She’d made bad choices in the past. She had regrets, but she’d made some good choices too. Like deciding to move back to Virginia and help her sisters try to hold on to the winery. She’d believed at the time that it would derail her plans to open her own restaurant, but it hadn’t. Now, she’d be opening one sooner than she ever could have if she’d stayed in New York. She’d most likely still be a sous chef. At a highly regarded restaurant, yes; but realistically, she admitted, she might never have been able to raise the capital to realize her dream. Or, if she did manage it, to distinguish herself enough to survive in New York’s highly competitive restaurant market.
She wouldn’t have Serendipity. Without Serendipity, she never would have met Liam. Odd, she mused. For as long as she could remember, opening a restaurant had been all she wanted. Oh, she still wanted it, badly, but she’d realized over the last several weeks that she wanted something else even more.
Had destiny brought her to one of those forks that, depending on which road she took, would change the course of her life? And, she mused, the thought occurring to her for the first time, was Rosa’s interference in their lives an attempt to guide her to the right path?
Cat pondered the possibility. If that were the case, what could have happened in their aunt’s life that it would matter so much to her?
LIAM SAT IN the Bonaveras’ library, waiting for Antonio to join him. Lucia had decided that since they had to rebuild her and Antonio’s private quarters at Serendipity, she wanted to make some minor changes.
The cold snap that had kept them from redoing the build-out in January was, thankfully, behind them. February had issued in warmer than normal temps. They’d finally been able to make some progress, but if they were reworking the suite’s design, he needed to know what the changes would entail before moving forward.
He glanced up from the new drawing he’d been perusing when he heard voices. Eliana and Damien walked out of the solarium and crossed the lobby toward the front doors.
“Hey, Liam,” she said, making a detour into the library. “You remember Damien?”
Damien greeted him, and Liam stood, shook hands with the man. “How’s it going?”
“Damien and I were just heading out to get some lunch.” She glanced around at the empty reception desk, then faced him again. “Are you waiting for someone? Do they know you’re here? I could run up and sound the alarms if you want me to.”
“I’ve got a meeting with Antonio—and here he is now.” Liam nodded in the direction of the hallway that Antonio had just rounded and was now making his way across the lobby.
“Okay, great. We’ll leave you two to it.” Eliana took Damien’s hand and headed toward the lobby. She reached up and ruffled Antonio’s hair as they passed him on their way to the front door. “How goes it, handsome?”
“No complaints, beautiful.” Antonio nodded a hello to Damien. “How do you keep up with her?”
“I was a long-distance runner in college. Not that it totally prepared me for the whirlwind, but it helps.”
“You’re both lucky I’ve got such a wonderful sense of humor.” El tugged Damien’s hand. “Come on, Flash, I need food.”
After they walked out, Antonio joined Liam in the library. He sat on the couch next to him, so they could review the drawing. “Thanks for coming over. I know you’ve been busy playing catch-up at the site.”
“No problem. Burke and Shawn are both helping out this week, so we should be able to make up for some of the time we lost to all the snow last month.”
Liam hitched his head toward the front doors where Eliana and Damien had just departed. “What’s the story with this Damien?” He knew he’d seen him somewhere before the day they’d been setting up for the holiday tour, but he couldn’t place where. In a restaurant, some store, the gas station. It could have been anywhere, but he just knew he’d crossed paths with the guy.
Although he’d always seemed friendly enough, something about Damien made Liam wary. “Is Eliana dating him now?”
“That’s the word on the street,” Antonio said. “Lucia told me she thinks this guy may be different.”
“Why’s that?”
“Apparently most men don’t make it past the third date with Eliana, but she’s been seeing Damien for about two months now, with no sign of lacing up her running shoes. Lucia and her sisters aren’t sure what to make of it, but they’re all hoping she’s finally met Mr. Right.”
Liam didn’t want to raise a red flag when he’d only talked to the guy a couple of times and had little to base his discomfort on. Maybe it was because he sometimes got the sense Damien was watching him. But the man was a photojournalist. He told stories through the pictures of people and scenes he observed. He probably studied everyone and everything more intently than most people.
Just because he’d caught Damien observing him didn’t make the guy suspicious. Most likely it was a habit, one of those behaviors that was indigenous to certain professions—like with cops, or psychologists, or writers. They were always studying people, analyzing their behavior, trying to figure out their motivations—students of the human condition.
“So, the biggest change to the original plan is that Lucia wants to shift the bathroom from the corner here, to the opposite side of the bedroom,” Antonio said when Liam didn’t comment further, and leaned forward over the drawing. “She decided she wanted to keep this corner open and add a window on the front and another on the side, so the room would get the morning light. I suggested if we were going to do that we could put French doors on the side that led out to a small, private porch.”
Liam buried any lingering questions he had about Damien. “I’ll bet she loved that,” he said. “She’ll have another area to decorate.”
“She did,” Antonio confirmed. “She’s already picking out furniture for it.”
They spent the next half hour going over other changes before wrapping up their meeting. As Liam was about to return to the site, Lucia came out of the solarium. He stopped to chat for a minute.
“If you don’t have plans tomorrow evening, why don’t you and Riley come for dinner?” she said. “Antonio’s grandfather is visiting, and Cat’s going to make a special meal in his honor. She loves to spoil him. We all do,” she admitted. The look in her eyes softened, and it was clear her affection for the man ran deep. “Anyway, it would be great if you could come. I’m sure Vincenzo would love to meet you and Riley. He’s always asking Cat if he’s going to get to meet the man who stole her heart to see if he approves.”
“Who says I’ve stolen her heart?” Liam asked, although the notion pleased him immensely since she’d stolen his.
Lucia looked at him as if to say, Really, as if it isn’t obvious to everyone?
He chuckled. “That was a question, not a complaint. And if you don’t think Cat would mind two more for dinner, I know Riley would love it.”
“She’s not going to mind. You know she adores Riley, and,” she said, meeting his eyes with all seriousness, “in case you have any doubts, she feels the same about her father.”
Had Caterina confided her feelings for him to her sisters, Liam wondered. He loved her. He’d accepted the truth of it. He’d never said the words to her, and she’d never said them to him. But that didn’t mean she didn’t feel them…and if she did—
“She’s in the kitchen. Why don’t you stop in and let her know I invited you? I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.”
“I think I will,” he said. Although he hadn’t come here with the intention of seeing her, he saw no reason to pass up on the opportunity. “Thanks.”
“You bet.” The corners of Lucia’s mouth curled up, and she gave a single nod. A stamp of approval, it seemed. If he’d gotten past Caterina’s sisters, the battle to make her his was half won.
“TOUCH ANYTHING IN this kitchen and risk losing a hand,” Cat said without turning around from the counter to see who had come into the kitchen. She continued mincing the fresh parsley she needed for h
er signature version of Chesapeake crab ravioli, just one of the several dishes she planned for tomorrow night’s buffet.
Regathering the herbs into a new pile, she rocked her knife over them. She was going all out to make everything special, with some traditional Italian fare she knew Vincenzo would enjoy, but also adding in a couple of surprises that would showcase some local treasures, like the blue crab.
Vincenzo loved to eat. He was a man who appreciated food, celebrated it, and understood the power it had to comfort, to create memories, and to be the very fabric that united families and friends. And she was a chef.
What better a guest could she want to sit at her table?
“Does that go for the cook?”
Saliva began to pool at the sound of the voice that belonged to the man who’d captured her heart. She was like one of Pavlov’s dogs. He took hold of her waist, eased her around, brought them hip-to-hip, face-to-face—and she melted—Valrhona chocolate, liquifying into molten desire in a double boiler. She reached behind her, set the knife on the cutting board, found a more interesting use for her hands.
“You can touch the cook. It’s not usually permitted, but she’s willing to make an exception in this case.”
“Ummm.” He bent his head, nibbled her lips as if he were savoring a delicate sliver of fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano. A shiver raced up her leg. “Lucky me,” he said, and she felt him grin against her mouth.
“You are, because the cook likes you.”
“Yeah?” He angled his head back, regarded her, his gorgeous blue-green eyes holding her captive. “How much?”
Something about the way he looked at her made Caterina hesitate. What would he do if she told him she loved him? Would he stay? Would he run? Would he stumble over a response about how he liked her a lot but didn’t want to hurt her? Or, would he say he loved her too? Was she willing to risk telling him to find out?
I love you. The words formed in her head, as clear as the crystal wineglasses hanging over the kitchen island. They flirted with her lips, where they were less confident about revealing themselves.
“A lot, Dougherty. I like you a lot,” she settled on. “More than I ever would have believed I could the first couple of months we knew each other.”
He stood there, continued to study her, as if trying to look past her eyes and see into her thoughts, as if debating something in his own, and her heart raced. Her mind spun through a dozen possibilities, good and bad, in a brief span of seconds that felt like hours, before he reacted.
“So,” he said, “Lucia told me you were making a special dinner tomorrow night for Antonio’s grandfather. She invited me and Riley. You okay with that?”
Caterina blinked. “What? I mean, yes! I’d love it if you and Riley came!”
“Are you sure? You seem taken aback by the invitation.”
“Yes, I’m sure! I was just…you jumped topics. I wasn’t expecting it. I’d love if you joined us, though. You know how much I like Riley, and I know Vincenzo will just adore her!”
“Do you think Vincenzo will adore me too?” He nipped her bottom lip and then gave her a wicked grin. Temptation. Yes, he was.
“I hope so. I put a lot of value in his opinion, and it would be a shame if he doesn’t and we have to send you home before dessert. I’m making a hazelnut torte, and vanilla ice cream with rum-macerated cherries. Simple, but sinfully good.”
“Then maybe I should satisfy my taste for sweets and a little sin now, so I don’t risk missing out.”
He covered her lips with a steamy kiss that obliterated whatever witty response she might have given. Her body, however, provided a ready answer. Help yourself, it encouraged, twining one of her legs around the back of his, sliding her hands up his broad back, holding tight.
The oven chimed, relaying that it had reached the preheat temperature she’d set it to before Liam’s arrival, for the hazelnut torte she was making in advance of tomorrow. But the warmth flooding her blood had nothing to do with the 350 degrees coming from behind its glass doors.
Liam pulled back, hunger coloring his eyes a deeper shade of teal—a hunger she understood because it gnawed within her too. A hunger in her body, and a hunger in her heart—to be held, cherished, understood—to be loved.
“I better get out of here. We’re trying to make some headway this week, and it’s not going to happen if I don’t turn around and walk out of here within the next minute or two.”
Caterina dragged in a breath of head-clearing air. “Yeah. Me too. I need to run out to pick up a few more things for tomorrow night, but I still need to put the ravioli together and bake my torte first.”
He let go of her and stepped away, his expression intense as he walked backwards toward the door. It had her holding her breath again. Something was in his look that she hadn’t seen there two months ago, but that she’d caught flickers of over the last several weeks.
Liam stopped at the doorway. “What time should Riley and I get here tomorrow?”
“I was planning dinner for seven, but there’s no problem doing six, so you don’t have to keep Riley out too late on a weeknight. Would six work for you?”
He nodded. “I’ll make it work.” He cocked his head. What was going on in that head of his? she wondered.
“This might not be the best way to tell you this.” He hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “But I thought I’d put it out there, let you chew it over, see how you feel about it so there’s no misunderstanding about what’s going on between us.”
Cat’s stomach clenched. Here it came. He liked her but wasn’t looking for a commitment…didn’t want her getting too serious…to hurt her…confuse her…mislead her—
“When I asked how much you liked me, Caterina, I was angling for a different response. It was probably unfair, since I was hoping you’d say what I wanted to hear, and things would be out in the open. Rather than play that game, I’m going to come clean, then I’m going to leave. You can think it over with no pressure to answer right now, and if you’re not on the same page, we can take it up later.”
He locked eyes with her. “I’m in love with you. I didn’t plan on it, but it happened. So, I guess we need to figure out what happens next.”
Her mouth dropped open. Liam spun around and walked out the door.
IT TOOK ALMOST a full minute before the weight of his words really sunk in, another three or four before she could do anything but stand rooted against the kitchen counter in disbelief. He’d stunned her with his proclamation.
When the initial shock ebbed, and she finally regained control of her body, she dashed out of the kitchen, ran through the solarium, across reception to the front doors, and flung them open just in time to see Liam’s truck crunching its way down the gravel driveway.
“Chew it over!” she yelled. She stomped her foot as he turned left and headed up the road toward Serendipity. She gave one door a good slam, then the other. Twirling around, Caterina growled, low and long.
“Men!” Frustration fueling her, she turned back to the double doors, threw one open again, and shouted, “It would have been nice if you’d thrown in a little romance with that declaration, Dougherty!”
Sighing, Cat pushed the door shut, then turned and leaned her back against it. Liam loved her. She’d known he cared for her, known the day he’d brought Riley over for the three of them to spend time together, that their relationship had shifted. He wouldn’t have risked the chance his daughter might start forming a bond with her if he didn’t consider their relationship serious. But love—he wouldn’t throw something like that out lightly. Not Liam. He wasn’t someone who showed emotions openly, or easily. He liked to flirt with her, but he wasn’t a romantic like Antonio, with his suave charm and poetic language.
A profession of love…no, it would not have been easy for him. The reality of what Liam actually saying those words to her meant sunk deeper. This was the big leagues. This was serious. This was—
“Are you okay, Cat?”
Cate
rina looked up. Lucia had come into reception. She stood by the front desk, watching Cat.
“You look like you’re in shock,” Luch observed. She angled her head, and then her eyes went wide. “Oh no.” She hurried toward her. “Mitch wasn’t here, was he? He’s supposed to be in jail. He didn’t get—”
“No.” Cat shook her head. “He’s not out, and he wasn’t here.” She put an arm around her sister, leaned into her a moment. Her sisters had been her anchor after she’d broken up with Mitch, and he’d come to the winery and threatened her, as well as after the fire when she’d struggled against a sense of guilt.
“You worry too much,” she said softly, appreciating how lucky she was to have such a supportive family. “I’m fine, just…processing.”
Lucia studied her face with eyes so like her own, and Cat thought she could have been looking into a mirror at them.
“Want to talk about it?” her sister asked.
Cat caught her bottom lip between her teeth, let out a shaky breath. “Liam’s in love with me.”
Lucia chuckled. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“You know?”
“Of course, I know. Everyone knows.”
“Did he say something to you or Antonio?”
Lucia arched a brow. “Liam? We are talking about Liam.”
“Yeah. Right. But how did you know when I didn’t?”
“Because I have eyes. Because we all have eyes. And because it’s often easier to see things from the outside looking in, than from the inside looking out. When you’re on the outside, you’re not looking through all the emotional filters. You’re not putting your heart at risk by allowing yourself to see what’s right in front of you.”
“Somebody could have told me,” Cat said.
“When did you finally figure it out?”
“He told me. Just now. Well, a few minutes ago. In the kitchen. He just blurted it out, without giving me a chance to respond, and then he took off. It was…surreal.”
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