“That’s not funny, cara,” he said in a gentle voice that chilled with warning.
“I’m not trying to be funny. I’m trying to get over the fact that you don’t want anything to do with me, yet you’re abducting me. Why? Just take me to my hotel,” she insisted. “Or I will use my very decent Italian and my new mobile phone.”
She was so enamored with the cute little gadget, she couldn’t resist pulling it from her pocketbook to show it off. “Look, it even has the two-way camera and global coverage. That means I can do this.” Holding the locked screen before her as though she had a connection, she spoke in Italian. “Good afternoon, Officer. I am being held against my will by this man.” She turned the phone to Paolo’s supercilious expression.
Before she realized he could move so fast, the phone was in his breast pocket and his hand was draped casually over the stick shift again.
“Hey!”
“Take a nap,” he said. “We have a long drive ahead of us.”
It was the same condescending trivialization of her needs and feelings she’d grown up with. She automatically swung through the old gamut of anger draining into the helpless sadness of feeling like she could never win, would never matter, couldn’t do what she wanted and would only be chastised if she did.
She looked out the side window, catching a glimpse of a charming bell tower overlooking a square of some kind. Chocolate shops? Perfumeries? What else did the square hold? She wanted to know and she was old enough, and free enough, to make a decision like that for herself.
“People always wondered why I chose to live with a sick old lady and that sort of dismissal is why. All I ever heard growing up was, ‘Do as you’re told, Lauren. Don’t fuss. It doesn’t matter whose fault it was, just say you’re sorry and don’t talk of it again.’ Even Ryan did it to me. ‘Do we have to talk about that now? I’m only home for three days.’”
With a burst of pent-up frustration, she flung her head around to say, “I’m sorry my organs are perfectly healthy and I dared to get pregnant when you were only taking pity on a weeping widow. It won’t happen again, trust me.”
Assaulted by a fierce need to self-protect after that outburst, she struggled to do the zip on her jacket, then folded her arms and turned her back on him as much as the tight confines of the bucket seat would allow.
He reached to make an adjustment on the console and heat poured onto her feet. “Ryan never told me you had this kind of temper.” He sounded amused which made her want to hit him, but she kept her face averted, so overwhelmed by everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, she could have cried.
“Like Ryan ever got to know me, home for three days out of a hundred,” she grumbled.
“Lauren,” he said with an imploring tone that nearly got to her.
“Oh, just forget it, Paolo. I want to enjoy the scenery. Drive to Sweden if you like.” She waited a beat then goaded, “I’ll rent a car when we get there and go wherever the hell I want.”
* * *
Women.
Paolo had thought Isabella’s stilted kiss-off when they had landed had been bad. My father texted. He thinks, under the circumstances, it’s best we don’t see each other.
Paolo was edging toward being a pariah again. One favor three months ago, one good deed for the sake of a valued friendship, and his life was coming undone at the seams again.
Letting out a measured breath, Paolo eyed the woman beside him, wondering how he’d let it unfold this way. After he’d swept up the pieces of his broken marriage and shattered reputation, he’d been so careful, so very careful to keep himself in line. He struggled every day against reckless impulses and had learned to double think his gut-level decisions with coolheaded logic. Brick by brick, he’d rebuilt himself and the family bank into something that was solid and trustworthy. With the economy as shaky as it was, he couldn’t afford any missteps.#p#????#e#
And yet he’d stumbled right into Mrs. Bradley.
Ryan has disappeared, Paolo. No one will tell me anything. Please help me.
For some reason he still had her message on his voice mail. He couldn’t bear to listen to it, but couldn’t make himself erase it.
Paolo wasn’t a man who believed in extrasensory perception, but he’d known Ryan was gone the second he’d heard her strained voice. As boys, the two of them had nearly killed each other dozens of times, but no matter how far Ryan might have fallen or how long it took him to come out of the water, Paolo had always known Ryan was still alive and right behind him.