His Dirty Bargain (Dirty Billionaires 3)

Dante doesn’t flinch. “Yeah, he is. We all are. I’m nowhere near as bad as Che and Enzo, though. It comes from feeling as though we had no control over our lives with the whole...”

I nod. I know what he’s referring to. Reminded of it all over again, I wince. Their father, in a fit of jealousy and despair went after the wife who left him and killed her and her lover before turning the gun on himself. I don’t have any right to judge Enzo or anyone else in how they run their personal life, Ms. Hasn’t-fucked-a-guy-in-over-five-years. My childhood was craptastic, yet it was nothing compared to the nightmare of what their father had done. I can’t even begin to imagine what the three brothers went through or how it shaped their lives since.

“Enzo doesn’t hate women, he just doesn’t trust them. Our mother, she cheated on our father constantly. Seeing it happen instilled a deep distrust of women early on. Then there’s the fact for eight years, from eighteen to twenty-six he was in the Army, the last five years as a Ranger. He was buried deep in Afghanistan. In all those years he came home twice, for all of six months. He was all in as a soldier, with complete commitment. I never asked, but I’m not even sure he got laid for several years at a time.

“When he came home for good, because of all he’d invested into Sabatini Real Estate he was a multimillionaire and a war hero. He got some attention, a few writeups, in the Trib and the Sun even though he never granted an interview. Women were all over him, the whole thing made him even more cynical. There hasn’t been a woman who has changed his mind once.”

Nodding, I get it now. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I have no room to talk. I apologize.”

Shaking his head, he shrugs. “We all have baggage, some worse than others. It’s just frustrating that since he filed for divorce he went to ground, pulling away from the family. Bethany has reminded me and Che every time we bitch that it can’t be easy for him to see us with everything he wanted and didn’t get.” A sigh escapes him. “Sorry, you don’t want to hear all this. I’m sure you can handle Enzo in the few days it will take you to find him something. If you need anything, if he pushes you past your limits, don’t be afraid to let me know and put him in his place.”

I force a confident smile. I’ve conditioned myself from the time I was ten years old not to show weakness; twenty years later it’s as instinctive as breathing. “I’ve got it. No worries.”

“Three o’clock. Don’t be late, he hates it worse than Che.”

“Will do.”

Dante goes back to his book and highlighter.

At my desk, within seconds I have my dual monitors filled with everything I can find on Lorenzo, “Enzo” to friends and family, Sabatini. Not all of it is new information. I’m a nominal investor in his hedge fund, and I researched him before making the decision to invest. Dante and Cesare worked with Enzo to allow their employees to invest in a fund that would have been completely out of reach otherwise, as the fund has a requirement of five million to invest. And Enzo is good at what he does. I put in the money I had left over after purchasing my two flat and fixing it up. Almost five years later, it’s grown by over thirty-four percent. That doesn’t even count the two grand I put in every paycheck.

When Enzo started the hedge fund no one expected it to succeed, not even Dante and Cesare. They encouraged him to keep doing the venture capital he’d started when he came home from the Army. While Enzo was in the Army, all of his income went into Sabatini Real Estate to help Dante and Cesare build the business. When he left there was the expectation Enzo would join them, only he wanted something different. He asked if he could get his investment back. By that time the company was already in the hundred-million sphere.

Enzo enrolled at the University of Illinois at Chicago. While he was in school he made investments in multiple startups and floundering companies. In nearly every investment, he made his money back plus a hefty return. It only took him three years to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in finance. Five months later he set up the hedge fund. In four years he went from laughed at to lauded on Wall Street, and within eight years he was a billionaire.

My email pings. It’s from Dante, the address for where Enzo is currently living. I plug it in the MLS, the multiple listing service, where any broker can view properties for sale. For some addresses you can also see the history of the property, price changes and pictures used in previous sells. Eight thousand square feet, with a thousand-square-foot balcony. Nice. It doesn’t look like a mausoleum; however, the pictures are from before the ex-Mrs. Sabatini got her hands on it.

How do I make him see I’m the best agent for him? Okay, big-shot billionaire wants a new place to live. Taking a look at his past properties, he wants square footage, not a surprise, amenities, also not a surprise, upgraded everything, no doubt with everything electronic. I go through the properties we have. There are quite a few to choose from; I pull the four best in line with his previous two properties and the black glossy folders with the Sabatini logo on the front. Each folder includes pictures, a fact sheet giving bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, and a few paragraphs detailing the properties.

It’s almost one and I’m starving, except preparation isn’t over as I look down at what I’m wearing. Since I wasn’t sure if I would finish with my last client, there are no meetings scheduled for today. Which means I’m not dressed for one. I’m in black slacks and a red blouse with a ruffle down the middle. This isn’t what I would wear for my first meeting to land a client, especially not an old-fashioned one like Enzo Sabatini. Dante admitted he and his brothers prefer women around them to wear skirts and dresses over pants. They don’t care about tights or pantyhose, they simply prefer women to dress like women. When I told him it was sexist he agreed, but it was a preference he wasn’t going to apologize for. He wasn’t making it a requirement for his employees, it’s simply what he preferred.

I call down for a car then make another call, I need to go shopping.

Lydia answers on the first ring. “Hi, Chloe. How are you?”

“Wondering if you are able to save me.”

Her laughter tells me she’s willing. God, I love Lydia. “Considering how good you are at shopping for yourself and how rarely you need me. You know I love a challenge. What’s up?”

“I have a client meeting with Enzo Sabatini at three today. I’m feeling like I need something wow.” Every few months I’ll take a weekend to shop on my own. However, when it comes to needing something with a wow factor immediately, Lydia is amazing.

A whistle loud and high comes through. “I understand completely. I’m wrapping up with a client now; head down to me. I’ll have some things pulled for you. Still not doing heels, right?”

My mother and grandmother were slaves to fashion. Living in Milan, it was a given. I was only eleven when I wore my first heels, and I hated them the moment I put them on. Walking around cobbled streets in heels was torture. Nonna, my grandmother, told me while style was important the first rule of style was comfort in what you wore; without it nothing you wore was stylish. Against my mother’s objections I stopped wearing heels, even though I’m a boring fiv

e-foot-six. Instead I’m the proud owner of an enormous collection of stylish flats, and a very small collection of shoes with a stacked heel of an inch or even two, but those spindly death traps of four or five inches are not something I will ever wear. “Nope, haven’t for the other Sabatinis. I’m not going to start for this one.”

“I love you for that, I’ll see you in twenty.”

Hanging up, I run to the break room. I buy my usual on-the-run lunch of a tasty chicken wrap with mozzarella and tomatoes in a flat bread I could eat by itself, it’s so good.

I finish the wrap as the car pulls up outside the enormous department store. Out on the street a breeze hits me; it’s such a beautiful day. It’s still a little cool for the first week of April. However, after the rough winter we had, I’ll take it.

Lydia greets me with a hug. “It’s been months since I saw you. How have you been?”

“Good, thanks, sorry it’s been so long. Usually winter is slow but not this year, we’ve been crazy busy. How has Ella been?”

“Great, she’s wonderful, growing like a weed.” Lydia pulls out her phone to show me pictures. “She is not happy she’s going to be a big sister though.”