Chapter Two #2
‘Don’t you?’ His expression, and voice, were still sardonic.
The sommelier was arriving with the wine, and Eleanora was glad. She wasn’t here to discuss her sister—it was tactless in the extreme, given that Tonia had jilted him.
Having decided the wine was to his liking, Sanzio Bastoni nodded, and his glass was filled up. A hovering aide to the sommelier placed a glass of white wine at Eleanora’s side and she murmured her thanks with a smile. For a second she thought she saw Sanzio looking at her.
Then the sommelier and his aide were disappearing, and Sanzio was lifting his glass to her. ‘To a mutually satisfactory outcome to this evening,’ he said. His eyes rested on her a moment as she picked up her own wine glass.
There was something in his eyes that made, of all things, that disturbing flutter come again inside Eleanora. She squashed it down. It had no place here.
Nor ever would.
* * *
Sanzio savoured his wine, then replaced his glass. Their food arrived shortly—the staff here knew that he did not like to be kept waiting, and neither dish that he and his unexpected guest had chosen took long to cook. Certainly not his Tournedos Rossini.
Memory plucked at him. Years ago, when he was first starting the arduous climb out of poverty, he had treated himself—not here, but a much humbler restaurant—to the luxury of a Tournedos Rossini. He had vowed then and there, that one day it would be his daily fare if he so wanted.
And now it was.
Now, he could enjoy gourmet dining every day, afford anything he wanted, from top marque cars and first-class travel, five-star hotels like this one, wear hand-made suits and shoes, to a luxury office and apartment in Rome, and another set in Milan.
As for women—oh, they flocked around him now, the ones who wouldn’t have looked twice at him when he was poor.
He could have his pick of them. Including Donna Antonia da Verano—who, in addition to all her obvious appeal as a trophy bride, would have come with a palazzo he happened to want.
Now, however—
Tonia is marrying her marquis, and I— I can only get the Palazzo by buying it.
His veiled gaze went back to rest on the woman opposite him. No greater contrast to her glamorous, sex-siren sister could be envisaged. She was making a start on her sole, and he did likewise with his steak. Time to get on with the purpose of the evening.
‘So,’ he said, decisively, ‘let’s talk Palazzo.’
* * *
Eleanora looked at him carefully.
‘How do we do that?’ she posed. ‘You’ve told me I’m rubbish at negotiating, so what should my next line be?’
He gave a short laugh—though she hadn’t meant to be humorous or jibing, just honest.
‘Why not just tell me why you don’t want me to buy it?’ he replied. His eyes rested on her and there was something in them that she didn’t understand. She veiled her own eyes—she didn’t want to reveal just how desperately she didn’t want the Palazzo to be sold.
‘It would be a risky purchase for anyone,’ she prevaricated. ‘It’s in a poor state of repair.’
‘Caveat emptor,’ he retorted, and there was a caustic note in his voice now.
‘Besides, I am well aware of its sorry condition. I made Tonia take me to see it—she wasn’t in the least keen.
One thing puzzled me though. Some repair work has been done on the wing that was the servants’ quarters.
What made your father spend any money at all—and why the servants’ wing? ’
‘He didn’t,’ she said. ‘I did.’
Sanzio Bastoni frowned, his dark eyebrows drawing together. ‘You? What on earth for?’
‘Because it’s where I live,’ she answered. ‘I inherited some money at twenty-one from my maternal grandparents’ estate—it’s what I live on—and I’ve put what I could into making that wing sufficiently habitable, doing as much as I could myself to make the money go further.’
‘And what, exactly, do you do yourself?’ Was he being sarcastic, disbelieving? She didn’t know, only answered truthfully.
‘Well, I can replaster, and paint walls, I can lift broken tiles and replace them, I can do a bit of basic carpentry and plumbing, but I can’t touch the electrics, I’m not qualified.
I can do rough work, and try to keep the gardens in some kind of order—most of it has run wild though, as you probably saw. ’
He made no comment. Took another mouthful of wine. ‘What does your father say to you about what you’re doing?’ he demanded abruptly.
‘I doubt he knows,’ she returned. She went on with her sole.
‘Or would care if he did,’ Sanzio Bastoni supplied, and Eleanora knew it to be the truth. Then he was speaking again, dryly, with an edge to it. ‘So, you have a vested interest in the Palazzo not being sold.’
‘Yes,’ she admitted heavily.
‘Because of the money you’ve put into it.’
She shook her head. ‘No, because I love it.’ She did not look up. ‘As I said, it’s my home. The only place I want to live.’
And it’s where I feel safe—not a misfit beside Tonia, despised by her, and by my father.
She broke off, and there was silence for a moment. She made herself look up.
He gave her a level stare. ‘Why didn’t I see you when I went to check it out with Tonia?’
Eleanora thought. ‘It must have been when I’d gone to meet up with an old friend who was on holiday nearby with her husband. I expect Tonia planned it that way—like my father, she has no interest in the Palazzo and thinks it a waste of money to save it.’
‘But you don’t agree.’ It was not a question.
‘No. But since I don’t have the money—’ She hesitated, a familiar sense of sadness and frustration welling up in her.
‘So why object to me buying it and restoring it, since you say you care about it?’ he cut across her.
There was that look in his eye again that she didn’t understand.
His next words enlightened her. ‘Or do you object to a man like me owning it? A working man, self-made—unfit to own a grand palazzo!’
She stared. ‘No!’ she denied emphatically. She lifted her chin. ‘Signor Bastoni, if anyone is unfit to own the Palazzo it is…’ she swallowed, her voice dropping ‘…my father.’ Immediately, she felt disloyal, but it was the truth all the same. ‘But I still…still hope he won’t sell.’
‘He will—for the money,’ Sanzio Bastoni said brutally—but the accusation she’d heard in his voice earlier had gone. ‘And unless he sells it, it will, eventually, fall down. Is that what you want? Just so you can go on calling it home?’
She dropped her gaze again. This time, his accusation was justified, and it twisted inside her.
‘No,’ she made herself answer, her voice low. ‘But I just don’t want to lose my home. The home I love.’
She picked up her cutlery, went on with her sole. Sanzio went on with his Tournedos. For a moment or two they did not speak, then something struck her.
She looked across at him, more resolute now. Going on the offensive, not the defensive. ‘You’ve got out of me why I don’t want the Palazzo sold, but why do you—’ she took a breath ‘—have any interest in buying it? And you must have,’ she said more firmly, ‘or why are we even discussing it?’
He gave a laugh, and Eleanora saw, with a little jolt, how humour changed his face, lightened it. Made him look younger—less formidable. It gave her a strange feeling. Disturbing.
‘Touché,’ he acknowledged. He took a mouthful of his wine.
‘OK, I’ll deal,’ he announced. He paused for a moment, gave her another level stare.
She could not read his eyes, not in the slightest. Only saw how dark, how very dark, they were, how thick the lashes.
How strong the planes of his face, making her want simply to go on gazing at him, absorbing his features.
‘Yes,’ he said, interrupting her utterly irrelevant thoughts, and just as well.
‘I am interested in acquiring the Palazzo Verano. It would have come with your sister; I would have insisted on it. Now, however, your father is hoping I will buy it for cash. Though not for the price he’s hoping for, given its dilapidation.
Plus, it’s not in a fashionable part of Italy, it’s in a remote backwater and there is nothing historically famous or notable about it.
It’s a rundown palazzo in the back of beyond. Who would want it?’
‘Apart from me,’ Eleanora said sadly. ‘But actually—’ her voice picked up ‘—maybe I should be glad of that—if it’s not easily marketable maybe he’ll have to hang on to it.’
‘He’ll sell it eventually, even for a knock-down price,’ came the depressing reply.
‘Is that what you’re banking on? Playing hardball till the price drops even more as he gets more and more desperate?’ she put to him bleakly.
‘It’s one tactic, yes,’ he acknowledged.
He finished his steak, pushed his plate away.
‘Of course, it has its risks,’ he mused. ‘He might find another buyer, and gazump me. Which is why,’ he went on, and though she couldn’t say what it was, Eleanora was aware that the tone of his voice changed, ‘I am currently considering another tactic.’
She took the last mouthful of her fish and placed her cutlery on the plate, drinking some of her water,
‘Which is?’ she posed. He was unlikely to tell her, but she might as well ask.
He sat back, taking his wine glass with him, cupping it in his large hand. Keeping his eyes on her.
‘Upon my marriage to your sister, I would have got the Palazzo as well—a dowry, as you called it. Now that’s not happening, I do, of course, have another way of acquiring the Palazzo without buying it.’
She could not read his expression. His gaze was veiled, but there was something in his voice, something that suddenly, out of nowhere, put her on high alert.
‘I could always marry you instead, and get it that way.’
Eleanora froze from head to toe.