everyone look well fed and happy?”
He laughed softly at her characterization. “Yes,” he admitted. “I see what you mean.”
“And here is the restaurant now.” She plunked down a picture of the half-empty room and threw out her hands to emphasize how overwhelming the situation was. “Without the basil, no one is happy anymore.”
He groaned, turning his head and refusing to study that last picture. “Isabella, I get the point. You don’t have to rub my nose in it.”
“It seems I do.” She gazed at him fiercely. “I want you to understand how important this is. How it means everything to my father.”
“And to you.”
“To me?” She pressed her lips together and thought about it. Hearing his words surprised her, but what surprised her even more was that he might be right.
For years she’d chafed at being the one everybody depended on, the one who had to stay behind and help with the restaurant while her brothers went off in search of adventurous lives and her cousins went off to explore places like England and Australia. Isabella was the one who stayed home and kept the flames going. Sometimes it didn’t seem fair. She’d had daydreams about leaving a note pinned to her pillow and slipping out into the night, getting on a train to Rome, flying to Singapore or Brazil, or maybe even New York. Meeting a dark, handsome stranger in an elevator. Talking over a drink in a hotel bar. Walking city streets in the rain, sharing an umbrella. All scenes snatched from romantic movies, all scenes folded into her momentary fantasies. What seemed hopeful at first eventually mutated into melancholy as it aged.
And lately, even those dreams had faded. She’d been as wrapped up in finding ways to save the restaurant as her father was. So maybe Max was right. Maybe it did mean everything to her, too.
“Maybe,” she said faintly.
What did it mean when you gave up your dreams? Did they grow mellow and rich, like fine wine, warming you even as they faded? Or did they dry up and turn to powder that blew away with the wind?
“Maybe.”
Snapping back into the moment, she looked at Max, trying to see if he’d come around yet. She grimaced lightly. It certainly didn’t look like it. Those gorgeous dark eyes with their long, sweeping lashes were as cool and skeptical as ever.
She sighed. He’d finished eating and he’d finished looking at her scrapbook and listening to her point of view. She had only one weapon left in her arsenal. Slipping away, she hurried back to the kitchen where she pulled a large portion of a beautiful tiramisu out of the refrigerator. Rummaging in a drawer, she found a candle, which she lit and put atop it. She smiled with satisfaction, then carried it back out into the dining room, singing “Tanti auguri a te,” as she went. She stopped, put the blazing pastry down before him, and added, “Buon compleanno!”
He was laughing again, only this time it was with her, not at her.
“How did you know it was my birthday?” he asked her, letting her see, for just a moment, how pleased he was.
She shrugged grandly. “You told me.”
He frowned. “When?”
“It was the first thing you said when you came into the kitchen, before you realized it was me instead of Renzo.”
“Oh, of course.”
He looked into the flame as though it fascinated him. She watched him. In the afternoon light, his scar looked like a ribbon of silver across his face. She wondered if it gave him any pain. She knew it gave him heartache. And because of that, it gave her heartache, too.
“Make a wish and blow out the candle,” she told him.
He looked at her and almost smiled. “What shall I wish for?”
She shook her head. “It’s your wish. And don’t tell me, or else it won’t come true.”
His face took on a hint of an attitude, teasing her. “Okay. I know what I’m going to wish for.”
She knew he didn’t mean anything by it; still, the implication was there, hovering in the air between them. She felt herself flushing and turned away, biting her lip.
“Go ahead. Blow it out. I won’t watch.”
“Why not?” He blew out the small fire and picked up a fork. “Anyone can watch. It’s not much of an event, you know.”
He broke off a bit of the pastry onto his fork, and, instead of taking the bite himself, he waited until she’d turned back and then popped it between her lips and left it there.
“Hey!” She ate it quickly, half laughing. “That was for you. I ate enough of it myself when I was making the thing.”
He stopped, staring at her. The tiramisu was a thing of beauty, the dark of the coffee flavor and the cocoa topping a striking contrast to the light-as-a-feather, rich, creamy layers. It was a mystery to him how anyone made such a thing, and the thought that she had created it on her own was a revelation. Her talents were legion, it seemed.
“You made it yourself?”
She nodded. Yes, she had, thinking of him the whole time and warding off Susa, who’d wanted to take over.
Max shook his head as he studied her face, searching her eyes, sketching a trail of interest along the line of her chin. “You made me that delicious pasta and you made me my birthday dessert with your own hands.” His eyes seemed to glow with a special light and his voice was so quiet, she could hardly hear him. “What can I do for you in return, Isabella?”
She met his gaze and held it. “You know what I want,” she said, almost as softly as he had spoken.
He stared into her eyes a moment longer, then his face took on an expression she couldn’t translate into anything but regret. Looking down, he began to eat and he didn’t speak again until he had finished.
“Thank you,” he said simply. “I appreciate this.”
She waited. Was he going to relent? Was he going to tell her she could have another try at his hillside? She waited another moment, but he didn’t seem to have anything else to say, so she sighed and rose, beginning to clear the plates away.
“I suppose I’d better get all this cleaned up,” she said, wondering if she’d actually made any impression on him at all. “I’m sure you have people coming over to help you celebrate tonight.”
He looked up at her with a frown. “I don’t see visitors. Not ever. I thought you understood that.”
She stopped, staring at him. “Not anyone?”
“No. Not anyone.”
Her blue eyes betrayed her bewilderment. “Why not?”
He sighed and threw down his napkin, then said in a clipped tone, “I think that’s self-evident.”
She sank back into her chair and gaped at him. She remembered suddenly what Susa had said about his having lost his young wife years
