Surprised by Love Read Online Free PDF

beside her again, careful not to sit too close.  He smiled to
himself.  Usually he had to guard against some woman crowding him, but
that was not the case here, nor would it ever be, he figured.  As a
business man, he could only be grateful that Connie had decided to keep men at
a distance—yet, he couldn’t help wishing that in time she would encourage a
closer relationship.
    They
sat companionably together, sipping, idly chatting.  At one point, he
said, “I’ll have to go to Italy some time soon—not merely for business, but
also to see my Nonna— who is a bit frail—and my mother, who has been slow
to recover from influenza.”  He smiled whimsically.  “In a way that
was a bit of relief for me—from her never-ending attempts to get me married off
to one of her friends’ daughters.  Deeply boring young women,
convent-educated and born to shop.”
    Connie
nodded.  “Your father is no longer alive?”
    He
shook his head.  “No.  A heart attack, out of the blue, as far as we
could tell.  His doctor later said that he had been warning my father to
live a bit more carefully—but that wasn’t his nature.”
    “I’m
sorry for your loss,” Connie said quietly. 
    Alessandro
nodded.  “Thank you,” he said almost formally.  His voice changing
back to its usual friendly tone, he asked, “Tell me something about
yourself?  All I know about you is that you’re a widow, and that your
husband turned out not to be worth grieving for, and it made you decide never
again to let a man into your life.  I can’t help wondering what terrible
thing he did to you that caused your total aversion to men—would you mind
telling me?”
    Connie
put her flute down and turned fully to Alessandro.  “Of course I’ll tell
you.  You realize that when someone has been in a terrible, fatal
accident, the authorities keep the body for an autopsy, until they are sure
what happened.  In this case, they soon realized that my husband died in a
chain-reaction pile-up, and they delivered the body quickly to the funeral
directors I had hired.  They organized a visitation—closed casket—and then
a memorial service and cremation.  Of course I was deeply upset that Bob
had to die in that horrible way, although I must confess that deep down I
thought that I could get rid of that ostentatious house, and find real work
again.”  Connie reached for her flute and took another sip.
    “The
day after the memorial service, a young woman came to the house.  The
butler—yes, of course Bob had a butler—came to enquire whether I wanted to
receive the person.  That butler was as big a snob as Bob, and the way he
said ‘the person’ made me realize he didn’t approve of her for some
reason.  So of course I said I would see her.”  Connie glanced at
Alessandro, but he sat quietly beside her, all his attention on
her.   She went on. 
    “She
was a very pretty young woman, who introduced herself as Violet Griffiths. I
thought she was some relation of Bob’s who had just missed his memorial
service.”  Connie shook her head.  “No.  She explained that she
was Bob’s wife, and she apologized for bothering me, his ex, but Bob had told
her he had to visit Ocean Breeze and sort something out with his ex.  And
she hadn’t seen him since.  Could I tell her where he had gone after
sorting out whatever it was with me and my lawyer?”
    She
glanced at Alessandro, whose sudden intake of breath indicated his shock at
what he was hearing.
    She
went on.  “Violet was so nice, and so obviously deeply in love with
Bob.  How could I tell her that he had married her bigamously, that I was
his legal widow?”  Connie shook her head.  “No.  I let her
continue to think I was his ex, and told her that he had been in a terrible
accident on his way back to her.  It didn’t occur to her to think that it
was passing strange his body had not been delivered to her.  She seemed
quite naïve—apparently she thought that the