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“You don’t know? A man has to know these things before he can make a sauce,” he says, gesturing at me with the massive knife he’s holding. “If you don’t know, you could hurt someone very badly.”
Seriously, does he think I’m intimidated by this?
Okay, maybe I’m a little intimidated, but it’s a really big freaking knife.
“My Allegra’s been hurt before by a hot pepper. Lando. She thought he was the one, but it turns out, he was the one to break her heart,” Enzo says, chopping the onion so hard his forehead starts to glisten. “He had her totally fooled into thinking he was tomato paste. He was in her program at university so they had a lot in common. He was even Italian, so he managed to fool Allegra’s mother and the rest of the family. Not me, mind you. A father can always tell pepper when he sees it. In this case, he was using her to get ahead at school while he was sprinkling pepper all around town, if you get my drift.”
Pretty sure I can follow his train of thought, even if it does seem like it’s only on the track half the time. “That’s awful.”
“It was awful. He broke her heart. Snapped it in half. Stole all her research and dumped her. She’s never been the same. She used to have this light in her eyes and when he did that to her, it went out,” he says, shaking his head. “Do you know what that does to a father? To see the light in his child’s eyes go out?”
“I can imagine.”
“No, you can’t. It kills you,” he says, tapping his fist against his heart. “It makes you want to kill, so when another man shows up with a case of wine and a big smile, it makes you worry. Is he the kind of guy who wants to sprinkle himself all over every woman he meets? Does he turn up the heat so fast, he burns people? Am I going to have another man out there I want to kill? It’s a problem for a father.”
Well, this is just great. I came over to help out a little and have a nice day and now I’m being quasi-threatened. “Look, sir, I have no intention of breaking your daughter’s heart. Our relationship is purely professional. Well, I’d like to think we’re becoming friends, but that’s it. I’m only here for a few weeks, and then I’m leaving. I’d never dream of breaking her heart.”
“I hope not.”
“I won’t.”
He glares at me. “You better not.”
Oh Jesus, are we going to do this all day? “I’m not going to.”
“Okay then,” he says. “Because I’ve been waiting for years to see that light back in her eyes, and my heart won’t feel right until it’s there.”
Allie’s mom, Maria, walks into the kitchen just as I say, “Got it. And I promise not to sprinkle any pepper while I’m in town.”
She makes a loud tsking sound and rolls her eyes. “Seriously, Enzo?” She turns to me. “Don’t listen to a word this one says. If ever there was a man who used to sprinkle pepper all over town, it was this guy. I was the one who turned him into tomato paste.”
“Hey! What are you doing?” Enzo says to his wife. “You can’t tell him that. I’m making a point here.”
“I’ll tell you what you’re doing. You’re making this nice young man—who came over to our house to help—feel uncomfortable for no good reason. Come on, if he was pepper, he would’ve tried something when Allie spent the night at the hospital with him.”
That’s not strictly true, on account of me being incapacitated at the time, but I appreciate her faith in me. I open my mouth to agree with her, but Enzo beats me to the punch. “He might be pepper! You don’t know.”
She points a finger at him. “A mother knows.”
“Well, so does a father!”
“No, you think every man is pepper when it comes to Allegra.”
“That’s because at the heart of every man is pepper.”
He’s not wrong. The last thing I’m going to do is agree with the man, but he’s definitely not wrong. I sit back and watch the two of them go head-to-head about pepper and tomato paste and Allegra, and the entire time, I’m only thinking one thing. I would like to kill that Lando guy myself. Which is insane, but true. There’s just something about the thought of the light in her eyes going out that gets to me.
And then it hits me—I need to protect her from me, because I’d very much like to sprinkle some pepper her way, and that’s the last thing she needs right now. Because in five weeks, I’m going to disappear from her life forever.
18
When You Know, You Know. Even When You Wish You Didn’t
Allie
Somehow I’ve managed to get some actual work done, which honestly is worthy of a Nobel Prize by itself, because the man of my dreams is in my kitchen right now cooking and being interrogated by everyone to whom I’m related. And from the sounds of things, they’re having a blast. They must have cracked that case of wine he brought because the amount of laughter wafting up the stairs is unprecedented, and to be honest, it’s making me a little jealous.
Also, the curiosity is killing me. Like seriously killing me. I want to know every word he’s saying and every inane question and comment my family is throwing his way. Well, maybe not every single one because the embarrassment factor would be incalculable. When Lucia brought up a sandwich for me earlier, the only tea she was willing to spill is that he’s so ‘crazy charming, he could lie to her all day long and she’d forgive him’ which I already knew, thank you very much.
