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“Amy,” she said. She was Dr. Daniels at work, but if she was around people calling her nothing else for the next month, she thought she would lose her mind.
“Mr. Canali is waiting for you,” the valet said. “And you may call me Tony, by the way. I’m here to help with any needs that might arise during your stay with us.”
Amy was already sure that she would never ask Tony for his help with anything. She would feel much too awkward asking the valet to do something for her. She was used to fending for herself, and that was what she would go on doing.
He showed her to a closed pair of French doors and pulled them open.
There was Adriano. He sat behind a desk, and he didn’t look up when she came in. “Hello, Amy,” he said. “Please, take a seat.”
The whole thing made her feel like she’d been called into the principal’s office. She crossed the room and sat down in the chair opposite his.
“I trust your flight was comfortable?” Now he looked up, and the moment his eyes met hers, she felt a rush of arousal. She was angry with him, she knew she was, but for a split second it was hard to remember why.
Then she recovered. “You were supposed to be on that flight,” she told him. “You told me we were going to be coming over together. Did you forget about that?”
“Well, something came up, and I had to fly out a day early,” he said casually, as if he was commenting on the weather. “But you made it here without any trouble, I see.”
She was still angry with him, but she wasn’t sure what she could say. Yes, she’d made it here without trouble. She didn’t enjoy having her expectations subverted, though. “You could have called me to let me know the plan had changed,” she said.
“You found out at the airstrip,” he said. “I don’t see the problem.”
He wouldn’t. She had figured out by now that if something wasn’t a problem for Adriano specifically, he didn’t see it as a problem at all. She was pretty tired of the attitude, but there didn’t seem to be much she could do about it.
He got to his feet. “I’ll give you a quick tour and then take you out to the guest cottage,” he said.
She nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
He led her out of the little office room they were in. “The kitchen is over here,” he said. “The chef is in every day and will make you anything you like. If you want to order something to be brought to the guest cottage, that’s an option as well. The phone in the cottage connects internally to every line on the estate—you’ll dial four to reach the kitchen. It’s all written down by the phone in case you forget.”
It was like staying at a luxury resort. Amy loved being able to get whatever she wanted whenever she wanted it when she was on vacation, but here it felt sort of creepy. “What if I want to cook something?”
“You’ve got a fully functional kitchen over in the guest cottage.”
“And how will I get the ingredients?”
“You’ll speak to Tony for any outside orders you need to place.”
“I like to do my own shopping,” she said.
“There isn’t anywhere for you to shop. The closest grocer is miles away, and I don’t have a car for you to use.”
“You have a private plane but you don’t have a spare car?”
“Not for you to use,” he said.
“I’ll take a cab, then.”
“I’m not going to have cabs coming and going from the estate,” he said firmly. “That’s out of the question. You can tell Tony what you need and he will get it for you. That’s the way things are done here. That’s the end of it.”
Amy wasn’t happy. But she tried to tell herself to just relax about it. She had known that she would be facing some changes in her lifestyle by coming to Lake Como. This was a bit more than what she’d anticipated, but after all, she was still going to be able to get the things she needed. She would just have to go through a middleman in order to do it. That wasn’t such a big deal, really.
“All right,” she agreed. “I’ll speak to Tony about stocking the fridge in the guest house.”
“Good,” he said. “And if there’s anything else you need, anything Tony can’t provide you with, you can talk to me.”
She still wanted the code to the gate, but now she was too intimidated to ask for it. She was sure he would refuse and tell her that that just wasn’t the way things were done around here, and she didn’t feel like having that particular argument.
He led her outside. “This is the pool,” he said. It was large and surrounded by lemon trees. “You’re free to use this area, if you’d like.”
