Rebecca Winters - The Vineyards Of Calanetti

Not waiting for him to reply, Daniella nudged Rafe out of the way, stooped down to find a tablet on the maître d’ stand shelf and faced the dining area. She quickly drew squares and circles representing all the tables and wrote the number of chairs around each one. She put an X over the tables that were taken.

Had he thought she was cheeky? Apparently that was just the tip of the iceberg.

She faced the Americans. “How many in your party?”

“Four. We want reservations for tonight.”

“Time?”

“Seven.”

Flipping the tablet page, she wrote their name and the time on the next piece of paper. As the Americans walked out, she said, “Next?”

Awestruck at her audacity, Rafe almost yelled.

Almost .

He could easily give her the boot, but he needed a hostess. He had a growing suspicion about the customers laughing when he lost his temper, as if he was becoming some sort of sideshow. He didn’t want his temper to be the reason people came to his restaurant. He wanted his food, the fantastic aromas, the succulent tastes, to be the draw. Wouldn’t he be a fool to toss her out?

The businessman pushed his way over to her. “I have an appointment in an hour. I need to be served first.”

Daniella Tate smiled at Rafe as if asking permission to seat the businessman, and his brain emptied. She really was as pretty as she was cheeky. Luckily, she took his blank stare as approval. She turned to the businessman and said, “Of course, we’ll seat you.”

She led the man to the back of the dining room, to a table for two, seated him with a smile and returned to the podium.

Forget about how cheeky she was. Forget about his brain that stalled when he looked at her. She was a very good hostess.

Rafe cleared his throat. “Talk to the waitresses and find out whose turn it is before you seat anyone else.” He cleared his throat again. “They have a system.”

She smiled at him. “Sure.”

His heart did something funny in his chest, forcing his gaze to her pretty blue eyes again. Warmth whooshed through him.

Confused, he turned and marched away. With so much at stake in his restaurant, including, it seemed, his reputation, his funny feelings for an employee were irrelevant. Nothing. Whatever trickled through his bloodstream, it had to be more annoyance than attraction. After all, recommendation from Nico or not, she’d sort of walked in and taken over his restaurant.

* * *

Dani stared after the chef as he left. She wasn’t expecting someone so young...or so gorgeous. At least six feet tall, with wavy brown hair so long he had it tied off his face and gray eyes, the guy could be a celebrity chef on television back home. Just looking at him had caused her breathing to stutter. She actually felt a rush of heat careen through her veins. He was that good-looking.

But it was also clear that he was in over his head without a maître d’. As she’d stood in the back of the long line to get into the restaurant, her good old-fashioned American common sense had kicked in, and she’d simply done what needed to be done: pushed her way to the front, grabbed some menus and seated customers. And he’d hired her.

Behind her someone said, “You’d better keep your hair behind your ears. He’ll yell about it being in your face and potentially in his food once he gets over being happy you’re here.”

She turned to see one of the waitresses. Dressed in black trousers and a white blouse, she looked slim and professional.

“ That was happy?”

Her pretty black ponytail bobbed as she nodded. “ Sì . That was happy.”

“Well, I’m going to hate seeing him upset.”

“Prepare yourself for it. Because he gets upset every day. Several times a day. That’s why Gino quit. I’m Allegra, by the way. The other two waitresses are Zola and Giovanna. And the chef is Chef Mancini. Everyone calls him Chef Rafe.”

“He said you have a system of how you want people seated?”

Allegra took Daniella’s seating chart and drew two lines dividing the tables into three sections. “Those are our stations. You seat one person in mine, one person in Zola’s and one person in Gio’s, then start all over again.”

Daniella smiled. “Easy-peasy.”

“Scusi?”

“That means ‘no problem.’”

“Ah. Sì .” Allegra smiled and walked away. Daniella took two more menus and seated another couple.

The lunchtime crowd that had assembled at the door of Mancini’s settled quickly. Dani easily found a rhythm of dividing the customers up between the three waitresses. Zola and Gio introduced themselves, and she actually had a good time being hostess of the restaurant that looked like an Old World farmhouse and smelled like pure heaven. The aromas of onions and garlic, sweet peppers and spicy meats rolled through the air, making her confident she could talk up the food and promise diners a wonderful meal, even without having tasted it.

During the lull after lunch, Zola and Gio went home. The dining room grew quiet. Not sure if she should stay or leave, since Allegra remained to be available for the occasional tourist who ambled in, Daniella stayed, too.

In between customers, she helped clear and reset tables, checked silverware to make sure it sparkled, arranged chairs so that everything in the dining room was picture-perfect.

But soon even the stragglers stopped. Daniella stood by the podium, her elbow leaning against it, her chin on her closed fist, wondering what Louisa was doing.

“Why are you still here?”

The sound of Rafe’s voice sent a surge of electricity through her.

She turned with a gasp. Her voice wobbled when she said, “I thought you’d need me for dinner.”

“You were supposed to go home for the break. Or are you sneakily trying to get paid for hours you really don’t work?”

Her eyes widened. Anger punched through her. What the hell was wrong with this guy? She’d done him a favor and he was questioning her motives?

Without thinking, she stormed over to him. Putting herself in his personal space, she looked up and caught his gaze. “And how was I supposed to know that, since you didn’t tell me?”

She expected him to back down. At the very least to realize his mistake. Instead, he scoffed. “It’s common sense.”

“Well, in America—”

He cut her off with a harsh laugh. “You Americans. Think you know everything. But you’re not in America now. You are in Italy.” He pointed a finger at her nose. “You will do what I say.”

“Well, I’ll be happy to do what you say as soon as you say something!”

Allegra stopped dropping silverware onto linen-covered tables. The empty, quiet restaurant grew stone-cold silent. Time seemed to crawl to a stop. The vein in Rafe’s temple pulsed.

Dani’s body tingled. Every employee in the world knew it wasn’t wise to yell at the boss, but, technically, she wasn’t yelling. She was standing up to him. As a foster child, she’d had to learn how to protect herself, when to stay quiet and when to demand her rights. If she let him push her around now, he’d push her around the entire month she worked for him.

He threw his hands in the air, pivoted away from her and headed to the kitchen. “Go the hell home and come back for dinner.”

Daniella blew out the breath she’d been holding. Her heart pounded so hard it hurt, but the tingling in her blood became a surge of power. He might not have said the words, but she’d won that little battle of wills.

Still, she felt odd that their communication had come down to a sort of yelling match and knew she had to get the heck out of there.

She grabbed her purse and headed for the old green car she and Louisa had found in the garage.