Chase had grown into a handsome man. In school he had had puppy-dog looks, like he hadn’t quite grown into himself. Now he had filled out and come into his own the way Antonello had always thought he might. The eyes were the same, and sowere his lips, but the rest of him… the years had been more than kind—they had blessed him with a handsomeness that Antonello found stunning. “What sort of work have you been doing here?”
“I work with the sales and production departments. It’s my job to make sure that we can deliver what we promise on time and at the correct quality. Which is why I was asked to work with you.” Among other things. He and Chase had talked about the dynamics of his family years ago, and Antonello didn’t want to go into those details now. Chase didn’t need to be reminded, and while Italians of his father’s generation believed that business was about relationships, they also knew to hold things close and not to divulge too much. After all, business was business.
The food arrived, and Antonello was grateful for a lull in the conversation. Anyway, if he was eating food, he couldn’t jam his foot any farther into his mouth. He and Chase had spent many hours with each other, studying, eating, and laughing. They had always been so easy together. That had been part of what drew him to Chase in the first place. Not that he had a right to expect they would just fall back into the same ease, but this was almost painful. And the thing was, he knew it was his fault. He’d not only lied, he’d kept the truth to himself, and that had brought him to where he was now. It was the age-old struggle: duty or his heart. Antonello had chosen duty all those years ago, and now he had to live with it.
“There has to be a way for us to move forward,” he finally said once they had finished their salads, with silence hanging over them like a dark cloud. He couldn’t go back to his father and tell him that he needed someone else to be the liaison. It was his job. If he backed out, his father would want to know why, and he’d rather eat nails than have to explain. His parents knew he had friends back in college, but they were not aware of his relationship with Elaine or his complicated feelings about Chase, and all those questions were best avoided like the plague.
“Like doing our jobs and putting the rest aside?” Chase set his fork down on his plate, his expression relaxing just enough that some of the Chase he once knew seemed to move to the front.
“Yes. Regardless of how you might feel toward me, we both have work and obligations—mine to my family and yours to your employer—and there’s a lot at stake for both of us.” The success of this project meant a lot to the company and his father, and regardless of his mistakes in the past and the fact that his private life was pretty much nonexistent due to their expectations, he wanted to make his father happy and proud. On top of that, if Antonello didn’t step up and prepare himself to run the business, his cousin Lorenzo certainly would, and hundreds of years of struggle, excellence, and business acumen would never survive his self-centered leadership. Antonello assumed that Chase needed to please his supervisors at Smithson as well. So on some level, they had a common purpose. Maybe they could start there.
Chase seemed to consider this, his expression one Antonello remembered from their late-night study sessions, except this time it was him under scrutiny. Finally he sat back slightly and nodded. “You’re right. This needs to be a success so I can have a chance at a promotion, and I’m not going to spend five months of my life fighting with you over things that happened years ago and that neither of us can change. We need to get along at work and be professional. I know I can do that.” But his cold look told Antonello that was all the quarter he was going to get. When the server returned, Chase asked for a coffee and finally seemed to relax a bit.
“Good.” That was a step forward and one Antonello would have to learn to accept. He had often imagined meeting Chase again and had wondered how each of them would react, and in his wildest musings, he had never pictured a dinner like this.Instead, he’d always pictured them having the chance Antonello wished he’d allowed himself in college if he’d only had the courage to go after what he’d truly wanted. But reality was far crueler than Antonello had ever imagined, and it had been drilled into him his entire life that duty to the family came first. Antonello was still adding up its cost and was starting to think the price would be his soul.
Chapter 3
“YOU HAVEgot to be kidding me,” Chase’s mother said, still filled with indignation on his behalf, and probably her own too. Mom didn’t let things go easily, even at six in the morning her time. “They expect me to spend months without seeing my grandsonandmake you work with that man!” She still missed her only daughter on a daily basis and had never gotten over Antonello’s silence when she died. If she could get her hands on Antonello, she would probably change him from baritone to soprano with her bare hands. She had treated him like one of her own, and his leaving like he did had shocked her as well. “You should tell those people you work for that this is impossible and make them bring you and little Ricky home.” The news that he was going to be in Italy for five months had not gone over well in the least, so this still had her claws out and ready for action.
Chase rolled his eyes, glad she couldn’t see him do it. “You know I can’t do that. They asked me to do this, and I agreed. I’m not going back on my word.” Any more than he would back away from the promises he had made to his twin sister after Ricky was born. She had made him swear on a stack of Bibles and on his mother’s life that he would do as she asked and raise Ricky for her.
“Just like your father. His word was always his bond, no matter what.” As far as Chase knew, his father had never broken a promise. He hadn’t made them often, but when he did, they were important, and he moved heaven and earth to makewhatever it was happen. He’d died of a heart attack three years ago, leaving his mother alone and missing him every day.
Chase held the phone in one hand and straightened the bedding with the other, finding Ricky’s stuffed lamb in the covers. He set it aside as his mother told him about the latest happenings with the neighbors who had just moved in and the new fence they were putting up between them.
“Sheepy,” Ricky said as he looked up from where he sat at the table near the windows overlooking the Arno, coloring pictures in one of his dinosaur books. He slid down and hurried over, grabbed Sheepy McSheeperson, tucked him under his arm, and ran back to the table.
“Do you want to talk to Grammy?” Chase asked, and Ricky raced over, Sheepy forgotten in his haste.
“Ciao Bella,” he said energetically into the phone as he took it, and Chase turned away and covered his mouth. When Chase had returned last night after his strained dinner with Antonello, he had found the residence-type-hotel babysitter, Bianca, sitting on the floor with Ricky, apparently in the middle of a lesson in Italian. “I liked the plane. It was fun, and I sleeped too,” he said excitedly, barely stopping for breath. “There’s a river and even a bridge with stores on it, and Daddy showed me the Pity Palace.” Chase smiled at his son’s pronunciation of the Pitti Palace just across the Arno as he picked up Ricky’s pajamas and his slippers and placed them back into his suitcase, letting the two of them talk. “Okay.” Ricky ran over, handed Chase the phone, and ran back to the table. He never walked anywhere if he could help it.
“I take it he’s excited.” She was still chuckling.
“Yes, and he loved the babysitter from the hotel last night.” Chase intended to inquire if she would be willing to work with him privately once they were settled in the small apartment that the company had arranged for them on the outskirts of the old city.
“I kind of gathered that.” Her mirth died away, and her tone grew more serious. “About Antonello….”
“Mom,” Chase cautioned.
“I need you to hear me out. I know you were friends in college and that he and Elaine were close… and that he left both of you in the lurch. But I don’t want you to let those feelings hold you back. You have a job to do, and since you are determined to do this, then do it well, even if you have to work with him. But,” she added more loudly, “don’t let him play on those feelings to get what he wants. Work with him, but remember that this man isn’t your friend, and he wasn’t one to either of you in the end. He may be nice, but remember what you’re there for and what he did.” Sometimes his mother was so sharp it was frightening.
“That’s what I intend to do.” It was what he and Antonello had agreed to do, and Chase knew that was the right thing, even if he’d spent much of the dinner last night alternating between resentment and hurt. Plus, the fact that Antonello had grown into a man with stunning eyes and smoldering good looks made it damned hard for Chase to think. On top of that, every now and then he’d get a waft of scent off of him that magnetically drew Chase forward. More than once he’d had to stop himself from trying to get closer. “I’m not at all happy that I’m going to be working with him, but I’ll make this work.” That was his goal: do a great job and bring this part of the project in on time and without hiccups so he could get the promotion he deserved… maybe one where he didn’t have to work for Dewey. God, he’d work 24/7 for a year to make that happen.
“Guncle Daddy, I’m hungry,” Ricky said and giggled. Chase’s friend Barry had called him that once three years ago, and Ricky had picked up on it. Chase didn’t react. He kept hoping it would fade away if he ignored it, but fuck it all if the damned name hadn’t stuck around so far. “And you said we’d go to the Ponty thing.” He had Sheepy under his arm, standing nextto him with those huge eyes and pouty lips, untamable black hair going in all directions.
“Okay. We’ll go in a few minutes,” he promised. “Mom, I gotta go. I’m taking Ricky out to see a few things. I’ll call you in a day or two. Say bye to Grandma,” he told Ricky.
“Ciao, bella,” Ricky called, and Chase ended the call with his mother’s chuckles in his ears.
Chase tossed his phone on the bed and scooped Ricky into his arms, flying his laughing adopted son around the hotel room like an airplane. “You need to get your shoes on and put Sheepy to bed for the day so we can go out and find something to eat. Then we’ll look around.”
“But the Ponty,” Ricky said plaintively, like it was going to disappear any second. He was fascinated by the idea of a bridge with stores on it. Bianca must have pointed out the sights from their room, because he had talked about wanting to see it since before bedtime last night.
“We’ll walk over the Ponte Vecchio, and you can see all the shops.” Not that there was going to be much that interested Ricky, but that was fine. Curiosity was something to be nurtured and encouraged. “But first someone has to get ready.” He flew Ricky onto his feet and put on his own shoes and grabbed light jackets for both of them, and once Ricky was ready, they left the room with his son bouncing as they descended the stairs and left the hotel. Seeing Antonello again had really thrown him, and Chase hadn’t slept well, old angst playing out while he slept, but Ricky’s excitement and the light of day soothed all those old hurts away… at least for now.
The streets were packed with people, like waves flowing in either direction and past each other. For lunch, Chase headed away from the bridge, knowing the food got less expensive and better the quieter the streets got.
“Daddy, look,” Ricky said. The words had become commonplace as there were so many things to see at every turn. He pointed to the top of the cathedral dome, his mouth hanging open. “It’s huuuge. Can we go up there?”
