by Kyle, Regina
Zoe saved the 3D sketch she was working on and swiveled away from her monitor to eyeball her sister across her sleek glass and chrome computer desk. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
“Teacher in-service.” Fliss flopped into one of Zoe’s cushy guest chairs. The higher-ups hadn’t skimped on her office furniture, that was for sure. Probably their penance for sticking her with Smarmy Marty. “Hopefully Hinrichs is learning how to make the Mexican-American War more interesting.”
“It’s Mr. Hinrichs. And I take it you’re still having trouble in AP U.S. History.”
“I was hoping you could talk to him for me. Tell him I’m going through a rough time.”
“Are you?”
“Only in his class. He hates me.”
Zoe strongly suspected that if he hated anything, it was her sister’s inability to stop talking. Or her obsession with her phone. “Have you considered paying closer attention in class? Maybe going out less and studying more?”
Fliss made a face at her. “You sound like Mom. Which reminds me.”
She slipped the bag off her arm and put it on the desk. “This is from her. She made me go to Japantown to get it for you. She thinks you’re not eating enough.”
Things had really changed in the month she’d been gone. Her stepmother was acting motherly for the first time in, well, forever, worrying about stuff like homework and proper nutrition.
“I’m eating.” Not enough, true. Her appetite wasn’t the same since she’d returned from vacation. She told everyone she was still recovering from all the pasta and pizza she’d inhaled in Italy.
Liar.
Zoe pulled the bag toward her, opened it, and inhaled. Miso ramen with bamboo shoots, kikurage mushrooms, and pickled ginger. Her favorite. “But I never turn down good ramen.”
“Pretty sure that’s what Mom was counting on when she enlisted me as her errand girl.” Fliss propped her feet up on Zoe’s desk.
Zoe stared her down until she removed them. “You mean it wasn’t your idea to come all the way downtown on your day off?”
“I was heading here anyway. I’m meeting Dylan at the Wharf in half an hour.”
“Dylan, huh?” Zoe teased. “So you got Dad to loosen up on the dating restrictions.”
“We reached a compromise. I can go out with Dylan, but no Corvette. We have to take the Beige Bomber.” Fliss winced at the nickname they’d given the family’s ancient Chevy Impala. “Or public transportation, like today.”
“I’ll bet Dylan wasn’t too happy about that.”
“He wasn’t. But I convinced Dad to reconsider if Dylan goes six months without another ticket. And I told Dylan he needs to slow down and stop driving like a maniac. We watched Rebel Without a Cause in English, and he thinks he’s James Dean. I don’t want him to wind up the same way.”
Damn. Her little sister had done good. She’d make a great lawyer. Or a politician. Or any job where she could harness her powers of persuasion. “Nice work. I’m proud of you.”
“I learned from the best.” Fliss turned sideways in her seat, dangling her long legs over the arm of the chair. “You’ve been fighting my battles for me for years. It felt kind of awesome doing it myself. You know, girl power. Fempire. I am woman, hear me roar. All that rah-rah jazz. Not that I had much choice with you six freaking thousand miles away.”
Zoe wanted to jump up, slide across the shiny glass top of her computer desk, and squeeze the stuffing out of her sister. If she was proud of Fliss before, now she was bursting with it.
Not just Fliss, she realized suddenly, but herself, too. Looked like her not-so-evil plan to force her family to deal with their own shit instead of running to her with every minor crisis had worked.
Zoe tried to cling to that kernel of positivity. Her month abroad wasn’t a total loss. Too bad it had left her with a broken heart and an even bigger chip on her shoulder against men in general and one particular stubborn, frustrating-but-sex-on-a-stick Italian.
“What’s that look for?” Fliss asked.
Zoe made a conscious effort to dial back whatever expression her face wore to neutral. “What look?”
“The one that says your dog died and your car got repossessed.”
Zoe masked her surprise by pulling the container of ramen and a pair of chopsticks out of the bag. Had she been that obvious? Here she thought she was putting up such a great front in the weeks since she’d returned home, burying herself in her new job and smiling her way through the occasional family dinner.
“I don’t have a dog. And my car is paid off.”
“You know what I mean. You look like you’re in desperate need of cheering up.”
“Why would I need cheering up?”
“You tell me.” Fliss steepled her fingers under her chin. “You spent a month in paradise. Got your job back, along with a sweet promotion. My guess is it’s gotta be a guy thing.”
“I don’t have a guy.” Not exactly a lie. She didn’t, not anymore. Her sister didn’t have to know that losing one was the cause of her woes.
Fliss drummed her fingers together thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s the problem.”
“This is a nice change,” Zoe said, unwrapping her chopsticks and hoping her sister wouldn’t notice the subtle shift of subject. “You worrying about me instead of the other way around.”
“I told you. I did a lot of growing up while you were gone.”
Amen for that.
Zoe dipped her chopsticks into the soup, spearing a wavy, ear-shaped mushroom, then paused to glance at her sister. “Want some? I can grab a bowl from the break room.”
“Thanks, but I have to pass. Dylan’s probably waiting for me at the Wharf by now.” Fliss whipped out her phone and shot off a quick text, then shoved it back into her pocket and stood. “This has been fun, but I gotta run.”
“Maybe next time you can stay for lunch.”
“And maybe next time you can tell me what—or who—has you moping around like you lost your best friend.” Fliss’s brow crinkled. “In all seriousness, I know I haven’t always been the best sister. I’m selfish and self-centered and kind of a brat most of the time. But I also love the hell out of you, and I’m here if you need someone to talk to.”
Zoe would have hugged her sister if she didn’t think it would freak her out. Their family wasn’t exactly known for their physical displays of affection. She settled for blowing her a kiss. “Thanks, baby sis. You’re not so bad. I promise I’ll tell you everything the next time I see you.”
Well, maybe not everything. She wasn’t discussing the details of her sex life with her underage sister. But, at some point, she was going to have to unload on someone. Might as well be Fliss.
“I’m holding you to that,” Fliss said.
Zoe raised her chopsticks in a mock salute. “And I’m holding you to lunch.”
Once Fliss was out of sight, Zoe gave up the pretense of eating. As good as the ramen smelled, it wasn’t enough to revive her virtually nonexistent appetite. Some people ate their feelings; Zoe starved hers.
She put the lid back on the container and deposited it in the mini fridge under her desk, next to a six-pack of watermelon seltzer and a couple of golden delicious apples that had seen better days and probably weren’t so delicious anymore. Maybe later she’d feel like eating. Like later this decade.
Zoe turned back to her computer and did what she’d been doing since she returned home and accepted the promotion from associate designer to project manager—immersed herself in her work. It didn’t lessen the pain of losing Dante, but it forced her to concentrate on something else, at least for a few hours.
This time, her project was a five-story townhouse in Nob Hill. The second one she’d been assigned to work on in the past few weeks. If the homeowners liked her work, she had her fingers crossed that the higher-ups would let her handle
something even bigger. Like a commercial property. Maybe an office building or a hotel.
She’d barely glanced at the sketch still on her computer screen when a soft knock made her head swivel toward the door. It swung open, and her new boss, Mr. Lafferty, entered without waiting for her to answer. The balding, middle-aged man reminded her of Bruce Willis in RED, although unlike Bruce’s character in the movie, ex-CIA agent Frank Moses, he tended to prefer faux-fur rugs and patterned throw pillows to bullets and bombs.
“I apologize for bursting in on you like this,” he said, folding his beefy frame into one of her overly expensive guest chairs. “But we have a new project, and I need you to get started on it right away.”
She glanced at the design on her monitor and frowned. “What about the townhouse?”
“Someone else can handle that. I need you on this.” He tapped a folder on his lap, which Zoe hadn’t noticed until that second.
“What exactly is this?”
He slid the folder across the desk to her. She opened it, barely suppressing a groan.
“A restaurant?” Figured. And an Italian restaurant, to boot. A daily reminder of the very thing—the very person—she was trying to forget.
“You wanted to do some commercial work, right?” her boss asked.
“Yes,” she said with far less enthusiasm than she would have under different circumstances. Sure, she wanted to work her way up to commercial properties. But this—this was too much to ask. The universe was clearly conspiring against her.
She flipped through the contents of the folder again. “I’ve never heard of Seven Hills Enterprises.”
Her boss nodded. “This will be their first venture in the states. They want to establish a presence on the West Coast.”
“I hope they realize what they’re in for. San Francisco is a tough market to crack.”
“We certainly have more than our share of Michelin-star eateries,” her boss agreed. “But they seem to know what they’re up against, and they’re proceeding with caution. We’re one of a number of firms they’ve asked to come up with some preliminary drawings.”
Zoe closed the folder. There must be some way she could avoid this project. As long as she could do it without losing her job. Again.
“I don’t want to sound ungrateful for the opportunity, but why me?” she asked. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to go with someone more established?”
“That’s above my pay grade.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean someone higher up the food chain likes you, because word came down that this job was yours and yours alone.”
“Why?” she asked again.
“Like I said, that’s above my pay grade.” He stood and smoothed his shirt before gesturing to the thick folder in front of her. “I’ll leave you to it. You’ve got your work cut out for you if you’re going to have something ready by next Friday.”
“Next Friday?” How long did that give her? She didn’t even know what day today was. They all seemed to blend into a melancholy sameness without Dante.
Zoe glanced at her desktop calendar. “That’s barely a week away.”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” The gleam in her boss’s eye said he knew perfectly well he hadn’t, and he was enjoying every minute of this torture. “The client will be in town week after next. They want all the proposals in before then so they can narrow them down to the top two or three and meet with the firms still in contention.”
Damn. It was going to be almost impossible to pull something together on that demanding schedule. She’d be lucky if she managed a couple of hours of sleep a night.
After dropping that bombshell, her boss left as quickly as he had appeared. With a sigh, she closed the document she was working on and flipped the file he’d dumped on her desk back open.
An Italian restaurant might be the last thing she wanted to design right now, but damned if she wasn’t going to give this project everything she had. She had a reputation to consider. And no man—not even one as deliciously distracting as Dante—was worth risking that.
Besides, the sooner she started, the sooner she’d be finished. Then she could go back to designing townhouses and trying to forget the Italian restauranteur who took her heart, made it soar, then popped it like a balloon and tossed it into the Mediterranean.
Chapter Fifteen
“Ready for the big presentation?”
Zoe looked up from her laptop to see her boss looming in the conference room doorway. She clicked a button on her computer and let out a relieved sigh when the first slide of her PowerPoint presentation appeared on the screen across the large mahogany table that dominated the room. Technology wasn’t always her friend, but today, at least, it looked like it had decided to cooperate.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” she said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt.
“You’ve poured your heart and soul into this proposal.” Mr. Lafferty brushed past her and took a seat at the opposite end of the table. “If the client doesn’t like it, it’s their loss.”
He was right. She’d gone above and beyond on the design for this restaurant. And not just because it was a huge opportunity for her professionally. This project was personal. It was almost as if she’d designed it for Dante, asking herself what he would think of the layout, the color scheme, the lighting. She’d even added a subtle nod to La Bohème in the eclectic, intentionally mismatched vintage dinnerware.
Stupid girl. Designing a restaurant for a man who couldn’t even bring himself to acknowledge her existence.
She blinked back an angry tear—crying in the workplace was definitely not part of her advancement strategy—flipped open her notebook, and scanned the outline she’d written in neat block letters. She was hoping to get through this presentation without relying on her notes, but having them handy gave her a sense of security. “Thanks, Mr. Lafferty.”
“I’ve told you, you can call me Jim.”
“Right. Thanks, Jim.”
She caught herself twirling a strand of hair around her finger and clasped her hands behind her back. Oral presentations always made her a little—okay, a lot—nervous. Especially when she had no idea who she was presenting to. She usually liked to take the client’s personal taste into account when coming up with a design concept, something she hadn’t been able to do this time. Maybe that’s why she’d done this project with Dante in mind.
That had to be the reason. Not the fact that, even though he’d shattered her into a million pieces, she couldn’t seem to get him out of her head.
Or her heart.
Mr.—Jim swiveled his chair to face her and gave her a reassuring smile that buoyed her shaky self-confidence. Working with him was a far cry from working for Smarmy Marty. “You’ve gotten us this far. Down to the final two. Now you just have to bring it home.”
“I still don’t understand why I’m giving this presentation and not you.”
“Because this is your passion project, not mine. You’re the best one to convey the beauty, spirit, and style of your work.”
Jim’s phone buzzed. He looked at the screen and swore. “I’m sorry, I have to take this. If I’m not back when the client gets here, have the receptionist page me.”
“Will do.”
Jim breezed out of the conference room, leaving the door ajar and Zoe to her own thoughts. To stop them from drifting, predictably, to Dante, she studied her notes for a few minutes, then paced the room, practicing her presentation under her breath.
“As you can see on this slide, we’ve knocked down a non-load-bearing wall and used soft, light tones like off-white, gray, and seafoam instead of the traditional deep reds and browns to make the dining room look bigger and more inviting.”
Oink.
Zoe’s head spun toward the half-open door, but there was nothing there.
Great. Now she was hearing things. She shook her head, took a deep breath, and let it out on a weary sigh. Glancing at her notes, she tried to refocus on the most important presentation of her career.
“For furniture, we’ve gone with clean, simple lines and pale woods like white oak and birch, again to lighten the space and set you apart from other Italian eateries in the downtown area.”
Oink.
Okay, either she was completely losing it or there was a pig somewhere in the vicinity. Was one of her coworkers playing a cruel trick on her? No, that couldn’t be it. She hadn’t told anyone about Dante. Or Houdini. And it wasn’t as if she splashed the intimate details of her personal life all over social media.
She turned back to the door, more slowly this time, almost afraid of what she might see there.
Oink.
A suspiciously familiar-looking black-and-white pig sat on his haunches inside the doorway. He was a bit bigger than the last time she’d seen him, and the baby blue harness around his pudgy body was new, but she’d recognize those intelligent, gray-green eyes anywhere.
Zoe’s heart did a little stutter step as she knelt down to get on eye level with the animal.
“Houdini?”
He trotted over to her and nuzzled her outstretched hand with his smooth, soft snout.
“It is you.” She hooked a finger under his chin, and he lifted his head, inviting her to rub his neck. “What are you doing here? It’s a long way from Rome. Or Positano. Or wherever you’ve been.”
Houdini’s only response was an indistinct grunt as he flopped down and rolled over on his side. Not that she expected him to actually answer her. She hadn’t gone that far off the deep end. Yet.
Her mind whirred as she considered the possibilities. There were only two people who could have brought Houdini to San Francisco. Dante and his grandmother. She couldn’t imagine Dante had any desire to see her. Maybe the older woman had decided to pay a visit.
Zoe scooped up the pig and stood, determined to solve the mystery of how he got there. She crossed her fingers that her guess was correct. As much as her traitorous body longed for Dante, her heart wasn’t ready for him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
