Escaping Valentine's Day, page 15
Just a notice.
Not a complaint.
“Am I interrupting your workday?”
“Filling the winery with prospective buyers is my work. Your tour group will fall in love with my wines and ship many cases back to America.”
“You’re awfully certain.”
“Ahh, you have not tasted it yet? Or you would be certain, too.” He flashed a cocky grin. “I am taking a break. A reward break. Vino Osteria in Belgium—” He broke off as they crossed a wide hallway of terra-cotta tiles. A cream and orange Turkish rug sat beneath a round table topped with an enormous bouquet that scented the entire entryway. “Do you know what an osteria is?”
She’d heard of it. Lumped it under Italian for restaurant. Quickly, Rory mentally zipped through the ones in Chicago and San Francisco.
And then she remembered Huck explaining it to her. After all, she’d gone a whopping ninety-seven seconds without thinking of him. It was time. “Like a bistro?”
“Perhaps. More casual than a trattoria. You go with your friends after work, with a lover, drink wine and catch up and eat good food.”
“Sounds great. In Belgium, though?”
“Yes.” Nic motioned for her to ascend the dark wood staircase ahead of him. “There are two in Brussels, one in Belgium, and one in Ghent. They have a focus on the wines, which you can buy from them, and small plates that will feature de Enaudi olive oil—also on sale at the restaurants.”
Rory went slowly to listen, and to gawk at the artwork stacked to the ceiling. All old. All very Old Master-ish. The villa looked more like a museum than a home. “Wow. That sounds like a huge deal.”
“It is.” He leapt three steps up to stop in front of her. “You may pat my back.”
Rory burst out laughing. “You pat your own back. That’s how the saying goes.”
Nic frowned. “What would be the use, when there is a beautiful woman here who can do it?”
She had no comeback. So Rory did, indeed pat his shoulder blade. His muscles were more toned, less bulky than Huck’s. A chef had to have enormous upper body strength. Every shift was a workout.
It was beyond time to stop comparing the two men.
“You’ve definitely earned a ten-minute break, Nic. That’s stellar. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” They circled up to the third floor. “There is a housekeeper here, if you are concerned. About being alone with me. As well as a maid and possibly my brother, although he rarely ventures out of his wing unless it is to take his racing car to the track.”
“Really? That’s so…um…”
Rolling his eyes, Nic said, “Cliché? We’re all aware. Vittorio doesn’t care that he is a caricature. Nor does he care to work for any money to fund his racing. It was tolerated while he was in school. Now he has become a problem with his laziness.”
It was so different from Huck’s scraping by, working two jobs to get through college. Frankly? She resented this Vittorio on Huck’s behalf. “Are your parents going to crack the whip?”
“He is their favorite. The bambino.” Nic rolled his eyes. “They let him do whatever he wants.”
“Ha! My parents are the opposite. They’d like to plan and oversee every bit of my life. Where I work, where I live, who I date.”
“Do you let them?”
Proudly—and probably a tad too loudly—Rory said, “Not anymore.”
He opened the door to a sitting room, done in pale apricot and white. It adjoined a bedroom where Rory glimpsed the canopy bed of her little-girl dreams. Gauzy drapes ruffled along the French doors.
“I don’t normally drag guests all the way up to a spare bedroom, but it has the best view in the entire villa.”
“I climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge a few years ago.” Big college graduation trip from her parents. With her parents. She’d asked to go to Portugal. But they’d insisted a bigger trip, all the way to Australia, was more befitting of such a momentous occasion. And she hadn’t argued, not wanting to seem ungrateful. “I don’t think two flights will hobble me.”
“Here we are.”
The moment Nic drew back the drape and tied it off with a fat gold tassel, she couldn’t wait. Italy undulated just outside the glass. Rory rushed onto the balcony.
This view wasn’t of the olive grove or the vineyard. It spread across an entire valley of lush, tall grasses waving in the breeze. Small hills gave the view depth. A pond or lake glistened off to the west. To the east were the red tile roofs of Perugia proper. By leaning over the railing, it was possible to see the edge of a high-walled garden maze.
Wow.
A garden maze and a canopy bed. This place had everything from a romantic movie. Or a fairy tale. Including the handsome prince…
Nic joined her. “Do you like it?”
“I’m obsessed with it. How do you get any work done? How do you not sit out here all day, drinking it all in?” Because her humdrum day job had her in an open-floor-plan cubicle, surrounded by half-walls and people staring at their screens under fluorescent lights, with the blackout blinds lowered to cut down on the monitor glare.
“Ah, but remember, I had to work very hard to earn this break. The harder you work, the sweeter the reward.”
“Your home is gorgeous, Nic. How much of that land I can see is yours?”
“Eh.” He clasped his hands behind his back. Gave a solid stare as if assessing for the first time. “Much of it?”
Imagine being so…she’d thought cavalier, but Nic wasn’t dismissive of his wealth. It simply was—the land was a part of him as much as his family and the business. “Everything about Umbria, Perugia, is exactly as visually stunning as I’d hoped. I’m in love with your country. I can’t get enough. I’m already dreading leaving in a few days.”
“So stay.”
“What did you just say about the reward coming after the work? I’ve just missed ten days of my job.”
Rory could already hear the metaphorical groaning of her inbox under the weight of all those unread emails. Because she wouldn’t ghost them. She’d put in her two weeks and work herself to the bone clearing the decks so her coworkers wouldn’t be too put out.
He made a dismissive wave with long, graceful fingers. “But you have been working this whole trip, no?”
“Well, yes, but—”
Nic lightly grasped her elbow. Angled her to face him more directly. “It is why I brought you to this view, Rory. To ask you to stay. In Italy. With me.”
That was unbelievable. Like something out of a cheesy movie. And it couldn’t seriously be happening to her. “Yeah, right.”
“I heard about your apartment problem.”
“How did you—?”
Nic waved his hand again to cut her off. Such an Italianate thing—the constant flow of his hands while he talked. It tickled Rory to no end. “People talk. Everyone talks in Italy. About everyone else. So I know you have nothing to go back to. Not immediately.”
“I do still have a job. One that I’ve officially quit, but I’ve got to show up and give them my two weeks I promised.” More likely a third week, both to be kind and to extend her health insurance through another month.
“You still have vacation days?”
“Well, yes.”
He clapped twice, quickly, as if declaring the discussion ended. “Then go back later. If you stay, I can show you my country—and more. We could nip over to Monaco or Switzerland. Day trips.”
“Wow.” It’d been a big deal when Rory had joined a dance class and one of the members invited her to go to yoga after just the first meeting. This was on a much vaster scale.
Mind. Blown.
“It would give us the chance to see what could grow between us.” His hands framed the air around her face. And those blue eyes latched intently on to hers. “You are so different from Italian women.”
What? How?
“I have no idea if that’s good or bad.”
A gentle smile puckered the corners of his mouth. “It means I enjoy you, bella. It is time for me to think about expanding.”
Oh. Ohhh.
Now it all made sense. Talk about a perfect segue.
Here she’d been wondering how to broach the subject with him. Without being super presumptuous.
The friendship they’d struck up mattered to her. It was a gift. A magical souvenir of this trip she’d remember for the rest of her life. His attention had been the soothing balm she’d needed after Huck’s revelation flayed her heart. Rory didn’t want to stomp all over it.
But now, well, she could have the conversation she’d been itching to begin with him. This wasn’t personal. He was the one who’d brought up expanding his business. It was no time to hold back. This was a toehold she could leap from.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Rory broke the oddly intimate eye contact to sweep her gaze across, well, all the goodness his family owned. “What you’ve grown here, topped off with today’s big news, is tremendous. The thing is? It could be so much more. It isn’t your fault. Italy embraces the glory of its antiquities—even when it comes to advertising. You can be on the vanguard, though.”
“I do not follow. Of what?”
Maybe “vanguard” didn’t translate well?
“Sorry.” It’d be easy to back down. Claim confusion. But Rory had quit her job. Stood up to her parents. And spent all of last night working on this proposal for him. There was no turning back. She put a hand on Nic’s arm. “Let me rephrase. You could leap past your competitors by expanding the digital creation for the de Enaudi brand of companies. Hire someone—like me, or even actually me—to do content creation. Throw open the doors so very much wider and let the world in.”
“You want to help me advertise?”
Ah, see, there was where old-fashioned companies got hung up. And modern-thinking companies jumped on board with both feet.
“No, not exactly. Content creation isn’t so much about the old-fashioned ad delivery system where you spout off the main selling point and price and go on your way. Content creation envisions what makes you stand out. Then we share it. In every possible way. I don’t sell a product. I tell its story.”
“The same thing you’re doing for the tour group, no?”
“Yes. No? I don’t know how to interpret your no. Sorry. I’ve got a proposal. More, ah, cohesive than my blurting it all out. I can email it to you right now. Or we could sit and go over it. Except I know you’re only on a short break, so I should probably email it.” Damn it. She wasn’t keeping it tight. Rory stepped back. Calm. Cool. Pretending to be collected and like her heart wasn’t banging against her rib cage. “I assure you that using a content creator would expand your brand exponentially.”
Nic rubbed a hand diagonally from the side of his chin, across his mouth and up his cheek. Then back. So slowly that Rory heard the rasp of his stubble scraping against a callus.
This was it.
This was the moment her trial balloon of a career could metamorphosize into a real career. Or maybe this was the moment it fell to pieces because she’d been too brashly American. Either way, Rory was bursting with pride.
Also terror.
And—although she tried to ignore it—a strong desire to find Huck and tell him that she’d followed through and freaking gone for it.
Then…Nic laughed.
It started out as a low, rumbling chuckle, like a truck juddering over railroad tracks. As she gaped at him, it turned into full-blown, rip-roaring laughter that bounced off some acoustic thing and echoed back.
That had not been on her bingo card of possible responses.
It was tempting to turn and flounce out. Professionalism locked her in place, though. She’d just have to wait for him to get it out of his system. Apologize for, well, whatever she’d done so wrong it cracked him up. Then pick her way down the stairs, back over to the parking area and curl up in the fetal position in the back of their minibus.
“You are funny,” he finally managed to choke out between chortles.
“Not actually my intent.” She couldn’t let him see the depths of her humiliation, though. So Rory tossed her head. “Never one to turn down a compliment, though, so thanks.”
“Rory.” Nic thwapped his sternum, as if burping out the last of the laughs. “Your ideas are good. I want to discuss.”
“Oh.” Her emotions boomeranged right back. “Really?”
“I laughed not at them. I laugh at you not understanding me. When I said I wanted to expand—” He broke off to chuckle twice more, “I meant my family. It is time for me to think about finding a bride.”
“You…you were proposing to me? A prince proposed to me, on a balcony, and I somehow missed it?” Did she shriek the last two words? A little. But, geez! Talk about not seeing a tree for being obsessed with the idea forest.
It was crazy pants, of course. Rory didn’t want to deal with a proposal after a week of knowing someone.
But there was something fantastical and fanciful and beyond romantic about it. She could enjoy that before freaking out about her undoubtedly uncomfortable response.
“No.” Nic took a step back, then another. The space between them was as apparent as if all of Lake Como rippled in its entirety. “You Americans have some fanciful ideas about Italians. It is true we’re passionate. Not impulsive enough, however, to propose marriage to a woman I’ve known for a week.”
Second humiliation unlocked. Talk about an assumption making an ass out of…well, her!
Rory thought back to their conversation. “So you want me to stay and traipse around Italy with you—to, what, date?”
Nic did whatever the European version of tsking was. “You make it sound like a chore. If we were two people who lived in the same city, yes, I would be taking you out. You have been busy with your commitments this week. But I stole you away just enough to realize how much I enjoy you, Rory.”
She swallowed hard. It was a unique compliment. It required a volley back. “You’re very…easy company, yourself.”
“I thought we could have one long, extended date if you stay. Like that reality show. The Bachelor. But without any other women.”
Okay. Rory knew she ought to stay on topic. This was a life-changing moment. But this was too deliciously unexpected to just let pass. “You watch The Bachelor?”
“I lost a bet. With a friend. I had to watch an entire season.” Dark blond brows drew together into a heavy scowl. “Do not ask.”
Oh, that was like telling somebody to ignore the itch of a mosquito bite. Impossible. “If we’re dating, I will most certainly ask invasive, intimate questions like that. Put it on the top of the list.”
“Is that a yes?” Nic shook his head. “Wait. Do not answer. We must clear the way, first.”
“Clear what?” This conversation was bopping around like a poorly plugged pinball.
“This mix-up we had.” Nic put his hand to his chest. Gave a mini bow. “I regret it. I would like to hear more about content being created specifically to expand the de Enaudi brand. It sounds smart and innovative. I’ll review your proposal. If it is good, I’ll show it to my employees and have you sit down with us to explain in greater detail. The work? It is a separate matter.”
“Very separate.” It was as much as she could’ve asked for. If someone stuck her on a podium, wreathed her head in flowers, and draped a medal around her neck with the anthem playing, she couldn’t be more proud of herself.
Rory rolled her lips together. Gave up on being wholly professional and let her relief and pride beam out in a smile.
“Thank you for giving me a chance.”
“Like I said, you are different. The way you bulldozered ahead—it was impressive.” He wriggled his eyebrows. “Sexy, in its enthusiasm, if I may.”
It was so nice to hear that she wouldn’t even correct the way he’d misspoken bulldozed. Which, yes, was also sexy in that lilting accent of his.
“Right back at ya.”
Nic moved closer again. Cradled her palm in his and stroked the back of it with his other hand. It was tender and knee-melting and popped goose bumps up from her wrists to her shoulders.
“So, bella, what do you say? Would you test us out? Enjoy as much of my country—and others—as you are willing to let me show you?”
Well.
Seeing as how she was a woman, a single woman, with a beating heart, Rory was tempted by his offer.
First and foremost, she liked Nic.
Not because of his title or his many business holdings. Because of his entrepreneurial spirit, keen business mind, even temper and, yes, those blond good looks topping off a toned body.
She’d been flattered by his attention. Enjoyed it. The only thing that had kept her from leaning into it was, well, Huck.
Who wasn’t even supposed to be on this trip. Who wasn’t supposed to be back, complicating her life.
Who wasn’t supposed to be tearing scabs off barely healed wounds just when she was busy marveling at the gift of having him back in her life.
So…
Rory stared at the handsome prince. The way the afternoon sun haloed behind his head. The way he had little crinkles around his eyes as he gave her a sincere smile, his thumb still hypnotically stroking her skin. She noticed a waft of gardenia scent from the bouquet just on the other side of the door.
This offer of Nic’s? It was a remarkable indulgence that came with no strings attached. It was a fairy tale come true. He was right. Rory had no reason to hurry home. This was the kind of adventure meant for saying yes to in your twenties. She’d be a fool to turn him down.
There was nothing to lose.
Because, after all, she’d lost Huck a long time ago. And her feelings for him were the only holdup…
She took a moment.
Looked at the crinkles around Nic’s beautiful blue eyes as he smiled, waiting for her response. He was offering her everything.
The only trouble was, she didn’t want everything.
She wanted only one thing.
Huck.
Chapter Thirteen
It should be Huck’s perfect day—he’d be chained to his stove for three hours, making the ragu, meatballs, and dough for tonight’s showstopping timballo. With the additional peas, pancetta, eggs and cheese, it was no wonder an entire movie had been based on it.
