The Villa

have been able to resist making an entrance or having a confrontation with an enemy she perceived as weaker.
    Pilar nursed her drink and sat patiently. She had a lot of experience with waiting.
    Rene didn't disappoint. She swept in. She was, Pilar supposed, the kind of woman who liked to sweep into a room, trailing furs though the weather was too warm for them.
    She looked well—fit, rested, glowing. Too often in the past, Pilar admitted, she'd studied this stunning and younger woman and felt inadequate in comparison.
    A natural response, she imagined. But that didn't stop it from being foolish and useless.
    It was easy to see why Tony had been attracted. Easier to understand why he'd been caught. Rene was no empty-headed Barbie, but a tough-minded female who would have known just how to get what she wanted, and to keep it.
    "Pilar."
    "Rene. Thanks for meeting me."
    "Oh, how could I resist?" Rene dumped her fur and slid into her chair. "You're looking a little strained. Champagne cocktail," she told the waitress without glancing up.
    Pilar's stomach didn't clench as it once would have. "You're not. You had a few weeks in Europe early this year. It must have agreed with you."
    "Tony and I had planned on an extended vacation. He wouldn't have wanted me to sit home and brood." Rene angled herself, crossed long, silky legs. "That was always your job."
    "Rene, I was never the other woman, and neither were you. I was out of the picture long before you and Tony met."
    "You were never out of the picture. You and your family kept your hooks in Tony, and you made sure he never got what he deserved from Giambelli. Now he's dead, and you'll pay me what you should have paid him." She picked up her drink the minute it was served. "Did you think I'd let you drag his name, and mine by association, through the dirt?"
    "Odd, I was going to ask you the same thing." Pilar folded her hands on the table. A small, tidy move that gave her a moment to gather herself. "Whatever else, Rene, he was my daughter's father. I never wanted to see his name sullied. I want, more than I can tell you, to know who killed him, and why."
    "You did, one way or the other. By cutting him out of the company. He wasn't meeting another woman that night. He wouldn't have dared. And I was enough for him, the way you never were."
    Pilar thought about mentioning Kris, but knew it wasn't worth the effort. "No, I was never enough for him. I don't know who he was meeting that night, or why, but—"
    "I'll tell you what I think," Rene interrupted. "He had something on you, your family. And you had him killed. Maybe you even used that little twit Margaret to do it, and that's why she's dead now."
    Weariness replaced pity. "That's ridiculous, even for you. If this is the kind of thing you're saying to reporters, that you intend to say on television, you're opening yourself up to serious legal action."
    "Please." Rene sipped again. "Do you think I haven't consulted an attorney to see what I can say and how I can say it? You saw to it that Tony was about to be cut off, and that I came away with next to nothing. I intend to get what's coming to me."
    "Really? And since we're so cold-blooded, aren't you afraid of retribution?"
    Rene glanced toward a nearby table. Two men sat, sipping water. "Bodyguards. Round the clock. Don't even bother threatening me."
    "You've created quite a fantasy world, and appear to be enjoying it. I'm sorry about you and Tony, sincerely, as you were perfect for each other. I came here to ask you to be reasonable, to show some decency toward my family and to think of Tony's child before you speak to the press. But that's a waste of time for both of us. I thought you might have loved him, but that was foolish of me. So we'll try this."
    She leaned in, surprising Rene with the sudden and very cold gleam in her eye. "Do what you want, say what you want. In the end, you'll only look ridiculous. And though it's small of me, I'll enjoy that. More, I think, than you will saying it or doing it. Keep being the strident trophy wife, Rene, it suits you," Pilar said as she reached in her purse for money. "Just as those rather gaudy earrings suit you—a great deal more than they did me when Tony gave them to me for our fifth wedding anniversary."
    She tossed a twenty on the table between them. "I'd consider them and anything else of mine he helped himself to over the years full payment. You'll never get anything else out of me, or Giambelli."
    She didn't sweep