Page 94 of Secrets of the Brother
The contents on the top of my desk had been pushed aside to make room for a laptop and several files. Even though we had plenty of office space and I could have easily found an empty desk, I wanted her with me.
Bianca wandered over to the drafting desk I kept in the corner.
While I loved working at the winery and my family’s other companies, it was no secret my first love was architecture and the restoration of old buildings. It was a passion my money allowed me to indulge. When we dated, I learned Bianca shared my love of old murals and the art which helped inspire my work.
She surveyed my blueprint sketches. Picking up one of the archeology books I had stacked on the corner of the desk, she opened it to the page I had marked with a leather bookmark. It showcased the presumed floorplan of an old Etruscan villa from this region. “What is this for?”
“I’m rebuilding the cottage located in the corner of the vineyard more in the fashion of an authentic Etruscan villa.”
She laughed. “It’s a great idea, but a little bit of a shame. I really loved your last rebuild. Did you get bored of it already?”
I cleared my throat as I turned away. “It burned down.”
She gasped. “I’m so sorry. I hadn’t heard.”
I picked up a file from my desk. “I wanted to talk to you about the color and font choices on the layout you sent last week.”
The last thing I wanted to do was explain to her that I was the one who burned it down.
Or why.
She crossed my office and stood at my shoulder to look at the file I was holding. Seconds later, she snatched it from my hand. “What is this? This isn’t my work?”
Uh oh.
I raised up my palms. “Technically, it is.”
She held up the file and jabbed the words "Cavalieri Properties" with her finger. “This font looks like shit because that’s not the font I chose because that’s not the company name I was given.”
“Lang—”
Her nostrils actually flared. “If you say language right now, I swear to God—”
We stood there glaring at one another, ignoring Liliana when she walked in with our caffes. Sensing the bad timing, she hurried to the desk and placed the cups on my desk so quickly coffee sloshed over the rims to pool onto the saucers. She left without a word and closed the door behind her.
We then continued as if uninterrupted.
I ran a hand through my hair. “Of course I had to change the name to therealcompany name.”
Bianca tossed the file onto the desk and braced her fists on her hips. “You mean you have alteredallmy hard work this way?”
“I didn't just hire you for the sake of hiring you, Bianca. You’re an extremely talented graphic artist and these are real projects… just the company names were fake.”
She tossed her purse onto a nearby chair and sat down… in my chair. She unbuttoned the sleeves on her black silk blouse and rolled them up.
She then took a sip of caffe as she tapped the spacebar onmycomputer, not the smaller laptop I had brought in for her use, several times to wake up the screen. “I’m going to need access toallthe original files and a list of what companies are supposed to go with what project to fix this mess. What’s your password?”
I told her the password and then leaned a shoulder against an antique oak file cabinet and observed her.
She was magnificent to watch. The moment the desktop screen glowed to life her entire focus zeroed in on work. Her long, tapered fingers flew over the keys as she opened project file after file and downloaded the software necessary to fix her work.
Never in a hundred million years would I have let Renata sit in my office chair, let alone have given that viper the password to my business computer which contained countless sensitive files, including all the Cavalieri banking information. I didn’t hesitate to give it to Bianca.
As she worked, she swept her hair off her shoulders, twisted it into a messy bun and speared one of my pens into the thick twirls, then returned her attention to the keyboard.
I didn’t realize it was possible to be jealous of a pen.
Usually I hated long hours at the office, preferring to spend them outside on a building site or at the vineyard. Not today. I had never enjoyed an afternoon in the office more than today with Bianca at my side.
