They took the elevator to the basement, and exited through the garage. Leslie was wearing dark glasses and a golf cap the manager had unearthed somewhere, and they quickly got into the car, and drove out the back entrance behind a laundry truck and a van from a local florist. They were gone long before the paparazzi discovered that they had checked out. They drove peacefully back to Venice, congratulating themselves on having outfoxed the press.

“Well done,” Leslie said, smiling at her. Thanks to the manager's warning, their exit had been extremely smooth. Both he and Coco were relieved.

They got back to Venice early enough to take a boat to the Lido, and have a drink at the Cipriani. It was a spectacular hotel, with an incredible view of Venice. And then they went back to the Gritti, to dine privately in Leslie's rooms. It had been a perfect weekend. Coco was thrilled that she still had another five days with him. She loved living with him again. They were golden days for both of them. Before they went to bed, they called Chloe. She reported on everything she was doing at school, and had won the prize for best costume on Halloween. She asked when she was going to see him. Leslie had promised to spend Thanksgiving with her and her mother in New York, if he finished the film in time. He looked apologetically at Coco after he hung up.

“That was stupid of me, wasn't it? I should have asked you what you were doing first. I just usually try to spend the holiday with her.” Coco knew he hadn't seen her in two months, and it would be another three weeks before he did.

“Don't worry about it,” Coco said, smiling at him. “I always spend it at my mother's in L.A. We usually do Christmas there too, but this year we're doing it at Jane's. She'll be too pregnant to travel by then.” It felt weird to say it. The idea of Jane being pregnant and having a baby still seemed totally foreign to her.

“I'll come to see you right after Thanksgiving,” he promised. “Hopefully we'll be finished here by then. And we'll get a break while they set up in L.A. We should get a decent hiatus over Christmas too. I'll spend every minute I can with you. I promise.” She leaned back into his arms with a blissful look.

They tried to be together that week as much as they could. She watched him on the set for hours, and in her spare time she went back to the churches she liked best, and discovered some new ones. She could find her way easily around Venice by then. Leslie was impressed. She knew the city far better than he did, but he rarely got time off, except at night.

They went out to dinner on her last night, to a small, funny restaurant on a back street. A gondola took them there, a different one than they'd had before. He took them to one of the ancient landing blocks, and from there they walked down an alley and around a corner to the restaurant. Coco had no trouble finding it, after her extensive explorations of Venice. It was charming when they walked in. It had a small garden, although it was too cold to sit outside. And the food was delicious, the best they'd had so far. They shared a bottle of Chianti, and were in good spirits when they left, although both of them were sad that she was leaving the next day. But with luck, he'd be home in a few weeks. The shooting had gone well that week, better than the week before. Madison had actually remembered her lines. A weekend of studying the script had paid off.

Leslie stopped on the street outside the restaurant and kissed Coco. Her stay in Venice had been perfect for both of them, almost like a dream come true. And better yet, it was real.

“Do you have any idea how much I love you?” he whispered to her and kissed her again.

“Almost as much as I love you,” she answered when she caught her breath and smiled into his eyes. And just as she did, there was an explosion of flashes everywhere, a sense of people shoving them, and before either of them could understand what had happened, they were surrounded by pushing, aggressive paparazzi who had lain in wait for them and jumped them. It was an ambush. Someone had tipped off the press, and it was not just a handful, it was a mob. And Leslie and Coco had a good distance to cover to get to the boat. Leslie wanted to pull her out of the crowd and protect her but had no idea how. He didn't even know which way to turn, and their only escape was via the gondola. There were at least thirty photographers between them and the boat.

Coco was looking up at him in shock and confusion, and he shouted to her, asking her which way to go. He had gotten totally turned around, and a half bottle of wine didn't help.

“That way!” She pointed over the shouts of the crowd. They were pushing and shoving Coco and Leslie to take their pictures. The photographer closest to them had a cigarette pressed between his lips, and he was so close that the ashes from it dusted her coat, as Leslie shoved him back.

“Come on, boys,” Leslie said firmly in English, “that's enough… Basta!… No!” he said, shouting at one of them who was pulling at their coats, trying to hold them back, and as he did, the whole crowd seemed to turn around, like a writhing beast, and pinned them both against a wall. And as they did, Coco slammed against it hard. Leslie was starting to panic. He had been in paparazzi attacks like this before, mostly in England, and inevitably someone got hurt. He didn't want it to be her, but he couldn't get her through the crowd. “No!” he suddenly shouted at them, shoving them hard, and with that he yanked Coco by the arm, and dragged her through the press of men, who hadn't stopped taking their pictures since they found them. It was an agonizing journey to the boat, which seemed to take forever. The gondolier was waiting for them and looked frightened when he saw them. There were three motoscafi standing by in which the paparazzi had come, and suddenly Leslie realized that he could hear British voices in the crowd, French ones, and some German. They were a group of international paparazzi who had joined forces to attack them. There was strength in numbers. He and Coco didn't have a chance. He didn't mind them getting photographs, but the mob mentality was out of control, which was clearly dangerous for them.

Two of the paparazzi jumped into the gondola ahead of them, and nearly tipped the boat. Reacting to them as though they were pirates, the gondolier hit them with his oars, and they both fell into the canal amid outraged shouts. Leslie realized that they wouldn't have minded at all if it had been him and Coco. She crouched down on the seat as he protected her and shielded her with his body, as the gondolier set off, and the ragtag press corps jumped into their motoscafi, and tried to head them off to stop them. The gondolier started shouting insults at the drivers of the motorboats, who shrugged and made obscene gestures. They had been paid to do a job, and what happened after that was not their problem. They didn't want to know.

“Are you okay?” Leslie asked, shouting over the noise of the paparazzi and the boats. The flashes were still going off, and they almost overturned the gondola as they reached the Grand Canal. Coco looked terrified. She felt as though they were going to be killed. And there was very little that Leslie and the gondolier could do to protect them. He was praying they'd see one of the police boats, but none appeared. They steadily made their way back to the Gritti Palace as fast as they could go, surrounded by the paparazzi in the motoscafi. The paparazzi reached the dock nearest the Gritti before Coco and Leslie arrived in the gondola. Leslie pressed three hundred euros into the gondolier's hand, preparing to make as quick an exit as they could. It was only a short dash to the hotel from the dock, but the rabid photographers weren't going to make it easy. He almost wondered if it would help if they stopped and posed for them, but they were too far gone for that. A mob mentality had taken hold, and they were egging each other on in a feeding frenzy. Leslie wanted Coco out of it and away from them as fast as he could.

He got out of the gondola first and pulled her out, but there was already a wall of photographers between them and the hotel, and Leslie knew he would have to break through it to get her to safety. She was just stepping onto the dock, when one of them reached out of their boat and grabbed her ankle and pulled hard to stop her. She screamed and fell back into the gondola, and nearly fell into the water. Leslie looked down at her in desperation, stepped back into the boat himself, lifted her out, and ran to safety with Coco in his arms. His years of rugby as a young man served him well, he broke through the barrier of bodies and ran into the hotel with the paparazzi on his heels. The doorman and a fleet of security and bellmen tried to stop the crowd following them, and there was a melee of bodies and fists in the lobby as Leslie literally ran up the stairs with Coco in his arms. One of the security men followed with a look of grave concern.

“Are you all right, sir?” he asked as Leslie looked at Coco and gently set her on her feet outside his suite as the security guard let them in. They were both out of breath and Coco was shaking violently from head to foot, and there was blood all over her coat and Leslie's jacket. She had cut herself when one of them had grabbed her ankle and she fell back into the boat.

“Get a doctor!” Leslie said tersely as the security guard left the room immediately to find one. Before he left, he assured them that there would be guards outside their room all night, and he would call a doctor and the police. He said he was very sorry.

Leslie gently led Coco to a chair and ran into the bathroom to get a towel. He gently helped her take off her coat as she winced, and saw that her arm was at a nasty angle. He didn't say it, but he was sure that it was broken.

“Oh God, darling… I'm so sorry… I never thought… we should have gone somewhere else… or stayed here…” He was almost in tears, and she was crying. He took her in his arms and held her as she shook violently and said not a word. He could tell from the look on her face she was in shock. He just sat there and rocked her as she cried, and told her he loved her, until the doctor came. Leslie explained to him what had happened, and the doctor examined her as gently as he could. There were the beginnings of a nasty bruise on her back where she had been slammed into the wall before they reached the boat. The cut she had gotten on her hand needed seven stitches, and her wrist was broken. Leslie felt sick when the doctor told him.

He gave Coco a shot to numb her hand before he stitched it up, another shot to sedate her, and a tetanus shot. She was groggy when the orthopedic surgeon came, and set her wrist in a small fiberglass cast. Neither doctor wanted to risk taking her to the hospital and exposing her to the mob again. The orthopedist said he had seen several paparazzi lurking outside, although there were none in the lobby. The security had thrown them out. The doctors said that her wrist and hand would hurt for a few days, but they cleared her to travel. Leslie wanted her out of there now. He didn't want to risk having them pay someone to get into their room at the hotel. The hunt was on. The sharks would smell blood in the water and refuse to leave them alone from now on. Their Venetian idyll had ended in disaster. It was time for her to go home.

Leslie lay awake all night watching her, stroking her cheek and her hair as she dozed. He propped her arm up on a pillow, and she woke once or twice when he put ice packs on her hand, but the drugs had taken effect, and she was too sedated to say anything more than that she loved him, and thank him before she fell asleep again. She finally came out of it enough to talk to him at six o'clock in the morning, and then started to cry again.

“I was so scared,” she said as she looked at him with panic in her eyes. “I thought they were going to kill us.”

“So did I,” he said miserably. “It happens that way sometimes. They drive each other into a frenzy.” He had never felt so defenseless in his life. He had wanted a last romantic gondola ride for her, and they had been totally unprotected. They had no escape. “I'm so sorry, Coco. I never wanted anything like that to happen to you. Someone must have tipped them off at the restaurant or here. They get paid for that, and you never know who does it. The poor gondolier didn't know what hit him.” He had made a hell of a tip for the experience, but Leslie doubted it was worth it to him. He had been terrified too, although he had probably made more from Leslie's tip than the snitch who had sold them out to the paparazzi.