Читать книгу Saved By The Ceo - Barbara Wallace, Barbara Wallace - Страница 9
ОглавлениеSCAM KING’S EX HOSTS ROYAL WEDDING
Is Luscious Louisa Looking for a New Partner?
After nine months under the radar, Louisa Clark, the blonde bombshell who seduced and ultimately brought down bogus financier Steven Clark has reappeared. This time in Europe under the name Louisa Harrison...
A BIG FAT PHOTO of her smiling at the royal couple ran under the headline.
The article went on to list her as the owner of Palazzo di Comparino and suggested that hosting the wedding had been her way of snagging a new billionaire husband. Because, after all, that was how she’d landed Steven, right? She was the young femme fatale employee who’d seduced her older boss, only to sell him out when the feds began closing in. Never mind that the narrative didn’t remotely resemble the truth. That she was the one who had been seduced and betrayed. Just as long as the story sold papers.
Louisa tried to breathe, but an invisible hand had found its way to her throat and was choking the air out of her. The site even used that god-awful nickname. Stupid headline writers and their need for memorable alliteration. No way would this be the only article. Not in the internet era when every gossip blog and newspaper fed off every other.
Sure enough. A few shaky keystrokes later, the search results scrolled down her screen. Some of the stories focused on rehashing the case. Others, though, created all-new speculation. One politician in Florence was even demanding an investigation into the al fresco discovered in the palazzo chapel last summer, claiming it could be part of an elaborate art fraud scheme. Every page turned up more. Headline after headline: Ponzi Scheme Seductress Turns Sights on Tuscany and Italy: Lock Up Your Euros! and Royal Scandal! Is Halencia’s Financial Future at Stake?
Oh God, Christina and Antonio. She’d turned their fairy-tale wedding into a mockery. They must hate her. Everyone must hate her. Dani. Rafe. Nico. They loved Monte Calanetti; all they wanted was for their village to thrive, and she was tainting the town with scandal. How could she ever show her face in town again?
The phone rang. Louisa jumped. Don’t answer it. It could be a reporter. Old habits, buried but not forgotten, kicked right in.
Not a reporter, thank goodness. The bank. The name appeared under the number on her call screen. One guess as to why they were calling. Forcing air into her lungs, she answered.
“Signorina Harrison?” an unfamiliar female voice asked.
“Y-yes.” Louisa fought to keep her voice from shaking, and lost.
“I’m calling for Signor Merloni. He’s asked me to tell you he can’t meet with you today. Something has suddenly come up.”
“Right. Of course.” What a surprise. A lump formed in her throat. Only pride—or maybe it was masochism—made her hang on the line and go through the motions. “Did...did Signor Merloni give you a new date?”
“No, he did not,” the woman replied. “I’m afraid his calendar is full for the next several weeks. He’s going to have to call you when a time becomes available.”
And so the ostracism started. Louisa knew the drill. Signor Merloni wouldn’t call back. No one would.
They never did.
Phone dropping from her fingers, Louisa stumbled toward the terrace doors, toward the fresh air and rolling hills she’d come to see as home, only to stop short. Paparazzi could be lurking anywhere, their telephoto lenses poised to snag the next exclusive shot of Luscious Louisa. They could be hiding this moment among the grapevines.
So much for going outside. Backing away, she sank into the cushions when her calves collided with the sofa. What now? She couldn’t call anyone. She couldn’t go outside.
It was just like before. She was a prisoner in her own home.
Damn you, Steven. Even in prison, he was still controlling her life.
* * *
The Brix level matched the portable reading exactly. Nico wasn’t surprised. When it came to grapes, he was seldom wrong. Of course not. Making wine is the only thing you really care about.
The voice in his head, which sounded suspiciously like his former fiancée’s, was wrong. Making wine wasn’t the only thing he cared about; there was his family, too. And tradition, although tradition involved winemaking so perhaps they were one and the same. Still, while he found great satisfaction in bottling the perfect vintage, if Amatucci Vineyards collapsed tomorrow, he wouldn’t collapse in despair. That was his parents’ domain. If he couldn’t make wine anymore, he would cope, the same way he’d coped when Floriana had walked out on him, or whenever he’d come home to discover his parents had broken up—again. Dispassion, when you thought about it, was a blessing. Heaven knew it had saved him from going mad when growing up.
If the trade-off for sanity meant living a life alone, then so be it.
Why was he even thinking about this? Louisa’s comment about needing time for herself, that’s why. Someone had hurt Louisa badly enough that she’d fled to Italy. Her pain was too close to the mistakes he’d made with Floriana. Poor, sweet Floriana. He’d tried so hard to want her properly, but his tepid heart wouldn’t—couldn’t.
Was the man who’d broken Louisa’s heart trying to be something he wasn’t, too? Hard to believe a man would throw her over for any other reason.
“Mario, could you turn down the volume?” he hollered. He could hear the television from in here.
Leaving the beakers he’d been measuring on his lab table, he left his office and walked into the main processing area where Mario and his production manager, Vitale, stood watching the portable television they had dragged from the break room.
“Last time I checked, football didn’t need to be played at top volume,” he said. With the equipment being readied for harvest, it didn’t take much for the noise to reverberate through the empty plant. He motioned for Giuseppe to hand him the remote control. “I didn’t know there was a match today.”
“Not football, signor, the news,” Mario replied.
“You brought the television in here to watch the news?” That would be a first. Football reigned supreme.
“Si,” Giuseppe replied. “Vitale’s wife called to say they were talking about Monte Calanetti.”
Again? Nico would have thought they were done discussing the royal wedding by now. “Must be a slow news...” He stopped as Louisa’s face suddenly appeared on the screen. It wasn’t a recent photo, she was far more dressed up than usual, and it showed her with a man Nico didn’t recognize. A very handsome man, he noticed, irritably.
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.
