Bratva Boss's Quadruplets

Chapter 1

NAOMI

The Lido Azzurra is running a hundred forty covers off a kitchen built for eighty, and nobody on this terrace can tell except me.

I can tell because the service door by the cabanas swings every ninety seconds like it’s on a timer, because the runners are carrying four plates up an arm that should hold three, because the pretty hostess has stopped walking guests to their loungers and started pointing.

The prosecco is coming out warm on the far rail.

Someone in that kitchen is having the worst day of his summer, and out here it reads as paradise, which is the whole trick of places like this. I sell that trick for a living.

“You’re working,” Bianca says. She doesn’t open her eyes. She’s flat on the lounger beside mine in a white bikini that fits the way court documents fit, to the letter of the law, and she has the sun-drunk voice she gets by two in the afternoon. “I can hear you working. Stop it.”

“I’m on a job, Bee. This is technically research.”

“This is a cabana I got us for free because Massimo at the door loves me. Research is for people without cabanas.” She lifts one hand off the cushion and rotates it, a little queenly circle that means look around you. “Sun, water, men. Drink your wine.”

The wine is cold, at least on our side of the club.

The glass sweats through my fingers. Below us the pool is the loud blue of a brochure, bodies packed along its edge, and when someone dips underwater the bass from the DJ platform goes with them, you can watch them feel it against their ribs.

The whole terrace smells like sunscreen and spilled prosecco cooking on the tile.

If I put this exact sentence in the feature, Clara will cut it for being too honest.

My phone buzzes on the towel. Alessia.

They moved your award night fitting, check your calendar. Also, if Bianca gets you arrested I am not driving to Naples to collect you.

One glass of wine, I type back. I’m behaving.

That is historically what you say.

I put the phone face down. It buzzes again immediately, which will be Clara, third time today, asking whether the Lido section can run to two thousand words.

Everything at Lumière can run to two thousand words if you let it, that’s the disease of the job.

I flip the phone over, confirm it’s Clara, flip it back. Later.

“So,” Bianca says. “Tonight.”

“Tonight I write up my notes and sleep like a dead woman.”

“Tonight,” she says, sitting up now, sliding her sunglasses down her nose to look at me over them, which is a move she rehearses, I’ve watched her do it in mirrors, “we stay. The whole place changes after dark. They light the pool from underneath, the DJ they bring in is famous, everyone gets, what’s the word. Golden.”

“Sweaty.”

“Golden, Naomi.” She says my name the Italian way, all three syllables getting the full tour. “And I already know who I’m taking home. He’s here with the boat people at the far cabana. The tall one with the unfortunate shorts and the very fortunate everything else. I decided at lunch.”

“You decided at lunch?”

“I decide early. It saves time in the evening.” She reaches over and steals my wine, takes a sip, hands it back. “This is warm. Send it back.”

“It’s mine, from our ice bucket. It was cold ten seconds ago.”

“Then drink faster.” She settles back, satisfied with herself in a way I’d find unbearable from anyone else on earth.

Bianca is a working model, she has been photographed on four continents, she’s the single most looked-at person on this terrace, and she moves through all that attention like it’s a service she pre-booked.

It’s restful, being next to it. Nobody expects anything from the friend of the sun.

Except that’s a lie I tell myself, and the waiter ruins it on schedule. He comes up the cabana steps with two glasses we didn’t order, on a tray, with a folded card, and he sets them down while looking at me. Only at me. Bianca could be furniture.

“From the gentlemen at table nine,” he says, apologetic about it.

Bianca cranes around like a periscope. “Which ones are nine?”

“The watches,” I say. I’d seen them come in an hour ago, four men front-loading their afternoon with vodka at a swim-up table, the kind of group where every wrist is doing the talking. One of them raises his glass at me. I don’t know what my face does back, but it isn’t encouragement.

“Take them to your favorite table with our thanks,” Bianca tells the waiter, “and tell nine she said no.” She waves at the men brightly while she says it, so from fifty feet it looks like yes. The waiter’s mouth twitches. He’d carry that message for free.

“You could’ve kept the drinks,” I say.

“I kept the joke, it travels further.” She stretches, long and public, then points at me without looking. “You see how easy? All summer men send you things, all summer you return to sender.”

“I don’t return them. I say no thank you.”

“Same stamp, darling.”

“You enjoy this too much,” I tell her.

“Somebody has to run your correspondence. Left alone you’d answer everything no, and the whole coast would go into mourning.”

“The coast will cope.”

The day manager finds us before we’ve moved. He’s young for the job, sweating through club linen, holding a printout like it might go off.

“Miss Vale. From Lumière.” He pronounces it wrong in a way I will never correct. “The booking office flagged your name this morning. If there is anything, anything at all.”

“The prosecco’s going out warm on the far rail,” I say. “Your ice line can’t reach the west bar, it’s a long carry in this sun.”

He goes still, caught between horror and note-taking. “You noticed the ice line?”

“She notices everything,” Bianca says, stealing an olive off a passing tray. “It’s a medical condition. Feed her and she’s kind.”

“The spa’s flawless, if it helps,” I tell him, because it’s true, and because his runners are out there killing themselves for a kitchen that can’t back them. “Whoever runs your towel rotation deserves August off.”

He writes that down, word for word, wobbly with relief, then backs away bowing at intervals. Bianca watches him go over the top of her sunglasses.

“You made his whole season.”

“I told him his bar’s broken.”

“With love, darling. That’s your flirting. You tell buildings the truth.”

I like being wanted fine. Being wanted is easy, it arrives on trays.

What I can’t stand is the part that comes after, where wanting turns into expecting, where a man who bought you a nine-euro drink starts acting like he holds a deposit slip.

I’ve watched it happen since I was sixteen.

The deal never improves. So I say no thank you early, while it’s still cheap for everybody.

Bianca thinks this is a tragedy. Bianca falls in love between the antipasto and the check, gloriously, at full volume, then wakes up cured. I’ve seen her do it in four countries. It’s like watching somebody juggle knives without bleeding, you can admire it all day and feel no urge to try.

“The sauna,” she announces, “then one swim, then we decide about tonight.”

“I’ve decided about tonight.”

“Then we decide again, better.”

The spa wing is down a level, white stone and eucalyptus steam, the best-run corner of the property, due its full paragraph in the feature.

The attendant restocks the towels on a real rotation.

The plunge pool is actually cold. In the sauna Bianca stretches out on the top bench like a lizard and interrogates me through the heat.

“When was the last time, Naomi? Answer fast, don’t edit.”

“The last time what?”

“You know what.”

“You can’t put a dry spell in the metric system, if that’s where this is going.”

“Eleven months,” she says to the ceiling. “Marco’s cousin’s party. You left at midnight. Alone. I keep records.”

“That’s an invasion of something.”

“It’s a rescue mission.” She rolls onto one elbow.

Sweat is running off both of us, the cedar smells like it’s toasting, my heart is doing the slow sauna work, and she picks now to strike, while I’m too hot to fight.

“Tonight you stay past dark for once. You let one gorgeous stranger buy you one drink you actually drink. That’s all. Baby steps.”

“I don’t do hookups, Bee.”

There it is, out loud, my little constitutional amendment. She’s heard it before. She still reacts like I’ve said I don’t believe in the sea.

“Madonna. You say it like it’s a food allergy.”

“It’s a policy.”

“It’s a padlock.”

“A padlock keeps the room mine, Bee.”

“Darling, the room is empty.”

“The room is quiet. Quiet took me years.”

“Say that out loud again, slowly,” she says, “and listen to yourself.” She flops back down.

“And the criminal part is that it’s wasted on you.

Do you know what I’d do with your everything?

The face, the, all of it.” She gestures at me with a loose wrist, too hot for grammar.

“You walk through this club, every man rearranges his posture, it’s wind going through a wheat field, you notice nothing, and then you go home at eleven to write about thread counts. ”

“The thread counts pay my rent.”

“The thread counts are hiding you, darling.” She says it lightly.

It doesn’t arrive lightly. The heat’s making me stupid, so for one second I actually consider it, the whole advertisement, some stranger’s laugh in the blue light tonight, a good mouth, no last names, nothing to manage in the morning.

It’s a nice brochure. I’ve written enough of them to know what gets left out of the photo.

I stand up before the sauna wins the argument. “Swim.”

The plunge pool takes my breath, then gives it back better.

We swim in the main pool after, where the bass comes through the water the way I knew it would, a physical pressure against the ribs, ridiculous and half wonderful.

When I surface at the edge, slicking my hair back, there’s a man crouched at the lip of the pool with my towel held out like he owns towels as a concept.

“You looked like you needed rescuing,” he says.

He’s thirty-something and finished, assembled by professionals, white linen shirt open to the sternum, showroom teeth, a haircut that gets maintained weekly. Good-looking, objectively. So is the club furniture.

“From the pool,” I say.

“From swimming alone.” He stands as I come up the steps and presents the towel instead of handing it over, a small ceremony where I have to come to him for my own property.

“Dario,” he says, and then a pause, two full beats, where I’m supposed to already know.

When nothing happens in my face, he helps me.

“I run the nights here. Also at Selene, also at the Grotta down in Praiano. If you’ve danced on this coast, that was my guest list.”

“I haven’t, but congratulations.”

“American.” He smiles wider, like I’ve admitted something useful. “Working girl or holiday girl?”

“Working.”

“Even better. Working girls know what things are worth.” He’s moved a half step closer while talking, a door-to-door instinct, and his eyes have done three round trips of my swimsuit, skipping my face on every return leg.

“Tonight you’re at my table. Both of you,” he adds, throwing Bianca two seconds of professional courtesy before coming back to me.

“Best view in the booth, my bottles, my people. You’ll write nice things about the Lido after. Everybody wins.”

“No, thank you.”

It comes out pleasant. I’ve had years of practice at this, you can return an entire evening the way you return a wrong entrée, no drama, just send it back. Most men take it fine. The fine ones do.

Dario laughs, one syllable, and looks at Bianca as if there’s been a translation error. “She’s funny,” he tells her.

“She’s not,” Bianca says, arranging herself against the pool rail. “She’s the least funny woman in Italy. She means it.”

“I own the weekends on this water.” He’s still smiling at me. The smile has stopped being for me, though, it’s for anyone watching, holding its pose while the eyes behind it go flat and busy, moving me from prize to problem. “One drink. I don’t offer twice.”

“Then we’re both efficient people.”

A beat. Then he does what charming men do when the charm bounces, he makes my no about my day instead of his offer.

“Long flight, eh? Rest up.” He backs off with both palms showing, taps the cabana rail twice like he’s claiming the wood, then goes down the pool deck gripping shoulders, kissing cheeks, the mayor of two hundred loungers.

Bianca watches him the whole way with her sunglasses down.

“That one didn’t like it,” she says.

“They usually don’t.”

“No.” She’s stopped performing, sunglasses off, and I listen. “The usual ones don’t like it, then they tell their friends you’re frigid and feel better by the second bottle. That one lodged a complaint with the universe. Watch how many times he passes our cabana tonight.”

“We won’t be here tonight.”

She turns to me, the grin coming back up like the pool lights, and I realize I’ve stepped in it with both feet.

“We won’t be here,” she repeats, delighted. “We’ll be downstairs when it changes over, which means you’re staying, which means we’re getting you dressed. I have the green thing in my bag. I packed it for you specially, I’m a prophet.”

“What’s the green thing made of?”

“Consequences.”

“I’m not wearing consequences to a venue I’m reviewing.”

“You reviewed it today. Tonight you’re a civilian.” She snaps her fingers at my glass. “Finish that. We have a fitting.”

“You sound like Alessia.”

“Alessia would put you in a blazer. I’m the fun one.”

I look out past her, buying a last second before I say yes, because we both know I’m going to say yes.

The afternoon’s going gold at the edges already.

Staff are ferrying candles to the tables, the DJ platform has grown two technicians, the service door is still swinging its overworked ninety-second beat, and the whole terrace leans toward evening like a theater before the curtain.

One night off the itinerary, one drink I actually drink, nothing I can’t send back.

“Fine,” I say. “One night.”

Bianca is already signaling the waiter, composing the smile that gets our afternoon comped. Down the deck Dario has stopped at the rail to look back at our cabana, and he raises his glass at me, patient as a parking meter.

I raise mine back, empty.

Let the night sort us out.