"Cautious." He scanned the room again. "Which is how you got from renting a little shop in Milan to clear your debts and make a reasonable living to buying a building on Cannery Row and adding to those debts."

"Well, I can't change overnight, can I?" She eyed him through a haze of smoke. "You're not going to get all lawyerly on me, are you, Josh?"

"Actually I am." He picked up the briefcase he'd set aside, opened it. "I have some papers for you." He looked around for a place to sit and settled on the bottom step of the staircase. "Come here. Come here," he repeated and patted the narrow space beside him. "I can manage to keep my hands off you."

She picked up a little tin ashtray and joined him. "I'm getting good at papers. I'm thinking of buying a file cabinet."

He didn't sigh. It wouldn't have made any difference. "Is your Italian good enough to wade through this?"

She frowned at the papers he offered. "It's a contract of sale on my flat." Emotions whirled up inside her, regret warring with relief. "You work fast," she murmured.

"It's a very decent offer." He tucked her hair behind her ear. "Are you sure it's what you want?"

"It's the way it is. Reality doesn't always chew well, but I'm trying to acquire a taste." She closed her eyes and leaned her head on his shoulder. "Just let me feel sorry for myself a minute."

"You're entitled."

"Self-pity's a bad habit of mine. It's hard to shake. Damn it, Josh, I loved that place. Sometimes I'd just stand on the terrace and think: Look where you are, Margo. Look who you are."

"Well, now you're someplace else." It wasn't sympathy she needed, he decided, but a good boot in the butt. "And you look the same to me."

"It's not the same. It's never going to be the same again."

"Toughen up, Margo. You're starting to wallow in it."

She jerked up. "Easy for you to say. Joshua Conway Templeton, the bright star of the Templeton empire. You never lost anything. You never groped your way sweating to get a grip on something everyone told you you couldn't have. No one ever told you you couldn't have anything and everything you wanted."

"That's the breaks, isn't it?" he said easily. "You played, duchess, and you lost. Whining about it isn't going to change a thing, and it's very unattractive."

"Thanks so much for your support." Fuming, she snatched the contract out of his hand. "When do I get the money?"

"There's time, and there's Italian time. If you're lucky, you may have it settled in sixty days. The bottom line's on the next page."

He watched her flip it over. Her eyes were hot as they skimmed down, the heat clouded with distress. "That's it?"

"You didn't have a lot of equity built up. The bank gets theirs first, then the government takes its share."