LITMIR.BIZ

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as my father died, she sent me off to boarding school in France, as if she couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I always came home with good grades, top of my class, but it seemed inconsequential to her. She just didn’t care.”

      “How old were you when your father died?”

      “Eight.”

      The image of a tiny Mina being sent off to school at such a young age pulled at his heartstrings. “You’ve never talked to her about it? Asked her why?”

      She lifted a shoulder. “My mamma—she is cold. It’s her way. I told myself to let it go. To not wish for the impossible. But sometimes I do. I wish I knew what she finds so...lacking in me so I can fix it.”

      He knew how that felt. To always wonder what it was about you that was so defective your own father wanted nothing to do with you. That he could turn his back on his own flesh and blood and slam a door in your face when you had come to beg for assistance. To deny you even existed. But he knew it was a fruitless pursuit. A soul-destroying pursuit.

      “It’s better not to wonder,” he told Mina roughly, “to look for that flaw in yourself you think they see in you. Because it’s not you, it’s her. She should have been a proper mother to you and she wasn’t. That’s her cross to bear, not yours. Don’t waste your life trying to figure out something you’ll likely never get an answer to.”

      She blinked. “Are you talking about your father?”

      He ignored that. “Learn how to stand on your own two feet. How to exist without her approval. It will be the most empowering thing you can ever do.”

      She nodded, but hurt still throbbed in her eyes.

      He sighed. “What?”

      “She’s all I have.”

      His heart squeezed. “You’re better off without her. That’s not how a true parent acts.”

      Her mouth compressed. Turning on her heel, she walked into her bedroom, came back and handed him the massive diamond solitaire Silvio had given her. “I need to give this back.”

      He took the small fortune out of her hands. “I’ll have it sent to him. Speaking of which, we’ll need to get you a rock for show.”

      “It’s not necessary.”

      “You’re my wife, Mina, it is. People will be looking.”

      She sat down on the sofa and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Susana asked me how we met. I was unprepared for the question. I told her we met in the bar at the Giarruso. It was the first response that came to me.”

      His mouth curved. “That I picked you, extraordinarily innocent Mina, up in a hotel bar after work?” He sat down on the sofa opposite her. “Seems a stretch but we’ll go with it.”

      “I should know a few pertinent details about you if we’re to carry this off. It was awkward with Susana.”

      He lifted a brow. “Such as?”

      “Where do you live in New York?”

      “I have a penthouse off Central Park in the heart of Manhattan. It’s not as beautiful as Sicily, but I think you’ll enjoy the energy of the city.”

      “You said we’re not going back to New York right away?”

      “We have week-long stops in Hong Kong and the Maldives after Capri, then we head home.”

      She blinked at the blindingly fast pace of her new life. “Brothers or sisters?”

      “I have seven half siblings from my father’s marriage.”

      “Are you close to them?”

      What to say? That he and his brothers and sisters were perhaps the most dysfunctional clan on the planet? That there was not only a deep wedge between himself and Alex, but a distance he kept with all of them because every single one of them was a bit broken from their past and it was easier not to open up old wounds?

      “I’m not sure I’d characterize it as close,” he said finally, “but we do interact from time to time.”

      “I know you run and like the opera, but do you have any other hobbies? Other leisure activities I should know of that are a passion?”

      His mouth twisted. “Work is my passion. I work fourteen-...fifteen-hour days, Mina. Not much time for anything else. Which,” he suggested, “is what we should focus on now. Unless you have more questions?”

      She shook her head. “That will do for now.”

      He picked up the report on the Emelia’s financials and handed it to her. “Review this. We’ll talk it over after you’ve had a chance to read it, but first I want to go over the ground rules of how we’ll work together.”

      She crossed her legs primly and sat back to listen.

      “First of all,” he said, “you are here to learn. So learn. The most valuable thing you can do over the next year is to sit back and listen, soak up everything that’s being said, conduct your own analysis, and afterward, when it’s just the two of us, you can ask any questions you may have.

      “Secondly, I want you to watch the people in this meeting or any meeting we’re in. Watch their body language, look for their nonverbal cues, because they are often more telling than what is coming out of their mouth. Always look for an angle, because everyone has an angle in business, an agenda they’re walking into the room with. Understanding these goals and different agendas is a crucial skill in any negotiation—antagonistic or friendly.”

      “I’ve been told my father was brilliant with people.” A proud light entered Mina’s eyes. “He once solved a strike that had been going on for weeks at one of our plants by walking into the picket lines and hashing out a deal with the workers.”

      “Which translates into my third rule,” said Nate. “I want you to be a problem solver. Come to me with a solution, not an issue.”

      She nodded. “Bene.”

      “That’s it for now.” He nodded toward the report. “Profits have been sagging over the past year at the Emelia. We need to light a fire under things. See what you think.”

      * * *

      The meeting with Giorgio and the Emelia management team went worse than Nate had expected. Complacency had set in at the hotel and it seemed his general manager had no plan how to lift sagging profits because he didn’t think he had a problem.

      “The market is down, Nate,” Giorgio soothed in that smooth-as-silk voice of his. “We’re doing everything we can to entice new customers to the hotel, but we can’t manufacture them.”

      Nate directed a look at Mina. “Was the Giarruso’s occupancy rate down this year?”

      She frowned. “Not much. I think the manager said five percent.”

      “And you are down fifteen percent,” Nate said to Giorgio.

      Giorgio put his hand on Mina’s arm as if she were a child in need of correction. “It must have been more than five percent. Perhaps you have the numbers wrong.”

      “No,” said Mina. “It was nowhere near fifteen percent.”

      Giorgio sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you propose I do? Alter the economies of the western world? Manipulate the markets? We’ve upped the sales and marketing budgets. The effort is there, Nate.”

      “The effort is ineffective.”

      Giorgio’s face reddened. Silence fell at the table.

      “What about repeat guests?” Mina interjected. “Your number is way down. What if you—”

      Nate shot her a withering look. She sat back in her chair and closed her mouth.

      “What is your plan of attack for them?”

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