Chapter 4
“Who’s that new guy staying here?” Oliver asked, as he deposited the box of muffins on the desk, next to his mother’s laptop.
“You’re going to have to be a lot more specific,” Joy said, barely glancing up from her work.
Along with running the Sweetheart Inn, which as far as Oliver was concerned was basically a full-time job, she also wrote romance novels on the side. So successfully, he knew, that she could’ve left the management of the Inn to someone else, or even sold it.
But she hadn’t.
Working hard, that runs in the Billings family, she said to him whenever he argued she had too much on her plate. Not like you aren’t putting in crazy hours either. Just how early are you getting to the bakery these days?
She wasn’t wrong, which was why he didn’t try to convince her to slow down anymore.
“The tall, hot guy. Little stern. Lot egotistical. Always on his phone. Wears a suit like it was tailored just for him.”
“Oh, that one,” Joy said, glancing up finally. “You would like him, wouldn’t you?”
Oliver rolled his eyes. “I don’t like him, I’ve nearly hit him with my car and then just now, he almost sent your batch of muffins to the floor.”
“Oliver,” she said patiently.
“Okay, I said he was hot. He is, it’s practically a fact, not even an opinion.”
Her gentle glance told him he was protesting too much so he shut up.
“He’s Giana’s nephew. Luca Moretti.”
“Wait, that’s Giana’s nephew? Seriously?”
“Yes, that means he’s Enzo’s cousin.”
“Right.” Definitely not the best person for him to be attracted to, but there’d been such alive and interesting speculation in those dark eyes. Was he smug? Too confident? Also, true. But he also wouldn’t be staying.
Oliver wasn’t usually the kind of person who enjoyed casual hookups, but he would absolutely enjoy a hookup with Luca Moretti.
“No doubt Enzo’s been filling his head with doom and gloom about you,” Joy said unhelpfully. “I told you not to go out with him.”
“Mom, it was once.” He tried hard to be open-minded and kind to everyone.
Treat people the way he wanted to be treated, etcetera etcetera.
Which was why when he’d returned to town, and Enzo Moretti had asked him out, he’d said yes, even though he hadn’t really felt much interest. There was no telling, right?
“Once was enough, wasn’t it?”
Oliver couldn’t argue with that. The date had been a complete fucking disaster and they hadn’t repeated it, though he had gotten the impression Enzo had enjoyed their time together a lot more than Oliver had.
“We’re two young queer people in this small ass town,” Enzo had told him, “why shouldn’t we date?”
Oliver hadn’t much liked being reduced to his status or his age and had no interest in wasting his time dating someone he didn’t even like, even if he was the only regular option for sex.
Usually he stuck to the defense that he was just too fucking busy for sex, but then once in a while, like today, he was confronted by someone he really wanted to have sex with, and all those excuses went right out the window.
“Once was definitely enough,” Oliver said. “You really think he’d bad-mouth me?”
Joy shot him a look. “When has he ever missed an opportunity to be bitter? I swear to God he looks for them.”
“It was three years ago.”
“Now you’re just trying to be too nice again,” she reminded him. “You know he bad-mouths you any chance he gets, still.”
Oliver sighed. “Yes, okay, he does. So what’s Luca Moretti doing here?”
“Funny, he didn’t give me a detailed itinerary,” Joy said dryly. “But he is staying at least three weeks. Said he might need to stretch it to a month. Reservation on a corporate credit card. I think it was something about Nonna’s.”
“That’s the name of Giana and Enzo’s deli.”
“Not just the name of Giana and Enzo’s deli,” his mother corrected gently. “I think it’s a family name. I think they own a lot more restaurants out west. California, maybe? Giana mentioned it to me once, a few years ago, right after they opened. That all their recipes were family recipes.”
“Huh.” Oliver considered this. “You’d think they’d . . .well, that they’d be doing better, then. Or maybe the other restaurants aren’t doing well too. . .”
“I think that’s the least kind thing you’ve said about them since they opened.” She hesitated. “No, actually, that was the time you grabbed a meatball sub from them and regretted it.”
“It was . . .it was fine.” That was the nicest thing Oliver could say about it.
“If you want my opinion,” she said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest, “he’s here to check up on the family investment.”
“For three weeks?”
“Okay, to fix the family’s investment, then,” Joy amended. She smiled then, a little sly and a lot dangerous. “Three weeks though, that leaves you plenty of time to charm him.”
“Mom,” Oliver groaned, “I don’t want to charm him. I love that you have something you enjoy but you don’t have to see romance around every corner, okay? I was just curious about him. That’s all. We don’t get many guys coming around Indigo Bay that look like that in a suit.”
He’d filled it out perfectly. Oliver could still remember the way he’d looked. Annoyed and cocky and unbelievably gorgeous.
“Or in a T-shirt and shorts,” she retorted, grinning.
“Enough,” Oliver said. “Here are your muffins. I threw in a few Chai Spice twists, too, for variety.”
“Thanks.” Her eyes, a pale blue that went surprisingly well with the pastel-pink hair she’d adopted recently, twinkled. “He loved them, you know. The muffins. Should I tell him—”
“No. For the love of God, no.” Oliver didn’t even let her finish the question. Or ask her who the he was. He already knew, and he wasn’t willing to risk her doing anything embarrassing in an attempt to relieve his perpetually single state.
A state, FYI, he was totally okay with. He really was too busy for dating. Sex . . .well, that might be a different story. But he wasn’t going to talk to his mother about that, even if she did write romance novels with plenty of steamy scenes.
“Alright, then,” Joy said, still smirking. “I won’t.”
“Please don’t.”
Luca stayed up til nearly midnight, until his eyes grew dry and itchy and heavy, putting together the plan for Nonna’s Deli.
It had three parts: one, improve ingredients and decor, and make the deli generally more inviting; two, prepare everything fresh; and three, put together a marketing campaign to invite the townspeople back to experience the new changes, and hopefully, in the process, win back the town’s opinion.
Luca knew they’d be operating in the red while the changes were being implemented, but with time, he did believe the deli could turn itself around.
He added, at the bottom of the plan, that during this period, he’d be suspending any capital re-payments to Nonna’s Enterprises, in an attempt to improve operating expenses.
But all and any of this would take hard work and a lot of time, and he wasn’t sure Giana was up for it, or that Enzo was willing to make the sacrifice.
Still, he ran his errands, and carrying the paper bag of groceries on one hip, headed toward the deli, arriving at the same time as he had the day before.
When he walked in, it was quiet and apparently empty again.
He pushed open the door and saw a note from Giana, something about a chiropractic appointment she’d forgotten but she’d be back soon.
Apparently Enzo wasn’t coming in today. That was the one thing Luca had hesitated to put in his report.
Because he couldn’t force someone to be interested in the family business if they weren’t, and frankly, even if he said it as bluntly as he could, he wasn’t sure Giana would believe it or accept it.
Luca glanced around at the clean, empty kitchen and decided there was no time like the present to get started.
Even if Giana decided not to accept his recommendations, he refused to serve any more frozen and then thawed ingredients.
If anyone actually showed up to buy a meal today, they would get fresh food.
He shed his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and, after finding a clean apron, tied it on. He pulled out a big pot and set it on the stove, starting it to heat as he grabbed a knife and began to break down and chop the garlic.
The small grocery in town hadn’t had all the Italian imported ingredients he normally used, but Luca was still sure everything he’d purchased was at least better than what Giana and Enzo were currently using.
He’d carefully selected his olive oil, his tomatoes, his basil.
The store obviously hadn’t stocked Nonna’s specific blend of pork and veal and beef for the meatballs, but he’d picked up three different packages of ground meat, and he’d make do.
Again, whatever he managed today had to be better than whatever they were normally serving.
When the sauce was on to simmer, he got out a big bowl and was just starting to put together the meatball mix—from memory, because Nonna wouldn’t have ever stood for less—when Giana walked in.
“What on earth is this?” She did not look particularly pleased, even though Luca knew the scent of the sauce, bubbling away on the stove, must’ve greeted her as soon as she’d walked in the front door, and nobody who smelled that sauce cooking could ever be angry about it.
“We have bins and bins of frozen sauce.”
“Yes, frozen sauce,” Luca said.
She crossed her arms. “What is wrong with the frozen sauce?”
“It tastes frozen. It also tastes like you’re taking shortcuts on the ingredients we use at Nonna’s. The tomatoes you’re using aren’t San Marzano. Not from our regular distributor.”
“They charge a fortune,” she argued. “We couldn’t . . .it was too expensive.”
“Maybe, but you’re charging similar prices to our other deli in Sonoma and they’re making a good profit, while using much higher quality ingredients.”
“I told Nicoletta I wanted help, not for you to barge in and change everything.”