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“I know, Ella but it’s really important.”
“I know. What I am doing is important too. Grace needs me here. Look,” I start, “go home and take a nap, read a book, or play Jeremy’s guitar. I will call you as soon as we head back to the inn… “
“What inn?” She cuts in. “Hope the prices are not outrageous, Ella. We have little to get us through August and now Renshaw has me fired.” I hear the tears in her voice, and it pulls at me.
My head is aching. I close my eyes and count from one to ten, breathing in and out to calm my raging thoughts. “I am fine, mum. I can handle it.”
“You sure?”
“Can we stop switching the topic? Look, get home and get some rest. Okay? I will call you soon. I promise.”
She doesn’t respond immediately. I hear the sound of horns and I once again picture her getting off the bus dressed in a white sweater and a black cotton skirt. She would look around a thousand times before hurrying into a cab, then she would struggle to answer the phone while clutching a heavy brown leather bag. “Okay, baby. About Jeremy… “
“Tonight, mum. Tonight. I promise.”
She sighs and says, “Okay.”
I feel a pang in my chest and struggle to keep myself on my feet. I am tempted to hurry back to Tampa and hold her in my arms but that would be after I march to Renshaw’s hotel and dig my nails into his stomach, deflating his enormous watermelon sized belly. Seriously! The nerve of that man. “Okay,” I affirm and end the call.
Knocking and a familiar voice comes from the door. “Ella. Are you okay?” It’s Grace, my best friend, co-sales agent at Reggit and the bride. She walks into the room and gently holds me by the shoulders while asking, “Is this about Antonio?”
Whew! For a moment there I think she may have overhead my conversation with my mother. I smile and pat her cheeks. “Nothing I can’t manage, Grace. Nothing I can’t manage.”
Chapter 3
Antonio
“Tuscany is as beautiful as it was when we were kids. Don’t you agree, Antonio?” Sergio says as we walk around a fountain at the Marino residence. The rehearsal is over, and Sergio had invited me back to his place for dinner before we would all head back to an inn somewhere in Val d’Orcia. I know this place better than anyone else in our gathering, Sergio included.
Plundering the valleys and the plains of the landscape as a child, while clinging close to my father as he worked on his vineyard. On the east end of Val d’Orcia lies an orchard. My mother would always be seen there picking apples with the farmers hired by my father. She would flirt with some of them for most of the day and return home to the Villa looking flushed and exhausted with a single basket in hand. My father on the other hand only ever talked about grapes, olives, and a lot of other bullshit I never let stick to my brain.
While he is busy walking in the midst of vines, I have created a life all about stock markets and trades and interest rates in my upscale office. While he sold his wine brand to all of Italy, I had investors from all over the country registering with Wealth Sage. We may both want power, but that is where are similarities end.
Memories with my family are carved in my mind, they are like viruses feeding off my brain cells anytime I reflect on them. I desire to let all the memories of this place go. I do not have any use for them.
“Yes, it is. Of course, I remember it all,” I finally replied to Sergio's words.
“You think too much about things, Antonio,” he sighs and slaps my back.
“It is a matter of cautiousness.” I correct him.
“You wish not to cross paths with your father, I know. But don't let it ruin your life here. He doesn't even know you have returned.”
I scoff, “Then someone must have spilled already because mother called.”
Sergio scratches his dark sleek hair and laughs. “About that…”
I need to change the topic. “Ella, how do you know her?” Sergio blinks once, then twice then he laughs, “someone wants more of our Ella.”
“I get what I want, Sergio. Always.”
“I do not doubt that Antonio. Here is how it is. Stay with us for the rest of the weekend, then you get to see more of her.”
“Is this some form of entertainment for me?” When I say the words, I feel like the asshole Ella had addressed me as earlier. Feeling instant remorse, I remind him, “I will be returning to Washington as soon as the reception ends. There is no time to play Romeo and Juliet, as you wish.” In truth I am being one-hundred percent sincere about my intentions with Ella, which are none.
Sergio is not put off in the least and finds all of this to be amusing. “But we have very good rooms at the inn. It's notlike our past, where the walls leak and the lights go ‘squeaky, squeaky’.” He wags his fingers to indicate the horror of sleeping in Locanda del Paradiso before we left high school. “You have all the money we could dream of, man. You can build a better place than the Locanda but you choose to run far away from your home.”
“It's pointless, Sergio. I am only here for you, no one else.” I begin to walk toward the gates. He follows behind, and I am thankful that he has finally grown silent. He hangs by the iron bars while I call for my ride. It doesn't take long for the limousine to arrive.
