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“I can confirm that,” Sabrina agreed flatly, but I could barely hear her over the strident voice in my head screeching she can’t be here now! Not now!

Disengaging myself from her smothering embrace, I shuffled zombie-like to the kitchen to pour myself a drink. I needed wine in my veins in a hurry.

Ashleigh, however, was not one to be ignored. She clung to my heels, filling me in on the marital disaster that had brought her here. “I did it, Deedee! I left him. I never should have married him.”

I should have been happy for her. Carlton was a major narcissist prick, after all, and the feminist part of me was thrilled. It’s just that mini–Gloria Steinem had temporarily been squashed by the resentment monster that lived deep down in the Loch Ness of my soul. It was so typical: She’d left her husband and come crying to me. And I knew why. Levi. She’d been obsessing about him since she’d found out we’d run into each other. She was going to take him away again and I . . .

I took a deep breath and sniffed at the open bottle of Lambrusco in the fridge. Still smelled good to me. At this point I’d drink NyQuil if it meant dulling the buzz of Ashleigh’s voice in my ears. God, I was a terrible cousin. Here she was having a crisis, and I could only think the worst of her.

I held up the bottle. “Want some?”

“Please!” answered Sabrina.

“Do you have any sparkling water?” Ash wrinkled her adorable nose. “Alcohol makes me bloated.”

I pulled a bottle of San Pellegrino out of the fridge. “When did you get here, Ash?”

“Yes-ter-day,” Sabrina answered, dragging out each syllable so I’d realize just how much time she’d had to spend in my over-emotive cousin’s company. “And she’s out of her mind.”

Ashleigh threw Sabrina a hurt glance. “Well, yeah, we’ve both been out of our minds with worry.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Sabrina stated and took her glass of wine to the couch, and Ash pulled out an enormous bowl of pasta and stuck it in the microwave.

“I made dinner. Nonna’s bolognese.” Of course she had. She’d always liked to cook. Like Levi. Face it, Diana, they were made for each other, impossibly beautiful and talented cooks.

“We called you dozens of times,” she went on, placing the steaming bowl in front of me. “I even called the base to get in touch with Levi, but they wouldn’t give me any information about him. Even after I explained I was his ex-fiancé for god’s sake.”

“You were never his fiancé,” I reminded her. “You turned him down, remember?”

She threw up her hands. “I know. Worst decision ever!”

I took a deep breath to keep from hyperventilating. Levi was finally mine, and now his long-lost love was in town? Maybe his bad luck was rubbing back off on me.

While I shoveled pasta into my face, Ash filled me in on all the drama that had unfolded in the past few days: another pair of strange underwear (“it didn’t have a crotch!”), another impromptu work trip to Manhattan. She’d been suspicious and opened his phone to find naked pictures of his New York assistant.

“So I left and came to the one place where I know I’m loved.” She wiped a tear from her cheek, and I again felt like the smallest, meanest person on the planet, until she asked, “How’s Levi?”

“Don’t know,” I lied. “He’s left on a mission.”

Her shoulders drooped. “Really? When will he be back?”

I held my palms up and shrugged. She went to the window and peeked out as Sabrina and I cleaned up. “That’s weird. That car out there totally looks like Levi’s old car. What did he call it, Fiona?”

“Francine,” I answered without thinking. “I mean, I think.”

“Hmm, well, I hope he’ll be back soon.” Ashleigh stretched and yawned daintily, sitting down on the couch and pulling out her phone. “No messages from Carlton . . .”

With Ash absorbed in her phone, I motioned to Sabrina to join me in the kitchen. While I washed the dishes, I told her what had gone down in Greece. “Son of a bitch! I knew Harris was a sneaky bastard.”

“So you don’t believe his story?” Because I was beginning to second-guess myself again.

“That this was some shitty way to get a dramatic reaction from you in front of the camera? No way!” She pushed a glass into the cupboard so hard I thought it might shatter. “What does this mean for you? Besides the fact that now you’ll always be a badass archaeologist who made a massive discovery.”

“It still has to be authenticated,” I reminded her, but I knew in my bones the statue was for real. “I think I’m going to go over to the dark side. I’m going to ask Marcangeli if I can join his team.”

Sabrina made an uncharacteristic squeal and threw her hands around me. “ Yes! Come with me, D! I’ve already been looking at apartments in Bologna.”

She glanced over my shoulder at Ashleigh, who was laying down on the sofa like she was Scarlett O’Hara on her fainting couch. “What about Il Re Leone? I think I misjudged him. He’s been there for you, D. Don’t let that one get her hooks back in him again.”