Her words faded to silence. Did she really owe him an apology? Perhaps she did. In her own way, she had been every bit as insulting to him as he’d been to her.
“Caroline?” Nicolo stepped in front of her and smiled. “What do you say? Shall we bury the ax?”
It was impossible not to smile. “The hatchet,” she murmured.
He laughed and held out his hand. “We will bury it, no matter what it is called,” he said. “Yes?”
She looked at him. His smile was open and friendly, and suddenly it seemed preposterous to be standing here, on a Roman street corner, arguing with a man who had taken her from an existence that she’d hated to one that was all she’d ever dreamed of.
Her smile broadened. “All right,” she said, and put her hand in his.
Nicolo raised it to his lips. She barely felt the brush of his mouth against her skin, yet it sent a bolt of electricity shooting through her.
“Then, come, cara,” he said softly. “And I will show you my city.”
* * *
THEY WENT BACK to the Forum.
“Seeing it from the car didn’t do it justice,” Nicolo said.
No, Caroline thought, as she let him lead her down to the ancient ground, no, it hadn’t. And she hadn’t done Nicolo Sabatini justice, either. She had expected him to know what to whisper to a woman in the heat of passion, not to be able to tell her stories about Alaric, the Goth chieftain who’d conquered Rome in A.D. 410. But that was what he’d been doing for the past several minutes.
“And he burned this basilica—the Basilica Aemilia—almost to the ground. It was a pity, for the Basilica was very old even then.”
Caroline looked at the ruins that remained. “What sort of building had it been? A fortress of some kind? A temple?”
“It was a shelter for those who came here to buy and sell their wares.” He put his arm around her shoulders as they walked on. “It’s named for the man who built it. Marcus Aemilius.”
“I see. It was an inn.”
Nicolo shook his head. “No, it was a public building, meant to protect merchants and their customers from the elements.” He grinned. “Everybody complains about taxes today, but in ancient times wealthy Romans were expected not just to pay their taxes but to finance public works, as well.”
Caroline laughed. “Some people might think that’s an idea that needs reintroducing. And what’s that?” she said, nodding toward another tumble of stone.
“A temple of Venus. The goddess of love.” Nicolo smiled. “And at the far end of the street was the Temple of Vesta. Opposite attractions, one might say. The Vestals were sworn to a life of chastity. If they broke their vows…”
He made a sawing gesture across his neck, and Caroline shuddered. “Ugh! How could they get women to sign on for such a life?”
“For one thing, it was an honor.” He paused, and she could see laughter dancing in his eyes. “And the girls were given to the priests by their families when they were ten or eleven years old.”
“But that’s terrible!”
“It’s the only way anyone could ensure they’d be virgins!”
They both laughed, and then Caroline swept out her hand. “There’s so much to know—how can you remember it all?”
Nicolo took her hand and swung it gently as they walked. “I grew up on these stories. My grandfather was an archaeologist, and—”
“The Princess’s husband?”
He nodded. “He was always involved in one dig or another. Sometimes he let me tag along. I loved to hear him talk about the old days.”
“The very old days,” Caroline said with a smile. “I’m surprised you didn’t follow him into archaeology.”
“I thought about it, believe me.” His fingers laced through hers. “But by the time I was eighteen, I realized that, as much as I loved studying the past, my greatest joy came from—well, I suppose you’d describe it as planning things and watching them grow.”
“Ah,” Caroline said lightly. “So that’s how someone gets to be head of a corporation! He shows a talent for gardening.”
Nicolo grinned as he drew her down beside him on a marble bench. “Unfortunately, I have absolutely no talent at all for gardening, cara. Anna refers to me as il pollice nero. The black thumb.” They smiled at each other, and then he reached out and smoothed a strand of hair behind Caroline’s ear. “Now it’s your turn,” he said, “although I suspect I know how a woman gets to be an international model. She starts life as an adorable little girl and grows up to be an extraordinarily beautiful woman.”
She shook her head. “Actually, I was a gawky little girl.”
“You? No. I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true. I was too tall, too skinny, I had freckles…”
“I like freckles,” he said softly.
“My grandmother used to say that, too. She raised me, you see, after my folks died…”
Why was she telling him all this? Why would he care about her childhood, or her grandmother? But he seemed to; he was nodding, his expression serious and intent.
“Yes? It was the same for me.” His eyes swept over her face. “Is that why you took such an immediate liking to Anna? Because she reminds you of your own nonna?”
Caroline nodded. “She does, a little.”
He smiled. “And it was your grandmother who convinced you that you weren’t an ugly duckling, that you would grow up to be a swan?”
She laughed. “I suppose that’s close enough to the truth.” Her smile tilted. “But I never thought about becoming a model. It was only after Grams died…”
Nicolo put his hand under her chin and tilted her face up. “Such a sad face, cara. What happened?”
The breath sighed from her lungs. “She’d been ill for a long time. There was no money left.” She looked at him. “And no jobs, not in Chatam, Vermont, at any rate. So I went to New York—and there were no jobs there, either, not unless you had a college degree or you could type a million billion words a minute. And then—”
“And then, one day, a man came up to you on the street.” Nicolo’s voice took on an almost perfect New York accent. “Hey, kid,” he said, “didja ever think of becoming a model?”
Caroline burst out laughing. “Actually, it was a woman. She worked for a modeling agency. But that’s just about what she said—and just about the way she said it.”
He rose and held out his hand. Caroline took it and they began walking again.
“And so you signed on with International Models?”
“No, not then. I did a couple of years of catalog work—companies that sell clothing through the mail,” she said, in answer to his puzzled look. “Sears, Spiegel. Penney’s…well, you wouldn’t know the names. But the work was steady and the pay was pretty good.”
“But not good enough?” he prompted.
She shrugged. “By then, I knew that what I really wanted was to become a designer.” She looked at him, her expression almost defiant. “It wasn’t really such a sudden decision. I’d always made most of my own clothes, and—”
“I believe it, cara,” Nicolo said gently.
Caroline sighed. “Sorry. It’s just that New York fashion people look down their noses at you unless you’re a graduate of a fancy school of design.”
“Which is why you decided to try your hand at a kind of modeling that would pay better,” he said. “So you could save your pennies and enroll in one of those schools.”
She looked at him, surprised. “Did I tell you this before?”
“No,” he said, smiling. “But it adds up.”
“Yes.” She blew out her breath. “I thought so, too. That was why I signed with another agency. I got some better paying work for a while—and then International Models approached me.” Her mouth curved into a weary smile. “They made it sound so wonderful…”
“But, in truth, it was hell.”
Her head lifted. His voice was grim, his eyes dark and angry.
“No,” she said after a m
oment, “Not hell. I mean, it could have been lots worse.” She gave him a long, steady look. “Anyway, now, thanks to you and Anna, I’m out of it.”
“Yes. You are, cara. And you will not return to that life ever again.”
Why was he looking at her that way? As if—as if he knew something she did not? She had seen him like this before, the night they’d met, when he’d been determined to have his own way; she’d seen him like this again, when he’d announced she was not going to return to Milan…”
Caroline shivered.
“Cara? What is it? Are you cold?”
“I—I am, a little.” She looked up. The crowd had thinned, and the day was coming to an end. The sun was arcing toward the horizon, turning the ancient ruins into a place of magic—a place where not only Romans had once walked, but barbarians, too. Another shudder racked her body. “I guess I didn’t realize how late it had gotten.”
Nicolo frowned. “Forgive me,” he said. “I have kept you talking too long.”
“We’d better get back. Anna will be wondering what happened to us.”
“What you mean is, she will wonder what happened if we return to the palazzo at such an early hour. Have you forgotten, cara? We are to have drinks, then dinner, before we show our faces. Believe me, I would sooner go hat in hand to all the bankers in Europe than try and explain to Anna why we’d ignored her imperial command.” He grinned as he tucked her hand under his arm. “Do you see what it says everywhere in Rome? On buildings, on pavements, even on post boxes?”
She looked at him and smiled hesitantly. “You mean, ‘SPQR’? Yes. I noticed. What does it mean?”
“The Senate, the People, and the Republic. It is an ancient credo that means all Romans are as one.” His grin broadened. “But there should be an addendum to it. It should say, ‘SPQR—by the grace of Her Highness, the Princess Sabatini’ What she decrees is law.” His voice turned soft and cajoling. “Besides, could you say no to Campari and soda at Casina Valadier on the Pincio Hill, where the view goes on forever? Or to dinner at Girone VI, where you will have to decide which is the more perfect, the seventh-century walls—” he smiled “—or the chef’s stuffed pasta with walnut sauce.”
“Stuffed pasta with walnut sauce?”