So Irresistible

by Lisa Plumley

  Predictably, that traitorous thought made the hallucinations kick in. Because one minute, Gabriella was dreaming up mushroom bruschetta with arugula and a drizzle of hazelnut oil … and the next she was seeing her father, the longtime head of her family’s chain of local pizzerias, ducking behind the piled-up boxes at a central Oregon dairy’s cheese stall. What the … ?

  Her father should have been at home. Resting. Those were his doctor’s strict orders. After the ordeal Robert Grimani had been through while trying to keep their family’s pizzerias afloat during a takeover bid, he’d begun having chest pains. His doctor had prescribed medication for his elevated blood pressure, then had ordered him to “cut the stress.” Knowing how impossible doing that would be for her husband of thirty-five years, Donna Grimani had phoned Gabriella for help. Immediately after getting that call, Gabriella had ended her self-imposed exile in the coastal Oregon town of Astoria and come home to Portland.

  Home to run Campania … and to see her mother now scurrying away behind a five-foot-tall stack of boxed farm-fresh eggs?

  Frowning in confusion, Gabriella followed her. She had to be imagining this. She knew her parents were probably both at home, in the same house Gabriella had grown up in, reading actual paper newspapers and watching television. Maybe, if they were feeling really frisky, they were puttering in their garden.

  They definitely had no reason to be casing the farmers market. Or to be hiding from Gabriella if they saw her. Sure, things had been … strained among the three of them, ever since Gabriella’s legendary showdown with her father. But they were all adults. Gabriella had come home to do the right thing. In time, all would be forgiven. Right? Wasn’t that how things went?

  As Gabriella rounded the next corner, she caught a mushroom purveyor giving her a perplexed look … and realized she was actually skulking around trying to catch her parents, as if they were hiding from her in a colossal (and imaginary) game of hide-and-seek. She straightened. This was ridiculous. It didn’t take a Freudian psychologist to know what was really going on here.

  She was worried her parents wouldn’t forgive her. End of story.

  Too bad that insight didn’t make Gabriella feel any better. Neither did knowing that she hadn’t even been aware of the takeover attempt her father had been fighting until it was too late. No one had told her. After the final face-off that had caused their estrangement, Gabriella had deliberately tuned out from the pizza world. Unfortunately, her father had apparently done the same thing. Distracted and distressed—but too stubborn to hammer out a truce with Gabriella—he hadn’t overseen all his pizzerias quite as diligently as he ordinarily would have. As far as Gabriella could tell, that misstep had led directly to their family’s business becoming vulnerable to a buyout bid.

  In a sense, the whole horrible snowball of events was all Gabriella’s fault. At least it felt that way to her.

  But still … hallucinations? It was either that, or her parents really had just given her the slip. Inexplicably. They definitely weren’t anywhere in sight anymore.

  Ordinarily, Gabriella was much tougher than this. The pressure must be getting to her. If she didn’t let off some steam soon …

  “Hey, Gabriella!” The mushroom guy held up his hand. “How’s it going? Are you guys planning to reopen Reggio soon? It’s the pizzeria closest to my house. I hate seeing it shuttered.”

  “Me, too.” The Grimanis owned six pizzerias throughout Portland. All were named after cities the Grimani family had once lived in in Italy. Reggio, Abruzzo, Tropea, Salerno, and Benevento were temporarily closed, thanks to the expenses her father had incurred while trying to fight the takeover. Now, only Campania remained to carry on the family tradition. “If everything goes according to plan, I’ll have the other pizzerias up and running soon.” She eyed the mushroom vendor, belatedly recognizing him. “If you have any leads on kitchen staff looking for work, send them my way. Staffing’s been a beast.”

  “Yeah. I heard you’ve been having problems since you came back.” Idly, he rearranged a basket of chanterelles. “It’s not that surprising. Nobody wants to work for a bad house.”

  “Campania isn’t bad!” Gabriella was shocked he would say so. Especially to her. “None of our pizzerias are—”

  “Ever going to reopen?”

  “—bad.” Surprised by his hostility, Gabriella regrouped. Obviously, she’d missed something here. He’d sounded friendly enough at first, but she’d been distracted. Evidently, she’d misinterpreted him. “As soon as I get my feet under me—”

  “You’ll run away to Astoria again?”

  His bitter tone made Gabriella frown. Her split from the Grimanis’ pizzeria business was pretty well known around town. Especially in foodservice circles. But that didn’t mean she deserved to be attacked this way. She had an urge to hit back—say, with a snarky comment about his foraged mushrooms—but decided not to. Being defensive and combative wouldn’t help. She needed to be smart. So she squared her shoulders and faced this situation the same way she did everything else in life.

  Straightforwardly.

  “Exactly what is your problem with me?”

  He seemed taken aback. “Wow. Hostile, much?”

  Argh. She hated it when people got passive-aggressive. It didn’t solve anything. “Quit taking shots at me and explain yourself. Otherwise nothing will ever get sorted out.”

  “Hmmph. I can’t imagine why you have staffing issues.”

  “Sarcasm isn’t helpful, either.”

  “Geez.” He pulled a goofy face. “Settle down, will ya?”

  “I’m not the one who picked a fight.” She crossed her arms and waited. “I don’t need to settle down. You need to explain.”

  “I was just saying.” The mushroom vendor glanced around at the other farmers market visitors as though beseeching them to come to his rescue. “You don’t have to get all bent.”

  With effort, Gabriella held on to her patience. She didn’t understand why people went through all these gyrations, when they could just as easily speak their minds. Deliberately, she softened her voice. “You’re right. I can be blunt. Big deal.” She smiled at him. “At least you know where you stand with me.”

  That seemed to get through to him. The mushroom vendor inhaled deeply. He gave her a sheepish look, then said, “My brother worked at Reggio. He lost his job when it closed.”

  Aha. “Then you weren’t asking about reopening Reggio because you have a die-hard craving for a sausage pie.”

  “No. I saw you, and I got pissed.” He cast her an aggrieved glance. “I didn’t expect you to go all ‘Terminator’ on me.”

  Gabriella broadened her grin. “We don’t know each other very well. My default mode is Terminator.”

  He nodded. “That’s what I’ve heard. But you look so—”

  Illustratively, he gestured at her and her typical uniform: boy-cut jeans, clingy rose-colored T-shirt, several necklaces, and just enough smoky eyeliner to make her feel edgy. Just because she was a ghostly pale restaurateur who got more heat from the kitchen salamander than she did from the sun didn’t mean she couldn’t roll her own glam-rock-boho personal style.

  “So like a quirky best friend straight out of a romcom movie? Yeah. I get that a lot.” Gabriella ruffled her close-cropped dark hair. “It’s the haircut. It’s misleadingly twee.”

  The mushroom vendor nodded. “Usually, the toughest person at the farmers market isn’t wearing lip gloss and pink high-tops,” he pointed out, “while standing six inches shorter and sixty pounds lighter than me. But you’re pretty tough.”

  “I make up with willpower what I lack in muscle power.”

  He laughed. “I wouldn’t want to get between you and a goal, that’s for sure. The look on your face a minute ago …” He shuddered, then pantomimed wiping his brow. “I feel lucky to have escaped with my portobellos intact just now.”

  “I like your portobellos. I wish I could use them at Campania.” Feeling suddenly stricken, Gabriella touche
d his forearm. “I’m sorry about your brother. I know my dad didn’t want to let anyone go. If there’s any way I can help—”

  “Well … I can try sending him to Campania. If he’ll go.”

  “If? Why wouldn’t he, if he wants a job?”

  The thought of people being out of work, even temporarily or tangentially because of her spat with her dad, left Gabriella feeling awful. She wanted to help if she could.

  The mushroom vendor looked away. He cleared his throat. “Nobody wants to work for you. Not now. Not when all the other Grimani pizzerias are already closed. You’re on death watch.”

  Ugh. Hearing it made Gabriella feel worse than ever.

  “You know how it is,” he went on semiapologetically. “This town is full of solid restaurants. It’s a kitchen worker’s paradise. Easy in, easy out. My brother does have another job now. He likes it okay. Not as much as he liked working for Mr. Grimani, but well enough.” He cast her a pitying glance. “You’ve been around, Gabriella. You know as well as I do that the only people who’d be willing to work in a dying house like yours—”

  “Whoa.” Gabriella held up her hands. “Too much honesty.”

  “—are down-and-outs. Shoemakers just looking for a quick buck.”

  “That explains a lot about my current staff. I’ve hired some real questionable types lately, just to get pies in the oven and on the tables.” Determinedly, Gabriella rallied. “But that’s temporary. That’s why I’m looking for more workers.”

  He nodded, silently acknowledging her request for help.

  “Once I’ve gotten Campania back on its feet,” she went on, “I’ll reopen the other pizzerias. So if your brother wants a job later, after I’ve saved the day, tell him to come see me.”

  “You sound pretty confident. Or crazy.”

  Gabriella shrugged. She was used to hearing herself described that way. It had been happening ever since she’d started up her first lemonade stand at the age of eight—and kicked ass on the other neighborhood kids with her special top-secret recipe … and her earnings. “Maybe I’m a little of both.”

  “Speaking of crazy”—the mushroom vendor looked around—“when you got here, were you chasing somebody? Because I thought I saw—”

  “I was chasing something,” Gabriella interrupted before he could make her seem even crazier. I was chasing redemption. And a chance to rebuild my family, too. Not that she intended to share anything as sappy-sounding as that. “But it got away.”

  Catching her unintentionally wistful tone, the mushroom vendor gave her an empathetic look. “Better luck next time?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” Gabriella picked out a packet of dried wild mushrooms. Then she added four more to her pile. “That’s the thing about us crazy types. We just keep coming till we win.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth, I have the feeling you might make it.” Amid the bustling market, he accepted her money, then dished out some change. “Sorry about what I said before. I saw you and I just … lost my mind for a second. I didn’t mean it.”

  “Mmm.” Unbothered, Gabriella wrinkled her nose at him. “That’s okay. I have that effect on people sometimes.”

  Then she tucked her dried mushrooms in her messenger bag, offered the vendor a nod, and headed on her way … off to save the pizzeria she’d accidentally imperiled with her own stupid stubbornness and inadvertent inattentiveness. Gabriella knew she could do it. From kickball games to projects at PSU, she’d always had a knack for assembling a team and then leading that team to victory, no matter what the odds were.

  Sure, the stakes were high. But they were nothing she couldn’t handle, Gabriella assured herself as she wended her way back to her bike and pedaled away from the farmers market. All she had to do was follow the rules, stick to the chain of command, and remember to keep tradition in the forefront. Because when crunch time came, rules inevitably triumphed over chaos, authority always prevailed, and tradition trumped everything else.

  As long as she remembered those principles and made them work, Gabriella knew she could win. Definitely.

  She hoped.

  Well, if all else failed, at least she had a plan….

  Chapter Two

  “They won’t even know what hit ’em,” Lizzy Trent announced as she sailed into Shane’s high-rise apartment. Moving with her usual air of purposefulness, she plunked a pile of shopping bags from Pioneer Place mall on Shane’s plush new sofa. “We’re almost set here. By the time you’re through in Portland, the Grimanis will be begging you to take their pizzerias off their hands.”

  “Mmm. Probably.” Dispassionately, Shane turned his gaze back to the rapidly darkening view outside his windows. Beyond them, the sylvan hillsides of Forest Park rose into the cloudy evening sky, turning an ever deepening shade of green as the sun called it quits for the day. With effort, he transferred his attention back to his assistant. “Have you ever been hiking?”

  “Hiking?”

  He nodded. “Walking around outdoors. In the woods. With a campfire and s’mores at the end of it.”

  “I know what hiking is. I didn’t think you did.” Setting aside her purse and keys, Lizzy gave him a concerned look. “Are you all right? The Walthams don’t ‘do’ outdoorsy, remember?”

  “I’m not a real Waltham,” Shane reminded her.

  “You’re ‘real’ enough to have a trust fund—”

  “Which I don’t spend.”

  “—and apartments in Paris, Tokyo, and London—”

  “Which I only use for work.”

  “—and connections all over the world—”

  “Not all of those came from the Walthams.” Shane tossed her a disgruntled look. “They didn’t adopt me until I was fifteen, remember?” When Shane had first come “home,” his adoptive father had introduced him to his new stepsiblings and to twenty-five-year-old Highland single-malt whisky, all in the same day. It had been a “celebration” meant to commemorate Shane’s move from a grungy foster home to the mansion. In retrospect, it should have been his first warning sign. “I have friends of my own.”

  “Right.” Playfully, Lizzy tossed her wavy brown hair. Her shaggy layers only partially hid the way she rolled her big blue eyes at him. “Friends, financial perks, and a facile grasp of cynicism—the inestimable advantages of prep school. I forgot.”

  “The advantages of living,” Shane disagreed. He hadn’t gotten any of those things the easy way. He’d paid for all the “advantages” he’d garnered … one way or another. “And the advantages of years’ worth of troublemaking.” He couldn’t help grinning. “Not all my friends are the reputable kind.”

  “You and your knack for finding fellow miscreants.” His assistant stepped away. “I guess that’s what happens when you get tossed out of numerous prep schools. Both here and abroad.”

  “Yeah. Fun times. Academic faculty members get so bent about little things like selling exam answers or dating the dean’s daughters.” It wasn’t Shane’s fault he hadn’t been able to choose between the two girls. “Both here and abroad.”

  “Right. So … remind me why we’re taking this trip down memory lane?” Unaffected by his mercurial mood, Lizzy began pulling out items from her shopping bags. Throw pillows. Framed photos. Candles and knickknacks and a pair of umbrellas. She’d been setting up Shane’s home base for this job with her usual competence and meticulousness. Clearly, these were the finishing touches, since D-day was tomorrow. “Are you testing my prep? Because I can promise you, when I’m on the job, not a thing goes down that I don’t notice and remember. That’s why you hired me.”

  “I hired you because you made me.”

  Lizzy shrugged, then removed some hardcover books from a Powell’s Books bag. “What’s a little blackmail between friends?” She started shelving. “Things worked out okay for both of us.”

  They were more than okay. Shane knew it. Without Lizzy, he’d have been even more alone in the world than he already was.

  He trusted Lizzy. He relied on h
er. Once, he’d also tried to charm her. He was glad that mistake was behind them both.

  Shane felt her patient gaze return to him and knew she was still waiting for an answer. She’d wait forever if necessary.

  Remind me why we’re taking this trip down memory lane?

  He refused to admit the real reason—that being softened up by free “regular’s” coffee, Aussie Bill’s advice, and a daylong bout of smiling at strangers had left Shane feeling weird and regretful and susceptible to sentiment in a way he never was.

  Screw those things. They had no place in his life.

  Instead, stubbornly, Shane asked, “Do you like it here?”

  Hands on her hips, Lizzie gazed at him curiously. “It’s okay.”

  “You don’t think it’s … weird here in Portland?”

  “Sure, it’s weird. You’ve never heard that saying they have? ‘Keep Portland weird’? They’re unique and proud of it.”

  “But it hasn’t … affected you? Being here?”

  With a frown, Lizzy headed straight for him. She put her hand on his forehead. “You don’t feel feverish.” Her astute gaze probed his expression, undoubtedly seeing the confusion he felt. She glanced at the bound dossier he’d left untouched on his lap. “What’s wrong? Usually you’d be champing at the bit to get started. This is a big job. Your father is counting on you.”

  At that, Shane gave a derisive chuckle. “I can’t believe he actually said it.” He mimicked his father’s aristocratic tone. “‘I’m counting on you, Shane.’” He clenched his jaw and added an arrogant chin jut for authenticity’s sake. Gregory Waltham was nothing if not self-important. “‘I need your skills for this one. I need you.’”