The Boss's Son | ✅

3

It became soon clear that Mike headed straight for the bar, once we made it through the doors into the banquette hall. The room was already crowded though, and Mike was a sought-out colleague and, thanks to his popular fiction writing on top of his teaching, a well-known figurehead of the university. Under these circumstances our progress was slow.

In the end our drinks came to us, carried by Professor Miles personally. When she stopped in front of us, blocking off effectively some guests who had patiently waited their turn to greet Mike, she was flanked on one side by the president of the university and his wife. At her other elbow stood Phillipe Rizzoli in his flesh.

Rizzoli's wavy mix of dark and white hair and the deep crowfeet, lining his eyes, that deepened when he smiled, gave him an amiable, avuncular aura that brought up images of red wine, delicious food and good times. I had seen these features on the few photos that existed of him, and I had always found them at odds with his purported occupation.

I stood in front of Rizzoli now. And doing so, I could say for sure that he exuded an intensity, and that he displayed a focus that was second to none I had ever experienced. His presence and voice was commandeering and commanding. What I couldn't place and what nerved me, was the nagging feeling that I should know how his after shave smelled, before it reached my nose, and that I should know how his hand felt, before it wrapped mine for greeting.

Under other circumstances it would be enough to make me ponder where I had met Rizzoli before. Not with him though. I had tried and failed to meet him for too long. It could only be my mind coming to terms with the fact that the center of my obsession, as Mike had called him, was close. I felt other effects of his presence as well that were clearly the work of my mind, like a flush and a kind of rigor.

Luckily enough, I was back in my senses to hear him say, "No introductions necessary, Mike. I have ample reason to recognize Contessa Galo. I admire her work."

"Mr. Rizzoli," I replied in way of greeting. "If that's the case, why don't you grant me some of your time for an interview? Does your presence here today mean we can expect more open involvement of you in our city in the future? Or will it continue to remain the hidden kind?"

Rizzoli didn't let go of my hand, but stopped the flow of my speech with a raised finger in my face.

"Let me be more precise with my words, given that they are your professional tools." Rizzoli smiled. And being the sole focus of his attention, this smile was the most confusing thing – loving and bone marrow freezing cold. It sent a flush and chill down my spine. Despite the urge to shake the sensation off, I kept my head up and my eyes straight on his face. "I admire your tenacity and charming impudence, my child. Had I known you were here to ambush me though, I had brought my people to deal with you."

"She is not," Mike interfered rapidly and pulled me to his side. It begged the question, how much of my mafia talk he did believe. "She helped me out by being my plus one for the night."

"Why?" Rizzoli asked worried. "What happened to Henry? He isn't sick, is he?"

Mike, bless him, was probably the worst liar in the universe as he proved again. His glance flickered to the President for a moment. Then it flitted over to Professor Miles, before it finally came to rest on the floor. He swallowed. Only then he chewed out a reply that screamed fib before he had finished the first syllable. "No, he was just engaged otherwise already."

Rizzoli shifted, finally turning his still astonishingly athletic looking body so that he not only faced me alone anymore. The slight movement was all it took to take a weight from my shoulders that had kept me in my place and had made me breath more shallow than I usually would. I saw some of it slump down on the President as he became partly the center of Rizzoli's attention, even though he still seemed to speak to Mike.

"That's nice speech for Henry's presence at your side might offend some people, isn't it?" Rizzoli ran his hand through his hair while his eyes swept over the crowd, landing out of some reason at me in the end again. "Geez, and I thought that this was a university event where the smart, progressive, educated and open minded people gathered. Do you plan to write about this?"

I didn't need to reply since Professor Miles squeezed her old friends upper arm, admonishing him, "Phillipe!"

Then the President, with flushed and splotchy cheeks, cleared his throat. "Our university embraces everyone without regard who they are. Everyone in the classrooms and offices works together to strive for progress, knowledge and excellence."

"That includes your teachers, staff and students, not necessary all your donors. Understood. It's not like I'm going to shoot you for catering to homophobes. Not even Mss. Galo has accused me of that yet." While the group laughed about his joke, I shrugged my shoulders timed to the lifting of one eyebrow, as if making light of things and saying 'What's not can still happen.' It earned me a pinch by Mike who still held me to his side. "And I already pledged to give my share and are open to talk about the needs of your library, don't you worry," Rizzoli appeased the President under the approving eyes of Professor Miles.

"Well, let's find our table and do just that, shall we?" Professor Miles took charge and started to turn Rizzoli around to the part of the room that was set up with dozens of large, round tables that slowly filled up. "It's almost time for the banquette to start anyway."

Rizzoli, after he had caught sight of the tables, turned partly back around. "Mike, they haven't seated you at a table in quarantine, have they? The two of you do sit at our table?"

"I think so," Mike replied after he saw the head of his department nod. Something told me that hadn't been the plan to begin with. I had no time to linger with this thought since Mike then grabbed my arm to lead me into the opposite direction. "But you need to excuse us shortly. We need to powder our noses first."

"Don't take too long, Mike," I could hear Rizzoli call after us.