The Villa

had already decreed that his children would be guests of the villa during his travel. Still, he would worry about them. About everyone. "I don't like leaving you, either. Come with me."
    "Oh, David." There was a rush of excitement at the thought. The Italian spring, the balmy nights, a lover. How wonderful that her life had taken this turn, that such things were possible. "I'd love that, but it won't do. I wouldn't feel right about leaving my mother just now. And you'd do what you have to do faster and easier if you knew I was here with your children."
    "Do you have to be practical?"
    "I don't want to be," she said softly. "I'd love to say yes, to just run away." Feeling young, foolish, ridiculously happy, she turned in a circle. "To make love with you in one of those huge old beds in the castello. To sneak away for an evening to Venice and dance in the piazza, steal kisses in the shadows of the bridges. Ask me again." She spun back to him. "When all this is over, ask me again. I'll go."
    Something was different. Something… more free about her, he realized. That made her only more alluring.
    "Why don't I ask you now? Go with me to Venice when this is over."
    "Yes." She threw out her hands, gripped his. "I love you, David."
    He went very still. "What did you say?"
    "I'm in love with you. I'm sorry, it's too much, too fast, but I can't stop it. I don't want to stop it."
    "I didn't ask for qualifications, just for you to repeat yourself. This is handy. Very handy." He jerked her forward, and when she started to spill into his arms, he lifted her, spun her in a circle. "I had it figured wrong. By my astute calculations, it was going to take at least another two months before I could make you fall in love with me."
    His lips raced over her face. "It was tough on me," he continued. "Because I was already in love with you. I should've known you wouldn't let me suffer for long."
    She pressed her cheek to his. She could love. Her heart glowed with the joy of it. And be loved. "What did you say?"
    "Let me paraphrase." He eased her back again. "I love you, Pilar. One look at you. One look, and I started to believe in second chances." He brought her close again, and this time his lips were tender. "You're mine."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
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    Venice was a woman, la bella donna, elegant in her age, sensual in her watery curves, mysterious in her shadows. The first sight of her, rising over the Grand Canal with her colors tattered and faded like old ballgowns, called to the blood. The light, a white, washing sun, would sweep over her and lose itself like a wanderer in her sinuous veins, her secret turns.
    Here was a city whose heart was sly and female, and whose pulse beat in deep, dark rivers.
    Venice wasn't a city to be wasted on meetings with lawyers and accountants. It wasn't a city where a man could be content shut up in an office, hour by hour, while the sweet seductress of spring sang outside the stone and glass of his prison.
    Reminding himself Venice had been built on commerce didn't help David's mood. Knowing the curvy streets and bridges were even now jammed with tourists burning up their Visa cards in the endless shops where tacky was often mistaken for art didn't stop him from wanting to be among them.
    It didn't stop him from wishing he could stroll those ancient streets with Pilar and buy her some ridiculous trinket they would laugh over for years. He'd have enjoyed that. Enjoyed watching Theo inhale a gelato like water, listening to Maddy interrogate some hapless gondolier over the history and architecture of the canals.
    He missed his family. He missed his lover. And he hadn't been gone fully sixty-eight hours.
    The accountant was droning on in Italian and in a whispery voice difficult enough to understand when full attention was paid. David reminded himself he hadn't been sent to Venice to daydream but to do a job.
    "Scusi." He held up a hand, flipped over another page of a report fully an inch thick. "I wonder if we might go over this area again." He spoke slowly, deliberately stumbling a bit over the Italian. "I want to make sure I understand clearly."
    As he'd hoped, his tactic hit its target with the Italian's manners. The new section of figures was explained, patiently.
    "The numbers," the Italian said, switching out of compassion to English, "do not match."
    "Yes, I see. They don't match in a number of departmental expenditures. Across the board. This perplexes me, signore, but I'm more