His gaze narrowed. “What I heard was you on your soapbox making wild generalizations about men of a certain tax bracket.”
“Hardly generalizations,” she refuted. “You need someone to take to Italy with you because you’ve left a trail of refuse behind you, Lazzero. Because Gianni Casale doesn’t trust you with his wife. I won’t be part of aiding and abetting that kind of behavior.”
“A trail of refuse?” His gaze chilled to a cool, hard ebony. “I think you’re reading too many tabloids.”
“I think not. You’re exactly the sort of man I want nothing to do with.”
“I’m not asking you to get involved with me,” he rebutted coolly. “I’m suggesting you get over this personal bias you have against a man with a bank balance and solve your financial problems while you’re at it. I have no doubt we can pull this off if you put your mind to it.”
“No.” She slid to the edge of the chair. “Ask someone else. I’m sure one of the other baristas would jump at the chance.”
“I don’t want them,” he said evenly, “I want you.” He threw an exorbitant figure of money at her that made her eyes widen. “It would go a long way toward helping your father.”
Chiara’s head buzzed. It would pay her father’s rent for the rest of the year. Would be enough to get him back on his feet after the unexpected expenses he’d incurred having to replace some machinery at the bakery. But surely what Lazzero was proposing was insane? She could never pull this off and even if she could, it would put her smack in the middle of a world she wanted nothing to do with.
She got to her feet before she abandoned her common sense completely. “I need to get back to work.”
Lazzero pulled a card out of his wallet, scribbled something on the back and handed it to her. “My cell number if you change your mind.”
CHIARA’S HEAD WAS still spinning as she finished up her shift at the café and walked home on a gorgeous summer evening in Manhattan. She was too distracted, however, to take in the vibrant New York she loved, too worried about her father’s financial situation to focus.
If he couldn’t pay off the new equipment he’d purchased, he was going to lose the bakery—the only thing that seemed to get him up in the morning since her mother died. She couldn’t conceive of that prospect happening. Which left Lazzero’s shocking business proposition to consider.
She couldn’t possibly do it. Would be crazy to even consider it. But how could she not?
Her head no clearer by the time she’d picked up groceries at the corner store for a quiet night in, she carried them up the three flights of stairs of the old brick walk-up she and Kat shared in Spanish Harlem, and let herself in.
They’d done their best to make the tiny, two-bedroom apartment warm and cozy despite its distinct lack of appeal, covering the dingy walls in a cherry-colored paint, adding dark refinished furniture from the antiques store around the corner, and topping it all off with colorful throws and pillows.
It wasn’t much, but it was home.
Kat, who was busy getting ready for a date, joined her in the shoebox of a kitchen as Chiara stowed the groceries away. Possessing a much more robust social life than she, her roommate had plans to see a popular play with a new boyfriend she was crazy about. At the moment, however, lounging against the counter in a tomato-red silk dress and impossibly slender black heels, her roommate was hot on the trail of a juicy story.
“So,” she said. “What really happened with Lazzero Di Fiore today? And no blowing me off like you did earlier.”
Chiara—who thought Kat should’ve been a lawyer rather than the doctor she was training to be, she was so relentless in the pursuit of the facts—stowed the carton of milk in the fridge and stood up. “You can’t say anything to anyone.”
Kat lifted her hands. “Who am I going to tell?”
Chiara filled her in on Lazzero’s business proposition. Kat’s eyes went as big as saucers. “He’s always had the hots for you. Maybe he’s making his move.”
Chiara cut that idea off at the pass. “It is strictly a business arrangement. He made that clear.”
“And you said no? Are you crazy?” Her friend waved a red tipped hand at her. “He is offering to solve all your financial problems, Chiara, for a week in Italy. La Coppa Estiva is the celebrity event of the season. Most women would give their right arm to be in your position. Not to mention the fact that Lazzero Di Fiore is the hottest man on the face of the planet. What’s not to like?”
Chiara pressed her lips together. Kat didn’t know about her history with Antonio. Why Milan was the last place she’d want to be. It wasn’t something you casually dropped into conversation with your new roommate, despite how close she and Kat had been getting.
She pursed her lips. “I have my shifts at the café. I need that job.”
“Everyone’s looking for extra hours right now. Someone will cover for you.” Kat stuck a hand on her silk-clad hip. “When’s the last time you had a holiday? Had some fun? Your life is boring, Chiara. Booorrring. You’re a senior citizen at age twenty-six.”
A hot warmth tinged her cheeks. Her life was boring. It revolved around work and more work. When she wasn’t on at the café, she was helping out at the bakery on the weekends. There was no room for relaxation.
The downstairs buzzer went off. Kat disappeared in a cloud of perfume. Chiara cranked up the air-conditioning against the deadly heat, which wouldn’t seem to go below a certain lukewarm temperature no matter how high she turned it up, and made herself dinner.
She ate while she played with a design of a dress she’d seen a girl wearing at the café today, but hadn’t quite had the urban chic she favored. Changing the hemline to an angular cut and adding a touch of beading to the bodice, she sketched it out, getting close to what she’d envisioned, but not quite. The heat oppressive, the blaring sound of the television from the apartment below destroying her concentration, she threw the sketchbook and pencil aside.
What was the point? she thought, heart sinking. She was never going to have the time or money to pursue her career in design. Those university classes she’d taken at Parsons had been a waste of time and money. All she was doing was setting herself up for more disappointment in harboring these dreams of hers, because they were never going to happen.
Cradling her tea between her hands, she fought a bitter wave of loneliness that settled over her, a deep, low throb that never seemed to fade. This was the time she’d treasured the most—those cups of tea after dinner with her mother when the bakery was closed.
A seamstress by trade, her mother had been brilliant with a needle. They’d talked while they’d sewed—about anything and everything. About Chiara’s schoolwork, about that nasty boy in her class who was giving her trouble, about the latest design she’d sketched at the back of her notebook that day. Until life as she’d known it had ended forever on a Friday evening when she was fifteen when her mother had sat her down to talk—not about boys or clothes—but about the breast cancer she’d been diagnosed with. By the next fall, she’d been gone. There had been no more cups of tea, no more confidences, only a big, scary world to navigate as her father had descended into his grief and anger.
The heavy, pulsing weight encompassing all of her now, she rolled to her feet and walked to the window. Hugging her arms tight around herself, she stared out at the colorful graffiti on the apartment buildings across the street. Usually, she managed to keep the hollow emptiness at bay, convince herself that she