LITMIR.BIZ

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like a tarmac snake, not conquering the landscape as many modern roads do. It’s a pleasure to drive.

      I hardly noticed it that day.

      Without her saying as much, it quickly became clear that Regina’s family had money—a lot of money. They lived in Greenwich, Connecticut, an area known for its posh homes. She’d grown up in a privileged household: servants, a swimming pool, tennis courts, a country club membership, all the trappings of wealth. Being an only child and her mother having died when she was eleven years old, her father had spoiled her rotten.

      “Papa decided that I should go to school in Europe, that he couldn’t properly care for a young lady. His business took a lot of his time. Our family originally comes from Abruzzo, but I was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. The school was good, but it was a very lonely time for me. In the summer, I would go to Italy to visit family, and Papa would join me for a few weeks.”

      “So you haven’t really lived in the States all that much.”

      “Not since my mom died. A few weeks at Christmas, between semesters sometimes, but never for very long. We’d vacation in Europe, skiing or something. At home, there wasn’t much to do. It wasn’t easy to make friends, you see.”

      “Why not?” I asked, smiling. “You seem talkative enough.”

      Regina looked at me. “Are you teasing me?”

      “No. What I meant is that you don’t seem to have trouble striking up a conversation.”

      She nodded at that. “I was never let out on my own. Papa had bodyguards, and I couldn’t go anywhere without one and sometimes two. You can imagine what that was like.”

      “Not really,” I said, even though I did have some inkling. “Why would you need a bodyguard? Is your father a diplomat or something like that?”

      “No. He told me he was a businessman. He owned a lot of real estate and some businesses, and he had enemies. Besides, there are people around who would like nothing more than to kidnap the child of a wealthy man and hold her for ransom.”

      “So it wasn’t very nice being at home.”

      “In some ways, it was very nice. I’d have my papa all to myself. We’d play tennis together, swim. This past summer, he began teaching me to play golf. I had a few cousins in the area, too, but they’re a lot older than me and also boys, so they kept their distance—except for Angelo. He was my favourite, because he teased me and called me his little sister. But they all seemed to be afraid of Papa. He can be very scary when he’s angry.

      “You’re right, though. More and more it felt as if I was in prison, kept apart from people, even after I finished boarding school. I attended the Sorbonne in Paris and had no friends. I didn’t tell you, but my mother was French—that’s a bit odd in traditional Italian families.”

      “Did you visit your mother’s relatives?”

      “I’ve never met them. There was a falling out over the marriage, and Papa won’t have anything to do with them.”

      “Sounds pretty grim. He obviously loosened the reins when you went to university, though, didn’t he?”

      “I thought so—at first. He arranged for me to have rooms in a private house. An older couple with one or two other student lodgers. I was majoring in Art History, and studying took up a lot of time. Sure, there were boys who asked me out, but it never developed into anything. They’d just drift off. I couldn’t understand why, until one of them told me that he’d been approached by someone who asked him a lot of questions and made it clear that we were being watched.”

      “What did you do then?”

      “I called my father and told him how angry I was. He flew right over and sat me down. ‘You still need protecting,’ he said. ‘I’m doing what any father would do to protect his daughter.’

      “I told him he was being ridiculous, that I was old enough to take care of myself. We had a big fight about it, but in the end, I got Papa to promise that he wouldn’t interfere in my life.”

      “But he continued to, didn’t he?”

      “Was I really being that naïve? Is it so obvious to everyone else?”

      “No, it’s just that in my experience, when someone as seemingly strong-willed as your father capitulates so completely, then they’re up to something.”

      “Exactly. Anyway, for the next three years, I went out on a few dates, but no one came along that really stirred my blood, and besides, I was engrossed in my studies. I’d decided to become a specialist in the restoration of damaged paintings. Papa spoke to some people he knew and got me a job with Galerie Longchamps in Paris. Research took up most of my spare time, too.

      “Last fall, a man turned up out of the blue. I met him while I was eating lunch in a café—and he didn’t give me the cold shoulder after a while like the others. He was great fun to be with. He teased me like Angelo had. What was wonderful was that I knew Papa would approve of him. Jean-Marc came from a proper family. I think I may have even been falling in love with him.

      “Then one night I came down from my rooms and was waiting for Jean-Marc on the street when I saw him getting out of a car about two blocks away. He leaned back down and was talking to someone through the window. I wondered about that and drew back into the darkness of the doorway as the car drove past. I recognized the man as someone I’d once seen with my father.

      “Jean-Marc walked up shortly after and pretended that he’d come on foot all the way from his parents’ apartment. You should have heard the load of garbage he tried to feed me about his walk over! I told him he was despicable and that I never wanted to see him again. Without another word, he just turned on his heel and left. That was last week.”

      Regina looked silently out at the rolling countryside for several minutes, trying to regain her composure. I spent the time accelerating past a long line of cars.

      “Better slow down or you’ll get pinched,” she said. “Next morning, I got on the first plane to New York. This was it! I was through having my life stage-managed!

      “No one had any idea I’d left Paris. You should have seen the expression on the maid’s face when she answered the door!”

      “‘Where is my father, Consuela?’ I demanded.

      “‘Your father is in a meeting. You must not disturb him.’

      “‘The hell with that!’ I said, pushing her out of the way.

      “I stormed down the hall to his study, where he holds all his business meetings, and burst through the doors. There were a lot of people in the room. Some of my cousins and an uncle. Angelo was there. They looked totally stunned to see me.

      “In the middle of the room was a man tied to a chair on a big sheet of plastic. He’d been badly beaten up. His face was covered in blood. Papa...my father was standing next to him, holding a gun against the man’s head.”

      I almost lost control of the car. “What?”

      “I have no doubt they were going to kill him, and only my walking in had prevented it. My father handed the gun to Angelo, grabbed my arm, and dragged me up to my room, where he practically threw me in and locked the door. The very strange thing was that Papa didn’t look angry. If anything, he looked, I don’t know, scared.

      “Papa returned about an hour later with a dazed expression on his face and sat down heavily on my bed. ‘The day that I have dreaded has arrived.’

      “I’d had enough time to figure out a few things for myself. All those years of lies! Pretending he was simply a businessman. It was easy to see what had been going on now that the blinders were off. So many strange things suddenly made sense.

      “He broke down! The only other time I’d seen him cry was when Mamma died. He begged for my forgiveness. He had sworn on the grave of my mother that

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