Under The Tuscan Sun...: A Bride for the Italian Boss / Return of the Italian Tycoon / Reunited by a Baby Secret. SUSAN MEIER
ordered coffee, telling herself it wasn’t odd that she felt a connection to the staff at Mancini’s. They were nice people. Personable. Passionate. Of course, she felt as if they were family. She’d mothered the waitresses, babied the customers and fallen for Emory like a favorite uncle.
But she’d never see any of them again. She’d been fired from Mancini’s. Rafe hated her. She wouldn’t go home happy, satisfied to have met Rosa’s relatives, because the connection she’d made had been to a totally different set of people. She would board her plane depressed. Saddened. Returning to a man who didn’t even want to pick her up at the airport. A man whose marriage proposal she was going to have to refuse.
A street vendor caught her arm and handed her a red rose.
Surprised, she looked at him, then the rose, then back at him again. “Grazie...I think.”
He grinned. “It’s not from me. It’s from that gentleman over there.” He pointed behind him.
Dani’s eyes widened when she saw Rafe leaning against a lamppost. Wearing jeans, a tight T-shirt and the waist-length black wool coat that he’d worn to the tavern, he looked sexy. But also alone. Very alone. The way she felt in the pit of her stomach when she thought about going back to New York.
Her gaze fell to the rose. Red. For passion. But with someone like Rafe who was a bundle of passion about his restaurant, about his food, about his customers, the color choice could mean anything.
Carrying the rose, she got up from her seat and walked over to him. “How did you find me?”
“Would you believe I guessed where you were?”
“That would have to be a very lucky guess.”
He sighed. “I talked to your roommate, Louisa, this afternoon. She told me where you were staying, and I drove to Rome. Walking to your hotel, I saw you here, having coffee.”
He glanced away. “Look, can we talk?” He shoved his hands tightly into the side pockets of his coat and returned his gaze to hers. “We’ve missed you.”
“We?”
She almost cursed herself for the question. But she needed to hear him say it so she’d know she wasn’t crazy, getting feelings for a guy who found it so easy to fire her.
“I’ve missed you.” He sighed. “Two trust-fund babies faked me out the other night. They insulted my food and when they couldn’t get a rise out of me, they made it look like I was tossing one out on her ear to get a picture for Instagram.”
She couldn’t help it. She laughed. “Instagram?”
“It’s the bane of my existence.”
“But you hadn’t lost your temper?”
He shook his head and glanced away. “No. I hadn’t.” He looked back at her. “I remembered some things you’d done.” He smiled. “I learned.”
Her heart picked up at the knowledge that he’d learned from her, and the thrill that he was here, that he’d missed her. “You’re not a bad guy.”
His face twisted around a smile he clearly tried to hide. “According to Emory, I’m just an overworked guy. And interviewing for a new maître d’ isn’t helping. Especially when no one I talk to fits. It’s why I need you. You’re the first person to take over the dining room well enough that I don’t worry.”
She counted to ten, breathlessly waiting for him to expand on that. When he didn’t, she said, “And that’s all it is?”
“I know you want there to be something romantic between us. But there are things that separate us. Not just your fiancé, but my temperament. Really? Could you see yourself happy with me? Or when you look at me, do you see a man who takes what he wants and walks away? Because that’s the man I really am. I put my restaurant first. I have no time for a relationship.”
Her heart wept at what he said. But her sensible self, the lonely foster child who didn’t trust the wash of feelings that raced through her every time she got within two feet of him, understood. He was a gorgeous man, born for the limelight, looking to make a name for himself. She was a foster kid, looking for a home. Peace. Quiet. Security. They might be physically attracted, but, emotionally, they were totally wrong for each other. No matter how drawn she was to him, she knew the truth as well as he did.
“You can’t commit?”
He shook his head. “My commitment is to Mancini’s. To my career. My reputation. I want to be one of Europe’s famed chefs. Mancini’s is my stepping stone. I do not have time for what other men want. A woman on their arm. Fancy parties. Marriage. To me those are irrelevant. All I want is success. So I would hurt you. And I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Which makes anything between us just business?”
“Just business.”
Her job at Mancini’s had awakened feelings in Dani she’d never experienced. Self-worth. A sense of place. An unshakable belief that she belonged there. And the click of connection that made her feel she had a home. Something deep inside her needed Mancini’s. But she wouldn’t go back only to be fired again.
“And you need me?”
He rolled his eyes. “You Americans. Why must you be showered with accolades?”
Oh, he did love to be gruff.
She slid her hand into the crook of his elbow and pointed to her table at the bistro. “I don’t need accolades. I need acknowledgment of my place at Mancini’s...and my coffee. I’m freezing.”
He pulled his arm away from her hand and wrapped it around her shoulders. She knew he meant it only as a gesture between friends, but she felt his warmth seep through to her. Longing tugged at her heart. A fierce yearning that clung and wouldn’t let go.
“You should wear a heavier coat.”
His voice was soft, intimate, sending the feeling of rightness through her again.
“It was warm when I came here.”
“And now it is cold. So from here on I will make sure you wear a bigger coat.” He paused. His head tilted. “Maybe you need me, too?”
She did. But not in the way he thought. She wanted him to love her. Really love her. But to be the man of her dreams, he would have to be different. To be warm and loving. To want her—
And he might. Today. But he’d warned her that anything he felt for her was temporary. He couldn’t commit. He didn’t want to commit. And unless she wanted to get her heart broken, she had to really hear what he was saying. If she was going to get the opportunity to go back to the first place in her life that felt like home, Mancini’s, and the first people who genuinely felt like family, his staff, then a romance between them had to be out of the question.
“I need Mancini’s. I like it there. I like the people.”
“Ah. So we agree.”
“I guess. All I know for sure is that I don’t want to go back to New York yet.”
He laughed. They reached her table and he pulled out her chair for her. “That doesn’t speak well of your fiancé.”
Hauling in a breath, she sat, but she said nothing. Her stretching of the truth to Rafe about Paul being her fiancé sat in her stomach like a brick. Still, even though she knew she was going to reject his marriage proposal, it protected her and Rafe. Rafe wouldn’t go after another man’s woman. Not even for a fling. And he was right. If they had a fling, she would be crushed when he moved on.
One of his eyebrows rose, as he waited for her reply.
She decided they needed her stretched truth. But she couldn’t out-and-out lie. “All right. Paul is not the perfect guy.”
“I’m not trying to ruin your relationship. I simply believe you should