That night Ben and I slept in his bed, wrapped in each other’s arms. His warm body comforted me, his tenderness enveloped me, I felt treasured, and I loved that feeling. But I still loved Cash. I still grieved for him, as I knew somehow I always would. Even though Cash was dead, he was still part of my life, and I would never let him go. I felt his presence all around me, as a muted gentleness, a softness in the air I breathed, a treasured memory of love and beauty.
When I awoke, Ben was gone. My throat tightened with fear that he had left me, and then I asked myself, Why shouldn’t he leave me? Hadn’t I just told him I loved another?
I climbed out of the big sagging old bed that we had shared so innocently together, and went to the window. It was a glorious morning. Everything smelled fresh after the rain; rose-colored oleander tumbled over the walls, and those tiny pink Tuscan roses I had come to love scented the air. With the high blue sky and the silence, it felt like the beginning of the world. Instead of the end of it.
I stood under the cold shower, pulling myself together, telling myself I was doing the right thing. I mean, how could a woman who felt the way I did about one man possibly tell another man she loved him? Even though her body did, and her senses, and every damned little nerve ending she possessed.
It’s sex, that’s all, I told myself, as I threw on some clothes. It’s because you didn’t make love for three long years, and you were weak and succumbed. And now you can’t stop. You don’t want to stop, you want to keep on making love to him.
I heaved a giant sigh. Ben was right: I was crazy. How could he possibly love me? And come to think of it, he hadn’t said he loved me since I’d told him about Cash. In fact, he hadn’t spoken about Cash at all, he had just held me, let me weep on his shoulder, his stubbled face pressed against my tear-wet cheek. He had stroked back my hair, undressed me, put me to bed, covered me gently with a lavender-scented linen sheet. He’d climbed in next to me and held me close, and, still crying, I had fallen asleep in his arms.
This is the end, I told myself, hurrying down the stairs in search of him. I would tell him I was leaving right away, that I wouldn’t fight him any longer for the villa. My summer in Tuscany was almost over. Soon I would return to New York and that same old reality. Back to the emergency room, back to Livvie’s school, Nonna’s Sunday lunches. My heart sank at the thought of losing all this beauty. But it wasn’t meant for me.
I found Ben in the stable yard, checking the lack of progress on the remodeling of the stables into guest cottages. His eyes met mine. There was no smile, he just said good morning, and I said good morning back, nervous as a new kid at school. I suddenly felt I didn’t know him; I didn’t know what to say. I heard a telephone ringing.
He fished a cell phone from his pocket, said, “Yes, hi,” and “Is that right?” He wrote something on the back of an old receipt and said, “Okay, Maggie. Just tell the famous detective he’d better not be giving me the runaround again. See you soon.”
He clicked off the phone and looked at me. “I’m off to Rome,” he said. “Back on the trail. Want to come?”
“Do you still want me to?” I held my breath, waiting for his answer.
He shrugged, put the phone back in his pocket. “It’s in your interest, after all.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
We looked at each other. Things had changed between us, there was no doubt about that. He nodded. “You know I do,” he said.
We didn’t talk much on the drive down, and certainly not about Cash. Nor about love. By some unspoken agreement, we did not mention the previous night and my confession that I still loved Cash. I put my head back and closed my eyes and pretended to be dozing. It seemed like the easiest way to avoid a confrontation.
It was high season, and there were no rooms at the Hassler. We were at the Crown Plaza Minerva, overlooking a pretty piazza with, in the center, Bernini’s exotic statue of an elephant supporting an ancient Egyptian obelisk, and, across the way, the beautiful thirteenth-century gothic church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. And right around the corner was that ancient temple built by Marcus Agrippa whose ruins had stopped me in my tracks and which had been my first real taste of Rome.
Our suite was smart in forest green and burgundy, a modern setting in an ancient refurbished palazzo. I looked around, thinking I was getting too used to the suite life and had better get my head back into reality and start thinking about the trauma room again because it was looming ever closer.
I stared at the two beds, wondering if Ben had asked specially for them. Obviously we were to sleep separately tonight. I began to unpack my small bag, but Ben told me there was no time to waste, and soon we were in a cab on our way to Trastevere.
Trastevere is across the Tiber, that great green river that bisects Rome. Manual workers, artisans, and poor laborers had once lived in its narrow alleys and tiny squares, but now almost every street was crammed with tiny mom-and-pop-style
trattorie,
every square a backdrop to espresso cafés, and every alley a haven for a somnolent population of cats.
The cab dropped us at the entrance to a dingy cul-de-sac littered with orange peels, plastic bags, and old newspapers. The crumbling buildings leaned into each other, blocking out the light, and the tiled roofs were a grim forest of TV antennas.
I stepped gingerly through the debris. “I don’t get it,” I whispered, because somehow the dark, creepy alley lent itself to whispers. “Why would Donati be living here? He’s a rich man. He stole all that money from you, and probably more from the count’s estate.”
From the corner of my eye I saw a gray shadow run past. I yelled and threw myself, panicked, at Ben.
“Omigod,”
I said, quoting my daughter.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared of rats?” Ben untangled my arms from around his neck.
I shuddered. “I never could stand them, even in the lab. It’s just something about their tail. Plus they carry disease, bubonic plague and…like that.”
“And when was the last case of bubonic plague you heard about?”
“Well, 1480, somewhere around there, I guess,” I admitted. “But I still hate rats.”
We were now standing outside a narrow five-story building. Its dirty yellow stucco outer coat had peeled away in giant layers, revealing raw-looking wounds of old brick beneath. A battered wooden door with a massive iron ring for a handle led into a small hallway, where a bare staircase zigzagged to the top, and a grimy skylight let in no light at all. There were no other windows, and when the door closed behind us, we were in darkness.
I felt my throat constrict in that old panic about the dark, until Ben found the light switch, took my hand, and led me reluctantly up the rickety stairs.
“This can’t be the right place,” I muttered. Then the light went out, and Ben disappeared. Darkness pressed against my eyelids, touched my hair, shivered down my spine.
“Where are you?” I whispered urgently, just as the light went on again.
He was leaning over the stair rail looking down at me. “It’s on a timer,” he said. “You’ll have to make a run for it.”
I shot up those splintery wooden stairs, arriving just as the light went out again. “I hate this,” I muttered. “I just hate it.”
“Aw, come on,” Ben said. I could see his teeth gleaming in the darkness and knew he was laughing at me.
In front of us was a chipped brown wooden door with a metal number plate. Ben was already trying the handle. “Shouldn’t we knock first?” I asked nervously. But then it opened, just like that.
I followed Ben cautiously into a small attic room. A couple of tiny dormer windows poked out over the street. There was a rumpled bed in one corner, a tiled counter piled with dirty glasses and plates, a littered table in front of a stained brown velvet sofa, and a dusty wooden floor with a red shag rug. And no Donati.
“Let’s go,” I said, already backing out of there, but Ben held up his hand for silence. I watched, astonished, as he tiptoed toward the only closet. Did he really think Donati was
hiding
in there? He flung open the door.
We looked at the white linen jacket swinging on a metal hanger. “That’s your best imitation of Inspector Clouseau yet,” I said, giggling.
“Y’know what, Doc, you can be a real pain sometimes.” He was already going through the jacket pockets. “And anyhow, didn’t Don Vincenzo tell you that Donati always wore white linen suits? This is his all right.”
He moved to the pile of old papers on the table. “See, Donati
was
here,” he said triumphantly, showing me a torn scrap of paper with the penciled letters
DON
.
“You call that evidence?” I thrust it back at him.
“Sure it’s evidence. Donati was here, but he’s flown the coop. Once again, we’re too late.”
“What do you mean,
once again
?” I stumbled behind him back down the filthy stairs. “We’ve never been anywhere near Donati.”
The heavy front door slammed behind us. I turned and saw a man standing at the end of the street. He was small and thin, with a pencil mustache, a panama hat—and a white linen suit. For a fraction of a second, our eyes met. Then he slid out of sight around the corner.
I was already running, yelling his name, but Ben overtook me. He was around that corner seconds before I got there. I shaded my eyes, searching the empty street. It led to a tiny piazza with alleys leading off in every direction. I leaned, panting, against the wall and saw Ben walking back toward me. “Was it Donati?” I gasped.
“I’d be willing to bet on it,” he said.
Defeated, we hurried around several corners until we came to a friendlier area with a little bar, where we had icy shots of grappa and boiling espressos piled with sugar. Numbed by the grappa and focused by the caffeine, we found a cab and drove silently back across the Tiber to our new haven on the beautiful Piazza di Minerva.
I hurried into the shower, washing off the memories of rats and grime and torn pieces of paper with maybe Donati’s name on it. When I emerged, Ben was not there.
I fell naked onto the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. I had ruined everything. Plus we were no nearer finding out who really owned the Villa Piacere than we had been on day one. I was still lying there staring at the ceiling when I heard the door. Ben was back. There was a question in his eyes as he looked at me, and his arms were full of roses. Dozens of them, hundreds maybe, in every possible color, from pale lavender to pure peach to lemon and copper and scarlet.
He flung them on the bed, and I sat up, startled. I touched the soft petals, smelled their fresh scent. “It’s a whole garden,” I said, awed.
“I’m wooing you.” He was on his knees next to the bed. “I figured it was the only way to get to you. I love you, Gemma.”
I melted inside; I hadn’t expected such tenderness, not after what had been said. I was kneeling on the bed looking down at him, and he was kneeling on the floor looking up at me. I felt as though we were in a scene from a Broadway play…guy loves girl, girl loves someone else….
“How do you know it’s love?” I said, uncertain.
“Gemma! I have
feelings
for you!”
Despite my vows, I inched to the edge of the bed, drawn toward him.
“When we make love,” he said, finally speaking the question that had been in his eyes when he entered the room, “and you say you love me, do you mean it?”
I stared at him, and traitor that I was, I was thinking about Cash, how I had yelled that I loved him when we made love. But now…“I didn’t mean it,” I admitted.
He took my hands in his, and we just knelt there, looking at each other. He sighed. “I can see I’ve got my work cut out to convince you.”
“You mean you’re going to keep trying?” I couldn’t keep the catch of amazement out of my voice. Or—universal traitor that I was—maybe it was hope.
He grinned at me then. “I’m a street kid from the Bronx,” he said. “You don’t mess with us guys.”
All of a sudden I slid off the bed on top of him, slamming him to the floor. I heard the crack of his head against the wooden night table and his groan. Then I was bending over him, shrieking “
Omigod, omigod
, are you all right?” and dabbing at the trickle of blood sliding into the silvery bits of his hair, the ones that gave him that distinguished look, which is a long way from the Bronx street kid he used to be.
“Jesus Christ, Gemma,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “You’re even a disaster when you’re on your knees! What the fuck am I gonna do with you?”
I chewed worriedly on my bottom lip. “I don’t know,” I said, stumped.
I heard that rumble of laughter in his chest, then he hauled me from the floor and pushed me back onto the bed, onto the bower of roses.
“I’m crushing my flowers,” I murmured.
“That’s okay.” He was already kissing me.
“I can’t, y’know…love you,” I said, because it was true.
“Remember me?” he said, covering my naked body with kisses. “I always win.”
Come twilight we emerged, like a pair of bats, in search of dinner. We wandered through Rome’s crowded streets, and Ben held my hand. I felt good, female, sensual. My red chiffon dress floated around my knees in the still-hot breeze, I was Violetta di Parma’d all over, my new lipstick had a nice ripe-berry glow, and even my ruby slippers weren’t hurting. In fact, I was totally into that chic Roman woman walk, striding confidently over those lethal cobblestones without once getting my heels stuck.
We strolled down Via della Gatta, named for the small marble statue—ancient, of course, as everything is around here—perched on the cornice of a roof and looking more Siamese than alley cat. Then along Via del Gesù, which turned out to be a Fifth Avenue of shops for ecclesiastical garments in bougainvillea colors: cerise cardinals’ capes and purple bishops’ robes, lavender and pale-green vestments, and gold silk embroidered chasubles. We decided that the Roman clergy must be very well dressed.
In a tiny square in front of a small floodlit palazzo adorned with frescoes, we came across the perfect restaurant: small but busy, and most of it already occupied by a congregation of nuns, noisy as a flight of magpies beneath their new-style wimples. A young priest headed the main table, and I could tell instantly that priests were different in Rome. This one was a hunk, better looking than most movie stars and twice as sure of himself. A definite “Thorn Bird.” Now I knew why they had a Fifth Avenue for the clergy.
The owner showed us to a table and told us that the young priest had just been ordained and that they were celebrating.
We ordered wine and studied the menu, trying not to stare. The waiter brought bread, olives,
bruschetta.
A fork rang against a glass, and we turned in midbite to look. The young priest was on his feet, and as the nuns bent their heads meekly, he began to say grace.
Ben looked at me. “How can we eat when he’s praying?” he whispered, as I hastily bent my head too.
The prayer was a long one. I glanced up at Ben. He guiltily put down the olive that was halfway to his mouth. Another minute passed: the priest was still intoning, and a reverent silence reigned over the restaurant.
“He’s never going to shut up,” Ben whispered.
“Just wait a minute,” I whispered back.
The minute went by, then another, and another. Five minutes, and nobody was even so much as lifting an eyelid, never mind a head.
We were trying to choke back our giggles, but it was impossible, so Ben threw some money on the table, grabbed my hand, and we slid stealthily out of there.
“Buona sera”
—a nuns’ chorus followed us, wishing us good evening.
We were still laughing when we arrived at Nino’s on the Via Borgognona.
“You’re looking very ‘girly’ tonight,” Ben complimented me when we were seated.
“Surprise, surprise, I used to be a girl,” I told him, but I was glad I had dressed up in my new red chiffon, because Nino’s was a place where chic Romans congregated.
It was old Rome, all cream walls and dark wood and ancient white-aproned waiters who let you know that they knew more than you did and that anyhow they had seen it all before. Ben told me Nino’s baby artichokes Roman-style were a treat not to be missed. I saw them on the antipasto table, tiny purple morsels perched on their uppers, stems in the air, lathered in olive oil and garlic, and looking like a miniature forest on a plate. Plus, Ben said, their steak
fiorentina
was not bad either, and their simple tuna with warm cannellini beans was to die for.
The food might be Tuscan and nothing really fancy, but the diners were something else, everyone from rock stars and businessmen and Roman society to ordinary tourists like ourselves. I
loved
it.
Ben was concentrating hard on the menu while sipping a local Frascati. I had only recently discovered that Ben was a wine buff. A connoisseur, in fact.
“The Frascati’s nice,” he said, surprising me.
“Nice? What kind of word is that to describe a wine?”
He threw me a grin that threatened to melt my suddenly too soft heart. The same heart that had the ice around it, never to be melted. He looked so gosh-darn cute in a thin black leather jacket and a blue shirt. I wanted to touch him, but I didn’t.
“Okay,” he said, swirling the inexpensive wine from the Roman hills in his glass and sniffing it. “So this is a fruity little number with a delicate nose.” He paused to take a gulp, and I sincerely hoped he wasn’t going to spit it out again in professional wine-taster fashion. Thank God, he just swallowed it, frowning with pretend concentration.
“A bit short on the palate,” he declared. “But nice. Yes, quite definitely nice.”
We laughed again. Despite the elusive Donati, and the knowledge that soon I would return to my real life, my spirits soared. I was in Rome with my lover, enjoying a fruity little wine and the prospect of some delicious food. And later…Well, I won’t go into what I had in mind for later. But my toes curled just thinking about it.
I had already decided on the artichokes, and then pasta with a porcini mushroom sauce, and I was gazing around the room smiling to myself because I liked what I saw. It’s so
satisfying,
don’t you think, to see people enjoying themselves, each table into its own conversation, its food, its wine?
I was sitting facing the entrance so I saw her come in. My heart dropped. It was the beauteous blond Luiza Lohengrin, on the arm of a much older and not so lovely man, one of those sleek mogul types who looks as though he owns a mega-yacht, with drooping eyes that slide right over you, letting you know he could buy this place—and probably you too—if he wanted. Not only that, but Luiza was wearing
my
dress.
Worse,
she looked better in it than I did, all long tanned legs and perky breasts and wisps of red chiffon.
Of course she zeroed in on Ben, greeting him with kisses on both cheeks. She threw me a cold smile, taking in the matching frock.
“It’s so nice to dress down on these warm nights, isn’t it?” she said, knowing I was no competition.
Her companion had not even bothered to stop by our table. He was already over in an important corner, looking bored and checking out who was there. Luiza told us he was a famous movie producer, then she kissed Ben again, lavishly and lingeringly on the mouth this time, while I pretended not to look. She said
arrivederci
to him and left me agape, wondering what had happened to our lovely evening.
“Want to know a secret?” Ben had mischief in his eyes. “Her real name is Monica Grimm.” I stared at him, then we both burst out laughing, and I swear I felt Monica Grimm’s jealous eyes boring into my duplicate red chiffon back.