Free Stiletto by Harold Robbins

answered.
    “I hate to think that tomorrow we’ll be back in New York and it will be cold and bleak and we won’t be warm like this until summer. I wish we could stay here forever.”
    He smiled. “That is always the trouble. Holidays must have an end.”
    “Must ours?” she asked, not speaking of the holiday at all.
    He knew what she meant. “It must,” he said quietly. “I have my business to go back to. You have your work.”
    A kind of sadness was in her. She knew now that the only one she had been fooling when she agreed to start this week was herself. What had happened between them was no more than a holiday for him. “Does anybody really know you, Cesare?”
    A look of surprise leaped into his eyes. “That’s a funny question,” he answered.
    Suddenly she wanted to touch him, to make him feel her reality. She turned away so that her hands would not reach for him. “No, it’s not,” she said. “Most people think you’re a playboy. I know you’re not.”
    Cesare walked around the desk to her. “I have been very fortunate. It is good for my business to do what I like to do.”
    She looked up into his eyes. “Is that the reason for the girls like me? To build your reputation along with the fast cars? Because it’s good for your business?”
    He took her hand. “There are no girls like you.”
    “No?” she said, getting angry with herself for not being able to stop. “What about that Baroness? De Bronczki or something? A month ago the papers were full of how you were chasing her all over Europe.”
    “Ileana?” He chuckled. “I’ve known her since she was a child. Our families were old friends. Besides she doesn’t matter now. She’s in California with a rich Texan. She has a taste for rich Texans.”
    Her eyes fell. “I’m sorry,” she said.
    He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face up. “I have an idea,” he said. “There is a car my office wants me to look at in Palm Beach. Instead of flying back to New York tonight, let’s pick up the car and drive back. I am bored with planes anyway and that way we can stretch our holiday.”
    She began to smile. Maybe she had been wrong about him. Maybe it was not just a holiday. “That will be wonderful!”
    He looked down at his wristwatch. “It’s almost three o’clock,” he said. “We have time for one more swim. We can have dinner in Palm Beach and be in Jacksonville before morning.”
    ***
    Vanicola came out of the cabana bathroom. He had on his swimming trunks, of a bright Hawaiian pattern. He stood in the shadows of the cabana and looked down at the F.B.I. men. “Okay if I get my ration of sunshine now?”
    The agents exchanged glances and Stanley turned and checked the men at the exits. They caught his look and nodded. He got to his feet. “I guess it’s okay,” he said grudgingly.
    The other two agents got to their feet. Vanicola started down toward the pool, picking his way carefully around the sunbathers stretched out on the lounge chairs. They stood around him as he took a plastic float from the rack and slid it into the water. He walked down the steps into the pool and clumsily stretched on the float.
    Stanley was studying the people around them. The youngest agent looked at him. “See anything, chief?”
    Stanley shook his head. “No. I guess it’s safe enough. They aren’t wearing enough clothes around here to conceal any weapons.”
    The young man grinned, his eyes going over some of the girls lounging at poolside. “Some of those babes aren’t wearing enough to conceal their weapons either.”
    Stanley didn’t smile. Nothing was funny to him right now.
    Vanicola spoke to them from the pool where he was stretched on his back on the raft. “I told you guys there was nothing to worry about.” He grinned. “This is the third day we been out and nothing’s happened yet. Let me know when ten minutes are up and I’ll turn over. I don’t want to get fried.”
    “Okay,” Stanley answered. He sat down on