Kat lifted her hands. “Who am I going to tell?”
Chiara filled her in on Lazzero’s business proposition. Kat’s eyes went as big as saucers. “He’s always had the hots for you. Maybe he’s making his move.”
Chiara cut that idea off at the pass. “It is strictly a business arrangement. He made that clear.”
“And you said no? Are you crazy?” Her friend waved a red tipped hand at her. “He is offering to solve all your financial problems, Chiara, for a week in Italy. La Coppa Estiva is the celebrity event of the season. Most women would give their right arm to be in your position. Not to mention the fact that Lazzero Di Fiore is the hottest man on the face of the planet. What’s not to like?”
Chiara pressed her lips together. Kat didn’t know about her history with Antonio. Why Milan was the last place she’d want to be. It wasn’t something you casually dropped into conversation with your new roommate, despite how close she and Kat had been getting.
She pursed her lips. “I have my shifts at the café. I need that job.”
“Everyone’s looking for extra hours right now. Someone will cover for you.” Kat stuck a hand on her silk-clad hip. “When’s the last time you had a holiday? Had some fun? Your life is boring, Chiara. Booorrring. You’re a senior citizen at age twenty-six.”
A hot warmth tinged her cheeks. Her life was boring. It revolved around work and more work. When she wasn’t on at the café, she was helping out at the bakery on the weekends. There was no room for relaxation.
The downstairs buzzer went off. Kat disappeared in a cloud of perfume. Chiara cranked up the air-conditioning against the deadly heat, which wouldn’t seem to go below a certain lukewarm temperature no matter how high she turned it up, and made herself dinner.
She ate while she played with a design of a dress she’d seen a girl wearing at the café today, but hadn’t quite had the urban chic she favored. Changing the hemline to an angular cut and adding a touch of beading to the bodice, she sketched it out, getting close to what she’d envisioned, but not quite. The heat oppressive, the blaring sound of the television from the apartment below destroying her concentration, she threw the sketchbook and pencil aside.
What was the point? she thought, heart sinking. She was never going to have the time or money to pursue her career in design. Those university classes she’d taken at Parsons had been a waste of time and money. All she was doing was setting herself up for more disappointment in harboring these dreams of hers, because they were never going to happen.
Cradling her tea between her hands, she fought a bitter wave of loneliness that settled over her, a deep, low throb that never seemed to fade. This was the time she’d treasured the most—those cups of tea after dinner with her mother when the bakery was closed.
A seamstress by trade, her mother had been brilliant with a needle. They’d talked while they’d sewed—about anything and everything. About Chiara’s schoolwork, about that nasty boy in her class who was giving her trouble, about the latest design she’d sketched at the back of her notebook that day. Until life as she’d known it had ended forever on a Friday evening when she was fifteen when her mother had sat her down to talk—not about boys or clothes—but about the breast cancer she’d been diagnosed with. By the next fall, she’d been gone. There had been no more cups of tea, no more confidences, only a big, scary world to navigate as her father had descended into his grief and anger.
The heavy, pulsing weight encompassing all of her now, she rolled to her feet and walked to the window. Hugging her arms tight around herself, she stared out at the colorful graffiti on the apartment buildings across the street. Usually, she managed to keep the hollow emptiness at bay, convince herself that she liked it better this way, because to engage was to feel, and to feel hurt too much. But tonight, imagining the fun, glamorous evening Kat was having, she felt scraped raw inside.
For a brief moment in time, she’d had a taste of that life. The fun and frivolity of it. She’d met Antonio at a party full of glamorous types in Chelsea last summer when a fellow barista who traveled in those circles had invited her along. The newly minted vice president of his family’s prestigious global investment firm, Antonio Fabrizio had been gorgeous and worldly, intent on having her from the first moment he’d seen her.
She’d been seduced by the effortless glamour of his world, by the beguiling promises he’d made. By the command and authority he seemed to exert over everything around him. By how grounded he’d made her feel for the first time since her mother had died. Little had she known, she’d only been a diversion. That the woman Antonio was slated to marry was waiting for him at home in Milan. That she’d only been his American plaything, a “last fling” before he married.
Antonio had tried to placate her when she’d found out, assuring her his was a marriage of convenience, a fortuitous match for the Fabrizios. That she was the one he really wanted. In fact, he’d insisted, nothing would change. He would set her up in her own apartment and she would become his mistress.
Chiara had thrown the offer in his face, along with his penthouse key, shocked he would even think she would be interested in that kind of an arrangement. But Antonio, in his supreme arrogance, had been furious with her for walking out on him. Had pursued her relentlessly in the six months since, sending her flowers, jewelry, tickets to the opera, all of which she’d returned with a message to leave her alone, until finally he had.
Her mouth set as she stared out at the darkening night, a bitter anger sweeping through her. She had changed since him. He had made her change. She had become tougher, wiser to the world. She was not to blame for what had happened, Antonio was. Why should she be so worried about seeing him again?
If this was, as Lazzero had reasoned, a business proposition, why not turn it around to her own advantage? Use the world that had once used her? Surely she could survive a few days in Milan playing Lazzero’s love interest if it meant saving her father’s bakery? And if she were to run into Antonio at La Coppa Estiva, which was a real possibility, so what? It was crazy to let him have this power over her still.
She fell asleep on the sofa, the TV still on, roused by Kat at 2 a.m., who sent her stumbling to bed. When she woke for her early morning shift at the café, her decision was made.
* * *
Di Fiore’s was blissfully free of its contingent of fortune hunters when Lazzero met Santo for a beer on Saturday night to talk La Coppa Estiva and their strategy for Gianni Casale.
He’d been pleasantly surprised when Chiara had called him earlier that afternoon to accept his offer. Was curious to find out why she had. Thinking he could nail those details down along with his game plan for Gianni, he’d arranged to meet her here for a drink after his beer with Santo.
Ensconcing themselves at the bar so they could keep an eye on the door, he and Santo fleshed out a multilayered plan of attack, with contingencies for whatever objections the wily Italian might present. Satisfied they had it nailed, Lazzero leaned back in his stool and took a sip of his beer. Eyed his brother’s dark suit.
“Work or pleasure tonight?”
“Damion Howard and his agent are dropping by to pick up their tickets for next week. Thought I’d romance them a bit while I’m at it.”
“What?” Lazzero derided. “No beautiful blonde lined up for your pleasure?”
“Too
