Principessa Diana

Chapter Three: Diana

April 30

Dulles International Airport

I groaned as I lugged my brown leather computer bag from one gate to another. Kristy had taken out her frustration at me for temporarily halting public appearances by convincing my dimwitted assistant personal assistant to book me on a flight from Orlando to Boston with a change of flight in D.C. Matthew usually booked me on a straight shoot. I was going to smack the hell out of him when I got home.

As I made my way to my new gate, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and ended up colliding with another person.

"Shit," I muttered as I nearly fell over but a pair of strong arms reached out and steadied me.

"You alright, cara?" A rich voice with a slight New York accent asked.

Once I had regained my bearings, I looked up to find a handsome, middle-aged Italian man with a goatee...and an amused smirk hidden behind it.

"Ye...yeah," I managed to stutter out in reply. One on one interactions with handsome men were not my forte. "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going." Nope, not one bit. I had been mentally strangling Matthew.

"No harm done." The man shook his head with a smile before turning and making his way to the gate to board the plane.

It took me a moment to collect myself before I too made my way to the gate and handed over my boarding pass to the flight attendant. Once I was on board and found my seat, I thanked God that Matthew had at least remembered to purchase me an aisle seat. I detested flying and the last thing I wanted was to be forced to sit next to the window with a constant reminder that I was not on the ground. Yes, I knew you could pull the shade down but it didn't matter to my anxiety.

It was only after I had stowed my laptop and taken my seat that I noticed that my seatmate was the handsome Italian man that I had literally bumped into only a few minutes earlier. He had the true crime book, The Reaper Case Revisited, open on his try and was scribbling on a legal pad. He stopped when he noticed me. "We meet again," He said as he put the cap on his pen.

"Looks like it," Yeah, I was only witty on paper.

"David Rossi," He turned and held out his hand to me.

"Diana Britton," I introduced myself and shook his hand.

"Diana Britton the author?" He raised an eyebrow at me.

I was actually grateful that he didn't preface the word author with the word romance. In the literary world, writing about love automatically seemed to make you a lesser artist in the eyes of the industry. "Yeah," I gave him a genuine smile.

"I loved your novel, Footprints in the Sand. It was a risk writing about the parents of murdered children finding love with each other...but you did it very realistically. The emotions were very true to life. You also captured the psychosis of the serial killer beautifully."

I'm pretty sure that was the greatest compliment that I had ever received in regards to my work and I was struck by a sudden suspicion. "Any chance you're that David Rossi?" I nodded at the cover of the book on his tray.

He nodded, "Yeah, but most people call me Dave."

"Or Agent Rossi?"

This time, he was the one who was surprised that I knew who he was. "At work, yeah." He chuckled.

"I used your book, Portrait of a Modern Serial Killer to help me develop the serial killer in Footprints in the Sand," I explained.

"I guess it really is a small world...Principessa Diana." He smirked.

I rolled my eyes, "While that isn't the first time I've been called that...kudos to you for being the first person to do it in Italian." I chuckled and he smiled. "My mom loved Roman mythology. I was named for the goddess of the hunt. I also have a sister named Nona and a brother named Apollo."

As he sat there looking at me as though he was trying to figure out if I was being serious or not, I couldn't help but dissolve into laughter as the plane taxied onto the runway.