Billionaire on Board (22 page)

"You know,  why don't you speak Italian with them today? I'd like to show off with you."

I wrinkled my nose (I did it a lot, I had recently discovered, not only in the tortoise pose). "No, I don't want to, I don't know,  it feels pretentious when I do it."

"But you speak like a native!"

"Yes, I do, but still, I don't want to. You talk, I smile."

"Fine. I won't reveal your secret then."

"Do I look alright?" I was wearing a simple black cotton dress but I had combined it with large neon pink plastic earrings and a matching ring. It was the ring Ryan had nicked from my bathroom to buy the engagement ring at Cartier's. 

Ryan looked startlingly handsome, as usual, in slim chinos, white shirt and sailing shoes.

"You don't look like Smurfette."

"Can I wear this?"

"In my opinion you should be forbidden to wear clothes altogether, but if you must wear something you can wear this very nicely."

"I can go naked. Paolo di Tullio won't mind, I'm sure."

He playfully slapped my behind. "Be quiet and bring up the car."

"Yes, Master."

The road was wide enough and we arrived at the villa after a ten minute drive. Black iron gates opened to us and we rolled up to the house on a driveway made of white pebbles. The villa was as stunning from close range as it had been from the sea. 

Paolo di Tullio was a slim man of forty-seven or forty-eight. His hair was grizzled and cut very short and he wore a well trimmed beard. He was dressed fabulously in light blue trousers combined with a brown belt, brown loafers and a white linen shirt. He was an Italian fashion manufacturer. What should one expect if not perfection?

He sprang down the stairs towards us on light feet, smiling and holding out his arms.

"A beautiful woman driving a beautiful car! Ryan, you must be the happiest man in the world!" He had a strong accent but his vocabulary was flawless. "Welcome, welcome! Come inside, Federica has set the table on the veranda, she cannot wait to see you!"

He led us through the house. It could be described in one word as anti-Ikea. Antiques and designer pieces were combined to create an art nouveau paradise. 

"Will you sell me your house, Paolo? I think Jude is falling in love with it."

"Never! Never! You can have everything from me but never the house! But Jude, you can feel free to move in, of course. A man can never have too many beautiful women, no?"

"I'm afraid I still need her. Somebody has to drive me home."

"We call a taxi! Like this, I keep the girlfriend and the Bugatti."

"That'll depend on the quality of your wine."

Paolo held a door open to me. It led to a winter garden of perverse dimensions. At the end of it, framed by small palm trees, accessible through french windows, lay the veranda and behind it the garden and the Mediterranean. 

"This is where Federica paints…" Paolo explained and pointed at an easel. The floor around it was covered in drops of different colours. "And here she is!"

A blonde woman, maybe a few years older than myself, probably thirty or thirty-one, waved at us from the table. She was wearing a creme coloured one piece with long trousers and a deep, tanned cleavage. Her jewels were antique, of gold and amber and porcelain. She was tall and slim and her hair fell in large waves over her shoulders. She looked very Harper's Bazaar. Thankfully I had taken great care with my own hair. The sun and the sea water had bleached it until it was almost white and I had slightly curled it to make it frame my face (in the absence of hair rollers I had used my remaining tampons) and pinned it up in a Greek goddess bun. Also, I was a natural blonde, contrary to Federica, who would never achieve a colour such as mine, no matter how much she paid her hairdresser. 

Federica had the most arresting eyes. A dark blue. She was one of those women who always looked as if they were somehow apprehensive. Men would instinctively want to protect her.

"Hi, how nice you are here!" Her English was less competent than her husband's. She looked me over and I saw a flicker of depreciation. Sorry, my dress was only H&M!

Paolo bade us sit and instantly poured champagne.

"Just a small glass." I smiled brightly up and him. "I don't want to drive the Bugatti into the sea."

"Ahahaha! No! It would be bad! A car for two million euros in the water! But I think here in Portofino it would not be the first! Ahahahah!"

"Ahahaha."

"I will go into the kitchen for the antipasto," Paolo went on. "I hope you don't mind, I have cooked everything myself! It is my great passion. Federica hates it when I dirty the kitchen, but she is always happy after she has eaten my food."

Federica smiled and nodded but I was not sure whether she had completely understood. She was looking at Ryan, well, not really at him physically, rather at his clothes and his watch, then back to me.

Paolo returned with a tea-cart laden with artichoke hearts in olive oil, crabs fried in garlic, oysters on ice, sardines in a light lemon sauce, vittello tonnato, grilled eggplant and large tomatoes filled with anchovy paste and buffalo mozzarella. With it he served a white wine from the Veneto and self-baked bread. I only tried a sip of wine from Ryan's glass. It was excellent and I regretted we had not asked Dan to drive us up. The food was superb. I have lived in Italy long enough to tell good from outstanding. 

The first course was the obligatory pasta. Most people think pasta was an entire meal, but it is only the primo piatto, the 'first plate' to be followed by the second, il secondo, either fish or meat.

Paolo had prepared homemade linguine with swordfish. It was a poem. 

"You have cruised?" Federica asked Ryan. 

"Yes, we've been to quite a few places already."

"What do you like the best?"

"I like it best right here in your garden," I said but she was not interested in my opinion.

"I liked it best in Saint-Tropez." Ryan winked at me.

"Why?" She asked. 

"I had a delightful surprise waiting for me after I got back from a fruitless business trip to Marseille."

"Ah!" She laughed vacantly. Once again I was sure she had only grasped half of what Ryan had said. Everybody else would have been curious after such a statement.

Paolo was up to par. "What was it?" 

"A t-shirt."

I gently kicked Ryan under the table.

"Ahahaha! — Tell me, where will you go after Portofino?"

"We're going to spend the night here then we go on to Monte Carlo."

"The casino! Will you gamble away his fortune, Jude?"

"I think she will, she doesn't like it much."

"His fortune calls him in the middle of the night from Tokyo," I added. "Why should I like it?"

Secretly, I could not wait to go to the casino. I had never been to a casino before and to start in Monaco was too good to be true. I had already made a plan. I would risk two-hundred euros and I would try every game once. From then on I would gamble only with winnings. 

I imagined myself looking sophisticated and aloof. Sheiks, drug dealers and James Bond would be contesting for my favour, one of them would tear the diamond necklace off his girlfriend and toss it onto the roulette table, because I had drained all his money from him…

"I always give ten-thousand euros to Federica to play Roulette, she always comes back after five minutes and she has lost it all. Then I give her another ten-thousand and again, she loses it. After that I give her fifty-thousand and I tell her she must economise, calculate. She does not come back at all, she walks to Bulgari and buys a necklace. Ahahaha. But to you it's peanuts, no?"

"Ahahaha," I said.

Federica pursed her lips charmingly and continued to give me those mean looks. I really started to hate the uneducated bitch. An exotic dancer, that was what she was. I shifted in my chair.

The second course were saltimbocca with Kobe beef and sage butter. Why the beef would have to be imported from Japan when there was perfectly good beef to be had in Italy was beyond me, but Paolo wanted to show off to Ryan and so Kobe beef it was. I can't complain, it was outrageously good.

So was the Barolo. 

My formerly imaginary boyfriend was completely satisfied. I knew the look well by now — as you can readily imagine after having made it this far through the story.

Dessert was an assortment of delicacies, including panna cotta, tiramisu and apricot sorbet. The final touch was the coffee. Rich, tasty espresso and when Paolo held out a Cuban cigar to my boy, I thought he was going to kiss the man.

"Dash it! I almost forgot! I brought you something from London!" Ryan got up. "It's in the car. I'll only say: Tate Modern."

"Ah!" Paolo nearly broke into tears. "You did not have to! Oh my God!"

Ryan strode off calling "I'll have to unpack it first. I'll be back!"

"Are you alright? Anything we can do for you?" Paolo asked me.

Federica got up and collected the dessert plates. "
Guarda, che comincio a chiarire la tavola. Spero che se ne vadano tra poco, non voglio lasciar sfuggire il mio corso di Pilates
. - Look, I will clear up the table, I hope they're going to leave soon so I won't miss my Pilates class."

Paolo frowned. "
Federica, ti prego, è un giorno importante per me
- Federica, please it is an important day for me."

I looked out across the sea and my opinion of the elegant Federica spiralled down and down. But what did I care, if the man wanted a beautiful idiot in his bed, who could blame him?

Paolo got up as well and helped his wife. They were both standing by the tea-cart when she muttered "
Hai visto gli orrecchini, ma non hanno costato più di dieci euro. Dove l'ha trovata, alla fermata del bus?
- Did you see the earrings? They won't have cost more than ten euros. Where did he find her, at the bus stop?"

Enough was enough. When I am piqued there is no stopping me.

I raised my chin. "
No, no, ci siamo conosciuti dodici anni fa, ero a scuola con sua sorella
. - No, no, we met twelve years ago, I went to school with his sister."

They both stared at me, speechless. I smiled.

Paolo folded his hands in front of his chest. "
Madonna mia, scusa mia moglie, scusami, ha fatto uno scherzo
- Holy mother of Christ, excuse my wife, excuse me, she has made a joke."

"
Si, è molto simpatica
- Yes, she's very nice."

Federica did not say a thing. She was pale as a sheet.

"
Vieni
- Come with me," Paolo hissed to her and she stiffly followed him into the house. Paolo closed the door to the winter garden but in his agitation he did not do it properly and it slowly opened again.

He was screaming at her, telling her she was the most stupid woman on this planet and that her mouth was only good for sucking a donkey's cock if anything and that she was a cheap little whore who thought she could do whatever she wanted only because he liked to fuck her.

Then he struck her. I jumped in my chair at the sound of the slap and her cry. He must have hit her hard because there was another sound, as if she had stumbled against a shelf. He told her to take herself upstairs and if she had ruined his business deal today, if Ryan would not invest in his company, he would hit her black and blue and throw her out of the house.

My fingers had gripped the chair. I felt sick to the bone, as if somebody had struck me too. I was paralysed! 

What had I done? Why had I let myself be provoked by the poor woman? What did it matter to me what she thought about me? Not in my wildest dreams would I have thought of such an outcome. I felt sorry for her and ashamed of myself. 

I wanted to run in and tell him I would call the police but I wondered if I would not make it worse and anyway, I was so shocked, I hardly dared to breathe. 

Ryan came back. He had taken a path around the house. He was carrying a small, sleek statue of a cat. "Where is everybody?" 

"Inside," I muttered.

Paolo stepped out onto the veranda at the same time. I did not think he even noticed the door had stood open.

Ryan held out the cat to him. "I know you like the things."

"Thank you, oh, thank you so much! Great! You must apologise my wife, she is feeling sick, she has gone upstairs to lie down."

"I'm sorry. I hope your fish wasn't poisonous. We didn't have blowfish, did we?"

We had other blows, I wanted to say, but all I could think about was Paolo telling his wife how he would beat her black and blue if the deal with Ryan would fail because of her. If I made a scene now, who knew what he would do? She was a grown woman after all, she might make the right decision and leave the wife beater. It was not my place to give the avenging angel. I just did not want to stay in this man's house for another minute.

I tried a smile. "Oh dear, maybe we should better go, so you can take care of her… don't you agree, darling?"

"Oh, well…" Ryan looked at me bedazzled.

"Maybe it would be best," Paolo furtively glanced at me.

Ryan was disappointed. "Okay, sorry again. Then I believe we better go, Paolo, but thank you for an excellent lunch, really, I hope to see you some other time. Say good-bye to your wife from us."

"I will."

He accompanied us to the car. "Ryan, we will talk about the launch soon, okay? I can come to your yacht maybe tonight?"

"I think we have another appointment, don't we?" I pressed Ryan's hand. 

"Do we? Oh yes, right, of course."

"Then we can speak on the telephone? Tomorrow."

"Sure, no problem. We'll be at sea most of the day."

"Alright, Ciao."

"Ciao…" 

"What happened? Why didn't you want him to come tonight? Has he hit on you for real?"

I shook my head. "No, I… I just want to be alone with you tonight. I don't want to waste the one night we have in my favourite place with him."

"I can't say I mind. But you're not looking good either, Buttercup. Maybe the fish really was off. Do you feel sick?"