I arose early next morning; as did Brad, and we poured over our finances together. I must say, it was the first time in a long time that I even cared to look. I suppose the excitement of the idea of owning Casa Amor was gnawing at me. It kept me up that nite, so I worked on my novel prior to Brad arising at 4:00 AM. It had been the first time that I had put pen to paper since the death of my father.

Our discussion that morning was not centered around if we could buy Casa Amor. It was simply about how much we would have to offer Silvio. We made guesses about Silvio's position...had it been in his family for years, or was he a self-made millionaire who owned a small villa in Tuscany? Either could have been the case, but the answer to both questions would cause for unsettling answers in our minds.

After kicking around number after number, we came to an agreement that we would offer $3.5M and would be willing to pay as much as $4.25M for Casa Amor. And even at that, we wondered if Slvio would sell.

Silvio was Italian, so when he phoned that morning to ask where we should have dinner, we invited him to dinner at Osteria Romantica. There we would wine and dine him and twist his arm until he agreed to sell Casa Amor. The more he resisted, the more Brunello di Montalcino and Tiramisu we would supply him with. We agreed to meet at 6:30 PM, that evening.

Brad and I decided that we would go "stir crazy" with both enthusiasm and worry if we stayed in the hotel. Instead, we opted to have a bit of fun in the city. We would go downtown, grab a Starbucks and hit every bookstore in downtown. The goal was to see which bookstores carried our novels and how many copies they had for sale on their shelves. Certainly not a normal activity, but we each needed this silly affair to take place before we would sit down to dinner and make an offer at a place that had become my love affair for the past several years.

Adams Avenue bookstore had been touted as the best bookstore in town, so we took a drive over there first. Of the fifteen books that Brad had in print, Adams had ten on the shelves and exactly twenty-two total copies. Not bad. I did have a leg up in the fact that I was a newly published author. In fact; to my surprise, I had quite a nice place in the window of the bookstore and my total copies in print for sale there numbered twenty-seven. "Score", I thought...even though it seemed petty! We visited Mysterious Galaxy bookstore and also Warwick's and found much the same story. I could claim my victory for a day, and Brad graciously let me claim it in a big way.