A Bride for the Italian Boss

by Susan Meier

  She squeezed her eyes shut as she gathered her courage. It seemed so wrong to break up with someone over the phone and, yet, they’d barely spoken to each other in six months. This was the right thing to do.

  “Look, Paul, I’m sorry to tell you this over the phone, but I can’t accept your marriage proposal.”

  “What?”

  She could almost picture him sitting up in bed, her bad news bringing him fully awake.

  “I’m actually thinking of not coming back to New York at all, but staying in Italy.”

  “What? What about your job?”

  “I have a new job.”

  “Where?”

  “At a restaurant.”

  “So you’re leaving teaching to be a waitress?”

  “A hostess.”

  “Oh, there’s a real step up.”

  “Actually, I’m general manager,” she said, glad she’d talked Rafe into the title. She couldn’t blame Paul for being confused or angry, and knew he deserved an honest explanation.

  “And I love Italy. I feel like I belong here.” She sucked in a breath. “We’ve barely talked in six months. I’m going to make a wild guess that you haven’t even missed me. I think we were only together because it was convenient.”

  Another man’s silence might have been interpreted as misery. Knowing Paul the way she did, she recognized it as more or less a confirmation that she was right.

  “I’m sorry not to accept your proposal, but I’m very happy.”

  After a second, he said, “Okay, then. I’m glad.”

  The breath blew back into her lungs. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I did think we’d make a good married couple, but I knew when you didn’t say yes immediately that you might have second thoughts.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. This is just the way life works sometimes.”

  And that was her pragmatic Paul. His lack of emotion might have made her feel secure at one time, but now she knew she needed more.

  They talked another minute and Dani disconnected the call, feeling as if a weight had been taken from her shoulders, only to have it quickly replaced by another one. She’d had to be fair to Paul, but now the only defense she’d have against Rafe’s charms would be her own discipline and common sense.

  She hoped that was enough.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HER RETURN TO the restaurant was as joyous as a celebration. Emory grinned. The waitresses fawned over her. The busboys grew red faced. The chefs breathed a sigh of relief.

  Annoyance worked its way through Rafe. Not that he didn’t want his staff to adore her. He did. That was why she was back. The problem was he couldn’t stop reliving their meeting in Rome. He’d said everything that he’d wanted to say. That he’d missed her. That he wanted her back. But he’d kept it all in the context of business. He’d missed her help. He wanted her to become the face of Mancini’s. He didn’t want anything romantic with her because he didn’t want to hurt her. He’d been all business. And it had worked.

  But with her return playing out around him, his heart rumbled at the injustice. He hadn’t lied when he said he didn’t want her back for himself, that he didn’t want something romantic between them. His fierce protection of Mancini’s wouldn’t let him get involved with an employee he needed. But here at the restaurant, with her looking so pretty, helping make his dream a reality, he just wanted to kiss her.

  He reminded himself that she had a fiancé—

  A fiancé she admitted was not the perfect guy.

  Bah! That fiancé was supposed to be the key weapon in his arsenal of ways to keep himself away from her. Her admission that he wasn’t perfect, even the fact that she was considering staying in Italy, called her whole engagement into question. And caused all his feelings for her to surface and swell.

  She swept into the kitchen. Wearing a blue dress that highlighted her blue eyes and accented a figure so lush she was absolutely edible, she glided over to Emory. He took her hands and kissed the back of both.

  “You look better than anything on the menu.”

  Rafe sucked in a breath, controlling the unwanted ripple of longing.

  Dani unexpectedly stepped toward Emory, put her arms around him and hugged him. Emory closed his eyes as if to savor it, a smile lifted his lips.

  Rafe’s yearning intensified, but with it came a tidal wave of jealousy. He lowered his knife on an unsuspecting stalk of celery, chopping it with unnecessary force.

  Dani faced him. “Why don’t you give me the key and I’ll open the front door for the lunch crowd?”

  He rolled his gaze toward her slowly. Even as the businessman inside him cheered her return, the jealous man who was filled with need wondered if he wasn’t trying to drive himself insane.

  “Emory, give her your key.”

  The sous-chef instantly fished his key ring out of his pocket and dislodged the key for Mancini’s. “Gladly.”

  “Don’t be so joyful.” He glanced at Dani again, at the soft yellow hair framing her face, her happy blue eyes. “Have a key made for yourself this afternoon and return Emory’s to him.”

  She smiled. “Will do, boss.”

  She walked out of the kitchen, her high heels clicking on the tile floor, her bottom swaying with every step, all eyes of the kitchen staff watching her go.

  Jealousy spewed through him. “Back to work!” he yelped, and everybody scrambled.

  Emory sauntered over. “Something is wrong?”

  He chopped the celery. “Everything is fine.”

  The sous-chef glanced at the door Dani had just walked through. “She’s very happy to be back.”

  Rafe refused to answer that.

  Emory turned to him again. “So did you talk her into staying? Is her fiancé joining her here? What’s going on?”

  Rafe chopped the celery. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know if she’s staying?”

  “She said her final two weeks here would be something like a trial run for her.”

  “Then we must be incredibly good to her.”

  “I gave her a raise, a title. If she doesn’t like those, then we should be glad if she goes home to her fiancé.” He all but spat the word fiancé, getting angrier by the moment, as he gave Dani everything she wanted but was denied everything he wanted.

  Emory said, “I still say something is up with this fiancé of hers. If she didn’t tell him she’s considering staying in Italy, then there’s trouble in paradise. If she did, and he isn’t on the next flight to Florence, then I question his sanity.”

  Rafe laughed.

  “Seriously, Rafe, has she talked to you about him? I just don’t get an engaged vibe from her.”

  “Are you saying she’s lying?”

  Emory inclined his head. “I don’t think she’s lying as much as I think her fiancé might be a real dud, and her engagement as flat as a crepe.”

  Rafe said only, “Humph,” but once again her statement that her fiancé wasn’t the perfect guy rolled through his head.

  “I only mention this because I think it works in our favor.”

  “How so?”

  “If she’s not really in love, if her fiancé doesn’t really love her, we have the power of Italy on our side.”

  “To?”

  “To coax her to stay. To seduce her away from a guy who doesn’t deserve her.”

  Rafe chopped the celery. His dreams were filled with scenarios where he seduced Daniella. Except he had a feeling that kind of seducing wasn’t what Emory meant.

  “Somehow or another we have to be so good to her that she realizes what she has in New York isn’t what she wants.”

  Sulking, Rafe scraped the celery into a bowl. Why did he have to be the one doing all the wooing? He was a catch. He wanted her eyelashes to flutter when he walked by and her eyes to warm with interest. He had some pride, too.

  Emory shook his head. “Okay. Be stubborn. But you’ll be sorry if some pasty office dweller from N
ew York descends on us and scoops her back to America.”

  Rafe all but growled in frustration at the picture that formed in his head. Especially since she had said her fiancé wasn’t perfect. Shouldn’t a woman in love swoon for the man she’s promised to marry?

  Yes. Yes. She should.

  Yet, here she was, considering staying. Not bringing her fiancé into the equation.

  And he suddenly saw what Emory was saying.

  She wasn’t happy with her fiancé. She was searching for something. She’d gone to Rome looking for her foster mother’s relatives—family! What Dani had been looking for in Rome was family! That was why she was getting so close to the staff at Mancini’s.

  Still, something was missing.

  He tapped his index fingers against his lips, thinking, and when the answer came to him he smiled and turned to Emory. “I will need time off tomorrow.”

  Emory’s face fell. “You’re taking another day?”

  “Just lunch. And Daniella will be out for lunch, too.”

  Emory caught his gaze. “Really?”

  “Yes. Don’t go thinking this is about funny business. I’m taking her apartment hunting. Dani is a woman looking for a family. She thinks she’s found it with us. But Mancini’s isn’t a home. It’s a place of business. Once I help her get a house, somewhere to put down roots, it will all fall into place for her.”

  Rafe’s first free minute, he called the real estate agent who’d sold him his penthouse. She told him she had some suitable listings in Monte Calanetti and he set up three appointments for Daniella.

  When the lunch crowd cleared, he walked into the empty, quiet dining room.

  Dani smiled as he approached. “You’re not going to yell at me for not going home and costing you two hours’ wages are you?”

  “You are management now. I expect you here every hour the restaurant is open.”

  “Except my days off.”

  He groaned. “Except your days off. If you feel comfortable not being here two days every week, I am fine with it. But if something goes wrong, you will answer for it.”

  She laughed. “Whatever. I’ve been coaching Allegra. She’ll be much better from here on out. No more catastrophes while I’m gone.”

  “Great. I’ve lined up three appointments for us tomorrow.”

  She turned from the podium. “With vendors?”

  “With my friend who is a real estate agent.”

  “I told you we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves.”

  “Our market is tight. You must be on top of things to get a good place.”

  “I haven’t—”

  He interrupted her. “You haven’t decided you’re staying. I get that. But if you choose to stay, I don’t want you panicking. Getting ahead of a problem is how a smart businessperson staves off disaster.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Good. Tomorrow morning, Emory will take over lunch prep while you and I apartment hunt. We can be back for dinner.”

  * * *

  Sun poured in through the huge window of the kitchen of the first unit Maria Salvetti showed Rafe and Dani the next morning. Unfortunately, cold air flowed in through the cracks between the window and the wall.

  Dani eased her eyes away from the unwanted ventilation and watched as Rafe walked across a worn hardwood floor, his motorcycle boots clicking along, his jeans outlining an absolutely perfect behind and his black leather jacket, collar flipped up, giving him the look of a dangerous rebel.

  For the second time that morning, she told herself she was grateful he’d been honest with her about his inability to commit. She didn’t know a woman who wouldn’t fall victim to his steel-gray eyes and his muscled body. She had to be strong. And her decision to stay at Mancini’s had to be made for all the right reasons.

  She faced Maria. “I’d have to fix this myself?”

  “Sì. It is for sale. It is not a rental.”

  She turned to Rafe. “I wouldn’t have time to work twelve-hour days and be my own general contractor.”

  “You could hire someone.”

  She winced as she ran her hand along the crack between the wall and window. “Oh, yeah? Just how big is my raise going to be?”

  “Big enough.”

  She shook her head. “I still don’t like it.”

  She also didn’t like the second condo. She did have warm, fuzzy feelings for the old farmhouse a few miles away from the village, but that needed more work than the first condo she’d seen.

  Maria’s smile dipped a notch every time Dani rejected a prospective home. She’d tried to explain that she wasn’t even sure she was staying in Italy, but Maria kept plugging along.

  After Dani rejected the final option, Maria shook Rafe’s hand, then Dani’s and said, “I’ll check our listings again and get back to you.”

  She slid into her car and Dani sighed, glad to be rid of her. Not that Maria wasn’t nice, but with her decision about staying in Italy up in the air, looking for somewhere to live seemed premature. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize quite yet.” He pulled his cell phone from his jacket and dialed a number. “Carlo, this is Rafe. Could you have a key for the empty condo at the front desk? Grazie.” He slipped his phone into his jacket again.

  She frowned at him. “You have a place to show me?”

  He headed for his SUV, motioning for her to follow him. “Actually, I thought Maria would have taken you to his apartment first. It’s a newly renovated condo in my building.”

  She stopped walking. “Your building?” She might be smart enough to realize she and Rafe were a bad bet, but all along she’d acknowledged that their spending too much time together was tempting fate. Now he wanted them to live in the same building?

  “After Emory, you are my most valued employee. A huge part of Mancini’s success. We need to be available for each other. Plus, there would be two floors between us. It’s not like we’d even run into each other.”

  She still hesitated. “Your building’s that big?”

  “No. I value my privacy that much.” He sighed. “Seriously. Just come with me to see the place and you will understand.”

  Dani glanced around as she entered the renovated old building, Rafe behind her. Black-and-white block tiles were accented by red sofas and chairs in a lounge area of the lobby. The desk for the doorman sat discreetly in a corner.

  Leaning over her shoulder, Rafe said, “My home is the penthouse.”

  His warm breath tickled her ear and desire poured through her. She almost turned and yelled at him for flirting with her. Instead, she squelched the feeling. He probably wasn’t flirting with her. This was just who he was. Gorgeous. Sinfully sexy. And naturally flirtatious. If she really intended to stay in Italy and work for him, she had to get accustomed to him. As she’d realized after she’d spoken to Paul, she would need discipline and common sense to keep her sanity.

  He pointed at the side-by-side elevators. “I don’t use those, and you can’t use them to get to my apartment.”

  His breath tiptoed to her neck and trickled down her spine. Still, she kept her expression neutral when she turned and put them face-to-face, so close she could see the little flecks of silver in his eyes.

  Just as her reactions couldn’t matter, how he looked—his sexy face, his smoky eyes—also had to be irrelevant. If she didn’t put all this into perspective now, this temptation could rule her life. Or ruin her life.

  She gave him her most professional smile. “And I’d be a few floors away?”

  “Not just a few floors, but also a locked elevator.”

  Dangling the apartment key, he motioned for her to enter the elevator when it arrived. They rode up in silence. He unlocked the door to the available unit and she gasped.

  “Oh, my God.” She spun to face him. “I can afford this?”

  He laughed. “Yes.”

  From the look of the lobby, she’d expected the apartment to be ultramodern. The kind of place she would have killed to have in New
York. Black-and-white. Sharp, but sterile. Something cool and sophisticated for her and distant Paul.

  But warm beiges and yellows covered these walls. The kitchen area was cozy, with a granite-topped breakfast bar where she could put three stools.

  She saw it filled with people. Louisa. Coworkers from Mancini’s. And neighbors she’d meet who could become like a family.

  She caught that thought before it could take root. Something about Italy always caused her to see things through rose-colored glasses, and if she didn’t stop, she was going to end up making this choice before she knew for certain that she could work with Rafe as a friend or a business associate, and forget about trying for anything more.

  She turned to Rafe again. “Don’t make me want something I can’t have.”

  “I already told you that you can afford it.”

  “I know.”

  “So why do you think you can’t have it?”

  It was exactly what she’d dreamed of as a child, but she couldn’t let herself fall in love with it. Or let Rafe see just how drawn she was to this place. If he knew her weakness, he’d easily lure her into staying before she was sure it was the right thing to do.

  She pointed at the kitchen, which managed to look cozy even with sleek stainless-steel appliances, dark cabinets and shiny surfaces. “It’s awfully modern.”

  “So you want to go back to the farmhouse with the holes in the wall?”

  “No.” She turned away again, though she lovingly ran her hand along the granite countertop, imagining herself rolling out dough to make cut-out cookies. She’d paint them with sugary frosting and serve them to friends at Christmas. “I want a homey kitchen that smells like heaven.”

  “You have that at Mancini’s.”

  “I want a big fat sofa with a matching chair that feels like it swallows you up when you sit in it.”

  “You can buy whatever furniture you want.”

  “I want to turn my thermostat down to fifty-eight at night so I can snuggle under thick covers.”

  He stared at her as if she were crazy. “And you can do that here.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Undoubtedly.” He sighed. “You have an idealized vision of home.”

  “Most foster kids do.”