Perfect Match (Vice Club Nights #2)

21. Gio

Chapter twenty-one

Gio

Florence, Italy

T he days are long and, with no text messages from Tori to alleviate the stress, difficult. Ant and Lucia are based here now too, and the three of us are playing our part in the engagement farce, biding our time. Each week, there are a couple of social events for Lucia and me to attend, arranged mostly by my father’s assistant. And Ant is always there right by my side, being the dutiful brother in the eyes of the media.

I hate it all, but when there’s no reason left for me to rail against it, I just move through the motions. At least after my meltdown on the call with Ant the morning the engagement was announced, it cleared the air between us. Ant has been a lot calmer now that he finally believes I don’t want to marry Lucia.

Meanwhile, the auditors continue to work back in time through the company accounts, validating money in and money out, line by line, year upon year. It’s a painstakingly slow process, which is frustrating the hell out of me and delaying our original plans to modernize the business.

The last update was that there appears to have been money siphoned off each year for the last three from the Barbieri Foods side of the business, small amounts each month that wouldn’t be noticed, but over that period of time, is now nearing two hundred thousand in US dollars.

Did our great-uncle, the previous CEO, know? Or our father?

Those are the questions Ant and I want to find the answers to. But with the snail’s pace of the audit and the distraction of the arranged marriage, it could be months, maybe years, or worse—maybe never—before we do.

It’s late, and the offices have been empty for hours. I snap shut my laptop, then send a text to Ant. Earlier this evening, I told him I would stop by to talk to him privately. We make sure that any discussions of the audit and marriage agreement are kept out of the office.

At the window, I watch the café staff below packing away the tables and chairs, clearing the thoroughfare that buzzes with activity during the day. I do this most nights, preferring to work late in the office than in my hotel suite. There are too many memories of Tori haunting those rooms. Ant replies that he’s free, and shoving my laptop in my bag, I turn off the master light switch, plunging the offices and corridors into darkness, then leave.

With a sharp rap against Ant’s door, I listen for his heavy tread hitting the parquet-floored area near the door, but tonight, the sound is lighter and a tap, tap, tap instead of a thud. The door swings open to Lucia.

“Ciao, Gio.”

“Ciao, Lucia. I wasn’t expecting you to be in Florence tonight.” We share a friendly hug like we’ve always done before I follow her into the sitting room.

Lucia normally stays at her father’s villa in the country when she’s in Italy and will only come into the city if she needs to attend a function. But there’s nothing on our calendar until next week.

“I’m staying with Antonio this week because my father is driving me crazy with wanting to make wedding plans.” She brushes her long auburn waves back over her shoulders, her emerald-green eyes narrowing in annoyance.

Lucia is a beautiful woman and could easily have been an international model, but instead, she chose the path of fashion designer. And from what I’ve heard from Ant, she’s been very successful too.

“Would you like a glass of wine? Antonio is in the shower; he should be finished soon,” she adds in her strong Italian accent.

Two glasses of red wine sit half-drunk on the coffee table. The whole scene appears very domesticated, and I wonder exactly how fake their marriage is going to end up being.

“Thanks, and I’m glad you’re here because I’ve been hoping to get some time for the three of us to make some firmer plans.”

She leans over to place her hand on my arm. “Gio, I’m sorry for my father’s part in this mess. Antonio told me you are in love with another woman, and that this has caused trouble in that relationship. If there is anything I can do to help ...”

“Just marry my brother, and that will be more than enough,” I joke as she strolls into the kitchen to get another wine glass.

She laughs. “Consider it done. He’s doing me a big favor because my father will finally stop trying to match me up with what he refers to as suitable partners. This way, Antonio and I can continue with our independent lives as normal.” I’m constantly surprised by how okay she’s been about the idea of marrying my brother.

Ant strides into the sitting area, dressed casually in sweats and a T-shirt, with his hair still damp.

“Hey, bro.” His gaze goes straight to Lucia in the kitchen. “Do you need help, Luce?”

“No, it’s fine. Please sit with your brother.”

He returns to the single chair opposite mine and picks up his wine glass. Lucia joins us, passing me the glass, then placing some olives, bread, and cheese on the table before sitting on the sofa between us.

“Luce, tell Gio what you learned from your father about the marriage agreement.”

“Well, Papa said that about twenty years ago, your father came to him asking for a loan because the Barbieri family company was going through financial difficulties. My father agreed, and they signed a fairly standard loan for the money to be paid off with interest over a twenty-year period.”

“Do you know how much the loan was for?” I ask.

“No, sorry. He didn’t say. But the marriage agreement was his idea to ensure that if the money wasn’t repaid, he had a way to get retribution.” She takes a sip of her wine. “My father was being deliberately vague about the details, and as you can imagine, I wasn’t very happy to learn that he used me, his only daughter, as some type of loan guarantee.”

I shake my head, letting the news settle. The marriage agreement was a ticking time bomb that, at any point after we’d turned eighteen, could have been set off.

“Why now?”

“That, I don’t know, and neither does my father. It was your father who set the wheels in motion.”

Ant sits up straighter. “It’s a shame we won’t get to see our father’s face when he realizes that we’ve played him at his own game.”

Up until this point, I’ve been the peacekeeper between my father and brother, but for once, I’m in agreement with Ant. This is personal now, and the days of our father playing the puppet master are over when it comes to the company and our private lives.

“Speaking of the wedding. Have we got a date?” I ask, my gaze switching between them. The sooner, the better, in my opinion, and as we finish the bottle of wine, we discuss dates that we could all travel to Vegas.

***

Three Months Later

“I do,” Antonio replies to the marriage celebrant, and with that, it is done. Antonio and Lucia are married, and I’m free.

If it were up to me, I’d be leaving the Vegas wedding chapel this minute and heading to the airport to fly back to New York and Tori. But Antonio has booked us dinner back at the hotel in an effort to make Lucia’s wedding day something more than the fake marriage that it is. Leo even made them a cake, Lucia’s favorite—white chocolate mud.

Tomorrow, Leo and I will return to New York, Nico back to London, and Ant and Lucia will fly to Florence. Ant is going to get his wish to see our father’s face when they tell him that they are married. But I suspect telling Lucia’s father is not going to be as easy. It’s something they want to do together, along with keeping up a pretense that this was all for love.

A heavy sigh of relief releases from my lungs, and all eyes turn to me. Ant’s are narrowed in annoyance at the interruption. While Leo’s are quizzical, and Nico’s full of amusement. But it’s Lucia’s green eyes awash with tears that stop me in my tracks. I know her having to marry my brother was better than marrying me, but in the end, I expect a Vegas quickie ceremony is nothing like what she imagined her wedding day would be.

“Excuse me,” I mumble into my hand. And drop my gaze to trace the swirling design on the red-and-blue carpet at our feet. The sadness floating in Lucia’s eyes reminds me of Tori. Her glassy gaze cut through me with the precision of a newly sharpened knife when she thought I’d been lying to her.

These last three months have been the hardest of my life, knowing how badly I hurt Tori, my own heart damaged in the process. I wanted to tell her the truth, that Ant was going to be the one marrying Lucia, not me, but I couldn’t. Everything that happened today relied on each of us holding true to keeping the secret between the four of us and Lucia.

Now my only hope with Tori is that she understands and can forgive me.

***

With one quick swipe of my thumb on the screen, the number I haven’t called in three months connects. And just when I think the call is going to go to voicemail, she answers in her distinct Australian accent. “Hello?”

The question in her tone probably means she’d deleted my number from her contacts, and I’m just a random, unknown caller. That hurts, but at least she answered.

“Hi, Tori, it’s me. Please don’t hang up.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” she demands angrily, but at least she’s not disconnected.

“Because what I have to say is important. Antonio and Lucia married in Vegas today.”

A soft sound that I think was a gasp is followed by silence. “Are you still there?” I ask, even though it doesn’t look like she has hung up.

“Yes, I’m still here. So you didn’t marry Lucia after all.”

I don’t know how I expected Tori to react, but it certainly wasn’t with this calm acceptance.

“No. I was never planning on marrying her, but at the time, I wasn’t able to explain to you what was happening. I’d promised my brothers, and we couldn’t let my father know.”

“What, you think I was going to call up your father and tell him?” Her heavy sigh adds another crack to my heart. “Gio, it’s too late … the damage was done on the night you took me to the French Boudoir when you were engaged to another woman.” Tori’s voice is flat and monotone.

“But I wasn’t engaged then. I thought I was free. Earlier that night, we’d found a loophole in the original contract that never mentioned me by name. And Ant and Lucia had agreed to marry. It made more sense, as they’re already best friends.” My explanation tumbles out, and I hate that it sounds like a string of excuses.

“Look, that’s all very interesting knowing that you and Lucia were in a fake engagement, but why are you calling to tell me this?”

“Because I really am free now, and I want to see you.”

“No,” she yells down the line, and it’s loud enough for Leo across the aisle on the private jet to raise his head from the book he’s reading. His brow quirks, and I look away to stare unseeing out the window.

“Please just stop,” Tori continues in a more measured tone. “There is nothing to be gained from us meeting. We’re done. We were done three months ago, and we’re still done now.”

“But, Tori—”

“No … there are no buts. Nothing has changed for me. And now I have to go. Goodbye, Gio.”

The call disconnects, yet I continue to stare at the device in my hand, hardly able to believe that telling her about the wedding has made no difference to us.

“Are you okay?” Leo asks, still staring at me, the book now lying closed on the table in front of his seat.

“She doesn’t want to see me,” I admit, shaking my head in the hope that the jumble of thoughts will fall into place and make sense. I’d imagined that as soon as I told Tori that I wasn’t marrying Lucia, we could go back to the way we were before. But I couldn’t be more wrong. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.

“I need a drink. Do you want one?”

Leo nods, and with a snap of the seat belt, I jump up to find the stewardess to get us a bottle of whiskey and a couple of glasses.

***

It turns out that copious amounts of whiskey at fifty thousand feet was a bad idea. A really bad idea.

“I’m leaving,” Tori announces from the other end of the hallway in Ryan’s apartment. I lean against the nearby wall to steady myself. In my fucked-up, whiskey-addled brain, I thought if Tori saw how sorry I was that she’d talk to me. And that, somehow, when I’d explained better in person than I could sober on a call, she would agree to give me a second chance.

I’m a fucking idiot.

“Tori?” The plea that sounded right a second ago in my head dies on my lips.

“Not now, Gio. If you want to speak to me, you need to sober up first.”

Then she’s gone, and I’m left propped against the wall, with Tori’s sister staring at me like I’m a monster and Ryan trying to coax me back into the living room. I stagger to the sofa and drop into it. My head falling back against the cushions before I dig my fingers into my scalp in an effort to bring clarity to my thoughts.

When Ryan returns with a tall glass of water, I accept it gratefully and gulp it down like a man lost in the desert for thirty days.

“What was that all about?” he asks, taking the single chair nearby.

The muscles in my neck strain to lift my head to peer at him. “I fucked up, didn’t I?”

“Yep. But mate, we all have the capacity to do that. It’s how you fix the fuckup that matters.”

“You think there’s a chance that I can come back from this?”

“I don’t know,” he says, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “All I do know is that Tori was pretty upset when you dumped her. And she hasn’t dated since.”

“I didn’t dump her,” I argue, but my voice is weak and lacking conviction. I guess, in her eyes, I did.

“Do you want to stay in the guest room tonight?” he asks.

“Thanks, man. And I’m sorry for turning up on your doorstep like this.”

“That’s what friends do. But if you upset Tori again and, in turn, my girlfriend, then I might have to kick your ass. So please sort your shit out.”

I nod solemnly, knowing it’s not an entirely idle threat, as Ryan will do anything for Charli, including giving me the ass-kicking I deserve. I drag myself to standing, reaching out to grab the armrest when I sway on my feet. Then slowly trudge along the hallway to the spare bedroom.

A new plan to win back Tori starts tomorrow.