“But you’re doing what’s best for the majority.”
“I used to think knowing I was doing what was best to keep the entire company from failing was enough. But it’s not. People are still going to feel aggrieved if they’re laid off. The reasons why don’t matter. I learned that lesson the hard way.”
“The hard way?”
Even now I didn’t like to think back to that night. “I was ambushed in the car park of the office one night. Maybe they thought if they got rid of me, they could get their jobs back. Maybe they were just trying to vent their anger and frustration at the person they saw as making the decisions that were causing them pain. Either way, I ended up in hospital, battered and bruised with a broken jaw. I learned my lesson that night.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, did they find the guys?”
“I knew who they were. But the last thing they needed was to end up in prison. I took my punishment. Not for laying them off, but for not listening to my father. He always said, ‘The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.’ A real Art of War fanatic, if you know the type. Those men weren’t to blame. I’d misjudged the situation. Now I handle things differently.”
“So you go around pretending you’re someone else.” She sighed like she got it but didn’t like it.
“No. ‘Invincibility lies in defense.’ I’m not pretending to be anyone I’m not. I use cash and a different name when it doesn’t matter—like when I’m having a drink at a local bar. I’m still myself. It’s just my way of keeping a low profile.”
“When it doesn’t matter, huh? I thought you pretended to be a different man with me because somewhere in that head of yours, you could justify being attracted to me if you weren’t Andrew Blake—my boss. But if you use ‘James’ when the stakes are inconsequential . . .”
“No. You were never—that is, what’s between us isn’t—” I paused for a deep breath. I wasn’t accustomed to muddling my way through a conversation. “I’m saying this badly.”
She tilted her head and gave me a small smile. “Yes, you are.”
“This might sound harsh, but I never saw you as more than my assistant in the office. Not really. I have that side of me switched off completely, out of respect for the men and women who work for me. But then when I heard you talking about me at the bar . . .” I paused, thinking back to that night. “Something shifted. I was entirely attracted to you. From that point, you’re right—I needed to not be your boss in order to let myself have you.” I’d kept my gaze steady on the skyline out the window while I spoke, but I needed Sofia to hear what I was going to say next—hear it, and know it was true. Finding her eyes was easy, since she was already watching me. “You are not inconsequential to me, Sofia. You matter very much.”
After a beat of silence, she shimmied her shoulders like she was shaking off a chill. “Tell me why your boundaries are so tightly drawn.” She looked at me with a softness I’d not seen in her before.
“It’s easier to keep work separate from my private life.”
“But everyone spends so much time in the office. Isn’t it natural to form personal relationships?”
“Piranhas are natural. Volcanos. Hurricanes. Just because something’s natural doesn’t mean it’s salubrious.”
“Piranhas? We talk about intra-office romance and your mind goes to flesh-eating fish? And salubrious? You have an interesting brain, Andrew Blake.”
“I’m just saying, sometimes you need to swim against the tide.”
“It’s an unusual stance. Or at least it’s unusual to be so rigorous in adherence to such a rule.” She put on a weird accent which I guessed was supposed to be British but actually sounded like an American who’d had one too many limoncellos.
“At the beginning of my career, I got sacked when I ended an affair with a female partner at the law firm I was working for. She wasn’t happy and decided revenge was the best way to work through her feelings. I don’t want that to ever happen on my watch.” It was a long time ago and losing that job had ultimately led to good things, but the situation hadn’t been fair. I’d vowed at the time that when I was the boss, decisions should be taken on ability—not personal vendettas or really, personal feelings at all. The only way to ensure the integrity of the work environment at Blake Enterprises was to ensure the office was about work and work only.
“Your boss fired you because you didn’t want to be her boyfriend anymore?”
“It was a little more complicated than that, but pretty much.”
“Oh, well . . . now I feel like an asshole.”
“Don’t. I’m unusually strict about that particular boundary.” I sighed. “In my head, if I was James, I could give in to my desire to take you to bed.”
A small smile curled around her lips.
“How much longer will this interrogation last?” I asked. “I’m just wondering whether or not I need a whisky.”
She swung her legs over mine. “I’m done,” she said. “Thank you for being honest with me.”
I slid my hand over her calf. “Thank you for asking questions and not just assuming Natalie’s theory was correct.”
We’d had our first fight and come out the other side. It felt like we’d reached a crossroads and chosen the turning together. I just wasn’t sure where that turning would take us. Whatever was between us was more than fucking, but we weren’t dating—were we? Part of me wanted it all when it came to Sofia, but it wasn’t a part I was accustomed to heeding.
“Tomorrow morning, I’m taking you on a tour of my city,” she said. “I’m going to show you all the places tourists never get to see.”
I shifted and crawled over her on the sofa, laying her on her back as I slid her dress up her thighs. “If we have time. I plan to keep us very, very busy.”
Twenty-Nine
Sofia
He glanced up at the giant ice-cream cones affixed to the side of the Ferrara’s storefront. “This is our first stop on the tour?”
“Pre-tour cannoli. Can’t hit the sights without proper sustenance.”
“Cannoli? Is that pasta?”
I shook my head and laughed. “Absolutely not. You’ve never had cannoli?” I slipped my hand into his and pulled him into the shop.
The sight of the familiar red-and-white-checkered floor sent a shiver of familiar comfort up my spine as we approached the counter.
“Wow. This is quite the bakery,” Andrew said.
Oh, it was so much more than that.
Behind the glass counters were rows and rows of the finest Italian pastries and desserts outside of Italy. Rows of different shapes and sizes of crunchy sfogliatella, over-stuffed cannoli, cassata, frittelle, bite-sized amaretti, crostata, and the only pasticciotto in the city that I’d ever found. “This place is a slice of heaven,” I said. “But cannoli has to be the first thing you try if you’ve never had it.”
I approached the counter. “Due cannoli per favore.”
“La piccola Sofia, is that you?” Mamma Isabella bellowed out from nowhere. I hadn’t seen her when we arrived. I was so used to seeing new people behind the counter, I hadn’t even looked very hard. Her red hair popped up around the counter and she threw up her hands. “I didn’t know you were coming. Dove sei stato.”