Epilogue
It was rare, these days, for Kayla to feel nervous about anything at all, but she had to admit that there were a fair few butterflies in her stomach that seemed determined to make their presence known. She distracted herself by swinging Rosa around in the main room of the empty restaurant, making her squeal with delight and blowing raspberries on her cheeks to top it off. Everyone had said that she would miss the newborn stage, but honestly, Kayla was enjoying being a mother even more as Rosa aged, the more she got to see her silly little personality, hear her laugh and shout and stomp about the garden. She wouldn’t trade this time for anything.
Rosa, though, seemed to have other ideas, promptly deciding that she had had more than enough of swinging around, thank you very much, and that a nap was needed immediately. Her shrill cry, exhaustion in its purest form, did make Kayla’s ears ring a little, but it also called Rosa’s grandmother out from the kitchens like some sort of bat signal.
“Oh dear,” Liz said, bedazzled head to toe in a glitter top and smart trousers. “It’s a wonder she has vocal cords still intact.”
“She might have a future as an opera singer,” Kayla said, detangling her necklace from Rosa’s grip. “Or a radio DJ. Honestly, the options are endless.”
Rosa reached out for her Nonna, not afraid to show her blatant favoritism, and Liz happily accepted baby duties for the foreseeable future. They were all here to celebrate the opening of the restaurant, hence the dance party of butterflies in Kayla’s stomach, but Liz had given herself the official role of baby wrangler for the evening. Not that she saw it as a negative in any way, shape, or form. And because Liz was unequivocally Rosa’s favorite person on the planet, she almost immediately settled down once in her arms, her eyelids drooping with comical slowness.
“Nonna is magic, huh, kid?” Kayla said, stroking Rosa’s thick, dark curls back from her head.
“I’ve always been magic,” Liz said primly. “But I’m glad my talents are finally being recognized.”
A private area upstairs had been turned into an office and break room for staff, and Liz made her way up there with Rosa in tow. Kayla watched them go, and as soon as they were out of sight, her nerves tripled in strength.
The restaurant had been Kayla’s idea, a harebrained scheme that she’d thought up while recovering on Malbia after giving birth in a vineyard. It had helped to while away some of the hours when she wasn’t able to move much, thinking about every detail from the menu to the decor, the name, everything. But it was Elio who had pushed her to actually do it, telling her that it wasn’t just a pipe dream. He said what was the point of changing career paths to not go full steam ahead? She’d brushed it all off at first, so fully immersed in her new life on the island, taking care of Rosa and falling more in love with Elio every day. Thoughts of a restaurant all her own had gone quiet. Then, about six months ago, Elio announced he’d bought a building in New York and if she didn’t start designing a menu, he would do it himself, and she didn’t really want that, did she?
So here they were, minutes away from the public opening of their very own restaurant, which Kayla had named Malbia, after her favorite place in the world. And it was going to be a very public opening… With all of the press surrounding Elio and his wine business that kept breaking record after record, it felt like every food journalist and self-designated foodie from Los Angeles to New York was waiting outside the doors for the ribbon cutting to take place.
Elio appeared in the dining area of the restaurant, carrying a bottle of wine in each hand with a very stern expression on his face, and it took all of Kayla’s self-control not to laugh.
“I thought you’d already chosen the bottles you wanted to be served?” she asked, smothering her amusement.
“With a lot of different dishes, there needs to be the right wine to accompany them. I only just remembered these two. I’d never live it down.”
Kayla thought that was maybe a bit dramatic, but she didn’t argue and let Elio get the wine just right for his own peace of mind. But when the bottles were laid out at just the right angle, he turned his attention back to her, slinging an arm around her waist.
“Are you excited?” he asked, pecking a kiss on her cheek that then trailed its way to her earlobe.
“I feel sick,” she said. Elio immediately put a hand to her forehead with a concerned expression.
“With nerves, darling,” she said dryly. “Sick with nerves.”
“I’m not up to dealing with any sort of communication that isn’t in the most literal, black-and-white form today.”
“Entirely fair,” Kayla said and kissed him on the mouth, reveling in the comfort of his arms around her. But unfortunately, it had to come to an end. They had business to attend to.
“All right,” she said, brushing a stray curl off of her face. “What time is it?”
Elio checked his watch. “Time to meet the public. And time for you to cut a ribbon.”
“We’re both cutting the ribbon.”
“It’s your restaurant.”
“I seem to remember you being the one to buy the building.”
Elio rolled his eyes and pushed her towards the door. “Fine, we”ll both hold the scissors. Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
It was meant as a joke, but saying the word out loud made Kayla realize just how true it was. Not just in that moment but ever since she and Elio committed to being together, to raising Rosa and building a life with one another. She’d never been happier. She’d also never been busier. The last eighteen months were nothing if not a whirlwind.
Just a few weeks after Rosa had been born, Elio had been freed from his confinement on the private island, and it was all thanks to Isabella and Gianna, who had found a way to prove that Preston was a lying piece of trash. The pair of them would often scroll through the accounts of other private chefs and housekeepers for the rich and famous, looking for inspiration. Apparently, it was all the rage for private chefs and caterers to have accounts showing the behind-the-scenes of a dinner party preparation or how a fridge was organized. Elio hadn’t ever really seen the appeal of such videos, but when Isabella had practically flown into the room and shoved her phone under his nose, he paid attention. It was the catering company that had worked at the launch party for Oro all those months ago, and one of the cooks just so happened to have uploaded a time-lapse of her individually removing the pits of every single olive that was to be served. When Marc got in contact with her to request the full video, you could slow it down to see her handle every single one, then check and recheck. It was almost ludicrous how perfect the footage was to completely disprove Noel Preston’s entire claim. The court case was thrown out after that, and Preston’s company, which he’d been hoping to save by bankrupting Elio, didn’t fare very well once the news got out. Even when Elio had been weathering his own storm, at least the wine was still good enough to stand on its own merit. There was something to be said for quality.
As for their living situation, Elio had meant what he’d said about never wanting to be apart from Kayla and their baby. They split their time between Italy and the U.S. on a month-by-month basis, and it was bizarre how both places felt so much like home. Italy, especially, was growing more and more familiar. Kayla’s Italian no longer felt so broken and disjointed, and instead, it flowed off her tongue without her having to put much thought into it at all. Experiencing both worlds, with her own little family by her side, was a surreal experience that left her giddy. Though, the best part of it all was when her mom had had time off from her nursing job (that she refused to quit even when Elio insisted he would never let her go without anything forever more), and Kayla watched her mom splashing about in the shallows of the beach on the island, a glass of wine in one hand and a book in the other. Things had come full circle and now Kayla could give her mom the care that she’d always deserved, even if she still insisted on working nights at the hospital.
Feeling all of that love, all of that joy, from the past year and a half washing over her calmed Kayla’s nerves and she strode out the front door of the restaurant, hand in hand with Elio, the snap of cameras greeting them like fireworks. They cut the ribbon with both of their hands on the scissors, and photos going off with camera shutters sounding like cicadas. Kayla hadn’t realized how loud cameras could be and she was glad that she’d given Rosa to her mom, not that Liz ever complained about getting to spend any amount of time with her granddaughter. Then the doors were officially opened to the public, crowds of people started streaming in, and the launch party was officially underway. The party that would accompany the grand opening featured all of the menu items that Kayla had designed for the restaurant, now spread out before everyone as music was played by a live band and conversation swelled and dipped like ocean waves.
She ended up losing track of Elio at some point but wasn’t worried. He’d probably found himself a nice corner to hide out in to have a break from all of the chaos. At this point Kayla knew how to read Elio better than anyone else, and honestly, she was surprised that he hadn’t disappeared a whole lot sooner. He’d been closed off today. Not talkative at all and easily distracted, but she knew that it was just nerves. His confidence had grown over the past year and a half, and being exposed to her mother’s chaotic and loud form of love had definitely worked as a sort of exposure therapy for him. But at the end of the day, Elio was still a quiet and reserved person, and he always would be. The fact that he had only been off in his own anxious world for the last twenty-four hours and not the whole week was a victory in itself. Besides, Kayla was more than capable of doing the talking for both of them.
Kayla had been about to scurry upstairs to check on what her mom and infant had gotten up to when she noticed the music drop to silence and turned when a very familiar voice started talking to the room.
“Um, excuse me!” Elio said, raising his voice as loud as he could to get everyone’s attention. “I just wanted to say a few words.”
It wasn’t all that often that Kayla was left speechless, but if she had been sitting on a chair at that moment, she would have definitely fallen off of it. Even standing, she wasn’t all that steady on her feet. Apparently, her shock was pretty obvious because Elio looked at her with a grin.
“As you can tell from the look on Kayla’s face,” he said, “I’m not usually one for speeches. Not unless I’m being forced.”
There was a ripple of laughter because Elio’s reputation certainly did precede him.
“But no one’s forcing me to do this,” he said. “Quite the opposite.”
He took a sip of his wine for liquid courage, and still Kayla had no idea what was going on. Had he had too much to drink? It seemed like the only explanation that made any sense. At the very least, she hoped someone was filming this because Elio Morelli making a speech willingly was about as rare as pigs flying.
“I am so thrilled for this restaurant to be opening,” Elio said, eyes darting around nervously. But his voice was strong and steady even without a microphone, and Kayla was about to burst open with pride at that fact alone.
“If you had told me two years ago that this would be my life, I wouldn’t have believed you. But I’m so glad it is. I’ll make this short so that you can get back to the celebrations and Kayla’s wonderful food.”
He paused and collected himself a little before moving on, and this time, when he spoke, he had eyes for Kayla only. No one else there seemed to matter.
“I love you,” he said simply, and Kayla felt her grin split her face in two. I love you too, she mouthed, and Elio smiled as he saw the words form on her lips.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said, his eyes on hers, not wavering for a second. “And I’m so grateful that you spend your days with me. But since I would love nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you, I was wondering if maybe we could make it a little more official?”
Then he got down on one knee and pulled a small velvet box out of his pocket, and Kayla really did feel like she might fall over.
“Will you?—”
He didn’t get to finish the question before Kayla surged forward from her place in the crowd, leaned down and, grabbing his face in her hands, kissed him on the mouth so hard that their teeth clashed together. The crowd took that as a yes and erupted into cheers, the band picking up again with a bright, jazzy song that carried over everything.
Elio rose from his knee, wrapping his arms around her waist and buried his face in her neck.
“I need to hear you say it,” he said into her ear, for only her to hear. “I want to remember you saying it for the rest of my life.”
“Yes, Elio,” she said, gripping onto him even tighter. “I will marry you.”
They held each other like that for what felt like an eternity. Eventually, Kayla pried herself away from his chest, her curiosity taking over and wanting to actually get a look at the ring that was perched in the velvet box. It was simple and understated, not at all what she’d ever pictured wearing, but somehow still absolutely perfect. A ring of small diamonds set in a thin gold band, glittering in the warm lights of the restaurant. Her finger shook as Elio plucked it from the box and slipped it onto her finger, pulling her hand to his lips and kissing her knuckles with a palpable reverence. Kayla wasn’t sure how she was supposed to get through the rest of the evening as a hostess when all she wanted to do was stand here with Elio, content in their own little world.
“We saw the whole thing, didn’t we, Rosa?” said a voice. Kayla turned to find her mom there, a well-rested-looking Rosa on her hip who reached out for Kayla with chubby arms. Kayla took her and buried her nose in her hair as Liz wrapped her arms around Elio and gave him a congratulatory squeeze.
“He’s been a nervous wreck,” Liz said cheerfully.
“Yes, I can breathe now,” he said, already looking more relaxed than earlier in the evening. Kayla bumped him with her hip, beaming up at him. If he didn’t already know how proud she was of him, of their life together, then she was going to make sure she never stopped telling him.
“Well, we can’t have a restaurant opening without sampling some of the food,” Liz said, disappearing into the crowd to eat and drink to her heart’s content. Now that it was the three of them together, Kayla, Elio and Rosa squeezed between them, it felt like the crowd didn’t exist. The rest of the universe didn’t even matter.
“Are you happy?” he asked her, his fingers brushing against Rosa’s curls with gentle caresses.
“Do you really need to ask that?” Kayla asked, eyebrows raised.
“Need to? No. Want to? Absolutely. Because I need to make sure the answer is yes and that it’s going to be a yes tomorrow as well, and the next day, and the day after that?—”
Kayla interrupted him with a kiss on the mouth, a less bruising one than before, Rosa tugging on Elio’s suit jacket at the same time. This right here was perfection, her very own little family and a career she loved. Life couldn’t get any better than this.
The End