The edge was back in her voice, the same edge that was there whenever Elias Stamos or his family was mentioned.
Her bitterness toward Elias and his family had been a part of her for as long as Theo could remember. He knew the last thing she’d want to hear was that the meeting had gone well.
“It went,” Theo said flatly, conscious of Trish’s curious gaze.
“What did you think of them?” his mother pressed. “Do you plan to see them again?”
“I suppose our paths will cross sometime in the future. I’m not sure when.”
That was true, as far as it went. He wasn’t
exactly
sure when they’d be getting together. Dinner with Helena tonight had been discussed but not finalized.
“That family is nothing but trouble,” Tasia said. “Mark my words”
“Look, Mother, I need to go.” Theo refused to waste one more minute of this beautiful afternoon hearing her berate the Stamos family. He’d heard it all before. “Ciao.”
“Anything wrong?”
Theo turned to find Trish staring, a pair of conservative leather loafers in one hand.
“Not at all.” He frowned. “You’re going to buy those?”
“You don’t like them?” She turned the shoes over in her hand, reinspecting them. “They’re a bargain.”
“They just don’t seem like your type of shoes. Too plain.”
“I think you’re being presumptuous.”
“How so?”
“You have this image of me in your head,” she said. “And I’m not sure it’s entirely accurate.”
Actually she was wrong. He didn’t have an image of her fixed in his mind at all. But the more time he spent with her, the more he felt he was getting to know her.
The noise around them dimmed as Trish looked up at him. The only thing he was conscious of was the plump juicy redness of her lips.
“
Signorina,
you like the shoes?” the vendor asked.
Trish blinked and turned to the man. “What?”
“You like the shoes?” The beady-eyed man asked again. “I make you good deal.”
Theo shot the man a black look but he simply smiled and looked at Trish with a hopeful expression.
“I’m not sure,” Trish said. “I think I’ll look a little more before I decide.” She placed the shoes back on the cart and grabbed Theo’s hand. “Let’s explore.”
They’d barely gone five feet when Trish abruptly stopped. “Ariana.”
The librarian whirled, her eyes wide. “Trish. What are you doing here?”
“Shopping.” Trish laughed. “Just like the majority of the passengers who came onshore.”
“Of course,” Ariana said, but Theo noticed the woman’s smile looked strained, and she turned her back on the vendor she’d been speaking with only moments before.
Trish, however, seemed oblivious to Ariana’s discomfort. She glanced over the librarian’s shoulder and her eyes widened at the statuary on display. “Wow. He’s got some nice stuff.”
“It’s okay,” Ariana said. “Nothing spectacular.”
“It’s amazing how real these reproductions can look. If I”
“We don’t have much time left,” Ariana said. “I’m surprised you don’t have a shopping bag already filled with treasures.”
“You’re right,” Trish agreed. “We should get going. So much to see and do and so little time.”
Something that looked a lot like relief filled the woman’s eyes. While Theo had the feeling Ariana was happy to see them go, he knew she couldn’t be as happy as he was…to be alone with Trish once again.
“N
OTHING SPECTACULAR
?” The antiquities vendor raised a brow.
“They were from the ship,” Ariana said in a clipped tone. “I wanted them gone. If I’d raved about your inventory she’d still be here.”
“Not if the man had his way. There was more on his mind than shopping.” The vendor chuckled and made some lurid gestures with his fingers.
It was all Ariana could do not to snap at him. Time
was
racing by and the man was behaving like a blasted adolescent.
“I didn’t come halfway across the world to talk about them,” she said, forcing a conciliatory tone. “What I need to know is, can you get the piece or not?”
“I’m sorry,
signorina,
” the man said, not appearing at all sorry. “Even if I could locate that piece for you, you would not be able to take such an item from the country.”
Another closed door. But she wasn’t about to let him pat her on the head and send her on her way. There was too much at stake. In order to prove her father wasn’t guilty of antiquities theft and restore his good name, Ariana had to investigate all leads.
Leads like dealers who’d been listed as contacts in her father’s notebook. From them she hoped to find out who her father had dealt with at various archaeological sites.
“Look.” Ariana planted both hands on the table and leaned forward. “Does the name Derek Bennett mean anything to you?”
He rubbed his chin, his gaze thoughtful. But the momentary flicker in his eyes told Ariana she’d hit pay dirt.
She held her breath.
“There’s a dig in Paestum, not far from here,” he said finally. “When you get to the site, ask for Nico. Tell him I sent you. He’ll get you what you want.”
Ariana’s head was spinning. After all her searching, she was finally getting somewhere. She cleared her throat. “Does this Nico have a last name?”
The man was silent a moment. “Nico is enough.”
Ariana pulled a tiny notebook and pen from her pocket and wrote the name down, though there was no way she would forget it. “And you said the dig is in Paestum?”
The man nodded.
Ariana glanced at her watch. It was already three. She had to be back on board by five. That still gave her a good two hours. “Is it close?”
“Not too far,” the man said. “About a hundred kilometers from here.”
Ariana mentally converted kilometers to miles and her heart sank. There was no way she could go sixty miles there and back before the ship sailed. “Does Nico work every day?”
The man nodded, making a shooing gesture. “I’m here to sell, not talk.”
Ariana shoved the paper with the contact information into her purse. “Thank you for your help.”
Only after the words had left her lips did Ariana discover she’d wasted her breath. The man had already turned away to talk to a real customer. She didn’t care. She had what she wanted; a name, a contact.
She glanced at her watch again, hoping she’d read it wrong…finding out she hadn’t. No matter how much she wanted to go to Paestum this afternoon, there simply wasn’t time.
There will be other days, she told herself. Other days to talk to Nico. Other days to prove that her father
had
been the Knight-in-Shining-Armor of her youth.
Ariana’s fingers tightened around her bag, remembering those horrible days following her father’s arrest. The prosecutor in the case had been confident he’d get a conviction. Her father had maintained his innocence, and Ariana and her mother had given him their full support.
Unfortunately Derek Bennett had died of a heart attack before he could clear his name. The case had been closed with everyone thinking her father was a crook. That’s why Ariana had resigned her job back in Pennsylvania and joined the cruise ship. The police hadn’t found her father’s notebook with all his contacts listed. Derek had been a curator in a museum and Ariana planned to seek out those contacts and try to clear his name.
Her father was innocent, and as soon as she could get to Paestum, she would start gathering evidence to prove it.
The vendor watched until Ariana was out of sight, then dialed a familiar number. “She came by. It was as I thought.”
“Was she satisfied with your answers?”
“She’s tenacious, this one,” the vendor said. “Talk, talk, talk. I finally told her to go to the site in Paestum and ask for Nico.”
“You sent her here?”
The vendor heard the displeasure in the man’s voice and his palms began to sweat. “Relax. I didn’t tell her anything. And now that you know she’s coming, you can be prepared.”
“Oh, we’ll be prepared all right.” The voice took on a deadly calm. “We know how to handle a woman who asks too many questions and sticks her nose where it doesn’t belong.”
The vendor clicked off the phone, almost feeling sorry for Ariana Bennett. But the man was right about one thing. The woman had stuck her nose where it didn’t belong. And she was just about to learn how dangerous that could be.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
T
RISH HAD JUST GOTTEN OFF
the phone with Cassidy and was refreshing her makeup when Sally came waltzing into the cabin, humming a popular love song.
“Someone is in a good mood,” Trish said, flashing her roommate a welcoming smile.
“Someone is in a
great
mood,” Sally corrected.
“For a second I wondered if you were going to make it back on the ship at all.” Trish kept her tone light. She was, after all, merely Sally’s roommate, not her mother. But she had been worried.
Trish and Theo had waited at the dock for Sally and Bruno for the longest time. She’d tried Sally’s cell but had been unable to reach her. With no Sally in sight, and the time for reboarding the ship ticking down, Trish had decided there had been a mix-up and that Sally was already on board. But when she’d arrived at their cabin and there had been no sign of her friend, her worry meter had started clanging.
“Bruno is very responsible.” Sally sighed. “Sometimes too responsible.”
Trish sensed there was more to that comment but she didn’t ask. Knowing Sally, she’d soon have all the answers.
“Theo and I went to the street market in Naples,” Trish said, dusting her face with powder. “You would have loved it. They were selling anything and everything.”
“Sounds like you had fun, too.”
Trish paused for a moment and reflected on the afternoon. “I had a very nice time. But I’m kicking myself now. I didn’t bring up the contract. Not once in all those hours we were together. What was I thinking?”
“You probably didn’t want to ruin the day,” Sally replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “Anyway, everything doesn’t have to be business.”
Trish understood what Sally was saying but she still felt guilty. Twyla and James were counting on her. She couldn’t help but feel she’d let them down. “I just wish I’d mentioned”
“Did he kiss you?” Sally asked abruptly.
Trish dropped her container of loose powder on the counter with a clatter, remembering the incident in the garden. “No.”
“Why did you say it that way?” Sally looked puzzled. “Don’t you like him?”
“Of course I like him,” Trish said honestly. “He’s a very nice man. But you have to remember that whatever is between us is strictly business. And that’s the way it needs to stay.”
Now
that
, Trish knew, wasn’t entirely accurate, but it was as good an excuse as any. The truth of the matter was, Theo hadn’t kissed her yet. He’d had several good opportunities, and a couple of times she felt sure it was going to happen…then…nothing.
Sally opened her mouth as if to argue, then must have decided against it.
“Enough about me,” Trish said, uncapping a tube of lipstick. “How was your afternoon? What did you and Bruno do?”
Sally kicked off her shoes and flopped back on the bed, a big smile on her lips. “Rode motorbikes. Saw the countryside. Kissed a little.”
The lipstick Trish had been applying took a detour across her cheek. “You did not.”
Sally sat up, resting on her elbows. “You knew we were going to ride the motorbikes.”
“You kissed him?” Trish scrubbed her cheek with a tissue, ignoring the niggling thought that if she’d had the chance she’d have done the same thing.
“It was so romantic.” Sally’s eyes turned dark and dreamy. “We stopped at this grove of olive trees. The sun was shining. Bruno put his arm around me, explaining the difference between black and green olives and…well…suddenly we were kissing.”
“That does sound romantic,” Trish admitted, ignoring a brief stab of jealousy.
“I like him, Trish,” Sally said. “We had so much fun.”
Trish’s heart softened at the barely perceptible quiver in her friend’s voice and the vulnerability in her eyes.
“He lives in Italy,” Trish said reminded her gently.
“He wants to see me again.”
“I’m sure he does,” Trish said. “You’re a wonderful woman. The problem is we’re only going to be in this part of the world for a few more days.”
The minute the words left her mouth Trish wished she could pull them back. All they did was remind her how little time there was to convince Theo to sign and how she’d squandered a whole day of opportunities. Heck, she could have at least mentioned the horses…