The Italian Read Online Free PDF Page A

convicted of accepting a million-euro bribe and the next had been blown to protoplasm by a bomb.
    Stefano had been considered incorruptible.
    It wasn’t much knowledge, but enough to realize that Stefano was a remarkable man. A man to admire. A man who could have lived a life of leisure but chose instead to risk his life to do what was right.
    A man who’d shocked her senses alive.
    She’d once read an article about the science of love at first sight. Eyes meet, hands touch and the body is flooded with natural endorphins. Sweaty palms, racing pulses and quickened breathing—biochemistry at work.
    She’d read about half the article then turned the page, thinking, what nonsense.
    No, it wasn’t nonsense at all.
    With a sigh, she rose and walked out of the park. The noisy crowds and honking horns just outside the gates made her blink. She’d spent the day dreaming of Stefano as some warrior of ancient times, but he belonged here, in the modern world. Machine guns and cellphones instead of armies and cannons. Those strong, tough, unlawyerly hands wielded computer keyboards rather than swords.
    Back in the apartment, she tried to call Gramps. It was four in the afternoon, ten in the morning back home. What was he doing now?
    She smiled. He was probably out pruning his prize roses. Or maybe he was already sitting down at his desk, working on that endless biography of some terminally boring French diplomat of the seventeenth century.
    She listened to the phone ringing at the other end. The garden it was. He rarely left the house in the mornings. She hung up, waited half an hour and tried again. She so wanted to talk to him. Gramps was sharp and would probably pick up on her interest in Stefano; still, she knew she could charm a lot of information out of him.
    Though not today, apparently. He just wasn’t answering. She put the phone down. It rang immediately, the noise loud in the silent room.
    “Yes?”
    “What will you be wearing tonight?” Stefano Leone’s deep voice sent shivers so intense down her spine, it took a moment to grasp what he’d said.
    “Wearing?” Her mind blanked. What would she be wearing? “Ah—” The shock of hearing his voice when she’d been half-expecting to hear her grandfather’s had her heart beating double-time.
    “Well?”
    The tone wasn’t impatient but she could imagine him on the other end of the line, dark eyes narrowed, awaiting her answer.
    “Green,” she managed. “A green dress.”
    “Short or long?”
    Baffled, she answered, “Short. Knee-length.”
    “I’ll see you tonight,” he said, and hung up.
    “Well,” she breathed, as she stared at the phone in her hand. She waited for her heart to slow down then went in search of her green dress.
    * * * * *
     
    It seemed as if eight o’clock would never come and then it came too soon. The doorbell rang as she was applying mascara. She rushed to turn out the lights and pick up her evening bag, then opened the door.
    She instantly stepped back, clinging to the edge of the door, eyes wide.
    There were five armed men, none familiar. A platoon had been sent to pick her up.
    “ Signora .” One of the officers stepped forward and clicked his heels faintly before checking her purse. She hadn’t bothered putting her cell in. They’d just take it away like they had the night before.
    The officer was about her height and might even have been her age, but his eyes were old and cold. He took her key, locked the door for her and handed the key back. His face was set, disapproving. He’d locked her door not out of chivalry but for security.
    They moved in force down the stairs, Jamie in the center of a circle of armed men, the last two walking backward downstairs, guns cocked. At the bottom of the stairwell, the lead officer shot out his arm.
    A redheaded woman in a green dress emerged from the shadows and, accompanied by two officers, rushed into a police car, which took off with tires squealing.
    Immediately afterward, Jamie