A Wedding in Italy: A feel good summer holiday romance (From Italy with Love Book 2)

by Tilly Tennant

  ‘Elizabeth has called in sick and everyone else is a bit tied up this morning. Do you think you could handle a valuation?’

  ‘Me? Value a property?’ Kate asked doubtfully. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have to actually quote anything,’ Shauna replied. ‘Just go along, measure up, take photos, generally look the part, then email all the particulars to the office and we’ll send you the price right back. You give the vendor the figures and nobody’s any the wiser. What do you think?’

  She didn’t see that she had a lot of choice. This was her job, after all. ‘I can do that.’

  ‘Fantastic. I knew I could rely on you. I’ll email the particulars over to you now and you can go through them before you leave. They’re expecting you at ten thirty.’

  The house was in a pretty suburb of neat gardens, elaborate iron gates and charming piazzas with marble fountains at every turn. Even if Kate worked non-stop for a thousand years she could never hope to afford a place like this, and she certainly couldn’t imagine wanting to sell it. In fact, it was so lovely that Kate almost let out a wistful sigh of longing as she rang the bell to meet the vendor.

  Moments later she was greeted by a mountain of a man, dark-featured, perhaps in his mid to late forties. ‘Kate?’ he asked, but though he gave her a stiff smile, his eyes were hard and the tone of his voice anything but friendly. His English was good but immediately she recognised that he was a native. She hadn’t really been warned what to expect or who was selling the place, and she wasn’t really sure why the fact that he was Italian should surprise her, but she’d dealt with so many expats and prospective expats this week, she’d almost forgotten that Italians had properties to sell too.

  ‘Yes, I’m Kate. Nice to meet you.’ She put her hand out for him to shake, but he simply stared at it until she was forced to drop it to her side again.

  ‘This way,’ he said, and Kate followed him in.

  The house was pristine and as grand as the outside promised, though it was cold and soulless, and Kate almost thought she’d prefer to live in the run-down flat she’d sold at the start of the week than this clinical, marble-floored show home. As Kate trailed the man from room to room, he pointed out pertinent features in sentences that were bordering on monosyllabic. Kate took photos and scribbled down hasty details, all the while her desire to get the job done and get out growing stronger and stronger.

  ‘How much?’ he asked as they finished up back in the entrance hall.

  ‘I’ll need to do some calculations,’ Kate replied, repeating what Shauna had told her to say. ‘I’ll have to pop to the car and work it out, then I’ll come back to talk to you about it.’

  ‘You cannot tell me now?’

  ‘Well, I can, but in a moment.’

  ‘A moment is not now.’

  Kate forced a smile. ‘Please, give me a minute. I will go to the car and be back shortly, then we will talk over the price.’

  His mouth was set in a hard line, but he nodded and as Kate left to go back to her car the door slammed behind her.

  ‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ she muttered. If he had a partner, they were either more miserable than him or a saint.

  Safely in the car and out of earshot, she dialled the office number.

  ‘Hey, Charles, it’s Kate. Are you free to give me some figures on the valuation if I email the details to you now?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Shauna said somebody would do it for me,’ Kate replied, slightly taken aback by his attitude. ‘It doesn’t matter who but you answered the phone.’

  ‘Yeah, well, Nonna’s on a break so I picked it up. Can it wait?’

  ‘Not really. I’m at the seller’s house and he wants to know how much we’re planning to market his place for. He wants to know right now, and Shauna said—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. . . Shauna would, and she’s gone out too.’ He let out an impatient sigh. ‘If she’s going to send you out to do valuations then you should be doing them. So now the rest of us have to carry you because you can’t.’

  The question of why Shauna hadn’t sent Charles to do it instead of the rookie was on Kate’s lips, but judging by the way he was speaking to Kate in his boss’s absence, perhaps the question didn’t really need asking. She was annoyed, however, that she’d been asked to do this job on the proviso that support would be on hand and now, when she needed it, that support was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘She’s well aware that I don’t have enough experience to put a price on a property yet, but if I don’t come out into the field I’ll never get that experience. So if you could see your way to helping me out that would be much appreciated.’

  ‘Ah, well. . . the blue-eyed girl not quite such a superstar after all, eh?’

  Kate’s mouth fell open. Where had this come from? He’d been lax, and he’d sometimes lacked a little professionalism in the office, but Kate hadn’t pegged him as the jealous type. Did he somehow feel threatened by her? She couldn’t think of any instances where she might have caused that.

  ‘I’ll dig you out of your hole,’ he drawled, and Kate thought she heard him rustle in the sweet bag that was a constant feature of his desk. ‘But you owe me big time.’

  ‘I owe you because you’re doing your job?’ Kate bristled. ‘If you say so. I’m sending everything through now and I’m waiting with my phone for a reply – which I do need right away if you could possibly manage it.’

  Without waiting for his response, Kate ended the call then began to stab an email out on her phone with her photos and measurements attached. Jumped-up little shit. What have I ever done to him, other than be nice? It would serve him right if she told Shauna just how unhelpful he’d been, but Kate’s sense of fair play would never allow her to do that.

  She pressed send and then locked the screen while she waited. Through her rear-view mirror, she could see the owner of the house at the curtains, watching her car. If all valuations were going to be like this, she might just be tempted to ask Nonna if she fancied swapping jobs with her. Reception didn’t pay commission, but it didn’t mean dealing with this kind of crap either.

  Fifteen minutes later (a fifteen minutes that Kate was sure Charles hadn’t really needed to do what was a simple task for someone of his experience) Kate had her price – a curt one-line email with no preamble. Whatever, it didn’t matter as long as she got the information, and it was something she’d have to discuss with Charles himself if it happened again. Perhaps he’d been having a bad day, or something else had pissed him off right at the moment Kate had needed him. She’d give him the benefit of the doubt for now – all that mattered was getting back to her client.

  ‘I thought you had gone,’ the man said as he opened the front door to readmit Kate.

  ‘Sorry,’ she replied, although they both knew he’d been watching her car the whole time and thought no such thing. ‘I have some figures for you now, and if we can sit somewhere we can go through them.’

  ‘This way,’ he said, his tone brusque as he led her back to a sun-drenched study. Kate swallowed back a sigh. If she got this property, it would be a bloody miracle.

  ‘You got the property?’ Shauna beamed as Kate handed her the completed paperwork.

  ‘Signature’s right there,’ Kate said. ‘Although I have to say,’ she added, looking very deliberately at Charles, who sat at his desk with his arms folded, watching the conversation, ‘Charles was brilliant. So very helpful.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Shauna said looking vaguely surprised. ‘I knew I could rely on my team.’

  ‘Absolutely. And Charles especially. Couldn’t do enough for me when I rang in for help with the valuation; falling over himself to get the details over as soon as he could. Like, literally, the speed of light.’ She smiled sweetly at him. If he wanted a battle, Kate was going to make sure she dampened his powder first.

  ‘Aww.’ Shauna gave an indulgent smile, like a mother with a wayward toddler who’d just done something very clever. ‘It’s great
to see you two making such a formidable team. I’ll have to buddy you up more often.’

  ‘I’d love that,’ Kate gushed.

  ‘Of course,’ Shauna said. She scooped up the paperwork and gave it back to Kate. ‘Pop this in Nonna’s in-tray, would you? And if you’re happy, I’m going to give you some more valuations to go out to. Might as well get the experience in so you’ll be up and running as a solo agent that much faster, eh? And we can work on your knowledge before you go, so that eventually you’ll be able to work the value out for yourself.’

  ‘Oh, yes. As long as I can always have Charles on the other end of the phone, I think that’s a brilliant idea.’

  As she sashayed past his desk on her way to give Nonna the paperwork, Charles shot Kate a surreptitious grimace, but she didn’t react. She needed this job, probably a lot more than he needed his, and there was no way his sulky face was going to drive her out, so if he didn’t like working with her, he was going to have to do the leaving.

  The sound of grinding metal made Kate jump again. Nunzia’s car kept slipping out of gear – a problem Kate suspected was down to her driving rather than a fault on the brand-new Fiat – and she was jittery enough without the jarring noise.

  ‘New car,’ Nunzia tutted, as if that explanation was enough. ‘Different.’

  ‘You’re not used to it, I suppose.’

  ‘Very bad,’ Nunzia said.

  ‘Yes, it can be difficult driving a car you don’t know very well,’ Kate agreed, though it wasn’t a problem she was likely to encounter for a long time, mostly because it was going to be a long time before she could afford a new car. And after her experiences in Shauna’s borrowed car, she was just fine with that. ‘But it is lovely,’ she added. ‘Very bright.’

  ‘Sì. Very nice.’

  Kate turned her attention to the countryside speeding past her window, anxious not to distract Nunzia too much from her driving. Fields of ochre and green rolled away from the road, reaching for the heather-hued hills beyond, clear blue skies framing the picture. There were lone cypress trees and sleeping vineyards, rocky outcrops and juniper-clad slopes. Above them, a noisy cloud of starlings raced into view, a mass of twisting and turning bodies that moved so effortlessly in sync as they switched directions that they became one huge, undulating shape.

  Rome was stunning but it could be intense; the landscape it gave way to as one left the city was a different kind of beautiful: serene and charming, a place Kate could imagine retiring to one day with Alessandro, where they would sit on a porch and watch the sun sink below the hills as they sipped wine from their own vineyard and listened to the delighted squeals of their grandchildren at play.

  She shook herself. It was a wonderful dream, but right now a dream was all it could be. When she’d seen him briefly the day before, Alessandro had been distracted again. She’d tried to prise the reasons from him, but he’d been vague at best, and she’d found the conversation frustrating and taxing.

  Then their discussion, such as it was, had been interrupted by a phone call from Signora Conti, who’d needed his help at home, and he’d left Kate with promises that they would talk more when they had the opportunity, though she suspected he was hoping she’d forget. It was probably something at work again, and more than ever she wished she could understand his job a little better. It didn’t help that she was fully aware of a woman not too far away who did and would have been only too willing to offer him a shoulder (or something fleshier) to cry on.

  ‘Here!’ Nunzia said, breaking into Kate’s thoughts. She stepped on her brakes so hard that Kate had to throw her hands out and steady herself on the dashboard. She had a seatbelt on but still felt as if she might hurtle through the windscreen. Nunzia looked across with a sheepish smile.

  Kate gave her a vague smile in acknowledgement, surprised to find they’d stopped outside a house that had been so well hidden from the road by an incline and a grove of trees that she hadn’t even realised it was there at all.

  ‘This is where Loretta lives?’ Kate asked as she looked back at the house.

  ‘Sì,’ Nunzia said, collecting her handbag from the back seat.

  ‘It’s gorgeous,’ Kate said.

  The building was set in informal gardens, with fragrant olive and cypress trees shading the main dirt road that ran up to a paved loggia hugging the front aspect. It was built from rustic, honey-coloured stone, chunky terracotta tiles on the low roof, and to the left side of the property Kate could just make out the corner of a swimming pool, covered for the winter, or so she presumed. She had seen a lot of properties in the last few weeks for work, but unlike many of those, this felt instantly homey. Loretta had plenty of money, or so Nunzia had said, but if this was her choice of home then Kate felt she would be down to earth and approachable too. This was exactly the sort of house that featured in the dream Kate had, of her and Alessandro retiring to a cosy retreat in the countryside to end their days in blissful peace and quiet.

  The front door opened and a lady around Nunzia’s age, dark hair cropped short and threaded with grey, rushed out to greet them. After throwing her arms around Nunzia, she turned to Kate.

  ‘Welcome!’ she beamed. ‘You are Kate?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Nunzia speaks of you all of the time! Your dresses. . .’ She kissed her fingers. ‘You make me plenty dresses?’

  ‘If you want me to,’ Kate replied, feeling slightly overwhelmed by Loretta’s enthusiasm. ‘Each one takes a little while, though, so if you needed them for an occasion I’d need some notice.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, taking Kate’s hand and leading her to the house. ‘First, we drink, eh? A little lunch? You like chicken?’

  ‘Well, that sounds lovely but—’

  ‘Come, come,’ Loretta urged, pulling Kate’s hand. ‘Full belly, then we will talk business!’

  Despite being convinced that she wouldn’t after the tense conversations with Alessandro the day before, Kate had thoroughly enjoyed her visit to Loretta’s house. Not only did they make arrangements for Kate to accompany both her and Nunzia on a trip to the fantastic haberdasher’s in Rome that Kate had fallen in love with, but Kate also felt like she’d made another new friend. Lunch had been a riotous affair, and before she’d finished her first glass of red Kate was snorting at jokes Loretta was making about her poor unfortunate (and thankfully absent) husband. She’d almost swooned when Nunzia had persuaded Kate to share a photo of Alessandro with them and had jokingly offered Kate vast amounts of money to swap for a night before erupting into fresh giggles with Nunzia. They’d parted on good terms; Kate looked forward to seeing her again, and to seeing what business her new friend might be able to bring her way.

  But Monday morning followed all too quickly, bringing a return to reality, and a return to the sensible world of estate agency.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As Kate walked in to a breezy greeting from Nonna, she couldn’t help but notice that although she had arrived ten minutes early, Charles and Shauna were already deep in conversation at Shauna’s desk. And Charles, for one, didn’t look happy. Gone was the cocky grin that normally accompanied him opening his mouth; instead, he looked sober, repentant, but also a little belligerent with it. Their voices were low, and, as a result, everyone else in the office seemed to have turned down the volume too, so that it was like a doctor’s waiting room, where the quieter everything got, the quieter everyone became, and even the tiniest whisper was loud enough for everyone to hear as a result.

  Kate caught something about complacency, and how Charles would have to step up to the plate like others were doing, difficult economic times, can’t afford to carry lazy team members, and some other generally uncomplimentary stuff. She didn’t want to hear this and concentrated very hard on booting up her computer and checking her diary, but it was difficult not to catch significant amounts of the conversation. If conversation was what it was, as it all seemed to be one-sided, with Shauna talking and Charles silently sulking. It would
have been more appropriate to have taken him to one side, somewhere away from the office where his colleagues sat. It would have been kinder, and despite her disagreements with Charles, Kate felt the unfairness of his public dressing-down. But perhaps Shauna was making a point, trying to shame him into improving his apparently lagging performance.

  After ten minutes or so, the sound of a chair scraping the floor made Kate turn to see him shuffle back to his desk. He had come to Rome as a gap year student who’d never returned to his studies, and he had never looked more like the archetypal student stereotype than he did at that moment. She shot him an uncertain smile, but he simply glowered in return.

  So much for making friends and offering support.

  It was dingier than the properties she’d dealt with so far, and the neighbourhood looked so seedy that Kate was beginning to wish she’d asked someone to come with her. But when Nonna had expressed some concerns about the address, Kate had blithely assured her that she was perfectly capable of holding her own and if the client was expecting her, she didn’t see what trouble she could get into. Kate hadn’t seen all the suburbs of Rome, and she didn’t expect any of them could look anything less than pristine, so the guttering hanging from the roof of the apartment building, the missing slates and the peeling paint on the main doors was a shock. But she supposed that not everybody could afford to live in luxury, and a commission was a commission, wherever it came from. The matter of Charles’s impromptu dressing-down that morning had put everyone on edge, even though the fact remained unspoken, and Kate had to get on with her job whether she liked it or not if she wasn’t going to find herself on the receiving end of a disciplinary of her own.