Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
BIANCA
Giovanni Cafiero looks terrified.
Good. It’s about time he takes someone’s questions seriously.
“Yeah,” Theo says, skewering him with one of his legendary glares. “Miles isn’t ready to help run the farm, and he figured he could buy some time by manipulating Nonna Rose into asking one of his friends to come in his place.”
My chest tightens as my gaze darts back to Giovanni. To my shock, he starts laughing.
“Something funny?” Theo asks tightly. My brother isn’t used to people laughing at him. Or with him, for that matter. Up until recently, he spent most of his time with Uncle Ted, who was a good, steady man with an absolutely nonexistent sense of humor.
“I’m not laughing at you,” Giovanni insists, still laughing, his hand held out beseechingly.
“Answer the question,” I insist.
“Look,” Giovanni says, running a hand back through his hair. “Yes, Miles is the one who suggested the possibility, but—”
I knock a chair down in my haste to leave the room.
My sister texts.
I don’t answer.
Isabella must feel really desperate to get the scoop, because she escalates to calling. I still don’t answer.
I’m not surprised when a knock lands on my door within the hour. That’s what it’s like in Apple Ridge, especially on the family farm—you want to be alone, and suddenly several people are gathered in your room, guilt-tripping you into talking when all you want to do is steal some silence.
“I’m not in here,” I shout.
“It would have been more convincing if you hadn’t answered,” replies a low male voice.
So, not Isabella.
Not my brother, either.
It’s Giovanni’s voice, playful even when he’s serious.
I consider leaving him out there to sweat, but I still want information. So I get up, feeling like I’m walking through one of the hideous gelatin desserts the cooks at The Rotten Apple always serve, and open the door.
Giovanni’s standing just beyond it, his light-brown eyes contrite.
“Theo didn’t kill you?” I ask.
“You’re the one who came the closest today.” He hesitates, running his fingers over the doorjamb. “I’m sorry, Bianca. Miles didn’t send me here, the way Theo was saying, but he came to see me last weekend, and he did suggest it.”
“He’s not coming home.” The words come out flatly, matter-of-fact, almost like I don’t want to punch a pillow.
Giovanni shakes his head. “I really think he is. There’s something he has to do before coming home, something he begged me not to talk about, but he’ll be here before Christmas. He was adamant about that.”
“Convenient,” I say harshly, not wanting Giovanni to sense the hurt radiating through my chest. Though I guess the fact that I ran from the living room like a toddler throwing a tantrum may have clued him in.
“I suppose that’s why he couldn’t warn us.
” I pause before adding, “I know you’re running away from something too, only in the other direction. ”
It’s not a question. He is.
He shifts and grips the top of the doorframe with one hand, showing off that bicep again as he leans to one side. My gaze traces it, taking in the small tattoo on his upper arm—a lobster.
I point to it. “Is that so everyone knows you’re from Maine?”
He glances at it, his expression thoughtful. “Maybe it’s so I remember where I’m from.”
“Is memory something you struggle with? Because I am trained to detect the signs of dementia.”
His lips flatten. “No, Doctor Death. My memory’s not going just yet.”
I roll my eyes, hoping he’ll leave. Also hoping he won’t. There’s no denying the sight of him stretched out in my doorway is pleasant.
“You don’t have to flash your muscles at me,” I say after a few seconds, even though my eyes are lingering on them.
One side of his mouth lifts into a crooked grin. “Yes, because I’m not your type. But I can’t help flashing them. They’re all over my body.”
I make myself look away. “You can leave, Giovanni. We don’t have to become friends just because you’re staying here. Or did Theo convince you to go back to Maine?”
“He said he’d accept my help,” he says, surprisingly formal. “I know the farm’s been—”
“Miles had no right to tell you any of that,” I say hotly. “Except for Uncle Ted’s funeral, he hasn’t even been back for a visit for five years. He barely knows what’s going on here.”
He nods. “But I have some relevant experience that might be helpful. I want to help.”
A laugh trips out of me. “You don’t need sales expertise to run a pumpkin patch. Ours isn’t even very big. If it were rocket science, the potheads wouldn’t be managing it.”
He shifts, my gaze tracking the movement and how it translates across his tall, well-built body. “I’m not doing the pumpkin patch. I’m more interested in helping behind the scenes. Learning about running the farm.”
Disbelief no doubt radiates from my face as I say, “You’re not a behind-the-scenes kind of guy.”
Giovanni has always been a daredevil, a lover of attention, a showman. What’s he playing at?
I might resent his presence, especially since Miles apparently sent him as his stand-in, but there’s no denying Giovanni is a born salesman. He’d run the hell out of that pumpkin patch. People would line up to buy pumpkins from us. They’d probably stick around the apple barn, too.
It would be helpful, since we’re hurting financially. The strain is visible everywhere on the farm, from the faded wallpaper to that sign hanging over the entrance, so worn with age it can barely be read.
Giovanni lifts his eyebrows. “Maybe I’m shy.”
I put a hand on my hip. “You love attention. You’ve always loved attention, ever since the first time you visited. Five minutes after you got here, you climbed the maple next to the house and hollered for everyone to watch you jump. You were a tiny bean of a thing back then.”
The memory dances on his face, and for a moment it’s as if we’re both transported back there. It felt like a simpler time, although maybe that’s because I saw life through a child’s eyes—a drawing in crayon without any shading.
“You remember that?” he asks, angling his head for a better look at me.
“Of course, I do. You landed on the business end of a rake, and the pole snapped up and slapped you in the face.”
The regret on his face surprises me, but it’s gone before I can be sure it was real.
“Well, I’m not like that anymore. But I feel bad for fucking up your night.
I’m not here to get in your way or cause trouble.
I genuinely want to help. And I think it’s good for our grandmothers to be together. They’re down there reminiscing.”
A loud snatch of Italian conversation travels up from below. “You sure they’re not fighting?”
“This is what they sound like when they’re having fun.”
He grins, and I smile back. I remember the way they were together too. The rapid-fire Italian. The brighter light in my grandmother’s eyes whenever her friend was with us, as if a piece of herself had been temporarily restored.
He leans into my room a little, and I can feel a shift in the air between us. “We could have fun too,” he says in a quieter voice. “Let me cheer you up.”
“Are you trying to seduce me?” I ask, mostly to see how he’ll react.
He laughs and lowers his head a little, his hair rustling from the movement. “Bianca, when I try to seduce you, you’ll know.”
“Good, so I’ll have plenty of time to grab a baseball bat.”
He shrugs, still grinning, as if to say it’s my loss. He might have a point—he’s sexy and very obviously not serious. Probably the perfect rebound. But I mentally squash the thought.
He lifts his eyebrows. “So, what do you say? Want to go tip a cow?”
Laughter gushes from me. “No.”
“Steal some apples?”
“We own an orchard.”
“Make a pie?”
“Yes, I definitely feel like putting in two hours of labor for an uncertain payoff.”
He laughs, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Said like a woman who’s never tried my pie.”
“I will never try your pie.”
“Then you’ll never know what you’re missing.”
My gaze combs over him, taking in his muscles, his hooded, heavily lashed eyes, and the stubble lining his jaw, even as I say, “Are you actually trying to flirt with me, or are you just bored?”
“A little bored,” he concedes. “I’d also like to get to know you better. We never talked much when we were younger. Not just the two of us. You, me, and Miles hung around some, but a lot of the time it was Miles, Nico, and me, Enzo was off with Theo, and you were…”
“When I wasn’t with Miles, I was looking after Aria and Isabella. Being a good little girl.”
“I wouldn’t call you a good girl,” he says with a hint of teasing, and I’m annoyed by the heat that flashes through me. “You never turned down a challenge.”
“Clearly.”
His lips twist to the side, and I know he’s thinking of that kiss we shared years ago, just like I am.
“And you always liked getting your own way,” he continues.
Shifting my weight, I say, “Still do. I won’t entertain you, Giovanni. I’m tired. I’m just going to watch some YouTube and go to bed.”
Something flickers across his face—a memory or possibly an emotion—but it’s gone before I can latch onto it. “Am I invited to your pajama party?”
“No.”
“All right,” he says, giving me another easy grin.
If I weren’t wise to the dangers of charming, handsome men, I’d probably be melting all over my floor right now.
And, yes, I do feel a little hot and bothered, but he doesn’t need to know that.
He may be bored and lonely, but I won’t be the woman who warms his bed.
“Maybe another time. Goodnight, Bianca.”
He gives me a knowing look and then leaves the doorway and walks approximately three feet away to open the door next to mine. Miles’s room. Or it was, before he moved out.
All of his things are still in there, waiting for him. He only stuffed one suitcase before he took off.
“You’re not staying in there…”
“Your grandmother chose it for me. She thought it might be nice for us ‘young people’ to be close together.”
I clench my teeth.
There’s matchmaking, and then there’s attempting to honey-trap your own granddaughter.
“Fantastic,” I lie. “Well, I doubt I’ll see you much for the next couple of days. I’ll be working.”
“At the old folks’ home. You like old people, huh?”
“Better than most young people. Goodnight, Giovanni.”
“Sleep tight,” he says, his eyes twinkling, and I know I won’t. It’ll be his fault too. Because I’ll be thinking about Giovanni Cafiero leaning into my doorway, talking about pie. I’ll be squirming, enough that I might have to take out the toy I keep hidden in my attached bathroom.
But I won’t knock on his door.
I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, and I’m one hundred percent certain I couldn’t even pick him up.
Like he said, he works out.