“I’m not normally this messy,” I blurt, suddenly feeling on edge as we enter the kitchen, and he stops to look around. “I haven’t thought much about anything else but work since I got home from my best friend’s wedding in Tennessee yesterday afternoon.”
“You have a great view,” he tells me, ignoring my statement while dropping the grocery bags onto the counter, then moving to my sliding-glass doors and opening them up. It’s freezing, but the night is clear, so the moon and every single star seem to be out, reflecting down on the ocean. “I bet you bought this place for the view.”
“I did,” I admit, watching as he strolls to the edge of the balcony to rest his hands around the banister. “It’s better in the summer, but I still enjoy the view in the winter.” I pause. “Though I normally enjoy it through the glass, because it’s freezing.”
I’m standing just inside with my arms wrapped around myself to fight the cold. Without a word, he comes back in, closing the door. “Growing up in Jersey, I got used to the cold. The winters there are no joke, and it snowed all the time. I barely register the cold here.”
“I lived in New York for a while, so I understand.”
“The state, or the actual city?” he questions, and I know exactly what he’s asking. A lot of people say they live in New York, but not many actually live or have lived in the city itself. True Manhattanites are steadfast in their opinion that there’s a difference between living in Manhattan and living in Albany or Buffalo.
“Manhattan.”
“What took you to Manhattan?” he asks, stopping close enough that I’m able to notice the slight scruff forming along his jaw and below his cheekbones, making them more pronounced.
“School. I went to the Institute of Culinary Education and was there for a little over a year to complete the baking and arts program.”
“So they taught you how to make those cookies?” he asks while he casually takes my hand and pulls me toward the kitchen.
“No, my grandma—my dad’s mom—had me helping her in the kitchen as soon as I was able to crack eggs. She taught me everything I know, and when she passed away, she left me an old binder with all my family’s recipes—recipes that have been passed down generation after generation. Those cookies you liked so much today were actually made first by my dad’s great-great-aunt Flo for her husband. He worked on a farm as a ranch hand and needed a pick-me-up halfway through his day, so she came up with the recipe just for him.”
When I finish speaking, I notice we’ve stopped moving and he’s studying me intently.
“Does everything you sell in your shop have a story like that?” he asks, letting me go and moving around the kitchen like he’s been in it before. He pulls out one of my flimsy plastic cutting boards from one cupboard, then a pan and a pot from another.
“Most things have a story about who made it and why.”
“You should write a cookbook.”
“What?” I ask as he sets the pan on the stove, turns it on, and adds a drizzle of olive oil from my fancy jar on the counter.
“You should write a book and use each recipe as part of the story. The story of your family. You could sell it at your shop. I think that would be cool.”
My whole body seems to warm with appreciation. I’ve thought about writing a cookbook, but until this moment, I’ve never thought about how it would be laid out or exactly what would be in it. His encouragement means more than he could possibly know.
“I actually really love that idea,” I admit softly.
He smiles, then jerks his head to the side and orders, “Come here.”
“I’m right here.”
“Yeah, but I want you close.” He dips his head toward the floor. I take one tentative step toward him as he watches, and he shakes his head, then prowls toward me. Once we’re close enough to touch, he wraps his hands around my hips and leads me with him, walking me backward across the kitchen. “I want you close,” he repeats, and my breath catches as he lifts me off the ground and settles my ass on the counter near the stove.
I watch him, almost in a daze, as he takes items from the shopping bags and begins to prepare dinner. I’ve never had a man cook for me before, unless you count my dad’s horrible attempts in the kitchen.
“Who taught you to cook?” I ask as he dices an onion perfectly before scooping it up in my plastic cutting board and dropping it into the heated olive oil in the pan on the stove.
“My mom. I told you she loves to eat. I didn’t mention she’s full-blooded Italian. My grandma made sure Mom knew her way around the kitchen. That way, she’d be a good wife to whatever man she made her husband. Only, my mom didn’t want a husband. She never married anyone, not even my father, much to my grandmother’s disapproval.” He winks at me, and my stomach flips. “But she did cook for me. She also taught me everything she knew, because she wanted me to be a good husband to whatever woman I ended up marrying.”
I start to giggle, and when the sound turns to laughter, he grins at me. “So you’re basically telling me that your mom is awesome.”
“Basically,” he agrees before he adds a can of diced tomatoes, spices, salt, and risotto to the pan. I study him as he slowly adds in chicken stock, and a delicious smell begins to permeate my senses. Again, I wonder what planet this man came from, because there is no way he can possibly be real.
“So, you own Twilight?” I question, hoping for a little more insight into the man standing a few feet away.
“Yeah, that and a couple bars along the beach,” he answers with a shrug, like it’s not a big deal. Having looked for locations for the Sweet Spot, I know the real estate along the beach is more than a little expensive. Heck, most of the locations are more than I could afford in this lifetime, even if I saved every penny I made.
I grew up lower-middle class. Both my parents worked when my little brother and I were kids, and they still do to this day. My mom is a secretary at one of the local high schools, and my dad is a hotel manager. They scrimped and put money away for me to be able to open my shop and for my brother to go to college. We both got $20,000, which took years and a lot of them going without to save. Now as an adult and understanding the stress that money brings, I wonder if that’s one of the reasons they’re no longer together.
“That’s impressive,” I finally murmur, unsure how to proceed or how to process the fact that he’s probably loaded.
His head turns my way, and when his eyes lock with mine, I swear he has once more read my thoughts when he continues. “My mom didn’t want to marry my dad, but that doesn’t mean he wanted nothing to do with me. He was around as much as he could stomach, considering the fact that he was in love with my mom but she didn’t feel the same and made that clear by dating regularly and shoving it down his throat.” Oh, man. I suddenly feel sad for his father. “Still, he taught me a lot while I was growing up, during the times I was with him. One of the things I learned from him was how to be smart with money. He showed me how to save, and he helped me get my first loan, and then my second. Since he passed away five years ago, I’ve used his wisdom and bought into a couple local businesses that were on the edge of foreclosure and worked at making those locations profitable again.”