Page 27 of Palazzo
“Why don’t I tell them and see what the lawyer says? If he still wants to see it, I’ll show it to him. It can’t hurt. I’ve got two other palazzos to show him, but yours is older, bigger, and prettier, and the guy is apparently a Renaissance buff.”
“Okay, but he’ll be disappointed when he sees it.” It needed so much work and that would be expensive. And she still wanted a decent price. She would have to do some of the work herself to show it.
“I’ll let you know.” Francesca hung up, and Cosima rushed off to ameeting before lunch. She saw Allegra in the hall on the way to the design studio and waved. Cosima didn’t have time for lunch and stayed until eight o’clock on conference calls. They were launching a new publicity campaign, and Cosima wanted to get it just right. She got home at nine, exhausted, and she had brought work home. She wondered when Allegra thought she’d actually have time for a romance, with Olivier or anyone else. There was no room in her life for a man. There had been when she was younger, with Gian Battista, but after him, she had filled all the gaps so she didn’t miss him so acutely. She had been miserable for a long time without him, and at least she could still see him from time to time, for a drink, or lunch, or a kiss that reminded her of what she was missing and no longer had. Gian Battista was adamant about not starting things up again once they broke up. And she’d never fully gotten over him. They both knew it. Olivier was the only man who had appealed to her ever since, and she was afraid to leap in and get hurt, or hurt him. She always thought that if she stayed alone for long enough, Gian Battista might come back, but he never had. For three long years, even though she knew he still loved her too.
—
Cosima had a busy week while they got ready for Fashion Week in Milan. She was completely immersed in her work, and forgot all else. A week later, the realtor called her back, right before she left for Milan. Cosima had forgotten all about her and the Qatari with the French lawyer who wanted to see the palazzo. Cosima was sure he wouldn’t be interested at a decent price, or at all.
“You were wrong,” Francesca Viti said for openers. She had adeep, raspy, sexy voice that always made Cosima smile. She was so Italian. “The Qatari doesn’t care about the burnt walls. The lawyer sent him a million photos, I was with him when he took them, and his client is in love with your palazzo. He wants it, at your asking price, all cash, thirty-day closing, as is, damage and all. And you’re right by the way. The floors are a mess. I tripped three times on the speed bumps in the dining room.” She laughed her deep throaty laugh. “So, what do you think?”
“I think he’s crazy,” Cosima said, considering it. She had made her peace with the idea of keeping the palazzo now, even in its current state, ever since Bill Johnson died and Sally backed out of the deal. The palazzo was in no condition to show or to sell. And she didn’t have the money to restore it. She was prepared to let it sit for years if she had to. The whole idea of selling it had come up when she had to raise money quickly to pay Luca’s gambling debt, and selling the palazzo was the only way she could do it, and then she was on the hook to the Johnsons since they had paid her a deposit she couldn’t afford to refund. But she had no pressing financial need now, and the two hundred thousand the Johnsons had given her had cleared Luca’s debt. Sally had canceled the sale when Bill died, so Cosima didn’t have to refund the money to her. She could just keep the palazzo now and decide what she wanted to do about it some other time. She didn’t know if she was ready to leap in and give it up with a thirty-day closing, although the price he was willing to pay was a fair one, and more than fair given the fact that two of the floors were badly burned and there was serious repair work to do. “He doesn’t mind all the work there is to be done?” Cosima said hesitantly.
“Apparently not. His lawyer said he’s not going to rush into it. Hewants to buy it so he doesn’t lose the opportunity, and take his time doing the work when he’s in Europe. He has an apartment in Paris, and another in London and a house in Switzerland. He liked one of the other palazzos, but not as much as yours. The lawyer said he’s crazy about it. I didn’t talk to him myself. A lot of them do business that way, through lawyers and corporations. I don’t even know the man’s name. And he’s going to pay all cash by bank transfer through his lawyer’s trust account. We do that all the time. So?” She had a big commission resting on it, so she was eager to know. But Cosima didn’t want to be rushed.
“Let me think about it. I want to talk to my sister. I didn’t tell her about him because I figured he wouldn’t want it.” They needed Luca to agree too, but she could do that through his lawyer, and it would put a sizable amount of money in an account for him to have when he came out in two years, several million euros, and she was sure he would be very pleased with the money. Money was all he cared about.
Cosima told Allegra about it that night before she went out to dinner with friends, and told her the pertinent details. Price, timing, all cash, as is, with a thirty-day closing.
“Wow,” Allegra said, “it sounds amazing, if he doesn’t care about the fire damage and is willing to pay what the Johnsons were going to pay before the fire. It needed some remodeling then too. Should we do it?”
“I don’t know,” Cosima said. “I was getting to like the idea of keeping it, even though it needs work and it’s a mess right now. And I don’t know when we’d have the money to restore it. Not anytime soon. But there’s no rush to do it.”
“Can we afford to keep it?”
“No more or less than we could before. It takes money to maintain it. We can’t use it now, but I’m sad to let it go.” Allegra was less attached to the palazzo than she was and had fewer memories there since she was nine years younger, but she loved it too. She loved the family history it represented for centuries. For Allegra, it was woven into her feelings for her parents and memories of her happy childhood there.
“Maybe we should let go of the past and forge ahead. I thought that’s what we decided before, and then Luca screwed everything up and set fire to it. We probably won’t get another buyer who doesn’t care about the damage,” Allegra said sensibly.
“True. Why don’t we both sleep on it and see what we think,” Cosima suggested.
“I vote to sell it,” Allegra suddenly announced. “It would be nice to have the money, as a cushion.” It was a lot of money, even divided by three. “Do you think Luca would object and try to block it?”
“Hell, no. He’d love to have the money.” Cosima was sure of that.
“Yeah, me too,” Allegra admitted shyly. She’d never had a large amount of her own and lived on the salary Cosima paid her for the small amount of work she did. Her apartment was free. And she shared in the profits every year but Cosima always put them back in the business for improvements and operating costs. “I vote yes,” Allegra said softly. “So, it’s up to you.” They didn’t use majority rule, they all had to agree unanimously.
The thought of it haunted Cosima all night. She wanted to call Gian Battista and ask his advice, but that seemed childish, and he had already told her to sell when the Johnsons wanted to buy it. He thought the palazzo was a money pit, and he wasn’t wrong,especially now. She thought of asking Olivier too, but she felt stupid not making the decision on her own. She wondered if Allegra was right, and they needed to move ahead into the future and stop clinging to the past.
She tossed and turned all night, tortured by the decision, and woke up early the next morning. She watched the sun come up as she loved to do, squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds, and picked up her phone and sent Francesca Viti a text.
“It’s a go. Sell it. I have to get my brother’s permission, but that won’t be a problem.” She sent his lawyer an email, explaining the terms, and she said she needed Luca’s consent to make it legal, soon, if possible.
She had Luca’s approval by noon, and she felt as though she had taken a leap out of an airplane and was waiting for her parachute to open and praying it would. She hoped she wouldn’t regret selling. She was more attached to the palazzo than either of her siblings was, but it was time. She needed to move something in her life and maybe this was it. Francesca sent her all the papers to sign that afternoon, and Cosima had never made an easier deal. By six o’clock that night, they were selling their family’s palazzo to the Qatari they had never even met, and Cosima was surprised that she was excited about it and hadn’t even shed a tear. Maybe it was the right thing to do after all.
Chapter 11
Cosima went to Paris with Allegra for Paris Fashion Week, and had a great time going to a few fashion shows. She had dinner twice with Olivier. Milan had gone well too, but she had work to do there. In Paris, she was purely a spectator, and she went to Olivier’s office and was impressed by the size of his operation and how elegant his showroom was. It was where they met with buyers and took wholesale orders. His handbags were surprisingly good-looking for the price.
She hardly saw Allegra while they were there. She was with Basile all the time, and stayed at his apartment. Cosima didn’t comment on it. At twenty-nine, Allegra was old enough to do what she wanted, and Basile was wonderful to her. Cosima knew she was in good hands.
Cosima told Olivier about selling the palazzo to the Qatari, and that she and Allegra were going to Venice the following weekend to see it for a last time. She had already moved their remaining belongings into storage, and she just wanted to see it once more and kiss it goodbye.
“Are you sorry you sold it?” he asked her, over dinner at Le Voltaire, a chic bistro on the Left Bank she had always liked. He was a regular there.
“No. It’s crazy but I’m excited. Allegra’s right. We need to move ahead and stop hanging on to the past. And it will be nice to have the money.” The deal was closing in the next week. “It would have taken years to be able to pay for the restoration.”
“Do you have any special purpose in mind for the money?” he asked her, and she hesitated.
