by Me, Tara Sue
I told her I’d see her soon and continued into my room, but once inside I forgot what I needed out of it. Laura’s words repeated inside my head. And there in the quiet and solitary space of my room, I asked myself if there was any possible way for any of what she said to be true.
Her first accusation, that he was using me to get into the US quicker, didn’t make sense. Luca was a business man from a well off family. Surely if he wanted to spend an extended amount of time in the US, there were better ways to go about doing so than seducing unsuspecting American women.
As for the suggestion he was using me as one last fling, I supposed it could be possible, but it seemed so out of character for Luca. Or at least out of character for the man I thought he was. Was it possible he was playing me?
I hated Laura for suggesting it, and I hated myself for doubting Luca. Hated that for at least the foreseeable future, whenever I looked at him, a part of me would wonder if he had someone waiting for him outside the resort.
And I really hated that I couldn’t remember what I came to my room for in the first place.
Luca mentioned before I left that his call shouldn’t last more than an hour. He suggested we meet on the hotel’s fifth floor, where they had a long wall of windows looking out over the slopes. There were numerous sitting areas and out of the way places a person could sit undisturbed. Since I couldn’t think of what else I needed to do, I might as well go on up and wait for Luca.
Usually, this time of the day, there were very few people along the fifth-floor window walk. I wasn’t aware of anything special being announced for that day, but for whatever reason, the floor was more crowded than usual. I worked my way through the crowds, finally finding an empty area near the end of the walk.
Once I sat down, I found that not only was it practically empty, but it provided an excellent view of the entryway. Sitting here, I’d be able to spot Luca the second he arrived. I wondered if he’d look any different to me after hearing Laura’s rumors?
I glanced at my watch. Based on what he’d said, I still had about twenty minutes until he would arrive. I settled back into my seat and prepared to people watch. After several entertaining minutes of side-eyeing a bickering couple, I realized there were voices coming from behind what I assumed was a solid wall. Upon looking at it closer, I realized it wasn’t a wall at all, but a pocket door.
A very thin pocket door, based on how much of the conversation being held on the other side that I could hear. Although it helped that the people involved weren’t trying to be quiet or discreet. I was probably being nosey, but in my mind it was being a diligent journalist. No matter which view you took, however, the result was the same, I listened in.
Perhaps, looking back, I got what I deserved. After all, if you’re going to listen in on conversations you haven’t been invited to participate in, you have no right to protest the topic.
As I listened, it seemed one voice belonged to Luca.
I tried to convince myself it couldn’t be Luca because Luca was back in his room on the phone for another fifteen minutes. But I couldn’t do it because it sounded so much like him.
Finally, unable to stand not knowing, I walked to the edge of the door, partially obscured by a curtain, and saw a tiny crack where the door wasn’t closed completely. Knowing there was no way I could stop, I peeked through the crack.
What I saw appeared to be another entrance onto the fifth floor. Odds were it was a private entrance because there were only two people standing there. Luca and a gorgeous Italian woman, who looked a few years younger than him. From the way they stood, her with her hands on her hips, and Luca with his arms crossed, they were arguing.
I couldn’t have moved if the hotel had been on fire.
“I’ve been with you how many years?” the woman asked. “And now this? An American tourist?”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Luca replied. “It’s nothing.”
Nothing.
I wanted to crawl in a hole and die.
Nothing.
“Don’t patronize me like I’m a child,” she shot back. “I know what I saw.”
“Stop taking this personally,” Luca said.
“How else am I supposed to take it?”
“I’ve already told you, it’s over between her and I.”
And there it was again in case the it’s nothing hadn’t been enough. Now I’d heard it clearly spoken, Luca wanted nothing beyond my time here. In his mind, we were already finished. I’d thought it was odd that he suggested meeting here, and after hearing him talk, I knew why. He’d planned to break up with me here. He probably knew how crowded the fifth floor would be and thought that if he did it here, I wouldn’t make a scene.
Feeling sick to my stomach, I moved to turn. Doing so must have shifted a light or shadows because the woman’s eyes flickered my way, I froze, and for a second our gazes locked. She looked away before Luca realized anything.
I’ve never known what, if anything, was said next because I backed away from the door, and walked back down the fifth floor to my room.
Everything that happened next was a blur. Later, I would remember snippets and a few images, but I’ve never known the complete story.
Chapter 24
Wren
The following day, I took my laptop with me to the estate’s large outdoor area. It was too quiet inside. Maria had taken Gemma to a friend’s house for the day, and Luca had a meeting in Milan. I needed to sort out my thoughts following the conversation with Luca yesterday.
After I told him everything I remembered, he’d taken me in arms. He said nothing, but he didn’t have to. I’d figured out my gross misunderstanding of the conversation I’d overheard. Luca and whoever he’d been talking with hadn’t been discussing me.
I hated that I couldn’t remember anything substantial after that. In my mind, I saw myself talking with the same woman who’d been with Luca behind the pocket door. But I wasn’t sure if it really happened or if my brain had conjured it up.
Maybe I’d never know the complete details of what happened. But that was my past, and I learned that was where it needed to remain.
However, the same wasn’t true for me. I could remain in the past, even though I didn’t belong there, or I could reach for the future. A future that included Luca. I attempted to create a list of pros and cons, but didn’t get very far.
I was young and single, with plans to resign from my current job. There was no reason to turn down Luca’s offer. Even if things didn’t work out with me and Luca, the experience was priceless.
I deleted my list of pros and cons, and had just started a text to inform Luca I was accepting his offer when I heard footsteps, followed by the sound of, Stella, the estate’s housekeeper.
“Ms. Carmella,” Stella said. “You’re not supposed to leave the office wing. This part of the estate is for family only.”
I looked up to find a young woman wearing a suit storming down the path from the office wing. Behind her Stella hurried to catch up, all the while talking. “I told you Mr. Botticelli isn’t here.”
“I’m not here to see him.” The woman was closer now and for some reason, she looked and sounded familiar.
She was also headed straight toward me.
I wasn’t able to see her clearly because she wore an enormous pair of sunglasses, and though I tried, I wasn’t able to place her voice. I stood to my feet, right as she walked up.
“Oh my, God,” she said. “It’s you.”
She took her sunglasses off, and I sucked in a breath. “You.”
The woman Luca had been talking with behind the pocket door.
All at once, a memory buried for years surfaces.
It’s five years ago, and I’m at the hotel bar. I’m beyond the tipsy stage, but I've done nothing stupid yet. I can tell because I’m standing.
“He’s practically engaged to my best friend.” The woman standing next to me is talking about Luca, and I’m believing every line she feeds me because it all
seems to match what I overheard earlier in the day on the fifth floor. “He told me he was coming here to do business. Your name isn’t Business, is it?”
She laughs as if she just cracked the funniest joke, ever.
I keep silent, hoping if I don’t react, maybe she’ll go bother someone else.
No such luck.
“Maybe he’s using you to get to America.” She thinks for a second and nods. “That’s got to be it. No way would he be with you by choice.”
The scene fades away.
“You certainly look different. What the hell are you doing here?” she asked me as I blinked away the remnants of the memory.
“Fucking Luca,” I said, because I knew I was looking at the person responsible for my accident. “Of course.”
“I knew something was up when he let it slip an American journalist was staying here.” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you the reason he canceled the move?”
“I don’t see how that could be any of your business.”
“His business is my job. I’m his PA.”
“Then why aren’t with him?” The fact that she refused to tell me led me to believe he’d sent her away. The thought made me smile. “That’s okay. You don’t have to tell me, the reasons I’ll come up with in my head are funnier than real life, anyway.”
My indifference seemed to stoke her anger. “I don’t care how many times you fuck Luca, you’ll always be low class American trash.”
I almost laughed in her face. Had I allowed her to intimidate me so easily five years ago? It seemed I had, and Carmella was under the assumption I was the same weak thing she’d broken once before. And though she had been correct in saying I looked different, looks weren’t the only things that had changed about me. She couldn’t see those changes because they weren’t visible on the outside, but I knew they were there, inside, and if Carmella was around me for any length of time, she’d see it. Just like Luca had when I’d turned and left his room that first night. The old Wren would never have done such a thing, the new one couldn’t imagine doing it any other way.
“Carmella!”
We both whipped around at the sound of Luca’s voice. He walked the same path his PA had taken moments before.
“Tell me I did not hear you disrespect a guest in my house.” His eyes blazed as he came to a stop in front of us.
“Mr. Botticelli,” Carmella said. “I didn’t know you were there.”
“Obviously.” He spoke with no emotion. I’d never seen his face void of anything. “Since you appear unable to see to the needs of my guests and because I can’t trust you not to say something that would disrespect whomever you’re talking to, you can pack up your things here and leave. Someone will ship your personal items from the Milan office. I no longer require your services.”
“You’re firing me?”
“Appears that way, yes.”
Carmella shot me one last nasty look before turning and stomping back up the path to the office.
Luca took out his phone and punched a button. “Jorge,” he said. “Carmella will be in the office wing momentarily. Please escort her to her desk and ensure she only takes what belongs to her.”
They spoke a few minutes more, and when he put his phone away, he was smiling. “That’s one less thing to worry about.”
I shared with him the memory that had resurfaced. He listened, growing angrier with each passing second.
“I should have gotten rid of her years ago.” He shook his head. “I’ve known for some time now that I needed to let her go. I think I kept putting it off because somehow it felt as if I should keep her employed because of Gianna.”
“Does she come and see Gemma?” I asked.
“Carmella?” He laughed. “Hell, no. She doesn’t even like kids.”
Chapter 25
Wren
“Who even are you?” Mia asked when I called to tell her everything that happened, but more importantly, the decision I’d made. “I need you to give the phone back to Wren.”
I laughed. It seemed I was doing a lot of that lately. It felt good. I’d gone too many years without laughing nearly enough, and I swore right then and there it’d never happen again.
“Are you being completely serious?” Mia asked for what felt like the hundredth time.
It had been two days since Luca fired Carmella. He’d been aghast when he realized what Carmella had said five years ago. He wanted to call her back into his office for the sole purpose of firing her again, and expressed his shock over how calmly I handled everything. Especially once a few more flashbacks of that time had made their way to the surface. Somehow, seeing Carmella again had triggered something.
As I’d told him, Carmella may have lied to me, but she wasn’t the one who continued to drink in my hotel room after the bar cut me off. She wasn’t the one who woke up and didn’t realize just how intoxicated she was, and decided to go skiing.
“Yes,” I replied to Mia. “Some of my memories of the accident are coming back to me.”
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Do you need to see someone and talk it out?”
I looked to my right where Luca was having a tea party with Gemma. “I’m more than okay.”
Though his daughter wasn’t aware, I could tell his attention was divided. And that he was listening intently to my half of the conversation.
Mia’s silence sounded loud in my ears, and I could tell she didn’t believe me.
“Remember what you told me before any of this happened?” I asked her.
“That I spent too much time with Tenor,” she said. “And I’ll have you know that is not the case because I’ve discovered that it’s impossible to spend too much time with the one you love.”
If she’d told me that two months ago, I’d have rolled my eyes and made comments about how they really needed to calm themselves down. Now, it made me smile.
“No,” I told her. “You mentioned that I matched better with Luca than any other woman in the database.”
“I remember.”
“With that being the case, do you think there’s a need to move slow?” I asked. “After all, it is your system. Don’t you trust it? Because if you don’t, I’m not sure you should be selling it.”
Luca covered his snort with a cough.
“You okay, papa?” Gemma asked, pouring him more tea. “I don’t want bad germs on my princess table.”
“I’m perfectly fine, tesoro. Just a little throat tickle.”
“Damn, I think my ovaries just exploded listening to that,” Mia said with a sigh.
I had to admit, watching father and daughter play tea was quickly becoming a favorite to watch. Luca lifted his tea cup to his lips and took a sip of the pretend tea. Damn, how was it he managed to slay me no matter what he did.
“Okay,” Mia said. “When you bring up how awesome my system is, I can see your point. But where are you going to live? What are you going to be doing and when will I get to see you again?”
“We’re going to come to Boson in a week or so, and we’re bringing Gemma.” Now that she understood there wasn’t a move happening, she was excited about seeing Boston. “But we don’t stay forever, right? We visit and come back here.”
It took her asking about twenty times before she realized the answer we gave wasn’t changing.
“In a week or so…” I heard papers shuffle as she looked for her calendar on top of her desk. I never understood why she didn’t use an electronic one. “Oh, this reminds me, Tenor wants to discuss someone he’s been thinking about hiring with Luca. Brigitta something I can’t remember. She listed him as a reference.”
“I’ll be sure to let him know.”
We talked for a few more minutes, agreeing to get together as often as possible while I was in town. We even hinted at the possibility of Mia and Tenor coming to the estate for a visit.
“We’ll definitely consider it,” Mia said. “Tenor needs a vacay in the worst way. I don’t think he’s had one in five years.”
> “And when was the last vacation you took?” I asked her, knowing it had been close to five years.
“I never said I didn’t need one. I’d leave tomorrow if I could. Hold on a second…” It sounded like she put her hand over the speaker instead of using the mute button. I heard conversations in the background, but I couldn’t make out any of the words being said. “Wren, I hate to cut this short, but Piers is out in the lobby and Tenor still isn’t talking to him so I have to handle it.”
I wasn’t sure what went down between Tenor and his used to be best friend, but I knew from Mia that whatever it was, still hadn’t been fixed. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to lose Mia as a friend. Whatever had happened must have been bad.
“Everything okay in Boston?” Luca asked when we’d disconnected.
I sat down beside him at the tea party table, and Gemma ran around trying to find another setting of dishes for me.
“Sounds like not much has changed.” I mentioned to him what Mia had said about Brigitta, and he just nodded and said he’d answer any question Tenor had.
Realizing we’d both been left abandoned at the tea party, we glanced around the room to see what she’d gotten into. She was pressed up against the window, watching something.
“What is it, tesoro?” Luca asked.
“It’s Auntie Maria,” she said in wonder. “And she’s so pretty.”
Neither one of us got up to see, having ran across her earlier in the day. She’d finally agreed to go out with the man from Como who had been interested in her for so long. Apparently, she said, being around a couple had shown her what she was missing, and she needed to stop being scared and just live her life.
I leaned over and gave Luca a kiss, thinking I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Epilogue
Wren
Two Months Later
Boston
The last two months had been the happiest of my life. Luca and I were working on building both our lives together and the new business. We’ve been in Boston for three days, and it’s only our second trip. Gemma came with us, like she did on our first trip back. Now that she understands were aren’t moving away from the estate, she’s excited about visiting the States.