Authors: Jamie Anderson
“It is all settled, then?”
Calia glanced up
—
only to be impaled by his mesmerizing silver-grey stare.
She shook herself and forced a smile.
“Oh yes.
Everything’s in order.”
After all, she had imposed on this man quite enough already.
“So what will you do?”
She scrambled for a plausible answer.
“I’ll see if they can send my replacement card to a post office in Rome, then I’ll find a place to stay.”
Even if it ends up being the train station, for the next couple of days.
She hadn’t yet figured out what she would do about food.
“You know Rome?”
“Well, I’ve never been
—
but how hard can it be?”
She spoke with forced bravado.
“But you know how to get to the post office?
And to this place where you will be staying?”
Calia tried not to let the doubt show on her face.
“I’ll figure it out.”
He watched her with growing impatience.
“And how much money do you have left?
To get you there, for example.”
She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again.
At her silence, he raised his brows sardonically.
She forced a smile.
“I’ll work something out.”
“You do not have any money left, do you?”
Her smile faded.
“Well, perhaps not as such, but
—
“
“
Per l’amore di cielo!
” he exploded.
“I have had enough of this.
Who let you out on your own?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“As well you should.”
Calia rolled her eyes, her anger rising.
“Well then, let me also apologise for putting you out.
Feel free to be on your way.
I told you I could handle myself, and I can.
I’ll figure something out, so don’t let what little kernel of conscience you might have bother you.”
Calia felt the train slowing.
She darted a glance out the window.
They were pulling into a station on the outskirts of Rome.
Instead of responding, her bad-tempered rescuer shut down his laptop and returned it to his briefcase.
As the train pulled out of the station, he frowned at her.
“Ours is the next stop,” he said.
“’Ours’?
I don’t think so.”
He made an impatient sound.
“You do not have anywhere to go.
You do not have any money.
What am I supposed to do?
Walk away?”
“Yes.”
When his expression didn’t soften, Calia decided to swallow her pride.
“Look, how about if you gave me your address and loaned me the money?
I’ll pay you back as soon as I get everything sorted out.
It may not be till I get back to Canada, but
—
“
“Given that you are apparently a walking disaster zone who should never have been permitted out of your country without an armed escort
—
“
“Hey, now that’s just plain rude!”
He continued as if she hadn’t said anything, “—my tiny kernel of conscience would not be assuaged by the thought of letting you loose in Rome.
With your precedent, you’d end up shanghaied by some underground slave trading ring.”
“There are underground slave traders in Rome?” Calia asked, curious, despite her annoyance.
“Not that I know of.
But I have every confidence that you would run afoul of any that happened to exist.”
“Oh for God’s sake!”
“So, you will come with me.
We will sort out the question of how you will get some money restored to you.
Then, I will ensure that you are on a plane back to your own country.
At that point, I will be able to walk away with a clear conscience.”
The train was slowing again.
“You can’t possibly expect me to go along with that.”
Calia drew in a slow breath and reined in her impatience.
“Thank you for your help.
I appreciate it.
But I have to say that you are one of the rudest men I have ever encountered.
If we meet again, it’ll be too soon, as far as I’m concerned.”
She held out her hand.
“So, goodbye and have a nice life.”
He ignored her hand.
Instead, he stood.
Before she could protest, he had hefted her backpack over one shoulder, as if its considerable weight were of no consequence.
“This is our stop,” he said, and walked out of the compartment.
“Hey, you can’t do that!”
Calia scrambled after him, zipping up her daypack as she went.
“That’s my stuff!”
He had already disembarked and was half way down the platform by the time she caught up with him.
He spared her only the briefest of glances as she struggled to keep up with his long-legged stride.
“I am parked in the lot outside.”
“That’s great,” she said breathlessly.
“Now if you’ll give me my pack
—
“
“I will give you your pack when we get to my home.”
“How do I know you’re not an underground slave trader?”
“You will just have to take your chances.”
Calia glanced at him dubiously.
After all, he didn’t look like an underground slave trader
—
he looked more like a successful businessman, all understated wealth and cool elegance.
Nor did she think that real underground slave traders would be quite this insulting.
More likely, they’d try to charm unsuspecting souls into going along with them.
And he had helped her get rid of that other fellow, which spoke well for his motives, even if he did seem to have an overdeveloped knight in shining armour complex.
It was kind of sweet, actually, for all that he had been infuriatingly rude and high-handed.
She sighed.
Of course, the clincher is that I really don’t have much choice.
No money.
No place to stay.
And at this point, she wasn’t inclined to call his bluff about her backpack.
“All right.
I’ll come with you.”
He did not slow his pace.
“You are too kind.”
They walked in silence.
“So, are you going to tell me your name, at least?
So I know whose hospitality I’m being coerced into accepting?”
“Gio Diamanti.”
Calia came to an abrupt stop, her mouth dropping open.
She had heard of Giovanni Diamanti
—
the most brilliant scion of his illustrious family.
She had studied his methods in one of her finance classes that had specialized in European markets and economies.
When she had been shortlisted for a position at Vorsichter Hessen GmbH, a research and investment firm in Frankfurt, the thought had even crossed her mind that working in Europe might give her the opportunity to meet some of the Continental luminaries of the financial world
—
one of the most prominent of whom was carrying her backpack at the moment.
Somehow, she had always pictured him older.
Balding.
With a potbelly.
He stopped and turned to look at her.
No potbelly in sight.
Just a disturbingly sexy body and a glare that, despite his abominable personality, gave her goosbumps.
“What is it?”
She shook herself.
“Nothing.
It’s just that
—
I’ve heard of you.”
She started walking again.
He raised an eyebrow.
“How would you have heard of me?”
His tone dripped with a blend of surprise and skepticism that pricked at her annoyance.
“Oh, gee, I don’t know,” she said in her most vacuous tone.
“Maybe it was in the society pages.
Oh wait!
I forgot
—
I can barely read, so it must have been, like, on some TV show or something.”
“I have offended you.”
“You think?”
“I apologise.
I was simply surprised that you might have heard my name.”
And for that assumption
—
along with everything it implied
—
Calia decided she wasn’t going to bother enlightening him.
He didn’t have to know about her economics degree.
About her reputation for astute economic analysis
—
with stellar references to back it up
—
which had wowed Vorsichter Hessen into granting her the first of several increasingly demanding interviews.
The culmination had been her trip to Europe, as one of the two finalists for the position.
She wouldn’t bother telling him any of that.
Instead, she’d just play along with the role he had imposed upon her.
After all, it wouldn’t be for long.
She would get the whole money thing cleared up in the next day or so, and be out of his hair before he was any the wiser.
They walked to his car in silence.
After he had opened the door for her, he stowed her pack in the trunk of his midsize BMW sedan.
A few moments later, he settled into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
Calia drew in a slow breath, intensely conscious of his proximity in the confined space of the car.
When in doubt, be flippant.
She forced a grin.
“I’m surprised.
No Lamborghini?”
He shrugged.
“I like that German cars are less… ostentatious.”
Calia let out a puff of breath, shaking her head.
“Wow.”
“What is it?”
“Trust you to call a BMW ‘less ostentatious.’
I suppose I should expect no less from a Diamanti.
It’s interesting, though
—
it demonstrates what different worlds we come from.”
He cast a frowning glance at her, before returning his attention to the road.
“How did you say you had heard of me again?”
She gave him a bright grin.
“TV, remember?”
“I apologized for that.”
“True.”
They drove in silence for a time.
Then, she sighed.
“I should really thank you for taking the trouble like this.
Though I like to think I would have worked something out on my own, I have to admit, this’ll make things a lot easier.
So, thank you.”
The words didn’t come easily to Calia, who had fought numerous bouts to maintain her prized independence.
First it had been her parents who had, with the best of intentions, tried to curb Calia’s self-reliance.
Then, most recently, it had been David.
“A thank you?
It is good that I am still a young man, else I might die of shock.”
Calia gave an exaggerated gasp, glad to go along with his levity.
“Tell me I’m not hearing things
—
and that really was a joke.”
“Heaven forbid.”
“So you actually do have a sense of humour, buried under there somewhere.”
He inclined his head.
“Yes.
I believe it usually resides deep underneath the kernel of conscience you mentioned before.”
“Amazing!
Another joke
—
well, kind of, anyway.
I’ll be the one keeling over in shock if you keep this up.”
“If it will actually silence you for more than a few minutes, then I will make a point of unearthing the most amusing lines in my repertoire.”
Calia glanced at him, tilting her head.
“You have a repertoire?”
“A limited one.
Most of them are financial jokes.”
“Wow!
Great.”
Calia nodded slowly.
“Yeah, keep ‘em coming.”
“Ah yes, the ubiquitous sarcasm you North Americans hold so dear.”
“’Ubiquitous sarcasm’?”
She chuckled.
“Where did you learn to speak English, anyway?”
“I had a tutor.”
“Figures.”
A pause.
He broke the silence.
“So, you are in Europe on vacation?”
“Pretty much.
I had some stuff to do in Germany first, so I decided to make a holiday of it as well.
I’ve been sightseeing, doing the backpacker thing, for just under a week now.
A couple of days in Germany, then Paris.
I only had a few weeks, so I wanted to make the most of them.”
“A few weeks are hardly enough to see a single country, let alone a continent.”
“You don’t need to tell me
—
you should have seen me poring over guidebooks and internet articles, trying to narrow down the choices.
I finally decided on a few of the highlights and left it at that.”