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“Yes, it does.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Did you know about it before you went upstate?”
I think about that. “Maybe not.”
“How often was the Cucina or Beard or Michelin star a topic of conversation at Il Piacere?”
I take a sip of my drink. “I get your point. But that’s not why I care so much.”
“No?”
“No.”
If he wants to have a staring contest, I’ve got news for him. This is one game I’m really, really good at. But usually I’m not staring down the equivalent of a Greek god.
Dammit.
“This restaurant is my mother’s pride and joy. She was a paralegal,” I say. “My dad was the business owner. According to him, they were out to dinner one night, and she said something to the effect of, ‘If I could do it all over again, I would have my own restaurant.’”
Tris listens intently, which I appreciate.
“Dad told her to go for it, which is very him. And despite the fact that Mom loved to cook, loved Italian food and helped Dad whenever she had time with the business end of the car dealership, she hedged. Told him all the reasons it wasn’t a good idea. Being a business owner took a lot of time, and they had me. I was barely six months old at the time. And it’s risky. Mom wasn’t really a risk-taker.”
“So what happened?”
Smiling as if I was there, having heard the story so many times before, I continue. “Dad bought this building. It had just closed. Was an old tool shop. Basically the exact kind of place you wouldn’t think of turning into a ‘fancy’”—I repeat the very word he used to describe it—“restaurant. For Valentine’s Day, he gave her the keys to the building.”
And that is the kind of guy I want to marry. One who has so much faith and belief in his wife that he does something like that, knowing it will be harder on everyone, himself included.
“It was full steam ahead. And she turned it into this.”
I look at the room, its tan and cream decor, brown leather chairs and wall sconces everywhere, allowing the lighting to really showcase its rich tones.
“When I heard you renovated,” Tris says, “I expected to see something totally different.”
I shake my head. “No way. My mother worked with an interior decorator she hired from the city just before she died, someone who knew the restaurant business. I would never change it. Just gave everything a refresh.
He looks around. “I’m glad. I’ve always thought it had a homey but elegant feel. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
And yet, it’s completely different from DeLuca’s II with its red and white color scheme, black-and-white old-time photos . . . more what you think when you conjure up an Italian restaurant. Or at least, in a small town like Bridgewater.
Our eyes meet.
Tension crackles between us as sure as it has every time we’ve been together.
Not being the kind of person who can keep quiet, mostly because I need to know what people are thinking, I ask, “So what are we doing here?”
In answer, Tris looks at me and pushes back the barstool, its legs scraping on the wooden floor below ominous, and exciting. The sound seems to reverberate through the empty restaurant. He stands fully upright.
I swallow. Realizing what I’ve just unleashed.
18
Tristano
Shattering our pretense, I’m about to stalk over to the other side of the bar, throw caution to the wind, and leave the taste of me on her lips for the rest of the day.
