"The offer is tempting, yes," The elegantly clad Guiovani Lucano, president of Unipro, said, "but the French cosmetic firms are eager to have whatever Dragobotania we can produce. There's really no sufficient incentive I can see to change that and sell to the United States instead."
He was talking to the American chemical dealer, Nicholas Reynolds, as they both sat, drinking coffee, at a café table on the terrace of the Grand Hotel Tremezo on Lake Como above the hotel swimming pool, which itself looked like it was suspended over the surface of the lake. But he wasn't looking at the beefy early-middle aged American. His interests and attention were riveted elsewhere.
He had been watching a lithe, blond youth swimming laps in the pool below. His gray eyes had flared and his patrician nostrils had twitched when the youth caught his attention when he had gracefully risen from a chaise lounge by the pool, glided to the low diving board, and made a perfectly arced dive into the blue surface of the pool at the beginning of his swim. The thought of a dancer had entered the tall, thin, graying-templed Italian manufacturer's mind. Guiovani had specific, refined tastes. They included young, blond male dancers.
He gave a little shiver of pleasure as he watched the young man rise from the pool, effortlessly climb the ladder, and stand there in his skimpy Speedo, briefly, tossing his blond curls from side to side to flick off droplets of water and then move, mincingly, to the chaise lounge, retrieve his towel, and wick his perfect, hairless torso off with the fluffy hotel towel. Guiovani slitted his eyes and licked his lips, imagining the young man bound and suspended over his bed in his villa outside Milan.
"The French companies offer incentives above the deals they put on the table?" Reynolds asked. He kept an innocent, unsophisticated-American look on his face. A look of "please educate me in the real world of European business."
"Yes, well, there are age-old business customs in Europe," Guiovani said, tearing his eyes away from the titillating sight of the young man toweling himself off by the pool below to look directly into the clumsy American's face. The young man had one knee kneeling on the surface of the chaise lounge. The angle of the leg was making Guiovani hard. His refined tastes were quite specific.
"I'm sure we can do business on that basis," Reynolds said, knitting his brow like he was searching his mind for what he might offer. "We could provide these directly to you, I assume. No need for them to appear in any records."
"Yes, of course," Guiovani said, but even as he said it, he sensed the presence of someone at the table, standing between him and the rays of the afternoon sun. He looked up, expecting to see the waiter—and to bristle, as the waiters at as fine a hotel as the Grand Tremezo should know to watch for the signal that they were wanted when it became bill time.
But what he saw instead of a waiter made him take his breath in and set his coffee cup down in fear that it would tumble out of his suddenly trembling hand.
"I'm bored, Dad. Can't I go into the casino?"
"No, Ryan. I'm doing business here and I could not clear my mind if you were out of my sight. And it's impolite just to intrude like this. Do sit down over here rather than standing over us and getting us wet."
Guiovani almost cried out that he wanted the young man standing by him, as close as possible right now and here. What he would really like would be for the youth to be trussed up and at his mercy.
"Excuse us, Signore Lucano. And please excuse my son. I have just retrieved him from his boarding school in Switzerland. I'm afraid I've kept him sequestered far too long. It's time for him to start learning his proper way in society. This is my son, Ryan. Ryan, this is Signore Lucano. He owns the chemical company we're here to do business with—if we can reach a mutually acceptable arrangement, that is." He gave a searching look at Guiovani.
Reynolds had a hand on Ryan's shoulder as the young man sat down in a chair across from Guiovani at the café table. Guiovani wanted to scream that there, of course, was a possible deal in the offing as he looked at Reynold's hand on the bare skin of his son with envy he was having a hard time concealing. But he kept control of himself and merely smiled benignly at the youth and said, "I am happy to meet you, Ryan. And, alas, I'm afraid they don't permit minors in the casino."
Ryan had been looking down at his lap shyly, but when Guiovani spoke, he lifted his head and fluttered his long eyelashes over his baby-blue eyes and gave the Italian patrician a winsome little smile. He exuded appreciation that the man noticed him and was talking directly to him. But of course Guiovani noticed Ryan. He was close to hyperventilating on the spot. Only many centuries of the best of breeding kept the Italian noble from leaping across the table and onto the beautiful blond youth.
"Oh, Ryan could go into the casino," Reynolds said, breaking the spell—thankfully for Guiovani, who wasn't all that sure that his breeding was enough to hold his libido in check. "He's eighteen. He just looks young for his age. He doesn't really need my permission now to do whatever he wants to do. I've been a protective father; perhaps overly protective. Of course you can go to the casino, if you wish, Ryan."
Ryan looked at his father and smiled. He reached up and took Reynold's hand in his two hands and interlocked their forearms on the café table.
Guiovani was beside himself with need.
"Thanks, Dad. Maybe later. I'm so bored here."
"That's terrible that you should be bored in such gorgeous surroundings," Guiovani said. He spread his arms, sweeping them across the view of the lake of the Bellagio across Lake Como. I don't think there's a more beautiful sight in the world."
"I feel so tight and bloated," Ryan said. "I need more exercise.
"There's the pool," Guiovani said. "You swim very well—and dive too. I saw you down there."
"Did you?" Ryan asked, turning a radiant smile on the Italian gentleman. "I like competition, though. At school we were always into sports. I love tennis. But Dad doesn't play tennis, and there's no one else here . . ."
Everything suddenly seemed so clear to Guiovani—the way to his heart's desire. "Tennis? My son, Guido, plays tennis quite well. And he's your age. He's coming home, to Milan, this weekend. Would you like to play with him?"
"Wow, that would be great," Ryan said, his voice full of enthusiasm. "Could I, Dad?"
"I just said you were now old enough to do as you like, son," Reynolds said, with a laugh. "But I have other business to do in Rome this weekend. We have hotel reservations—"
"If you like, I could take Ryan back to my villa in Carro Maggione, outside Milan for the weekend. We have a tennis court. He and Guido could play, and then I could drive him to your hotel in Rome. And we could, of course, discuss business possibilities further then—when I've had time to speak with my staff on possibilities." Guiovani was having difficulty toning down the excitement in his voice for the idea.