by Leslie North
Still, Nicolo did not open it. “I’m well aware of the financials regarding the Romano del Mare. I know that it has millions of euros worth of fines levied against it since having fallen into disuse. The property is now owned by myself and my brothers,” he said, speaking in a slow, measured tone in hopes that it would give his words more weight, “and we believe that it is in our best interest to sell the property and pay off the fines. If we attempted to renovate the property instead of selling it, we would be faced with the burden of those fines as well as the cost of the renovation. The math does not support renovating the property, Ms. Peluso.” He held the unopened binder out in invitation for her to take it back. She did not comply.
“Mr. Romano.” As Adeline said his name, her entire body softened and her once-tart voice grew silky and fluid. She moved to him and knelt before him in one easy motion.
Nicolo blinked. He had never been disarmed in a fight so easily by anyone. From where she knelt, staring up at him with her beautiful, imploring eyes, it was all that he could do not to throw the binder to the side, slide his hand behind her neck to cup her head, and pull her in for a kiss. “Yes?” he asked. The sound of his name on her lips was undoing him.
“Look,” she said, and flipped the cover of the binder open.
Doing as she’d bid, Nicolo looked down, then he blinked again. “These numbers can’t be accurate.” It was a comprehensive list of renovations needed by the Romano del Mare to make it a commercially viable property once again, plus the quotes of contractors willing to do the jobs. The quotes were way too low. No matter how beautiful Ms. Peluso was, business was business, and Nicolo was not willing to throw good money away just because someone he had never met before and who had no connection with the resort wanted to see it restored.
“They are, I swear. I’ve personally spoken with every contractor on that list. And, look,” she said again, turning several pages in the binder.
Nicolo jerked his head back in surprise at what he saw. “Is this real?”
“It is,” Adeline said, excitement growing in her voice.
Nicolo leaned in, studying the words and watching for signs that they might change of their own accord. What he was reading was simply too unbelievable. “The local council has offered a referendum forgiving some of the fines if we proceed with the restoration? How did you get this?”
“I get the opportunity to work with a large variety of people in my line of work, Mr. Romano,” Adeline said, smiling up at him.
It took a whole heartbeat for Nicolo to regain his resolve, a span of time infinitely longer than any other persuader had ever achieved. “No,” he said, slamming the folder closed, but Adeline had it open again just as fast.
“Look!” she demanded.
With a heavy sigh, he looked back down at the folder, this time to find mockup after mockup of what the resort could look like after the renovations Adeline was suggesting. Seeing it made him pause for a whole three beats of his heart. He did remember the resort in its heyday. He had spent one year there in the care and company of his grandparents, and it had been hands down the best year of his life. Nothing else had ever come close. After that year, it had been back to living off of his mother’s private plane.
His mother was a beautiful woman—very beautiful—and she had built her initial fortune by modeling around the world. She was savvy and shrewd, and she had listened more than talked when on the arm of an important businessman discussing matters with other business moguls. By the time Nicolo had entered her life, she’d had a small fleet of private planes, offering unique and private services to the rich and powerful. She became the hostess who could turn the most tenuous of business meetings into a sure success, and that talent had made her wealthy beyond measure and independent as well. While she had started out as a young Sicilian girl, she’d eventually claimed the world as her home, and she never stopped anywhere long enough for roots to take hold.
It was a lesson that Nicolo had learned well. Like his mother, he never stopped traveling. He didn’t allow the roots of his past to anchor him down, and all new roots were ripped free as soon as he took to the skies again. He needed no one, and he certainly didn’t need the tie to his past that Ms. Peluso was attempting to harness him with. The Romano del Mare was a burden he didn’t want and didn’t need. She would simply have to accept that.
“Ms. Adeline,” Nicolo said, closing the binder. This time when he closed it, he left his hand resting on its top so that Adeline could not throw it open once more. “I appreciate that you are so passionate about my family’s resort. Maybe if it had had someone like you seeing to its care instead of the horrific management company that ran it into bankruptcy, the Romano del Mare would still be the gem of Sicily that it once was. But,”—he shook his head, allowing his personal sadness to show through—“that is not where we are today. I can see it is unlikely that we will be on the same page as to how to proceed with the sale of the resort, and while I have been assured that you are the most capable of handling its sale, I think it is best that I request another agent to manage it.” Adeline’s lips pursed and her eyes narrowed, clearly unhappy.
Nicolo extended a hand to Adeline as an offer to help her stand. To his relief, she accepted by sliding her slender fingers over his palm. Giving in to the risk of offending her, Nicolo leaned forward and kissed her knuckles while he kept his eyes locked with hers. She didn’t quite smile when his lips pressed themselves against her soft flesh, but there was a twinkle in her eye that gave him hope that she might someday see him as something more than a business adversary.
Once Adeline had regained her feet, Nicolo stood as well. Instead of offering the binder to her—thereby giving her the chance to refuse it—he instead placed it upon her desk.
“You can, of course, transfer me off of your service,” Adeline said, “but you must make and follow through on one promise first. After that, if you decide that you still want to work with another agent, I won’t fight you.” Twisting at the waist, she picked up the rectangular tin from the desk. Even though it was small, she held it in both hands as she offered it to him.
There was something in the way she stood and in her expression. It was as if she were giving him the most fragile, precious gift anyone could ever give, and a part of him found it unfathomable to reject it. So, he took the small tin from her hands and held its edge pressed against his chest.
“Don’t look at it now,” Adeline said, taking a fast step away as if to get herself out of arm’s reach so that he would not be able to give the small tin back. “Look at it when you’re in a quiet place, when it’s just you and you can give some time to it.”
There was nothing left to say, and Nicolo knew it. Adeline Peluso had won this battle. He would win the war, though, and he would see the Romano del Mare sold off for eventual demolition. It was a prime location and would be an excellent property for the right developer—but not for him. There were too many memories there. There was nothing he could do with the property besides try to make it into what it once was, but those days were gone.
It was best that he walk away from the best memories of his life, just as it was best that he walk away from the beautiful Adeline Peluso.
3
Nicolo
As soon as Nicolo entered his room at the Verdura Resort, he began stripping out of his clothes and he did not stop until he was dressed in a pair of jeans and a black designer tee that buttoned up the front. Both fit him like a glove, the jeans because he had worn them so much that they had molded themselves to the shape of his body and the tee because that was what it was designed to do.
With his suit hung up, he headed out to his private balcony to give his brother Leonardo a call with an update regarding the selling of the Romano del Mare. Inter-woven, woody stalks of mature grape vines filtered soft light over a small breakfast table. The vines’ large leaves provided ample shading against the growing heat of the afternoon sun, and when the season was right, the vines would provide a ready treat of
grapes for anyone who stayed in the room.
Nicolo took a moment to appreciate the artistry of it before propping up his iPad on the small round table before him, putting the small tin Adeline had given him to one side. The table itself had a mosaic top made from broken ceramic shards laid in a pattern to depict the harvesting of grapes. It was a nice touch, but the resort’s eye for detail was a personal reminder to Nicolo of his family’s failure. It was not in his nature to walk away from a challenge—let alone accept failure—but it was in his nature to make business decisions with his head. Allowing his business acumen to be charmed by the wishes of his heart was not what his mother had taught him. His father had been a foolish man when it came to business matters, and he would not follow in his footsteps.
Nicolo would do what needed to be done, and he would do it with the welfare of his family in mind. It just was the way it was. It wasn’t personal; it was business. He wasn’t sure that it was a sentiment that his grandfather would have approved of, but it was the only way he knew to succeed in life. Simply put, failure to sell the Romano del Mare could cost the brothers millions. It was a price too steep to pay simply to honor his heritage.
Nicolo navigated the iPad’s interface and then initiated a call. A moment later he was greeted with the image of the oldest of his two older brothers, Leonardo.
“Ciao!” Nicolo said in greeting with a quick and easy smile.
“Ciao,” Leonardo said, suave as always. If it could be argued that one brother was more handsome than the other, Leonardo had a chance of edging Nicolo out. Tall, lanky, and leaner than his brothers, age had given his features a little more definition with light creases around his eyes, but it somehow added to how handsome he was rather than took away.
“How is Sicily, brother? Is it as beautiful as I remember?” Leonardo asked.
“To find that out, you’ll have to come see for yourself.” Nicolo chuckled.
“But you are my eyes and my ears, little brother! I trust you.”
Nicolo’s face fell.
“What is it?” his brother asked.
“It is every bit as beautiful as you remember. I could argue that it is even more beautiful. The air… it’s so clean here. The people, I get smiles and claps on my back as if I’ve lived here all along. I hate to admit it, but I’ve missed this place.”
Leonardo gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Then stay,” he said, emphasizing the words with an upturned lift of his hands before him. “You’ve been jet setting for too long. It’s time to stay in one place for a while, fix your internal clock to one time zone for once.”
Nicolo laughed. “I have no problem with my internal clock. I sleep at night, wherever that may be.”
“Okay then, why the long face if you have no interest in staying a while?”
Nicolo looked out over the landscape before answering. His resort was outside of town, so his balcony afforded him a sweeping view of the landscape. It was arid and rocky, but there were trees and closely grazed meadows too, in which he could make out the fluffy outline of sheep. They looked like slow-moving cotton balls from where he sat. “There was this girl,” Nicolo finally answered, returning his attention to the iPad.
Nicolo’s confession was met with an uproarious bark of laughter from his brother, and Nicolo smiled despite the fun that Leonardo was having at his expense.
“Of course there was,” Leonardo said when he’d finally gotten his mirth under control. “So tell me, who is this girl? She’s not some mafia daughter, is she?”
“No, no,” Nicolo answered, waving a hand at the iPad in dismissal. “She is our real estate agent for the Romano del Mare. Except she doesn’t want to sell it, she wants us to restore it.”
This time, there was no laughter from Leonardo. “Is she mad?” he exclaimed. “The fines alone would bury us.”
“She’s thought of that, too. She obtained a promise from the council to have the fines lowered or in some cases even dismissed… if we restore the resort.”
Leonardo’s brows were up, his interest clearly piqued. “Maybe this girl is worth listening to.”
“Okay, it’s you who’s gone mad,” Nicolo said. He felt yanked like a yo-yo between whether it was best to renovate the hotel or whether it was best to cut their losses and be done with the place. Everything within him said to cut and run. Taking on the renovation would tie him to Sicily in a way that he wasn’t ready for.
“Wait, hear me out. The fines will strip away any lasting benefits to us selling the Romano del Mare. We will be lucky to break even. But what if we made a few of the more economical improvements to the property? Some of the fines would be reduced, and we would have a chance of making something out of this. Our grandfather’s legacy could actually amount to something that way instead of being washed away by the sea.”
Nicolo studied his brother’s face. “What else is there that you’re not saying?”
Leonardo shrugged one shoulder again. “Nothing I haven’t already said. When was the last time you stayed in one place for longer than a month?”
An alert popped up on Nicolo’s iPad. Leaning forward, he navigated away from the video call in order to check the incoming message. He pursed his lips upon seeing it and then returned to the video call.
“What is it? What’s happened now?” Leonardo asked.
“You know that development job I put in for, the one in India?”
“Yeah…”
“The offer came in. The job’s mine if I want it.”
“That’s great,” Leonardo exclaimed, and then added, “Isn’t it? I thought it was what you wanted.”
“As a career builder, it is a great opportunity.” The size of the projects he’d been taking on had been growing steadily. This job would propel him into the elite 1% of site developers. People would do their best to entice him to work with them rather than him having to vie for jobs. Yet, as the projects he’d tackled had gotten bigger and bigger, he’d realized something surprising about himself. He enjoyed working on smaller, community relevant projects more than he did internationally significant ones. But working on smaller development projects had career limitations that he wasn’t willing to accept.
“So, why the hesitation?” Leonardo paused and then answered the question for him. “Maybe that job is what you think you should do rather than what you want to do.”
“Of course! Overseeing the development of a 500 million euro site, that’s the worst thing that could happen to me.” Nicolo was going for sarcastic, but a note of sincerity crept its way into his otherwise flippant answer.
“And maybe it is!” Leonardo countered with the same heated vehemence he had when debating the outcome of a championship football game. “When is it that they need to have an answer about whether or not you accept the job?”
“End of next month, but—”
“No buts. Take some time for you. Get to know this girl who’s caught your eye, and keep your feet on the ground for more than a week. It will be good for you.”
Nicolo wasn’t ready to commit. His gaze drifted to the tin that sat off to the side on the table. It was out of Leonardo’s view, but maybe it was time to take a look at what Adeline had considered the crown of her argument for him to renovate the Romano del Mare instead of tearing it down.
Dragging the tin toward him with the tip of his finger, Nicolo brought it into view of the iPad’s video camera.
“What’s that?”
“The girl gave it to me. She told me to look at it when I was alone, quiet and calm.”
Leonardo snorted. “You going to open it now or wait until never?”
“Now will do,” Nicolo answered, shooting his brother a crooked grin. He pried the tin’s snug top off with his fingertips. The tin was old and of a decorative nature. It was the type of tin that fruitcakes were sometimes given in, and when the lid finally let go of its purchase on the lower half of the old box, there was a small pop.
Nicolo leaned forward to get a better look at its contents.
“What is it?” Leonardo asked.
Nicolo was speechless as he pulled out an old black and white photograph of their grandfather as a young man standing next to their grandmother. Their grandfather was in a suit, their grandmother was in a wedding dress, and they were standing in front of the Romano del Mare.
“That little vixen,” Nicolo said, pulling out the photograph and holding it up so that Leonardo could see. “She’s going right for the jugular.”
Leonardo leaned closer to the camera, causing his face to grow large and up close in Nicolo’s iPad screen. “Is that Nanno and Nanna?”
“Yeah,” Nicolo answered, but his attention had already shifted to the next picture. It was again a picture of Nanno and Nanna, but this time they were playing in the water in front of the resort and they had a young child with them. “Look at this one,” he said, holding it up for the camera.
Leonardo gave a low whistle. “Where did she get these?”
“No idea.” He pulled out another photo. In this one their grandfather was slightly older and so was their son. The son, Nicolo and Leonardo’s father, was dressed in his University gown. It looked as though he had just graduated.
There were more pictures after that. Some of them were of Nicolo’s family, but other pictures were of the resort and the many celebrations that had been held there. Nicolo studied a picture of a wedding and noted the generational families present. He was sure he saw children, parents, grandparents and even great grandparents, not to mention the countless cousins, uncles and aunts. People would have travelled far and wide to attend the event, bringing an influx of cash and opportunity to the locals. Now the Romano del Mare was gone, and in its absence was a void that had not been filled. Even with the resort he was staying at, he’d had to drive almost an hour to reach it. There was nothing to match the grand fineness of the Romano del Mare anywhere near the city. It had been an iconic resort for the region for decades before mismanagement had taken it away.
