title: Never Did Run Smooth
author: Larmon, Susan L.
description: Seemingly star-crossed lovers, Bella and Lorenzo, both return to their families in a desperate effort to decide whether they even have a future together. Bella flies back to the States from Italy for her senior year of college, while Lorenzo remains in Rome to go to work in his family's trattoria. Each of them is distracted by unexpected new attachments, however, and their reconciliation is anything but certain. A casual lover's surprise pregnancy has thrown Lorenzo's life into turmoil, while Bella has complicated her own life by starting a new relationship on campus. Lorenzo isn't the only one who loves Bella, however. An old friend of theirs seeks to stake his claim, and soon his rivalry with Lorenzo over Bella's affections even pulls Lorenzo's sister, Gina, into the melodrama of their lives. An attempt on Bella's life, and an art-forgery caper that draws Lorenzo into a world of 3-way sex and divided loyalties, only serve to distance the two of them even further from each other, and to illustrate Shakespeare's famous line: "The course of true love never did run smooth."