Rapp kissed Anna on the cheek and left the Prada store. She had gladly cut him loose after more than an hour of shopping. He was slowing her down. She'd never seen such good prices on designer clothes and accessories. There was serious shopping to be done and she wasn't going to be distracted. He'd explained to her the lay of the land and said that he would catch up with her at Chanel in an hour or so. His mission, as he told Anna, was to find a bookstore and a cafe that served good coffee.

As Rapp walked down the street he was awash in a steady stream of conflicting emotions. He was not a big fan of lying to Anna, but when it came to his profession he found the need to omit certain details. That's at least what he'd been telling himself since they'd left Baltimore. He was definitely about to take care of a very important piece of business with someone who worked for another foreign intelligence agency, but that someone also happened to be someone he'd been romantically involved with. He'd debated how best to tell Anna about Donatella, but every time he envisioned the discussion it ended in disaster. Maybe he wasn't giving Anna enough credit? After all, he never asked her about her ex boyfriends and on the rare occasions when she'd talked about them, it hadn't bothered him. She'd had a life before they'd ever met. He could hardly be jealous about men he'd never met.

As he walked down the sidewalk he decided the same should hold true for Anna. Donatella was pre-Anna. She was not the woman he wanted to marry, and that was that. Rapp nodded smugly at his own logical deduction. Satisfied that he was doing nothing wrong, he continued down the sidewalk toward the House of Armani. The smugness vanished a few steps later as he realized that meeting in secret with a former lover while on vacation with the woman you were about to ask to marry you was fraught with trouble. There was nothing about the picture that Anna would like. Rapp grimaced as he thought of her reaction to the whole thing. After wrestling with the idea for a while longer he decided to stop trying to find a solution, for it was painfully obvious that there was none. He could not maintain both secrecy and complete honesty with Anna. It was impossible. He would just have to make sure his past didn't run into his future.

Instinctively, Rapp forced the issue from his mind and began to focus on his surroundings. He was about to conduct a clandestine meeting and it was time to get down to business. As he worked his way down the sidewalk, he studied the vehicles parked on the street. There was only one van parked on the block. Rapp noted the make, model and plate number. It was all memorized in an instant. The van was on the other side of the street so he crossed over to get a closer look at it. As he did so he scanned the cars to be sure they were unoccupied. As he walked past the van, he studied the roof for any antennas or directional microphones. It looked to be clean.

Up ahead there was a florist and then a sidewalk cafe. Rapp walked past the florist and entered the cafe. On his way in, he took note of the patrons sitting outside. At the counter he ordered a cup of coffee in Italian and paid for it. Rapp's Italian was decent but nowhere as good as his French and Arabic. With the piping hot cup of coffee in hand he went back to the flower shop. The middle-aged woman behind the counter greeted him warmly and asked if there was anything she could help him with. Rapp walked over to the rose case and expressed an interest. The woman informed him that the long stem red roses were on sale. Rapp thought about it for a second, and then decided that red might send the wrong signal. He decided that yellow would be a safer color. He ordered a dozen of them and waited while the woman put them into an arrangement and wrapped them in tissue paper. Again he paid in cash, and with the flowers in one hand and the coffee in the other he walked across the street.

Next to the glass display windows on the first floor was a door with a security camera mounted above it. To the left of the door was a call box and then under the box a sign in Italian that read, Business by Appointment Only. Rapp instinctively kept his face turned away from the camera and pressed the call button. A second later a woman's voice came over the intercom and asked him his business. Rapp told her he had a flower delivery for Donatella Rahn. The door buzzed, and he entered the small foyer.

A flight of stairs later he was standing in front of the woman who had buzzed him in. She was all legs, and almost every inch of them were on display underneath the glass desk where she was seated. She was very pretty, but unfortunately had the emaciated look that was popular among the fashion crowd. In most other cities she would have probably been a model, but in Milan she was relegated to receptionist. Rapp disarmed the woman with a soft smile and said, "I'm an old friend of Donatella's, and I was hoping I could surprise her with these." Rapp held up the flowers.

The woman gave him a nice smile and eyed him from head to toe as if she were trying to place a value on him. "You look like Donny's type." The woman gave him a flirtatious smile and then reached for the phone.

Rapp stepped forward."I really wanted to surprise her."

The woman hesitated for a moment holding the phone at her shoulder. Finally she set it back in the cradle and asked, "Do you know where her office is?"

"Is it still down the hall at the end on the left?"

"Yes"

"Thank you. You're a sweetheart." Rapp gave the woman a wink and headed down the hall. As he neared Donatellas office door he slowed his steps and took note of the fact that his heart had started to beat faster. He knew it had nothing to do with a sense of ambush or violence. It was the anticipation of seeing Donatella. They had been through a lot together, both in the trenches and between the sheets.

The door was open. Rapp neither knocked nor did he enter. He just stood frozen, looking at the curvaceous silhouette of Donatellas figure. She had her back to him, standing over her desk looking at something. Rapp watched as she placed one hand on her hip and with the other pulled her thick hair to one side and began kneading the muscles at the back of her neck. The woman exuded a sexuality unlike anything he'd ever seen. She was wearing a pair of black leather pants that complemented her figure to perfection, a white blouse and a pair of black spiked boots. Just the sight of her long tanned fingers resting on her leather-clad hip brought back a flood of erotic memories. Rapp felt a tinge of betrayal for such thoughts and forced himself to get his mind back on the business at hand.

There was a genuine reason why he wanted to surprise Donatella. He would know almost instantly by the expression on her face if she had been involved in the plot to kill him in Germany. He didn't think she had been or at least he didn't want to believe she had been. As he had already discussed with Kennedy, it didn't make any sense for the Israelis to ambush him. Mossad had been known to do some pretty ruthless things, but there was no recognizable benefit to killing Rapp and humiliating the CIA and America. Rapp was doing the dirty work for them and had been doing so for years. No, Rapp believed Donatella was doing some free-lancing on the side and he had a plan to get her to come clean.

He cleared his throat and waited for Donatella to turn around. When she did her dark almond eyes opened wide, and her full lips parted to form an inviting smile. Donatella threw her arms out and walked quickly across her office. Rapp smiled back. He couldn't help it. He stepped forward and met Donatella's embrace. With the familiarity of an old lover Donatella brought her arms inside Rapp's leather jacket. Her hands shot up, grabbing his taut shoulders and she pressed her breasts firmly against his body. With her eyes closed she found his lips and gave him a passionate kiss. After a moment she buried her head in his chest and squeezed him with all her considerable might.