“What would you say to going away for another sexy weekend with me?” Christian ripped off his tie, and peeled off his shirt. Without a doubt, “Yes! Hell, yes.” He’d even happily spend the night outside in a tent, as long as it was with Gina. The events of a few days ago, of the table, and Gina bent over it, came flooding back.
“A two-night stay at a beautiful new hotel and spa,” she continued, “And you get full use of all spa facilities and you can have unlimited treatments free of charge.”
He climbed out of his pants. “It sounds too good to be true. What’s the catch?”
“Who said there was a catch?”
When things sounded too good, there was always a catch. “When are we going?”
“This weekend?”
Deal-breaker. “It’s the last weekend before my race,” he groaned.
“Oh, shoot. I’d forgotten. What about the weekend after?”
“You’re supposed to be moving in that weekend, remember.” Had she forgotten already? “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”
“I haven’t.”
He lay back on the bed and contemplated how different things would be once Gina moved in. It would be great to come home to her. “Good, because I can never tell with you.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” she said. “But I haven’t started packing yet.”
“That’s okay, I’ll give you a hand. Hey,” he said, as the idea suddenly came to him. “It might be a not-so-awkward-way for me to meet your mother.”
She laughed. “You mean, as you help me carry my belongings out of the house?”
He groaned. “How much does your mother hate me?”
“You really want to know?”
“I want to know. Does she think I’m Satan for tempting you over to the dark side?”
“She doesn’t hate you that much. You’ll grow on her, given time.”
“Like mold, you mean?”
She giggled again, bringing a grin to his lips. Gina’s giggling was like the sound of the tiny brooks he and Leon sometimes stopped at to take a break, when they cycled around the countryside. “Maybe that would be the ideal time to meet her,” she said.
“Good.” He closed his eyes and listened to her talking. It was soothing, the sound of her voice. “Can’t we do that spa weekend another time? Maybe next month?” He opened his eyes. The spa? Was it the spa hotel? The new hotel that her boss had recently opened?
He was about to ask her when she said, “Nico’s asked me to work a weekend, and it seems as if this coming weekend is the only one I have free.”
“Why has he asked you to work a weekend?”
She cleared her throat. “To run through the in-house system with the manager of the new hotel. He seems to be having some problems with it.”
“Why can’t the IT guy do it?”
“He’s leaving at the end of this week?”
“Why doesn’t he ask him to do it before he goes?” Contempt gnawed at his gut, at the selfish actions of the man Gina doted on, the man who was supposed to be a good boss. Sometimes he wondered if Gina suffered from some type of syndrome where she needed to please others.
“Be-because he can’t, he doesn’t want to!” She cried out. “Why does it matter? He explained it to me, and I know his timetable. Nico is insanely busy. He only got back to work a few days ago and he’s already got the next 4 to 6 weeks planned out. He’s hardly going to be around.”
“But he’s only just jetted in from vacation.” The man seemed to lead a jet-setting lifestyle and Christian wasn’t convinced that the man’s playboy days were fully over.
“So?”
He bit his lower lip, to stop himself from saying something nasty about Nico Cazale. She would not hear of a bad word said against the man but the more Christian heard about him, the less he liked him.
“So, this weekend, this two night stay at a hotel and full use of spa facilities—this was your way of getting me to come along and keep myself busy while you worked?”
“You don’t have to come,” she argued back. “It would have been nice, us having time together. I get extra money for working the weekend, and I get two days off for doing it, and I can pick whatever weekend I want as long it’s this month.”
“Didn’t you hit the jackpot,” he said sarcastically.
“It would have been another weekend away,” she said quietly. “I can’t help it.”
“Yes you can. You can say no.”
“I can’t. I’m part of the management team and if Nico asks me to do something, I’m hardly going to say no. He doesn’t ask me to do ridiculous—”
“Doesn’t he?” Christian begged to differ. That man had her running around like a high-school student on an internship.
“I love my job.”
Yeah. Didn’t he know it.
“I can’t go because I’m training for the race.”
He could hear the sound of her breathing, and after a while. “Fine then. I’ll work this weekend, because after that we have much going on.”
“Fine.”
She drew in another long breath. “Which means I’m won’t be coming over this weekend.”
“Fine.”
“Is that all you’re going to say?”
Damn it. She was so quiet and calm, even when she was pissed off. Rachele’s outbursts were easier to deal with in comparison. “You love your job, Gina. I can’t compete with that.”
“I’m not asking you to compete with it.”
“That’s right. You haven’t.”
“Let me remind you that I was okay with you wanting to cut short our weekend in Rome because of your training course and the chance to work in Geneva.” She had a point, but he had only done that once.
They both fell silent and he decided it was time to go for a cycle ride. A 10km circuit this time. He hadn’t planned on doing anything tonight but he was now filled with frustration and he needed a vent to let off steam.
“I gotta go,” he said, and hung up after she said ‘Bye’,
~ ~
“Thanks for your contribution and best of luck in your new job. Here’s a little something from us all.” Nico handed Demetrio an envelope. “Where are you going?”
“I can’t make up my mind, yet,” Demetrio replied, shaking Nico’s hand.
Gina glowered at him in contempt. The little rat. She didn’t believe a word of what he said. Couldn’t make up his mind? He wouldn’t still be expecting calls from recruitment agencies if he already had a job lined up.
They were gathered in the meeting room for Demetrio’s leaving presentation. Clutching his farewell card and tiny gift box, Demetrio voiced his thanks to them all, blatantly avoiding looking at Gina. A few of them had gathered, some of the desk receptionists, and hotel staff who knew him. They had all collected money to buy him a small gift card. Gina noted that Nico hadn’t been as generous as he normally had in the past and she felt sure he wasn’t at all sorry to see Demetrio leave.
Demetrio took the envelope and small gift bag, in which were a pair of silver cufflinks which Ines had bought, and proceeded to give a rambling speech in which he thanked Nico for his leadership, for the skills he had learnt and for the ‘invaluable experience’ he had gained while working here. Gina had no idea what he was referring to but she was acutely aware that at no time had he even so much as looked her way.
Afterwards, people milled around him, said their goodbyes and rushed back to their jobs. She walked over to him, wished him good luck, shook hands stiffly and walked out of the meeting room feeling a sense of relief. She would never have to see him again.
She was leaving for Ravenna tomorrow morning and decided on having an early evening tonight. Ordinarily the start of her weekend would be spent with Christian, but she had work to do and he was busy training for the race.
Even if he didn’t have any commitments, she sensed that he wouldn’t have been keen to accompany her to Ravenna. He seemed to take issue with Nico, and this was something she didn’t fully understand.
Things were testy between them. It was a mixture of things, but she was certain that, in time, they would all resolve themselves.
She would fix things with him at the race. For now, she chose to focus only on one thing at a time. It didn’t drain her as much as multi-tasking did, and she was calmer as a result.
No point worrying that she had upset Christian, or worrying about the latest task Nico had given her, or about Mimi letting her down, or her mother being too demanding.
This weekend she would have some time to herself. Take a couple of treatments in the Himalayan salt room, go for walks in the perfectly landscaped gardens, have an essential oil massage in the outdoor therapy area, get a deep-cleaning facial, relax in the infinity pool, and read.
She had already planned out her two days while helping the manager at the new hotel.
This weekend she was going to push everyone to the side and put herself first for a change.