by Lily Zante
He rushed to soothe her. “I meant my father and me.”
Now it was her turn to blush. “Oh. Okay.” She felt silly. “It’s a beautiful building.” She walked away, pointing around at the walls and high ceilings, anything, to detract from what she had just assumed.
“Shall we look around?” He offered her his arm, and she gladly took it.
Though she put on a brave face, Ava wondered what a future in Italy with Nico would be like.
Chapter 27
Nico sat in his car and allowed himself the indulgence of remembering. They had only arrived back late last night. This morning, leaving her bed had been nothing short of torture.
Spending each night together again, on their short break away, had been something he had missed.
In the space of a few years he had gone from a man with a different woman each week, to one who had bouts of short-lived celibacy, give or take the odd woman who caught his eye. Now here he was, reveling in the very picture of sweet cosiness and with a woman who did not seem so eager to commit. The irony of it.
Apart from that week when they had argued, he had barely slept at his home since their return from Venice. The more time he spent with Ava, the more he knew he wanted more of it. And now he had a sense that she was starting to feel about him the way he had been feeling about her.
The one thing he didn’t want to be was a rebound relationship; the bridging gap between a bad mistake avoided and the stepping stone to better things.
He stayed in his car, not quite ready to jump back into a hectic day of work. His mind distracted by the three glorious days he had spent with the woman who now occupied a permanent place in his heart and mind.
What would he do when she left?
He had deliberately not broached this topic, had not dared to ask her about her future plans. He knew what he wanted. What he was less certain of was how to go about getting it. He felt that she was starting to be as committed as he was. A couple of times the words had slipped from her mouth, about her wanting to stay on here. She had toyed with the idea of spending a few months in Verona and a few months in the US. She had justified it by saying she needed to buy more merchandise, though they both knew it wasn’t the real reason.
Ava was starting to feel something for him and he just had to be patient.
It had to come from her first.
With a tightening chest, he pulled himself out of his car and prepared for a day of meetings and business calls. He had to focus on the business. Otherwise thoughts of Ava’s imminent departure would only tear him up.
It was early, after six o’clock in the morning and the hotel desk was unmanned. Nico rushed to his office, but the sound of a sneeze coming from his father’s office froze him in place.
Nico knew his father was an early bird, but six o’clock? Whatever was he doing here?
He knocked and entered. His father looked up, barely batting an eyelid, his face as calm as ever. Even the sight of Nico arriving at the office this early, did not faze him.
“Good morning, Papa.” Nico was enthusiastic, and ready to take on the world this morning.
“Good business trip?” Edmondo asked.
The corners of Nico’s mouth turned up slightly. “Most definitely, Papa.”
“And this visit to Riccione, was it urgent?”
Nico didn’t see where this was going. “I had it arranged. It was in the diary. I told you I was going to roll out our new process at the Cazale Riccione.”
“The conference call with Matteo from the Cazale Roma was also arranged and in the diary. But you managed to miss that.” The old man dove straight in.
By now, Nico guessed that something of great importance had happened, or, more likely, gone wrong at the Cazale Roma. This was his father’s way of letting him know he had messed up big time.
“I know I missed the call, Papa, but I rang the next day and Matteo wasn’t available. You weren’t around for me to tell you.” It had been the call he missed when he’d gone to Ava’s pensione and they had made up; the day Edmondo had showed Elsa around Verona.
Nico eyed his father and waited for him to drop the bomb. He noticed his father was dressed casually, too. No shirt, tie and or business suit today. Instead he wore a pair of slacks and a short-sleeved shirt.
The old man clasped his hands together and rested them on his stomach. He waited for Nico to elaborate.
“Tell me what went wrong? Apart from me missing the call, Papa?” The exuberance he had felt about telling his father of his news vanished into the air. He felt his energy drain to the very soles of his feet.
“Because you failed to do something you considered trivial, the situation which could have been contained, had you known of it, has now blown up.”
It had only been a routine weekly meeting with the hotel manager. Why was his father making such a big deal of it all? Nico felt like a young child summoned to his father’s study, needing to explain yet again why his test marks had not been as good as they should have been.
Yet he could hardly blame his father. In truth, Nico should not have put pleasure before business. He should have taken the call when it was scheduled, even if it was just a normal call.
“They’ve had problems with the staff at the Cazale Roma. A dispute between Matteo and the head chef has escalated out of control. The head chef has walked out and the rest of the staff are up in arms. And they have nobody heading up the kitchen.”
Oh shit.
“You failed to do something I asked you to do. And then not only do you fail to attend, you fail to follow things up later. Your actions have consequences.” His father unlocked his hands and busied himself with some paperwork on his desk; the mere action of being ignored was the one thing Nico hated the most. Unfortunately, it was something his father was very good at.
Nico swallowed. “I’m sorry, Papa.” He felt like the small child who always sought his father’s approval. But this time he really had messed up. Things had erupted in Rome, something out of his control and not in any way related to the usual weekly conference call. A missed weekly conference call would not have been such a big deal. Losing the head chef, however, and having unrest among the workers was another problem. A bigger problem. His father was justifiably angry.
“And you expect me to designate responsibility to you for running these hotels?” His father looked through his paperwork with concentration again.
“I’ll get onto it right away,” Nico offered. The meetings he had planned for looking into the legal and property issues for the hotel in Ravenna would have to be put on hold, for now. It might not be a good time to tell his father about that hotel just yet.
“Of course you will get onto it. Maybe if you hadn’t completely forgotten about the call, unrelated as it was to the problem we currently have on our hands, we might have prevented this fallout.”
Nico turned to leave and then stood his ground. Perhaps it was better to tell him now and then deal with the mess of the Cazale Roma.
“There’s a hotel in Ravenna I’ve looked at. I think it has a lot of potential.” He waited for a response.
Sure enough the older man immediately stopped what he was doing. Nico waited for the backlash, the questions, the sting in the tail, the one where his father would point out something obviously wrong and make him feel this small again.
Only it never happened. He blinked and in that instant he wasn’t sure if what he saw in his father’s eyes was a gleam of admiration.
Edmondo sat back again. “A hotel, eh?” Was that a touch of pride that he detected in his father’s voice?
The shock of not getting an interrogation or having to prove himself, as he was usually required, startled Nico.
“We’d gone out to visit the Cazale Riccione, but I’d had my eye on a hotel near Ravenna that had been put up for sale a few months ago.”
“Two Cazale hotels that close to one another?” Edmondo hesitated.
“I know how it seems, but listen to me, Papa. This hote
l has a lot of land. It’s at a good price. We could turn it into something a bit more exclusive. Make it a spa retreat, a relaxation par excellence, not just a place to sleep for the night. But a center for peace and tranquility.”
The old man guffawed. “You read too many business books. Sometimes people just want a place to sleep for the night. It’s how I built my empire. By giving them exactly what they needed. Not by trying to sell them something they might not want, let alone need.”
Nico was already prepared for this reaction. He had fought these battles every step of the way. “Spa resorts are big business.”
Edmondo pressed his lips together. He didn’t look convinced.
“Of course, you’ll have to see it first, Papa.” It would be the best way of easing his father’s reluctance. If his father could only see what Nico saw in it. And what Ava had come to see once he had told her his vision. “We loved it as soon as we saw it.”
“We?”
“Ava. I asked her along with me.”
“Ah.”
“But I’m sure you must know that because, according to Ava, you’ve been showing her mother around these past few days.”
His father’s ears turned red. It was a reaction that Nico didn’t recall seeing before. What had happened to him in a few days? Nico felt more emboldened than ever. “The hotel is in a fantastic location, they’ve been trying to find a buyer for a couple of months now. I think most people aren’t keen because it is far out from the main center. But you know our hotels always do so well because we don’t cater to the masses.” He appealed directly to his father’s business sense. “For a spa retreat, it’s perfect. Ava loved it.”
The old man snorted.
“That’s not why I think it has potential.” Nico responded quickly.
“I should hope not.” When it came to business, Nico knew that his father only had a business head on. Nothing and no one else influenced his business choices.
“It was good to get another perspective on the place, but I would have been interested in it anyway, even if Ava hadn’t been there.” Nico waited for the questions, the price, the legal issues, the timelines, the plan going forward, the estimates, the full business case proposal. But his father did not demand any of these things. Instead he nodded his head in a gesture that almost bordered on approval.
“I can see that you are very enthusiastic about the plans for this new hotel. I’d like to see it for myself at some point soon.”
“Of course, Papa.” Could it really be that his father was at last pleased about a business move he had just made? Nico realized it was the biggest and boldest move he had ever made.
“Don’t you want to know anything?” Nico asked, fearing his father was just playing along with him. He was still waiting for the bite in the back. For a second he wondered if his father was feeling ill.
“Are you feeling all right, Papa?”
“I’m feeling very well.”
Nico was perplexed. It was still early morning. Perhaps his father had plans for the day. Remembering the day trip with Ava’s mother, he asked him, “How was your day when you showed Ava’s Mother around?”
“Very enjoyable.” The old man looked up and Nico swore that his father’s eyes were laughing. “We’ve been on excursions every day, actually. Elsa is so appreciative of everything, it’s hard not to want to show her more places.”
Was it really possible that Ava’s mother was the reason his father was in such a good mood?
“She seems to be a nice enough woman,” Nico commented. He wasn’t sure what to make of his father’s new friendship.
“She is.” His father agreed. “You seem to be taken with her daughter.”
“I am.” The corners of Nico’s lips turned up slightly, and he gave his father a funny look. He wasn’t ready yet to tell his father just how taken he was with Ava. All things in good time.
“You didn’t tell me what you were going to do to resolve the problem at the Cazale Roma,” his father said.
“I’ll call Matteo now and find out what’s going on.” Nico made to leave. He would get the call out of the way, see if he could resolve this problem quickly. He was anxious to get to his office and draw up projections for the proposed new hotel. If his father liked it and they decided to move forward, it was going to be a huge project, and he would need to assemble a team to inspect the building, not to mention the whole raft of legal issues that needed to be dealt with. There was also financing to be worked out. He would need to prepare for everything.
But before any of that could take place he needed his father’s approval, for the only person who could help with the financing was sitting in front of him, watching him carefully.
“A word of advice, Nico. Staff problems can erupt and fester if not dealt with. And they are the very problems that cannot be rectified easily over the phone.”
Nico had a sinking feeling his father had already planned his schedule for him. “What exactly do you propose?”
“You’re booked on the seven thirty flight to Rome this evening. Matteo is expecting you.”
Back in his own office, Nico collapsed into his chair and let out a huge sigh, but the pressure building up inside him failed to release. He had messed up, and he had to fix it. And his father was going to make sure he did.
He had planned to see Ava this evening, but now he wasn’t even going to be around. His father didn’t say how long he needed to be away, but Nico intended to be back as soon as possible.
He flicked through his desk diary with irritation. He had a meeting with a journalist from one of the travel magazines in a few hours time. He shook his head; it was one more thing he could do without.
Still, as long as it was publicity for the hotel, he might as well see her.
Chapter 28
Ava yawned and stretched out lazily in bed, letting her hands slide across the silky white sheets.
Memories of the past few days with Nico set her pulse racing. She couldn’t contain her smile any more than she could help settle the funny feeling inside her. They had reached a better understanding of one another and things were back to normal again. But better. Deeper.
There was no way around it: she’d fallen for him, hard. No matter her resolve to be careful and take things slowly; there was no slow when it came to Nico. Yet they terrified her, the strength of her feelings for him.
She couldn’t remember ever feeling this way before, for anyone. Their days together had cemented one thing for them both—there was a possibility that what they had could grow into something more. He had alluded to it. He would look at her sometimes as though he wanted to say something and she wondered if he would ever say those three little words that she now ached to hear. But he never did. And as much as they were on the tip of her tongue, she couldn’t bring herself to say them, not until she heard them from him first.
And if they said those words to one another, then what? What if she stayed here? It could work. Flitting between here and Denver.
She stretched out again, but the tiredness she felt was overwhelming, even though she had slept well. She lay under the sheets and relived some of the intimate moments they had shared these last few days. A slow, steady warmth spread out all over her body as she hungered to have him in her arms again.
How he had managed to get to work this morning, she had no idea. She could barely get herself out of bed.
Nico told her to stay in today, to take it easy, and that he would come and see her after work. She knew he had a busy day ahead of him. He didn’t say it, but she could sense his trepidation about returning to work. He needed to report back to his father and the new hotel they had seen was foremost in his mind. What his father thought of him mattered more than he cared to admit.
His father seemed to be a nice enough man; he had been welcoming and generous with her when he had offered to show her mother the delights of Verona, but she could see that he was hard on his son. Somehow it felt as though his father was testing Nico and needed con
firmation, as she had, that his playboy days were long gone.
She knew that dealing with his wealth and his past, which always seemed to show up in his present, was not something she handled too well, but for his sake she would try. She had tried when she’d seen the magazine at the Cazale Riccione. It hadn’t been too difficult, now that she had dropped her preconceived notions about him.
The Nico she now knew was full of tenderness and so much love for her.
Consumed as she was by thoughts of him, she knew she couldn’t stay in bed any longer. She burst out of bed, but then slowed right down again. The tiredness hadn’t completely gone and she took her time getting ready.
As she stepped out into the bright and fresh mid-morning sun, she wondered about checking in on her mother and Rona next door. She might end up there for hours. She would surprise them later, maybe even spend the day with them. But first she needed to see Nico, even if that meant blatantly ignoring his suggestion to stay at home and get some rest.
How could she rest when nearly every thought, every waking moment was filled with him?
As she approached the hotel doors, the sight before her immediately arrested her: Edmondo Cazale and her mother were heading toward her and from the looks of things they were going out together again.
Her mother’s cheeks were flushed a slight tinge of pink. Was that a new pair of trousers? Or was it that her mother’s appearance looked completely different now? The deep wrinkles were still there, but Elsa had a more animated look about her. In fact, she looked radiant.
What was going on?
Her mother said something, then Edmondo laughed and her mother laughed, too. Ava watched entranced.