The Roman's Woman (A Singular Obsession Book 4) Read online

  Gio nodded. “I’ll be on the balcony,” he said, giving the crowd a wary glance.

  Charles smiled sympathetically. “What about our other conversation?”

  “It can wait till tomorrow,” he said, shoulders sagging. All this socializing was draining. “Just try to catch Dr. Márquez before she leaves,” he added as he took in the thinning crowd.

  Charles nodded and walked away in search of the other grant winner.

  What time was it again? He checked his watch and stifled a yawn. It was still too early for him to leave. Making his way up the stairs to the less-crowded balcony, he flagged down a waiter and asked for a grappa. The waiter had just finished serving him his drink when he saw her.

  A buzzing, lightheadedness overcame him as he took in the sight of the woman below him in the center of the ballroom. The stranger was a vision, stunning in a vintage white satin dress reminiscent of a 40’s pin-up. Her hair was dark brown with gleaming mahogany highlights, with lips that were red and full. Her skin was a light caramel color that complimented her exotically attractive features. And her body was outrageous…

  There was simply no other description for it. Curves that should have been illegal filled out that satin with a flair that dropped his IQ several points.

  Gio shifted, uncomfortably aware that he was aroused. He’d never gotten that hot and hard so fast before. Feeling like a stupid teenager, he downed his drink. He was grateful for the protection the balcony wall offered as he stared down at his siren, memorizing her face and every delicious curve.

  She was probably married. Or a lesbian. That was the kind of luck he was having these days.

  He shook his head and tried to get a grip. Even if she wasn’t available, he had to meet her—just as soon as he composed himself. Surely the siren would notice a raging hard-on if he went to shake her hand right now. It was an embarrassing position for a man who prided himself on his self-control.

  Clutching his empty glass, he used his free hand to grip the railing. A flare of what could only be jealousy spiked through him when his siren laughed at something the man next to her said—a man he hadn’t noticed through his haze of lust. There was actually a cluster of men, all standing way too close to her. Irritated, Gio glared at the men as if he could will them away with the power of his mind.

  Footsteps behind him signaled Charles’ return. “I’m sorry, I was waylaid on the stairs. I didn’t see her. She’s probably in the restroom,” he said, huffing a bit as he joined Gio on the balcony.

  Gio waved the excuse away and pointed at the siren. “Who is that?”

  Charles leaned over the railing. “Oh, good. You found her.”

  Startled, Gio glanced at him. He couldn’t mean the siren. “No, the woman in the white dress. Who is she?”

  Charles gave him a knowing smile. “That is Dr. Márquez, hiding in plain sight. I spoke to her earlier. Shall I call her over?”

  Gio stilled. That couldn’t be Sophia Márquez. No doctor looked like that. That woman down there was his fantasy pin-up, not an M.D. who cut up brains for a living.

  Crap.

  Was she married? The grant application didn’t include any personal questions about family beyond what the applicant shared in their personal anecdote. Had he at least included marital status on the questionnaire? If he had, he couldn’t remember what hers had been. All he could recall was the details of her work.

  “Gio?” Charles was waving a hand in front of his face with a smirk.

  Feeling himself redden, Gio shook his head. “No, I’ll introduce myself. I should apologize for missing the ceremony,” he said, straightening his suit jacket.

  “Okay.” Charle’s voice was smug, but Gio didn’t care.

  Dr. Márquez had broken from the thinning crowd. Worried she was leaving, he hurried after her, taking the steps down from the balcony two at a time.

  Getting down to the center of the ballroom was easier said than done. Twice he was stopped by acquaintances eager to network. With poorly concealed impatience, he dismissed them as quickly as he could. When he had finally broken away, there was no sign of Dr. Márquez. He glanced up at the balcony where his friend was obviously trying to stop laughing. Glowering, Gio waved, and Charles pointed at the main ballroom doors.

  He swore under his breath and hurried out in pursuit. After checking the richly appointed hotel lobby for white satin and not finding it, he shot to the door and scanned the sidewalk outside. There was no sign of the siren.

  “Merda!” he vented, startling a well-dressed older couple he hadn’t noticed next to him.

  Embarrassed, he apologized profusely before going back inside. Missing Sophia Márquez tonight was a disappointment, but he knew her name and where she worked. There would be another chance to meet her. As an important donor, it wasn’t out of the question for him to set up an inspection of the lab where she worked.

  The grant he’d awarded her was large enough to guarantee she had to meet him personally, maybe even take him out to dinner if he hinted at it. And her laboratory was a short flight away, not far from where his best friend Alex’s wife Elynn worked. Placated by the thought of visiting Alex again and meeting the doctor, he headed back inside.

  A few hours later, he was home in his city penthouse. Sophia Márquez’s bio was open on his laptop, along with several tabs featuring some flattering profiles on her various research projects. There was no mention of a spouse in any of it, but that was no guarantee there wasn’t one. On impulse, he shot off an email to Enzo, his head of security.

  A little more information on the good doctor couldn’t hurt. At least he’d know whether or not there was any point in indulging his sudden and unexpected crush.

  Chapter 2

  Three Days Later

  Gio resisted the urge to throw the phone across the room.

  “You can’t be serious,” he ground out in Italian, pacing his office in the gym shorts he’d been forced to change into.

  Across the line, his father sighed, his voice tired but inflexible. “It’s not Lucca’s fault. He’s young and easily led.”

  “I don’t care about that. If he doesn’t understand the concept of family loyalty, he’s out,” Gio finished in a tone of barely restrained anger.

  He had never been this close to losing his temper in a long while. He wanted to break something.

  “Lucca didn’t know what he was saying. He’s still a child.”

  Gio took a deep breath and closed his eyes, but the words still came out clipped and hard. “He’s nineteen, not twelve. That’s old enough to know better. As of this moment, he’s done with the family trust. There won’t be a dime for him. If Aunt Perla wants to keep bailing him out from her share, that’s up to her, but I’m done with him. He was already on probation as far as I was concerned after that fight he started at the club in Palermo.”

  Salvatore cleared his throat. “Lucca assured me he didn’t start that fight. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Can’t you forgive and forget? You were young once, too.”

  Yes, he had been, but he’d never been stupid. Always the dutiful son, Gio would have swallowed his own tongue before picking a fight with anyone.

  “The fact you still believe that shows me how hard you are working at avoiding reality,” he said bluntly. “Lucca started the fight. I spoke to the club’s manager and bouncer personally. He was drunk and belligerent. As for the latest mess, Lucca has been seen with Maria Gianna around town several times in the past week at all the local hotspots. She has him wrapped around her little finger.”

  “I’m sure Maria Gianna didn’t ask him to lie,” his father replied. “He became confused and told the tabloid what he thought she would’ve wanted him to say. Everyone is aware that there’s some tension between the two of you. He was probably just trying to impress her and her circle.”

  Gio passed a weary hand over his face. His father’s gift for understatement was a special kind of blindness. With a
sigh he realized part of this was his own fault. He should have told his father everything, but he was, even after all this time, still trying to protect Maria Gianna. And himself.

  There was no getting out of it now. But telling his father he’d been cuckolded wasn’t something he wanted to do over the phone. It would have to wait till he saw him in person.

  His cousin’s involvement, however, would end here. The tabloids were spreading Gio’s name everywhere now, thanks to Lucca going on record about Gio’s “cold and forbidding behavior” toward his wife during their short-lived marriage. Now the abuse rumors were gaining ground, and other so-called friends and strangers were chiming in with their two cents. Gossip mongerers.

  “I don’t care who Lucca was trying to impress. He barely even knew Maria Gianna back then. He came to see us once the entire time we were married. And because he’s talking out of his ass, I’m getting dragged through the mud. Lucca is cut off. That’s my final word.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Enzo come in while his father tried to reason with him. He waved his head of security to sit down.

  “Can’t you sit down with Lucca and explain to him why you’re upset?”

  Gio ground his teeth before answering. “If he doesn’t know already then he’s an idiot. Tell him he just pissed away his inheritance and that there will be a lawsuit. If he doesn’t want to be added to my libel suit, tell him to keep his mouth shut from now on. And to go back to school. His mother is probably beside herself since he quit.”

  At Enzo’s raised eyebrow, he wrapped up his call. “I’m going to come see you this weekend. We need to have a long talk, all right?”

  “Si,” his father agreed, clearly exhausted. “I love you, mi figlio.”

  “I love you, too Papà,” he said, a little flatly, before hanging up.

  Enzo was watching him with an expression of benign sympathy. He was a Brooklyn-born Italian who’d spent years in the NYPD. “I bet this isn’t what your Aunt Perla intended when she asked you to take over her and Lucca’s finances.”

  Gio leaned back in his chair. “There were no finances to speak of when I took over her accounts. My uncle Cosimo was a great guy, but a lousy businessman. I wish he was still around. Lucca wouldn’t be acting out if he was.”

  His grizzled security chief smiled. “You know, I never believed knowing how to make money would be a burden until I came to work for you. I don’t envy you.” Enzo paused. “Do I want to know why you’re in your gym clothes?”

  Gio moved to the wet bar to pour himself a grappa. He rarely used the bar in his office unless he was entertaining clients, but it had been a hell of a week.

  “Someone spilled coffee on me,” he lied.

  The reality was the coffee, a frozen latte of some kind, had been thrown at him on his way back from lunch. He’d wanted to believe it was an accident, but the words the culprit shouted at him had quickly disabused him of that idea.

  “So it has nothing to do with the #GetGio hashtag trending on twitter?”

  He frowned. “If you already know what happened why are you asking me about it?”

  Enzo squinted at him. “Just wanted to see if you wanted me to do anything about it.”

  Gio shook his head. “It was a teenage fangirl of Maria Gianna’s.”

  “So that’s a no?”

  “It’s a no.”

  “Well, I have some news that may cheer you up,” Enzo said, waving a manila folder at him.

  “I don’t think there’s anything that could,” he grumbled.

  “This might,” Enzo said with a mysterious smile. “I tracked down Sophia Márquez.”

  Gio stilled. “We already know where she works,” he pointed out.

  He was a little embarrassed about his reaction to the doctor. He kept telling himself it was an aberration. With all the crap going on in his personal life, he’d been unbalanced and ended up overreacting to a beautiful woman.

  “She’s not been at work the last few days,” Enzo said with a raised brow, looking down at the sheets in his folder. “She’s taking a holiday, so a surprise inspection of the lab should wait.”

  He nodded, still flushed. Asking Enzo to do a background check on the doctor had been too much. He would visit the lab somewhere down the line, but rushing to Oxford now smacked of desperation.

  “I’ll get around to that. Maybe next month or the month after. It was premature of me to ask you to look into her personal life. I’m actually rethinking meeting her right now,” he said, not meeting Enzo’s eyes.

  Enzo coughed. “So the fact that she’s still here in Rome wouldn’t interest you?”

  Gio set down the crystal glass with a loud thump. “What?”

  “The holiday she’s taking is here in Rome. Or Italy, in general. She went to Milan right after the Morgese Foundation dinner and is back here today for some reason. Tonight she heads out to Florence. There’s a train ticket reservation under her name.”

  Indecision froze him in place. “Oh,” he said.

  He should have guessed that a visitor to the city would take advantage of the award dinner to take a vacation, especially in a place like this. Not everyone rushed back to work.

  “Yes,” Enzo said, clearing his throat. “Dr. Márquez checked out of her hotel already, although she left a large suitcase in their luggage storage. Right now she’s at a cafe on the Via Veneto. She asked their concierge for specific directions.”

  Damn, Enzo was good.

  The Via Veneto was an elegant street lined with coffee shops that had catered to artists in the ’50s and ’60s. For the well-heeled and knowledgeable tourist, it was a necessary stop. And it was only a few minutes away. Should he go and see if he could find her?

  Enzo apparently thought so. “You don’t have time to change, but it’s fine to go out in that. You’re presentable,” he said, examining the simple track shirt and shorts Gio had thrown on after the latte incident.

  Still Gio hesitated. Would Sophia Márquez be alarmed or flattered, being hunted down in the streets of Rome? Alarmed, most likely, unless he could pass it off as a casual encounter.

  Then again, he was the biggest donor to her research. In her place, he would want to meet his benefactor, especially since the opportunity to do so had been missed at the dinner. In fact, he would have tried to get a meeting after the fact, if possible.

  Or…perhaps she’d heard the damning rumors about him and wanted to avoid him. In any case, the good doctor was on vacation and probably wanted to be left alone. Drumming his fingers on the bar, he tried to picture surprising her and failed. The idea of chasing after a woman was too much for him. He started to say as much when his security chief forestalled him.

  “Oh, and she’s single at the moment.” Enzo said with a hint of a smile, waving the documents at him.

  Gio straightened, his attention caught.

  Sophia Márquez wasn't married. An image of her in that white dress came to mind. She wouldn't stay single long…

  “What cafe did you say she was at?”

  ****

  Picking his way through the crowd on the Via Veneto, Gio marveled at his anonymity. For a man used to being recognized in his home country—and currently whispered about behind his back—it was a welcome change. Apparently all he’d needed to do was shed his standard suit and put on his gym clothes. The mirrored aviators he was wearing might be helping, too.

  He stopped in front of the Doney Cafe and scanned the patio seating area first. Seeing no sign of his quarry, he stepped inside the crowded and noisy interior.

  She was sitting alone in the corner, drinking a glass of Italian soda. As he watched her bring the glass to her lips, his heart did a funny little stutter, and the blood rushed out of his head in a hurry.

  Her lips looked pink and full, even from across the room. Her dark hair was pinned up, and she was dressed in a loose white t-shirt and brown shorts that concealed her delicious curves from the other patrons. It
occurred to him that he was disappointed she wasn’t wearing the sexy white dress from the dinner, which was ridiculous.

  And if she wore that dress or something equally form-fitting, she definitely wouldn’t be sitting alone.

  Walking over to her before he could lose his nerve, he skirted a group of German tourists talking at a near deafening decibel level. He wanted to ask them to quiet down, but unfortunately their volume was necessary to be heard above the din of other conversations and the sound of clattering dishes.

  Wincing, he stopped in front of Sophia’s table, slipping off his glasses and opening his mouth to introduce himself.

  She looked up at him, a relieved expression on her face, and he froze. Up close, she was even more appealing than her online photos or from a distance. Her eyes were remarkable, the color of gingerbread, a few shades more intense than the soft café au lait of her skin.

  She smiled at him, and he became aware that he was standing there like an idiot with his mouth open.

  “Bongiorno,” he said.

  “Bongiorno, she replied in a mellow American accent. “Are you Gio?”

  Shocked, Gio nodded, closing his mouth and blinking. Had she looked him up, too? Was she expecting him?

  “Yes. Sophia Márquez?”

  Leaning forward, she raised her voice to be heard over background noise. “That’s me. I’m so glad you were able to meet me. Kelly would be disappointed if we missed each other again.” She gestured to the empty chair in front of her. “Please, sit.”

  Wondering if Kelly was one of the administrators in her lab, he sat, confused but relieved that she seemed pleased to see him. It had been a while since a woman had looked at him like that, without suspicion. Even his secretary had been giving him the eye lately.

  “Am I speaking too fast?” she asked, enunciating each syllable when he didn’t say anything.

  He laughed. “No, of course not,” he said.

  Sophia flashed him another brilliant smile. Warmth streaked down his chest, ending at his groin. Shifting to relieve his sudden arousal, he smiled back.