“Cover our bill?” The tiny blonde lifted a ravioli with her fork and let it plop to her plate. “You should pay us for enduring even a bite of this drivel.”
The dough of that ravioli had serenaded his palms as he worked it. The sweet sauce had kissed his tongue. The problem wasn’t his food but the palates of the diners.
Still, remembering Dani, he held his temper as he gently reached down and took the biceps of the blonde. “My apologies.” He subtly guided her toward the door. The woman was totally cooperative until they got to the podium, and then she squirmed as if he was hurting her, and made a hideous face. Her friend snapped a picture with her phone.
“Get it on Instagram!” the blonde said as they raced out the door. “Rafe Mancini sinks to new lows!”
Furious, Rafe ran after them, but they jumped into their car and peeled out of his parking lot before he could catch them.
After a few well-aimed curses, he counted to forty. Great. Just when he thought rumors of his temper had died, two spoiled little girls were about to resurrect them.
He returned to the quiet dining room. Taking another page from Dani’s book, he said, “I’m sorry for the disturbance. Everyone, please, enjoy your meals.”
A few diners glanced down. One woman winced. A couple or two pretended to be deep in conversation, as if trying to avoid his misery.
With a weak smile, he walked into the kitchen, over to his workstation and picked up a knife.
Emory scrambled over and whispered, “You’re going to have to find her.”
Facing the wall, so no one could see, Rafe squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t have to ask who her was. The shifts Daniella had been gone had been awful. This was their first encounter with someone trying to lure out his temper, but there had been other problems. Squabbles among the waitresses. Seating mishaps. Lost reservations.
“Things are going wrong, falling through the cracks,” Emory continued.
“This is my restaurant. I will find and fix mistakes.”
“No. If there’s anything Dani taught us, it’s that you’re a chef. You are a businessman, yes. But you are not the guy who should be in the dining room. You are the guy who should be trotted out for compliments. You are the special chef made more special by the fact that you must be enticed out to the dining room.”
He laughed, recognizing he liked the sound of that because he did like to feel special. Or maybe he liked feeling that his food was special.
“Did you ever stop to think that you don’t have a temper with the customers or the staff when Dani’s around?”
He didn’t even try to deny it. With the exception of being on edge because of his attraction to her, his temperament had improved considerably. “Yes.”
Emory chuckled as if surprised by his easy acquiescence. “Because she does the tasks that you aren’t made to do, which frees you up to do the things you like to do. So, let’s just bring her back.”
Missing Dani was about so, so much more than Emory knew. Not just a loss of menial tasks but a comfort level. It was as if she brought sunshine into the room. Into his life. But she was engaged.
“Why should I go after her?” Rafe finally faced Emory. “She is returning to America in two weeks.”
“Maybe we can persuade her to stay?”
He sniffed a laugh. Leaning down so that only Emory would hear, he said, “She has a fiancé in New York.”
Emory’s features twisted into a scowl. “And she’s in Italy? For months? Without him? Doesn’t sound like much of a fiancé to me.”
That brought Rafe up short. There was no way in hell he’d let the woman he loved stay alone in Italy for months. Especially not if the woman he loved was Daniella.
He didn’t tell Emory that. His reasoning was mixed up in feelings that he wasn’t supposed to have. He’d gone the route of a relationship once. He’d given up apprenticeships to please Kamila. Which meant he’d given up his dream for her. And still they hadn’t made it.
But he’d learned a lesson. Relationships only put the future of his restaurants at stake, so he satisfied himself with one-night stands.
Dani would not be a one-night stand.
But Mancini’s really wasn’t fine without her.
And Mancini’s was his dream. He needed Daniella at his restaurant way too much to break his own rule about relationships. And that was the real bottom line. Getting involved with her would risk his dream as much as Kamila had. He needed her as an employee and he needed to put everything else out of his mind.
Emory caught Rafe’s arm. “Maybe there is an opportunity here. If she’s truly unhappy, especially with her fiancé, you might be able to convince her Mancini’s should be her new career.”
That was exactly what Rafe intended to do.
“But you can’t have that discussion over the phone. You need to go to Palazzo di Comparino tomorrow. Talk to her personally. Make your case. Offer her money.”
“Okay. I’ll be out tomorrow morning, maybe all day if I need the time. You handle things while I’m gone.”
Emory grinned. “That’s my boy.”
* * *
At the crack of dawn the next morning, Louisa woke Dani and said she was ready to take the bus back to Monte Calanetti. She was happy to have met Dani’s foster mom’s relatives, but she was nervous, antsy about Palazzo di Comparino. It was time to go back.
After grabbing coffee at a nearby bistro, Dani walked her friend to the bus station, then spent the day with her foster mother’s family. By late afternoon, she left, also restless. Like Louisa, she’d loved meeting the Felice family, but they weren’t her family. Her family was the little group of restaurant workers at Mancini’s.
Saddened, she began the walk back to her hotel. A block before she reached it, she passed the bistro again. Though the day was crisp, it was sunny. Warm in the rays that poured down on a little table near the sidewalk, she sat.
She ordered coffee, telling herself it wasn’t odd that she felt a connection to the staff at Mancini’s. They were nice people. Personable. Passionate. Of course, she felt as if they were family. She’d mothered the waitresses, babied the customers and fallen for Emory like a favorite uncle.
But she’d never see any of them again. She’d been fired from Mancini’s. Rafe hated her. She wouldn’t go home happy, satisfied to have met Rosa’s relatives, because the connection she’d made had been to a totally different set of people. She would board her plane depressed. Saddened. Returning to a man who didn’t even want to pick her up at the airport. A man whose marriage proposal she was going to have to refuse.
A street vendor caught her arm and handed her a red rose.
Surprised, she looked at him, then the rose, then back at him again. “Grazie...I think.”
He grinned. “It’s not from me. It’s from that gentleman over there.” He pointed behind him.
Dani’s eyes widened when she saw Rafe leaning against a lamppost. Wearing jeans, a tight T-shirt and the waist-length black wool coat that he’d worn to the tavern, he looked sexy. But also alone. Very alone. The way she felt in the pit of her stomach when she thought about going back to New York.
Her gaze fell to the rose. Red. For passion. But with someone like Rafe who was a bundle of passion about his restaurant, about his food, about his customers, the color choice could mean anything.
Carrying the rose, she got up from her seat and walked over to him. “How did you find me?”
“Would you believe I guessed