Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Giovanni
I park across the street and watch the front of Regalia for a beat. Delivery guys have already made their runs. Bread is in. Produce too. Kitchen lights glow through the back.
I take the alley. Knock once. Let myself in.
I pass the prep table and head for the dining room without touching anything.
Francesca is waiting next to the bar. She’s got a file in her hand and that tight look around the mouth I’ve seen on a hundred owners who slept badly.
“Morning,” I say.
“Giovanni.” She steps back. “Come in.”
I do. And stop.
There’s someone else in the room. The granddaughter. Bianca. Hair up, plain black tee, jeans, no apron. Chin level. Eyes clear. No makeup. I hide my surprise the same way I hide everything else: I don’t show it.
“Mr. Conti,” she says. Voice steady. She doesn’t try to fill the silence with noise. She just looks at me and waits.
“Bianca,” Francesca says, like an introduction and a warning in one. Then to me: “My daughter will sit in.”
She offers a hand.
I take it. Warm. Dry. Firm shake. Up close, the line of her jaw is sharper, her lips lusher.
I nod once. “Your house,” I say. I gesture to one of the tables, and they each take a chair on one side. I sit opposite them. Roberto would make a joke here. I don’t.
“We’ll be quick,” I say. “I know you’ve got a day to get ready.”
She nods. Bianca’s eyes flick to the ledger, then to me, then back. Not nervous, just taking inventory. It hits me in a place in a way I don’t expect, how much she looks like her grandmother when she’s cataloging a room. That same stillness. That same not-wasting-motion.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I add, because it’s still true.
“Thank you,” Bianca says before her mother can answer. She doesn’t soften it with a smile. Respect received, filed.
Business, then.
“Terms are the same,” I say. “Schedule is the same. I wanted to make sure you were straight on that while things are shifting.”
Francesca opens the file and slides a single sheet toward me. Receipts. A neat column of weeks. I don’t need to read it; I know it. She hits the number every time. Sometimes it’s tight. Sometimes it’s early. Never late. That’s why I’m here talking and not sending someone else.
Bianca keeps her hands folded neatly on the table. “What’s shifting?” she asks.
“Ownership,” I say.
Her mouth doesn’t move. She doesn’t glance at her mother. “You already know.”
“I do now,” I say, and let the truth sit. “Congratulations.” The word sounds odd in this situation, but it’s the right one.
“It’s not exactly a party,” she says.
“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”
Francesca clears her throat. “Nothing changes,” she says. “For you. For us. We keep the schedule.”
Bianca watches both of us like she’s taking notes in her head. “Can I ask a question before you go on?” she says.
Francesca cuts her a look. “Bibi—”
“It’s a basic one,” Bianca says. “What’s ‘standing’? Are we talking about a number that exists and we’re paying it down, or are we talking about a pipe that bursts every time we think we’ve got it fixed?”
Francesca closes her eyes for one beat. I answer because I respect the way Bianca asked. Simple and to the point.
“This is a private note. Not the bank. Not the lease. It’s mine,” I say. “Francesca and I set it up. Weekly payments. Interest that won’t drown you if you keep your head up. You’ve kept your head up.” To Francesca: “You’ve been good for it.”
She lifts her chin a fraction. “I said I would be.”
“You were,” I say. Back to Bianca: “She asked for room to get through a bad stretch. I gave it.”
Bianca flips a blank order pad on the desk and clicks a pen, like she might write something down, and then decides not to. “How much is left?”
Francesca shoots her a look. Bianca doesn’t flinch.
I rattle off the remaining balance, then say, “I didn’t come to throw figures at you. We’re not haggling. We’re confirming.”
Bianca nods like that answer passes a test. “And if the ownership changes, the debt stays with the business,” she says. Not a question.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” I say. “As long as I get paid. I’m not here to hold anyone hostage. If you want to refinance with the bank, be my guest. If the bank says yes, I collect my share and step out of the way.”
Francesca gives me a look she probably doesn’t mean to—half relief, half disbelief. “The bank didn’t help when I asked,” she says.
“They may help her,” I say.
Bianca doesn’t look away. “And if they don’t?”
“Then we keep doing what we’ve been doing,” I say. “You pay. I leave you alone.”
I don’t look at her mouth again. It’s work to keep my eyes where they belong. Attraction doesn’t belong in this room. That fact doesn’t make it disappear. It’s inconvenient.
It surprised me when I saw her in the kitchen the other night. It surprises me now, stronger. The way she sits. The way she doesn’t fidget. The way she fills a silence without talking.
“Through when?” Bianca asks.
“Bi—” Francesca hisses.
Bianca simply stares at me.
“Through done,” I answer.
“Dates matter,” she says. “I’m not playing games. I just have to plan a kitchen, and a life.” A beat. “Two kitchens. Maybe two lives.”
Francesca makes a broken sound that she kills fast. I give Bianca a nod for being direct without throwing her mother under the bus.
I can respect that.
“We can put a date on it, if you want,” I say. “You may beat it. You were ahead before last week.”
Francesca doesn’t react, but I see her shoulders go down half an inch. Bianca clocks it too.
“Okay,” Bianca says. “Weekly stands. Same number. We don’t need to renegotiate?” There’s a set to her jaw that tells me exactly how much she hates asking that question.
“No,” I say.
“Then why are you here?” she asks, not rudely. Honest.
“Because things changed,” I say. “And when some things change, it might lead to other things changing. I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Bianca nods once. “Okay.”
Francesca exhales, looks down at the ledger, up at me. “That it?”
“It could be,” I say, and I feel Roberto in my ear telling me to keep it simple.
But Roberto isn’t here. I am. And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the way this kitchen ran the last time I was in it. People were loud, and grief clouded the kitchen. Still, the food came. Everything ran. And I saw Bianca not touching anything, yet running things without a word.”
I take a breath. “I have a proposal.”
Do not continue. Stop now.
Francesca’s eyes flash no. Bianca’s go wary, not scared. I raise a hand before Francesca speaks.
“It’s simple,” I say. “It doesn’t change the number. Just the speed.”
“Speed,” Bianca says, frowning over the word.
“Speed,” I say. “Francesca, you’ve been paying on schedule. I respect that. But you’re killing yourself to do it. You don’t have to say yes to this. You can tell me to get out and keep it all the same. But I think there’s a better way. Months.”
“Months?” Francesca repeats.
“Not years,” I say.
“How?” Bianca asks.
I nod. “You cook for me.”
The room goes silent in a different way. Not the humming-light way. A held-breath way. Francesca blinks like I spoke another language. Bianca just watches.
“Not at a party you’re catering for us,” I add.
“Not at Regalia. For me. My house. My table. My guests when I have them. Private chef. Full-time. As in you pick menus and you run my kitchen. Morning through dinner. My pantry. My schedule.” I let the words settle in them.
“In exchange, I take a bigger bite out of what’s left, faster. ”
Francesca finds her voice first. “Wha— No,” she says firmly.
“Mama,” Bianca says, eyes still on me.
“Absolutely not,” Francesca says anyway.
“How long?” Bianca asks.
“Three months,” I say.
“Thr—” Francesca starts, then sucks in a sharp breath. “No, you have a restaurant to run, Bibi.”
I know that’s not the real issue, but I address it anyway.
“It’s been running without her,” I say, and that is more blunt than I intended. I look to Bianca, not Francesca. “You were in Italy. You have cooks. You have a mother who knows this place better than anyone living. You stepping away for three months doesn’t burn the place down.”
“Three,” Francesca repeats in disbelief.
“A target,” I say. “Maybe four. Maybe two and a half if the opportunity arises.” I turn back to Bianca.
“You want the ‘done’ you asked me for? You can have it this way. Clear as glass. You feed me on my schedule. You bank the weekly plus a chunk, and you walk out with this finished and a ledger that reads zero.”
Bianca’s hands press into her knees like she’s holding herself down in the chair.
Francesca shakes her head, already halfway out of it. “No. She has a life. She leaves again for Italy soon.”
Bianca doesn’t even look at her. “Do you always make offers like this?” she asks me.
“No.”
“Why make this one?”
I tell the truth. “Because you’re good.”
“How do you know that?” she asks.
“Last night,” I start, “you didn’t touch a pan. Didn’t taste a dish. Didn’t cook a thing. And yet… Service was smoother, faster. People’s backs straightened when you passed. Your approval was sought, even when you refused to give it. I don’t have that in my house.” A beat. “I’d like it.”
Her throat moves. She glances at her mother, then back. “You don’t even know what I cook.”
“I know enough,” I say simple.
“What’s the catch?” Bianca asks.
“No catch,” I say. “You work. I credit. You can come in here on Sundays, if I don’t need you for something. But Monday through Saturday, you’re mine.” I hold her eyes for the next part. “When I call, you answer.”
Francesca bristles. “She’s not a—”
“A caterer,” I finish for her. “No. A chef. You don’t want the hours; you say no. But you wanted dates and opportunities. I’m giving you one.”
Francesca breaks first. “She’s got a job. In Italy. She’s supposed to go back.”
“Supposed to,” Bianca says, still not looking away from me.
Francesca shuts her eyes. “Bianca—”
“I’m not extorting your daughter,” I say simply. “I’m offering her a job.”
“You hold the debt,” she says.
“I’m also a man who eats three times a day,” I say. “Two things can be true.”
Bianca’s mouth tightens like she wants to smile at that and knows better. “What does ‘full-time’ mean in your house?”
“Breakfast at nine,” I say. “Lunch if I’m there.
Dinner at seven unless I tell you otherwise.
Grocery in the morning, prep, cook. I’ve got a man who cleans; you don’t do dishes.
If I host, you build the menu. If I don’t, you feed me.
Transport’s on me. “Driver picks you up, takes you home. I don’t want you on a bus at midnight.
” I pause for a beat. “You don’t cook for my enemies. ”
Francesca snorts. “How would she know?”
“I’ll tell her,” I say. “You won’t have to guess.”
Bianca sits back. “You going to tell me what not to cook, too?”
“You create a weekly menu, and I approve it.”
Francesca looks like she swallowed a nail. “She’s not leaving me to do this alone.”
“She isn’t,” Bianca says, and finally looks at her mother, softening the words with tone. “You have Carmen. You have Elio. You have Tomas and Zia. You’ve been doing this. I’ll be here on Sundays. I’ll check the books. I’ll call vendors. I can do that from anywhere. I can… try this.”
I don’t let myself show anything at “try.” I don’t push. I look down at the table and then back at her, give her the quiet I would want if I were asked to choose between two lives.
She folds her hands again. “What do you get out of this besides dinner?”
“Besides dinner?” I say. “Predictability. Less time in restaurants I don’t trust. Fewer meetings like this. I get a kitchen I can control. I get to move this off my books faster.”
“You could hire any chef in the city,” she says.
“I could,” I say. “I’m asking you.”
Bianca watches me a beat like she’s weighing all the angles.
“Conditions?” Bianca asks. “Besides not cooking for your enemies.”
“You don’t talk about who you feed at my house,” I say. “You don’t bring strangers into my kitchen. If you need a second set of hands for an event, you ask me, not your cousin or friend. You don’t post any pictures of my home.” I tilt my head. “You don’t steal my knives.”
She looks legitimately offended. “I would never, and I have my own anyway.”
Francesca bristles. “She doesn’t make decisions with a gun to her—”
“There’s no gun,” I say. “There’s breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a ledger.” I stand, because sitting will turn this into a negotiation I don’t want. “Let’s make it a test, then.”
Bianca’s eyes narrow. “A test.”
“Tonight,” I say. “I’ll come in. I expect a meal, your hands on every part of it. Not you babysitting someone else’s pan. Your menu. Your call. I sit. I eat. If it’s what I think it will be, the deal’s on. If it isn’t, we forget this and go back to weekly payments.”
Bianca lifts a hand. “No games.”
“No games,” I say. “You’re a chef. Chefs cook. I’m giving you the only measure that counts in this business—plate to mouth.”
Bianca stands too, almost on instinct, like she won’t let me be the only one. “You want a tasting menu,” she says, not a question.
“I want dinner,” I say. “For me. Two courses, three, whatever you decide. One pasta, because I want to see your hand on it. And one surprise. Something I wouldn’t expect.”
Her mouth does a small, tight thing that isn’t a smile but isn’t not. “You always give homework?”
“Only when I like the student.”
She goes still at that. I shouldn’t have said that. I leave it alone.
“What time?” she asks.
“8:00,” I say. “I’ll sit at the corner two-top by the window. Your mother knows which one. No audience.”
Bianca looks down at her hands, then up. “Okay,” she says. “Tonight.”
Francesca makes a noise. Bianca doesn’t turn.
“Good,” I say. “Then we’re done.”
Francesca stands like her joints hurt. “Giovanni,” she says as I get to the door. I turn. She’s not good at asking for things, never has been. “If you— If you decide it’s a no… you keep it respectful.”
“Of course,” I say, then step out without looking back, no matter how much I want to.
Outside, the alley smells like coffee and damp cardboard. I step into it and breathe. Roberto is going to tell me I’ve lost my mind. He won’t be wrong.
What did I just do?
Hired a woman I can’t stop thinking about to stand in my kitchen every day until she’s paid off some number. Invited the storm into my house. Put myself on a schedule I don’t give anyone.
I swallow the stale air like an idiot, then head for the car.
What have I gotten myself into?