"I said 'si' when prompted; I have no idea what the mayor said to me."
Dolce recited something in Italian. '"Til death us do part," she translated.
"Well, that's what happened with your previous husband, isn't it?" He shot back, then immediately regretted having said it.
"And it could happen again!" Dolce spat.
"Is that what we've come to? You're threatening me?"
Dolce stood up and came toward him. "Stone, let's not do this to each other; come to bed."
Stone stood up and backed away from her. The robe had come undone, and he fought the urge to couch her, "No, no. I have to leave, Dolce, and you should leave, too, and go back to New York or Sicily or wherever."
"Papa is going to be very disappointed," she said in a low voice.
That really did sound like a threat, Stone thought. "I'll call him tomorrow and explain things."
"Explain what? That you're abandoning me? Leaving me at the altar? He'll just love hearing that. You don't know Papa as well you think you do. He has a terrible temper, especially when someone he loves has been wronged."
Stone was backing toward the door. "I haven't wronged you, Dolce; I've just explained how I feel. I'm doing you a favor by withdrawingfrom this situation now, instead of later, when it would hurt us both a lot more." He was reaching for the doorknob behind him.
"You're my husband, Stone," Dolce was saying, "and you always will be, for as long as you live," she added threateningly.
"Good-bye, Dolce," Stone said. He got the door open and hurried out, closing it carefully behind him.
He had gone only a few steps when he heard a large object crash against the door and shatter. On the way through the lobby, he stopped at the front desk. "I'm Stone Barrington," he said to the young woman.
"Yes, Mr. Barrington," she said. "Are you checking in again?"
"No, and please be advised that the woman in suite 336 is Miss Dolce Bianchi, not Mrs. Stone Barrington. Will you let the telephone operator know that, please?"
"Of course," the young woman said, looking nonplussed. "Whatever you say, Mr. Barrington."
Stone got the station wagon from the attendant and headed back toward Malibu. Before he had even reached Sunset, the car phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Stone," Arrington said, "I'm on my way back to Bel-Air."
"Why and how?" Stone asked.
"I caught sight of a photographer on the beach with a great big lens, and I guess it just creeped me out. Manolo came and got me; he had to smuggle me past the gate in the trunk."
"All right, I'll meet you at the house. Tell Manolo to use the utility entrance." He said good-bye and hung up. How long, he
wondered, had that photographer been on the beach?
Chapter 20
Stone got to the house first. He parked the car, went into the house and out to the guest house, where he started packing his clothes. He had his bags in Vance's Mercedes by the time Arrington arrived.
She came in through the front door, took a few steps, and froze, staring down the central hallway. "That's where he was, isn't it?" she asked Stone, nodding toward the spot.
"You remember?" Stone asked.
She nodded again.
He turned to the buder. "Manolo, will you fix us some dinner, please? Anything will do."