''I Do''...Take Two! by Merline Lovelace Page A

wasn’t in, but he’d left a message with his secretary.
    â€œSignore Gallo would very much like to chat with you about changes to the liquidity index.”
    The secretary’s voice and heavy accent sounded familiar, but it took Kate a moment to connect them to the woman she’d surprised in the ladies’ room at the bank, fighting tears. The odd encounter stuck in her mind as the secretary extended an invitation.
    â€œWould it be possible for you and your husband to join him for lunch in our executive dining room on Monday? At one o’clock, if that’s convenient.”
    â€œI think we can work that. If not, I’ll call back and let you know.”
    â€œGrazie.”
    She relayed the gist of both calls to Travis as they took the elevator to the hotel’s rooftop restaurant for a late breakfast.
    â€œIf you don’t mind, I’d like to make another stop at the bank in Bologna. Signore Gallo’s invited us to lunch. It should work out perfectly with our revised itinerary.”
    â€œWhich version?” he asked with a grin.
    â€œThe one that has us in Venice today, Aviano tomorrow and wherever for the weekend. We could head back to Florence on Monday, with a stop in Bologna on the way.”
    â€œWorks for me.”
    â€œI, uh, also told Callie and Dawn that we would check to see if there were any rooms available here at the hotel in case they wanted to zip over and see Venice this weekend.”
    To her surprise and secret relief, Travis took the invitation in stride. “Be great if they decide to come.”
    â€œYou don’t mind?”
    â€œNo, sweetheart, I don’t.” The elevator door pinged open, but he held it with one hand and tipped her chin with the other.
    â€œYou three have been best pals for as long as I’ve known you. I’d be happy to squire the Invincibles around Venice during the day.” His voice dropped to a husky murmur. “As long as the nights are ours.”
    Shivers of delight dancing along her nerves, she echoed his earlier agreement. “Works for me.”
    But just in case, Travis thought as the hostess showed them to a table overlooking the Grand Canal, he might see what Brian had laid on for the weekend. Carlo, too. Never hurt to have a little diversionary tactic available when and if one became necessary.
    In the meantime, he intended to sit back and enjoy his wife’s delight in Venice, a city he’d come to know and appreciate these past weeks. Not that he’d experienced it in such sumptuous surroundings before.
    Carlo kept insisting he owed Travis for covering his ass during a raid to rescue a captured Italian news crew. If so, the playboy prince had more than repaid the debt. Just watching Kate’s face as she took in the restaurant’s fairy-tale atmosphere tipped the scales in Carlo’s favor.
    Even Travis had to admit the restaurant would rank at the top of anyone’s most-romantic list. Sunbeams filtered through vine-covered trellises, the buffet was fit for a king—correction, for a Venetian doge—and their table gave them a superb view of the vaporetti and gondolas gliding over the canal directly below.
    The extravagant buffet also offered guests a choice of wine, mimosas, Bloody Marys or Bellinis. Although the latter was more of a cocktail than a morning eye-opener, it went with the setting.
    â€œYou know the Bellini was invented here,” Travis commented as Kate opted for the combination of sparkling wine and peach nectar served in a tall crystal flute.
    â€œI know. At Harry’s Bar, where Ernest Hemingway and Sinclair Lewis and a bunch of other literary greats hung out in the 1930s and ’40s.” When their waiter delivered her drink, she held it up to the light to admire the pale pink hue. “Wonder why it’s called a Bellini.”
    Their server was only too happy to supply the answer. “It is named for one of our greatest painters,