When she finally whisked back through the now-immaculate breakfast room to Reception, it was bang on eleven. She found Rosalie chatting easily to Yara about Switzerland while Erin was glued to her phone screen, in what seemed a habitual connection. ‘I’m here,’ Jade said unnecessarily, before showing them once again through the apartment door markedPrivato, along the tiny passage and into the kitchen.
Erin took her laptop from her bag. ‘I thought I’d make notes.’
‘Very efficient.’ Rosalie gave a roguish smile that made Jade remember Gran saying Joey could be charming. Maybe he’d passed that on to Rosalie because Jade was sure if she’d made the same remark, it would have sounded snarky.
She reached into a drawer for a pen and pad to make notes of her own. ‘Now,’ she began, before anyone else could take charge of the meeting. ‘There’s no etiquette book for our situation.’ Sheadded a smile. ‘So, we must decide what to do once the property taxes are paid ready for you to formally inherit. Probably Mary has to put everything through the general registry office –ufficio del registro.’ She took a breath and kept her voice even as she launched into Plan A. ‘When the paperwork’s in order, I’d like to buy you out. Converting your inheritance to liquid funds makes more sense for you both than owning a third of a business you know nothing about in a country you can’t live in. Of course, we’ll get several valuations to be fair and businesslike.’ When they only stared at her, one pair of eyes whisky brown and the other honey, she added, ‘I hope you won’t want to outvote me and sell to someone else while I’m raising the finance, but I acknowledge that possibility.’ She’d come up with that phrase while rehearsing her pitch last night. Acknowledging possibilities reassured people that you were prepared to negotiate.
‘But I don’t want to sell to you. Or anyone,’ Erin said calmly, as if she were merely casting a vote for a different brand of coffee in the workplace. ‘You said yourself that the pensione is about more than money.’
Rosalie’s gaze was sympathetic, yet she was no more co-operative. ‘I don’t want to sell either, I’m afraid. Mairead was my grandmother too. I didn’t have the chance to know and love her, but I love the idea of inheriting something that’s part of her. Dad waived his right to inherit and we’ll all own a greater portion of Three Sisters because he did.’
Though Jade’s heart grew heavier with every word, she hung on to her smile. ‘I understand, Rosalie. It would be more expensive if I had to buy him out as well.’ She could be generous in acknowledging this, as it was moot, but she realised with a flutter of panic that Plan A had been so summarily dismissed that Plan B might have little chance of success. Still, she lickedher lips and tried again. ‘How about if I could offer you above market value?’
Erin and Rosalie were already shaking their heads, looking awkward but determined.
‘We could have suggested getting a chain interested, if inflating the price was important,’ Erin pointed out gently.
Rosalie nodded. ‘We just don’t want to sell.’
Hot tears bloomed at the back of Jade’s eyes and disappointment crushed her ribcage. Why couldn’t they have greeted her ideas as the precursor to lots of dosh to enjoy their lives with? She blinked several times. ‘In that case,’ she said unsteadily, bringing out Plan C with a sense of inevitability. ‘I suppose that I continue to manage and take my salary, and we share profits equally.’
Without probing further or suggesting Jade’s share be adjusted because she lived in the apartment rent-free, Erin nodded straight away. ‘As I mentioned last night.’
Rosalie agreed. ‘It’s fair.’
Numb with disappointment, Jade tried to process the magnitude of her plans turning to dust.
A knock fell on the apartment door, then Vittoria popped her head into the kitchen. ‘Scusa, Jade. The laundry’s on the phone about Monday’s pick up.’
She’d spoken in Italian, but ‘telefono’ was easy to translate, and Erin and Rosalie both rose. Rosalie turned back and gave Jade a hard hug. ‘See you later?’
Jade could only nod.
After she’d taken the telephone call in the front office, she stared sightlessly through the window at an orange bus rumbling along the street and remembered Rosalie’s hug, feeling the slender arms around her again. Warm. Friendly.
Gran would have approved of that hug. She would have returned it with interest and probably tried to swing Rosalie off her feet, giggling if they both nearly toppled over.
She sighed. ‘OK, Gran,’ she said aloud. ‘I can’t pretend Rosalie and Erin aren’t going to be in my life. They’re here. Happy now?’
Chapter Eight
The sun peeped through the trees into the lush depths of Villa Panorama’s peaceful garden. On the shady terrace of Villetta Nascosta, Leo was spending his Saturday afternoon happily scraping building detritus from the stones. The air was threaded with birdsong and little interrupted his thoughts but the drone of insects around the pink oleander – until his phone vibrated.
He frowned to seeTeddyon the screen. ‘Yes?’ he answered discouragingly.
‘Were you thinking of coming back to help Isabella over this trouble with car thefts? It’s all over the local press and Facebook, of course, and the various insurance companies keep demanding information and ignoring the existence of thePark at your own risksigns.’ Teddy sounded as if he thought Leo was spending an afternoon off in the Norfolk countryside rather than licking his wounds in Italy.
Leo tensed as if someone was pulling all the sinews in his body at once. His frustrations and bafflement burst out in a hail of verbal bullets. ‘You screwed up my relationship and shoved me out of the business, and now you expect me to support Isabella?’
Teddy made a protesting noise. ‘I didn’t say that. I thought she might have suggested it, as I’ll be returning to South Africa this time next week. And if your relationship had been any good, Icouldn’t have affected it. Isabella would have sided with you and put me in my place,’ he added.
Processing this inconvenient truth, Leo felt some of the tautness fade. ‘I’m not involved in Isabella’s problems.’ Wearily, he dropped to his backside to the dusty ground beside the terrace and rested his back on a post.
Teddy bulldozed on. ‘Did the police call you? I thought they might demand your return.’
Leo watched a palm frond dancing with the sunlight. ‘I’m not a diamond smuggler wanted for a billion-pound heist. When the nice police officer called me, the only interest she had in my location was where I’d been on the night those cars disappeared.’ Smacking at an insect threatening to crawl up the leg of his shorts, he went on the offensive. ‘Why are you returning to South Africa?’
Another snort. ‘I don’t see how that’s any of your business.’
