The Lion's Den(111)
“We can pretend,” he countered.
“You need a plan.”
“Who says I don’t already have one?”
I raised my brows.
“I’m going to stake my claim on Lionshare Holdings.”
“How? I thought you didn’t want it. And he’s not about to give it to you, not anymore.”
“I don’t want it; I just want to watch him lose it.”
“But you need leverage,” I said. “Right now you have none.”
He nodded. “That’s why it does me more good for Summer to think she got away with it, and for her to stay with my father. She’s my in.”
“I don’t follow. You no longer have access to her,” I pointed out. He looked at me purposefully. Right. “But…I do.” Now I understood. My heart sank. “I’m your plan.”
So this was why he’d come to me; this was why he’d been flirting with me. Of course. How could I have been so stupid?
“Summer told me she was taking you and some other girls on a trip aboard his yacht in a couple of weeks, right? It would be the perfect opportunity.…”
“Fuck you.” I pushed away from the table. “I can’t believe I trusted you.”
“Belle, I promise you can trust—”
“Why don’t you go ask your brother? He knows much more about your dad and his corruption, I’m sure, than Summer does.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“Just because he’s at your dad’s company doesn’t mean he’s become your dad,” I challenged. “The way Dylan put it to me, he wanted to grow up, take responsibility, take advantage of the opportunities available to him. That’s not evil; that’s smart. Maybe it would do you some good to take a page from his book and grow up yourself.”
“Belle,” he said quietly.
I recognized that I was hurt and lashing out, but he was using me. “You’re jealous of him because he’s actually making something of himself, and you’ve just come to me because you thought I’d be an easier mark. But guess what? You were wrong.”
He drew back, looking out at the sea, silent. I was so angry, I felt physically ill.
Finally he spoke. “I’m sorry I’m not my brother,” he muttered.
“And I’m sorry I’m not Summer,” I snapped. I pushed back from the table. “I need to be getting back to LA. Good luck with your scheme.”
I stormed inside without a backward glance. He didn’t follow me, didn’t try to stop me as I gathered my things and chucked them into my car, didn’t chase after the Prius as I pulled away, glancing furtively in the rearview mirror.
Day 7
Friday evening—Ligurian coast, Italy
After the twenty-four hours I’ve had, the lazy pace of a seaside village in the late afternoon feels like a dream. Remnants of the adrenaline that has kept me in motion all day still surge through my veins, making me jumpy, and I’m so exhausted that my whole body is buzzing, my thoughts a jumbled mess. Your sister is on her way to your grandmother’s. What did Vinny mean by that? Remember why you’re here. What does he know?
I can’t be sure I can trust him, but there’s no time to worry about it now. I have to keep moving. I need to get to the train station.
It can’t be that difficult to find, right? This place isn’t exactly a sprawling metropolis. I survey the old-world buildings that line the sun-drenched seaport and head toward what I’m guessing is the center of town, scanning the passing faces for hostility.
There’s a group of teenage girls huddled together on a bench giggling over a cell phone, a couple making out with abandon in the midst of a crowded restaurant patio, a grown man eating gelato from a cone with gusto. None of them remotely hostile.
A young woman standing under the red awning of a restaurant offers a menu as I approach. “Treno stazione?” I ask.
Her face shows concern as she registers my appearance, and she begins to speak in rapid Italian. I stop her apologetically. “No Italiano.”
Unfazed, she calls back into the restaurant behind her, drops her menus on a table without waiting for an answer, and starts off down the bustling sidewalk, waving for me to follow. When we reach a narrow alleyway that cuts between two salmon-colored buildings, she gestures that I should go up the alley and make a left at the top.
“Grazie,” I say, but she’s already jogging back toward her restaurant.
The brick passageway is shaded and cool. I hurry up the path between the endless rows of vine-covered buildings to a set of stairs that lead up to the left. I follow the steps as my guide suggested, until they empty into a small square arranged around a fountain depicting a man wrestling with a lion.
On the far side of the square is an archway with a painted green sign above that shows a picture of a train.
I hasten across the square into the tunnel beyond the arch. The walls are rough-cut stone, the domed ceiling up-lit with blue lights. My beaten sandals slap the flagstone, echoing down the corridor as I push on for what must be a hundred yards or more, until it opens into a light-filled chamber with vaulted ceilings and brushed-concrete floors.
The station isn’t crowded: a few people mill about reading their cell phones; a backpacker is asleep on a bench, his head resting on his pack in the unguarded way only a man can doze in public. To my right under a board announcing train schedules is the ticket booth, facing three sets of double doors flung open to the track beyond.