for sat on the bedside table, a black thing with a rotary dial that belonged in a museum. Did those things even work in this day and age?
I lifted the receiver and heard the familiar sound of a dial tone. Hallelujah!
Cleo answered on the second ring, sounding sleepy.
‘You must have had a really good date last night,’ I said brightly.
She moaned. ‘I wish!’ Down the phone, I heard her stretch. ‘I think I’m officially ready to give up dating.’
Wow, that was a first. In the dictionary, under ‘eternal optimist’ you’d find Cleo’s name. She was a glass half-full person, especially when it came to men. Or maybe that was even when it came to men. ‘It couldn’t have been that bad…’
‘Worst. Date. Ever.’ Cleo’s dating history could fill an encyclopaedia. She’d been on more first dates than anyone I’ve ever met. I quit dating after Kevin (though as Cleo so kindly pointed out, I wasn’t exactly dating much before Kevin), but even though some of the guys she dated made Kevin look like a real keeper, she refused to give up hope that her One was out there.
She moaned again. ‘He was bald. And not in that sexy Vin Diesel way. More like a 40-year-old accountant who’s losing all his hair kind of way. His ear hairs were longer than the hairs on his head. The picture on his dating profile must have been at least ten years out of date. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. I could overlook the fact that he lied about his looks. But he spent the entire meal talking about his ex.’
I winced. Dating really did get harder with every passing year. ‘I told you online dating was soul destroying. Perhaps you should come to Italy. The men here are definitely better looking.’ And charming, with one grumpy, bearded exception.
‘I wish. But I haven’t accrued several years’ worth of leave like you have. Hang on a moment – are you referring to someone in particular? Have you met someone?’
‘My lawyer looks like he stepped out of GQ.’ I perched on the edge of the bed. ‘All slick, sexy and metrosexual. It’s just as well there’s eye candy, since the news isn’t good.’
‘What happened?’ Cleo was wide awake now. She listened as I filled her in, groaning in all the right places, laughing when I told her about hitting Tommaso over the head.
‘Don’t laugh, it wasn’t funny. I might have killed him!’
‘On the plus side, if you’d killed him, you would inherit everything, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yeah, but I might also have been calling you from jail this morning.’
‘That’s okay. You have your sexy lawyer to get you free. And then you and he could live happily ever after in your castle and make GQ-worthy babies.’
I glanced around my father’s shabby bedroom. There was the door to the en-suite. How many times had the bathroom flooded to cause all that damage downstairs in the library? ‘It’s not much of a castle, and this inheritance may be more trouble than it’s worth.’
‘Nonsense. Half a vineyard is better than nothing.’ And there was that injection of optimism I’d been looking for.
Cleo yawned. ‘Besides, I’ve never known you to back down from a challenge. You’re the most level-headed analyst I’ve ever met. If there’s an advantage to be found in this situation, you’ll find it.’
Yes, but that was before I’d over-estimated the repayment capabilities of one of the firm’s most valuable clients and risked their biggest investment to date. I rubbed my face, glad Cleo couldn’t see me now. When it came to work, I never showed weakness, not even to my BFF.
‘You are not going to get back on a plane without a big fat cheque in your back pocket. You hear me?’ she said, on another yawn.
‘I hear you.’ I sighed. ‘Besides, it’s not like I have anything better to do with my time. Of course, I can do this. Piece of cake.’ Though if the metaphor was going to fit my life right now, it would have to be a very heavy fruitcake. The kind where you couldn’t quite identify all the bits baked into it.
‘I am not selling.’ Tommaso leaned across the little boardroom table in Luca’s office, his arms crossed over his chest, his face set in a scowl. ‘Your father left this vineyard to me because he wanted me to run it, not so it could be sold to strangers.’
I bristled. He was being unnecessarily stubborn, since Luca had already explained that it was inevitable the courts would split the inheritance 50/50 between us – eventually. ‘There are other farms you could buy once we sell and split the proceeds. Why does it have to be this one?’
Tommaso’s eyes turned flinty. ‘How can you even ask me that?’
I shrugged. What did he expect of me? I had no ties to this land. Even my father had no ties here. He was just another foreigner who’d decided to buy a farm in Tuscany, like a less glamorous Sting. ‘Then buy me out if you want to keep it so badly.’
Tommaso’s scowl deepened. What had happened to that light-hearted boy I remembered, to turn him into this sullen, surly man who’d barely said a word to me the entire drive here? His pig-headedness hadn’t abated any but what had been mildly irritating in a playmate was downright annoying in a man I needed to reach a compromise with.
‘I can’t afford to buy you out right now. All my capital is tied up in the business.’
‘Then you don’t have a choice. If this goes to court, you’re still going to have to sell to pay me out my share.’ Not that I wanted to drag this out in court any more than he did, but Tommaso didn’t need to know that.
We glared at each other across the boardroom table.
‘You need to be reasonable,’ Luca pleaded, spreading his hands wide to encompass us both. He turned to Tommaso. ‘She’s right. If you can’t afford to buy her out, the courts will inevitably force a sale.’
‘It’ll take months, if not years, for the court to hear this case, and that’s all the time I need. Once the next bottling goes to market, I’ll be in a better position to buy Ms Wells out.’
I leaned forward, arms on the table. ‘Great. When’s the next bottling?’
‘After the harvest.’
I might not know much about wine farming, but I knew enough. ‘But that’s months away!’
‘You can sell whatever is of value in the castello. Consider it a down payment against your share of the property.’ Tommaso shrugged, as if to say, ‘take it or leave it’.
I glared at him, and he glared right back, unflinching, his cold gaze challenging. ‘That’s my final offer. If you don’t like it, we let the courts decide.’
He’d clearly forgotten that I never backed down from a challenge. I wasn’t going to start now. ‘You could raise a loan to buy me out.’
Tommaso’s eyes narrowed. ‘Before you make any more suggestions, perhaps you should actually learn something about this business you so badly want to dispose of. The property is mortgaged to the hilt. It’s coming around, but these things don’t
