Her Italian Millionaire (13 page)

“Why? Because my cousin Marco is working for the...”

At that moment the kitchen door flew open, Marco and his grandmother came in carrying large steaming bowls of pasta and sauce to the round oak table.

Anne Marie started guiltily and pulled her hand from Rocco's grasp.

“What in the hell is going on here?” Marco asked, glaring at his cousin.

“Niente affatto,”
Rocco said with a shrug. “Just getting acquainted with your friend Ana Maria. You can't have an exclusive on all the pretty women in town, Marco.”

“No, I leave that to you,” Marco said.

Their grandmother shook her finger at both of them. Then she kissed Rocco on the cheek and motioned him to sit at the table. A few minutes later, a young woman with a baby in her arms came in the front door.

Nonna waved her toward a seat at the table. Marco explained she was a next-door neighbor and her name was Magdalena and her baby daughter was called Cecilia. They told her Anne Marie was a tourist and Magdalena asked where she was going next.

“A Paestum,”
Anne Marie said.

“Per macchina?”

“No, per autobus,”
Anne Marie said.

“Santo Cielo,”
Magdalena said, clapping her hand to her forehead..
“No lei sentire? El autobus e soppresso.”

“What?” Anne Marie said.

“She says the buses aren't running. The drivers are on strike,” Marco said.

“Oh, no.” Now what? She had to get to Paestum tonight or Giovanni would think she'd stood him up and she wasn't coming.

“Don't worry,” Rocco said. “I'll drive you there.”

“No you won't,” Marco said. “She's going with me. It's already been decided.”

“Is that true?” Rocco asked.

Anne Marie looked from one man to the other. She had to get to Paestum by ten. Giovanni had told her to come alone. Which man would she have the least trouble getting rid of?

“Nothing has been decided,” she said. “Excuse me. I have to make a phone call.
Telefono
. Is that all right?”

Nonna waved her hand in the direction of the kitchen. Anne Marie went into the kitchen and closed the door behind her. She stood in the middle of the room listening to the voices from the next room. She put her hand on the old fashioned black telephone receiver that hung on the wall and stared at it. She could call the hotel at Paestum and make sure Giovanni had made a reservation for her. She could ask the desk clerk if anyone had asked for her.

Another idea - She could use her calling card to call home and find out what had happened at the wedding. Or she could walk quietly out the back door, take her suitcase from the trunk of Marco's car, and walk down the side streets until she found a taxi to take her to Paestum and leave Marco and his cousin Rocco behind. She stood there, wavering. She didn't really care what Marco or Rocco would think if she left. But Nonna was a different matter. She didn't want that dear old lady to think she didn't appreciate her offer of lunch. Then there was the lunch itself. Maybe she could eat first and sneak out afterward.

Before she could do any of these things, there was a loud crash in front of the house and the sounds of glass splintering and metal crunching.

Anne Marie stood frozen in place on the rustic earth-tone tiles in the kitchen listening to the shouts from the other room, then footsteps and the slamming of the front door. Finally her feet propelled her through the kitchen door past the empty dining room table laden with bowls of pasta and sauce and out the front door. There a crowd of neighbors, including Marco, his grandmother and his cousin had gathered around Marco's car with its rear end smashed and shards of glass and chrome in the street.

Anne Marie felt like she'd stumbled into an Italian movie, with extras on the sidelines, gesturing and shouting. Marco, obviously the star of the movie, with his dark good looks, his eyes narrowed, his jaw like granite, stared at his damaged car in disbelief. In the distance, instead of a siren, the piercing sound of two-pitched horns indicated that at least one fire truck and certainly the police were on their way.

What if this was all part of the ongoing drama that had begun yesterday, starring Marco? What part would she play? The innocent tourist who was drawn unwittingly into a dark, dangerous intrigue? No one knew where she was. What if they really had been followed this morning and now the police were coming to round them all up and take them to some dark, dank prison where no one spoke English. She'd be put in a cell with prostitutes who would laugh at her clothes and her innocence. She'd try to call the American Embassy, but her calling card wouldn't work, and her passport would be taken away along with her purse. Her heart pounded.

“Marco is very upset,” Rocco said, sidling up to Anne Marie and jostling her out of her reverie. “He loved his Alfa Romeo very much. More even perhaps than he's ever loved a woman.”

By the look on Rocco's face, Anne Marie gathered this was saying quite a bit. “What happened?” she asked.

“Someone hit him from the rear,” he said. “It looks serious. The trunk is crumpled, his gas tank ruptured and maybe even his rear axle is damaged.”

“The way Italians drive, I'm surprised there aren't more accidents,” she said.

Rocco shook his head. “This was not an accident.”

She frowned. “What do you mean? Why would anyone rear-end a parked car on purpose?”

“Marco has more than a few enemies,” he said.

“Really? He seems so...” What could she say, seems so friendly, so solicitous, so generous... On the other hand there was a mysterious side to him. Among other things, there was that altercation in the restaurant last night. But it was one thing to slap your boyfriend and quite another to ram his car.

“Ah, yes, 'seems,'” Rocco said with a smirk. “Marco seems many different things to many different people. I've known him all my life, but only Marco knows who Marco really is.”

Before she could get any more information from him, Marco walked over to them, his expression stern. “Go in the house now,” he said to both of them. “The fire truck is going to spray some foam on the engine to keep it from catching on fire. Everyone must get off the street. My grandmother is anxious about the food getting cold. I will join you as soon as I fill out some forms and make a report to the police.”

“How did it happen?” Anne Marie asked, still wondering if someone would really destroy his car on purpose.

Marco shrugged. “Just an accident. Nothing serious.”

“Nothing serious? Your car is ruined and Rocco said...”

Marco shifted his gaze to his cousin and raised his eyebrows. Immediately Rocco changed his story.

“I only said you were lucky you weren't in it when the accident happened.”

Anne Marie was amazed at how easily the lie rolled off his tongue and how easily Marco accepted it. There was an undercurrent here that she didn't understand. Maybe because she wasn't Italian or because it was a guy thing. Whatever it was, soon they were back at the dining table, everyone but Marco, and it was hard to tell there'd been a disaster outside. Marco's grandmother was ladling sauce onto the pasta and urging everyone to eat. Rocco was pouring wine and Magdalena's baby had fallen asleep in her lap. As far as Anne Marie could tell, listening to the babble in Italian with Rocco translating from time to time, no one spoke of the accident, or the non-accident, whatever it was.

When Marco came in, his grandmother passed him a plate of pasta and he began to eat as if nothing had happened. Only the set of his jaw and a deepened line between his eyebrows hinted that anything was wrong. After a few minutes of trying to follow the conversation Anne Marie felt bold enough to ask a few questions of her own.

“Is everything straightened out?” she asked Marco who was seated across from her. “I mean with the police and so forth.”

“More or less. As you saw, the car is damaged. I don't know if it's worth repairing or not. The tow truck is on its way. In the mean time I must rent a car, but there isn't anything available. The tourists have cleaned out all the rental agencies.”

He certainly didn't sound like a man devastated by the loss of a beloved car, Anne Marie thought. Perhaps Rocco exaggerated or maybe Marco was good at hiding his true feelings.

“I still don't understand how someone could have hit a parked car from behind with such force,” she said. “I was wondering if it had something to do with being followed when we were...”

She stopped abruptly when Marco sharply nudged her with his knee under the table.

“Followed?” Rocco said, setting his fork down. “Who was following you?”

“No one,” Marco said. “She is mistaken. Americans have imaginations which are, how do you say, overbaked?”

Rocco reached for Anne Marie's hand. “Don't worry, my car is here and I'll drive you wherever you need to go.”

“There must be another way besides the bus or car,” she said, pulling her hand back. She did not want to get involved with another Moretti or be indebted to anyone. She looked around the table. “Train...boat...?”

Magdalena nodded.
“Si, barca per Salerno.”

“That's right,” Marco said. “There is a boat to Salerno. We can take you to the dock where you can catch it. From Salerno you can take a train or bus to Paestum.”

“Perfect,” Anne Marie said with a surge of relief. She would be on her own, away from the man to whom unexpected violent things seemed to happen and away from his eccentric but charming family, too. She would be on her way to meet Giovanni at last. And alone.

“What is not so perfect is that your suitcase has been damaged.” Marco said. “I am afraid your clothes have been soiled by petrol when the gas tank ruptured. I'm sorry.”

Her heart sank. She'd forgotten her suitcase was in the trunk. How could she continue her vacation without the clothes she'd so carefully selected from catalogs for their easy wash n' wear characteristics, their many pockets and sturdy zippers, their matching coordinates and wrinkle-proof fabrics?

No matter how anxious she was to survey the damaged suitcase, she soon realized that nothing could or should interrupt an Italian meal, no matter how casual the gathering. Not until everyone had eaten at least two helpings of pasta and several pieces of warm crusty bread, and drained their wine glasses, could she go outside with Marco to look at her bag he'd placed on the front porch.

She gasped at the sight of the smashed suitcase with a gash on one side and a huge ragged hole on the other. The lock had sprung open and she could see her clothes were indeed coated with thick, smelly gasoline.

“Mamma mia,
” his grandmother said from the doorway. She pressed her hand to her heart and exclaimed at the sight. Magdalena, who'd left her sleeping baby in the living room, wrinkled her nose when she got a whiff of the flammable liquid. Rocco hovered over Anne Marie's shoulder, surveying with undisguised interest her once-pristine new underwear, now gasoline drenched and reddish colored, and Marco looked like he wished he'd never seen her or her suitcase. She was sorry about his car, but glad that he had more to worry about than getting her to Paestum and being her tour guide.