The way he said lovers sent a wave of yearning skittering along her nerve endings. It suddenly became difficult to breathe.
He caught her gaze again. “I’ve warned you before to be careful with me, Dani. I’m not a man who often walks away from what he wants.”
“Wow. You are one honest guy.”
He laughed. “Usually I wouldn’t care. I’d muscle my way into your life and take what I wanted. But you’re different. You’re innocent.”
“I sort of liked being different until you added the part about me being innocent.”
“You are.”
“Well, yeah. Sort of.” She tossed her hands in exasperation, the confusion and longing getting the better of her. “But you make it sound like a disease.”
“It’s not. It’s actually a quality men look for in a woman they want to keep.”
Her heart fluttered again. “Oh?”
“Don’t get excited about that. I’m not the kind of guy who commits. I like short-term relationships because I don’t like complications. I’m attracted to you, yes, but I also know myself. My commitment to the restaurant comes before any woman.” He forced her gaze to his again. “This thing I feel for you is wrong. So as much as I wanted you to take the hint tonight and share a bottle of wine with me, I also hoped you wouldn’t. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“We could always talk about the restaurant.”
“About how you were missed? How a customer actually asked for you?”
She laughed. “See? That’s all great stuff. Neutral stuff.”
“I suppose you also wouldn’t be opposed to hearing that Emory thinks that after the success of your lunch menu, we should encourage you to make suggestions.”
Pride flooded her. “Well, I’ll do my best to think of new things.”
He glanced at the stars again. Their conversation had run its course. He stood in the cold. She sat in a car that could be warm if she’d started the darn thing. But the air between them was anything but cool, and she suddenly realized they were kidding themselves if they believed they could be just friends.
He looked down and smiled slightly. “Good night, Dani.”
He didn’t wait for her to say good-night. He walked away.
She sat there for a few seconds, tingling, sort of breathless, but knowing he was right. They couldn’t be friends and they couldn’t have a fling. She was innocent and he would hurt her. And though technically she’d stretched the truth about being engaged, it was saving her heartbreak.
After starting her car, she pulled out, watching in the rearview mirror as he revved the engine of his big SUV and followed her to Monte Calanetti.
* * *
Though Dani dressed in her usual black trousers and white blouse the next morning, she took extra care when she ironed them, making them crisper, their creases sharper, so she looked more professional when she arrived at the restaurant.
Rafe spoke sparingly. It wasn’t long before she realized that unless she had a new idea to discuss, they wouldn’t interact beyond his thank-you when she introduced him to a customer who wanted to compliment the chef.
She understood. Running into each other at the tavern the first time and talking out their disagreement, then playing darts the second, had made them friendly enough that they no longer sniped. But having minimal contact with her was how he would ignore their attraction. They weren’t right for each other and, older, wiser, he was sparing them both. But that didn’t really stop her attraction to him.
To keep herself from thinking about Rafe on Friday, she studied the customer seating, the china and silverware, the interactions of the waitresses with the customers, but didn’t come up with an improvement good enough to suggest to him.
A thrill ran through her at the knowledge that he took her ideas so seriously. Here she was, an educated but simple girl from Brooklyn, being taken seriously by a lauded European chef.
The sense of destiny filled her again, along with Rafe’s comment about happiness. This time her thoughts made her gasp. What if this feeling of rightness wasn’t about Rafe or Italy? What if this sense of being where she belonged was actually telling her the truth about her career choice? She loved teaching, but it didn’t make her feel she belonged the way being a part of this restaurant did. And maybe this sense of destiny was simply trying to point her in the direction of a new career when she returned to the United States?
The thought relieved her. Life was so much simpler when the sense of destiny was something normal, like an instinct for the restaurant business, rather than longing for her boss—a guy she shouldn’t even be flirting with when she had a marriage proposal waiting for her at home.
Emory came to the podium and interrupted her thoughts. “These are the employee phone numbers. Gio called off sick for tonight’s shift. I’d like you to call in a replacement.”
She glanced up at him. “Who should I call?”
He smiled. “Your choice. Being out here all the time, you know who works better with whom.”
After calling Zola, she walked back to the kitchen to return the list.
Emory shook his head. “This is your responsibility now. A new job for you, while you’re here, to make my life a little easier.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
Without looking at her, Rafe said, “We’d also like you to begin assigning tasks to the busboys. After you say goodbye to a guest, we’d like you to come in and get the busboys. That will free up the waitresses a bit.”
The feeling of destiny swelled in her again. The new tasks felt like a promotion, and there wasn’t a person in the world who didn’t like being promoted.
When Rafe refused to look at her, she winked at Emory. “Okay.”
Walking back to the dining room, she fought the feeling that her destiny, her gift, was for this particular restaurant. Especially since, when returning to New York, she’d start at the bottom of any dining establishment she chose to work, and that would be a problem since she’d only make minimum wage. At Mancini’s, she only needed to earn extra cash. In New York, would a job as a hostess support her?
The next day, Lazare, one of the busboys, called her “Miss Daniella.” The shift from Dani to Miss Daniella caught on in the kitchen and the show of respect had Daniella’s shoulders straightening with confidence. When she brought Rafe out for a compliment from a customer, even he said, “Thank you, Miss Daniella,” and her heart about popped out of her chest with pride.
That brought her back to the suspicion that her sense of destiny wasn’t for the restaurant business, but for this restaurant and these people. If she actually got a job at a restaurant in New York, she couldn’t expect the staff there to treat her this well.
Realizing all her good fortune would stop when she left Mancini’s, her feeling of the “destiny” of belonging in the restaurant business fizzled. She would go home to a tiny apartment, a man whose marriage proposal had scared her and a teaching position that suddenly felt boring.
“Miss Daniella,” Gio said as she approached the podium later that night. “The gentleman at table two would like to speak to the chef.”
She said it calmly, but there was an undercurrent in her voice, as if subtly telling Daniella that this was a problem situation, not a compliment.
She smiled and said, “Thank you, Gio. I’ll handle it.”
She walked over to the table.
The