7. Kayla
Despite the storm, Kayla slept deep and long through the night in her borrowed clothes, smelling hints of Elio’s aftershave every time she shifted in bed. And the bed; she’d never slept in something so luxurious. It was like the bed out of a fairy tale. She was tempted to look under the mattress for a pea hiding underneath.
But she’d always been an early riser, and by seven a.m., despite the last dregs of jet lag in her system, she was lying awake, the room still dark with thunder rattling the window panes. She’d never seen a storm like it. Even as she was pulling on the pair of perfectly tailored slacks that Elio had lent her, rolling up the bottoms a couple of times so she didn’t fall face first through a window, there was no glimmer of the ocean she could see from this view. It was all just a roiling mess of black rain pouring with the intensity of a fire station hose. The only light came from the occasional crack of distant lighting and the sound… it was as never-ending as the ocean itself.
She really was lucky that Elio had taken her in. Plenty of other people she had served papers to would have gladly left her out in that storm. Saying she could try and swim across to the mainland was all well and good, but in reality, she’d be huddled under a grapevine somewhere trying to avoid drowning and getting hit by lightning. So, yeah, maybe she could be a little less snippy with the guy who’d literally put a roof over her head, food in her belly and clothes on her back. Her mom had always said that she needed a good night’s sleep to get perspective, and it had proven true once again.
Kayla could easily spend the day lounging around in what Elio had called the guest wing, which to her felt like a whole other house within a house: a bedroom, a living room, a bathroom with one of those fancy clawfoot tubs out of a movie, and a kitchenette too, like a hotel. But the only thing in the fridge was cans of soda and that wasn’t exactly going to stop the rumbling in her belly. Not when it was growling hard enough to compete with the thunder. And besides, she could at least make Elio some breakfast to say “Thanks for not leaving me to drown despite just getting served with a court case. Here’s an apology omelet.”
So she poked her head out of the door, feeling like a little kid getting out of bed for cereal before her mom was up, and peered around at the dim house. Outside the guest suite, the marble hall loomed large and dark as Kayla padded through it on bare feet. She didn’t know where any of the light switches were. She didn’t even know where the kitchen was; Elio had just led her to the dining room last night when he’d served dinner. Surely it would be on the first floor, though? Who had a kitchen on the second floor? But rich people did have some weird design choices sometimes, as she was learning very rapidly.
Feeling more and more like a criminal, she wandered through the villa, poking her head into random doorways. She found a beautiful living room, the walls lined with books, a fireplace and velvet couches scattered at just the right angle. Through another door was a study that she recognized from the large glass doors where she’d knocked and tricked Elio into taking the decoy box. She closed that door quickly, an office seeming strangely private, and she’d stuck her nose in there enough already. Even the broom closet she opened was spacious and clean looking.
From there, she found the kitchen and a light switch, illuminating the space in bright white light. God, she would kill to have a kitchen like this at home. Every appliance, from the oven to the fridge, was made of gleaming stainless steel. A marble countertop in the center of the room was probably worth more than her car. Their dishes from dinner the night before were soaking in the sink, along with a couple of pots.
Kayla probably should ask Elio permission before messing around in his kitchen. But… she just couldn’t resist, could she? Not with a two-door refrigerator staring her in the face. She opened the doors, which unsealed like the air hatch of a spaceship.
The insides looked like something from a magazine, the sort of thing you’d look at and go, surely, no one actually has that? But apparently, they did. There was a whole shelf of fresh herbs, bright and fresh and green. She could smell the tomatoes without even having to pick them up. There were mushrooms straight out of a storybook, alongside all sorts of cured meats that looked like illustrations. There was even a carton of fresh eggs, all of them somehow rustic and pristine at the same time.
“Hello?”
Kayla nearly threw the entire carton in the air and instead clutched it tight to her chest as her heart hammered away. Peeking around the door of the fridge, she saw Elio there, dressed in trousers and a linen shirt, hair smoothed back but his eyes still sleepy. With the storm still carrying on, she hadn’t even heard him approach.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, peering down at the eggs that she was now cradling like a baby. Somehow none of them had cracked, so that was something in her favor at least.
“Uh, no. Well, yes. But I figured you’d be hungry too because you know… it’s breakfast time. And it’s my turn to make a meal, so here I am…”
She trailed off as he started smirking at her, putting her rambling to a stop.
“Would you like some?” she asked, holding up an egg. He continued to stare at her blankly for a second, still blinking away sleep, but then he shrugged.
“Sure, why not.”
He sat at the marble counter, rubbing his head like he had a headache. Or maybe it was the fact that it was so early. Either way, he looked better with his hair ruffled and his edges not quite so crisp. Kayla probably shouldn’t be thinking about how good-looking the guy was; that somehow seemed inappropriate. Was there even an ethical code here, considering she’d served him legal documents? She had no idea, but the whole thing was so bizarre that it was honestly just easier to act like there was a moral code that needed to be followed, which meant she really should stop thinking about how good he looked with his hair messed up like that.
“Sorry if I woke you,” she said, meaning it. He really did look tired; the bone-deep, long-term sort of tired you couldn’t just get rid of with a nap. But Elio shook his head, letting her off the hook for waking him up at least.
“The storm woke me up. Then I thought someone had broken in… then I remembered.” He frowned and scratched the back of his neck as if he was still taking in how strange this whole situation was. Which made Kayla relax a little bit. At least it wasn’t just her bamboozled by their impromptu imprisonment.
“I don’t think I said thank you,” she said, the words coming out easier if she focused on assembling ingredients she wanted to try on the counter. “Not properly, anyways. So, thank you.”
Elio stopped rubbing his head at that and nodded once. “You’re welcome. Though I am expecting a killer breakfast. No pressure or anything.”
Kayla grinned, glad that the game of teasing each other that they’d fallen into last night hadn’t disappeared. At least being stuck here wasn’t going to be unbearable. Heaven forbid, it might actually be a little fun.
“I was thinking an omelet?” she said, still aware that this wasn’t her kitchen and prodding for approval before she started messing around under Elio’s supervision.
“Sure,” he said. “If you’re that excited about cooking.”
“You don’t like it, I assume? But then what’s the point in doing all the cooking when you can pay someone to do it for you.”
“It’s not that. I’m just not very good at it.”
“Dinner was really nice,” Kayla insisted, not sure why she was so persistent in giving the guy a pep talk.
Elio shrugged. “It’s the only thing I can make halfway decent.”
“Well, it was definitely halfway decent.”
Despite himself, Elio grinned, and darn it, he really was more handsome with his hair all disheveled and his eyes still sleepy. Kayla turned her attention back to the ingredients she had at hand. Even the egg yolks were a more vivid shade of yellow than the ones she got back home. Kayla cut into the tomatoes, and the fresh smell erupted from them, the same as the onions.
“I’ve never seen someone so happy to cut up vegetables,” Elio said dryly, and Kayla turned to see him watching her with a raised eyebrow and an amused expression. She flushed, smothering the stupidly wide grin that had crept onto her face.
“It’s really good produce,” she said, embarrassed.
“I mean, it’s an onion?”
“Yeah, but it”s a really, really nice onion.”
“You haven’t even eaten it yet.”
“No, but I can smell it, see it, and touch it. And it’s all better than anything I can get back home, even if I buy the fancy organic stuff.”
She lifted her chin in defiance of Elio’s teasing, but that seemed to only amuse him more.
“So I gather that you really like food, then?”
Kayla, her face growing hotter by the minute under his scrutiny, convinced herself that it was from the heat of the frying pan. She focused on her omelet rather than Elio, willing her skin to cool to a more respectable temperature.
“Who doesn’t like food?”
“Plenty of people I know don’t rave about the qualities of an onion. Even my chef, she just usually complains about how the vendors ripped her off at the markets.”
“Well, I like the produce here. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, for God’s sake.”
She peeked back over her shoulder at him. “So the love of your life is cooking?” he continued. “There are worse things you could be obsessed with.”
Kayla had to pause to think about that for a minute. She wasn’t that passionate about cooking to call it the love of her life. She… well, she did look forward to making dinner every day. Grocery shopping had always been the best way for her to unwind as she took an unreasonably long time perusing the aisles. And here she was oohing and ahhing over vegetables and their quality. She’d been so lost lately, afraid to leave the job she hated simply because she had no idea where to go afterwards. Being someone’s personal chef was a job, wasn’t it? Elio had just said so. Being a chef in general, even, that was a whole industry. That was certainly a direction she could head in…
“You’ve gone quiet,” Elio said, breaking Kayla out of her existential crisis.
“And?”
“And I’m usually the one that’s quiet.”
“I was too busy thinking about food to keep talking.”
He laughed even though it was the truth.
“Who taught you?” he asked. For someone who was quiet, and Kayla had to admit more than a bit socially awkward from what she’d seen, Elio sure was asking her a lot of questions.
“I kind of taught myself,” she said, focusing on flipping the omelet to reveal a perfectly golden crust along the bottom. “My mom likes to cook, but she’s not very good at it. So that’s my department now.”
“It’s a step above my mother, at least. I don’t think I ever saw her set foot in the kitchen. But I never saw her much at all, so maybe she does secretly like cooking, who knows?”
He sounded kind of sad and then lapsed back into that quiet place where he seemed to take a step back from the outside world. So far it had been, in the strangest way possible, a very fun morning. And maybe Kayla was being delusional, but Elio seemed to be having fun as well. There was a weird protective surge that overcame her as she dished up the obscenely large omelet, big enough to share, and started garnishing it with fresh herbs. The least she could do was make this situation bearable for him, for them both. Anyone would do that, right?
“This is my apology and thank-you omelet,” she said, feeling victorious when Elio smiled, even if it was just a shy little grin.
“Well, if you’ve got the food under control,” he said, getting up from the counter and moving to the fridge, “I’ll do what I do best and provide the wine.”
“Wine?” she said with a raised eyebrow. “For breakfast?”
“It’s Italy, darling,” Elio said. “Wine is for every meal.”
Kayla felt her ears turn as hot as molten steel while Elio went about his business, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he’d just called her darling. It was early. They were both out of their comfort zones. It had slipped out, that’s all. Being called darling wasn’t that big a deal. It was certainly nothing to get so flustered about, right? Right.
Eternally grateful for the excuse to leave the room with her dignity intact and pulling out some extra curls to cover her ears, Kayla took their food and cutlery and made herself busy arranging it on the countertop, trying to make it look at least a little bit fancy. She was sure Elio only ate the best, considering he had a literal personal chef at his beck and call most of the time. Luckily, sprinkling fistfuls of parsley over it all seemed to do the trick.
It was coffee that Elio returned with, despite his claims about the wine, and Kayla nearly melted into a puddle when he started pouring the beans into the fancy espresso machine, the fragrant clouds washing over her from all away across the kitchen.
“Okay, smell that,” she said, “and tell me that you don’t appreciate good-quality produce.”
“It’s coffee,” Elio said dryly. “It’s not a root vegetable.”
“It’s literally a bean. What are you talking about?”
He stopped, mouth open to respond, then snapped it closed again.
“That’s a really good point, actually,” he mumbled.
“So I win,” Kayla said, victorious, and Elio actually rolled his eyes at her as the espresso machine started dribbling out the most divine-smelling coffee.
“You don’t have to win a conversation.”
“You don’t have to, no. But I did win, didn’t I?”
He gave her a deadpan look, and she smiled sweetly. It shouldn’t be this fun to tease someone, but Elio just seemed to stoke up some sort of mischievous little demon within her.
“Fine,” he said with a completely flat expression. “Yes, you win. Coffee is a bean, and I like it. Are you satisfied with your victory over the least controversial point in history?”
“I am. Thank you for the acknowledgment. You were a valiant opponent.”
He rolled his eyes at her, which he seemed to be doing a lot, and took a bite of the omelet. As he chewed, those eyes that he’d been rolling so much went wide and he looked up at her.
“This is great,” he said, and Kayla ducked her head.
“Thanks.”
“I mean it,” he urged.
“Thank you,” she said, looking him in the eye this time, taking a bite for herself. And not to toot her own horn, but it was good.
“I don’t know why you’re running around doing the bidding of lawyers when you can cook like this,” Elio said, unashamedly digging in. “I think you need to reevaluate your career choices.”
Kayla thought that maybe he was onto something.
* * *
“So, do you like the wine?”
The afternoon was just as dark and gloomy as the morning had been. The rain still cascaded in sheets against the windows, seeming like it was washing the whole island clean, and it was hard to tell if the rushing sound around the villa was from the ocean waves, the wind or the rain. All of it melded together into a white noise that Kayla was starting to get used to.
Breakfast had stretched on for hours as she and Elio had talked, sitting at the kitchen counter and drinking more coffee than was probably medically safe. Kayla probably wasn’t going to sleep for a week, but it had been so delicious that every time Elio had offered a refill, she said yes. Elio, apparently, was a caffeine addict through and through and thought nothing of brewing a new cup immediately after the first was finished. And quite frankly, Kayla, even if she was teased for it, was determined to make the most of the ingredients that were on this island, be they root vegetables, liquid or otherwise.
Kayla had cleaned the kitchen as well as she possibly could, determined to be a good houseguest. In the end, Elio had ended up helping, having accepted that she wasn’t going to give up on it. So they had talked about nothing in particular, throwing jabs across the room at one another as they drank too much coffee and cleaned the kitchen together while the rain poured outside. It had all been weirdly domestic, and Kayla was stuck with the fact that she felt comfortable with Elio. In any sane universe, she should be hiding out in the guest suite, waiting for the storm to calm enough for her to get out of dodge and back to the mainland, away from the reclusive billionaire who was being sued for grievous bodily harm.
Instead, they’d followed each other around as if attached at the hip until now, when they had migrated to a beautiful living room that looked out onto the ocean. Not that you could see it with the rain throwing itself against the window, but Kayla was still impressed by the idea of the view.
And for this conversation, at least, there was wine. They sat on a sofa and Elio brought out a vintage bottle covered in dust that was probably worth more than Kayla’s monthly rent, popping the cork out as if it were no big deal. Watching someone from such a different tax bracket go about their day was like watching a particularly interesting specimen at a zoo, or an alien that had failed to assimilate into human life.
“Kayla?” he asked, tilting his head.
“Sorry, what was the question?”
“Do you like the wine?”
The answer seemed really important to him, the way he was looking at her so earnestly. It would be so easy to keep teasing him, the way they’d been poking fun at each other all day. But Kayla trusted her instincts and replied seriously, to this one question at least.
“I do,” she said, smothering a smile when Elio was so obviously pleased by the answer. “I don’t know much about fancy wine,” she said as a disclaimer. “But I like this very much.”
Elio looked like a little bird fluffing up his feathers at that, and it was probably one of the most adorable things Kayla had ever seen. But she really couldn’t help herself, and the need to push his buttons was getting stronger by the minute. She was only human, after all.
“You make fun of me for going on about tomatoes,” she said, “but you seem to really like wine, buddy.”
“It is my job. The vineyards out there aren’t just for show.”
Kayla really had assumed that they were just there for decoration, turning her head to look out the window on instinct, even though the vines were all obscured by the rain.
“Did you make this?” Kayla asked, gesturing to the glass in her hand.
“No, that’s just something that was lying around.”
Just something lying around. On his private island. Rich people really did live in a different world.
“Why wine?” she asked, sipping at the maroon liquid that really was very good. Even for something that had just been lying around.
“Why do I make it?” Elio asked.
“Yeah.”
He shrugged, swirling his own glass around and sniffing it like people did on TV. Kayla hadn’t known people actually did that… It seemed she was learning a whole bunch of things.
“My father ran the business before me,” Elio said, watching the rain hurl itself against the window. “And it had been successful, very successful. But the business had only a department for wine, for liquor, for importing different wines and liquors. He had been thinking about also getting into sodas… I took over and simplified the whole thing, boiled it down to doing one thing and doing it better than anybody else…”
He trailed off, looking back up at her as if just realizing that he’d gotten carried away with the story. Kayla just smiled and nodded, like encouraging a small kitten to continue to trust you.
“And you chose to focus on wine?”
Elio cleared his throat. “Uh, yes.”
“Because it’s your favorite?”
Elio shrugged again, but Kayla was determined to pull him back out of the shell he’d suddenly gone into.
“It seems like it worked?” she prodded.
“There’s a history to wine,” Elio said, his voice almost reverent now that he was back on his favorite topic. “It was the drink of kings and royalty, and even now it’s the most sophisticated drink there is. Champagne is frivolous, best kept for special occasions, but wine is something that can be incorporated into everyone’s life, no matter the occasion. At the end of the day, it’s just fermented grape juice, but there’s a whole story around it, especially in Italy. If I was going to build a whole brand around something, then it seemed like the most obvious choice, objectively speaking, but even then, if you’re going to stake your business on a brand, become the face of it, be its main cheerleader then at the very least you have to like your own product. My father was very successful when he was in charge, but there was a reason the business plateaued at a certain point… I don’t think he ever actually felt that strongly about any of it.”
Elio concluded his speech and definitely still looked a little embarrassed at how passionately he’d spoken, but Kayla had loved to see him like that. Still waters ran deep, it seemed.
“He must be proud of you, your dad.”
Elio snorted. “He nearly disowned me when he found out how far I was taking the restructuring. But then I showed him the profit margins and sales reports, and that seemed to put an end to it.”
Kayla frowned. Billionaire or not, that would hurt, having a parent only stop their criticism once they saw the money coming in. From where she was sitting, and whether he wanted her to notice or not, Kayla definitely saw the hurt in Elio.
“You should be proud of yourself,” she said and meant it. Elio looked at her over the rim of his glass, the surprise evident on his face. Kayla shrugged, not willing to take back the statement. “It sounds like a lot of work, you know, to do all of that. And a big risk, and you pulled it off. If he’s not proud of you, then be proud of yourself.”
Elio didn’t say anything, but instead of drifting off into his own world, he was watching her with a laser-like focus. Had no one told him to be proud of himself before? Seriously? But the way he was looking at her, Kayla was worried that that seemed to be the truth of the matter.
“Anyways,” she said, clearing her throat and raising her glass in a mock toast. “Here’s to dads, am I right?”
“I’d wager that you still have a better relationship with your father than I do with mine.”
“Uh, you would be wrong, sir. I have no relationship with my father. He knocked up my mom and then disappeared like a thief in the night. Now, here I am drinking your wine and serving lawsuits for a living.”
Elio blinked at her. “That’s awful,” he said.
“Serving lawsuits? Yes, I agree it is awful.”
“You know what I mean.”
Kayla shrugged, his attention making her warm, and it was getting fiercer by the minute.
“I don’t know. I don’t really have strong feelings about him either way. My mom more than made up for it.”
“You two are close.”
“Yeah. I mean, she”s my mom so she drives me up a wall, and I do the same to her, but we’re close. She worked her butt off my whole life to make sure I would have everything I needed. She still works her butt off.”
“You take after her, then?” Elio said with a sly smile.
“Why do you say that?”
“You can’t fly across the world to a foreign country, going to the lengths you did to serve me those darn papers and not be a hard worker.”
“If you’re trying to tease me, then you failed because I’m taking that as a compliment.”
“Then I didn’t fail because I meant it as a compliment.”
Kayla flicked her hair off her shoulder and drank from her glass, trying to hide the fact that she was flustered. It was just the wine; it had to be. She wasn’t going to consider any other possibility right now.
“I mean, I couldn’t really pass up an opportunity like that, could I?” she said. “Getting offered a job in Italy. And my mom would have skinned me alive if she found out I’d passed up an opportunity to come here. If it was Mexico or France or Russia, she wouldn’t have cared, but telling her I passed on a trip to Italy? I would never hear the end of it.”
“Is she particularly fond of Italy?” Elio asked, looking very confused, and Kayla realized that without context, it was kind of a bizarre statement to make, getting in trouble for not going to a very specific country.
“My dad is Italian,” she explained.
“I thought he was nonexistent?”
“That too, but he’s also Italian — or was, maybe. He might not even be alive anymore. I honestly have no idea.”
Elio still looked confused, and Kayla was once again reminded that the way her mother had raised her wasn’t exactly conventional.
“Ma thought it was important to be in touch with that side of my heritage, even if I wasn’t in touch with the actual man who gave me said heritage. She would cook Italian food at home, even if it didn’t turn out great, but it at least made me want to cook Italian food. She signed me up for language classes, all that jazz.”
“She sounds like a good mother,” Elio said after he’d taken a moment to think. He was so sincere as he said it that Kayla was surprised with how hard the words hit.
“She is a good mother,” she said, voice quiet.
They lapsed into silence for what felt like the first time in hours.
“You’re easy to talk to,” Elio said, and again Kayla got the impression that this was a big statement for him to make. She took it accordingly seriously.
“Thanks,” she said. “You too.”
They looked at each other across the sofa and Kayla suddenly felt like she’d been dropped into the middle of a vacuum. The air was gone, stealing the breath right out of her chest. Even the storm seemed to drop in volume, just a fraction. Then a particularly loud clap of thunder crashed in the air, and Kayla jumped, breaking eye contact with Elio to look at the window that had seemed to rattle in its frame. It had gotten even darker outside. God, how much time had passed while they’d been sitting there?
“It’s gotten late,” Elio observed, but his attention wasn’t on the window; it was still firmly locked on Kayla. She had not a single clue how to deal with that right at the moment, except to flee the scene as fast as possible.
“Well,” Kayla said. “I’m exhausted. I might head to bed. Get an early night, you know?”
It was a downright lie. Her bloodstream was now a cocktail of caffeine and alcohol, and there was no way she’d be sleeping until the early hours of the morning.
But Elio nodded, and as she rose, he held out a hand. “Give me your glass and I’ll take it to the kitchen.”
“Careful,” said Kayla. “You’re going to leave your housekeeper without a job.”
“I guarantee you that will never happen. I will be welcoming Gianna back with open arms, thank you very much.”
As he took the glass from Kayla’s hand, his fingers brushed against hers, and it took all of her self-control not to turn into a human puddle as their skin touched for such a brief moment. In fact, she point-blank refused to look Elio in the eye after that because she was definitely, definitely blushing right now, and if she wanted to keep any semblance of her dignity, she needed to hightail it immediately.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she said and promptly left the room. Maybe it was her just being ridiculous. And maybe she was blowing this whole thing out of proportion, but she would have bet money that as she walked away, she could feel Elio’s eyes on her back for every single step.