Free Her Roman Holiday by Jamie Anderson Page A

that will penetrate the spell that woman has cast on him.”
    Calia pursed her lips, not altogether happy with his reasoning.   “He could just as easily feel ambushed when he finds out his best friend hired an investigator to spy on Antonia.   I mean, isn’t it equally possible that he’s going to feel humiliated and betrayed when he finds out that you didn’t give him enough credit to think he’d accept your word?”
    Gio sighed heavily as they walked back to the car.   “I will only have one chance at this.   And that woman is destroying him.   I would rather that he be forced to believe me, regardless of what he wants, than risk that he will take her word over mine.”
    They walked in silence a few moments.   Then, Calia spoke,   “So what’s the history between you and Antonia, anyway?”
    He looked at her, his eyebrows raised.   “History?”
    “Oh come on — I do have eyes, Gio.   If you were just the most recent in a string of scalps for her belt, she’d just have moved on to someone else.”
    “From what I understand, that’s exactly what she was trying to do tonight — and being a nuisance in the process by making blatant advances on one of Paolo’s and my married colleagues.”
    “Now who’s being evasive?   Gio, she went docile practically from the moment she saw you.   You aren’t going to convince me that there’s no shared past between you.”
    His jaw tightened.   “Perhaps there is.   But not what you’d think.”
    “And what would I think?”
    He ignored the question.   “She is the daughter of one of my father’s colleagues.   I have known her since she was about ten.   She has always been spoiled, acquisitive and manipulative.   Around the time she hit late adolescence, she decided she wanted me as her latest plaything.”   He shrugged.   “I wasn’t interested, and after one particularly unpleasant incident, she finally seemed to get the message.   After that, her parents sent her off to live with some family in England.”
    “So how did she end up with Paolo?”
    “She came back to Italy a few years ago, and we’d run into each other, from time to time, but I continued to make it clear I had no interest in her.   So, she turned her attentions to Paolo in the last year or so.   I must admit that I had hoped she might have genuinely seen his fine qualities and come to appreciate them, since she played the doting female quite convincingly at first.”   He shook his head, his mouth twisted into a contemptuous sneer.   “But now, the whirlwind courtship and wedding are over and she’s started showing her true colours.”
    “It sounds like she’s obsessed with you, Gio.   It’s kind of sad, in a way.”
    “What is this?   Female solidarity?” he snarled.
    “I know you’re angry, but don’t take it out on me, okay?   I’m not saying that it excuses her.”
    His profile was austere and unforgiving.   “You are correct.   Any sympathy I might have had for her disappeared when she started playing her manipulative little games with my best friend and tying him up in knots.   Paolo is a brother to me.   He deserves better.”
    “No argument there.”
    They came to a stop in front of Gio’s car and he inclined his head towards her.   “What a relief that we are in concurrence.”   He spoke with an edge of disdain, before opening the door for her with an ironic flourish.  
    Calia narrowed her eyes at him.   “The only thing I don’t get is why Antonia would pick such an insufferable boor to be obsessed with in the first place,” she said, before sliding into the passenger seat.
    “I do not presume to understand the perverse complexities of the female mind,” was his reply.   He slammed the door before Calia could formulate an appropriate rebuttal.
    As he settled into his seat and started the car, Calia let out a hard breath.   The man was driving her mad.
    She watched him as he negotiated the bustling streets.   “Why do you do