Chapter 34
Giovanni
“Ican’t believe you wore your crocs—with socks—on a plane. With people on it. What happened to the girl in stilettos?”
“That girl died after the bike ride through hell.”
I snort. “It was a hill, Tessa. Not hell.”
She tries to pull her own bag up the steps, so I jog back down and pick up her suitcase, bringing it through the main door to my building. “I’ve got it.”
Thankfully, my apartment is an older, remodeled house, so there’s no elevator.
I fumble for my keys when we reach my door.
Once it’s unlocked, Tessa walks in first. I stand just inside the door and try to see the apartment through her eyes: A large (especially for New York) space.
An open concept kitchen with hardwood floors.
My ivory couch opposite two chocolate leather recliners.
No television, although knowing Tessa’s preference for Orange County teen dramas, I might have to buy one.
I should write that down so I don’t forget.
Now that we’re here, I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to make this our home. I want Tessa to feel comfortable here.
She runs her hand against a plush, forest green throw blanket on a decorative ladder near the door and admires the painting of Brescia that hangs above it.
“It’s all so… clean.”
I grin. “I like everything to have a place. But you can mess it up to your heart’s content. In fact, paint it purple.”
Tessa hums. “But it’s, like, really clean.”
“Let’s make it dirty.” I cock an eyebrow suggestively, turning toward her.
She puts a hand on my chest to stop me and sniffs the air. “Did you bleach your apartment?”
“Ah.” I scratch the back of my neck. “I’ve never been careful about nuts here. I eat a yogurt bowl with almonds for breakfast nearly every day. So, after your reaction in Brescia, I hired a cleaning company to decontaminate. Lu let them in.”
Her jaw drops. “You bleached your entire apartment on the off chance I might come here after our trip?”
I shift on my feet. “You act like it’s a big deal or something. I needed the apartment cleaned anyway.”
She pats my chest in a “there, there” motion. “Sure you did, Gio.”
“I did! Just the night before I left, Micheletto brought his graphic novel supplies, and there were crayons everywhere.”
Tessa gasps in fake horror. “Crayons? I’ve heard they make quite the spill. Nearly impossible to get the stains out of the floor with those things.” She brings her hands up toward her face and cups her cheeks, aghast. “Tell me, tell me! Then, what happened?”
I roll my eyes. “Fine. I bleached it for you.”
She smiles and wraps me in her arms, squeezing my body in a tight hug. “Ha! I knew it!”
Squeezing her back, we both sway in my apartment. I’ll drop Tessa at her place tomorrow, but there was no way I could just be without her our first night back. And she didn’t want to be without me, either.
I know it’s time to talk about where we stand. I’m ready for a real relationship with her. And I want to do this right.
I place my hand on her shoulder. “Go to dinner with me. Tonight.”
Shifting on her feet, she asks, “Like a pretend date?”
“No.” I slide my hand down her side near her ribs.
She sucks in a sharp breath and leans into my hand. “A work thing?”
“Not that either.” I bring my other hand to her chin, gently pinching the bottom between my index finger and thumb.
“As friends?” she asks.
With her chin between my fingers, I gently turn her head side to side. “Wrong again.”
“Thank God,” she mutters.
My hand slides to her back again, underneath her shirt this time. Her body responds to my touch, leaning toward me, pressing her chest into mine.
“Gio.”
“A date. A real one. I want to take you out to dinner at Hotel Black… maybe make a night out of it.”
Real sounds so wrong. The “pretend” dates I’ve had with her have already felt very real to me.
“Thank you for asking me.” A shyness comes over her that I’ve never seen before.
I give one last stroke down her side before removing my hand from her shirt and taking a step back. She groans.
I frown. “We’ll go on our date, and then I’ll take this off after, okay?”
She nods. “After a nap.”
* * *
“Wow,” Tessa says, taking in the picturesque setting of the restaurant. The host leads us to an outdoor dining pavilion. Green, lush plants surround the heavy wooden tables. Creeping grape vines wind up the sides of a freestanding pergola, which is decorated with upside down, hanging flowers.
“This is the nicest hotel I’ve ever been in. It’s beautiful.”
“I agree,” I say, not taking my eyes off of her.
Pink blooms across her face. I love how easily I can make her blush, so I share a thought that’s almost always in my head at any given time.
“You look breathtaking, Tessa.”
She’s stunning in every way, from the slight wave in her hair, to her ultramarine slip dress, to the maroon polish on her nails. As I look into her deep brown eyes, I think about what we could be together. With as much as I love her, it will be—
I roll my shoulders back and wonder how honest I can be tonight without frightening her. My feelings for Tessa are becoming unmanageable. Like they can’t fit in my body.
I pull out Tessa’s chair, and she beams as she sits down. She grabs the menu, flipping it over at least three times.
“How are you feeling now that the show is over?” I ask. With all the pretending, we didn’t really get a chance to discuss fashion week in Italy.
She happily sighs. “It was amazing. Obviously, I wish the end of the team meeting went differently, but I’m really hoping the experience will help my career. Maybe the design will be selected for the magazine feature next month.”
“You deserve it. Lamont mentioned he also wanted to include looks from the next collection in the feature. Maybe you can pull out that sketch you showed me a few years back—the Inspiration Era reference. The romantic silhouette evoked the decadence of the time period.”
She looks at me as though I’ve suggested burgundy as a summer palette color.
I raise an eyebrow. “What?”
“I’m just surprised. You’ve never really talked to me about my designs.”
I quirk an eyebrow, confused. “What do you mean?”
Before we can continue our conversation, a server dressed in all black greets us. “Good evening. How are we doing tonight?”
I force myself to focus back on dinner, but we will be coming back to this later. “We’re doing well, thank you. How are you?”
“Just fine,” the server replies with a smile. “What can I get for you?”
I defer to Tessa first, and she chimes in with her order.
“Hi! Can I get a glass of the vinno rosso, and the autumnal salad without pine nuts, please?”
She leans toward me. “The appetizers sound amazing, but frankly, I’m still full from your mother’s cooking.”
“That was over a day ago.”
She gives me a lopsided grin. “Exactly.”
Turning my attention toward the server, I order the steak for myself and ask for a dessert menu before he heads back to the kitchen.
“So, I kind of have… news,” Tessa says hesitantly.
I lean forward, giving her my full attention. “Tell me.”
“I ran into Simone Santerre backstage at fashion week. And she mentioned I could connect with her for networking. I take so much inspiration from Simone’s designs, and really, from her entire career.
” She takes a sip of water. “I plan on sharing my portfolio with her and asking if they’ll be scouting for designers at their house. If they are, I’m going to apply.”
“I’m happy for you, Cara.” And I mean it. If she gets the position, it’ll be difficult not to see her at work, but she deserves to grow her career at a faster pace. “Have you spoken with your family about it?”
“Yeah, I told them everything. They advised me to follow my gut. And while there are things I’ll miss about working at Lamont, if I get an offer at Santerre, I’ll take it.”
I wonder how much damage control I’ll have to do with Tessa’s family now that our relationship has shifted, especially since Dan mentioned she’s complained about me in the past. “I’d love to meet your mom and Grace one day soon. You said they live in Ohio?”
“You’d come to Ohio to meet my family?” Her tone implies it’d be a major inconvenience.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“It’s a plane ride away. It’s kind of a hassle.”
“Meeting your family where they live is the bare minimum. And you’ve already done it for me.”
She smiles, and I reach out to touch her bare shoulder. I stroke it gently, feeling the rush I always do whenever my fingers meet her skin.
“You look really good tonight, Gio. You always look so good,” she murmurs.
We stare at each other for a moment, and I decide that it’s time for us to be on the same page. I’m thinking about exactly what to say to her when the server comes back with our food.
I notice the pine nuts before the waiter even sets the plate down.
“Don’t breathe, Tessa.” I turn to the server. “Excuse me. She requested no pine nuts.”
He profusely apologizes before heading back to the kitchen.
Tessa gives a faint whistle. “If I didn’t know you well, I’d say you made a polite request, but your eyes tell a different story. I don’t get allergic reactions from breathing in the air surrounding a nut, just if I ingest it. It’s not a big deal.”
Not a big deal. She’s out of her mind. After seeing her in the hospital, there’s no way I’d take even the slightest chance with her. I don’t even want her to be in the same room as a pine nut.
“What if you accidentally ate it? Something could’ve happened to you. Restaurants need to take allergies seriously,” I grumble.
Tessa cocks an eyebrow. “Weren’t you the one who said, just last year at the summer staff luncheon, that most people ‘probably didn’t even have allergies’ and were just requesting modifications based on dietary preferences?”
Tilting my chin up, I avoid eye contact. “I don’t recall. Anyway, that was before you.”