The door swings open and they come in wearing the same smiles from last night.
“Asshole, where’s our coffee?” Knox chuckles
I shake my head at him. “Sorry, man, it slipped my mind.”
“Or maybe your head was otherwise occupied.” Levi throws me a mischievous look. “What time did you leave the club?”
“Not long ago.”
The two exchange their habitual glances of curiosity, then look back at me.
“You like her.” Knox points a finger at me and nods.
“So do you guys.”
“We do. I just can’t remember the last time you spent the entire night at the club, so I’m wondering if we’ve come to that point of decision.”
The point of decision is what we agreed to in high school when we started sharing women. The agreement is that we’d each understand if any of us met a woman we didn’t want to share or no longer wanted to share.
The three of us have had several women over the years and none of us have reached that point yet. I haven’t now.
“No.” I shake my head.
“Good. We all had fun with her last night.” Levi sits in the chair in front of me and amplifies his smile. “Please tell me you booked her again tonight.”
“I’ve booked her for the next three weeks.” I decided on three weeks because we’ll be in charge while my grandfather is in New Orleans. After that, we’ll all be busy again traveling. We won’t be going to Europe. We’ll each have shorter trips, but we’ll still be busy.
“Fuck yeah.” Levi bumps his fist with Knox.
I want to smile too, but I don’t. It’s time for business.
“Guys, we have to talk.” The moment I say that, the air shifts and the smiles fade from their faces.
“What’s going on? That sounds serious. Don’t tell me we pissed off the old man.” Knox looks me over with keen eyes. He’s the observant one, so I’m not surprised by his remark.
I run a heavy hand threw my hair and sit on the edge of my desk.
“We haven’t pissed him off yet.” I take a quick sip of air and fill them in on my grandfather’s request.
“What the hell are you going to do?” Levi’s voice holds the same edge of worry I feel.
“Other than finding an Evelina to marry him, what is he supposed to do?” Knox points out the obvious.
“But that three-year shit is going to be the kick.”
“Don’t I know it.” I crack my knuckles. “My grandfather isn’t stupid and he knows what I’m like. He thought this through well enough to lock me down on all sides. He wants me to have a real relationship, not something I can buy with money.”
Knox looks at me. “What are you thinking, Cristiano? Don’t fucking tell me you’re going to allow Lorenzo to take the company or fucking marry your cousin. Simona will hate you and forgive me for saying she’d be right.”
“I’m not going to let either of those things happen. My grandfather is out of line for this, so I plan to fight fire with fire.” Even if I don’t want to disrespect him. “I need to find a woman who is suitable enough to help me pull this off. Someone I can trust to stay in the game for three years.”
“Then I suggest we start making a list of potential candidates.” Levi rests his hands on his knees.
“I’ll do the list,” Knox cuts in. “Maybe you can assess the potentials and we can take it from there.”
Levi bobs his head. “I can do that.”
“Whatever we do has to be fast.” I blow out a ragged breath. “My grandfather wants to meet Evelina when he comes back from New Orleans.”
So we have three weeks to find her.