Page 1 of Storm in a D Cup

1

Italian Playboys

Castellino, Tuscany, five years later

‘Ciao, bella, want a rrride?’

I ignored the slowing Ferrari that had materialized next to me on the deserted Tuscan country lane as I trudged up the last hill leading home from the village.

The countryside around Castellino, in the province of Siena, the place we had chosen to be our home almost eight years ago, could not have been more idyllic. It was a vast, bucolic setting of endless patchwork hills of greens, yellows and russets that chased to the horizon, brushed by squiggles of tall cypress trees that ran single file, now purpling under the dome of a magenta sky.

‘Flat tire? Come, come!’

‘No, thank you,’ I said without turning to acknowledge my molester.

‘Come on, Eri-ha! It’s a long way up from Castellino to your home…’

Oh God, the last thing I needed was to be ambushed by Leonardo Cortini, the local playboy. With long, wavy sun-streaked hair and blue eyes, he was sort of good-looking-ish, in a savage, old-world, long-nosed noble family kind of way. The kind of looks that come from money and confidence. And, alas, regular visits to tanning salons. He regularly catered to the needs of lonely and/or bored women down in the Val d’Orcia.

Personally, I was neither lonely nor bored, so I couldn’t understand why he was wasting a single moment of his time with me, a happily remarried mother of two. Because if Prince Charming ever existed, it was no doubt my husband Julian Foxham, the former principal at my children’s school in Boston. Not that that was why we’d met. Oh no. It had to happen in the most embarrassing of ways.

My brother from another mother, Paul Belhomme, had been in the hospital with a broken leg, so I’d volunteered to bring him a change of pajamas and other essentials from his home. Only on the way, I’d had to stop at a restaurant for a quick pee. In the ladies’ room, as I was washing my hands, a giant spider had somehow ended up inside my trousers, sending me into a flurry of blood-curdling screams.

At that, a man had burst in, alarmed by the ruckus, only to find me bouncing from wall to wall trying to get the dreaded thing off me. And when that hadn’t worked, I’d grabbed the man, begging him to pull my trousers off. And kill the beast. When he was satisfied that I wasn’t a total whack job trying to frame him for indecent acts in public, he’d proceeded to comply to my extraordinary request.

Only my zipper was stuck and he’d had to wrench my trousers off me as I continued to scream, my arms and legs flailing in every direction. By the time we were done, I’d realized that, in my panicked frenzy, I’d ripped his shirt open too.

When he’d offered to take me to lunch, I’d refused, for several reasons. One, Paul was waiting for me; two, I couldn’t bear to look my rescuer in the eye after he’d seen all of my wobbliest bits; and three…? In all honesty, I struggled to find any other reason why I shouldn’t have seen him again. And yet, I’d let that train pass, while thinking about him day after day. And night after night, actually. Until I came face to face with him at a meeting with my kids’ principal. Meaning that hewasmy kids’ principal who had called me in for, as he’d said, a simple ‘chinwag’. Just so you know, when your kids’ principal calls you in, it’sneverfor a simple chinwag. There is always trouble lurking behind that call.

Of course it had to be the day that I had a stinking cold and looked like shit, wearing my worst suit that smelled like mothballs because I hadn’t had a chance to pick up my dry cleaning. And of course, he had to go and recognize me, what with the gazillion parents he meets on a daily basis. My daughter, only eight at the time, had mentioned at school that things weren’t going very well at home, as my husband Ira and I were divorcing. That had caught my principal’s attention, so he’d decided we should meet. You know, just to make sure I wasn’t starving them or something.

Patient, kind and gorgeous, he was the dream of many women in and outside the school and later in the town of Castellino where we’d moved to seven years ago, dethroning Leonardo Cortini as the Number-One Hunk. Not that Leonardo did anything for me, physically.

And what was it with this Leonardo guy anyway? At least a couple of times a year he tried it on with me whenever our paths crossed. He simply couldn’t takenofor an answer. I was probably one of the few married women in the province who hadn’t slept with him.

Even when I was a young love-starved girl in Boston, I’d have steered clear of this guy whose ego was the size of a cathedral and who thought he was the best thing in Tuscany since Chianti wine.

Not to brag, but if you were married to the gorgeous former baseball star Julian Foxham (subsequently my kids’ principal, personal savior and now full-time novelist), Leonardo Cortini wouldn’t be your type either. And I, Erica Cantelli, a forty-three-year-old housewife who was always battling to keep the pounds off, was nowhere near Leonardo’s (nor my hunky husband’s, I would soon find out) type.

So I still had no idea why the Tuscan playboy wanted to play with me on this warm, perfect, early-summer afternoon here among the impossibly romantic and picturesque Tuscan hills dotted with cypresses and olive groves. I wasn’t warm, or romantic (maybe a little picturesque) nor Tuscan. So why was he even looking my way?

‘Come on, I give you a rrride, Eri-ha…’ Leonardo drawled as he came to a full stop, blocking my path.

I bared my teeth at him (old habits died hard) and shook my head, pushing my stubborn handlebars as if they were the ears of a donkey that refused to budge. He laughed, and I threw him my famous hairy eyeball, but he didn’t seem fazed.

‘So yourrr ’usband’s out of town again,sì?’

It was theagainthat annoyed me. Otherwise I wouldn’t have given him the time of day, or been suddenly defensive about the fact that, yes, Julianwasout of town again to meet his agent Terry Peterson in New York. They were apparently planning the longest book tour in history. (If that sounds even remotely familiar to you, then you know the story of my life. Because it just keeps getting harder, being happy. If you don’t know much about me, then you’re in for one helluva ride.) Meaning that he was away most of the time.

But when hewashome, he entertained the guests of our exclusive holiday rentals that, thanks to Julian’s connections, had lately become the secret haven for the jet set – stars who needed extreme privacy, like the lovely Lara Stanic, a Serbian gymnast whom Julian used to date, albeit for a month. She was currently seeing someone but was afraid he was cheating on her (familiar territory for me) so we’d often have a chat and she’d let me read his text messages and ask me what I thought. The guy was nuts about her. Who wouldn’t be? Lara was so down to earth, a real woman despite her fame. I loved her. I didn’t see how anyone couldn’t. Which brought a question to mind.

‘Why did you leave her?’ I asked Julian.

He looked at me in alarm, like I was going to start one of my interrogations, but then he shrugged. ‘I didn’t. We mutually agreed that some people are meant to be just friends. Lara’s a great gal.’

‘Absolutely. I love her,’ I agreed. Trouble was that I couldn’t understand why he didn’t. ‘And she’s absolutely gorgeous.’

‘Yes, just as much on the inside, if not more,’ he agreed. And I still didn’t get it. What could I possibly have that she didn’t? I mean, come on, between you and me, I’m a normal-ish-looking gal with unruly hair and a few curves that sometimes seem too many, depending on what mood I wake up in the morning. But Lara? I’ve seen her first thing out of bed and let me tell you she is gorgeous, especially without make-up.

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