He lifted a shoulder. “We ride it out. We were bound to hit one someday.”
Santo palmed the football in his hands. “Okay,” he said finally, a rueful smile tilting his lips. “We do it ourselves. We go back to our roots. Tell Gianni to go to hell.”
His blood buzzed in his veins. It felt right for the first time in forever.
Enid came in with the new espresso. Set it on Lazzero’s desk and beat a hasty retreat. Santo eyed the coffee. “You going to do something about that?”
“About what?”
“Your barista.”
Lazzero scowled. “What makes you think I need to?”
“Because I’ve never seen two people try not to look at each other as hard as you two did on the plane. Because she lights you up in a way I’ve never seen before. Because you haven’t shaved in a week, you look terrible and you’re hurting and you won’t admit it.” Santo crossed his arms over his chest and cocked a brow. “Have I covered it all?”
Quite possibly. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t still furious with her.
“You’re crazy about her,” his brother said quietly. “What’s the problem?”
What wasn’t? That she had violated the one code of honor he lived his life by, the trust he’d needed to convince himself they could be different. That he’d been all in for her, confessed his innermost thoughts and feelings to her when she hadn’t shown him the same respect? Because it had felt like the most real thing he’d ever had, when in reality it had been as fake as every other relationship he’d known.
He pushed away from the sill and headed toward his desk. “It was never going to work. She was a temporary thing.”
“Good to know,” Santo said lazily. “Because I think she’s amazing and if you don’t go after her, I will.” His brother gave a laconic shrug. “I’ll give her some time to get over your jaded, broken heart, of course, but then I will.”
Lazzero had to smother the urge to go for his brother’s throat. He knew he was baiting him and still, the soft taunt twisted a knot in his gut.
He missed her. In the morning giving him sass from the espresso machine...when he walked into the penthouse at night, filling his empty spaces...and definitely, plastered across his bed sketching in those sexy pajamas of hers. But trust and transparency were essential to him.
Santo sauntered out of his office wearing a satisfied look, having stirred him up exactly as he’d known he would. He attempted to anesthetize himself with yet more work alongside the weak, tepid garbage Enid had produced yet again, but he couldn’t seem to do it.
* * *
The first Monday after the Labor Day weekend was always madness at the Daily Grind. The students were back, relentless in their search of a caffeine injection as they juggled an unfamiliar, highly resented wake-up call, while the flashy-suited urban set struggled to get back to reality after a weekend spent in the Hamptons. And then, there was Sivi, currently having a meltdown over her broken romance with a Wall Street banker who’d ended things over the weekend. Chiara had fixed half a dozen of her messed-up orders already, which wasn’t helping her ability to cope with the massive lineup spilling out the door.
“You know what I think?” Sivi announced, handing her three cups marked with orders of questionable reliability. “I think Ted has been reading Samara Jones. I think he decided to dump me because the Athertons’ pool party was on the weekend. I was just a summer shag. I looked good in a bathing suit.”
Kat snorted as she made change for a customer. “Men have been systematically dumping women in Manhattan for little to no reason since the beginning of time. The whole concept of a summer shag is ridiculous.”
“Oh, it’s a real thing,” interjected a twentysomething-blonde regular in the lineup. “The event I held last week? Seventy-five percent of the men came with a plus one. My Fall Extravaganza in a couple of weeks? Fifty percent.”
“It’s an epidemic,” said her friend, a perky, blue-eyed brunette. “My roommate found her kiss-off gift in his underwear drawer over the weekend. She’s trying to decide whether to stick around or not.”
“At least she got a kiss-off gift,” grumbled Sivi. “I loved him, I mean, I really loved him, you guys. The BlackBerry in bed? No problem. Football all Sunday? I did my nails. And the snoring? It was like the 6-train coming through the walls. But I excused it all for him because he was just that good in bed.”
Oh, my God. Chiara wanted to put her head in her hands, but she had two espressos and an Americano to make, and now a frowning customer was shoving her drink back across the counter. “This is not what I ordered. I ordered a triple venti, half-sweet, nonfat caramel macchiato.”
Chiara counted to five. Sivi waved a cup in the air. “Are there any men left in Manhattan who have serious intentions when it comes to a woman?”
“I do,” intoned a husky, lightly accented voice. “Although I might have gone about it the wrong way.”
Chiara’s heart lurched. She looked up to find the owner of that sexy, familiar voice standing in the lineup, all eyes on him as he answered Sivi’s question. Which might also have something to do with the way Lazzero looked. Dressed in a severely cut pinstripe suit, a snowy-white shirt and a dark tie, he was so sinfully good-looking, she could only clutch the cup in her hand and stare, her brain cells fried with the pleasure and pain of seeing him again.
She’d missed him. God, she’d missed him.
Memories of their last meeting bled through. She pulled in air through a chest so tight it hurt to breathe. Lowered her gaze and started remaking the macchiato with hands that shook, because he was not doing this. He was damn well not doing this right here and right now.
But, oh, yes, he was. “I am guilty,” Lazzero said evenly, “of being that guy. Of callously discarding a woman without a second thought. Of believing a piece of jewelry could buy a weekend in the Hamptons. Of thinking my money could acquire anything I wanted.”
The perky brunette drank him in from the tip of his sleek, dark head to his custom-made Italian shoes. “I can’t say I would have said no.”
“Until,” Lazzero continued, his eyes on Chiara, “I met the one woman who was immune to it. Who convinced me that I was wrong. That I wanted more. And then I was scrambling,” he admitted. “I tried every which way but Sunday to show her how different the man was beneath the suit. And then, when I finally did, I screwed it up.”
Chiara’s stomach swooped, skimming the shiny surface of the bronze, tiled floor. She set the cup down before she dumped espresso all over herself. Took in Lazzero, intensely private Lazzero, who was loath to talk about his feelings, talking to her as if there was no one else in the room. Except the entire front half of the lineup was watching them now and the café had gone strangely silent.
“We are over,” she said quietly. “You made that very clear, Lazzero.”
“It was a mistake.” A stubborn strength underlaid his tone. “You need to give me another chance.”
Like he had her? She dumped the misguided macchiato in the sink, her heart shattering all over again at how completely he’d taken her apart. “I don’t need to do anything. I no longer make coffee on command for you, Lazzero. I no longer serve as your decorative piece on the side and I definitely don’t have to forgive you so that I can once again become as expendable as one of your high-priced suits.”
“I’m not interested in having you on a temporary basis,” Lazzero said huskily, stepping over to the counter. “I’m interested in having you forever. I walked away from the deal, Chiara. Nothing is right without you.”
She stared at him, stunned. He’d walked away from the deal? Why would he do that? She noted the dark shadows in his eyes then, the white lines bracketing his mouth, the dark stubble on his jaw. Not cool, collected Lazzero. Another version entirely.
“I’m in love with you, Chiara.” He trained his gaze on hers. “Give me another chance.”
“I don’t know about you,” said the brunette, “but he had me at the pinstriped suit.”
“Yes, but it was necessary to make him grovel,” said the blonde. “Not that we know what he did.”
Chiara’s heart was too busy melting into the floor at the naked emotion blazing in Lazzero’s eyes to pay them much heed.
“And now that we have that decided,” said a disgruntled-looking construction worker at the front of the line, “could we please have some coffee here? Some of us have to work for a living.”
Chiara stared blankly at the drink orders in front of her. Kat waved a hand at her. “Go. You are clearly now useless, as well. Sivi—you’re on the bar with Tara. And for heaven sakes, try and get it right.”
Chiara had to run to keep up with Lazzero when he took her hand and dragged her out of the café and into the bright morning sunshine. Breathless, she leaned against the brick wall of the coffee shop and stared dazedly up at him. “Did you mean that? That you love me?”
“Yes,” he said, setting a palm against the wall beside her. “Although the speech was not intentional. You have a way of provoking a completely irrational response in me.”
Happiness bloomed inside of her, a dangerous, insidious warmth that threatened to envelop her completely. She bit her lip, held it in check. “What do you mean you walked away from the deal? Why would you do that?”
“Because you were right. Because somewhere along the way, I had lost my passion and I needed to get it back. It’s what gets me out of bed in the morning. Or in it at night,” he murmured, his eyes on her mouth. “Which has also been extremely empty. Too empty because I’d let the best thing that’s ever happened to me walk out of my life.”
The blaze of warmth in his eyes threatened to throw her completely off balance. She spread her palms against the warm brick wall and steeled herself against the desire to throw herself in his arms. “You hurt me with those things you said, Lazzero. Badly.”
“I know.” He traced the back of his knuckles across her cheek. “And, I’m sorry. If I had been in my right mind, I would have seen the truth. That Antonio had made a wrong decision in letting you go and was doing everything he could to get you back. Instead, I let him push all my buttons. I was blind with jealousy. I thought you might still love him, because he is clearly still in love with you. And I was angry,” he allowed, “because I thought what we had was real.”
“It was real. I should have trusted you, but you needed to trust me too, Lazzero. It goes both ways.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “but in the moment, that breach of trust confirmed everything I thought I knew about relationships—that they are messy, complicated things better off avoided. Proved us as false as every other relationship in my life had been. That I was the fool, because there I was, letting a woman play with my head, exactly as my father had done time and time again.”
Her stomach curled. “I wish I could take it all back,” she whispered. “I hate that I let my insecurities get to me like that.”
He shook his head. “I should have realized why you’d done what you’d done. I did after I cooled off. No man had ever proven to you he was deserving of your trust. I was still hedging my bets by offering you a no-strings-attached relationship when I knew how I felt about you.”
“About that,” she said, her heart swelling as she lifted her fingertips to trace the hard line of his jaw because she couldn’t resist the need to touch him any longer, “how can you be in love with me when you called it a fantasy that doesn’t really exist that night at the opera?”
“Because you challenge every belief I’ve ever had about myself and what I’m capable of,” he said huskily. “I’ve been walking around half-alive for a long time, Chiara. Thinking I was happy—telling myself I didn’t need anyone. Until you walked into my life and showed me what I was missing. In every aspect.”
She melted into him then, unable to help herself, her fingers tangling in his hair to bring his head down to hers. “I love you,” she murmured against his mouth.
Passionate, perfect, the kiss was so all consuming neither of them noticed Claudio ambling past them into the café, a newspaper tucked under his arm. “Took you two long enough,” he muttered. “I really don’t get modern courtship at all.”
EPILOGUE
NICO DI FIORE MARRIED Chloe Russo in a simple, elegant ceremony at the majestic, storied St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Christmas Eve in Manhattan. Dubbed one of the must-attend society events of the season, the nuptials drew guests from around the globe, including many of the famous personalities who represented the face of the Evolution brand.
Chloe, who had chosen the date because Christmas Eve had been her father’s favorite night of the year, walked down the aisle in a showstopping, tulip-shaped, ivory Amsale gown which left an inspired Chiara dying for a sketchpad and pencil, dress designs dancing in her head.
The five hundred guests in attendance remarked on Chloe’s serene, Grace Kelly–like beauty and timeless elegance. A dark-haired version, they qualified. Mireille, who preceded Chloe down the aisle in a bronze gown that matched the glittering metallic theme of the wedding, was her blonde equivalent.
Nico looked devastating in black Armani, as did his two groomsmen, Lazzero and Santo, whom Samara Jones cheekily underscored from her position in the gallery, had been on her summer must-have list. Humor, however, gave way to high emotion when Chloe began to cry the moment she reached Nico’s side, overcome by the significance of the evening. Nico held her until she stopped, which hadn’t left a dry eye in the house.
Then it was off to the magnificent Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Central Park for the lavish dinner reception and dance. With its immense domes, dramatic arches and marbled mosaic floor, it was suitably glamorous for the sophisticated crowd in attendance.
Chloe had wanted it to be a party, for the guests to dance the night away and celebrate. Which it surely was. As soon as dinner was over, the lights were dimmed to a sparkling gold, and the festivities began with the bride and groom’s first dance to Etta James’s “At Last,” sung by LaShaunta, the famous pop star who fronted Chloe’s wildly popular perfume Be.
Chiara found herself caught up in the romantic perfection of it all. With Lazzero consumed by his best man duties, she danced with partner after partner as the live band played. But all night long, she felt his gaze on her in the shimmering, sequined, off-the-shoulder dress she’d chosen especially for him, its glittering latte color somehow apropos.
Mireille, Chloe’s sophisticated, irreverent sister she was growing to love, gave Chiara an amused glance after one such scorching look as they stood on the side of the dance floor, recovering with a glass of vintage champagne. “He’s so crazy about you, he doesn’t know which way is north and which way is south.”
Chiara’s heartbeat accelerated under the heat of that look. She knew the feeling. And it wasn’t getting any more manageable, it was only getting worse, because Lazzero had been there for her every step of the way as she’d taken on the coveted incubator position with Bianca and worked to prove herself amidst so much amazing talent. Through her decision to go back to school. He’d come to mean so much to her, she couldn’t actually articulate it in words.
“I never thought I’d see it,” Mireille mused. “The Di Fiore brothers fall. Nico, I get. He was always the nurturer and he was always in love with Chloe. But Lazzero? I thought he was untakeable. Until I saw him with you.”
So had she. Her gaze drifted to Santo, entertaining a bevvy of beauties on the far side of the dance floor. “What about Santo? Do you think he’ll ever commit?”
A funny look crossed Mireille’s face. “I don’t know. There was a girl...a long time ago. Santo was madly in love with her. I think she broke his heart.”
Chiara rested her champagne glass against her chin, intrigued. “Is there any chance they’ll get back together?”
>
“I would say that’s highly unlikely.”
She was about to ask why when Mireille, clearly deciding she’d revealed too much, changed the subject. “Your dress is amazing. Is it one of yours?”
Chiara nodded.
“I need one for Evolution’s Valentine’s event.” Mireille tipped her glass at her. “Would you make me something similar?”
“Of course.” Chiara was beyond flattered. Mireille was a PR maven, one of the highest-profile socialite personalities in New York. Everyone noticed what she was wearing.
She was still bubbling over at the idea when Lazzero came to claim his dance, his official duties over for the evening. The champagne popped and sparkled in her veins as she tipped her head back to look up at him. “Mireille loves my dress. She asked me to make her one for Evolution’s Valentine’s event. Can you believe it?”
“Yes.” He brushed his lips against her temple in a fleeting caress. “The dress is amazing, as are you. Speaking of which,” he prompted, “when are you finishing up work at the bakery?”
“Next week. My aunt Gloria called me today to tell me she’s retiring. She’s going to take on my shifts at the bakery to give herself something to do, which is so perfect,” she bubbled, “because my father adores her. It’ll be so good for him. Oh,” she added, “and the jaw-dropping news? My father is playing briscola at Frankie DeLucca’s house on Friday nights. Can you believe it?”
Lazzero smiled. “Maybe you going to Italy was exactly what he needed.”
“Yes,” she agreed contemplatively, “I think it was.”
She chattered on until it became clear Lazzero wasn’t really listening to her, that absentminded look he’d been wearing all night painted across his face.
“Have you heard a word I’ve said?” she chastised.
His Million-Dollar Marriage Proposal Page 17
