Page 5 of The Roman's Woman (A Singular Obsession)

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.

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