So Irresistible

by Lisa Plumley

She’d risked staying and talking with her dad last night. She’d risked apologizing to her crew. She’d risked loving someone. She’d confronted her own demons, even when it was hard.

  Then, when the going got tough again, she’d reverted to her old ways in a heartbeat, Gabriella realized ruefully. Because when she’d unearthed that dossier at Shane’s, she hadn’t really listened to his explanations—as convoluted as they’d been.

  Instead, she’d run away. Just the way she always did.

  She’d run, despite Shane’s urgings to her last night at her parents’ house. Quit it. Just quit it, and see what happens.

  Today, Gabriella hadn’t done that. But how could she?

  Shane had actually threatened her to get her pizzerias.

  Lifting her head, Gabriella assured herself that she’d been right not to stay at Shane’s. Leaving had been the only way.

  In fact, if she was smart, she’d call her dad now—

  The pizzeria’s back door slammed, startling her.

  Who could be here now? It was way before opening time.

  With her heart in her throat, Gabriella turned to see.

  The sound of the dead bolt being thrown on the pizzeria’s back door clanged throughout Campania. Shane confirmed that no one else was there. He inhaled, then walked into the kitchen.

  He found Gabby alone, just where he expected her to be.

  He couldn’t help shaking at the sight of her. Gabby.

  Damn, but he needed her. He was so sorry to have hurt her.

  Resolutely, Shane steeled himself.

  “It doesn’t work to walk out on a man who doesn’t ever quit,” he told Gabby roughly. “That was your first mistake.”

  “My second was not locking the door after I got here.” She jerked her chin higher. Her gaze was opaque. “You should leave.”

  “Your second was not sticking around to let me explain completely,” Shane disagreed. He gave an offhanded wave, nearly collapsing with relief to have beaten Frosty to the pizzeria. “Don’t worry. I locked the door for you.” He hauled in another breath, then delivered Gabby a decisive look. “We need to talk.”

  She laughed. “As a woman, I think that’s my line.”

  “I mean it.” He strode toward her. “There’s too much you don’t know. Too much you don’t understand.” Shane didn’t want to scare her, but he needed to warn her. Frosty was built like a Mack truck and had just about as much heart. “Let me—”

  “No. Let me.” Gabby straightened. She looked at him, almost seemed ready to touch him, then frowned. “I have work to do.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  She gave a mirthless chuckle. “No, thanks. Not this time.”

  “I’m going to talk to you,” Shane insisted. “If I have to follow you around the pizzeria to do it, I will. You can’t stop me. You don’t know how tenacious I can be.”

  “Oh, I think I do. But I’m over it. I’m over you.”

  She couldn’t be over him. “I’m not over you.”

  Shane didn’t know why he said it. He was there to protect Gabby from Frosty and all the threats he presented—not to profess undying love for her … no matter how real it felt to him.

  Gabby’s eyes glimmered with tears. “If you’re going to be cruel, you can just leave. For good. Clean out your locker and—”

  “I don’t want to.” Stubbornly, Shane held steady. This was familiar turf for him. It was fashioned of the same ground that had made principals, headmasters, and police officers order him out of the places they governed. “I have a family here.”

  “A family of misfit pizzaiolos?” Gabby laughed. She swiped her hand over her teary eyes. “Yeah, I think you fed me that line once. I believed it, too.” Her gaze hardened. “Then.”

  “It looks as though I’m not the only cruel one here.”

  “Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you.” Gabby grabbed a kitchen towel. “For all I know, those childhood sob stories you told me were full of lies.” Her voice cracked. “Just like you were.”

  Shane stared at her. “I told you the truth.”

  “About what?”

  “About everything except why I was here.”Looking hurt

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Looking hurt and exasperated, Gabby flung down her towel. “It doesn’t.”

  “It’s all I have. Except fixing.”

  His admission didn’t move her. Gabby folded her arms.

  Wryly, Shane smiled. “I could make you forgive me.”

  “Like hell you could. I’m on to you now. I can resist.”

  “I could make you want me,” he persisted, locking his gaze on hers. “I could make you love me. Or near enough to count.”

  Again, Gabby scoffed. But her gaze softened. “Near enough to count?” she echoed. “But that barely qualifies as love.”

  Shane shrugged. “I have to take what I can get.” He lowered his gaze to her mouth, then lifted it. “I need you, Gabby.”

  Almost imperceptibly, she wavered. She swallowed. “I—”

  “But not like this,” Shane told her. “Not by fixing it.”

  Her eyes widened with shock. “You didn’t just do that to me.”

  At her outrage, he nodded. “I told you I could.” Shane hastened to add, “But I don’t want to! I want you to come to me on your own. Not because you’ve been persuaded. Because you—”

  Love me, he meant to say, but Gabby interrupted him.

  “That,” she said, “will never happen.”

  Then she turned her back to him and stalked away.

  The sound of the walk-in door slamming punctuated her exit. It made it plain that she wanted him gone—and was willing to freeze to death to accomplish it, if that’s what it would take.

  Shane swore. “I should have stuck with the fix,” he muttered to himself. “At least that was working.”

  Then he went to the walk-in. Because if Lizzy was right—if homeless Aussie Bill was right—he had to do it.

  Scarcely feeling the cold air that filled the walk-in, Gabriella slammed shut the heavy metal door behind her. Scowling, she stormed farther inside. She could barely see. She definitely couldn’t think straight. She was so mad at Shane.

  She was so mad at herself for letting him fool her again.

  She’d been utterly ready, just a few stupid seconds ago, to fall into his arms. To kiss him and hold him and try to make him feel better. What the hell was that all about? How could Shane keep doing that to her? How could he keep getting to her?

  Because she loved him, Gabriella recognized. Whether she wanted to admit it or not. Shane knew it, too. That meant, perversely, that she respected him for stopping when he had.

  God only knew what she’d have done if he hadn’t.

  On that thought, the walk-in door jerked open. Shane came in. He slammed the door behind him, sealing them both in with the pepperoni and mozzarella and rows upon rows of bulk sausage.

  “Frosty is the saboteur,” he said bluntly. “That dossier you found was his. Jennifer found it at Frosty’s place and brought it to me. The oven, the tomato supplier, the online attack, the threatening note—all of that was Frosty’s doing.”

  Unreasonably, Gabriella felt sorry that Shane wasn’t still trying to make her admit her feelings for him. But then …

  “You left that note,” she accused. “To scare me.”

  “How could I? I was at dinner with you the whole time.”

  “You already said you had accomplices. Jen. Emeril.”

  Shane shook his head. “It wasn’t my handwriting.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be, would it? If you’re so good—”

  “I am so good,” he said, inadvertently reminding her of his prowess in all kinds of areas … including making her smile. “I’m telling you the truth. I protected you last night!”

  There was that paradox Gabriella had noticed earlier. Why would Shane threaten her … and then protect her? It didn’t make sense. All the same, she couldn’t give in. “If that�
�s what you want to call it”—she folded her arms—“go ahead.”

  Shane’s eyes darkened. She knew he was remembering their erotic encounter in his kitchen—and afterward, in his bed, too.

  But then he surprised her. He ignored his usual advantage when it came to sex and went on explaining instead.

  “I did have a dossier,” Shane admitted, “but it didn’t contain the things Frosty’s contained. No electrical diagrams—”

  One of those would have been useful when shutting down her double-decker pizza oven, Gabriella couldn’t help thinking. Because Frosty had had access to the ovens. Heck, she’d caught Frosty alone at Campania after hours herself, on the night she’d nicknamed him. Maybe Frosty hadn’t been cooling off in the walk-in, the way he’d said. Maybe he’d been sabotaging her ovens.

  “—no tomato supplier info,” Shane was saying, further defending himself. “Anyway, I was busy learning to mop by then.”

  Unintentionally reminded of Shane’s boyish pride in that work, Gabriella was forced to tamp down another burst of admiration. She didn’t want to remember the good in him.

  “You still could have put that missing tomato shipment in the Dumpster,” she pointed out. “Anyone could have done that.”

  “Yes, anyone,” Shane agreed. “Including Frosty. As far as the other sabotage goes, I was too busy being with you night and day to write hundreds of scathing online pizzeria reviews—”

  Grudgingly, Gabriella saw the truth in that. When they weren’t working, they were spending time together. Intimately.

  “—and while I still don’t know how the pizza dough blowout happened, it wasn’t me,” Shane insisted. “Although I did fix it in the end. Remember?”

  Suspiciously, Gabriella regarded him. “All my friendly neighborhood pizzaiolos fixed that with their donations.”

  Shane didn’t say anything. He just looked at her.

  “You did that?” Gabriella guessed, too late. She remembered how urgently Shane had tried to keep her from giving up. “You called everyone and organized the dough-donation brigade.”

  Shane’s gaze softened with clear vulnerability. He nodded. “It’s what I do. I knew everyone by then, because of spending time with you at after-work drinks down at the brewpub. A few phone calls weren’t too much to ask to keep Campania going.”

  Why would Shane have wanted to keep her pizzeria going if he really was the saboteur? This was way too confusing. Although Gabriella’s gut instincts about people weren’t usually wrong….

  “You really can fix anything,” she told him. “Bravo.”

  At Shane’s wounded expression, Gabriella relented.

  “I mean, thank you,” she muttered. It was ludicrous to thank her pizzeria’s potential saboteur, but if she believed Shane … well, she almost believed Shane. Again. “For that.”

  “You’re welcome.” Shane’s beseeching gaze begged her to listen. “But I can’t fix this, with you. I’m trying right now, and it’s not working. I do need you, Gabby. I do.”

  Against her will, Gabriella weakened.

  Trying to bolster herself, she drew in a deep breath. “You already admitted coming to Portland to deliberately derail my pizzerias. How am I supposed to deal with that?”

  “But I didn’t derail them. I couldn’t.”

  “You sure as hell seem to have.” Frustrated, Gabriella waved her arm. “I’ve been on the brink of closure multiple times over the past few weeks! It’s been one thing after another—”

  “And I helped you deal with all those disasters.” Shane stepped nearer, his fiery gaze still fixed on hers. “Didn’t I?”

  “Yes, but—” This had to be another manipulation. “You had to make your cover story look good, didn’t you?”

  He sighed. “Not that good. Not saving an already closed pizzeria with a pizza-dough-donation brigade ‘good.’ Not shuttling pies from the bakery next door to stay open ‘good.’ Not helping Bowser and Emeril clean out the tomato supplier’s stand at the PSU farmers market ‘good.’ Not going on the local news to urge people to fight the online attack ‘good.’”

  Reluctantly, Gabriella had to admit that was true. Shane had helped her keep Campania going. He’d been tough and reliable. When she’d needed him, he’d been there. Until now.

  “You were lulling me into complacency,” she tried.

  But it was a weak effort at resisting, and she knew it.

  So did Shane. “If I’d wanted to scare you, I could have,” he said brusquely. “I’ve had lots of time alone with you.”

  He had. That unnerved her. “Why didn’t you, then?”

  “Scare you?” he shook his head. “How could I?” Shane’s expression told her the reason for that. I love you.

  Irrationally, Gabriella wished he’d say it out loud.

  “Fine.” She started pacing, moving past boxes and sheet pans full of foodstuffs, trying to think through this mess. “Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, you aren’t the saboteur—”

  “I’m not the saboteur.”

  “You still took the job! You still compiled a dossier.” Gabriella rounded on him. Miserably but curiously, she pressed further. “Why would you do that? Why me? Why here? Why now?”

  “My father asked me to.” Shane gave a doleful shake of his head. “Hell, he begged me to. He said he had a job only I could do. He said he needed me.” He spread his arms. “I had to do it.”

  “Your father is Waltham Industries?”

  Shane nodded. “The company is his real baby. The rest of us—me and my stepsiblings—we’re all just also-rans.”

  “But why?” Flummoxed, Gabriella shook her head. “Your father has always been so mean to you, Shane.” He’d told her that much. He’d told her about his difficult upbringing and his adopted family. He’d told her his father was the reason he’d seemed so upset over that phone call at the riverfront the day they’d run together, too. “Why help him? Why do that to yourself?”

  “Why did you try to save the pizzerias for your dad?”

  “Because my dad is a wonderful and caring person.”

  Shane seemed discomfited. “Well, mine … isn’t. Ever.”

  “I know! That’s why I don’t get why you’d help him.”

  “Like I said …” Shane seemed at a loss. “I had to do it. I thought it would help. I thought it would make things better.”

  “Better? By hurting me?”

  “By making that bastard proud of me.” Shane curled his hands into fists. “Until you, that’s all I had to hope for.”

  Sadly enough, that made sense. “But if your father isn’t proud of you for who you are already,” Gabriella felt compelled to point out, “nothing you ever do will change that.”

  To her surprise, Shane flashed her a grin. “Said the woman who’s been killing herself to turn around a struggling family pizzeria,” he said leadingly. “And your family is nice.”

  He was right. Gabriella had run herself into the ground trying to make sure her parents forgave her. She guessed no one was immune to wanting to “fix” things. Not even her.

  She was bad at it, too. For someone who was good at it …

  “The temptation must have been irresistible to you, after your father asked you to help him,” she mused. “If everything you’ve told me about your reputation is true, you knew you could do it.”

  I could have crushed you, he’d said before. I didn’t.

  “I had to do it.” Shane’s gaze lifted. “I didn’t question it. It was as if I’d waited my whole life for that call.”

  He’d already waited years for his dad to care about him, Gabriella realized. With that call, Shane had had his chance.

  Finally, she understood. She understood that she and Shane were alike in more ways than she’d realized. It was funny how someone else’s compulsions and mistakes were so obvious when her own just kept on hooking her, again and again.

  I had to do it. I didn’t question it.

  “You had to do it, the same way I had to try to sa
ve the pizzerias. The same way I had to run in here.” Sheepishly, Gabriella looked around at the shelves full of cold supplies and felt chilled for the first time. Running blindly to escape Shane had been a dumb idea. “The same way I always have to run.”

  “With much less frostbite,” Shane agreed. “But … yeah.”

  His was the first genuine smile he’d cracked.

  Gabriella met it with one of her own. Then she shook her head. “So after your father called, you took the pizzeria job—”

  “And then I met you, and the whole thing imploded.” Shane shook his head. “Pretty much. But I never meant to hurt you.”

  Gabriella gave him a chary look. She didn’t want to weaken any further. But it was too late. She already had.

  Except for one last detail.

  “At the brewpub that night,” she said, “did you know it was me? Did you set out to deceive me right from the start?”

  Vehemently, Shane shook his head. “I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know it was you. I was trying to cut loose, get ready for the pizzeria job…. It was just serendipity I wound up at the brewpub where you and your crew were.” He aimed a wry glance at her. “It almost messed up the job. When I saw you the next day, I was freewheeling it right from the start. My plan fell apart.”

  “I tend to have that effect on people.”

  Another halfhearted smile. “I’m sorry, Gabby. I know I’ve done some bad things. Hell, if you knew half of them—”

  “Hey, I’m no saint, either.”

  Shane’s gaze disagreed. “You saved me. I’m grateful for that. Without you, I don’t know what would have happened to me.” Shane stood apart from her, his posture as defensive as his sleeping position. “It wouldn’t have been good. I was on a bad path. But that night at the brewpub, I let down my guard. I opened up to you. I told myself it was just for one night—”

  “I told myself the same thing,” Gabriella admitted, “when I opened up to you.” When I made myself vulnerable to you.

  She’d made that decision. On her own. Not Shane.

  “But after that, when I saw you again”—Shane shook his head, his face softening—“all I wanted was to be near you.”

  “I …” Was she really doing this? “Me too.”

  In the silence that fell between them, the walk-in’s motor hummed.