The Widow by Anne Stuart Page A

He wondered what kind of man she’d chosen this time. A Euro-stud with rippling pecs and not much brainpower? A New York stockbroker dressed in Armani who’d made his first million by age thirty?
    He was betting on the stockbroker. Someone young and ruthless, as Pompasse had been old and ruthless. A worthy adversary for someone like Maguire.
    Though there was no damned reason why he’d have anything to do with Charlie’s fiancé. Charlie’s intended wouldn’t have had anything to do with Pompasse.
    Maguire reached in his pocket for his cigarettes, only to come up with a crumpled, empty packet, and he began to curse with the fluid invective he’d learned on a thousand battlefields. The only one who could swear better than he could was Molly, his old photographer, and she was dead. She’d laugh if she saw the mess he’d gotten himself into, and a reluctant, wry smile curved his mouth.
    It was a helluva time to give up cigarettes, right when he was in the middle of the story of his lifetime. He’d already given up drinking a couple of years ago, finding he couldn’t control it. It wasn’t fair that he had to fight still another addiction. On top of that, now he had Charlie Thomas floating in his subconscious, getting on his nerves as well. It was going to be one god-awful week.
    He should be used to it by now. The best stories never came easy, and he ought to count his blessings. He was living, if not in the lap of luxury, at least in beautiful surroundings. Lauretta was a good cook, Tuscany was gorgeous, and something was making him feel more alive than he’d felt in years.
    It was the promise of a good story, he told himself. It was the thought of all the money he’d make from it, after too many lean years.
    And it was the challenge, the temptation of Charlie Thomas, shut off from everyone and everything. She held secrets even he couldn’t begin to guess at. Hell, he’d slept with women before for the sake of a story. Women liked to talk when they were in a postcoital daze, and he was very good at getting them into that place. With any luck, all he had to do was fuck Charlie’s brains out and she’d tell him everything she knew about Pompasse.
    He could do it. He could rise to the occasion, he thought with a wry smile, and enjoy seeing if he could make the ice princess scream.
    Hell, he ought to sleep with all Pompasse’s castoffs if he were going to be really thorough, though he drew the line at senile Madame Antonella. And he could probably get just as much information out of Lauretta if he simply complimented her cooking. That way he wouldn’t have to risk Tomaso’s ire.
    He didn’t want to sleep with Gia, either. She’d already dismissed him as not being worth her time, but it wouldn’t take much to convince her otherwise. She was young and healthy, and it would be a piece of cake to appeal to her animal nature.
    But the problem was, she didn’t appeal to his. And he doubted she’d know much, either—like most beautiful young women she was completely self-absorbed. Probably anything she knew about Pompasse would have only been in relation to herself.
    And he doubted that she’d blurt out that she’d killed him when she came.
    No, he had other ways of pumping Gia than the old-fashioned way. He didn’t think she was the one who killed Pompasse, but she might very well know who did. Or at least know something that could lead him to the killer, assuming one existed. He still had no proof other than his own sure instincts. It would be a damned shame if it were an accident, after all. Nothing sold books so well as murder.
    He’d work on Gia if he had to, and even sleep with her if it was necessary.
    But in the meantime he was more interested in seeing what he could get from the widow.
    He skirted the building, moving around back to the narrow path leading up to the abandoned church. He could hear voices