Midnight in Venice (13 page)

 

The staff at the Four Seasons Hotel George V was apologetic. “Pardon, Monsieur,” the clerk said, “the penthouse is still being prepared for you. May I offer you another room in the meantime? Or would you care for champagne in the restaurant while you wait?” Olivia knew enough French from school to understand the clerk, while Alessandro appeared fluent.

“It might be an opportunity for a little sightseeing first,” Alessandro suggested to Olivia. “We have dinner reservations at Le Train Bleu for 8 p.m. What do you think?” He glanced at the clerk, who was taking a call while awaiting their answer, and whispered, “I'd love to buy you a new dress and then undress you. They say abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.”

She laughed. “I don't think that's quite how it goes. I'd love to see some of the city, but you don't need to buy me anything. You can take me out of these clothes just as easily.”

The clerk assured Alessandro the room would be ready within the hour. Back out on the street, they walked toward the Arc de Triomphe, only a few blocks away. The winter light was bright, and it was cool but not cold. They stood at the edge of the Place Charles de Gaulle and admired the monument honoring French soldiers.

“I'll have the hotel arrange a private tour for us later if you'd like,” he said.

“I know we don't have a lot of time. Can we do the Eiffel Tower instead?”

“We can do anything you'd like. Remember, your wish is my command.”

“You'd better be careful about that.”

“Now, about that dress . . .”

She smiled. “All right, if you insist.”

She was about to step into the zebra crossing behind the other pedestrians when suddenly Alessandro grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “Watch out,” he said sharply.

“What is it?” she asked just as a car barreled toward the crossing. The street was so busy it was understandable she'd missed it. But Alessandro was a race-car driver, and his life depended on expecting the unexpected.

There was a cacophony of honking horns while pedestrians bolted out of the street. Just as it appeared everyone would make it to safety, a teenager, head lowered over his phone as he texted, stepped off the sidewalk, completely unaware he was about to be mowed down.

Before Olivia even registered what was about to happen, Alessandro ran over and caught the boy by his shirt. He staggered back into Alessandro, and for a moment both of them teetered on the edge on the boulevard.

The brakes squealed, and the car spun in the intersection before sliding sideways toward Alessandro and the boy.

The boy screamed, and Alessandro, recovering his balance, pulled him onto the sidewalk.

Still the car kept coming, and Olivia suddenly realized the sidewalk was no longer safe. But while her head knew it, her feet refused to move—she was frozen to the spot!

Then Alessandro swept her up with his free arm, and the three of them flew across the sidewalk between the chestnut trees and onto the concrete. The car kept coming, over the curb, over the very place she'd been standing a second ago, before crashing into a lamppost in a screech of breaking glass and metal.

“Are you okay?” Alessandro said, helping her to her feet.

“Yes, I'm fine. Just shaken up.” She looked at the boy getting to his feet, still clutching his phone. “Are you all right?” she asked him in French.

“Yeah,” he said as he stared at the wreck of the car that had come so close to killing him.

“Call the police,” Alessandro said, also in French. “Ask for an ambulance too.” The boy snapped out of his stupor and dialed the emergency number, while all around them people were doing the same.

The driver's door opened, and a middle-aged man, blood running down the side of his face, staggered out into the street, looking as if he intended to flee.

“Stop right there,” Alessandro said, striding over as the man turned to run.

Alessandro was on him in a flash, wrestling a gun from his hand and forcing him to the ground as sirens screamed their arrival.

“Is that her?” the man slurred, pointing wildly in the direction of Olivia, and for a moment their eyes locked. Olivia shuddered at the idea of any woman crossing paths with this guy.

Alessandro took the man's wallet and handed it to one of the police officers, along with his own card. “Alessandro Rossi, Guardia di Finanza in Venice,” he said by way of introduction.

“You know anything about this?” the cop asked, flipping open the driver's wallet. “His identity card says he's Albanian.”

“No, just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he replied.

“Lucky for me,” the teenager said.

As the police stuffed the driver in the back of the police car and started directing traffic around the wreck, Olivia assured Alessandro she didn't need to see the medic. “Just a drink,” she said as they finally crossed the street. “Maybe two. Did you see the way that guy looked at me? It was like he knew me.”

“I pity the woman he
does
know.”

“That's just what I was thinking,” she said as they sat down outside at a café facing the Champs-Élysées and ordered wine.

“Are you sure you're not cold?” Alessandro asked as she adjusted her scarf.

“Absolutely. This is balmy compared to Toronto in February.”

“I think for here too. But after what just happened . . .”

“I'm okay, but I am beginning to think I'm jinxed. Nothing ever happens to me, but since I came to Europe, I seem to be a magnet for trouble.”

“I worry it's because you met me.”

“You don't think this is connected to Dino and what happened at the airport, do you? I remember Marco saying Dino was Albanian.”

“Benito too,” he said. “But there are lots of Albanians in Europe. Almost a million people fled Albania after the fall of communism and the subsequent economic collapse. Maria, the beggar at the Salute, was one of them. Besides, no one knows we're here except Columbo, my partner, and the pilots, and I trust all of them with my life.”

“True. But it is a weird coincidence. And that boy would have been killed if you hadn't acted so quickly.”

“At least now he'll look up from his phone before crossing the street.”

“I could have been killed too—I was right behind him. It certainly is a reminder of how fine the line is between life and death.”

“I think about it all the time.”

“Because of your job, or what happened to your wife?”

He took a sip of wine without answering.

“You have to talk about her,” she said quietly.

He put down his glass. “I was just thinking how to answer you. You're right. I do have to talk about Katarina. I don't want you to think she stands between us. She was very beautiful and smart, but she was also unhappy. She worried all the time.”

“Do you know what she was worried about?”

“Her family's business, for one. It had been struggling under her father's management, but she pulled it back from the brink, even without my money. She worked far too hard and used to question aloud why I loved her. As much as I tried, I couldn't reassure her. Perhaps that's why I had such a hard time accepting her death, because I felt like I failed her in life.”

“Maybe she suffered from depression. Did she seek help?”

“I thought she did. But after she . . . passed away . . . I learned she'd never gone to the doctor she told me she was seeing.”

“I have a friend whose boyfriend committed suicide. She too thought she'd be able to stop his suffering. It took her a long time to get over his death, but in the end she realized that while she couldn't save him, he knew she loved him—and without her, his pain would have been worse.”

“You're very wise,” Alessandro said. “And like your friend, thanks to you, I've come to the same realization. I'm glad you stayed with me last night.”

“Me too,” she said, smiling.

She was about to lean over the table and kiss him when she noticed a woman looking right at Alessandro. Shopping bags hanging off either arm, she covered her mouth as if to stifle a shriek.

“Don't look now,” Olivia said, “but I think someone recognizes you.”

He ignored her advice and turned to follow her gaze.

“It
is
you! Alessandro Rossi!” the woman exclaimed. “I watch your races with my boyfriend!”

“Do you like racing?” Alessandro asked.

The woman laughed, revealing movie-star perfect teeth. “I only watch to watch you. But don't tell him that—he might get jealous.
Mon dieu!
I should introduce myself. I'm Renée.”

“Nice to meet you,” Alessandro said with one of his dazzling smiles. “This is my girlfriend, Olivia. So your boyfriend needn't be jealous.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said to Olivia, who was sure Renée hadn't even noticed her until then. But she didn't care. Alessandro had just introduced her as his girlfriend!

Renée handed her iPhone to Olivia. “I bet you get asked this all the time, but would you mind taking my picture with your boyfriend?”

“Not at all,” Olivia answered, loving the sound of the word
boyfriend
.

Alessandro stood up and put his arm around Renée's shoulder, but the smile he gave the camera was all for Olivia, and she didn't feel the least bit jealous.

“Sorry, hazard of the trade,” Alessandro said when Renée left, though not before planting kisses on Alessandro's cheeks.

She laughed. “That's okay. You have that effect on women.”

“So long as you're not immune to my charms, I'll suffer. I hope you didn't mind me calling you my girlfriend—it makes us sound like teenagers. But then, you make me feel like one.”

“It was sweet . . . boyfriend.”

“I'm glad that's established,” he said as they finished their wine. “Now let's go buy you a beautiful dress for dinner.”

“Okay, but so much for no one knowing where we are. Renée's probably already posted that picture to her Facebook page.”

“As long as her Facebook friends aren't Albanian mobsters, I think we'll be okay.”

Just then, she heard the ping of an incoming text. She pulled out her phone and checked the display. “It's my sister, Claudia,” she said. “She wants me to apply for another admin position at her firm. This is so typical.
Olivia
,” she read aloud, “
Marco told us what happened yesterday. I'm surprised you didn't give Mom a heart attack.
Enough is enough. That admin job you turned down has opened up again, and the application deadline is tomorrow. Get on it and get home. I don't want to have to say ‘I told you so,' but you know I'm right.
”

Alessandro laughed. “That's direct.”

“She is such a control freak. She's convinced I'm pursuing pipe dreams and keeps telling me to get realistic. And after what happened yesterday, she's clearly feeling justified in her opinion of me.”

“What kind of company?”

“Tax accountancy. That's how she met her husband, Phil. She's not only his wife, but his manager too. If it weren't for Happy Spiders, I'd be working there now.”

“Happy Spiders?”

“It's a parody of Angry Birds. Marco designed it. That's how he bought his share of Silvio Milan. You should see the
piano nobile
he bought right by the opera house. It used to belong to a very famous opera singer.”

“I know the one. Wow, he really did do well on his Cranky Spiders.”

“
Happy
Spiders,” she said with a laugh. She was about to put her phone away, the text from her sister unanswered, but Alessandro, grinning, took it.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she watched him type.

“I warned you I felt like a teenager.”

Sorry, in Paris for dinner. Not interested in the job, but may buy the company . . .

Still grinning, he returned her phone. “There. Dare you to send it.”

“You're a troublemaker,” she said, hitting Send anyway. “Now she'll be convinced I'm crazy. I'm sure she'll call Mom right away to tell her. She always was such a tattletale.”

Alessandro leaned across the table and kissed her on the nose. “There's no point dating a billionaire if you can't have fun with it.”

“I guess not,” she said.
Dating
,
boyfriend
,
girlfriend
. . . Never before had words filled her with so much pleasure. She dropped the phone into her purse, and a few moments later they were strolling hand in hand down the Champs-Élysées.

“Tell me more about this sister of yours,” he said. “If she's such a control freak, how does her husband put up with her?”

“Poor Phil is a nice guy, but he doesn't have much of a personality. She actually sets limits on how much TV he's allowed to watch, as if he were a kid.”

“Do they have children?”

“No, and good thing too. It would be like growing up in a boot camp. I'm sure she'd make them go on a ten-kilometer march every morning before breakfast.”

“What will she think of me? After all, I'll have to meet her at some point.”

“That if you worked harder instead of messing around with race cars and playing the piano, you'd be richer. But I still can't wait to see her face.”
Meeting her family?
This really
was
getting serious.

“How is it you're so different?” he asked.

“I don't know. My Dad used to joke she must've been switched at birth in the hospital. ‘No child of your mother and me could have so little imagination,' he used to say. He loved her, of course, but they were never very close.
I wish you could've met my dad. You would have liked him.”

“I wish I could have too. I take it you're more like him.”

“Yes. He worked in a factory building planes, but he really considered himself an artist. He painted every chance he got. The summer before he got sick, he and my mother rented a cottage. Every morning he got up at dawn, walked down to the lake, and took a picture of the sky. Every morning a completely different work of art, he told me. He did three paintings that month. Probably his best, but it's those photos that touch me the most. My mom gave them to me when he died. I'll always treasure them.” This last sentence brought tears to her eyes, and she quickly apologized.