Rebecca Winters - The Vineyards Of Calanetti

She could hear the sleep in his voice and winced. “Yes. Sorry. But I wanted to catch you before work.”

“That’s fine.”

She squeezed her eyes shut as she gathered her courage. It seemed so wrong to break up with someone over the phone and, yet, they’d barely spoken to each other in six months. This was the right thing to do.

“Look, Paul, I’m sorry to tell you this over the phone, but I can’t accept your marriage proposal.”

“What?”

She could almost picture him sitting up in bed, her bad news bringing him fully awake.

“I’m actually thinking of not coming back to New York at all, but staying in Italy.”

“What? What about your job?”

“I have a new job.”

“Where?”

“At a restaurant.”

“So you’re leaving teaching to be a waitress?”

“A hostess.”

“Oh, there’s a real step up.”

“Actually, I’m general manager,” she said, glad she’d talked Rafe into the title. She couldn’t blame Paul for being confused or angry, and knew he deserved an honest explanation.

“And I love Italy. I feel like I belong here.” She sucked in a breath. “We’ve barely talked in six months. I’m going to make a wild guess that you haven’t even missed me. I think we were only together because it was convenient.”

Another man’s silence might have been interpreted as misery. Knowing Paul the way she did, she recognized it as more or less a confirmation that she was right.

“I’m sorry not to accept your proposal, but I’m very happy.”

After a second, he said, “Okay, then. I’m glad.”

The breath blew back into her lungs. “Really?”

“Yeah. I did think we’d make a good married couple, but I knew when you didn’t say yes immediately that you might have second thoughts.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. This is just the way life works sometimes.”

And that was her pragmatic Paul. His lack of emotion might have made her feel secure at one time, but now she knew she needed more.

They talked another minute and Dani disconnected the call, feeling as if a weight had been taken from her shoulders, only to have it quickly replaced by another one. She’d had to be fair to Paul, but now the only defense she’d have against Rafe’s charms would be her own discipline and common sense.

She hoped that was enough.

CHAPTER NINE

HER RETURN TO the restaurant was as joyous as a celebration. Emory grinned. The waitresses fawned over her. The busboys grew red faced. The chefs breathed a sigh of relief.

Annoyance worked its way through Rafe. Not that he didn’t want his staff to adore her. He did. That was why she was back. The problem was he couldn’t stop reliving their meeting in Rome. He’d said everything that he’d wanted to say. That he’d missed her. That he wanted her back. But he’d kept it all in the context of business. He’d missed her help. He wanted her to become the face of Mancini’s. He didn’t want anything romantic with her because he didn’t want to hurt her. He’d been all business. And it had worked.

But with her return playing out around him, his heart rumbled at the injustice. He hadn’t lied when he said he didn’t want her back for himself, that he didn’t want something romantic between them. His fierce protection of Mancini’s wouldn’t let him get involved with an employee he needed. But here at the restaurant, with her looking so pretty, helping make his dream a reality, he just wanted to kiss her.

He reminded himself that she had a fiancé—

A fiancé she admitted was not the perfect guy.

Bah! That fiancé was supposed to be the key weapon in his arsenal of ways to keep himself away from her. Her admission that he wasn’t perfect, even the fact that she was considering 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.