A Marriage Made in Italy

“No phone in the rooms.”

He might have known, considering the low price for accommodations listed on the back wall. “Do you know if she’s in?”

“She went out several hours ago and hasn’t returned.”

He spied a chair against the wall, next to an end table with a lamp on it. “I’ll wait.”

The woman scrutinized him. “Leave me your name and number and she can call you from the desk here after she returns.”

“I’ll take my chances and see if she comes in.”

With a shrug of her ample shoulders, the woman disappeared through the alcove.

Rather than sit here for what might be hours, he phoned one of his security people to do surveillance. When Ruggio arrived, Leon gave him the American woman’s description and said he wanted to be notified as soon as she showed up.

With that taken care of, he walked out to the alley and got in his car. He was halfway to the villa when his cell phone rang. It was Ruggio. Leon clicked on. “What’s happening?”

“The woman fitting the description you gave me just entered. She’s driving a rental car from the airport.”

“Which agency?”

When Ruggio gave him the particulars, Leon told him to stay put until he got there. On the way back to the pension, he called the rental agency and asked to speak to the manager on a matter of vital importance. Once the man heard it was Signor di Malatesta investigating a possible police matter to do with the bank, he told him her last name was Peterson, and that she was from Newburgh, New York. Leon didn’t often use his name to apply pressure, but this case was an exception.

He learned she’d made the reservation nearly two weeks ago and had rented the car for seven days. It seemed she’d already been in Rimini three days.

Leon thanked the manager for his cooperation. Pleased to be armed with this much information before confronting her, he made a search on his phone. Newburgh was a town sixty miles north of New York City. What it all meant he didn’t know yet, but he was about to find out.

He saw the rental car when he drove down the alley and parked. Ruggio met him at the front desk of the pension, where Rosa was helping a scruffy-looking male wearing a backpack and short shorts.

“She’s been in her room since she came in. She’s molta molta bellissima,” Ruggio whispered. “I think I’ve seen her on television.”

Marcello had said the same thing. “Grazie. I’ll take it from here,” Leon told him. If she was working alone or with another reporter, he planned to find out.

Once Ruggio left, he sat down. By now it was quarter after six. Without a TV, she’d probably leave again, if only to get a meal. If he had to wait too long, he’d insist Rosa go knock on Signorina Peterson’s door. To pass the time, Leon phoned Simona, and was relieved to hear his little girl seemed to be over the worst of her bug.

As he was telling his housekeeper he wasn’t sure what time he’d get home, a woman emerged from the alcove. Without warning, his adrenaline kicked in. Not just because she was beautiful—in fact, incredibly so. It was because there was something about her that reminded him of someone else.

She swept past him, so fast she was out the door before he was galvanized into action. After telling Simona he’d get back to her, he sprang from the chair and followed the shapely woman in the two-piece linen suit and leather sandals down the alley to her car.

He estimated she had to be five feet six. Even the way she carried herself, with a kind of unconscious grace, was appealing. Physically, Leon could find nothing wrong with her, and that bothered him, since he hadn’t been able to look at another woman since Benedetta.

“Belle Peterson?”

She wheeled around, causing her gleaming hair, the color of dark mink, to swish about her shoulders. Cobalt-blue eyes fringed with black lashes flew to Leon in surprise. If she already knew who he was, she was putting on a good act of pretending otherwise.

She possessed light olive skin that needed no makeup. Her wide mouth, with its soft pink lipstick, had a voluptuous flare. He found her the embodiment of feminine pulchritude, but to his surprise she stared at him without a hint of recognition or flirtatiousness. “How do you know my name? We’ve never met.”

With that accent, she was American through and through. He found her directness as intriguing as her no-nonsense demeanor. Some men might find it intimidating. Leon’s gaze dropped to her left hand, curled over her shoulder bag and resting against the lush curve of her hip. Her nails were well manicured with a neutral coating. She wore no rings.

If in disguise for a part she was playing—perhaps in the hope of infiltrating their family business in some way to unlock secrets—he would say she looked...perfect.

He pulled the note Berto had given him out of his suit jacket pocket and handed it to her.

She glanced at it before eyeing him again. “Evidently you’re from the bank. How did you get my last name?”

“A simple matter of checking with the car rental agency.”

Her blue eyes turned frosty. “I don’t know about your country, but in mine that information can only be obtained by a judge’s warrant during the investigation of a crime.”

“My country has similar laws.”

“Was it a crime to ask questions?”

“Of course not. But I’m afraid our doors are closed to all so-called journalists. I decided to investigate.”

“I’m not a journalist or anything close,” she stated promptly. Reaching in her shoulder bag, she pulled a business card out of her wallet.

He took it from her fingers and glanced at it. Belle Peterson, Manager, Trans Continental Cell Phones Incorporated, Newburgh, New York...

He lifted his head. “Why didn’t you leave this card at the bank with the security man you talked to?”

Without hesitation, she said, “Because a call to my work verifying my employment would let everyone know where I am. Since my whereabouts are no one’s business, I wish it to remain that way. The fact is, I’m on vacation and it’s almost over.”

He slipped the card into his pocket. “You’ll be returning to Newburgh?”

“Yes. I’ve talked to as many people with the last name Donatello as I’ve been able to locate in Rimini. So far I haven’t found the information I’ve been seeking.”

“Or a missing person, maybe?” he prodded. “A man, perhaps?” The question slipped out, once again surprising him. As if he cared who she was looking for...

Her gaze never wavered. “I suppose that’s a natural assumption a man might make, but the answer is no. Not every woman is looking for a man, whether it be for pleasure or for marriage...an institution that in my opinion is overvaunted.”

She sounded like Leon, only in reverse, increasing his interest.

“To be specific, the manager at Donatello Diamonds directed me to the Malatesta Bank, but it seems I’ve come to a dead end there, too. Since you prefer not to tell me your name, at least let me thank you for the courtesy of coming to the pension to let me know you can’t help me. I can cross Donatello Diamonds off my list of possibilities.”

Like a man concluding a business meeting, she put out her hand for Leon to shake. His closed around hers. Unexpected warmth shot up his arm, catching him off guard before he released her. “What will you do now?”

“I’ll continue to search until my time runs out in three days. Goodbye.” She turned and got in her rental car without asking him for the card back. He watched until she drove to the end of the alley and turned onto the street.

Her card burned a hole in his pocket. He pulled it out. If he phoned the number on the back of it, he’d find out if she’d been telling the truth about her job. But since he was a person who always jealously guarded his own privacy, he could relate to her desire to keep her private life to herself.

No matter what, this woman meant nothing to him. If she’d come on a fishing expedition, he hadn’t given her any information she could use to cause trouble.

By the time he’d driven back to the villa, his thoughts were on his daughter. It wasn’t until later, after he’d kissed her good-night and was doing laps in the pool, that images of the American woman kept surfacing. There was something familiar about her that wouldn’t leave him alone.

A nagging voice urged him to phone the head office of TCCPI, wherever it was located, to find out if she’d fabricated an elaborate lie including a business card. Leon could do that before he went to bed. If he didn’t make the call, he’d never get to sleep.

CHAPTER TWO