Unbuttoning the Tuscan Tycoon, page 14
She was right. Taking a little time off from the daily grind could provide unforeseen benefits—benefits that Lorenzo’s would reap.
They spent Wednesday playing with new menu ideas and considering all of his plans for Lorenzo’s. It left him both relaxed and invigorated. It felt wonderful.
And he had Frankie to thank for it.
She met his gaze. ‘How do you feel when you’re cooking, Dante? Describe it to me.’
He recognised at once that it wasn’t an idle question. He shifted, eased back, considered how to best explain it. ‘It is as if all of my instincts and expertise come together in a kind of dance. They fall perfectly in tune with each other and, somehow, they make of me their vehicle. It is as if, when I am cooking, I can do no wrong.’ He shrugged, half laughed. ‘It will sound odd, but when I’m cooking, it feels as if I could right all the wrongs with the world.’
She leaned her chin on her hands. ‘That’s sounds amazing.’
He reached out and took her hand, squeezed it. ‘You will find your passion too, Frankie. I’m sure of it.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Because you are smart and generous. You will work it out. Take this time your grandmother has given you, savour it. And then you will see.’
Her answer was to kiss him. Which, of course, was the perfect answer.
* * *
On Thursday, Dante woke with a slow stretch and unfamiliar sense of wellbeing. Turning his head on the pillow, he found Frankie already awake, and propped up on one elbow surveying him.
Her eyes filled with warmth and she leaned over to give him a quick kiss. ‘Good morning.’
He pulled her back down for a more thorough kiss before releasing her. ‘Good morning.’
She gave an unsteady laugh. ‘You kiss like an angel, Dante.’
Holding her lovely body fully against his, he grazed her ear lightly with his teeth. ‘Shall I show you what else I can do like an angel?’ he murmured, moulding her curves to his.
He felt her quick intake of breath and the way her body melted against him. Pressing a kiss to his collarbone, she drew back a fraction. ‘Before...’ She swallowed and he revelled in the effect he had on her. ‘Before you start something neither one of us wants to stop, you might want to look at the time.’
He glanced at the clock on the bedside table and immediately stiffened. ‘Dio! It is after nine!’ He never slept in.
But then he recalled the exertions of the night before and that explained why he’d slept so deeply this morning.
‘As much as I want to stay here,’ she said, ‘I know you wanted to get into the office at a reasonable hour today.’
‘Si.’ It didn’t stop him from considering going in later, though. They could have a slow lazy start to the day and then—
They couldn’t. He needed to check in with Michael and then triple-check with all of his new suppliers to make sure today’s deliveries would arrive as planned, and that everything else was ready for tonight.
They were fully booked for the next four nights. There was much to be optimistic about where the restaurant was concerned and much to celebrate, but it was too soon to rest on their laurels.
As if sensing the conclusion he was coming to, Frankie pressed another kiss to his chest—her lips lingering and warming him to the soles of his feet. As she made to push out of his bed, he wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her back, covering her body with his. Her gasp and the way she arched into him sent satisfaction coursing through him.
Lowering his lips to hers, he kissed her with a ruthlessness thoroughness that had her moving against him restlessly, those clever questing fingers pushing him to the edge, until their bodies surged together and their cries of pleasure rang around the room.
Eventually, he dropped her off in the staff car park on the way to his own dedicated parking spot. She hopped out with a smile. ‘I’ll see you soon.’
She planned to come into the office for a couple of hours to check her email and any messages the staff might have left for her. The knowledge he’d be working so close to her for the next few hours lifted something inside of him. Reaching for her hand, he pressed a kiss to her palm. ‘I am missing you already.’ And then he released her before he changed his mind and tugged her back inside the car to spend the day ravaging her.
He set the coffee to percolate before switching on his computer. And then he moved to the first item on the day’s agenda—rang all of his suppliers to ensure that nothing untoward had happened with the day’s orders. The fishmonger told him that he didn’t think the day’s catch of octopus would fill Dante with much enthusiasm, but that he had some most excellent crabs. Dante began rearranging the menu in his mind to suit as he agreed to the fishmonger’s suggestions.
In the office next door, he could hear Frankie moving about. He would take her coffee soon. Ringing off from the last of his suppliers, he watched as his morning’s emails loaded, and as he read them the smile slipped from his face, his every muscle clenching.
Dio! This was a disaster!
Before he could move, a white-faced Frankie appeared in the doorway. ‘Oh, God, Dante you’re not going to believe this, but ninety percent of the waitstaff are claiming they can’t come in this evening.’
He shot to his feet.
‘And it’s the same for tomorrow night.’
His hands clenched so hard he started to shake. ‘This is also the case with the kitchen staff.’
She moved into the room, her eyes narrowing. ‘This can’t be an accident.’
He stabbed a finger at her, fury exploding inside him. ‘This is what happens when I take my eye off the ball for a moment and allow myself to be distracted! How could I have been so stupid?’ He whirled away, registering in some small part of his brain that Frankie had gone white, but unable to quell the self-condemnation rolling through him. He’d known someone could be trying to undermine him and the restaurant and yet he’d still—
He’d let Lorenzo down!
How could he have been so careless, so negligent? His grandfather deserved better from him.
‘I have been selfishly satisfying my own desires without a thought for my responsibilities or what I owe to my family. I—’
‘That’s not true.’ Warm fingers closed around his arm. ‘You’ve been making room in your mind for your plans for Lorenzo’s, letting them evolve, consolidating them. That’s not selfish.’
‘I knew someone might be making mischief for the restaurant. That’s what I should’ve been focussing on.’
‘You have been! You’ve been checking your emails and texts religiously in case of an emergency. Checking in daily with Michael.’
Maybe so, but all the while his mind had been elsewhere. It had been focussed squarely on Frankie. The restaurant had played second fiddle.
‘Dante, it’s not unreasonable for you to take time off.’
‘Says a woman who has no responsibilities and nothing else to care about except to follow an agenda of pleasure and distraction.’
Her hand dropped and she took a step away. ‘I would never do anything to harm Lorenzo’s. You must know that.’
‘Must I?’ he shot back. ‘You don’t seem to care what you do with your own life, so why should I believe that you care about other people’s lives?’
She stared at him with eyes full of betrayal and he had to wheel away. In a far-off corner of his mind, he knew he wasn’t being fair, but had he learned nothing? How had he had allowed this careless, happy-go-lucky charmer, who didn’t have a care in the world, to turn his head like this and distract him from what was really important? He who had witnessed the devastation his father had wrought.
Just as his mother had done, he’d allowed emotion to govern his actions when he should’ve been focusing on duty and maintaining a clear-eyed objectivity. His mother had lost everything. And now he was in danger of losing Lorenzo’s.
The thought was like a cold knife between his ribs. He needed to excise all emotion from his heart and mind if he wanted to save Lorenzo’s. His hands clenched. He had to save Lorenzo’s.
Pulling himself up to his full height, he turned back to face her. ‘If I had not wasted all of that time with you in bed this morning, I would have learned about this sooner.’ His voice shook, but he kept a strong rein on the roar that had started up at the centre of him. ‘I have lost valuable time because I was hell-bent on pleasure.’ He thumped an open-palmed hand to his desk. ‘Well, no more! This will not happen again.’
CHAPTER NINE
WASTED?
The air punched from Frankie’s lungs, making it impossible to speak. Dante considered the time they’d spent together these last few days a waste? An unfamiliar and shocking sense of betrayal held her frozen.
Very slowly, she shook her head. No, he considered them something far worse. He considered them a deliberate undermining of his mission to make Lorenzo’s a success.
And he thought her a woman of absolutely no substance. While she—
She swallowed. While she thought the last three days some of the most wonderful she’d ever spent.
As she watched him pace, she had one of those epiphanies she suspected her grandmother had hoped for her this summer—Dante’s single-minded drive wasn’t only harmful to him, but to those close to him. And Frankie didn’t want to be like that.
She who’d always considered herself a failure if she wasn’t top of her class, who’d refused to submit work that wasn’t her best. She stared at Dante and realised that if she continued on the path she’d set for herself, she’d become exactly like the man in front of her—a tyrant to duty.
She knew something else too—a summer adventure shouldn’t leave her so soul-crushingly shattered. It didn’t matter how much Dante’s body could make hers sing. She didn’t want to be with a man—not even temporarily—who could turn into a humourless robot and make her feel like she was...nothing.
He was busy barking orders into his phone, having clearly dismissed her, so she turned and left.
She didn’t return to her office but made her way down to the staff quarters. ‘Greta, I’m glad you’re here. I was hoping to have a word with you and Stella.’
An hour later she returned to her office, cornered Michael, and bullied Dante’s mother’s phone number out of him.
Twenty minutes later, she knocked on Dante’s office door and strode in without an invitation. He opened his mouth, but she spoke before he said something that would tempt her to stalk off and leave him in the lurch. ‘I have a list of staff I’ve arranged to work in the dining room tonight.’
He blinked and straightened.
She held up a sheet of paper. ‘This is only a temporary measure. You’ll need to hire new staff next week. I also have names of those with kitchen experience if you haven’t found replacements there yet.’
He took the sheet of paper as if in a dream. ‘How have you—’
‘You had the resources at your fingertips this entire time. Seasonal staff often have other skills. All I did was go down to the staff quarters and ask who had waiting and kitchen experience and if they’d be prepared to work in the restaurant this weekend.’
He stared at the sheet of paper and then at her. ‘This is a very good solution.’
She remained silent.
He moistened his lips. ‘Frankie, what I said earlier...’
She didn’t want to hear it. ‘Your mother and sisters are also on their way to help in whatever capacity they can.’
‘They’re what?’ he roared, jumping to his feet.
Wow. Okay. Not the reaction she was expecting. But the thought felt somehow academic. She felt as if she were in a bubble where his outrage couldn’t reach her.
Planting his hands on his desk, he leaned across it, his face twisting. ‘They are not to be bothered with any of this! What gave you the right to do such a thing? How did you even get the number?’
Her assumed calm shattered. Planting her hands on his desk, she leaned towards him too. ‘Well, as I’m nothing more than an irresponsible charmer, getting a phone number is a piece of cake for someone like me!’
He had the grace to look momentarily discomfited. ‘Perhaps I was hasty when I said that, but—’
‘Perhaps?’ She raised a mocking eyebrow.
‘But you had no right—’ he thumped his desk ‘—to drag my mother and sisters into this.’
She eased back and folded her arms to try and hide the way her hands shook. ‘Why not? Because they must always be protected and kept safe? Has it never occurred to you that they might chafe against the constriction of the ivory tower you’ve put them in?’
‘They want for nothing!’
‘Except an occupation to give some meaning to their lives.’
He blinked.
‘Except the knowledge that if you should lose everything, they don’t have the skills to make their own way.’
He went hard as granite. ‘I will not lose everything. I am not my father.’
A harsh laugh scraped from her throat. ‘No! Heaven forbid you should enjoy even a moment of carefree fun without beating yourself up about it.’
They stared at each other breathing hard.
‘Has it not occurred to you that they loved Lorenzo every bit as much as you did, and would love be involved in a restaurant created to honour his memory?’
‘My mother deserves a life free from stress, worry and work.’
She stabbed a finger at him. ‘Your mother deserves a life where she gets to decide her own destiny!’ So did she, she realised in that moment. So did she.
‘You make me sound like a jailer or a tyrant!’
‘If the cap fits...’ She gave a careless shrug, one designed to irritate him, but his quick intake of breath gave her no satisfaction. She hitched up her chin. ‘If you want Lorenzo’s to be a success, you’re going to have to surround yourself with people who you trust, because I’ve found out why so many of the staff have walked out.’
His head rocked back. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘They were offered bribes. Or threatened.’
The pulse at the base of his neck pounded. ‘How do you know this?’
‘Because I received one such phone call not an hour ago.’
‘From whom?’
‘The man didn’t give a name, though he was certainly happy enough to pay me a pretty penny to jump into my camper van and drive off into the sunset.’
He turned grey. Though she wasn’t stupid enough to think he cared if that’s what she did. Except he’d then need to find another maître d’.
‘When I refused, I was told to take care on dark lonely roads.’
Dante was in front of her in two steps, his hands curving around her shoulders, his body vibrating with barely contained emotion. ‘He threatened you?’ That strong jaw clenched though his hands remained gentle. ‘We must go to the police.’
‘I believe the threat was empty.’
‘We are not taking risks with your safety, Frankie. You will move into my villa at once and—’
‘I’ll be doing nothing of the sort!’ She stepped out of his grasp. ‘By all means alert the police to the threats. And if you’re truly worried about your staff’s safety, then hire security guards to patrol the grounds and keep an eye on things.’
He stared at her, his hands clasped, and for a moment she had an image of him tossing her over his shoulder and locking her up in a tower where she’d be safe. To her eternal shame something in her stomach softened at the thought.
She shook herself upright, steeled her spine. ‘Has your research turned up anything?’
The pulse at his jaw pounded. ‘It is not my father who is trying to sabotage me or the restaurant. My sources tell me he is living in South America with wife number five. The children of her first marriage are apparently keeping him in check by maintaining a very tight rein on the finances. He is basically living in a gilded cage. I do not believe he has had a second thought for the first family he left behind.’
She rubbed a hand across her chest. ‘I’m sorry, Dante.’ It had to be the bitterest kind of knowledge.
His only reply was a casual shrug that didn’t fool her for a moment.
It wouldn’t do either of them any good to wallow, though. She pushed her shoulders back. ‘I don’t believe this is a business grudge either. It feels too personal for that.’
Those dark eyes met hers again.
‘Tell me, Dante, who would want to see you brought low?’
He braced his hands on his knees for several seconds, before straightening again. ‘Lorenzo’s other family—the children and grandchildren from his marriage.’
Exactly.
‘Do you think any of them would physically harm your staff?’
He hesitated and then shook his head.
‘Or you and your family?’
Dragging a hand through his hair, he strode across to stare out the window. ‘They resent us, yes. They are perhaps jealous of us, but I do not believe that they are wicked at heart. It always grieved Lorenzo that they would not accept us, but he loved and respected them. I trust his judgment.’
‘Seems to me the best way for you all to pay homage to Lorenzo is by burying the hatchet.’
He swung around, his eyes flashing. ‘Oh, and you make that sound as easy as ABC.’
‘Of course, it’s not easy! Few things of worth are.’
She gestured to the chair on her side of his desk and he nodded. ‘Yes, please sit.’
She collapsed into it, suddenly exhausted.
‘Thank you for finding staff for this evening, Frankie. I have an agency working overtime to organise staff to cover our shortfall but—’
