by Amanda Usen
“I thought I’d find the two of you drinking wine and feeding each other grapes. Where is she?” Colin asked.
Sean told him, starting with the strawberries and working his way back.
When he explained his reason for leaving Olivia in Verona, Colin burst out laughing. “That’s fucking priceless, bro.”
“Shut up.”
His brother lay back on the bed and clasped his hands behind his head. Colin stared at him for long enough that Sean felt compelled to say, “What? Stop looking at me.”
“I can’t…it’s just…you usually aren’t such an idiot.”
“Stop being an asshole, Colin. I’m sorry I told you.”
Colin shook his head. “You went off to Italy chasing after Olivia Marconi—”
“I had business,” Sean reminded him.
“Whatever. An excuse to hook up with Olivia, I bet. And then you decide to run home because you get one stupid text from Mom that makes you think I need your help?”
“Some people would appreciate that I cared.” Sean spoke through gritted teeth.
“And some people would be insulted. Why did you really leave her? It wasn’t for me. It couldn’t be for me. You aren’t that dumb.”
Sean slammed his hands down on the desk and stood. “Olivia went to Italy to build a new life. I couldn’t ask her to come back to Norton. She was miserable there.” He stalked across the room to glare down at his brother on the bed.
“Oh.” Colin looked sympathetic. “So you asked her? She said no?”
“No, I didn’t ask her. I didn’t have to. She left Chameleon. She’s selling her house. Her parents have the perfect job for her here at the villa. She’s really happy.”
His brother smirked. “Obviously. Happy people do self-destructive things all the time—I should know. God, bro, you’re such a fucking martyr.”
Rage shot through Sean, making his vision blur. Colin sat up just as Sean grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him off the bed. He gave Colin a shove that sent him spinning into the armchair by the window.
“You ungrateful little son of a bitch.” Sean moved in to backhand him, but Colin ducked under his hand and hit him with an uppercut that felt like thunder.
He pushed his little brother away with a sharp jab to the stomach and caught him on the side of the head with one fist and then another. Colin tackled his legs, and they were down on the rug, then the wood floor, rolling until Sean landed on top, panting.
He planted his fist in Colin’s face—not hard enough to break his nose, but good enough to give him a whale of a black eye. “I have been taking care of you your entire life. Of course I wanted to help you. The least you could do is show some gratitude.”
“Gratitude for what? Treating me like a child?” Colin’s voice was winded but droll.
Sean drew his fist back to hit him again.
“Enough!” Colin covered his face with his arms. “You’re a good guy, Sean, a great big brother. I’m lucky to have you. But you need to get over yourself, man. You’re not perfect, and it’s annoying as hell that you try to be. I don’t need a keeper anymore. You need to get a life, bro, because Mom and Dave have each other and I’m all grown up now. If you don’t let anyone else get close to you, you are going to be alone. Trust me.” His blue eyes were hard but not cold.
Sean’s heart felt like a fist in his chest. His anger deserted him so suddenly he felt dizzy. He lowered his arm. “You know I love you, right?”
“Back at you, big brother.” Colin thumped his heart twice with his fist in the gesture of affection they had used when they were kids, making Sean’s eyes sting.
He levered himself to his feet and hauled Colin off the floor.
“Ouch.” Colin raised a hand to his eye, which was already beginning to swell.
“You had that coming. Give me my credit card.” Sean held out his hand.
Colin chuckled and handed it over on his way into the bathroom.
Sean sat on the bed, rubbing his sore jaw, his brother’s words ringing in his ears. Why had he left Olivia? To help Colin. To leave her free to build a new life in Verona. Faced with the gaping hole in his chest that felt like it was getting bigger every minute, those reasons didn’t feel valid anymore. His brother was right. He hadn’t asked Olivia what she wanted. He’d made the decision for her.
Dread stole through him, choking him, the same feeling he’d had when he woke up next to her this morning. Dread of what? There was absolutely nothing standing between him and a future with Olivia—not his family obligations, not her marriage. Hell, she wasn’t his client anymore either. There was no obstacle to their happiness except…him.
Colin was right; he’d acted like a martyr, sacrificing happiness while telling himself it was the best thing for Olivia. He hadn’t told her he loved her or given the feelings between them a chance to grow. Instead, he had reinforced every doubt she had about herself. He had left her, probably feeling like a failure, the thing she hated most in the world, and gone after Colin, who didn’t need him anymore.
He fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
“I’m starving,” Colin said, coming out of the bathroom.
“Can’t help you, buddy. I’m persona non grata around here now. You’re on your own.”
Colin shrugged and grabbed an apple from the fruit basket on the desk. Sean left him there and walked back down the hall to Olivia’s room, hoping he wouldn’t find her mother camped out by the bed. Would Mrs. Marconi actually throw him out of the villa? He shrugged and opened the door. Only one way to find out.
Chapter 23
Olivia drifted back down into sleep. She felt heavy, as if she were sinking, but something kept pulling her back up. She had been dreaming of Romeo and Juliet, but she itched.
She opened her eyes. They itched too. She tried to rub them but couldn’t move her hand.
She looked at it and gasped. Sean was asleep with his head on the bed, his fingers clutching hers. She slid away from him, wondering why he wasn’t in the bed with her. God, she was so tired. Maybe she’d go back to sleep. She rubbed her itchy eyes, then stared at her hand. What was wrong with it? It was all blotchy and red. She pressed both hands to her face, finding it swollen.
Strawberries. Alessandro. Oh my God. Sean. Her heart pounded as her sludgy brain tried to sort through what had happened. He’d come back?
The door opened.
“Cara! You’re awake!” Nonna Lucia rushed to the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“I don’t know,” she croaked. If Nonna was here, how long had she been sleeping?
Sean lifted his head, blinking.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him, pulling the covers up to her chin. If her face looked anything like her hands, she wished she could cover that too.
He pried her hand away from the blanket and held it. “Marilyn Russo called to tell me what had happened. I couldn’t leave. I had to make sure you were all right.”
So he was still leaving, then. Disappointment made her feel like an even bigger fool, but she hid her embarrassment with anger. “I’m perfectly fine. Don’t let me hold up your travel plans.” She yanked her hand out of his grasp. “I don’t want your pity. You were right to leave. I’m staying in Verona, and everything is going to be fine.” Oh God, just saying it made her skin itch like crazy. She clenched her hands into fists to keep from scratching. “Just go. I don’t want you here.” The last word ended in a wheeze. What the hell was wrong with her? It had to be the strawberries, but she’d never reacted this badly before.
Sean didn’t budge. In fact, he moved closer, making her breath come even faster. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to throw herself into his arms. “Get out!” she sobbed.
Nonna opened the door. “I think you’d better go for now.” Her sympathetic expressio
n made Olivia feel like screaming again. Nonna was supposed to be on her side.
She turned her face away as Sean moved toward the door, waiting for it to close behind him before she lost it completely. She felt Nonna’s hand stroking her hair. “What happened, cara?” her grandmother asked softly, when her sobs turned into whimpers. “You’ve always been so careful about strawberries.”
She reached for a handful of tissues and mopped her face. “I’ve never gotten that sick. I thought a few hives would get Alessandro to leave me alone and buy me some time to hide out in my room for a while.” Another tear slid down her cheek. So she’d tried to escape from her life again and had almost succeeded permanently. “Running from my troubles doesn’t work out so well for me, Nonna.”
“It didn’t work out well for me either, cara.” Her grandmother sighed. “I have a story to tell you.”
Nonna helped her to sit up, then handed her a drink of water. She sipped, letting the cool drink soothe her throat and watching her grandmother pace slowly across the room.
“Benito and I met at la Sagra dell’Uva when we were children, only eighteen. Sofia Conti and I were best friends and the belles of the ball that year. There was an orchestra in the courtyard and people dancing everywhere. He saw me. And I saw him. That was it, for both of us. Love.”
Nonna cleared her throat. “It was very romantic. We danced every dance together, spent every waking minute together after that night. My parents were horrified.”
“Why didn’t they like him?”
“It wasn’t that they didn’t like Benito, so much as they didn’t like his father. Pasquale Capozzi had quite a reputation with the ladies and he was considered to be a little bit crazy. The more my parents disapproved, the more I rebelled, sneaking out, telling lies, until they were afraid I would run away with him, like our Juliet Capulet.”
“Were you going to?”
“Of course, but my parents planned a vacation to America and insisted I accompany them. I kicked and screamed the whole way. I didn’t make it easy for them. They were hoping that time and distance would cure me of my childish infatuation.”
“And did it? Did you forget him?”
The stricken look on Nonna’s face told her the story was going somewhere bad in a hurry. She braced herself. She already knew the ending. Now she knew the beginning. The middle was probably an absolute train wreck.
Nonna raised her chin. “No, he forgot me. While we were gone, my parents received word from Sofia’s parents. She was going to marry Benito Capozzi and they hoped we could make it back for the wedding.”
“Ouch.”
“Sofia was pregnant, of course.”
Olivia dropped her head into her hands. “Of course she was.”
“She was my best friend. He was my first love. And I lost them both that day.”
Olivia lifted her head. “But I thought Sofia never married.”
The warmth that usually lingered in her grandmother’s eyes was absent. They were flat and dull. “Benito left her at the altar. He and his father disappeared. Benito came after me, told me the child wasn’t his, but I sent him away. He had made his bed, and I thought he should lie in it. Not too long after that I met your grandfather. He was a good man and I married him, even though I was still in love with Benito. Your grandfather always knew it, but he loved me anyway. On the day he died, I held his hand and I looked into his eyes. I knew I had wasted our time together, that I had thrown away a lifetime of love with a good man, a strong man, strong enough to love me without asking the same in return. Oh, I did love him eventually, but never quite enough, eh? Certainly not as much as he deserved.”
“You’re breaking my heart, Nonna. Where is the happy ending?” Her question drove the tears from her grandmother’s eyes and she smiled.
“You are the happy ending, cara. My blood, my life, my family,” she said simply. “You and Anna Maria and Paolo. Marlene and Joe too.” Nonna leaned over to embrace her. The comforting smell of lemons wrapped itself around her. “I should warn you that your friends are in Verona too. Marlene found the power of attorney papers in the filing cabinet and she’s fit to be tied. Did you really forget to return all her calls?”
Olivia looked away. “I’ve been having a little problem dealing with reality lately.” She wasn’t quite ready to face it now either. “But what about Benito? He betrayed you.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. I still love him. Sofia’s dead. We’ve lived a lifetime without each other. We were so young, and life almost doesn’t seem real when you are just learning to live it. But it is. Your choices, good and bad, have more power than you could ever imagine. If I haven’t learned to forgive by now, it’s too late.” Nonna’s swollen knuckles patted her hand, and she shook her head slowly from side to side. “And I don’t want it to be too late, cara. I want to forgive him, just as you should forgive your Sean.”
“He doesn’t care if I forgive him or not, Nonna. He left me.”
“But he came back.” Her grandmother’s satisfied smile made her feel sick again.
“Not for long.”
“How do you know? You didn’t give him a chance to say anything,” Nonna chided. “He’s here now, isn’t he? Your mother said he spent all night by your bed. I think I was right. He cares about you.”
Anticipation began to flutter in her chest. Could Nonna be right? She threw off the covers and went into the bathroom to change into loose pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt to cover up the rash on her arms, legs, and chest. She was afraid to look in the mirror, but the swelling on her face wasn’t quite as bad as she feared. As long as she didn’t scratch, she might look normal by tomorrow.
“Marlene and Joe are in the kitchen,” Nonna warned, when she returned to the bedroom.
Of course they are. She would expect nothing else. Strangely, she felt no jealousy at all, just excitement. She took Nonna’s hand and drew her out of the bedroom, down the stairs, through the dining room, and into the kitchen. She looked for Sean, but didn’t find him.
Marlene looked up as Olivia reached the kitchen stairs and rushed to embrace her. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you! What were you thinking? You ate strawberries?”
“Temporary insanity.”
Marlene let go of her and fished a crumpled, twice-folded manila envelope out of her back pocket. It was the same one Olivia had stuffed into the filing cabinet the day she left Norton. Marlene’s eyes narrowed as she thrust the envelope into Olivia’s hands. “What the hell is this?”
“Power of attorney papers. Sign them and you’ll have everything you need to take care of the restaurant until we make other arrangements.”
“It’s not my restaurant.”
“It could be. It should be. You and Joe don’t need me around anymore. I just slow you down.”
Olivia kept her eyes on the envelope in her hands because she didn’t want to see the recognition in Marlene’s eyes. She also didn’t want to watch her friend struggle to say the right thing, the nice thing.
“Oh boy,” she heard Joe say. “Now you’ve done it.”
“That’s the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard,” Marlene said vehemently.
“No, it’s not,” Olivia replied firmly. “It’s a small kitchen. There was nothing for me to do, so I left.”
“No, you freaking ran away like a coward. You slunk out the back door without even saying goodbye. You barely left a note, and when I found those papers, it scared the heck out of me. Nonna told me you put your house on the market. I couldn’t get you on your cell, and you wouldn’t return my calls. What the hell is going on with you? Are you really getting married to that chef? What the hell happened with Sean? He barely even said hello to us before he took off out the back door.”
Olivia ignored her questions. “Do you want to buy the restaurant or not? I already talked to Mamma.”
<
br /> “Yes, I want it.” Marlene’s voice was tight and there were tears in her eyes. “I’ve always wanted it. But not if it means you aren’t coming back. Not if it means I lose my best friend.” Tears began to slip down her face. “Olivia, I was so scared when I found the papers, and even more scared when I heard you were sick. I thought maybe you had tucked your last will and testament into the cabinet too.”
Olivia gasped and gave her a hard hug. “Oh, Marlene! No! Never that. I just needed some time to think.”
“But what about the strawberries? If your fiancé hadn’t yelled so loud and if your mom hadn’t had an EpiPen in the first-aid kit in your room, you’d be a goner.”
“It was an accident. I swear. I’ll never touch them again. And he’s not my fiancé.” She held Marlene at arm’s length as a sudden thought occurred to her. “Hey, if you two are here, who’s running Chameleon?”
“We closed it,” Joe offered, with a wicked grin.
“What? You can’t just lock the doors. We’ll lose all our customers!”
Marlene crossed her arms. “Good help is hard to find.” Clearly, she wasn’t ready to forgive her completely.
Olivia let go of her. “You’re not the help anymore. Now you’re the owner.” She felt a weight lift from her shoulders. Speaking of help, Olivia looked around the kitchen. “Where’s Alessandro?” she asked. She needed to apologize and thank him for saving her life.
“I haven’t seen anyone in the kitchen yet,” Marlene replied.
Olivia turned to her friends. “You two feel like cooking dinner?”
“Hell no,” Joe said. “We’re on vacation.”
Olivia widened her eyes. “You can’t expect me to cook. I’m still recovering from poisoning my system.”
He didn’t look sympathetic. “Yeah, being stupid doesn’t get you out of KP.” He slung an arm around Marlene’s waist and led her toward the back door.
