Her stomach tumbled. What have I just done?
“Hey,” he said as he pulled the door open. His usually perfect hair was a little disheveled, like he’d been raking his hands through it. Dark, dangerous stubble shadowed his face. His discerning gaze skirted quickly over her from head to toe, like he was trying to find some visible reason she’d be here.
This had been an awful idea.
On closer examination, she noticed he had circles under his eyes, and his button-up shirt was halfway untucked. Could it be that he was feeling the same stress that she was?
“Did you need something?” he asked.
“Yes?”
He smiled a little, then stepped aside to let her pass. “Come on in. It’s safe. I’m the only one here.” His voice was low and gravelly, in a way that reminded her of a sexy model in a cologne commercial as he awakened in a breezy-curtained villa, throwing back the silk sheets and walking naked to his balcony overlooking the Adriatic Sea.
Okay, stress was making her imagination go wild. And also, safe felt like a real misnomer.
She followed Leo back to the table where he’d been working and ran her hand along her carelessly swooped-up bun, thinking she must look a mess after working all day and into the night. But why should she care? She wasn’t here to impress.
As she sat down across from him, he asked, “Do you have good news for me?” He gave her a hopeful look that made her want to lie. That made her think that maybe they weren’t so different. They both loved their families. They both wanted their hard work to bring success.
But this was business, so she straightened her spine. “No deal with the bread. My mom won’t have it. She’d rather be bankrupt than have us bake for your restaurant. I’m sorry.”
He sighed heavily, and for the first time ever, he didn’t seem to be shrugging things off with a smile.
“Any luck on your end?” she asked. “I mean, about selling your ideas to your dad?”
He sat back, tossing his pen over the many scattered papers. “No,” he said simply. Just one word, jam-packed with frustration.
She should just go home. What was the point of continuing a conversation? Yet she recognized a look in his eyes—the same desperate desire to do something to stop these ships from sinking. And…and she was now past want. She needed that wine.
“I—” She felt her voice giving out. “I actually was wondering if you had any wine. I mean, I’d pay you for it.”
He looked her over in what she was coming to learn was a thoroughly assessing way of his, a mixture of curiosity and something more intense that made her feel stripped down to the bone. “What are you doing downtown at this hour?”
She hitched a thumb toward the bakery. “I was just sneak baking.” She mentally head slapped herself. Why had she confessed that? It was private. To most people, anyway.
He frowned. “What’s sneak baking?”
“Oh. Sometimes I go in after hours and bake whatever I want. It’s…a way of unwinding, I guess. Being creative. Forgetting about everything else.”
“I might have to try it. Because all I do after hours is pore over the numbers. And then I can’t sleep.”
“I hear you,” she said.
“You probably shouldn’t be downtown alone at night.”
In Blossom Glen? Tessa waved a hand dismissively. “Like you?” He smiled a little at that. “I’ve been doing it for years. It’s my therapy.”
His lips cracked a slight smile. “Wine sounds like a great idea.” That warmth in his eyes was back, and it was directed at her. Only briefly, though, and then he got up and went to the back room.
She was hungry—yearning, even—for what was really at stake here: her dreams, her life, a way out—and her imagination was in overdrive lately. But while she was way too smart to make the same mistake that she made when she was eighteen, to think that Leo had actually liked her, she knew what it meant when a man looked at her a certain way.
Heat and desire from her nemesis. Now that was a real recipe for disaster.
While she waited, something caught her eye. Not the faded old mural of the sea, or the creepy philosopher busts, or the checkerboarded tablecloths. In a standing cabinet near the cash register was a sizable trophy. And she knew exactly what it was for.
She snuck over to get a closer look. There, safe behind glass, among a bunch of restaurant awards, was a big gold statue of a woman with wings, standing triumphantly on the top of a dark wooden base. At the bottom, the plaque read Leonides Leonardo Castorini, Valedictorian.
Ouch.
After all these years. Still ouch.
0.0004. That’s how close she’d come to having a different life.
She sat back down at the table just as Leo returned with two wineglasses and a bottle of white that he opened smoothly and expertly poured.
“Salute,” he said, lifting his glass. He was all polished grace, as if he should be drinking on a patio overlooking the cliffs of Lake Cuomo instead of in a tiny Indiana town, in an old Italian restaurant with vinyl tablecloths and a marble bust of some guy with no pupils staring at them from the shelf.
“À ta santé,” she returned.
He lifted a thick, well-groomed brow as they clinked glasses.
Tessa swirled her glass and inhaled the rich essence before she took a sip. It was smooth and went down easy, definitely not something you’d buy at a drug store for a late-night college run. “It’s sweet,” she said.
He sat back, his tall, lean body relaxing into the booth. “It’s a dessert wine. Moscato. One of my dad’s favorites, and tonight, it’s on the house.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
“I need this just as much as you do,” he said, his exhaustion and frustration clearly weighing down every word.
“All right, um. Thank you.” She took another sip and then sighed, setting her glass down. “The upscale grocery chain that buys our bread is changing ownership, and they’ve dropped our account.”
He nodded in sympathy. “I’m sorry about that. The restaurant is barely breaking even, yet my dad refuses to try anything new. It’s like he’s stuck in the nineties.”
She let the fizzy, fruity taste of the wine dance on her tongue. It was delicious, but she doubted it was strong enough to take the edge off her nerves, which were practically galloping at this point.
Suddenly, she felt vibrations emanating from the floor. Like when you’re in church and the little kid behind you keeps kicking the pew.
She peeked under the table to find Leo’s leg bouncing rapidly. Mr. Fair, Sunny, and Easygoing was as nervous as she was.