee  table. Nico must not have noticed, because he wouldn't have been able to  resist commenting if he had.

Pausing, Louisa scanned the numbers on the balance sheet with a smile. A  solid, thorough plan, but then she'd always been good with numbers.  Sadly, she'd forgotten how much she enjoyed working with them. Once upon  a time, she'd had a promising career in finance. Until Steven had  talked her into staying home shortly after their marriage, that is.  Cajoled, really. For appearance's sake, he'd said. People were already  gossiping about how the CEO was dating his extremely young employee.  Made sense not to add fuel to the fire. "Besides," he'd told her, "as my  wife, you have far more important things to focus on."

Like making sure she looked and behaved perfectly at all times. She  should have seen the signs then, but she'd been too in love to notice.  Lost in her personal fairy tale. The little nobody Cinderella swept off  her feet by the silver-haired billionaire Prince Charming.

It wasn't until the feds took him away that she wondered if he hadn't been afraid she'd figure out what he was up to.

Oh well, that was in the past now.

It had taken her a while to settle in at the palazzo, but over the past  few months, she'd developed a very comfortable routine. First came  breakfast on the terrace, where she would practice her Italian by  reading the local papers. The language immersion tape she'd bought in  Boston had turned out to be useless-fluent in two weeks, ha!-but nine  months in, she was getting pretty comfortable. After breakfast, she  would go online to catch up on the American news and check her email.  Usually her inbox didn't contain more than a handful of messages, a far  cry from the days when she would get note after note. Now her messages  were mostly from Dani, who liked to forward jokes and pictures of baby  animals. On the plus side, she didn't have to worry about whether the  message was some kind of ruse arranged by Steven to catch her in a lie.                       
       
           



       

At first she didn't look twice at the internet alert, the helpful online  tracker she'd created to stay on top of the news. Another reference to  the wedding, she assumed. Every day brought two or three mentions. It  wasn't until she was about to log off that she realized the alert was  one she'd set up before leaving Boston. The words Louisa Clark leaped  from the screen in boldface type.

Her heart stopped. A year. A whole year without mention. Why now?

She slid her fingers to the mouse. Please be a coincidence, she prayed.

And she clicked open the link.





CHAPTER THREE

SCAM KING'S EX HOSTS ROYAL WEDDING

Is Luscious Louisa Looking for a New Partner?

After nine months under the radar, Louisa Clark, the blonde bombshell  who seduced and ultimately brought down bogus financier Steven Clark has  reappeared. This time in Europe under the name Louisa Harrison...

A BIG FAT PHOTO of her smiling at the royal couple ran under the headline.

The article went on to list her as the owner of Palazzo di Comparino and  suggested that hosting the wedding had been her way of snagging a new  billionaire husband. Because, after all, that was how she'd landed  Steven, right? She was the young femme fatale employee who'd seduced her  older boss, only to sell him out when the feds began closing in. Never  mind that the narrative didn't remotely resemble the truth. That she was  the one who had been seduced and betrayed. Just as long as the story  sold papers.

Louisa tried to breathe, but an invisible hand had found its way to her  throat and was choking the air out of her. The site even used that  god-awful nickname. Stupid headline writers and their need for memorable  alliteration. No way would this be the only article. Not in the  internet era when every gossip blog and newspaper fed off every other.

Sure enough. A few shaky keystrokes later, the search results scrolled  down her screen. Some of the stories focused on rehashing the case.  Others, though, created all-new speculation. One politician in Florence  was even demanding an investigation into the al fresco discovered in the  palazzo chapel last summer, claiming it could be part of an elaborate  art fraud scheme. Every page turned up more. Headline after headline:  Ponzi Scheme Seductress Turns Sights on Tuscany and Italy: Lock Up Your  Euros! and Royal Scandal! Is Halencia's Financial Future at Stake?

Oh God, Christina and Antonio. She'd turned their fairy-tale wedding  into a mockery. They must hate her. Everyone must hate her. Dani. Rafe.  Nico. They loved Monte Calanetti; all they wanted was for their village  to thrive, and she was tainting the town with scandal. How could she  ever show her face in town again?

The phone rang. Louisa jumped. Don't answer it. It could be a reporter. Old habits, buried but not forgotten, kicked right in.

Not a reporter, thank goodness. The bank. The name appeared under the  number on her call screen. One guess as to why they were calling.  Forcing air into her lungs, she answered.

"Signorina Harrison?" an unfamiliar female voice asked.

"Y-yes." Louisa fought to keep her voice from shaking, and lost.

"I'm calling for Signor Merloni. He's asked me to tell you he can't meet with you today. Something has suddenly come up."

"Right. Of course." What a surprise. A lump formed in her throat. Only  pride-or maybe it was masochism-made her hang on the line and go through  the motions. "Did...did Signor Merloni give you a new date?"

"No, he did not," the woman replied. "I'm afraid his calendar is full  for the next several weeks. He's going to have to call you when a time  becomes available."

And so the ostracism started. Louisa knew the drill. Signor Merloni wouldn't call back. No one would.

They never did.

Phone dropping from her fingers, Louisa stumbled toward the terrace  doors, toward the fresh air and rolling hills she'd come to see as home,  only to stop short. Paparazzi could be lurking anywhere, their  telephoto lenses poised to snag the next exclusive shot of Luscious  Louisa. They could be hiding this moment among the grapevines.

So much for going outside. Backing away, she sank into the cushions when  her calves collided with the sofa. What now? She couldn't call anyone.  She couldn't go outside.

It was just like before. She was a prisoner in her own home.

Damn you, Steven. Even in prison, he was still controlling her life.

* * *

The Brix level matched the portable reading exactly. Nico wasn't  surprised. When it came to grapes, he was seldom wrong. Of course not.  Making wine is the only thing you really care about.

The voice in his head, which sounded suspiciously like his former  fiancée's, was wrong. Making wine wasn't the only thing he cared about;  there was his family, too. And tradition, although tradition involved  winemaking so perhaps they were one and the same. Still, while he found  great satisfaction in bottling the perfect vintage, if Amatucci  Vineyards collapsed tomorrow, he wouldn't collapse in despair. That was  his parents' domain. If he couldn't make wine anymore, he would cope,  the same way he'd coped when Floriana had walked out on him, or whenever  he'd come home to discover his parents had broken up-again. Dispassion,  when you thought about it, was a blessing. Heaven knew it had saved him  from going mad when growing up.