Murphy's Law Read Free Page B

steps into the room and wrinkled her nose, overwhelmed by the smell of alcohol. An open bottle of Glenfiddich, three-quarters empty, stood on the laminated plastic desk next to another full bottle, still sealed.
    Faith remembered the incredible fuss Roland Kane had made at Rome Fiumicino Airport when the customs officer had halted him to check the clinking sounds in a carry-on bag and discovered four bottles of Glenfiddich.
    Four bottles for a three-day seminar. God forbid he should run out.
    Bottle number one was almost finished by day one. Kane’s liver probably looked like pus-filled custard at this point.
    Faith stood in the doorway a moment longer then stepped cautiously into the room. Professor Kane didn’t seem to be paying her any attention so she edged over to the left, rising a little on tiptoe, eager to get a look at the view through his window.
    The Southbury contingent had arrived late the previous night and so far all Faith had seen of Italy was Rome Fiumicino Airport, the Florence Airport, and some of the dark Tuscan countryside from Florence to Siena from the minivan which had picked them up.
    All she’d seen of fabled Tuscany was the rather dingy outskirts of Florence and a few hilltop towns on the dark horizon. They had arrived very late at the Certosa and their Italian hosts had been so anxious to feed them that they hadn’t seen anything at all but the refectory and the cell each mathematician had been assigned.
    Her cell was on the other side of the large quadrangle where the monks had lived and prayed. It had a view over a small, charming cloister with an ivy-bedecked stone well. Right now she wanted to see something of Tuscany in the daylight.
    She shot another glance at Professor Kane. He still showed no flicker of response. Probably out cold , she thought in disgust. What an asshole.
    How could so much intellectual power be packed into such a miserable human being? Still, he was her boss, so she couldn’t give in to her urge to haul back and kick him as he so richly deserved.
    Standing on tiptoe and craning her neck, she could see out the window. The view was like an impossibly beautiful painting by a Renaissance artist.
    Lovely trees marched up and down gentle hills. They were tall, dark green, as slender and as elegant as church spires. Cypresses, she thought. In the distance topping the highest hill was Siena, golden-red and magical.
    The intense colors, the landscape which looked as if an impossibly gifted gardener had planned it down to the finest, most meticulous detail, the bright, cloudless cobalt blue sky—everything called out to her and touched a chord deep in her heart she hadn’t known existed. There wasn’t a human being alive whose soul wouldn’t thrill to that view.
    Well, maybe not the pig at her feet. Professor Kane’s soul, she was certain, was probably as diseased and inert as his liver. Faith flicked a glance down at him. He looked exactly like what he was—a self-centered monster.
    His lean face was heavily crisscrossed with lines of cruelty and bad temper. No soul at all there—merely a brain. A brain that, for all its brilliance, was unable to appreciate the beauty beckoning from his window. Otherwise he wouldn’t be passed out at her feet.
    At least he wasn’t snoring. Faith frowned as she realized that. Why wasn’t he snoring? Wouldn’t a drunk snore? Nick had… She stopped herself. Don’t go there. She didn’t want to think of that. It had been awful enough living it.
    Oh God. Her thighs clenched. A day and a half after the most humiliating episode in a life filled with them, her thighs had no shame at all. They should have been impervious to any thought of Nick, who’d forgotten her name. But no. Heat zapped through her body as she had a flash of Nick lying on top of her, Nick in her . No. Not going there.
    She drew in a deep breath and tried to concentrate on Professor Kane. Horrible as he was, it was better to think of him than of Nick.
    Damn. She had