“You said before that you loved my dad, but things didn’t work out, and he didn’t want us, so he didn’t matter anymore.”

“I thought I loved him. I should’ve said that. I was only twenty, Adrian. He was older, and handsome and charming and smart. A young professor. I fell in love with who I thought he was. And he didn’t matter between then and now.”

“Why was he so mad today?”

“Because someone, a reporter, found out, and wrote a story. I don’t know how, I don’t know who told him. I didn’t.”

“You didn’t because he didn’t matter.”

“That’s exactly right.”

How much did you tell? Lina thought again. Under the circumstances, maybe all of it.

“He was married, Adrian. He had a wife, and two children. I didn’t know. That is, he lied to me, and told me he was in the middle of a divorce. I believed him.”

Had she? Lina wondered. So hard to remember now.

“Maybe I just wanted to, but I believed him. He had his own little apartment near the college, so I believed he was essentially single. Later I found out I wasn’t the only one he lied to. When I found out the truth, I broke things off. He didn’t really care.”

Not fully true, she thought. Screamed, threatened, shoved.

“Then I realized I was pregnant. Later, much later than I should have realized, I felt like I had to tell him. That’s when he hit me. He wasn’t drunk, like today.”

He’d been drinking, she thought, but not drunk. Not like today.

“I told him I didn’t want or need anything from him, that I wouldn’t humiliate myself by telling anyone he was the biological father. And I left.”

Lina edited out the threats, the demands she get rid of it, and all the other ugliness. No point in it.

“I finished out the term, graduated, then I went home. Popi and Nonna helped me. You know the rest, how I started doing classes and videos when I was pregnant with you—for pregnant women, then after for moms and babies.”

“Yoga Baby.”

“Right.”

“But he was always mean. Does that mean I will be, too?”

God, she sucked at this mother thing. She did her best to think what her own mother would say.

“Do you feel mean?”

“Sometimes I get mad.”

“Tell me about it.” But Lina smiled. “Mean’s a choice, I think, and you don’t choose to be mean. He was right, too, that you don’t look like him. Too much Rizzo in you.”

Lina reached across the table, took Adrian’s good hand. Maybe it felt too much like speaking adult to adult, but it was the best she could do.

“He doesn’t matter, Adrian, unless we let him matter. So we won’t let him matter.”

“Are you going to have to go to jail?”

Lina toasted with her wineglass. “You’re not going to let them, remember?” Then she saw the quick fear, and squeezed Lina’s hand. “I’m joking, just joking. No, Adrian. The police could see what happened. You told the detective the truth, right?”

“I did. I promise.”

“So did I. So did Mimi. You put that out of your mind. What is going to happen is because there was this story, and then this happened, there’ll be more stories. I’m going to talk to Harry soon, and he’ll help me deal with that.”

“Can we still go to Popi and Nonna’s?”

“Yes. As soon as Mimi’s better, after you get your cast, after I deal with some things, we’re going there.”

“Can we go soon? Really soon?”

“As soon as we can. Just a few days, maybe.”

“That’s soon. Everything will be better there.”

A long time, Lina thought, before things would be better. But she polished off her wine. “Absolutely.”

CHAPTER TWO

Lina’s career had its roots in her unplanned pregnancy. In a matter of months, she went from college student and part-time personal trainer/group fitness instructor to the world of exercise videos.

The green shoots took awhile to break through the ground, but determination, persistence, and a canny head for business pushed them toward bloom.

In the months before Jon Bennett had shoved through the door in Georgetown, her career blossomed, with Yoga Baby’s sales—videos, DVDs, personal appearances, a book (with another planned)—generating over two million in profit.

An attractive, quick-witted woman, she made the most of segments on morning shows—then late-night appearances. She wrote articles for fitness magazines—and boosted those with photo shoots.

She was a young, attractive woman with a long, buff body and knew how to use both to her advantage.

She even snagged a couple of cameos on network series.

She liked the limelight, and wasn’t ashamed of it, or her ambitions. She believed, absolutely, in her product—health, fitness, and balance—and believed, absolutely, she was the best person to promote that product.

Working hard posed no issues for Lina. She thrived on it, on the travel, the packed schedules, and the planning for more.

She had a line of fitness gear in the works, and in consult with a nutritionist and MD, had begun plans for supplements.

Then she’d shoved the man who’d inadvertently changed the direction of her life to his death.

Self-defense. It didn’t take long for the police to conclude she’d acted in defense of herself, her daughter, and her friend.

And in a horrible way, the publicity boosted her sales, her name recognition, and the offers.

It didn’t take her long to decide to ride that wave.

A week after the worst happened, she made the drive from Georgetown to rural Maryland with plans to make the best out of it.

She wore enormous sunglasses, as even her skill with makeup couldn’t hide the bruises. Her ribs still ached, but she’d started a modified workout routine, and added extra meditation.

Mimi still got the occasional headache, but her broken nose was healing, her blackened eye fading to sick yellow.

Adrian found her cast annoying, but liked getting it signed. In two weeks, according to the doctor, she’d need another X-ray.

It could have been worse. Lina reminded herself constantly it could have been worse.

Since Harry bought Adrian a new Game Boy, she entertained herself in the back seat during the drive. Lina saw the shadows of the Maryland mountains, the pale lavender against a bold blue sky.

She’d wanted so desperately to escape from them, from the quiet, the creepingly slow pace, and into movement, crowds, people, everything out there.

And she still did.

She wasn’t made for small towns and country living. God knew she’d never wanted to make meatballs or pizza sauce or run a restaurant—family legacy or not.

She’d craved the crowds, the city, and, yes, the limelight.

She considered New York home base if not fully home. Home was, and always would be, she thought, where the work and the action lived.

When she finally turned off I-70, the traffic vanished, and the road began to wind through rolling hills, green fields, and the scatter of homes and farms that spread over them.

Well, she thought, you could go home again, but you just couldn’t stay there. At least not Lina Theresa Rizzo.