Chapter Ten
Giovanni
She answered with a single word: Okay.
Regalia is dark when I get there. The street’s blue and empty. I let myself in with a key I have but don’t use and stand a second to let my eyes catch up. The place has a different feel than usual. Everything is too quiet. The coffee machine clicks when I wake it.
Footsteps in the alley. A key. The back door swings and she steps in with her hair in a knot and a jacket over a T-shirt. No makeup. Sneakers. Hands in her pockets like she’s trying not to touch anything.
She spots me and gasps, hand to her chest. “Jesus.” She exhales, shakes it off. “You don’t make noise when you move.”
“Didn’t mean to spook you,” I say. “Coffee?”
She nods. “Please.”
I pull two short shots. She drops her jacket over a chair, pushes her sleeves up.
I hand her the cup. She takes it without touching my fingers.
“You said 6:00,” she says.
“I did.” I set my cup down. “We’ve got a private dinner tomorrow. Not at my place. Different address. You’ll run the kitchen on-site.”
Her eyebrows go up. “A private dinner.”
“Family,” I say. “Dinner at my brother’s house tomorrow night.”
She goes still. She doesn’t ask which brother. It doesn’t matter.
Then she nods once and sets the coffee down. “Okay. Headcount?”
“Ten adults, two kids.”
“Time?”
“7:00.”
She takes a sip. “Okay.”
“I want your menu by 5:00 today,” I say. “Full run. Course flow, timing, plating notes. If you need anything special, I need it by 5:00 too. No surprises after that.”
She tilts her head. “I have a list in my head already.”
“Put it in mine,” I say. “By 5:00.”
Her mouth twists. To hold back a smile, I suspect.
“You’ll get it by 5:00.”
She warms her hands on the cup and looks at me over the rim.
“Walk me through the kitchen,” she says. “I’ll need to know what I’m walking into.”
“Full, but not commercial. Gas. Two ovens. Island workspace. You’ll have two good hands and a runner. If you want more bodies, let me know ahead of time.”
She takes that in. “Am I doing the shopping?”
“Unless there’s something you’re particular about, it’ll be taken care of. Anything you buy yourself, you send me the receipts.”
“Any requests? Or anything you don’t want?”
“Seafood is fine. Try to stay away from mushrooms,” I say, thinking of Caterina’s aversion to them. “Something different for the kids. They’re four and two.”
“Sounds good,” she says.
She sets the cup down, rolls her shoulders once. “You said ‘special.’ How special can I go?”
“As special as you can justify.”
“Langoustines,” she says, like a challenge she already expects me to refuse.
“I’ll get them.”
Her eyes flick, quick. “Live?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
“You’ll have them.”
“No later than 4:00,” she says. “I want them purged, iced, and hands off until I’m there.”
“Done.”
She does a slow lap of the line without touching anything. I watch the way she measures the room—even this room she already knows. It’s not nerves.
“This is your second audition,” I say.
“I figured,” she says.
“You pass tomorrow, you start Monday with breakfast at my place, 9:00.”
“Your penthouse,” she says. Not a question.
“Yes.”
“And the menu?”
“You send a weekly plan by Friday. I sign off by Sunday. You shop. You cook.”
She lifts a brow. “Someone else cleans?”
I suppress a smile. “Yes, someone else cleans.”
That gets a tiny lift at one corner of her mouth. She kills it quickly. “Tomorrow’s dinner,” she says, back to business. “You want plated or family-style?”
“Both,” I say. “Whatever you think suits the dishes best.”
She nods, already building it in her head.
“When can I start in the kitchen?”
She holds my eyes. The room has that early chill, and still my collar feels too warm. She leans into the counter, close enough that I catch the clean scent of her skin under. It’s distracting in a way I don’t allow at work. This is still work. I stand straighter.
“A driver will pick you up for a walk-through at 10:00,” I say. “You can prep whatever you need and come back at 4:00 for the rest. Do you need more time than that?”
“No. That’s fine,” she says.
“Anything else?” I ask.
“I need space to do what I need to do,” she says.
“You will get it at dinner. For the walk-through, there’s a chance that Elena, maybe Luca, will be there.”
She moves her shoulders uncomfortably at that.
I continue, “For dinner, you come through service, straight to the kitchen. No one will bother you unless you ask for them. I will check in on you at some point. It is an audition, after all.”
“Good,” she says. “Then we’re fine.”
We aren’t fine. We’re electric. It sits between us like a live wire, humming under the skin. She doesn’t acknowledge it. I don’t either.
I want to ask if she’s sleeping well. I want to ask how she’s doing since Sabina passed. I want to ask how her mother is taking all of this.
I don’t ask anything.
I reach into my jacket and slide a card onto the prep table. It has a number on it nobody gets unless they work for me. I tap it once.
“This is to be used when needed,” I say. “It goes to me.”
She looks down, then up. “Okay.”
“Don’t use it for produce lists,” I add.
“I won’t,” she says. “Unless my langoustines are late.”
I huff a laugh. “They won’t be.”
She takes the card, doesn’t put it in her wallet, doesn’t put it in her phone. She tucks it into the inside pocket of her jacket near her heart. It does something to me, which is a ridiculous reaction to something so small.
“Anything else I should know?” she asks.
“If there is, I’ll let you know,” I say and gather our empty cups.
I wash them, set them upside down on the rack. She watches me do it with some surprise. I don’t comment. We both pretend that was nothing.
The sun starts to show at the top of the front windows—thin blue giving up to gray. The room wakes in inches. Street noise, a truck two blocks over, a door slam. I hear all of it and none of it.
“Driver at 10:00,” I repeat. “Be ready.”
“I will be.”
At the back door I pause. “One more thing.”
She turns. “Yes?”
“Relax. It’s a family dinner.”
“Like any other,” she mumbles.
“It is,” I say. I reach for the handle, then add, “Block everything else out but the food.”
“I know how,” she says.
“I figured.”
We stand there a beat too long. Close enough to feel the cool air curling in around the door, close enough that I can smell coffee on her breath and the soap on her skin.
For a wild moment, I want to press her back against the door and plunder that mouth, run my hands over shapely hips, between her legs. See if she feels what I’m feeling.
I pull open the door and step into the alley. Cold air clears my head. The door thunks shut behind me. I check the latch and pocket my hands so I don’t go back in.
On the walk to the car, I text: Langoustines, 1600. The answer comes fast: Confirmed.
Through the front glass, the room is still mostly dark. I catch a glimpse of her crossing to the office, head down, already building a menu in her head.