by Susan Meier
She gaped at him. “Tomorrow? Wow.”
He rose. “This is my business, Dani. If a suggestion is good, there is no point waiting forever. I get things done. Go home. I will see you tomorrow.”
She walked to the door, and he headed for the kitchen where he could watch her leave from the window above the sink, making sure nothing happened to her. No matter how hard he tried to stop it, disappointment rose up in him. At the very least, it would have been nice to finish a glass of wine with her.
But he couldn’t.
* * *
Dani ran to her car, her blood simmering, her nerve endings taut. They might have had a normal conversation about his menu. She might have even left him believing she was okay with everything he’d said and they were back to normal. But she couldn’t forget his declaration that he was bad. It should have scared her silly. Instead, it tempted her. She’d never been attracted to a man who was clearly all wrong for her, a man with whom she couldn’t have a future. Everything she did was geared toward security. Everything about him spelled danger.
So why was he so tempting?
Walking into the kitchen of Louisa’s run-down villa, she found her friend sitting at the table with a cup of tea.
Louisa smiled as she entered. “Can I get you a cup?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t know.”
Louisa rose. “What’s wrong? You’re shaking.”
She dropped to one of the chairs at the round table. “Rafe and I had a little chat after everyone was gone.”
“Did he fire you?”
“I think I might have welcomed that.”
Louisa laughed. “You need a cup of tea.” She walked to the cupboard, retrieved the tin she’d bought in the village, along with enough groceries for the two of them, and ran water into the kettle. “So what did he say?”
“He told me to be careful where I took our conversations.”
“Are you insulting him again?”
“He danced around it a bit, but he thinks I’m flirting with him.”
Eyes wide, Louisa turned from the stove. “Are you?”
Dani pressed her lips together before she met Louisa’s gaze. “Not intentionally. You know I have a fiancé.”
“Sounds like you’re going to have to change the way you act around Rafe, then. Treat him the way he wants to be treated, like a boss you respect. Mingle with the waitstaff. Enjoy your job. But stay away from him.”
* * *
The next day, Rafe stacked twenty-five black leather folders containing the new menus on the podium for Dani to distribute when she seated customers.
An hour later, she entered the kitchen, carrying them. Her smile as radiant as the noonday sun, she said, “These look great.”
Rafe nodded, moving away from her, reminding himself that she was engaged to another man. “As I told you last night, this is a business. Good ideas are always welcome.”
Emory peeked around Rafe. “And, please, if you have any more ideas, don’t hesitate to offer them.”
Rafe said, “Bah,” and walked away. But he saw his old, bald friend wink at Dani as if they were two conspirators. At first, he was comforted that Emory had also succumbed to Dani’s charms, but he knew that was incorrect. Emory liked Dani as a person. While Rafe wanted to sleep with her. But as long as he reminded himself his desires were wrong, he could control them.
Customer response to the lunch menu was astounding. Dani took no credit for the new offerings and referred comments and compliments to him. Still, she was in the spotlight everywhere he went. Customers loved her. The waitstaff deferred to her. Her smile lit the dining room. Her laughter floated on the air. And he was glad when she said goodbye at the end of the day, if only so he could get some peace.
Monday morning, he arrived at the restaurant and breathed in the scent of the business he called home. Today would be a good day because Dani was off. For two glorious days he would not have to watch his words, watch where his eyes went or control hormones he didn’t understand. Plus, her having two days off was a great way to transition his thoughts away from her as a person and to her as an employee.
And who knew? Maybe Allegra would work so well as a hostess that he could actually cut Dani’s hours even more. Not in self-preservation over his unwanted attraction, but because this was a business. He was the boss. And the atmosphere of the restaurant would go back to normal.
As Emory supervised the kitchen, Rafe interviewed two older gentlemen for Dani’s job. Neither was suitable, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that this was only his first attempt at finding her replacement. He had other interviews scheduled for that afternoon and the next day. He would replace her.
Allegra arrived on time to open for lunch. Because they were enjoying an unexpected warm spell, he opened the windows and let the breeze spill in. The scents of rich Tuscan foods drifted from the kitchen. And just as Rafe expected, suddenly, all became right with the world.
Until an hour later when he heard a clang and a clatter from the dining room. He set down his knife and stormed out. Gio had dropped a tray of food when Allegra had knocked into her.
“What is this?” he asked, his hands raised in confusion. “You navigate around each other every day. Now, today, you didn’t see her?”
Allegra stooped to help Gio pick up the broken dishes. “I’m sorry. It’s just nerves. I was turned away, talking to the customer and didn’t watch where I was going.”
“Bah! Nerves. Get your head on straight!”
Allegra nodded quickly and Rafe returned to the kitchen. He summoned the two busboys to the dining room to clean up the mess and everything went back to normal.
Except customers didn’t take to Allegra. She was sweet, but she wasn’t fun. She wasn’t chatty. A lifelong resident, she didn’t see Italy through the eyes of someone who loved it with the passion and intensity of a newcomer as Dani did.
One customer even asked for her. Rafe smiled and said she had a day off. The customer asked for the next shift she’d be working so he could return and tell her of his trip to Venice.
“She’ll be back on Wednesday,” Rafe said. He tried to pretend he didn’t feel the little rise in his heart at the thought of her return, but he’d felt it. After only a few hours, he missed her.
CHAPTER SIX
AND SHE MISSED HIM.
The scribbled notes of things she remembered her foster mother telling her about her Italian relatives hadn’t helped her to find them. But Dani discovered stepping stones to people who knew people who knew people who would ultimately get her to the ones she wanted.
Several times she found herself wondering how Rafe would handle the situation. Would he ask for help? What would he say? And she realized she missed him. She didn’t mind his barking. He’d shown her a kinder side. She remembered the conversation in which he’d told her about his family. She loved that he’d taken her suggestion about a lunch menu. But most of all, she replayed that kiss over and over and over in her head, worried because she couldn’t even remember her first kiss with Paul.
Steady, stable Paul hadn’t ever kissed her like Rafe had. Ever. But he had qualities Rafe didn’t have. Stability being number one. He was an accountant at a bank, for God’s sake. A man did not get any more stable than that. She’d already had a life of confusion and adventure of a sort, when she was plucked from one foster home and dropped in another. She didn’t want confusion or danger or adventure. She wanted stability.
That night when she called Paul, he immediately asked when she was returning. Her heart lifted a bit hearing that. “I hate talking on the phone.”
It was the most romantic thing he’d ever said to her. Until he added, “I’d rather just wait until you get home to talk.”
“Oh.”
“Now, don’t get pouty. You know you have a tendency to talk too much.”
She was chatty.
“Anyway, I’m at work. I’ve got to go.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“C
all me from your apartment when you get home.”
She frowned. Home? Did he not want to talk to her for an entire month? “Aren’t you going to pick me up at the airport?”
“Maybe, but you’ll probably be getting in at rush hour or something. Taking a taxi would be easier, wouldn’t it? We’ll see how the time works out.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Good. Gotta run.”
Even as she disconnected the call, she thought of Rafe. She couldn’t see him telling his almost fiancée to call when she arrived at her apartment after nearly seven months without seeing each other. He’d race to the airport, grab her in baggage claim and kiss her senseless.
Her breath vanished when she pictured the scene, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She really could not think like that. She absolutely couldn’t start comparing Paul and Rafe. Especially not when it came to passion. Poor sensible Paul would always suffer by comparison.
Plus, her feelings for Rafe were connected to the rush of pleasure she got from finding a place in his restaurant, being more than useful, offering ideas a renowned chef had implemented. For a former foster child, having somebody give her a sense of worth and value was like gold.
And that’s all it was. Attraction to his good looks and appreciation that he recognized and told her she was doing a good job.
She did not want him.
Really.
She needed somebody like Paul.
Though she knew that was true, it didn’t sit right. She couldn’t stop thinking about the way he didn’t want to pick her up at the airport, how he’d barely had two minutes to talk to her and how he’d told her not to call again.
She tried to read, tried to chat with Louisa about the house, but in the end, she knew she needed to get herself out of the house or she’d make herself crazy.
She told Louisa she was going for a drive and headed into town.
* * *
Antsy, unable to focus, and afraid he was going to royally screw something up and disappoint a customer, Rafe turned Mancini’s over to Emory.
“It’s not like you to leave so early.”
“It’s already eight o’clock.” Rafe shrugged into his black wool coat. “Maybe too many back-to-back days have made me tired.”
Emory smiled. “Ah, so maybe like Dani, you need a day off?”
Buttoning his coat, he ignored the dig and walked to the back door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
But as he was driving through town, he saw the ugly green car Dani drove sitting at the tavern again. The last time she’d been there had been the day he’d inadvertently insulted her. She didn’t seem like the type to frequent taverns, so what if she was upset again?
His heart gave a kick and he whipped his SUV into a parking place, raced across the quiet street and entered the tavern to find her at the same table she’d been at before.
He walked over. She glanced up.
Hungrier for the sight of her than was wise, he held her gaze as he slid onto the chair across from her. “So this is how you spend your precious time off.”
She shook her head. “Don’t start.”
He hadn’t meant to be argumentative. In fact that was part of their problem. There was no middle with them. They either argued or lusted after each other. Given that he was her boss and she was engaged, both were wrong.
The bartender ambled over. He set a coaster in front of Rafe with a sigh. “You want another bottle of that fancy wine?”
Rafe shook his head and named one of the beers on tap before he pointed to Dani’s glass. “And another of whatever she’s having.”
As the bartender walked away, she said, “You don’t have to buy me a beer.”
“I’m being friendly because I think we need to find some kind of balance.” He was tired of arguing, but he also couldn’t go on thinking about her all the time. The best way to handle both would be to classify their relationship as a friendship. Tonight, he could get some questions answered, get to know her and see that she was just like everybody else. Not somebody special. Then they could both go back to normal.
“Balance?”
He shrugged. Leaning back, he anchored his arm across the empty chair beside him. “We’re either confiding like people who want to become lovers, or we fight.”
She turned her beer glass nervously. “That’s true.”
“So, we drink a beer together. We talk about inconsequential things, and Wednesday when you return to Mancini’s, no one snipes.”
She laughed.
He smiled. “What did you do today?”
“I went to the town where my foster mother’s relatives lived.”
His beer arrived. Waiting for her to elaborate, he took a sip. Then another. When she didn’t say anything else, he asked, “So did you find them?”
“Not yet. But I will.”
Her smooth skin virtually glowed. Her blue eyes met his. Interest and longing swam through him. He ignored both in favor of what now seemed to be a good mission. Becoming friends. Finding a middle ground where they weren’t fighting or lusting, but a place where they could coexist.
“What did you do today?”
“Today I created a lasagna that should have made customers die from pleasure.”
She laughed. “Exaggerate much?”
He pointed a finger at her. “It’s not an exaggeration. It’s confidence.”
“Ah.”
“You don’t like confidence?”
She studied his face. “Maybe it’s more that I don’t trust it.”
“What’s to trust? I love to cook, to make people happy, to surprise them with something wonderful. But I didn’t just open a door to my kitchen and say, come eat this. I went to school. I did apprenticeships. My confidence is in my teachers’ ability to take me to the next level as much as it is in my ability to learn, and then do.”
Her head tilted. “So it’s not all about you.”
He laughed, shook his head. “Where do you get these ideas?”
“You’re kind of arrogant.”
He batted his hand. “Arrogant? Confident? Who cares as long as the end result is good?”
“I guess...”
“I know.” He took another sip of beer, watching as she slid her first drink—which he assumed was warm—aside and reached for the second glass he’d bought for her. “Not much of a drinker?”
“No.”
“So what are you?”
She laughed. “Is this how you become friends with someone?”
“Conversation is how everyone becomes friends.”
“I thought it was shared experience.”
“We don’t have time for shared experience. If we want to become friends by Wednesday we need to take shortcuts.”
She inclined her head as if agreeing.
He waited. When she said nothing, he reframed his question. “So you are happy teaching?”
“I’m a good teacher.”
“But you are not happy?”
“I’m just not sure people are supposed to be happy.”
He blinked. That was the very last thing he’d expected to hear from his bubbly hostess. “Seriously?”
She met his gaze. “Yeah. I think we’re meant to be content. I think we’re meant to find a spot and fill it. But happy? That’s reserved for big events or holidays.”
For thirty seconds, he wished she were staying in Italy. He wished he had time enough to show her the sights, teach her the basics of cooking, make her laugh, show her what happiness was. But that wasn’t the mission. The mission was to get to know her just enough that they would stop arguing.
“This from my happy, upbeat hostess?”
She met his gaze again. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about work.”
“We’re talking about you, not work.”
She picked up her beer glass. “Maybe this isn’t the best time to talk about me.”
Which only filled him with a thousand questions. When she was at Mancini’s she was usua
lly joyful. After a day off, she was as sad as the day he’d hurt her feelings? It made no sense...unless he believed that she loved working in his restaurant enough that it filled her with joy.
That made his pulse jump, made his mind race with thoughts he wasn’t supposed to have. So he rose.
“Okay. Talking is done. We’ll try shared experience.” He pointed behind her. “We’ll play darts.”
Clearly glad they’d no longer be talking, she laughed. “Good.”
“So you play darts at home in New York?”
She rose and followed him to the board hung on a back wall. They passed the quiet pool table, and he pulled some darts from the corkboard beside the dartboard.
“No, I don’t play darts.”
“Great. So we play for money?”
She laughed again. “No! We’ll play for fun.”
He sighed as if put out. “Too bad.”
But as they played, she began to talk about her search for her foster mother’s family. Her voice relaxed. Her smile returned. And Rafe was suddenly glad he’d found her. Not for his mission to make her his friend. But because she was alone. And in spite of her contention that people weren’t supposed to be happy, her normal state was happy. He’d seen that every day at the restaurant. But something had made her sad tonight.
Reminded of the way he had made her sad by saying she wasn’t needed, he redoubled his efforts to make her smile.
* * *
It was easy for Dani to dismiss the significance of Rafe finding her in the bar. They lived in a small town. He didn’t have a whole hell of a lot of choices for places to stop after work. So she wouldn’t let her crazy brain tell her it was sweet that he’d found her. She’d call it what it was. Lack of options.
Playing darts with her, Rafe was kind and polite, but not sexy. At least not deliberately sexy. There were some things a really handsome man couldn’t control. So she didn’t think he was coming on to her when he swaggered over to pull the darts from the board after he threw them. She didn’t think he was trying to entice her when he laughed at her poor attempts at hitting the board. And she absolutely made nothing of it when he stood behind her, took her arm and showed her the motion she needed to make to get the dart going in the right direction.