by C. L. Donley
She knew precisely where to find him, down to the house’s cellar. She was a beautiful girl who couldn’t stop running. And he, a man too wounded to chase her.
“Ciao, Vanessa. Goodbye,” he whispered. He ran a finger down her smooth chin, gathered his things and quietly walked out the door.
Four
Chapter 4
On Monday morning, Lark was freshly pressed and walking into Di Rossi headquarters 45 minutes early.
She felt refreshed. Confident. Prepared. Ready to leave her professional blunders behind and knock this assignment out of the park.
She was happy to find that the bustling office headquarters lived up to its high-end expectations. She walked through the revolving doors of the grand building entrance with a single receptionist sitting at a marble desk that nearly spanned the length of the lobby, in the middle of two corridors on each side.
“Good morning. Lark Chambers. I’m the interpreter. Signore Di Rossi is expecting me,” she said in Italian.
“You’re early, Miss Chambers. Right this way,” the receptionist responded in English. Lark couldn’t tell yet if it was courtesy or just showing off.
She followed the receptionist down the quaint Tuscan hallway until they got to a set of tall wooden doors at the end. The doors opened to a spacious office with high ceilings, modern furniture and classic white walls dotted with stucco flourishes. A beautifully restored fresco bordered the top of the walls and there was a large, unfussy chandelier in the middle of the dark wood coffered ceiling.
They walked through the charming sitting area, through to another set of open doors where there was another large room with no furniture save for a very large, imposing desk. There sat a distinguished older man, with a grey beard, wearing a flawless Italian suit and pouring over several books laid open in front of him containing fabric samples.
“Signore, Signorina Chambers is here,” the receptionist announced.
“Molto bene. Signorina Chambers, welcome,” the elderly Signore Luca Di Rossi greeted Lark.
“Am I too early?” Lark worried as she firmly shook his hand.
“Sciochezza, but you are too beautiful,” he answered, as he put her hand to his lips and kissed. Lark smiled, feeling a tinge of arousal at the touch of his lips. Werk, grandpa, she thought as she sat cross-legged in front of him. Only in Italy.
“Allora, you are far too qualified to work for me. But I needed someone who could interpret both Italian and Korean. You came highly recommended.”
“No need to explain, Signore Di Rossi. Any excuse I can find to work in Italy, I will always take.”
“A woman after my heart! Perhaps we should eat. Before we work.”
“Sir, it’s only 10am.”
“Is it? I am hungry already. I will order for the both of us.”
Lark politely attempted to keep her new boss on track.
“You’re too generous, Signore. But when do I start?”
“Va bene, I thought we would go to the factory today. We have a busy month or so, traveling to Milan, and then to Seoul, and finally, New York, as I’m sure you gathered from your itinerary.”
“Surely you won’t need me in Milan?”
“No, but you will join us anyway. Many buyers will be there, many other countries will be represented, some of whom we may have the opportunity to gain an audience, with your help.”
“‘Us’, signore?”
“Si. Today I want you to get acquainted with more of my team, mainly my son, who will be joining us. He’s taken over a good portion of the business in the last five years, and now I want him to have a more… diplomatic role. I want him to be the face of the company, not cooped up in a textile factory 70 hours a week. His face is such a handsome one to represent the Di Rossi name.”
For some reason, Lark instantly had a sick feeling of dread and suspicion at the mention of his handsome faced son.
She’d spent the weekend smiling about the beautiful man that’d christened her first night in Florence with lovemaking. In the morning he was gone, like an angel. She’d imagined him as such, watching over her somehow, from a world she could never belong to.
But the sudden rock in her gut made her think that instead, she’d really just royally played herself.
It was much more likely that she had unknowingly fucked her boss’s son.
Honestly, which was more like her life? Mythical sex god angels, or messy, ratchet-ass mistakes?
It’s him. It was too clean, too perfect. When has that ever happened? You should’ve known, her inner voice of dread began panicking.
It’s not him. It’s not him, her inner voice of denial responded.
* * *
Dario Di Rossi had already been on his feet for hours, and it wasn’t even noon.
One of the spinning machines in the textile mill had gone down, and though it had been quickly remedied within an hour, Dario had calculated a setback in the schedule of at least two weeks by the time it was back up and running.
He didn’t have time for mishaps. The interpreter would be here later today, and his father would be useless in briefing her. But he could barely concentrate because the erotic events of the weekend were still swimming through his brain.
Nothing as that had ever come over him. He’d just broken it off with Angelica the night before, and though he began to open himself back up to the possibility of love, he was still in a mental wrestling match with casual sex.
Or at least, he was until he saw her. Then it went from wrestling match to a KO. He’d never expected to come across another woman so soon and never had he behaved in such a way. Naturally, the moment he decided to venture out and brave the harsh nature of hope, he’d nearly lost his head to a killer.
She was a beauty like no other. Young. Much too young for him. Foreign. His older brother Stefano was a bad influence. He was happily married with a baby on the way, but couldn’t stop trying to live vicariously through Dario. So the fact that they’d stumbled on the path of the most beautiful American he’d ever seen on the way to his mother’s, made for an inevitable fall off the wagon.
He didn’t return to his mother’s house that weekend. He hadn’t even come in to work on his day off, like he usually did. He was beside himself. He simply felt fatigued, almost flu-like. He spent the next two evenings moping around his villa like a teenager with nothing else to worry about, jacking off and looking up Borgo Allegri via satellite images on the internet. It was as though her youthfulness had infected him as well.
Yes, she was much too young. Younger than his own wife had been when she died, destined never to grow old. The naivete in her eyes was nearly painful to recall. She’d never been loved. Never lost. And she looked terrified. Like a baby goat that’d lost its herd. He had a habit of telling himself he was still young until he saw her. Then he knew he was in denial.
He nearly stayed in bed when Monday came, but instead, he got up and dressed. He cooked and splashed water on his face as he looked in the mirror. Slowly, he felt better.
Women, he mused. It was the hangover that reminded you why you’d stopped drinking. He couldn’t wait for the work week to rescue him from his wretched romantic bender.
And Monday had delivered. It was going to be another long, lunchless day.
“Capo, your father is here. With a woman, the translator,” Dario’s floor supervisor informed him in Italian.
“The Interpreter. Keep them busy, I need to get quality back on track before end of business in Crete. Otherwise, we’ll have to delay their shipment.”
“What’s the difference?” she asked.
“Como?”
“I said translator, and you said, ‘interpreter.’”
“A translator works with the written word. Interpreters are very picky about the distinction.”
“She is very beautiful.”
Dario’s heart skipped about three beats.
He looked at his floor supervisor carefully. But he didn’t say anything.
“I though
t you would want to be warned, signore,” she grinned devilishly before returning to the floor.
It couldn’t be, he thought.
But his heart wouldn’t slow down, and he was suddenly stuck to the floor like cement.
When they turned the corner, he looked up in time to see his father coming his way, past the raw cotton bales and the thread machines, past the fabric printing, approaching Dario’s offices.
Behind him was Vanessa, dressed neatly in a crisp white shirt and a charcoal colored pencil skirt, her hair pinned back demurely with a few strands framing her gorgeous face. She had a bit of a dour and serious look on her face and she appeared to be listening intently while his father spoke over his shoulder to her excitedly, fully in Italian.
He was in a dream. He was asleep right now. No way this was real.
His father finally made eye contact and gestured toward him with a smile. Vanessa met his eyes and it churned his guts.
She didn’t look surprised.
In fact, all familiarity had been erased from them. Violently. And he knew what to do.
“Signorina Chambers, meet my son Dario Di Rossi. He will be traveling with us while I show him off to our clients and teach him more of my side of the business.”
Vanessa extended her hand for him to shake and smiled cordially. He accepted it in disbelief, a shiver going through him at the reunion of their hands.
“Ciao.”
“Piacere, Signorina Chambers.”
“Call me Lark, please,” she said.
“Allodola?” he asked, the Italian translation of the bird’s name.
His father smiled a bit. He knew she was far too beautiful for his son not to take notice. He was already giving her pet names.
“If you wish,” Lark gave a little laugh.
“Perhaps… Alouette,” he answered, remembering her French companion addressing her as such the night of the party. Che idiota!
“Oui, Frances, do you speak it?” she unflinchingly rattled on in French, cordially smiling as if intrigued by his knowledge of languages. It was her entire wheelhouse, after all. He’d hired her himself.
Moreover, she acted as though she had indeed never even met him, as if they had never tasted each other and that she had less than a mild interest in the notion.
In short, she was beyond professional. She did not want him. She wanted this job. And she was determined to prove that she could not be rattled.
“Non. Which is why we hired you,” he grinned.
“Of course,” she chuckled, finally releasing her smooth hand from his grip.
“Va bene, I want to show Miss Chambers the rest of the factory. And afterward, we will take Miss Chambers to dinner.”
“Impossible, one of the machines went down this morning, it will be another late night for me to get the shipment out for Greece,” he replied.
“Working, working. Like a poor American. You work harder than the last three Di Rossi’s combined, Roberto.”
There was that name again.
“Roberto?” Lark prompted him.
“My middle name,” he informed her. “To avoid confusion. There are several Dario DiRossis among our family.”
Her friends had heard right, that night of the party.
“The world has changed, papa. I keep telling you this.”
“Si. And tomorrow we will change with it. Tonight, I will keep Lark all to myself,” Signore De Rossi teased.
“In Italiano, please gentleman. Let me at least pretend to be working,” Lark smiled charmingly.
“Tomorrow you work, tonight we eat. Roberto?”
“I will do my best to be there.”
“Which means he will cancel. Va bene, I know I can’t talk you out of it. Let us get out of your hair. Lark, would you like to feel the most luxurious Egyptian cotton you’ve ever felt against your skin?”
Easy old man, Dario thought.
He didn’t know how this was going to work, but he was too busy to worry about it today.
If her demeanor this weekend was any indication, Lark wasn’t letting anything get in the way of her career. Not even a rich, gorgeous Italian that told her she was the most beautiful woman in the world before making love to her in the cellar.
For now, she would have to stay, he conceded. Somewhat reluctantly.
But only somewhat.
* * *
“Not only do we supply fabrics for clothing, but for curtains and upholstery, toweling and bedding, accessories and only the finest materials. Cotton, wool, mohair, and the finest synthetics as well.”
“Scusi, where’s your bathroom, Signore?” Lark began.
“Mi dispiace, signorina. Down the hall and to the right.”
She’d had to pee for over an hour. She thought she’d be able to wait until after they’d left the factory, but after nearly three hours, he’d bought lunch for the entire floor and they were still there, meeting and greeting and chatting.
Shit. She really didn’t want to chance running into “Bob”… Dario… Mr. Di Rossi, alone. Now or ever.
You can do this job, was the only inner thought she was allowing herself to repeat at the moment. Even though inwardly her dignity was crumbling, like trying to piece back together a priceless sculpture in a museum that she’d inadvertently toppled. She tried not to think about the thousand pounds of anxiety she inadvertently added to her last minute, supposedly stress-free Italian assignment.
Once she got to the bathroom she couldn’t resist giving herself a good long reprimanding look in the mirror.
She closed the door and locked it.
“You dumb cunt,” she whispered to herself.
Tears formed in the eyes of her reflection as if she’d successfully hurt her own feelings.
How could she have sabotaged herself so thoroughly? She’d done everything she could to stave off whatever wicked chaos flowed through her genes— on both sides. Tried to choose her destiny the same way the system chose for her all those years. But life, it seemed had other plans. And jokes, apparently. No matter where she ran, the chaos followed. No matter how she changed her surroundings, the chaos drew her. Would she ever be in her own charge?
She did her business and then hurriedly avoided her reflection altogether, lathering her hands as she shook her head in amused disbelief.
Was this to be the strategy? Avoid mirrors for the rest of the trip?
Lark gave herself another look with an exasperated sigh, fighting off mental torment. She gripped the sides of the Italian marble countertop.
Five seconds and then you have to pull it together, she told herself. She crumpled a little bit as she leaned her head on the mirror in front of her.
3…2…1.
She finished washing her hands then retreated out of the bathroom door.
There he was. Standing in the doorway. She jumped.
“Vanessa,” he began.
“It’s Miss Chambers. Lark,” she corrected him.
“Of course. I meant—”
“I think you have me confused with someone else entirely.”
“Do I?”
“Yes,” she replied. He studied her with his pale green eyes until her pulse was on the rise.
“Have you been crying?”
“No.”
“How long have you known?”
“That you were my boss? About as long as you have.”
“Really,” he asked in disbelief.
“No,” she sighed, exasperated, “you’re right, the jig is up. I work for the C.I.A. Which is why I was sitting outside the cafe with my friends for an hour, waiting for you to spot me randomly and stop to talk to me. We’ve had our eye on you for a long time—”
“Va bene, va bene,” he said, raising his hands in surrender before she could go any further. He stifled a grin.
“Your family’s house?”
“Como?”
“You said… you told me that was your family’s house.”
“Si. My mother’s.”
The f
amily crest. Bennetto.
His mother must have remarried. Merda!
“And your ‘brother’? ‘Bill’?”
“Stefano. He is my stepbrother. I have known him since I was a boy.”
Lark sighed a deep sigh and shook her head, trying not to get dragged back to the tempting pit of punishing herself.
“You said you worked in the military,” he said.
“I never confirmed that.”
“Okay,” he conceded. “But obviously, you gave me a fake name. I had no intentions of deceiving you, cara. In fact, I—”
“Allora, I hope you can make it to dinner tonight,” she continued in flawless Italian. “I’m looking forward to learning more about your industry. The more terminology I can learn, the better I’ll be able to do my job. And I can do my job, sir.”
“I have no doubt. It’s why we hired you,” he answered back, thinking of all the things he’d said to her that weekend, knowing now that she understood every word.
He had no regrets. In fact, it relieved him. There was now no unsaid thing between them. Perhaps they could work together.
“Molto bene. Excuse me,” she politely said as she made her way around him and back to the factory floor.
He studied the curve of her ass in the pencil skirt as she walked away.
It was a good skirt. Expensive. But her shirt was off the rack.
Was he really going to spend the next three weeks trying not to touch the most beautiful woman in the world? Again? His heart skipped a beat as he thought of seeing her naked once more— fully this time and wrapped in one of his fabrics. He unconsciously relinquished a goofy smirk.
He would definitely be skipping dinner tonight.
Five
Chapter 5
Signore Luca Di Rossi took Lark to a busy trattoria near San Lorenzo square for dinner, where space was limited due to its famous chocolate torte.
The owner was a short, pudgy balding man, an old friend of Di Rossi’s who wouldn’t stop staring at Lark. She smiled as Signor Di Rossi introduced the two of them.
“Vito, this is Signorina Chambers, she will be working with Roberto and I in Korea.”
