More complexities in the plot of Beautiful Ruins

It seems that Jess Walters is constructing Beautiful Ruins as an oscillation between past and present scenes, and in chapter I read last night we go back to learn more about Pasquale's relationship to actress Dee Moray when she was a guest at his hotel in 1962 and he fell in love with her - and evidently has lost touch with her over the intervening 50 years. He takes her on a hike along the rugged Italian coast and eventually leads her to a pillbox observation post from which the soldiers - we forget for a moment that these are Nazi soldiers - kept watch on the coast during the War (WWII); one of the soldiers had done some beautiful paintings inside this bunker - reminds us, I think, of the French cave paintings, totally hidden from view and painfully fragile. Dee is very moved by this artwork; P. is wondering whether to kiss her, and cannot bring himself to do so. He's somewhat shy and very insecure, especially about his English. D. makes him feel bad by pointing out some obvious flaws in his plan to build a tennis court on the cliffs for his hotel. We learn, however, that D is waiting for the arrival a man - obviously, M. Deane, the director whom P. seeks out in the present for info about D. - whom she says she "thinks" she loves, although noting he's more in love with himself (ah, Hollywood). When he fails to turn up for her, and he is still pretty ill - obviously with morning sickness, but not obvious to P. - P. heads of to Rome to track down Deane and berate him for his failing; en route, he stops in Florence, where we learn quite a bit more of his back story: the Florentine woman, somewhat older than he, with whom he'd been in love while in college, became pregnant and gave birth to a son, which the family now passes off as a much younger sibling; P. wants to see the boy, but the woman rebuffs that request: she's quite cruel and bossy and refused to marry him, even though her instincts were probably right - the marriage would have failed. In any case, it's yet another plot element: P. has a son from out of wedlock floating around somewhere in the complex plot. And then we see that the next chapter will be: Shane's movie pitch to Deane, a historical drama having something to do with Donner party (not zombies, one hopes). Walter's plot always threatens to teeter and topple over, but she keeps it running along, despite all the moving pieces, and a brisk pace.