Page 74 of His Beautiful Revenge
Orlando stepped towards her, but Norah stopped him. “Allow me, Lando.”
Tara tried to scream in the second before Norah’s fist smashed into her temple and knocked her cold.
Garbage. Garbage and gulls and grime. Tara opened her eyes. She was dumped on a landfill site. She stood up and clambered down of the pile, gagging and heaving all the way. A couple of raggedy dumpster divers stared at her, but she ignored them. Her clothes and her hair were soaked in old, stinky food and god knows what else.
It wasn’t until she finally tumbled to the bottom of the trash pile that she saw them.
Paparazzi. And every single one of them was laughing at her.
Six weeks later
As they sat outside the café on Florence’s sun-drenched streets, Enrico Conti read the newspaper silently as his son and Norah waited for his reaction. Tara’s picture was still headline news, even after all these weeks. Her broken contracts, her fall from grace, and now she had disappeared. Norah couldn’t rustle up any sympathy for her.
She watched her future father-in-law from the corner of her eye. Since they’d returned to Italy, she’d spent even more time with Giacomo’s lovely mother, Vittoria, his sister. Adriana, and occasionally his brother, Enzo, but his father had still kept his distance. He was certainly polite to her and she thought he might be thawing, but no sooner than she thought she’d made progress, he would retreat again.
Giacomo had assured her that his father wouldn’t stand in the way of them marrying, and now, with the wedding a week away, Norah couldn’t feel anything but optimistic about the future. In two days, Orlando, Zulika, Fred, and Ferma would be arriving, and then she and Zulika would be frantically trying to organize everything.
She was regretting not having some gelato, as the weather was so warm, but she felt too relaxed, Giacomo’s arm around her, to bother asking for some now. Giacomo and Enrico were chatting about something in Italian now, and although she was picking up the language, she didn’t listen along, instead just people-watching.
Norah fiddled with the coffee cup as the two men spoke. She tried not to keep glancing at Enrico Conti, trying to read his reaction to her. She felt as if there was a little thawing, but he was so hard to read, she couldn’t be sure.
The sun was beating down on Florence, bright on the café’s windows, and at first, she could not believe what she was seeing until the woman came closer.
Tara.
The blonde woman, her face unmade, her hair bedraggled, lurched towards them, her gaze fixed on Giacomo who had his back turned towards Tara.
“Giacomo!”
All three of them stood, people around them scattering as Tara raised the gun and pointed it at Giacomo’s chest. “You ruined my life, you bastard.”
Giacomo was calm. “No, Tara. You ruined your own life.”
The gun was shaking in her hand, but Norah saw her flick off the safety.No. No way.Without another thought, she shoved Giacomo hard, right into his father, as Tara fired the gun. Norah felt a sting in her shoulder, but the adrenaline had kicked in and she dived at Tara, knocking the gun away from her.
“Get off me, youbitch.” Tara was scratching and clawing at the other woman, but Norah was in no mood to be fucked with. She slammed her fist into Tara’s face over and over, all of her pain, her guilt, and her anger fueling her. It took both Giacomo and his father to pull her off the other woman. Giacomo wrapped his arms around her as two polizia came running to help.
Norah couldn’t recall what had happened next; the red mist in her brain was so virulent, so overpowering, she felt like she was a gibbering ball of rage. Every ounce of pain, hurt, betrayal and fear came out of her as soon as she’d seen Tara point that gun at her beloved Giacomo, and she knew that even if Tara killed her, she would not let Giacomo die.
She finally calmed down as the doctor examined her shoulder. Giacomo was holding her other hand and his father stood a way back, watching the scene with that unreadable expression of his.
“It’s just a flesh wound, thankfully,” the doctor said finally. They had been surprised to find an American doctor working at the Florence hospital’s emergency room. “You won’t even need surgery.”
“Good. With respect, doctor, I’ve seen the inside of a hospital too much recently.” Her voice was scratchy and she felt Giacomo’s lips pressed against her temple.
“I’ll numb the area and we’ll get you cleaned and stitched up. Now, how do you feel in yourself? The bullet didn’t do the damage, but the shock could affect you.”
Norah shook her head. “No, I’m fine, doc, I promise. I’d rather be with Giacomo than in here. If I relapse or anything, I’ll come back.”
The doctor nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Well, hang out here, Supergirl, and we’ll get you cleaned up.”
Norah closed her eyes and leaned against Giacomo. “It’s really over now, huh?”
They had seen Tara dragged away by grim-faced polizia, and later the chief inspector had assured them that Tara would be facing a raft of charges. “The F.B.I. have also reached out to us. Mr. Conti, perhaps you would like to speak to them when you have a moment.”
Giacomo reminded them of this now and excused himself to go call the agency. Norah sat in silence, suddenly feeling uncomfortable with Giacomo’s father.
Enrico Conti pulled up a chair and sat next to her. To Norah’s shock, he took her hand and she saw tears in her eyes.
