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“Well, we’re here. What do you think of the view?” Antonio seemed a bit more mellow. Was it the music? Could a beautiful ballad really tame the beast, so to speak?
She got out of the car slowly as he held the door open for her. “Thank you,” she said.
“You’re a very polite woman,” he commented. “You must have said thank you at least three hundred times since this afternoon,” he surmised with a boyish grin. "But who's counting?"
She would not say thank you to that comment. She willed herself not to. Gosh, he was right. She was very over-thankful for everything, if one could call it that.
Antonio took that opportunity to grill Lucy about her life. What she enjoyed and what she didn’t and how noble it was for her to take over her auntie’s business, though he still wanted to discuss letting his grandfather down as gently as possible. He loved that old man. Lucy asked him about his own family since clearly he knew much about her.
Antonio was closed at first but as they meandered around the hillside they got to talking more. He loved to capture the beautiful scenic images, and in fact, he owned a mini gallery in one of the cottages where he displayed his artwork and nature photography. He even showed her some images on his smartphone. Lucy was awestruck. His mood darkened somewhat when she asked him about his father. He didn’t want to delve too much into his father’s passing and what type of man he was. And what Lucy noticed more was the pain in Antonio’s eyes when he answered a question about his mother. She was alive but it sure didn’t feel like it. He didn’t want to discuss anything about his mother. She was off limits apparently. Period. Done with. A nonissue. Lucy wondered in horror about what type of relationship they might have had for him to never want to trust women. Perhaps there was more to the story than the little she had heard. There must have been. Antonio was a sweet, resourceful man who gave a lot to the community, though he never spoke directly of it. While questioning him on his projects, she learned that most of it was to help young people succeed in life on their own regardless of their backgrounds. He seemed to be quite passionate about that. Obsessed even. It was one of the forces that drove him daily. To turn underdogs into top dogs. Who could blame him for wanting to do that?
Was it because he didn’t have much himself growing up. Not in material things, obviously, but in love. Companionship.
Lucy had explained to Antonio that the reason she wanted to continue the agency, despite having her own reservations about some of the stunts the brides and grooms wanted to pull off, was it was a way to grant dreams to deserving people. Antonio commended her on her intent but still made it clear that by Friday, he wanted her to resolve the issue with his grandfather’s wedding.
Way to ruin the moment, she thought.
They enjoyed the scene of the lake below and Lucy also noticed the chairlift to the side going all the way down to the bottom of the hill.
“You guys own all of this land?”
“We do.”
“But it’s like cottage country up here. Is there a resort near by?” Lucy felt so out of her league and so out of bounds. How could she not have known this? She knew that Romero Realty owned plenty of properties and land but never envisioned this. Unlike Antonio, it wasn’t as if she went around ordering background checks on everyone with whom she did business. Although it would probably be a good idea. Everything she knew about people was reduced to whatever she could Google about them. Ha! That made her feel so amateurish compared to the Romeros.
“During the winter months, we open up the cottages over there and we pretty much run a ski resort. We do a lot of student packages.”
“Can the students even afford this?”
“We do complimentary packages, Lucy. We give back to the community and to the young people.”
“Oh, right.”
“I trust you will be present at the Diamond Ball this Thursday evening?” Antonio’s tone made the sentence sound more like a command than a question or invitation.
“Well, I do have a lot of projects this week,” she answered with a grin. “But I think I will try to squeeze it in.”
“Good,” Antonio answered curtly.
