choked Rafe. He’d spent the past years believing the best way to live his dream was to hold himself back, forget love, when the truth was he simply needed to meet the right woman to realize his dream would be hollow, empty without her.
“Hey.” Daniella walked up beside him. “Dinner is over. We can dismantle our warmers, take our trays and go home.”
He faced her. Emotions churned inside him. Feelings for Dani that took root and held on. He’d found his one. He’d fired her, yelled at her, asked her to become his lover. And she’d held her ground. Stood up to him. Refused him. Forced him to work by her terms. And she had won him.
But he had absolutely no idea how to tell her that.
She picked up an empty tray and headed for his SUV. Grabbing up another empty tray, he scurried after her.
“I’ve been thinking about our choice.”
She slid the tray into the SUV. “Our choice?”
“You know. Our choice not to—”
Before he could finish, the busboys came out of the tent with more trays. Frustration stiffened his back. With a quick glance at him, Dani walked back to the noisy reception for more pans. The busboys got the warmers.
Simmering with the need to talk, Rafe silently packed it all inside the back of his SUV.
Nerves filled him as he drove his empty pans, warmers and employees to Mancini’s. When they arrived, the restaurant bustled with diners. Emory raced around the kitchen like a madman. Daniella pitched in to help Allegra. Rafe put on his smock, washed his hands and helped Emory.
Time flew, as it always did when he was busy, but Rafe kept watching Daniella. Something was on her mind. She smiled. She worked. She teased with staff. But he heard something in her voice. A catch? No it was more of an easing back. The click of connection he always heard when she spoke with staff was missing. It was as if she were distancing herself—
Oh, dear God.
In all the hustle and bustle that had taken place in the past four weeks, she’d never made the commitment to stay.
And she had a plane ticket for the following morning.
The night wound down. Emory headed for the office to do some paperwork. Rafe casually ambled into the dining room. As the last of the waitstaff left, he pulled a bottle of Chianti from the rack and walked around the bar to a stool.
He watched Dani pause at the podium, as if torn between reaching for her coat and joining him. His heart chugged. Everything inside him froze.
Finally, she turned to him. Her lips lifted into a warm smile and she sashayed over.
Interpreting her coming to him as a good sign, he didn’t give himself time to think twice. He caught her hands, lifted both to his lips and said, “Pick me.”
Her brow furrowed. “What?”
“I know you’re thinking about leaving. I see it on your face. Hear it in your voice. I know you think you have nothing here but a job, but that’s not true. I need you for so much more. So pick me. Do not work for me. Pick me. Keep me. Take me.”
Her breath hitched. “You’re asking me to quit?”
“No.” He licked his suddenly dry lips. He’d known this woman only twenty-four days. Yet what he felt was stronger than anything he’d ever felt before.
“Daniella, I think I want you to marry me.”
* * *
Dani’s heart bounced to a stop as she yanked her hands out of his.
“What?”
“I want you to marry me.”
She couldn’t stop the thrill that raced through her, but even through her shock she’d heard his words clearly. “You said think. You said you think you want to marry me.”
He laughed a bit as he pulled his hand through his hair. “It’s so fast for me. My God, I never even thought I’d want to get married. Now I can’t imagine my life without you.” He caught her hand again, caught her gaze. “Marry me.”
His voice had become stronger. His conviction obvious.
“Oh.” She wanted to say yes so bad it hurt to wrestle the word back down her throat. But she had to. “For a month you’ve said you don’t do relationships. Now suddenly you want to marry me?”
He laughed. “All these years, I thought I was weak because I gave Kamila what she wanted and she left me anyway. So I made myself strong. People saw me as selfish. I thought I was determined.”
“I understand that.”
“Now I see I was selfish. I did not want to lose my dream again.”
“I understand that, too.”
He shook his head fiercely. “You’re missing what I’m telling you. I might have been broken by her loss, but Kamila was the wrong woman for me. I was never my real self with her. I was one compromise after another. With you, I am me. I see my temper and I rein it back. I see myself with kids. I see a house. I long to make you happy.”
Oh, dear God, did the man have no heart? “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”
“I never say things I don’t mean. I love you, Daniella.” He reached for her again. “Do not get on that plane tomorrow.”
She stepped back, so far that he couldn’t touch her, and pressed her fingers to her lips. Her heart so very desperately wanted to believe every word he said. Her brain had been around, though, for every time that same heart was broken. This man had called Paul’s proposal a stopgap measure...yet, here he was doing the same thing.
“No.”
His face fell. “No?”
“What did you tell me about Paul asking to marry me the day before I left New York?”
He frowned.
“You said it was a stopgap measure. A way to keep me.”
He walked toward her. “Daniella...”
She halted him with a wave of her hand. “Don’t. I feel foolish enough already. You’re afraid I’m going to go home so you make a proposal that mocks everything I believe in.”
She yearned to close her eyes at the horrible sense of how little he thought of her, but she held them open, held back her tears and made the hardest decision of her life.
“I’m going back to New York.” Her heart splintered in two as she realized this really was the end. They’d never bump into each other at a coffee shop, never sit beside each other in the subway, never accidentally go to the same dry cleaner. He lived thousands of miles away from her and there’d be no chance for them to have the time they needed to really fall in love. He’d robbed them of that with his insulting proposal.
“Mancini’s
