Authors: Lily Zante
Nico
said nothing.
“So.” His father said, in a more sterner voice,
not wishing to dwell too much on these emotional issues. “I told the Luxuriant
group that I had considered their offer in line with the offers from all the
other interested parties and that I was no longer interested.”
Nico’s eyes widened and he sat up to attention. He
felt a surge of excitement beginning to flow through his veins.
“I feel you’re coming on, getting a good grasp for
the business. You’re taking it to the next level; more luxury and moving
upmarket. I never did understand why the bed linen had to be a thousand thread
count or above, or why it had to be Egyptian cotton when our own Italian cotton
is good enough but the new guest book and online review system seem to show me
otherwise. Gina tells me that people have been commenting on the smallest of
things and these are the details that they remember.”
“So you approve?” Nico asked, eagerly.
His father cleared his throat. “The results indicate
that you are doing the right things.” Nico smiled at his father’s inability to
give a simple and clear “Yes.”
“Let’s take it slowly. But I don’t think I need to
have other companies thinking that our empire is for the taking anymore. I
think the Cazale’s are quite capable of running their chain of hotels very
well.”
“And maybe expanding out, slowly?”
His
father looked up and nodded.
“I mean,” said Nico with a hint of carefulness,
“We’ll start out slowly. Acquiring only the most fabulous hotels in the yet
undiscovered parts of Italy.”
His father put his fingers together and rested his
chin on them. “I like the sound of that very much Nico.”
The two men sat, with a mutual understanding and a
new phase in their relationship achieved.
“One last thing, Nico. No pressure or anything but
maybe, before I grow exceptionally old and unable to see, we might find you
settling down someday too? I quite like the idea of gardening with my
grandchildren.” The old man smiled, a warm, comfortable smile.
Nico
got up and shook his father’s hand. Then clasped him tightly by the arm, and
hugged him.
“One thing at a time Papa,” he replied, a small
smile playing on lips.
By the time Nico came out of his father’s office,
Gina was waiting for him at the main reception desk. Silvia had left with
Alessa as soon as she had left the meeting.
Gina
wore a worried frown but Nico only had thoughts for Ava.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, his mind on Ava and
what to do next.
“We’ve had a problem with the electrics in the
kitchen. The chefs complained of it over a week ago and I thought Alphonso was
looking at it.” Predicting the obvious, Nico said, “But he didn’t?”
Gina
shook her head. “And now there is no hot water or electricity in the kitchen.
Which means we are not going to be able to get dinner ready for this evening
unless we get it fixed immediately.”
Nico frowned. Lately that old hotel manager,
Alphonso, had started to forget a lot of things. He wasn’t good at leading by
example and forgetting small things, soon escalated to bigger problems, as was
the case so clearly now.
“But hasn’t he been off sick?” asked Nico.
“He was, but he came back today.”
“So where is he now?” asked Nico sourly. He really
had no time to be looking at this. He needed to see Ava.
“He headed home around two o’clock saying he
didn’t think he had fully recovered. Shall I call him back?” asked Gina.
Nico inhaled sharply. “No,” he said, flicking
through the sheaf of papers that Gina had passed him. “Let’s leave Alphonso
right out of the picture. He’s done enough damage for now,” Nico muttered as he
quickly scanned through the paperwork which contained the invoices from when
the kitchen was first installed. He raised a hand automatically towards the
phone. He had the number of the man who had done the first installation.
Gina stopped him. “They’ve folded,” she said,
moving his hand away. “I rang them and they are no longer in business. The
place is now a pizzeria believe it or not. Anyway, I took the liberty of
getting a few quotes from some of the electricians around here. Three of them
are arriving to give me a free quote.”
Nico stood back, one arm across his chest with the
elbow of the other one resting on it. He cupped his chin with his hand. “It seems
to me Gina, as though you don’t need to ask me anything. You’ve taken care of
it. I’ll leave it in your capable hands.”
“Good.” She replied swiftly, looking over towards
the side entrance where she had told all the maintenance men to come in
from.
“And until we get someone to help you with the
main reception duties, I’ll head over to the kitchen to see what reasonable
prices these good men can give us for fixing our kitchen problem.”
Nico rushed over to the side door which lead out
to the utility and kitchen areas at the back of the hotel and all thoughts of
Ava had long disappeared from his mind.
“One more thing!” Gina called out after him but
Nico had already gone through the side door.
She had meant to tell him that Ava would be
leaving the hotel tomorrow morning.
At around eleven o’clock the next day, Ava boarded
a train from Verona Porta Nuova and by one o’clock in the afternoon, she was
sitting at a table outside in the Piazza San Marco in Venice, a few days days
earlier than planned.
When they had been due to get married, she and
Connor had paid for everything to do with the wedding. Once the cancellations
had started, Ava had returned half of all the money less the cancellation fees.
But she had decided to carry on with the holiday in Italy. Connor wouldn’t
mind. Would he? And even if he did, she didn’t think he would have the gall to
ask her for half the money. Thank goodness the honeymoon had all been paid for
in advance otherwise there was no way she would be able to afford the opulent
Hotel Sant Adelina where she had checked into, overlooking the Grand Canal. She
had been lucky that it was still not the peak holiday season here and the hotel
manager had been extremely accommodating about letting her have the room a few
days early. Though this now meant she had a longer stay here in Venice and would have to pay for the extra days out of her own pocket.
Having a few extra days to spend in Venice was a blessing as far as she was concerned. Verona had been wonderful. Had been.
Until yesterday when everything had fallen apart.
She stirred her cappuccino for over a minute
before realizing that she was going through the motions. Immediately, she
stopped, recollecting the events that had ruined what had started to become a wonderful
vacation. She had been so busy visiting the sights in Verona, and going to
different places with Nico that she hadn’t done any of the sight seeing outside
of Verona. She had been happy to stay where she was, with Nico.
Her heart missed a beat when she thought of him. It
had felt as though a bullet had grazed her heart when Silvia had announced that
she and Nico had a child together. Why had he never mentioned anything to her?
Maybe he was just a suave, handsome, charmer, nothing more than a playboy who
had lured her into thinking he was something else. And she had fallen for it
too.
And yet Silvia had wanted Ava to think that she
and Nico were more than friends, though Ava suspected this wasn’t somehow
true. Who knew? It wouldn’t be the first time Ava had been wrong when it came
to love. Or unlucky. Maybe she had it all wrong? She thought about that moment
yesterday when, recovering from the news of Nico’s child, she had seen Nico, Silvia
and the man she assumed to be Nico’s father in the main hotel lobby. The sight
of the three of them together had firmly put her in her place. They had
something together, some bond. And she was just an outsider. Rona had been
right after all. She had been a little diversion for the hot blooded Nico and
she had ended up getting hurt all over again.
How could she end up falling for yet another man who
was so wrong for her?
She sipped her coffee and played around with her
Panino. This one was double the price and not even one tenth as good as the one
she had eaten in Montagnano yesterday. Yesterday. Nico. The bench, the stream,
the lunch. Their kiss. The memories of the day flooded back crystal clear.
The chatter of people walking around provided
welcome background noise to her inner turmoil.
A blip on her phone told her she had a message.
She checked it and saw it was from her mother. She had stopped mentioning
Connor a few days ago and now her texts were very boring and to the point:
Enjoy
your holiday and don’t eat too much seafood. You know how ill it can make you.
Ava
closed the message and stared vacantly out at the square.
The angle of the sun hit the back of her neck at
just the right spot, dousing her in a slice of warmth even though there was a
bit of a chill in the air. The sun in Verona had been warm, all over. Here in Venice there was a definite bite to the air but she had been prepared and had worn her
cream woolen dress, with brown woolen tights, leather boots and a tight fitting
leather jacket over it. She was warm, and she was content. She would survive.
And she would return to Denver shortly and carry on with her life just as it
had been before she left. Over time Nico and Verona would slowly disappear from
her memories, once she got back into the daily routine that was her life.
The waitress delivered a warm chocolate croissant
to the table behind her and she almost passed it right over Ava’s nose as she
walked by. Ava could do nothing more than dream about having a chocolate
croissant with her Panino.
There
it was again. Panino. Panino with Nico.
Nico.
No matter how hard she tried, he always kept appearing
back in her thoughts. And whenever she remembered his face, she remembered
their kiss. She had thought of nothing else but that during the entire train
journey to Venice.
She
bit into her panino and regarded the irony of her situation. Here she was
taking her vacation in Italy, in a bid to get away from the disaster of being
jilted six weeks before her wedding day. And now that she was in Italy she found herself in the beginning of what appeared to be another disastrous
situation. Despite her best efforts she had started to develop feelings for a
man who turned out to be a liar and a cheat. And a father too.
How bad could it get?
What
would her mother think? And Rona? She would never hear the end of it from
Rona. No, she could never mention what had happened in Verona to anyone ever
again. It would be as if Nico had never existed for her.
As she put her unfinished Panino down on the
plate, Ava looked around her at the newsagent’s just to the side. The scarlet
red dress on the fashion model on the cover of Italian Vogue, caught her eye as
she stared at the cover. She wondered whether she should get up to buy the
magazine only after she had finished her coffee, or whether she should get up
now and buy it, leaving her coffee cup temporarily at the table. The newspaper
stand was just a stone’s throw away. She looked around, wondering what she
should do then wondered why she was thinking so much about wondering what to
do. Images of her and Nico kissing and the hot feelings they aroused, left her
unable to think straight about anything else.
And then, her gaze fell upon a photo of Nico. It
was a close-up of his face and it was on the front cover of an Italian
newspaper.
What was he doing on the front cover of a
newspaper?
She got up slowly from her table, her eyes fixed
on the black and white newspaper so snugly embedded in the newspaper stand. She
walked towards it stealthily, then picked it up and unfolded it. Without a
doubt, it was him; those magnetic eyes, even in black and white, were so
beautiful and magnetic. The thick dark hair and that indisputably handsome
face. It was him alright. Underneath the photo, the words: Nico Cazale and then
something in Italian that she couldn’t make out.
Her heart fluttered furiously as her eyes quickly
skimmed the two columns of writing devoted to him. It was a business paper, so
she didn’t think it was any type of tabloid news. She scanned for the words
“Silvia” and anything else that might be un-businesslike. Anything that gave a
hint of a marriage. She wasn’t interested in business news or mergers. She
wanted to know about the human mergers such as marriage. Her eyes flitted
speedily over the words, looking for the words she didn’t want to find when all
of a sudden, the words “Hello Ava,” sailed into her ears and knocked the wind right
out of her.
She knew, in that instant, who it was.
Stepping out from behind the newspaper stand where
he had been hiding was Nico, all six foot two inches of him, in his business
suit and crisp white shirt. Unlike the usual confident and self-assured Nico
that she was used to, he now seemed a little unsure.
Ava stared back, not sure whether this was a dream
or real. Nico in the newspaper and now in the flesh before her. Not in Verona, but here in Venice. A million words and questions floated through her mind and
stayed trapped in her throat. But the only word that came out was “
You?
”