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She went to find Olivier on the terrace after she hung up. He was enjoying the moon over Rome. Cosima was beaming and looked full of mischief.
“Now I have a surprise for you,” she said, mysteriously.
“What’s that?” He patted the seat next to him on a little outdoor settee. She sat down and he kissed her.
“I just spoke to Allegra and told her about the palazzo. She and Basile want to get married in Venice next summer, a year from now. She’d love to have the reception at the palazzo. I said I’d ask you.” She beamed. “A wedding brings the house good luck, as long as it’s the right people getting married,” she added, “and they are. Basile proposed to her last night.”
Olivier grinned broadly. “He didn’t tell me he was going to ask her.” He looked very pleased.
“I guess they have their secrets too.” She snuggled up next to him in the moonlight, and he looked serious.
“That’s what the palazzo is for now. It’s why I bought it back for you. Of course she can have her wedding there. Is there a list one has to get on? Who books the weddings around here?”
“I have no idea,” she said primly. “You own the palazzo now, so I guess you do.”
“I’ll put you in charge of that. I think that boat you say you missed just pulled up to the dock again. You’d better get your name on the list fast so you don’t miss it again.”
“Is that right?” She laughed at him. “I’m thirty-nine years old. I’ll be forty next year. That’s too old to get married.” She sounded definite about it.
“Really? Who made that rule? I would marry you if you were a hundred years old.”
“That gives me another sixty-one years to plan it, so I guess there’s no rush.”
He got down on one knee then, in front of her. “Sixty-one years from now, I won’t be able to get up again, so I’d better do this now. Cosima Saverio, will you marry me?”
“Yes, I will,” she said in a small voice. She had long since given up the idea of marriage. He sat down next to her then and kissed her and took her breath away. It had been a day of monumental surprises, and the Palazzo Saverio was theirs again, with countless delights and blessings in store in the coming years.
Chapter 15
Cosima and Olivier spent a week in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in August, and the second week working on the palazzo together. They went through her enormous storage unit just north of Venice and picked out the furniture they wanted to restore and use again. There was more than even Cosima had remembered. And she was going to use Venetian fabrics to re-cover them.
They picked fabric for curtains, and she insisted she was going to pay for all of it, since it was his money anyway, from the sale. She was going to use her share of what he had paid for the house for all the decorating.
They bought new beds and dressers, some antique mirrors, rugs at some of the rug merchants in Venice, and by the end of August, the house was livable again. The furnace was being worked on so they could use the palazzo in winter. It was going to be more comfortable than ever before.
Basile and Allegra came to see it and marveled at the condition itwas in now. They ate at the big table in the kitchen that had been replaced after the fire, and Olivier had replaced the ramps with better-looking, more efficient, newer ones. The entire palazzo was accessible to Allegra now.
They all went back to Paris together to get ready for Fashion Week and the opening of the Saverio store on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. The store looked elegant and dignified and exactly the way Cosima had envisioned it. It was in sharp contrast to the wild modernity of Allegra’s store in the 8th Arrondissement, which was doing a booming business, mainly on the internet. Allegra had found her niche, and her man, and they were excited about their wedding, still nine months away. Basile had sold all the paintings from his last show. He had bought Allegra a rubellite engagement ring from what he’d made on his paintings, and it suited her perfectly.
Cosima’s office and the PR firm they hired sent out invitations to the opening party at the Saverio store on the second night of Fashion Week. The champagne flowed, they had a caviar bar, several of their best customers were there, and there was a section in the store for their collaboration bags with Bayard.
Cosima floated through the evening wearing a pale silver dress that molded her figure, with high-heeled silver sandals, and her blond hair in a sleek French twist. Olivier was beaming with pride. The store was truly beautiful and Cosima told everyone it had been Olivier’s idea.
It was a glamorous, fun, profitable week. The week after, Max was released from prison, and flew home to Paris. Much to his father’s relief, the job in Thailand had fallen through. He had decided to accept a job he considered beneath him in Oklahoma. It didn’t soundglorious to Olivier either, but it was the best Max could do for now, as a convicted felon. Only his father’s connections had gotten him the job. There was a small manufacturer of handbags there, and they’d offered him a position in marketing. It was a start on the long road back to a clean life. The owner’s son had had trouble with the law, and had gone to prison too, for dealing drugs, so the owner was sympathetic and offered Max the job, with the proviso that if he screwed up or did anything shady, he’d be fired immediately. Max had no other options, and his father was no longer willing to hire, house, or support him, so he had no other choice.
Olivier put him on the plane to Tulsa, and hoped for the best, well aware that Max’s success and staying on the straight and narrow was by no means a sure thing. And he had burned his last bridge with his father, who wouldn’t rescue him again.
—
Three days after Max left for Oklahoma, Luca contacted Cosima and asked her to come and see him, which was a surprise. She hadn’t seen or heard from him in a year, and she had turned his demand down flat, for what he wanted for his third of the business.
She agreed to meet with him, and went with her lawyer so there would be a witness to whatever he said. He wasn’t pleased when he saw them arrive at the prison visiting area, but he had requested the meeting.
She greeted him stiffly, not sure what to expect, and he kissed her cheek and said he was happy to see her. He didn’t look it, but she let it go at that.
“Are you all right in here? Is it dangerous?” she asked him, stillconcerned. He would always be her little brother, no matter how badly he behaved.
“It’s what you make of it,” he said philosophically, which she suspected was true. He seemed older, and subdued. He was still working in the prison kitchen and said he had become a pretty good cook.
