To Catch a Groom (12 page)

Greer stared blindly out the back window. “Mr. Carlson’s an idiot. Can you believe he actually bought all that gobbledygook about some attorney for the House of Parma-Bourbon clearing us?”

“Still, he was Daddy’s attorney,” Piper reminded her. “And Daddy did stipulate what the money was to be used for.”

Yup. There was no way getting around that salient fact. Greer frowned to see that her sisters were ninety-nine percent won over to the idea of carrying out their original plan.

“Has it occurred to you the crew might sail off into the sunset and never be seen again?”

“No—” they both said at once.

It was a dumb question since it would never occur to Greer either. “Okay, but don’t cry foul to me if we discover them waiting for us at some disreputable bar on the waterfront where they hang out with the handiest female upstairs.”

“Greer!”

“Don’t be so touchy, Olivia. I’m only thinking of the movies I’ve seen about undercover agents and their sleazy apartments.”

“I think we all recognize these playboys aren’t secret agents,” Piper declared. “So where do we go from here?”

Olivia smiled. “Let’s leave the car and the keys at the rental place. Since the crew enjoys undercover work, let them figure out where to find it.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Once again they found themselves driving on the outskirts of Genoa. After making several inquiries they spotted the sporting goods store pointed out to them. However there wasn’t a rental bike to be had at any price.

“So we’ll buy the cheapest ones they have and take them home on the plane with us.”

By the time they’d purchased helmets, gloves, and water bottles they had to fill with bottled mineral water, they’d each spent $900, which they put on their company credit card. The salesguy was so happy to make an easy sale, he let them use the store bathroom to change into clean jeans, cotton sweaters and sneakers.

They helped each other put on their pendants. After stuffing their pockets with passports, tickets and wallets, they were ready. Olivia left the car parked around the side of the building in an alley with the key under the front floor mat.

Greer didn’t shed any tears over their clothes and luggage sitting in the trunk. It had all been a huge mistake.

After looking at the brochure map, they estimated that if they went ten miles an hour, they could reach the town of Alessandria by nightfall. It lay in a northwesterly direction toward Switzerland where they would fly home from Geneva.

There were a dozen little stops they made to rest and snack, but on the whole they weren’t unhappy with their progress. The locals waved to them from their fields and farms.

Hardly a man drove by in a car or a truck who didn’t try to carry on a conversation with them and throw them kisses. They must have heard the word
“bellissima”
a thousand times if they heard it once.

Obviously Maximilliano came by his amorous ways from the same gene pool as his countrymen. So why couldn’t she smile and laugh off his attention the way she did all the strangers along the road?

Halfway to their destination Piper’s rear tire went flat. They took it off, then got out her patch kit to repair the tube. That’s when trouble started. Every male or group of
males who drove by in either direction decided to stop and help.

There must have been ten to fifteen guys young and old standing around creating a bottleneck. One truckful of guys was really pushing it. Talk about being chatted up!

Various offers were thrown out to drive them into town. Most of it was said in Italian of course, but Greer didn’t need a translator to get the gist. More guys kept stopping. They were gathering like an army of ants attacking a grain field.

Then suddenly Greer saw Max’s tall, powerful body striding toward her with Nic and Luc not far behind.

Like Moses parting the Red Sea, he rapped out Italian in such a forbidding fashion, the crowd of aggressive males dived for the nearest car or truck and drove off. In that instant, her heart thudded against her rib cage.

He picked up her bike with one hand like it was a toothpick. “Luc must not have drawn you an accurate map.”

“On the contrary. It was marvelously detailed. A child could have found its way. However we decided the Grand Prix was overrated and thought why not see Switzerland instead to avoid the crowds.”

“Since this is your first time in Europe, you had no way of knowing you can’t go anywhere in summer without bumping into a crowd. Or creating one…” he added in his low, velvety voice.

“I’d like my bike back.”

He’d started walking toward the Fiat with it. “All in good time,
signorina
,” he announced after he’d put it in the rack on top of the car.

“You have no right to follow us and commandeer our transportation.”

When his black eyes flashed right then, she felt the same authority emanating from him that had intimidated the crowd and sent his poor countrymen running for cover.

“Not only is your safety our top priority, we have a responsibility to Fabio Moretti who lent us his boat and his car for our undercover work. Though you didn’t realize your Husband Fund escapade would involve you in the center of an international criminal investigation, you no longer have the luxury of throwing caution to the wind.

“If you were to meet up with some unscrupulous men who wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of taking what they want, or worse…” He paused for emphasis. “Fabio could ultimately be the one held liable for something that wasn’t his fault. And all because you entered into a contract with him.”

He was speaking like a lawyer again.

“Since the death of his parents, Fabio has run a respectable business. He has two brothers, a wife, a child and another child on the way who depend on him for their survival.”

She didn’t flinch. “Don’t you dare lay that guilt trip on us. How do we know you’re not as unscrupulous as the men you’re talking about?”

“You don’t. But I can assure you that if we
had
been the kind of men you’re describing, you would have been taken directly from the airport to the magistrate of the Genoese court and incarcerated in a prison for months while you awaited trial.”

Who was this man?

“To think a female with such skin and eyes, such a beautiful body and intelligent mind as yours, has no softness in her.” His gaze pierced hers. “I once suffered a great surprise and disappointment, Signorina Greer. Until now, nothing else has ever come close to it…”

Greer had to admit she was surprised at how deep the wound he’d just inflicted had penetrated. Possibly to the core of her soul.

“Where are you taking us?” she asked in a dull voice.

“To Vernazza,
signorina
, where you will sign a legal form in front of witnesses that releases Fabio Moretti from any and all obligations to you. At that time, your $12,000 will be refunded in cash, never mind that he lives hand to mouth to make ends meet and will suffer for the loss.

“But that won’t be your problem will it. You’ll be free to ride your bikes all over Europe and reap the whirlwind if that is your desire.”

Before long the six of them were on their way back to Genoa and the
Piccione
. With Luc at the wheel, Olivia at his side, the forty miles the girls had covered in four hours only took twenty-five minutes to retrace.

Nic had pulled Piper onto his lap, which left Greer sandwiched in back between him and Max.

While the other two men tried to get her sisters to talk and acted for all the world as if nothing was out of the ordinary, Max treated Greer to a debilitating silence. It enflamed her that he’d placed the blame for the unbreachable wall of anger and mistrust between them solely at
her
feet.

But by the time they were back on the boat, the fear that he’d spoken the truth about Signore Moretti had been eating at her conscience.

“Guys? We’ve got to talk!” Once they’d assembled in the same stateroom, which was beginning to feel like home away from home, she unloaded on them.

After relating the thrust of her bitter conversation with Max, Piper said, “I’m not sure what’s true and what isn’t, but I do know one thing. None of those men who stopped to help us fix our bikes did it out of altruism. In fact that one truck load was so aggressive, I was really beginning to get nervous, you know?”

“We all were,” Olivia murmured. “Let’s be honest and admit we were relieved the crew showed up when they did. There’s fright, and then there’s fright.”

Piper nodded. “With the crew, you’re scared you might actually start believing all the words that come out of their mouths in half a dozen languages.”

“
Liking
it you mean,” Olivia amended. “With those men in the truck, you’re just plain scared.”

Greer’s sisters had put their finger on the dilemma plaguing her since the night Max had asked her to swim with him. He
could
have behaved exactly like those men in the truck. Because of her instant and overwhelming attraction to him, she would have been helpless to deny him anything for long.

But he’d let her go. Not once, but three times. The last being in the jail cell. He’d known how vulnerable she was last night, both physically and emotionally, yet he hadn’t taken advantage of her or the situation.

Like a revelation it came to her that his actions weren’t those of a despicable brute who preyed on defenseless women. But they
were
the actions of a man searching for answers, determined to find them.

Though Greer didn’t know who he was, or what he did for a living, the close call on the road this evening showed her the situation for what it was.

Whether he was a jewel thief or not, seduction was the last thing on his mind. The pendant had been the catalyst to bring them together.

If there really was another pendant like the one their dad had given them, and it had been stolen along with a priceless jewelry collection, no wonder alarm bells had sounded when she and her siblings had waltzed through customs wearing “hot” merchandise.

At this juncture Greer was prepared to believe that once the crew had accomplished their business in Monaco, they would put her and her sisters on a plane home.

Familiar vibrations caused her feet and legs to tingle, alerting her they’d cast off. “Guys? I’ll be right back!”

To her sisters’ astonishment, she dashed out of the stateroom and through the hall to the upper deck.

Genoa, the bejeweled lady of the Mediterranean, was receding in the darkness which had enveloped the coast without her being aware of it. Greer could still make out Luc’s physique as he coiled rope.

She turned her head to discover Max securing the bikes next to the kayaks. If he felt her presence, he didn’t acknowledge it until she’d come within touching distance of him. Then he lifted his dark head and their gazes collided.

His anger had dissipated, but in its place she sensed a new aloofness emanating from him. It was the kind he might show any stranger rather the woman he’d kissed with unbridled passion two days ago.

If anything she should be relieved by this seemingly professional detachment. It was what she wanted. Yet her mouth had gone strangely dry and her heart was behaving like a single engine plane spiraling out of control as it hurtled toward the ground coming up to meet it.

“Whatever you wish to say, tell it to the captain,
signorina
. He pilots this boat, not me.”

Her awareness of him made it difficult to breathe.

“But he listens to his first mate. Please inform him that we’re going to spend the next few hours transforming ourselves into the Duchesses of Kingston.

“After we’ve reached Monaco, we plan to make such a stunning entrance, even
you
will blink and wonder if you’ve been wrong about our not having a drop of royal blood in us whether it be Austrian, Italian or something else.”

“O
H
…
YOU
guys…” Olivia’s voice shook with emotion. “Just look at that sight…”

It was a Monagasque fairyland all right, with the Grimaldi royal palace glowing like the crowning star on the Christmas tree.

From the balcony of the gorgeous villa overlooking the street where the Formula I cars would race tomorrow, Greer and her sisters feasted their eyes on elegant old palaces and buildings with wrought-iron railings, wonderful roofs with thousands of orange tiles laid at all angles in multifaceted splendor. There was a veritable panoply of painted walls, architectural detail, friezes, scrollwork everywhere one gazed.

Farther below lay Monaco’s fabulous harbor twinkling with lights from the myriad of small white boats including the
Piccione
and stately yachts the size of soccer fields. Possessions of the world’s wealthiest princes and sheiks.

Piper sucked in her breath. “I’m looking and I still don’t believe it. Smell the flowers. They’re everywhere. Jasmine and rose. Lavender.”

It was the stuff dreams were made of all right, Greer mused in awe. Yet this nineteenth-century provencal villa named Le Clos des Falcons was breathtakingly real.

So was the black limo with its royal falcon crest which had whisked them and the crew from the port. Where others couldn’t go, they were allowed entrance past barricades, guard rails, fences and gates erected for the world’s most famous car race.

Olivia nudged Greer in the ribs. “What do you think of Luc’s sleazy waterfront pad now?”

“Obviously he has friends in very high places.”

“It feels like we’re in a beautiful dream.”

Greer smiled at her sisters. No doubt she was walking around the sumptuously furnished room wearing their same, starry-eyed expressions.

“If mother could see us in our knee-length white chiffon and pendants, that’s exactly what she’d say.”

Piper stared at Greer. “We look like identical triplets tonight. It really shows since we’re wearing the same hair-dos for a change. Wouldn’t she love it? Mom always begged us to dress alike on special family occasions.”

“I can hear Daddy now,” Greer murmured. “Are these my three darling duchesses all grown up?”

Olivia’s eyes went teary. That started Piper and Greer. Everything was still blurry when she heard a distinct rap on the outer door of their private suite.

Assuming it was the maid who’d been waiting on them since their arrival, Greer went to answer it, unprepared for the sight that awaited her.

There stood the heartthrob of the century. No doubt about it. Max would win the prize hands down.

He probably heard the moan that escaped her throat, but she couldn’t help it. In black and white formal evening wear, this tall, black-haired Italian with his striking aquiline features left her speechless and trembling.

His black eyes roved over her in male admiration. Yet the fire she’d always seen burning in their depths when he looked at her was missing. Extinguished if you like.

Greer didn’t like, which was absurd. This man didn’t mean anything to her. He was an experience. A phenomenon of nature like the planet Mars coming close to Earth for the first time in sixty thousand years, then continuing its orbit to the far reaches of space.

Tomorrow night Greer’s plane would follow its own orbit to another part of the universe. The chance of their ever coming together again, even for an instant, wasn’t astronomically possible.

“Buona sera, signorina.
In five minutes we’d like you and your sisters to come down the staircase at the end of the hall. There’s a drawing room off to the right where you’ll be introduced to a group of people. Just play along with the conversation wherever it leads.”

She got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “What if we make a mistake?”

“You won’t if you just play at being your unique self which you do superbly.”

The acid comment was meant to wound. It found its mark.

“When the time comes for the guests to withdraw to the dining room for a midnight supper, I’ll make our apologies and we’ll both leave. At which time I will say goodnight.”

Greer shivered because beneath his civility she sensed he was still furiously angry with her.

“As for
you, signorina
, you look exceptionally beautiful tonight. Since you will have served your purpose for us with the grace of Violetta herself, you’ll be left alone to do whatever you want. The limo’s at your disposal. Just tell the maid and she’ll arrange it.”

“We heard that,” Olivia whispered after the door closed in front of Greer’s face. “I take back what I said. He’s scarier than any man I ever met.”

“We shouldn’t have bought those bikes,” Piper murmured. “I think it insulted him. Maybe it’s an Italian thing. You know what they say about travel in a foreign country. In some places it’s polite to burp after you eat, in other places it isn’t.”

“Baloney!” Greer spun around. “It’s a
male
thing. He
didn’t get his way the minute he snapped his fingers, so now he’s having an Italian temper tantrum.”

“I think you’re having one, too. Your face is all splotchy. It proves we do have some Italian blood in us despite the mean things they said to try to discredit us.”

“Thanks, Olivia.”

“Don’t bite my head off. We know you’re disappointed.”

“About what?”

“About his intention to leave you strictly alone after we’ve done our part downstairs,” Piper murmured.

“I couldn’t care less.”

“That’s not what your eyes are saying. But don’t worry. I’m going up to bed right after, too.”

“So am I.”

Greer’s gaze shot to Olivia’s. “I thought Luc had arranged for you to visit a club to meet some Formula I drivers.”

“That’s out of the question now.”

“Why?”

“When I told him Cesar Villon was the only driver I was interested in meeting, he demanded to know why. I asked why he cared. He didn’t answer, but his whole mood darkened after that.”

“Sounds like he’s as jealous as Fred,” Piper reasoned.

“No. He’s just an egocentric French male who thinks the world begins and ends with him. You know how the French are. His eyelids go all hooded.” She imitated him, laying on the French accent. “He becomes the melancholy philosopher’s philosopher. He’s seen it all, done it all, and he knows it better and has suffered it longer than anyone else.”

Whoa, Olivia!

“The captain’s the one who
knows
it all,” Piper insisted. “He’s got what I call the Castilian superiority com
plex. You can’t say one thing that he doesn’t know more about it, and he’s
the
authority. There is no other above him. In his spare time he makes up Spanish crossword puzzles of the highest difficulty.”

“Did he tell you that?” Olivia questioned with a chuckle.

“Not yet. I’m waiting. It has to be on his resume somewhere.”

“Piper!” Greer was laughing, too.

“Do you know he thinks I’m a chocoholic? So of course that’s what I am, right?”

“All three of us are,” Olivia muttered.

“Never mind that. It’s what
he
thinks and says I am, I can’t abide. You can’t win an argument with him. It’s impossible. He’s always one step ahead of you. That Spanish brain is like a steel trap, stored with obscure trivia he pulls out at a moment’s notice.

“He thinks he’s spending tomorrow morning with me so he can impress me with more of his vast knowledge.” Her cheeks glowed a hot red. “Get this— He says I’m the only American woman he ever met who can converse with him on a halfway intelligent level.

“Well guess what? This dimwit American has gathered enough of her scattered brain not to go anywhere with him in the morning or any other time.”

“You won’t say that after you’ve spent five minutes with him again,” Greer reminded her, “but let’s not worry about that right now. It’s time to go downstairs and do what it is we’re supposed to do.”

“I still don’t know what that is,” Olivia complained.

“You heard Maximilliano.” She loved to say the name, wondering if it really was his. “Just play ourselves.”

“I think that was meant to be an insult.”

Greer glared at Piper. “You only
think?
”

They made their way through the villa, which felt more
like a palace. There was a striking man in elegant evening clothes waiting at the bottom of the curving staircase. When he smiled up at them, Greer realized it was the owner of the
Piccione
!

What was going on? The girls recognized him immediately and rolled their eyes at Greer.

“
Buona sera, signorine.
You were lovely before. Tonight you take my breath away.”

Anger over this whole charade emboldened Greer to say, “You look pretty smashing yourself, Signore Moretti.”

He flashed her a smile that could have meant anything.

Sure
he was just a poor catamaran owner… One furthermore living hand to mouth who would be held liable if anything happened to the lovely
signorine.

The man had a great thing going here. If there really was a Signora Moretti and child, Greer felt sorry for them.

“When the other party had to cancel their reservation for the
Piccione
at the time of the Grand Prix, it became your lucky day, did it not?”

“The experience of a lifetime,” Piper said through gritted teeth.

Olivia’s hand went to her throat in a dramatic gesture. “We still haven’t recovered. It’s like we’re moving through an amazing dream.”

Nightmare you mean.

He chuckled. “I’m very happy to hear it. Shall we go in? I’ll introduce you to a few guests.” He opened one of the ornate floor to ceiling doors.

Greer blinked. A few people? She’d been aware of chamber music, but not voices. There had to be at least seventy beautifully dressed guests congregated in groups around the elaborate appointments of the drawing room! If the crew was there, she couldn’t tell.

“Fabio!”

An attractive dark blond woman wearing a stunning oys
ter toned designer dress, left the people she’d been talking to and hurried across the parquet floor with her handsome escort to kiss Signore Moretti on either cheek.

The other man, evidently her husband, stood a few inches taller than Fabio with enough gray in his black hair to make him distinguished. Both looked to be in their early sixties.

A spate of Italian broke from all three of them, giving Greer the impression they were close friends who hadn’t met for a while. But then nothing about this trip had been as it seemed. What was the line, “We are all actors and the world is our stage”?

“Rina? Umberto?” Fabio spoke up. “There are three sisters I want you to meet,” he explained in English. “They chartered the
Piccione
for this time slot. When I found out who they were, I decided to keep it a surprise until tonight.”

“So much alike, yet the eyes are so different.” The woman smiled warmly as she and the other man studied each of them. Then her dark flashing gaze that put Greer in mind of the great black’s, suddenly locked on the pendants. She let out a cry that brought her husband’s arm around her shoulders. All conversation in the room ceased.

With a chuckle Fabio said, “No, Rina. You and Umberto are not hallucinating. May I present Greer, Piper and Olivia. They are the Duchesses of Kingston of the royal House of Parma-Bourbon, anxious to meet their long lost family.”

His announcement created a shock wave of interest throughout the crowd.

“Because of the theft of the Maria-Luigia jewelry collection, there was some unpleasantness when the
signorine
came through customs a few days ago wearing the Duchesse pendants.

“You will be happy to know it is all cleared up now.
Signore Rossi has determined that one of the pendants they’re wearing is the other original made by Tocelli for Maria-Luigia.”

“Other?” The word echoed throughout the room as everyone looked at them in astonishment.

“For some reason yet to be uncovered, the artisan fashioned two identical pendants. Therefore it appears that the myth about an ancestral line making its way to America is not a myth after all.”

What? But the crew said—

“
Signorine?
May I present your many distant relatives. First of all, Rina and Umberto, the Duc di Varano of the House of Parma-Bourbon.”

Greer and her sisters let out a collective gasp that was even louder than the cry of the other woman, the woman they’d just been introduced to who could be none other than Max’s
mother!
The resemblance to both parents was unmistakable.

But that meant the first mate was the son of a d—

“Come,
signorine.
” Fabio started ushering them around the room. “Meet your hosts for this evening, Violetta di Varano, Umberto’s sister who is the wife of Jean-Louis, the Duc de Falcon of the House of Bourbon.”

Another duc? Luc’s mother was named Violetta?

Noooooo.

Olivia’s groan coincided with hers. Luc’s parents smiled broadly. “An exquisite surprise,” his father murmured before kissing their hands with the kind of dashing charm bequeathed to their injured son.

Greer was still reeling with shock and rage, unable to take it all in.

“Standing next to them is Maria di Varano, the second sister of Umberto who is married to Juan-Carlos, the Duc de Pastrana of the House of Bourbon.”

“What a thrilling moment for the Varano family,” Nic’s
mother responded with genuine pleasure. “Niccolo will have to sort all of this out for us. He’s the expert in the family.”

A hysterical laugh emerged from Piper’s throat. Thankfully Fabio continued to sweep them along, making the introductions of the rest of the guests, one of whom could possibly be the person responsible for the theft of the ducal palace jewelry collection. Undoubtedly Signore Moretti was watching everyone’s reactions, which he would report to the crew.

There was no sign of
them
yet.

It was a blessing, particularly since she suspected her sisters were on the verge of strangling someone with their bare hands. Greer would be the first in line, and she knew which neck she wanted to start with.