Chapter 9
A few hours later, Luca stretched, his back popping as he exhaled hard.
At some point, Giana had brought him a salami and provolone panini, and he’d eaten it with one hand while he’d read the screen, trying to figure out the solution to Giana’s financial conundrum.
She could, he believed, barely afford the changes they were making.
But in the end, if business increased because of the improvements, it would make all the difference.
Luca glanced at his watch, surprised it was almost two p.m.
The bakery closed at three, and he wanted to talk to Oliver about the bread before that.
They hadn’t made plans for today, but then Luca hadn’t been sure he’d even be here today.
He checked his phone and realized, even though it was eleven a.m. in California, he hadn’t gotten an answer from his father. Marco had merely texted back that yes, he knew about the veal increase, but he didn’t think it necessitated a pricing change on their end.
And like he’d expected, nothing from Gabe. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did, anyway.
Luca made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat as he grabbed his suit jacket and headed out into the restaurant.
He passed by Enzo, who was washing dishes. Enzo glared, but didn’t say anything.
Giana was out in the front, cleaning tables.
“I’m going to see about the bread,” he told her.
“Are you really sure Oliver’s the best choice?” Giana asked. “We could just keep getting bread from—”
“Yes, and no,” Luca said firmly.
“But—”
Luca raised an eyebrow.
“It’s just that he’s our competitor, should we really be giving him business?”
“Actually, he’s not,” Luca pointed out dryly. “His lunch menu is limited, and frankly, I think he makes most of his money from his commercial baking enterprise. You should know that, Giana. You worked for him.”
“Not for very long,” she defended.
“Still,” Luca said.
“It’s just . . .Enzo,” Giana said, and then she was wringing her hands. “Oliver puts him in such a bad mood.”
“That is one hundred percent Enzo’s problem. If he wants to sulk like a child over someone who isn’t interested in him, that’s his choice. But this is business.”
“So you aren’t going to buy Oliver’s bread because . . .” Giana hesitated, no doubt aware she was beginning to cross over into uncertain territory.
Because she was.
Luca felt his temper flaring again, hot and wild inside him, at even the insinuation he was buying Oliver’s bread because he was Oliver.
“No.”
She threw up her hands. “I’m just saying—”
“No.”
Giana didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Fine. If it has to be Oliver, then it has to be Oliver.”
“Unless,” Luca replied in a silky voice, “you decide we can hire a part-time baker to come in every morning to bake fresh bread, yes, it has to be Oliver. Trust me, after spending the morning with your books, you do not have the budget for that.”
“I know I don’t,” she said stiffly.
“Then it’s settled,” Luca said. “I’ll see you back here at eight tomorrow.”
“So early?”
“So early,” Luca retorted and let the door close behind him.
He was so fucking tired of arguing with her.
Tired of dealing with her ass of a son. But they were still family, still his family.
They were Morettis. Why had he dedicated himself to this family if he was going to just reject them the moment they began to annoy him?
How many times had he fought with his parents?
Or his siblings? Too many times to count.
They’d gotten past it—at least mostly, if he was counting Gabe here—but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen regularly.
But he still worked hard, this hard, because he cared. Because he loved them.
He didn’t know Giana and Enzo enough to feel the same way, but in the end that didn’t matter, because they were still Morettis. He wasn’t going to give up on them, either, just because they had an undeniable knack for pissing him off.
But the moment he pushed open the door to Sweetie Pie’s, that same delectable scent of sugar and butter and cinnamon wrapping around him like dejá vu, to his surprise, Luca discovered all his anger and frustration began to melt away.
“Hello.” The red-haired lady was back at the front counter, and her smile today was especially bright.
No doubt another person who’d discovered he’d taken their town’s favorite baker out on a date the night before.
At least she looked happy about it.
“Hi.” Luca found smiling back at her was surprisingly easy. “I’m Luca, by the way. Luca Moretti.” He extended his hand across the counter, and she shook it.
“So you’re Giana’s nephew,” she said. “I’m Marjorie. We worked here together for a bit, before she opened Nonna’s.”
“That’s what I hear,” Luca said.
“Coffee?” she asked. “And another spice twist? Or I think we might have a cranberry walnut scone left. Oliver made those special this morning. Think he had a hankering for them.”
The way Marjorie was eyeing him made Luca wonder if there was some mysterious connection between a night of good sex and a desire to make scones the next morning. He would have to ask Oliver.
Speaking of Oliver . . .
“Coffee, yes, and—” He’d intended to say no to both the pastry and the scone, but with the aroma in his nostrils it was proving to be tougher to resist.
Kind of like the man who ran this place.
“And the scone,” Marjorie finished with a knowing grin. “They’re very good. Joy’s recipe, you know, but Oliver has a knack even she doesn’t have. Which . . .” She mimed locking her lips with a key. “You did not hear from me.”
“Naturally.” He hesitated. “And Oliver, if he’s free?”
She shot him a knowing look, which he’d fully expected. “I think he’s working on some testing in the back, but I can’t see why you shouldn’t go back there.”
Luca raised an eyebrow. “That’s allowed?”
“Normally? Absolutely not. But,” Marjorie leaned over the counter, her voice lowered, “I think he’d make an exception for you.”
“Okay.”
She turned, filling his coffee cup from the carafe behind her, and he went to pull out his wallet, but she waved it away. “On the house,” she said.
Luca frowned.
“Specifically, per Oliver’s instructions,” she said.
Sipping the coffee, he was not surprised to discover it was just as good as it had been yesterday.
“Well, I’ll have to thank him,” Luca said.
The corner of her mouth quirked up. “You sure will. I’ll heat up your scone and drop it off in the back when it’s done. Just go around the side; I’ll let you into the door,” she said.
He followed her instructions, still sipping his delicious coffee, and then went through the door to the bakery.
It was warm back here, with the row of ovens at the rear of the building, and full of shiny professional equipment.
Oliver, as Luca had expected, knew exactly what he was about.
The man himself was bending over one of the tall stainless steel counters, rolling out dough with fluid, confident movements.
“Hey,” Luca said. Suddenly and very weirdly uncertain. They hadn’t talked about this. Well, they had. Sort of. They’d both expressed interest in a second date, but maybe that had just been the romance of the story Oliver had told him, the magic of the stars, and then the really fantastic sex.
The situation under the bright light of day might be very different.
Oliver glanced up, and his smile when he saw Luca standing there proved maybe it wasn’t different at all.
“Hey.” Oliver didn’t stop rolling but the heat in his eyes as he swept Luca’s body head to toe told him that he wasn’t unwelcome. The opposite, in fact.
“Marjorie said I could come back . . .” Luca trailed off.
“Oh yeah, of course. I had a feeling you might stop by.”
“Thanks for the coffee, by the way,” Luca said.
Oliver smiled. “We can correct that to, I was hoping you’d be by. Optimistically, with good news.”
“That I’ve got,” Luca said. “Giana signed our agreement this morning. So not only do I need bread from you, I’ll be around at least another couple of weeks. Unless you get sick of me.”
“Not likely,” Oliver said. “Did she continue to protest too much?”
“Yes, but that battering ram we talked about?”
Oliver raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“She called me at six a.m. with her answer,” Luca said with a sigh. “Her version of punishment, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” Oliver agreed.
“What are you making?” Luca took a few steps closer. He really wanted to kiss Oliver, but this didn’t seem like the time or the place. Now that he was sticking around, he was going to get plenty of chances.
He wanted every single one of them.
“Testing some new sausage pastries,” Oliver explained.
He gestured toward a pan of coiled sausages on a baking tray, that looked like they’d already been partially roasted, their skins beginning to crackle.
“I was thinking, caramelized onions, some grainy brown mustard, maybe a bit of sharp white cheddar, all wrapped up in a flaky package with the sausage as the centerpiece.”
“Feels a bit British,” Luca observed.
“That’s the idea,” Oliver said. “But I wasn’t happy with the dough I used before. It was a variation of our savory pie dough, and it didn’t work as well as I wanted. So I’m trying some puff pastry.”
“You make your own puff pastry?” Luca knew Oliver was a baking god, but this was really taking it a step too far.
Everyone else he knew bought theirs frozen, because that particular type of dough was tricky, finicky, and a pain in the ass to make, with all the layers and layers of butter folded in to make it flaky and delicious.
But of course, Oliver would ignore the easy way out and make his own.
Oliver grinned. “Hell yes I do. We make everything here.”
“You churn your own butter? Mill your own flour? Harvest your own salt?” Luca teased.
The look Oliver flashed him was full of heat, and Luca patted himself on the back for not just bending him right over the counter and kissing him so fiercely neither of them could breathe.
“Within reason, okay?” Oliver retorted without much heat. He took out a knife and began to cut out big triangles of the dough.