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The caption beneath read Luscious Louisa—Back Again?

Luscious Louisa?

“Isn’t that the woman who owns the palazzo?” Vitale looked over at him.

Nico didn’t answer, but the news reader droned on. “...key witness in prosecuting her husband, Steven Clark, for investment fraud and money laundering. Clark is currently serving seventy-five years...”

He remembered reading about the case. Clark’s pyramid scheme had been a huge scandal. Several European businessmen had lost millions investing with him. And Louisa had been his wife and testified against him?

No wonder she’d run to Italy.

Another picture was on the screen; one from the royal wedding. Nico gritted his teeth as a thousand different emotions ran through him. The presenter was talking about Louisa as if she were some kind of siren who’d led Clark to his doom. Had they met the woman? Alluring, yes, but dishonest? Corrupt?

His ringtone cut into his thoughts. Keeping his eyes on the television, he pulled his phone from his back pocket.

“Have you seen the news?” Dani asked when he answered.

“Watching it right now,” he replied. On-screen, the presenter had moved on to a different headline.

“The story’s on every channel. It’s all anyone in the restaurant can talk about.”

It’s untrue
, he corrected silently. The ferocity of his certainty surprised him. He had not one shred of evidence to support his belief, and yet he knew in his bones that Louisa wasn’t guilty of anything. One merely had to look in her eyes to know that whatever the press said, they didn’t have the entire story.

“Did you know?” he asked Dani. Rafe’s wife was Louisa’s closest friend. If Louisa had told anyone of her past...

“No. She never talks about her life before she got here,” Dani answered. “Hell, she barely talks about herself.”

Nico’s gut unclenched. Silly, but he’d felt strangely hurt at the idea of Louisa sharing her secrets with someone else.

“There are reporters all over town,” Dani continued. “One even came in here asking questions. I’ve been trying to call her since the story broke to see if she’s okay, but she’s not answering her phone.”

“Probably avoiding the press.”

“I’m worried, though. She’s so private, and to have her life story plastered all over the place...”

Terrifying.
“Say no more,” he replied. “I’ll head right over.”

* * *

Louisa had lost track of the time. Curled in the corner of her sofa, away from the windows, she hugged her knees and tried to make her brain focus on figuring out the next step. Obviously, she couldn’t stay in Monte Calanetti. Not without tainting the village with her notoriety. And going back to Boston...well, that was out of the question. What would she do? Go to her mother’s house and listen to “I told you so” all day long?

Louisa hugged herself tighter. Ever since seeing the media alert, there’d been a huge weight on her chest, and no matter how hard she tried to take a deep breath, she couldn’t get enough air. It was as though the walls were closing in, the room getting smaller and smaller. She didn’t want to leave. She liked her life here. The palazzo, the village...they were just starting to feel like home.

She should have known it wouldn’t last. Steven’s shadow was destined to follow her everywhere. For the rest of her life, she would be punished for falling in love with the wrong man.

“...you’re doing?” A giant crash followed the question. The sound of tinkling glass forced Louisa to her feet. Running to the terrace door, she peered around the corner of the door frame in time to see Nico dragging a stranger across the terrace toward the wall. The crash she’d heard was her breakfast table, which now lay on its side, the top shattered.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” she heard the stranger gasp. “This is my exclusive.”

“Exclusive this,” Nico growled. Holding the man’s collar in one hand, he yanked the expensive camera the man carried from around his neck and hurled it over the wall.

“Bastard! You’re going to pay for that.”

“Be glad it was only your camera.” Nico yanked the man to his feet only to shove him against the railing. “Now get out. And if I ever see your face in the village again, you’ll find out exactly what else I’m capable of breaking, understand?” He shoved the man a second time, with a force that made Louisa, still hidden behind the door frame, jump. Whatever the reporter said must have satisfied him, and Nico released his grip on the man’s shirt. Louisa stepped back as the man started toward the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Nico asked, his hand slapping down on the man’s shoulder. “Leave the way you came in.”

“Are you kidding? That’s a five-foot drop.”

“Then I suggest you brace yourself when you land.” The two men stared at one another for several seconds. When it became obvious Nico wasn’t backing down, the reporter hooked a leg over the railing.

“I’m calling my lawyer. You’re going to pay for that camera.”

“Call whoever you’d like. I’ll be glad to explain how I’m calling the police to report you for trespassing on private property. Now are you leaving, or shall I throw you over that railing?”

The reporter did what he was told, disappearing over the rail. Slowly Louisa stepped into the light. Nico’s shoulders were rising and falling in agitated breaths, making her almost afraid to speak. “Is he gone?” she asked in a soft voice.

“Is he the first one?” he asked, voice rough.

He turned, and the dark fury Louisa saw on his face had her swallowing hard to keep the nerves from taking over her throat. She nodded. “I think so.”

“He was climbing over the wall when I got here. Probably saw your terrace door was open and thought he could catch you up close and off guard.”

“In Boston, they preferred using telephoto lenses.”

“You’re not in Boston anymore.”

“I know.” She should have realized how ruthless the press would be. After all, this was Italy; they’d invented the word
paparazzi
.

“At least you won’t have to worry about this one trespassing again. That is, if he’s smart.”

“Thanks.”

“Can’t promise there won’t be more, though,” he said brushing past her. “You’d best be prepared.”

More
. He was right, there would be others. It was all she could do not to collapse in a heap where she stood. Those months of hiding in Boston had nearly destroyed her. She wasn’t up to another go-round. The stranger on her terrace was proof enough of that. If Nico hadn’t shown up when he did...

Why had he shown up? Returning to her living room, where she found her neighbor searching through the bookshelf cabinets. “What are you doing?”

“Carlos kept a stash of fernet tucked in back of one of these cabinets. Do you still have it?”

“Two doors to the left.” She hadn’t gotten around to finding a better location. “I meant why are you here?”

“Dani called me. She saw the news on television.”

“Let me guess, she’s horrified to find out who she’s been friends with and wants me to stay away so I won’t drag the restaurant into it.” Seeing the same darkness on Nico’s face that she’d seen a few moments ago, it would seem her neighbor felt the same way.

“What? No. She and Rafe are trying to figure out what’s going on. A reporter came to the restaurant asking questions.” He paused while he pulled a dust-covered bottle from the cabinet. “She said she tried calling you a half dozen times.”

That explained some of the phone calls then. “I wasn’t answering the phone.”

“Obviously. They asked if I would come over and make sure you were okay. Good thing, too, considering you were about to have an unwanted visitor.”

He filled his glass and drank the contents in one swallow. “This is the point in our conversation where you suggest that I’m an unwanted visitor.”

“What can I say? I’m off my game today.” She sank into her corner and watched as Nico drank a second glass. When he finished, he sat the empty glass on a shelf and turned around. He wore a much calmer expression now. Back in control once again.

“Why didn’t you say anything about your former husband?” he asked.

And say what?
My ex is Steven Clark. You know, the guy who ran the billion-dollar investment scam. I’m the wife who turned him in. Maybe you’ve read about me? They call me Luscious Louisa?
She plucked at the piping on one of the throw pillows. “The idea was to make a fresh start where no one knew anything about me,” she replied.”

“You know how unrealistic that is in this day and age?”

“I managed it for nine months, didn’t I?” She offered up what she hoped passed for a smile. Nine wonderful months. Almost to the point where she’d stopped looking over her shoulder.

When he didn’t smile back, she changed the subject. “You said a reporter came into the restaurant?”

“This morning. That’s how Dani knew to turn on the television.”

She could just imagine the questions he’d asked, too. “Tell them I’m sorry. Things will die down once they realize I’m not in Monte Calanetti anymore.”

Nico’s features darkened again. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m catching the bus to Florence tonight.”

“You’re running away?”

He made it sound like a bad thing. “I certainly can’t stay. Not anymore.”

“But the palazzo... What about all your plans for restoring the property and turning it into a hotel? Surely, you’re not planning to abandon Palazzo di Comparino
again
?”

His voice grew harsh on the last word, causing Louisa to cringe. His feelings regarding the palazzo were no secret; to him, the fact she allowed the property to sit unclaimed for so long was as big a crime as anything Steven had done. Of course, she had good reason for the delay, but he didn’t know that.

“Have you seen what they are writing about me?” she asked him. The stories would only get worse. “That guy you threw off my terrace is probably down in the village right now trying to dig up dirt. And what he can’t find, he’ll make up. Whatever he can do to sell papers.”

“So?”

“So, I’m doing Monte Calanetti a favor by leaving. The town is on an economic high. I don’t want to do anything to take that away.” Unable to stand the way his eyes were bearing down on her, Louisa pushed herself to her feet and walked toward the rear corner of the room, as far from the windows—and Nico—as possible. A tapestry hung on the wall there, and she focused on the intricate weave of brown thread. “Better I leave the palazzo empty than stay and let the town become branded as the home of Luscious Louisa,” she said.

“How noble of you, running away without saying goodbye to your friends. I mean, that’s what you were going to do, no? Leave without saying goodbye?”

“Like people would care.” Rejection hurt enough when it was people you didn’t like. The idea of walking down the street and seeing disdain in the eyes of people she cared about made her sick to her stomach. “Trust me, everyone will be more than happy to see me gone.”

“Happy? Did you say we would be happy?” There was the sound of footsteps, and suddenly a hand was on her shoulder, yanking her around and bringing her face-to-face with a pair of flashing brown eyes. So angry; so ready to correct her.

It was instinctive. The corner of her vision caught his hand starting to rise, and she couldn’t help it.

She flinched.

* * *

Madonna mia
, did she think he was going to strike her? As he raked his fingers through his hair—completing the motion he’d started before Louisa recoiled—Nico felt his hand shaking. What scared him was that he did want to hit something. Not Louisa. Never Louisa. But something. The wall. That miserable paparazzo’s face. So much for the liquor calming his nerves. The swell of anger that he’d been fighting since seeing the news was pushing hard against his self-control. Mixing with another emotion, one he couldn’t identify but that squeezed his chest like a steel band, the feelings threatened to turn him into someone he didn’t recognize.

How could she just leave Monte Calanetti? For nine months they’d treated her as one of their own, made her part of their family, and she didn’t think they cared? Did she truly think so little of them?

He felt betrayed. “If you think so little of us that you believe we would let a few gossip articles sway our opinion, then perhaps you should go somewhere else,” he said. “After all these months, you should now have realized that people in Monte Calanetti are smarter than that.”

“That include Dominic Merloni?”

The banker? What did he have to do with anything?

“He canceled our meeting as soon as the news broke. He won’t be the only person to cut me off. Just the first.”

“Dominic Merloni is an arrogant bastard who thinks everyone in the village should worship him because he once played football for Genoa.”

“That’s not what you said about him this morning.”

“This morning I was being polite.” But if she was going to be irrational, then there was no need to keep up the pretense. “I’m talking about the people who matter. Like Dani, your supposed
best friend
. You think she is so petty?”

“Of course not,” she replied. “But Dani loves everybody.”

“Yes, she does, but you were going to leave her without saying goodbye anyway.”

“I already told you, I’m—”

“Yes, yes, doing the village a favor. Let us start organizing the benediction. Saint Louisa the martyr. Abandoning Palazzo di Comparino for the good of the people.”

Louisa stood with her arms wrapped around her as though they were the only thing holding her up. As far from the woman he’d come to know as could be. Where was the haughty American who challenged him on every turn? The hornet who threatened every time he poked her nest? “I don’t know why you care so much,” she muttered.

Nico didn’t know either, beyond the emotions that continued squeezing his chest. He shouldn’t care at all. He should accept the change in circumstance as another one of life’s upheavals and move on.

He couldn’t, though. All he could think about was how the more he watched her retreat into herself, the more he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake the fight back into her. He wanted to...to...