Champagne Deception (13 page)

“I have good intentions,” he explained, noting her surprise.

“Yes, I see that.  If you ever decide to cook, you’ll be all set.” She laughed.  “Now scoot!”

“What? Scooter?” He asked blankly.

The man really is adorable
, she thought. 
He speaks English like an Oxford graduate, but there are certain colloquialisms that still confound him
.  “Scoot means get out of here!” She exclaimed humorously.  “I need space and solitude to cook dinner for us.”

“Oh, okay! No complaints here!  Work your magic,
carissima
,” he said, patting her on the rear before heading out of the kitchen.

“Well, I can already see you’ll enjoy my cooking.
  You like my big rump roast.” She giggled.

“I love your rump roast!” He called from the living room where he settled in with a newspaper.

Coretta’s idea was to prepare an authentic Greek dinner for him like the ones her mother had raised her on.  His refrigerator was missing two of the most important ingredients in Greek cuisine: pita bread and feta cheese.  But there were enough vine-ripened tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives to toss a huge Greek salad.  Lorenzo’s freezer contained some good cuts of beef, which she would skewer with onions to make shish kabob.  For dessert, she wouldn’t be able to make the delicate pastry baklava, but she could easily whip up two bowls of fresh rice pudding.

An hour later, Lorenzo popped his head into the kitchen, beckoned by the appetizing smell of shish kabob grilling.  “Your dinner smells delicious, Coretta.  If it’s almost ready, I can pour us some champagne.”

“Yes, dinner is ready.  But wouldn’t you prefer red wine?”

“I do enjoy my
vino rosso
, but tonight is a celebration.  Let’s have champagne.”

“What are we celebrating?” She asked,
mixing a light vinaigrette into the salad.

“Being together.  Do we need a better reason to celebrate?” He challenged, already retrieving two champagne flutes from the cupboard.

“No, not at all,” she said softly, setting a pair of plates on the dining room table.

Lorenzo frowned, pulling a chilled bottle out of the refrigerator.  “I don’t have any champagne.  Only Italian sparkling wine.”

“Is there a difference?”

“
Yes, genuine champagne only comes from a specific region of France.  Anything else should only be called sparkling wine,” he explained, frowning at the bottle as though it contained cheap fruit punch.

Coretta gazed at him with intense admiration.  Jonathan didn’t possess even one iota of such cultured knowledge.  All he knew were factoids about the
differences between Irish and German beers, and lagers, whatever the hell they were.  Coretta had always drowned him out when he launched into a boring lecture about his favorite bloating beverage.  A sour look played over her features as she got a flashback of his overhanging beer ‘n’ pretzels gut.

“What’s wrong?” Lorenzo queried, noticing the tart expression on her face.

“Nothing! I’m fine,” she said hastily, smiling for his benefit.  “I would love a glass of the sparkling wine.”

“We’ll be sure to get a case of champagne for the opening reception,” he said.

It was 10 pm when they finally sat down to dinner.  Coretta didn’t want to talk about the harassing incidents anymore, but she did want to talk about the gallery.  Swallowing a bite of salad, she said, “While you were away, I started to put some of my paintings in the gallery.  About two dozen are there already.”

“How did you get them there?” He asked quizzically.

“By taxi.  And my father is sending more of my paintings from New York.”

Lorenzo smiled broadly.  “So you really are going to stay in Milan and do this with me?”

“Yes, isn’t that what we’ve been planning since I arrived?” She asked, mildly amused.

“I
just thought you might get homesick and want to go back to New York.”

Homesick.  No.  How could she explain that home had been
making
her sick?  Lorenzo was still in the dark regarding how recent her split from Jonathan was, but this romantic dinner was not the forum to tell him about it.  Too many intrusions had already wormed their way into her romance with Lorenzo.  But she would have to tell him soon.  Just not tonight.

“I love Milan,” she countered.  “I always did.  I remember the day I landed at the airport when I was just 22.  Somehow, I felt like I was home.  That’s how I feel here with you too…” she trailed off, not wanting to overwhelm him with any emotional declaration.

“I feel at home with you too,” he said huskily.  Taking an enthusiastic bite of grilled beef, he added, “And your cooking is incredible!”

Better than Big Mamma’s
cooking
? She wanted to ask but didn’t dare.  “Thank you,” she said modestly.

“So tell me what else you’ve been doing for the gallery?  Did you think of a name yet?”

“No, I’m still brainstorming ideas.  Nothing has clicked yet.  Are you sure you don’t want to name the gallery yourself?”

He waved a hand dismissively.  “Completely sure.  That’s your job.” He winked, and she smiled in relief.  The name would come to her soon, most likely the way ideas for her paintings came to her: out of the blue, in a mad rush of creat
ivity, sometimes in the middle of the night when her mind percolated with ideas against her will.

“Let’s set the reception for the first weekend in May.  The weather should cooperate with us, and it will be early enough in the season that most people won’t be on vacation yet,” Lorenzo reasoned.

Coretta nodded, knowing that most European cities became virtual ghost towns in August when the locals took their annual vacations.  “May sounds great.  We still have a few weeks to get everything set up.”

“First thing tomorrow morning, let’s go to the gallery and put your paintings in the display windows out front.  It would be great for you to have a group of followers before the reception even takes place.”

“So you mean people passing by will see my paintings in the window, be intrigued, and come to the reception to bid on them?” She asked.

“
Exactly.  We won’t put any of your paintings up for sale until the actual reception.  That way, people will get a taste of your art, and by the time we have the reception, they’ll be fighting over who gets first dibs on your work.”

Coretta smiled in amusement.  Lorenzo’s plan sounded idealistic and naïve.
  How could she develop a following of fans in just a few weeks?  No one in Milan even knew her name let alone her paintings.  She parted her lips to disagree with Lorenzo when a flashback of Jonathan’s naysaying hit her.  She didn’t want to be
that
person who automatically shoots down someone’s ideas.  She despised
that
person and left him behind in New York.

Raising her glass to his, she said brightly, “I hope you’re right, Lorenzo.  Here’s to a following for my paintings and an opening reception filled with success.”

As the lovers sipped the night into oblivion, the rumpled bag of black wood chips lay forgotten on the coffee table.

Chapter Twelve

Declan Wainwright paced outside the still unnamed gallery that Lorenzo Fiatti had
defiantly purchased.  He had spied that American beauty of Fiatti’s moving paintings in and out of the gallery over the past week.  Clearly, the scooter-riding dope hadn’t heeded his warnings.  Declan had blatantly forewarned Fiatti not to open a gallery in such close proximity to his own.  But Fiatti insolently disobeyed his orders.  And now there would be hell to pay.

No one had answered the door at the Fiatti residence yesterday, and Declan knew he was being ignored.  Who was Lorenzo Fiatti to think that he could own the entire art scene in northern Italy?  Declan Wainwright had moved from England to pursue dreams of his own, and he wouldn’t let some Vespa-
driving playboy crush those dreams.

“Speak of the devil,” Declan grinned as the cherry red motor scooter careened into the gallery’s parking lot.

Lorenzo immediately spotted Declan on the property and screeched the bike to a quick halt.  To Coretta on the back seat, he whispered, “Please go inside.  I have to take care of Declan.”

Discreetly, Coretta slid off the bike and scurried into the gallery.  Lorenzo strutted over to his adversary and stood eye to eye with him.  Coolly, he said, “You’re trespassing on my property.”

“Nonsense!  This is an art gallery open to the public,” Declan seethed.

“Not yet it isn’t.  We haven’t officially opened for business yet.  And we won’t be opening until---“ He cut himself off in mid-breath, not wanting to reveal any detail that Declan could use to his advantage.

“Until when?” Declan asked breezily.  “Oh, but it doesn’t matter.  I’ll find out whether you tell me or not.  And be advised that on the night of your opening reception, my gallery will be hosting an even more spectacular party.  I will upstage you at every turn, be certain of it.  If you serve wine and cheese, I’ll serve champagne and caviar.  All the art patrons will flock to my already established gallery, and your event will be most pathetic indeed.”

Lorenzo fiercely desired to lunge at the arrogant Englishman and fight it out street-style.  Struggling to resist the temptation, he said tightly, “I don’t understand the hostility, Wainwright.  I’m not opening this gallery to try to destroy your business.  The competition is all in your head.”

Declan exploded, “You know that’s a load of bull!  With your money, you could open up a gallery on the most expensive land lot in Milan.  But, you stubborn ass, you decided on opening it a 5-minute walk from my gallery!  You really are a piece of work.  You ride around on that ridiculous motor scooter when you could afford to be driving a bloody Lamborghini!” He was foaming at the mouth as Lorenzo regarded him with cold disdain.

“You are a delusional man, Wainwright.  I’m going inside to meet my business partner now.  We have a lot of work to do.”

As Lorenzo turned to go inside, Declan baited, “Business partner?!  Is that your code name for piece of ass?  If you’re a piece of work, she’s a piece of ass and a very fine one at that---“

Unable to control his temper, Lorenzo grabbed Declan by his shirt and pushed him onto the grass.  Let the man say w
hat he would about the gallery, but he couldn’t talk about Coretta like that.  Stunned for a moment, Declan quickly recovered and leapt to his feet, launching a punch at Lorenzo square in the nose and missing by a centimeter.  Incensed, Lorenzo tackled him to the grass again as the men shouted and grunted while wrestling with each other.

Hearing the commotion, Coretta rushed outside and gasped to see the men
brawling like a couple of drunkards outside a seedy bar.  “Stop it!  Lorenzo, stop!  What’s going on?”

Both men ignored her as they struggled
even more ferociously on the muddy grass.  Refusing to be a passive witness to the brawl, Coretta ran up to the men and pounded Lorenzo on the back.

“Get up!  Both of you!  This is absurd!” She shouted, feeling like a teacher scolding two little boys in the schoolyard.  “Lorenzo, now!  I mean it or I’m calling the police!”

Effectively sobered, the men silently engaged in a truce, climbing off of one another and standing up in their soiled clothes.  They still faced off threateningly, but neither laid a hand on the other as Coretta shook her head in disgust.

“What just happened here?” She demanded.

“Just a display of the stereotypical hot Italian temper,” Declan clipped as Lorenzo lunged forward again to attack.

Forcefully, Coretta pulled him back and admonished, “Don’t let him antagonize you.  Just walk away from it.  We have too much at stake to waste our time on him.”

Smugly, Declan stood there, daring Lorenzo with his ice blue eyes to come closer.  With Coretta at his side, Lorenzo found the strength to walk away, going into the gallery with her and slamming the doors behind them.  As Declan stood outside wearing his muddy smirk, he heard a lock bolted against the doors.

*****

Still agitated from the fight, Lorenzo could not stand still inside the gallery.  He gesticulated his arms wildly as he gave Coretta a censored version of what had precipitated the scuffle.  “I know I shouldn’t have let him get under my skin like that.  But he said---he said some very offensive things.” He refused to repeat the insult to Coretta.  If protecting her from the offensive remark meant she would chastise him for being hot-headed, then so be it.

“What did he say that would push your buttons enough to wrestle him to the ground?” She asked the inevitable question.

“Never mind.  Let’s just get on with the day, please.  We have so much to do,” he grumbled as lines of tension ran across his forehead.

Ignoring his directive, she persisted, “Just promise me you won’t do anything crazy like that again.  You never know who’s on the other side of your temper.  He could have had a weapon on him.  You never know.”

“Okay, you’re right,” he said quickly.  “Most of the time I can keep my temper under control, but he pushed my buttons.”