Tomasso’s eyes opened wide. “My, my, my. You might be slightly older than I am, but you’re certainly not wiser. If you think settling down means the sex is worse, you have much to learn. I can assure you I’ve never had better sex in my life.”
Lorenzo opened his mouth to speak yet decided against it.
“What?” Tomasso said.
His brother shrugged. “Oh, nothing. It’s just that you clearly have lived a sheltered life, is all.”
“Try it, you might like it.”
“God, no.” Lorenzo shuddered. “As long as I have blood coursing through my veins, I won’t settle down. Variety, my boy, is the spice of life. Besides, commitment gets, well, messy. I don’t do messy and I don’t do commitment.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“Sure as the sun will rise in the morning.”
“Then why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?” Tomasso pointed to the wallet still in his brother’s hand.
“What? This?” Lorenzo said, holding the wallet up and opening the section filled with fresh Euros.
Tomasso nodded. “Uh, yeah. You’re so sure of yourself and your freedom from the shackles of love. Why not double down on the wager? I paid you a thousand Euros for my arrogance. I say you have to pay me twice that if you can’t prove me wrong.”
“And how do I prove you wrong but for remaining single?” He laughed. “Do I pay you on my deathbed?”
“Nice try,” Tomasso said. “Let’s give you the advantage. I’ll let you have an entire year. It’s a sure bet for you, isn’t it? You have to remain single for a year.”
“And by single, you mean I can continue to fuck women as long as I don’t settle down with any of them?”
“Like I said, this is a sure bet for you. You can graze to your heart’s content. At least I had to stay celibate. I’m not even putting those conditions on the bet. Be my guest, go to town, gorge yourself on the buffet of pulchritudinous females. Enjoy your shallow existence, and cash out. On top of it, you get to kick my ass again, which I know is all you need to say yes.”
“What’s in it for you, then?”
Tomasso shrugged. “Let’s just say I’ve walked in your shoes. And I learned the hard way that never is an awfully long time.” He grinned. “Shake on it?”
“Hell yeah,” Lorenzo said, thrusting his hand out. “This is going to be the easiest money I’ve yet to make off you.”
His brother lifted an eyebrow. “We’ll see, Lorenzo. We’ll see.”
Chapter Three
Sophie rested her chin on Gisele’s shoulder as they talked to Tomasso on FaceTime. “You sure this is going to be okay with your family? I mean, I know it’s intrusive to show up with a crew and cameras and microphones. Not everyone is keen on sharing their private lives.”
Tomasso smiled. “Soph, this is going to be awesome. Seriously I can’t wait. Although I have to admit to being selfish since I want to get my girl out here.”
Gisele blew a kiss to the screen. “Me too! We’re going to have so much fun! We’re bringing Justin too. If you can line up some incredibly handsome Italian man for him, go for it. And surely you can find someone for Sophie.”
“Oh, I’ve got someone in mind, all right,” he said. “I think it’ll be a great match.”
Sophie frowned a bit. “You guys! I don’t want to be like the pathetic friend you have to find a date for; however, if there’s someone who might be fun to do something with, I could possibly be persuaded.”
“Not to worry, Soph. I’ve been thinking long and hard about this. We’ll find the right guy for you to make sure that your Italian working holiday is truly memorable.”
Sophie clasped her hands together. “I’m just excited for this whole opportunity. It’s my chance to shine, so I’m going to have my hand in even the most minute details to make sure it all goes perfectly.”
“And anything I can do to help out, let me know. I’m going to assign my brother Lorenzo to remain at your side. Anything you need, he will be right there to be sure it is done without question. I’ll, of course, be around as well, but I have a feeling Gisele and I are going to be busy...”
“La-la-la-la,” Sophie said, plugging her ears. “I’m going to stay out of this part of the discussion because it is so not my business.”
Gisele laughed. “Wait till you’re in the same boat. You’ll be talking about it to everyone who will listen.”
“Honestly, I’m sure this production is going to eat up my time. I’ll be lucky if I have a minute to breathe, let alone develop a relationship with a man. Besides, not a lot of men tend to stick around for me.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Gisele said.
“Let’s just say I have low expectations.”
“Maybe you’ll find them elevated in Italia,” Tomasso said.
“I’ll be happy if this show goes off without a hitch. Anything else will be icing on the cake.”
“Speaking of sweet things, I can’t wait to see you, Tomasso! Stay out of trouble till I get there.”
“Does that mean I can get into trouble once you arrive?”
“As long as it involves me.” She winked at him.
“Okay, folks, enough with the treacle. All this sweet, gooey talk is going to give me blood sugar problems. Which reminds me—it’s time for my daily wine infusion. See you soon, Tomasso!”
~*~
It was Sunday afternoon and the entire Romeo family was gathered for lunch. An early spring had emerged from the somnolent winter doldrums that had held Chianti in its grip for months. The Romeos didn’t mind the quietude that came with the off-season after the grapes and olives had all been harvested. During the winter months, they could relax for a little bit while planning for the next season. With the weather turning warmer, though, their thoughts turned to planting, and discussion at Sunday lunch inevitably steered toward plans for the Romeo family wines.
Alessandro tapped his wineglass with his knife to get everyone’s attention. “For those of you who weren’t in on this discussion, I wanted to let you all know the details about the film crew that arrives this week.”
“Film crew?” Lorenzo said.
Sandro shot him a look. “Yes. Film crew. We discussed this last Sunday at lunch. Parker’s sister’s boss is bringing her show here. Featuring Romeo wines, the family, the property, the whole thing.” Parker was Gisele’s brother, who’d fallen for Sandro and Lorenzo’s sister Valentina and was staying with the family for a while so they could spend more time together.
Lorenzo squinted at him. “Um, no one told me this. For that matter, I wasn’t even here for lunch last week.”
Sandro waved his hand. “We’ll get you up to speed now, considering you’re going to be the point man for them.”
Lorenzo’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry. What the hell does that mean?”
“Well, of course, you’re the go-to guy for them. That’s your job. You’re the public face of Romeo wines, which means you’ll be the one they deal with. Everything they do while here will be routed through you. And you’ll be sitting for interviews with her as well.”
“For a bunch of Americans who are going to treat us like some sort of anthropology experiment, observing the strange foreigners from high atop her ivory tower.” He made air quotes with his fingers. “‘See what the rich Italians do all day!’ Worse yet, they’ll be like the mean boys holding a magnifying glass up to ants, trying to burn them with the intense focus of light.”
Sandro laughed. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little melodramatic? They’re only coming to film us to show their viewers what a magnificent home we have and what wonderful people the Romeos are.” He gave a wink to his family. “And when they do that, our wines will fly off the shelves faster than ever back in the States. That’s why we’re fronting you as the Romeo Americans will grow to love: the face of Lorenzo Romeo sells wine.”
“But—”
“But nothing,” Sandro said. “We all have a role to pla
y here and this is yours.”
“So you’re telling me some nosey American television program is coming here to intrude on our privacy and worse, still, I’m the one who has to be a shill for all of the Romeos while they’re here?” He shook his head. “Uh-uh. No way. I’m not going to do it. You should have consulted with me before you made these plans and unilaterally decided what I was going to do as part of my job.”
Sandro squinted at his brother. “Wait a minute. You seriously think you have a say in this?”
Lorenzo nodded to his mother. “Mamma, be on my side here.”
His mother, Fabiana, whose beauty shone through her seventy-some-odd years of age, with graying short hair and loving brown eyes, crossed her arms. “Lorenzo. Caro,” she said. Dear. “Please, let’s all get along and enjoy this lovely pranzo. After all, you’ve not been here for lunch in weeks. Can’t you simply trust it will all work out fine?”
Alessandro leaned in to whisper in Lorenzo’s ear. “What’s the matter—you can’t defend yourself even at this late age? I thought you abandoned crying for your mamma’s support back when you were a kid.”
“Watch it, Sandro. I’m not above communicating with these.” He held up his fists.
Fabiana stood up and planted herself between her sons, arms extended to keep them apart. “Ragazzi! Basta!”
Lorenzo glared. He hated when his mother called them children. The fact was, once again his family made presumptions about his time and interests without even consulting with him and he was so over it. He wasn’t behaving childishly. Rather he was standing up for his rights.
“Mamma, this is not your concern.”
She furled her brows and lifted her hand to wag her finger at him. “Don’t you tell me this is not my business,” she said. “You come in and create havoc during my favorite meal of the week. Well, then, even if it wasn’t my business, you’ve made it so. This is my company as well, and I will not have you behaving badly as a representative of this business, which has been well-represented by Romeos for hundreds upon hundreds of years.” She put her arms down and turned to face Lorenzo. “Ever since your father died, we have pooled our efforts to keep Romeo wines afloat. Every one of us comes to the table with particular skills. And like it or not, yours happen to include your handsome good looks.”
She squeezed his chin between her fingers as if displaying a particularly attractive piece of fruit. Lorenzo winced. She continued her tirade. “If you don’t like it, we’ll discuss that at a later date. For now, you will be the perfect host, the perfect Sherpa to guide our guests as they film a lovely piece of programming that will help us sell our product. It will drive tourists to our beautiful headquarters, as well as make me happy that we are a well-oiled machine that runs without problems. If you want to go to your room and scream into a pillow about how unfair it is that you happen to be particularly handsome and got stuck being the face of Romeo wines, well, be my guest. If you want a punching bag where you can lash out on your horrible lot in life, I’m sure we can find one for you. But I do not want to hear of one moment in which you aren’t the quintessential host to our guests. Not one.”
She dusted off her hands as if she’d had a tough day working in the fields. “Now, I expect you to sit down and eat this meal I’ve fixed for you and I want to see a smile on your face while you’re doing it. Is that clear?”
Around the table, the siblings and significant others snickered quietly after holding their mouths silent for a minute.
“And none of you will say a thing, either.” She pointed around the table. “Not another word. Now mangiamo. Let’s eat.”
She extended her arm to show Lorenzo where to sit, and again for Sandro as if they didn’t already know where they were supposed to be already seated.
Lorenzo knew that in this Italian family, what Mamma wanted, Mamma got. So, for now, he could only stew silently over this decision. In his head, though, it wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot. He’d get in his digs one way or another.
Chapter Four
Sophie didn’t know which was more treacherous—driving on basically zero sleep in pummeling rain on the Italian superstrada with tractor trailers barreling down on her (and the drivers flashing their lights and honking those scary loud horns because, well, she was after all a beautiful woman driving a car in Italy. What else would a man do?). Or driving on perilously twisty mountainous roads as they approached their Tuscan destination, with speed demons on Italian motorcycles whipping around her at every hairpin turn in the road.
“Whose brilliant idea was it to fly into Milan and drive to Chianti?” Gisele moaned as she held her hands to her stomach. She was a bit green around the gills from a bad bout of carsickness.
“How was I supposed to know it would be the drive from hell?” Sophie said. “I figured we’d get to have a nice, leisurely road trip through the Italian countryside, stop and picnic, take in the local color. The flights were cheaper into Milan instead of Florence. I thought I’d save some money and put it toward something else on the production end of things. I was just being a responsible producer.”
“I think that’s the equivalent of flying into the airport in Boston when your destination is Philadelphia.” Justin cupped his hands over his mouth from the back seat to shout so he could be heard over the sound of torrential rain beating down on the roof of the rental car.
They’d flown to Italy ahead of the film crew to have some time to scout things out in person. Sophie had been plunged headlong into research for the past several weeks, learning all she could about Romeo wines and the Romeo family so she could be as knowledgeable as possible beforehand. She’d scoured YouTube for videos people had posted of their vacation tours of the Romeo estate, anything that would help her feel like she had a good handle on her subject.
Through tabloid stories she’d even caught up on some of the more lurid details about certain Romeos’ comings and goings: who dated whom, who was engaged, who had issues with crazy ex-girlfriends, and the like. It was kind of fun doing that type of delving. She’d become particularly skillful at it with her previous show, and it seemed second nature to her now. Only this time, she was going to have to remember her guests weren’t appearing on her show to basically be humiliated for their boneheaded actions but rather for their chosen lot in life.
“Don’t you think you’re exaggerating a bit?” She clutched the steering wheel in a death grip. The rain had been so intense, the windshield wipers were doing double-time and she still had a hard time maintaining visibility. On top of that, fog enveloped them at every turn into a low point between the mountains. At one point Sophie had zero visibility with no place to pull over to wait it out. She wasn’t a religious girl by any stretch yet felt like a few Hail Marys might hold them in good stead.
“I feel confident that by the time we arrive at Cantine Marchesi Romeo, the sun will be shining, the birds will be singing, and there will be copious amounts of red wine at the ready to settle my nerves a bit.”
Justin laughed and Gisele moaned. “I’m gonna need a huge bottle of Pepto Bismol and a warm bed.”
“Something tells me that by the time you see Tomasso, you’ll forget all about your aching belly and we’ll be able to forget about your bellyaching.” She turned her head and winked at Justin right as a large truck drove past, splashing water onto the windshield and again temporarily rendering visibility to nil. “Although more than likely we’ll be stuck listening to them moanin’ and groanin’ at that point, which is equally as bad.”
“I dunno, Soph,” Justin said. “I took a look at their digs online, and I’m pretty sure there will be plenty of distance between rooms to insulate us from hearing those two go at it.” He and Sophie laughed.
“You guys are having fun at my expense and if you’re not careful, I might just throw up all over the car!”
“Now that we don’t need. I’m afraid we’ll have to leave Gisele on the side of the road if she’s going to make this drive any more unpleasant. You with me Just
in?” She did a backward high five over the driver’s seat.
“Then maybe I should keep from introducing you to Tomasso’s brothers, so neither of you can get in on a little action while we’re there.”
“Well. That would certainly show me.” Justin frowned. “Except I already did my due diligence and I know he doesn’t have any gay brothers. I’m out of luck with the Romeo clan as it is.”
“And I think most of the rest of them are claimed, am I right? That leaves me little chance for anything much anyhow, so I’ll take my chances on some stray man I might encounter while here.”
They all laughed and as they crested one of those Tuscan hills, saw a brilliant double rainbow hovering over a beautiful Italian villa off in the distance as the rain began to taper off and the sun peeked out from behind the leaden sky.
“Well, would you look at that?” Sophie pointed toward the rainbow, brilliant against the bluing background.
“That megahouse or the crazy-looking sky?” Justin said.
“It’s hard to imagine which one is more impressive, isn’t it?” It was hard to see details of the place, but high atop the hill stood an imposing yellow palazzo, and she knew from her research right away this was their destination. “I think we’ll feel pretty much at home—”
Just then a motocicletta sped past her and cut her off, causing her to slam on her brakes, the tale of her car fishtailing. Sophie instinctually extended her arm out in front of Gisele next to her as if that would preclude her from going through the windshield in an accident.
“Jesus,” she shouted, immediately shoving her middle finger in front of the windshield and holding it there as the guy whizzed past her, flipping her the bird as well. “What a dick! Here I am minding my business, enjoying the scenery, and this jerk tries to kill us. Boy, I’d love to give him a piece of my mind.”
“Well, don’t worry about him. In a few minutes, we’ll be up there.” Gisele pointed toward the massive manor home they’d passed in the distance. “We won’t have to bother with that idiot ever again.”
Silver Spoon Romeo Page 2