Secret Agent Reunion. Caridad Pineiro
only cause trouble. She hadn’t forgotten his propensity for such sayings or the way it felt when he tucked her under his arm protectively, as he had now. She might have protested, if she was feeling better, but the stitch in her side hadn’t receded. If anything, it had grown worse with the long walk.
She told herself that what she needed was rest and then a nice stretching session. Possibly a long soak in the bath.
“We can catch a tram back not far from here.” She motioned in the direction of Via Condotti and they walked side-by-side a few blocks until they were at the tram stop. It wasn’t long before the tram came, but it was relatively crowded, forcing them to stand close together.
Dani relaxed against Mitch’s solid bulk, letting him battle the bumps and jostling of the crowd, and wondered when she had become such a baby. She had chased after bad guys with broken bones, and now she was letting a little discomfort in her side get to her.
Maybe it’s because now you know what it feels like to die, her inner voice reminded her. And so she allowed herself the protection of Mitch’s body and the support of his arms. By the time the tram had crossed over the Tiber and into Trastevere, the sharp pain in her side had receded to a dull throb.
Mitch leaned down and whispered in her ear. “When should we get off?”
“One more stop, I think. By Santa Cecilia,” she replied. Realizing they were almost there, she took hold of his hand and urged him to the exit.
She didn’t release her hold once they were off the tram. Instead she guided him down one of the nearby streets, Via de Genovesi, and to the restaurant.
Spirito di Vino was well-known for its food, wine and having Rome’s original synagogue in its cellar. They walked up the stone steps, beneath an archway and into the restaurant. Once inside, she noted that the stone Alcantara walls continued within along with the archways. Since they were still a bit early for the late-eating Italians, the wait for a table was blessedly short.
The friendly hostess seated them and presented the menus, but also advised that if they desired, the staff would be glad to offer their recommendations for the meal along with the wine.
Mitch, who was sitting beside her, laid his hand over hers. For the first time, the glint of the gold wedding band on his ring finger registered. Reminded her of the similar ring she wore on her hand as part of their charade. How many times had she imagined them married for real? More times than she cared to admit.
“Does that sound good to you, honey?” It was his newlywed husband voice, all solicitous and eager.
“Of course, sweetheart. This is our honeymoon and we want it to be special.”
At her words, the hostess smiled. “Benissimo. We will make sure that it will be molto especiale per lei.”
“Grazie, signora,” Mitch said with a polite nod.
When the hostess walked away, she leaned forward and said, “So you speak a little Italian?”
“Just enough to say, ‘thank you’, ‘please’and ‘where’s the bathroom.’ Not fluent like you. Did you learn it while on assignment here?”
She shrugged. “It was one of my minors in college.”
“The University of Silvershire?” Hidden behind his words lurked another question—one that asked, “How much of what you told me about yourself was true?”
A waiter came over and poured two glasses of pinot grigio for them. She picked up the glass and said, “To our honeymoon.”
He clicked his glass with hers and took a sip, as she did. The wine was fruity and refreshing.
The waiter immediately returned with a plate of formaggio mixto—various cheeses—and a basket filled with an assortment of artisanal bread and rolls.
It was a nice way to begin the meal, she thought, and ate a bit of gorgonzola and semolina bread before answering Mitch.
“I got my degree there. I majored in political science with minors in Italian and French.”
“Any other languages I should know about?”
“German and Russian. I had started on Arabic when…”
Mitch picked up on Dani’s disquiet as her voice trailed off. When he met her gaze, he realized that she had stopped when he had left her life.
“Why?” he asked.
Her small-boned shoulders barely shifted with her shrug. “It just didn’t seem important anymore. All that knowledge and skills when I’d…when I’d lost another person I loved.”
His gut twisted at her words, alternately pleased and sad at her confession. He chose to shift the conversation to another place. “What happened with the prince, with Reginald—”
“Wasn’t something I intended to happen,” she immediately defended.
He thought about the prince’s death from the tainted cocaine Dani had left behind. She hadn’t outright killed him. And yet… “But you were there when he took the cocaine. You were then when he died.”
The hand bringing a piece of cheese and bread to her mouth trembled for a moment. She completed the action, chewed slowly, thoughtfully, before she answered him.
“Reginald swore he was clean. I left the room for only a few minutes…and when I returned he was dead from the cocaine. He’d lied to me about his drug use.”
“But did he deserve to die for that?” Mitch grabbed a piece of cheese from the plate and popped it into his mouth. The flavor was sharp and strong, much like Dani’s response.
“People like Reginald never stop to consider how many people die so they can get high. All I wanted was justice.”
“There’s a difference between justice and vengeance, isn’t there?”
Dani’s eyes narrowed as she considered him. “Why do you care?”
Why did he? he asked himself. He’d promised to not make it personal between them, but a part of him wanted to know that the woman he had loved wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer. “Because I do care, Dani. I want to know why punishing Reginald was so important. Why you wrecked your career at SIS. Why you risked it all.”
She leaned forward, never shifting her gaze from his. “Because Donovan promised me the names of the drug dealers who had killed my parents. I wanted them punished. I wanted to find out who headed the crime syndicate they worked for, because I didn’t want another family to suffer as mine did.”
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