Compromising Positions

She was still in a fog, allowing Marco to tend to her, when an insistent knocking jerked her back to reality.

“What’s keeping you two…?” A friendly voice accompanied the knock, the bedroom door swinging open suddenly. Giovanni Genovese took one look at the pair of them and immediately stepped back into the hall.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, eyes flitting from Marco’s stiffening shoulders to Mina’s wide eyes and kiss swollen lips. His gaze traveled further, taking her unsteady stance, and flickering over the wildly mussed sheets on the king sized bed. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Marco put himself between Mina and his brother’s gaze, a low rumble in his chest the only warning necessary. Giovanni raised a hand to calm him and shook his head.

“Do not blame the messenger,” he pointed to himself, “but Mamma sent me to remind you that you have guests arriving and that since she is not your wife,” his eyes flickered to Mina over Marco’s shoulder, “it is not her job to entertain your clients.”

Marco allowed his stance to relax and nodded once at his little brother. “Thank you, Gio.” He shook his head once as if to clear it. “It seems I have lost track of time. Tell Mamma I apologize for the delay and that we’ll be right down.”

Something passed between the brothers that Mina didn’t understand, but finally Giovanni nodded. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll greet your guests.” He nodded in Mina’s direction. “You take whatever time you need. Mamma can wait.” Suddenly he winked and gave the smile Mina remembered. “It will probably be good for her.”

Marco returned the smile, if a little less enthusiastically. “Yes, but I doubt it will be good for me.”

“Oh I know it won’t be good for you,” the grin widened. “But then again, you always were her favorite. She might forgive you. In a year or two.” He shut the door, his laughter fading as he headed down the hall.

“It’s me she’s going to blame,” Mina said quietly, stepping away from Marco’s protective position. “She’s never going to like me.”

“Don’t be so certain.” Marco slipped his tie around his neck and quickly knotted it, every movement elegant and efficient. “She told me yesterday that she was amazed that you’d put up with me for so long.”

Mina doubted that was the extent of the comment, but she didn’t push. She leaned forward and tried to smooth her curls into some sort of order that didn’t scream “just fucked,” and sighed.

It was going to be a long night.

Marco’s mother lied.

When Mina and Marco finally made their way into the large salon, cocktails were being served and Bianca Genovese was expertly handling the influx of guests, air-kissing some and embracing others, every inch the hostess she denied being.

She cast a gimlet eye over her elder offspring and turned away without acknowledging him, tilting her head to catch something being said to her by a handsome man who looked like he’d like to get to know her much better. She laughed and it was a rolling, sensual sound, causing Mina to look twice. That wasn’t a sound she expected from the rigid woman she’d encountered all week.

The crowd was larger than Mina had expected. Marco said it would be a few investors and some local businessmen he’d convinced to support a new resort and spa he was building in the foothills just north of the city. Golf wasn’t the passion here that it was in the States, and he’d already pared his plans down some, but this evening’s festivities were to celebrate the finalization of plans that he’d been working towards for almost a year.

Business was business the world over, but this Genovese business party put anything that Mina had ever experienced to shame. She recognized a few people milling about-Marco, and Giovanni, and their mother of course. She saw Signora Genovese’s personal secretary, Elena, standing guard behind her employer, ready to swing into action at a moment’s notice in case someone was going to die due to a lack of dictation. Marco’s secretary, a beautiful silver-haired woman named Cinzia DiPaolo, was there as well, but instead of hovering she was mingling and smiling, greeting each guest as if they were personal friends.

Hell, maybe they were personal friends.

Mina took a glass of sparkling wine from a passing waiter and tried to find a quiet corner to hide in. It wasn’t that she wanted to hide, but there was a limit to how many times she could say, “Mi dispiace, non parlo italiano” before she wanted to beat someone over the head with an English to Italian dictionary. To top it off, she’d used up most of her patience dealing with the team of movers Marco had brought in to pack the largest pieces of the collection for shipping back to Miami. She’d been prepared for their “hands on” approach to women-something she was told was a normal occurrence in Italy, especially for a blonde American woman-but she wasn’t prepared for the sly looks and the elbowing and laughter that happened every time Marco’s name came up. The last thing she wanted was an evening full of suggestive comments and knowing looks, even if she was going commando.

“It seems that every time I see you, you seem,” a familiar voice cut through the party chatter, “preoccupied.”

Giovanni stepped around a pillar and smiled.

Mina jumped, her reflex sending a spray of wine into the air. She tried to move to avoid it, but it was no use- her beautiful blue dress was now a la spumante.

“Don’t do that,” she said, searching fruitlessly for a way to clean up the mess. Giovanni laughed and waved his hand at one of the waiters and instantly there was a cloth, a person wielding it, and a new glass of wine to replace the one that had died so ignominiously.

“Don’t do what, Dottoressa?” His eyes sparkled and Mina glared at him half- heartedly, but there wasn’t any real venom in it.

“Well, don’t sneak up on me and scare the wits out of me, for starters,” she said, frowning over the dark splotches on her dress. “And don’t call me Dottoressa.” She held her wine glass up, stopping any argument. “No-I told you before: I didn’t go to University here, so Italian rules don’t apply. No titles, no honorifics… I’m just plain old Mina Hemingway, thank you very much.”

All week she’d felt like a fraud when people assumed that since she was handling the exhibit for the museum she must have degrees out the wazoo. Why else would she be given such an honor?

Why else, indeed?

Mina sighed and shook her head. It wasn’t like she asked for this-this was all Marco’s doing. Let them tell him his choice for Curator was wrong. She was right out of it.

“It isn’t an insult you know.” Mina’s mental calisthenics jerked to a stop. “The title, I mean. People recognize that you’re a scholar-a very beautiful scholar, but a scholar, nevertheless.” Giovanni’s tone surprised her. She’d never heard him so serious, but he just didn’t understand.

“It isn’t something you just see in people,” she said. “I mean, it isn’t like I have anthropologist tattooed across my forehead.”

Maybe I should try that, she thought. At least it would be better than Marco’s Mistress.

“No,” Giovanni agreed, “you don’t. You have curiosity in your eyes, and intelligence in your questions. You have care in your hands and passion in your heart.” He turned to face her square on. “No one watching you handling the artifacts could mistake it.” He paused. “I could tell as soon as I met you-there you were in the Italian sun, wearing a bikini and a frown, practically drowning in diagrams and reports. Only someone who loved it would do that.”

Mina laughed. “You sound like you have some experience with it-have you dated many Dottoressas in your day?”

He paused and looked at her, a corner of his mouth finally quirking into a little smile. “You might say that.” He grinned down at her, the seriousness gone. “But none of them looked quite like you do in a bathing suit.”

They stood laughing together for a moment, until a wave of motion caught their attention.

“I thought you said your mother wasn’t going to play hostess.” Mina murmured under her breath as she watched the Genovese matriarch glide across the parquet floor towards them. She took a quick sip of wine to fortify herself, and shifted a little uncomfortably, hoping the bland expression on the older woman’s face was an accurate