Under The Tuscan Sun...: A Bride for the Italian Boss / Return of the Italian Tycoon / Reunited by a Baby Secret. SUSAN MEIER
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 New 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