Good Sister, The by Diana Diamond Page A

in hope that he keeps making her happy.”
    “If he signs,” Peter said, reminding her that despite what O’Connell had told Jennifer, there was no reason for him to sign anything.
    Padraig showed up in New York a few days later, appeared on the network morning shows to plug the movie he had made a year ago that was just being released, and took Jennifer to one of the Manhattan openings. They dined for the photographers at two French restaurants that vied year after year for the most ridiculously expensive menu, and then privately in Jennifer’s loft, where he poured a two-hundred-dollar bottle of brandy into a flaming skillet. He visited Pegasus’s offices, dazzled the secretaries, and let Jennifer introduce him to Catherine and Peter.
    “Did I really say that your nipples were giving me an erection?” he asked Catherine.
    “I thought it was you,” she said, smiling, “but so many men claim to have the same problem.”
    “Touché,” he surrendered, without his usual comeback.
    He explained to Peter and the two sisters his plans for the new production company. “No need for the studios,” he boasted. “We’ll use your satellites for distribution. And once we do it, everyone will do it.” Then he mentioned casually that he was
shooting a few European commercials in Italy. Almost as an afterthought, he invited his wife to come along with him.
    “We’ve had no proper honeymoon,” he complained to Peter and Catherine. “You two keep Jennifer far too busy. Tell her right now that you don’t want to see her for at least two weeks.” Then he turned to Jennifer and suggested, “We could ship the car ahead of us. I’ll take a villa in Positano. There are roads on the Amalfi Coast that will keep you from breathing for a full ten minutes.”
    There was nothing else for Peter to do. “Jennifer,” he said, “I don’t want to see you for at least two weeks.”
    She laughed and threw herself into Padraig’s lap.
    As the newlyweds were leaving, Peter managed to pull Padraig aside and bring up the marital agreement on Jennifer’s stock.
    “Her stock, her silverware, even her goldfish, old boy. Whatever you need. Just have your scribes draw it up and send it to my attorneys. I’ll have it back to you instantly.”
    And then they were gone, smiling and waving their way through the outer offices like royalty on their way to St. Paul’s. Peter never did get the name of the attorneys.
    Padraig was waiting at the gate when Jennifer landed at Leonardo da Vinci, and had the Ferrari poised in the VIP parking area. He insisted that she drive while he folded and refolded the road map. “A left here, I think. See if you can find a road sign for Foggia.” And then, when she flashed by the turn, “That may have been it, but no problem. The next sign will be for Dubrovnik. You can turn there.”
    She ached from laughing. Was it possible that anyone could be this happy? Could it be true, as Padraig told her, that he had been searching for her all his life? Did she dare to believe that she had finally been rescued out of Catherine’s shadow?
    They drove south around Naples and were suddenly in the long tunnels that carved through the coastal cliffs toward the Gulf of Salerno. They passed the turnoff for Sorrento and were
suddenly on a road cut into sheer rock, hundreds of feet above the water.
    “Can I handle this?” she asked Padraig.
    “I certainly hope so,” he answered. “God knows I can’t!”
    So she turned serious, caressed the shift lever, and followed the torturous road into Positano. When she finally cut the engine, in the driveway of the San Pietro Hotel, her expression exploded in joy.
    “That was fantastic,” she said.
    “No, that was a road. You’re fantastic!”
    Their room jutted out from the side of the cliff, with a balcony that was almost frightening to step on. He ordered up a bottle of Brunello that came with olives the size of apples and almonds big enough to break in their fingers. They