“Me neither.” God, Danny didn’t. Felix. That bright, laughing boy with the sense of mischief and the champagne tastes. He’d given up so much for Josh’s legacy.
He’d given up Danny.
Danny had wanted him to have the world. The least he could do was help him out of a jam.
“What do you want to do about it?” Danny asked, because it was obviously what Josh needed to hear.
Josh’s face lit up like Times Square.
“I’ve got a plan,” he said eagerly.
Danny raised an eyebrow. This was the child who had once left their hotel room in Prague when he’d been seven, panhandled for bus fair, and spent a day at a museum while Danny, Felix, and Julia had been having heart attacks trying to find him.
“Of course you do.”
The Pines of Rome
FELIX SIPPED his Macallan moodily, staring out the second-floor window of his Glencoe mansion, noting that the outside lights were still on. The comforting yellow glow illuminated the slashing silver of an early spring storm. Locals were probably just glad it wasn’t snow, but Felix didn’t mind the snow.
He minded that this day wasn’t over yet.
Wasn’t it nine o’clock yet? Wasn’t it ten? Wasn’t it tomorrow yet? Next week? Next month? Sometime when he could recover and didn’t have to see his face splashed across every news network on the planet as the world’s biggest misogynist?
His neck muscles started cranking tightly, and he took a bigger swig of the scotch, trying to relax.
“You know what you need?” Julia asked, padding into his bedroom uninvited. Well, they’d lived like brother and sister for over twenty years. She slept in this house when she was in Chicago, the same way he slept in her townhouse when he was in New York.
“A time machine?” he asked bitterly.
“Sex,” she said frankly. “You haven’t had a lover in a really long time.”
Ten years, he wanted to say. Physically it wasn’t true, but emotionally?
“Now is not the time,” he said softly, taking another sip of his scotch.
“He’s in town, Felix. You should ask him.”
“No,” Felix said.
“Felix—”
He yanked his attention from the rain. “How do you want me to start that conversation, Jules? ‘Hey, remember how I wouldn’t walk away from my sham marriage because I wanted to run an empire? Well, the whole thing got yanked around my ears in a colossal act of karma, and now I’m fucked. Want to come commit some illegal acts to prove I’m innocent of harassing every woman I’ve come in contact with? It won’t fix the last ten years, but I can get some fucking retribution.’” He killed the rest of the tumbler and poured himself another healthy dose from the decanter at his dressing table. “I think no.”
“Well your pitch is terrible,” Julia said. She was dressed simply in off-the-rack flannel pajamas with an oversized sweatshirt—one of his—down to her knees. Her feet were bare except for bright pink polish on each toe and a whimsical little jewel in the center of the first little piggy. She looked hardly out of college, someone in their salad days, not like a mother about to pass forty. Not like someone who could have bought and sold this pricy house ten or twenty times with just one bank account—if Marnie didn’t take it all, damn her. Not like a ruthless businesswoman who had taken her father’s holdings and—against the old man’s wishes half the time—expanded them.
Not like an heiress.
Like a friend.
His friend walked up to him and put her arm around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder.
“You need to work on your pitch,” she prompted again.
“Yeah? What would you suggest?” God, he missed Danny.
“How about ‘Hey—I know we ended things badly, and that was my fault. But I’ve never stopped loving you after all these years, and I’d love to be back in your life. But I’ve got this pesky legal situation that’s haunting me, and I’d appreciate your help.’”
Felix swallowed. “You really think that would work?”
“It’s Danny,” she said softly. “I watched him come back to you again and again. He’s never left our son’s life. Danny’s a good man.”
Felix snorted. Danny was a thief and a con man and would have laughed uproariously at that last statement.
But that didn’t change the fact that it was true.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER saving Felix’s bacon on the streets of Rome, Danny took Felix on a tour of Rome’s poorest neighborhood—and saved his soul.
Felix had been bored. His parents were wealthy but indifferent, and Felix had gone to Europe for an adventure. The dickwad American tourist stalking along the streets yelling at people who didn’t speak English had appealed to his sense of fun.
Felix didn’t need the money, but boy that asshole sure did need the setdown.
Danny pulled the Vespa into a tiny corner street and left it, tugging on Felix’s hand.
“Where are we going?” Felix asked. “And who are you?”
Danny turned to him with a gamine smile. He had a little gap between his front two teeth, but that didn’t stop the entire smile from lighting up his narrow face. His chin was pointed like a fox’s, and his eyebrows—which he’d later pluck and groom extensively—arched with wicked intent.
“I’m Danny. Who’re you?”
“Felix Salinger,” Felix said hesitantly.
“Like the writer?” To his credit, the boy looked suitably impressed.
“No.” Felix shook his head. “Like the Salingers from LA, who have a lot of money and let me take a vacation to Europe.”
Danny wrinkled his nose. “That’s a lousy pitch. No, if you get busted, you gotta be like ‘Yeah, like the writer’s great-grandson. I love that book, don’t you?’”
Felix let out a bark of laughter and tried not to twist his ankle on the broken pavement. “Where are we going?” He felt a yank on his back pocket and whirled around to grab an urchin—complete with lice and a sour smell—by the shoulder. “Give that back!” he snapped, reaching for the wallet he’d rightfully stolen.
The kid jabbered at him in Italian, and to his surprise, Danny answered. The kid argued for a moment, and then Danny shouted, “Enough, Berto, or I tell your mama!”
The kid recoiled, wounded. “No fair,” he replied in thick English. “Is no fair you tell my mama!”
“This one, he’s under my protection, okay?”
Berto gave a disgusted sniff and leveled a look of pure bathos at Felix. “Not even his wallet.”
Danny snorted and turned to Felix. “It’s only fair he shares the spoils, then, okay?”
Felix was about to argue. This kid wasn’t getting what he’d worked for! Then he got a look at the kid—a good look. Yeah, the little beggar was crafty, and he was a thief. But his clothes were threadbare, and as Felix watched, Danny pulled a loaf of bread from the front of his oversized sweater, ripped it in half, and offered the other half of it to Berto… who practically tore it out of his hand.
“Grazie!” Berto mumbled through a full mouth.