Surprised by Love by Kate Hofman

for
your mother’s allowance payments.”
     “Wonder
Woman!” he teased.  Becoming serious, he said, “We should organize my
return dinner.  The guest of honour will be my Nonna .  She’s
my paternal grandmother.  I’ll have to invite my mother too.  No need
to advertise my annoyance with her all over the family—and subsequently to the
world.  I suspect some of my younger relatives of augmenting their income
by leaking info to the media.”  He smiled at Connie’s gasp of
dismay.  “Don’t think about it.  If they went too far I would have
them banished to Pantelleria—you know where that is?”
    Connie
nodded.  “Yes, a tiny island between Sicily and the Tunisian coast. 
They would die of boredom there.”       
    He
nodded.  After a moment, he went on, “I’ll give you a list of the
relatives we’ll invite.  I’ll take you down to the dining room—I told you
it seats 48 at a U-shaped table, didn’t I?”  Connie nodded, and Alessandro
went on, “The main point is that I will be at the top of the U, flanked to my
right by my Nonna , and to my left by you.  I’ve told you whom I
want next to my Nonnaand you.  You can shuffle the others’ names
like a deck of cards, and place them around the table in any configuration that
appeals to you.  If you can accidentally place Marisa quite far from
Roberto, that would be a kindness to him.”
    Connie
said, “Done.”  After a moment she went on, “The other evening when you
were at your mother’s, I went down to the dining room, and I found a cardboard
mock-up of the table, with slots where we can put in names.  I’ll show you
when I’ve finished, in case I have inadvertently put a nice person far down the
table, or vice-versa.  The final decision about the seating will be yours,
of course.”  
    Alessandro
nodded absently.  “Very good.  Now, what would you like to do? 
Take a look at the Uffizi?”
    Connie’s
eyes were radiant.  “Oh, Alessandro—could we?”
    He
nodded.  “We can do anything you want.  I do wish you’d tell me what
you’d like to do, though.  Contrary to what you seem to believe, I’m not
clairvoyant.”
    Connie
laughed.  “Clairvoyant enough for me.  Yes, please, the Uffizi.”
    “Comin’
up,” Alessandro said. 
               
     
               
 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
               

Chapter
6.
     
     
    After
their visit to the Uffizi, Connie seemed to be on a high that lasted several
days.   Alessandro smiled gently.  She was like a flower that hadn’t
been watered for some time, and now she blossomed.  He damned
Bob-the-snob—as he thought of him—who had wanted to force Connie into his
preconceived idea of an upscale wife.  The man had been too stupid to
realize he had an upscale, extremely classy wife—all he had succeeded in
doing was sucking all the joy out of her life, with his vulgar worries about
what people might think.
    Connie
asked him hesitantly about the dinner—who would cook it? 
    Smiling,
Alessandro said, “My chef, of course.  The staff will serve, Nìccolo will
supervise.  Once we’ve decided on a day for the dinner, I’ll ask the chef
for some ideas.”  Connie had gone quiet, he noticed.  “What?” he
asked.
    Connie
shrugged an elegant shoulder.  “When we’re working, I never think about
how alarmingly rich you are.  But here, in your Italian palazzo …”
    Alessandro
grinned.  “Alarmingly rich?  That’s a new one, Connie.  I must
save that up to tell my uncles.  Particularly Roberto could use a few
laughs in the life that Marisa leads him.”
    Connie
sketched a frown.  “Don’t tease, Alessandro.”
    “Who’s
teasing, cara?  Never before have I been called alarmingly
rich.”  To his own surprise, he gently stroked a recalcitrant curl behind
her ear.  “You’re unlike any woman I’ve ever met.”
    Connie
smiled.  “And you’re unlike any man I’ve ever met.”
     
    ****
     
    A
date was