it.’
‘Emilio tells me you’ve been asking him lots of questions.’
There was a slight edge to her grandfather’s tone—something she’d never known before—and it put her on full alert. Was Mancuso trying to make trouble between them? ‘Well, I guess I have—I’ve been trying to get to know the business properly. If I’ve been a nuisance, then I’m sorry. I’ll try not to bother him so much in future.’
‘It’s not that.’ Gino paused. ‘He feels you don’t trust him.’
Help. How did she answer that?
Obviously her expression did it for her, because her grandfather sighed. ‘Emilio’s a good man, Carenza. He’s looked after the business for the last five years, been my right-hand man for many years more than that. He doesn’t deserve to be treated like this.’
Carenza wasn’t so sure, but she had no proof to back up her feelings. And a hunch wasn’t enough.
Dante’s voice echoed in her head. Gather all your facts, first.
As if her grandfather could read her mind, he said, ‘I hear you’ve been seeing Dante Romano.’
‘He’s my business mentor,’ she explained. Her grandfather didn’t need to know the rest of it.
‘You do know he wanted to buy the business?’
‘Yes, which makes him the best person I could ask.’ She gave an expressive shrug. ‘You know what they say. Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.’ Not that Dante was her enemy. Even when they didn’t see eye to eye.
Gino raised an eyebrow. ‘Be careful, tesoro.’
‘You’re warning me off him?’
‘Not in business. Dante’s as straight as they come. But don’t lose your heart to him. As soon as he sees wedding bells in a girlfriend’s eyes, he leaves her.’
‘I’m not his girlfriend.’ And she certainly wasn’t telling her grandfather about that side of her relationship with Dante. That was just between her and Dante.
‘Just be careful. And don’t break his heart, either.’
She looked at him, hurt. ‘How do you mean?’
‘You’re not one to settle.’
Did he know about what had happened in London, last year? she wondered. If Dante knew, anyone else could find out, too, and tell her grandfather. Not Dante—she knew he’d never undermine her like that. But if Mancuso had any idea … Playing for time, she said, ‘I don’t understand, Nonno.’
‘It’d be easy for a man to lose his heart to you, tesoro. You’re sweet and you’re beautiful,’ he said. ‘But you’re twenty-eight years old and you still haven’t found the man you want to settle down with. And Dante Romano had a rough time, as a kid.’
That didn’t surprise her. It would explain why he was so self-contained, why he didn’t let people close. And yet she knew he was close to his mother and his sister. ‘What do you mean by “a rough time”, Nonno?’
Gino shook his head. ‘It’s not for me to talk about.’
And she was pretty sure that Dante wouldn’t tell her. ‘He said you gave him a chance, when he was younger,’ she said.
‘I gave him a job.’ Gino flapped his hand dismissively.
‘I get the impression it was more than that.’
‘And a little advice when he bought the first restaurant.’
‘Exactly. He feels he owes you. That’s why he’s mentoring me.’
‘Hmm. Well, just be careful,’ Gino said.
Carenza was still seething about the way Emilio Mancuso had gone to her grandfather behind her back when she called in at Dante’s office for her mentoring session on Wednesday evening.
He took one look at her. ‘I’m feeding you first. You need carbs.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘No, you’re not. Trust me to order for you?’
‘Anything except clams.’ She pulled a face.
‘That’s a shame, because Mario’s been experimenting with pasta vongole—it has a chilli kick and it’s seriously good.’
‘Really not clams, please,’ she repeated.
Rosemary bread and olives helped settle her temper; the pasta Alfredo, followed by a rich beef stew with tiny new potatoes and steamed mangetout, helped even more.
And then Dante gave her ice cream.
She tasted it gingerly. ‘Not as good as mine,’ she said, though she finished the bowl—the sugar rush was just what she needed to get rid of the last bit of her bad mood. ‘I think you need to change your supplier.’
‘Do you have anyone in mind?’
He was teasing her, and she knew it. She smiled. ‘I might do.’
‘Give me a quote, and we’ll talk about it.’ His smile faded. ‘Talking of quotations—I heard back from your supplier.’
‘And? ‘
Without comment, Dante cleared away the plates, then placed the quotation in front of her.
She stared at it. ‘But—that’s an awful lot less than they’re charging me.’
‘I thought it might be,’ he said.
‘Is this why my business is going downhill? This is what you thought when you said it was more than just the recession?’
‘It’s one of the reasons,’ he said. ‘But what’s really worrying me is what you told me on Saturday—that your input is going up when your output is going down. It’s not as if your business is something like a bakery, where you have to throw out unsold bread and pastries because they’re stale, or sandwich shops where you have to get rid of the fillings because they’re perishable and food hygiene rules demand it. By definition, gelati’s frozen. It doesn’t go off from one day to the next. Unless you have a freezer break-down—when you’d be throwing out everything and your losses would be insured in any case—there’s no reason why you should throw the leftover gelati away each day. And I’m pretty sure you don’t.’
She absorbed his words—and what he hadn’t said explicitly really shocked her. ‘You think someone’s cheating us?’
He was silent.
‘Mancuso?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But why? How?’
He spread
