Aged for Seduction Read online

  “Inside!” Olivia encouraged her.

  This luxurious lodging was Erba’s new shelter. Olivia opened the door and Erba leaped onto the stack of straw while Olivia portioned out her dinner.

  She’d had to ration Erba’s grass, discovering that a too-rich diet had turned her goat into a head-butting whirlwind of excess energy. Now that she was on reduced alfalfa and grass hay, Erba was a delight to interact with again. Pretty, sociable, and full of character.

  You couldn’t ask for a better goat, Olivia thought, and she wasn’t going to. One was quite enough!

  She put the door on the hook so that Erba could go in and out. Then she followed the paved path that led to the kitchen courtyard and walked around the house to the front door again.

  Olivia was adding to the length of stone paving every week, laying the cobbles and doing it herself. One day, her vision was to have a narrow stretch of cobbled pathway winding from the vine plantation, to the barn, to the house, perhaps even to the gate. That way, she could walk through her farm’s stony terrain barefoot. Right now that seemed a crazy idea, but in summertime, she couldn’t imagine anything more glorious than treading over cool, smooth cobbles in the summer heat.

  From the other side of the front door, Olivia heard an impatient meow.

  Her cat, Pirate, was eager for attention.

  “Hello, little one!” After hurrying inside and closing the door against the cold, Olivia picked up the black-and-white cat, giving him a squish and rub against her chest as he purred loudly. Pirate was taming fast and, she had to admit, was becoming rather chunky. She couldn’t believe that a few months ago, he had been totally feral, roaming wild around the farm and in urgent need of a few square meals.

  Olivia mimed the actions of stashing him in a carrier.

  Hmmm.

  Although a visit to the vet was becoming a priority, Olivia still didn’t think she was quite ready to stow Pirate in a carrier. Best case, she would end up permanently alienating the semi-tame feline. Worst case, she would end up losing a lot of blood and then permanently alienating aforesaid feline.

  Olivia sighed. Cats weren’t easy. She hadn’t realized they were such complex creatures. Between Pirate and Erba, she felt her work was cut out for her.

  As Olivia placed Pirate gently on the rug, her phone rang.

  She was delighted to see her best friend, Charlotte, was calling, from back in the States.

  “Hey, Charlotte!” Grinning with happiness, Olivia answered the call.

  “It’s so good to hear your voice, Olivia! Whenever I dial your number I start wishing I was in Tuscany again, on vacation with you. It seems so unfair that I had to go back and you got to stay,” her friend joked.

  Olivia imagined Charlotte at her tidy home office desk, with her new cat snoozing in the in-tray, and most probably, chilly morning rain spattering her clean, double-glazed window.

  “How’s Bagheera?” she asked. “Is he settling in well?”

  “It’s like he’s always been here. It was such a good decision to adopt an adult cat,” Charlotte enthused.

  Locking the front door, Olivia walked through the hallway, which now showcased colorful local artwork on the walls. There was a watercolor of a balcony with red geraniums in the window box, a landscape with verdant hills in every shade of green below a bright summer sky, and her favorite—a still life of a decorative fruit bowl. She loved the intensity of the oranges, the soft pink of the peaches contrasting with the green figs, and the deep purple of the juicy-looking grapes.

  “I can hear a jingle,” Charlotte said. “Let me guess. You’ve just gotten into your house, and put your keys down on the table.”

  Olivia laughed. “You’re telepathically brilliant,” she said. “I’m lucky that Danilo gave me this beautiful hall table as a belated housewarming gift.”

  Olivia couldn’t look at the exquisitely crafted table without thinking of Danilo—his warm, genuine smile, his toned, muscular build, his kindness and humor and handsome features and, of course, his hairstyles, the constantly changing, edgy looks crafted by his hairdressing apprentice niece.

  Olivia smiled fondly down at it and caressed the smooth, polished wood with her palm.

  “Now, I’m going into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of wine. It’s been a long, long day, and boy do I need it. And I’m going to top up Pirate’s food bowl. He’s taken to clawing my ankles if I’m late refilling it.”

  Olivia poured herself a glass of sangiovese red and then drew the green plaid curtains, shutting out the spattering rain and making the warm kitchen feel even cozier.

  “Why are you in such need of it?” Charlotte asked curiously. “It sounds like you might have a crisis there, or am I wrong?”

  “We’re hosting a wedding,” Olivia shared. She poured kibble into Pirate’s bowl before sitting down at the kitchen table. “Not just any wedding, though! A massive wedding with more than a hundred guests. It’s the first time La Leggenda has done anything like this.”

  Charlotte gasped. “Oh, how romantic! It will be amazing for you to experience such a traditional event. Imagine being part of a real, live, Italian family wedding!”

  Olivia sighed. If only.

  “Actually, that’s not going to happen. The party is from New Jersey.”

  “New Jersey? And they’re coming to Tuscany?” Charlotte asked, sounding incredulous.

  “There must be a family connection, I suppose. They’re wealthy and demanding, and I’m dreading the entire affair. They’ve asked for the walls to be draped in pink chiffon, Charlotte. Pink. Chiffon. On the walls!”

  There was a thoughtful pause.

  Olivia took a big gulp of wine.

  “It might still be fine,” Charlotte volunteered, her voice ringing with fake enthusiasm. “After all, they’ll probably be so blown away by the exotic setting that it will run without a hitch.”

  “I don’t think so!” Olivia told her friend darkly. “It’s going to be hellish.”

  “Well, I think you need to acknowledge that you’re prejudiced against weddings. You’ve never liked them,” Charlotte admonished her.

  Olivia got to her feet. It was time to start preparing dinner.

  “Me? Why?”

  She opened the fridge, looking to see if dinner had perhaps made itself while she’d been at work. Nope, no such luck. She removed a packet of Parma ham, parmesan cheese, and a jar of artichoke hearts, noticing that, apart from these ingredients, the fridge was nearly empty. She needed to stock up on more of her favorite staples from the local supermarket and deli.

  Charlotte sighed.

  “Because, when you were twenty-two, you almost got married,” her friend announced triumphantly. “You can’t have forgotten? I feel it put you off weddings for life, not that I think it’s a bad thing.”

  Olivia frowned. Charlotte had a memory like an elephant! What did the wild, foolhardy decisions in one’s early twenties have to do with the sober maturity of age thirty-four, where she was now? Why was her best friend even reminding her of an episode in her life she’d all but forgotten, and wished had never happened?

  Briskly, Olivia turned the kettle on and put a pot on the stove.

  “That was youthful folly.”

  Even now, she didn’t want to talk about it. But Charlotte clearly did.

  “You were really engaged. Even if the ring looked like it came out of a Christmas cracker. I remember it was soon after you got a new job and moved to Chicago. It was so surprising to me, back in New York City, to hear about all your huge, sudden life changes. You didn’t even tell me you were dating anyone. You called to say you were engaged!”

  “It all happened very fast,” Olivia muttered.

  “What went wrong in the end? I know you canceled it at the last moment, because I literally arrived at the airport in my smart outfit and hat, and you messaged me to go home again. Remind me why?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Charlotte. I don’t want to talk about it now.”

  Olivia
poured boiling water into the pot, turned up the heat, and added linguine and a pinch of salt. Her fiancé’s name had been Ward, but that was neither here nor there. It was certainly not relevant to the topic at hand, which Olivia was going to do her best to change, even if she suspected that distracting Charlotte would be like unfastening Velcro with her teeth.

  Everyone had a Ward in their life, didn’t they? That embarrassing detour into a future you should never have had, with a person you were never meant to stay with. Some people only learned by making mistakes, and Olivia knew from bitter experience she was one of them.

  Stirring the pasta lightly with a wooden spoon, she sighed.

  “You’re right, though,” she admitted. “It did put me off weddings.”

  Charlotte laughed.

  “I’m sure this wedding will be different. They’ll be lovely, normal people,” she soothed. “This will be a perfect wedding. It will help you overcome your prejudices.”

  “Scars,” Olivia corrected her friend.

  “It will help heal your scars, and perhaps one day, you and Marcello will be walking down the aisle!”

  Olivia rolled her eyes.

  Even though she’d spent months dreaming about getting together with the most crushable boss in the world, the truth was that she and the handsome, dark-haired, blue-eyed Marcello were now firmly on a “friends only” basis.

  It was an example to Olivia that Italian passion could, indeed, be restrained. Not an example she wanted to have, but then she hadn’t had the chance to choose.

  In any case, there was another reason why she was happy to be “friends only” with Marcello at this moment. She wondered briefly if she should share her romantic predicament with Charlotte.

  Would things work out the way she longed for with the charming, friendly Danilo? She felt nervous just thinking about it.

  Perhaps she should say nothing, and hope that next time she spoke to her best friend, she could surprise her with the exciting news that she and Danilo were an item.

  Although, remembering that she also hadn’t told Charlotte about her whirlwind relationship with Ward until he’d already bought the ring, Olivia worried that keeping her romantic situation to herself might jinx it. It would be better to explain now, she decided.

  “I have to go!” Charlotte said, scuppering Olivia’s plans for full disclosure. “I have a conference call that’s started early. I’ll chat with you again soon. Have a lovely evening!”

  Smiling as she said goodbye, Olivia took the chopping board off the hook and sliced up the ham and artichokes. The pasta was perfectly cooked. Quickly, she drained it and assembled her simple but tasty dinner. Pasta with a liberal splash of olive oil and butter—artichokes and Parma ham, a dash of cream, and a very generous handful of Parmesan.

  She sprinkled Italian parsley over the top, added salt and pepper, and took a moment to appreciate its tasty simplicity.

  In fact, this dish was so pretty, it required photography, she decided, placing it on the counter and getting busy with her phone camera. Her friends back home in the States loved it when she published snapshots of her daily life, and she’d neglected the food side recently.

  Olivia moved her wineglass into the frame and took a few more shots. That was definitely the finishing touch. The wine completed the picture perfectly!

  With her culinary masterpiece immortalized on Instagram, Olivia headed through to the hallway. She decided to read while she ate her dinner, choosing from the bookshelf at the end of the hall where she kept her Italian literature stash. So far, it contained five children’s books, three teen adventures, and two adult romances, as well as a dictionary and a large, heavy volume of grammar which was proving more difficult to tackle.

  She might be a slow reader, but she was getting through the stories. In fact, she needed to go to the secondhand bookstore at the back of the coffee shop in the village and pick up a few more.

  With a romance novel in her hand, she headed eagerly back to the kitchen, looking forward to digging into dinner.

  But, as she twirled the first piece of pasta around her fork, she heard a loud, sharp knock at the front door.

  Who could it be? She wasn’t expecting anyone, and no friends would drop by unannounced, in the rain, at this hour of the evening. Was there a crisis brewing that she didn’t yet know about?

  Abandoning her meal, she hurried to the door.

  CHAPTER THREE

  To Olivia’s surprise, Nadia was standing outside. She was swathed in a bright blue coat, holding a white umbrella in one hand and a shopping bag in the other.

  “Salve! I am dropping by your house without an announcement,” Nadia said, delivering the almost-accurate English expression with a grin as rain spattered onto her umbrella.

  “Come in, come in, you must be freezing,” Olivia invited her. She ushered Nadia into the hallway. Why was she here? Olivia wondered. It was unusual for her to make a surprise visit.

  “On the way back from Florence, I visited one of the bakeries in town. They had these cookies on special, and they gave me two boxes for the price of one. Would you like one? They are canestrelli, one of my favorites!”

  She placed the bag on the hall table and rummaged through it.

  “Oh, yes, please!” The deliciously simple cookies, with a subtle almond flavor, were covered in powdered sugar and absolutely addictive. In fact, Olivia was sure they were one of the main reasons why she was still five stubborn pounds over her target weight, which she now measured daily on her new bathroom scale.

  “Here you are.” Nadia passed her the box. “The trip was successful and I got everything I need. I also learned something interesting, by chance, while I was at the bakery.”

  Her dark eyes gleamed. Nadia loved local gossip.

  “What did you learn?” Olivia asked, fascinated by what it might be.

  “Well,” Nadia said, leaning in conspiratorially, even though the only possible person who might overhear their conversation was Pirate. Curled on the rug by the fireplace, he had given Nadia an inquisitive glance before resuming the important job of sleeping.

  “What?”

  “We were not the first choice for this wedding!” Nadia announced in a stage whisper.

  Olivia’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Really?”

  Nadia nodded. “The party originally wanted to go to Sovestro in Poggio.”

  “They’re very famous.” Olivia remembered they were one of the leading wineries in Chianti, located on a huge and well-established estate. “How did you find that out?”

  “Marcello was in Forno Collina bakery last weekend. While there, he took a phone call from the father of the bride. It was a long call and Dino the baker couldn’t help overhearing one or two words.”

  In her expressive way, Nadia managed to imply that the baker had eavesdropped shamelessly on the conversation.

  “Marcello apparently fought very hard for them to come here.” Nadia continued.

  “I wonder why it was so important to him,” Olivia said. “I know it’s a big-ticket event, but we’re not short of money right now at La Leggenda. Are we?” she added anxiously.

  Nadia shrugged. “I do not know why he fought so hard for it. Our balance sheet is healthy, yes. Still, perhaps Marcello feels this could be a new line of business we must compete for.”

  Her eyes blazed. Nadia lived to win!

  “At any rate,” Nadia continued, “I was wondering what Sovestro is like. I have never been there. I was thinking one of us should go and spy. Just out of curiosity.” She spread her hands innocently. “And although I am busy the whole day tomorrow, it is your day off. Do you have plans, or are you free?”

  Olivia had been planning to spend the day doing some laundry and housecleaning, as well as a trip to the village for the much-needed groceries.

  She realized now that she had gotten her priorities all wrong. A full day of boring housework? What had she been thinking? Of course chores and shopping could wait, because spying was fa
r more important. She was enthralled by the idea of traveling to this idyllic venue and seeing how it compared with theirs.

  “I’d love to have a look,” Olivia said. “I’ll report back on anything I find, in case it could be helpful to us. I’m sure we can pick up some pointers.”

  “I hope we can. And now, I must run,” Nadia said.

  “Thank you for the cookies.”

  Olivia waited while the vintner grabbed her now-lighter shopping bag and picked up her umbrella. A moment later, she’d rushed out into the windy, rainy evening.

  Olivia took the cookie box into the kitchen, thinking hard.

  Sovestro was a renowned destination. It was a must-see for many visitors to the region. And it was famously romantic.

  It would be wrong, she decided, to visit this magnificent location on her own.

  She couldn’t help feeling a flutter of nerves as she started to message Danilo.

  Would he be available at such short notice? That was the first question that burned in her mind.

  The second was even more critical and it made her mouth dry with apprehension. She resolved that the time had come. At this enchanting venue, she would share with Danilo how she felt about him.

  This would mean plunging into her first-ever romantic relationship in her new home country. It was a huge and significant step for her to take.

  Would Danilo feel the same way about her?

  Olivia shook her head. This was too important for a message. What if he didn’t see it until later? He might already have made other plans. In fact, every second that passed made it more likely he would already have organized his day.

  Olivia dialed his number and waited, feeling breathless, until he answered.

  “Salve, Olivia!” He sounded delighted that she’d called.

  “I was wondering if you’re busy tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Me? Busy? Well,” he paused. “Let me see, let me see.”

  Olivia fidgeted impatiently, wondering what Danilo was doing. Paging through his diary, or looking in his phone calendar perhaps. Clearly, his day was not entirely free, so how much time did he have? Would it be enough?