her, he kept remembering things as if they were perfect. Clearly, they hadn’t been.
At the end of the night, he sat at the bar with Rafe, helping with the next day’s menu, as he surreptitiously watched the waitresses clear the dining room.
Halfway through a suggestion for a tangier sauce, his brain stalled. This time Rafe only sighed. But Mic had had enough.
No one could be as perfect as he remembered Lily to be. Yet, he couldn’t seem to convince himself of that with simple words. Mostly because he was curious.
He’d loved her enough at one time to want to marry her. She’d broken his heart. And now here she was, a waitress. Somehow he’d always believed she’d left him for something more. Something better.
So why was she still here in Monte Calanetti?
The next day, Lily placed her order for a latte and scone at the coffeehouse. But before she could pay, a hand came from behind, giving the money to the cashier.
She spun around. Mic.
Her heart speeded up and her stomach plummeted. She’d hoped her time off would be her chance to get away from his probing eyes. The day before, he’d done nothing but stare at her. She’d expected anger. Maybe a little bit of resentment. But curiosity? What if he asked her how she’d spent the last eight years? How sad would it be to have to admit she and her sister would have been destitute had it not been for Signor Bartolini, owner of Palazzo di Comparino, giving them a place to live when she took the job as his maid?
“I can afford my own coffee now.”
He sniffed a laugh. “Funny, I remember when we had to scrape together our pennies to buy one and then we’d share it.”
She smiled. “Yes. Our Sunday morning treat.” Again, she thought of the last sip he’d always saved for her. The memory nearly brought tears to her eyes.
“So how is your sister?”
Her gaze jerked to his. “She’s good. At university now.”
He chuckled. “That was a fast eight years.”
She glanced away as the barista called her name and handed her coffee and scone to her. “Yes. It was.”
“And what about you?”
Her nerve endings quivered. She’d let him leave her so he could become successful. The last thing she wanted to admit was what a failure she’d been. “What about me?”
“How have you been?”
He motioned to an empty table and her heart stuttered. He was going to sit with her?
She sighed at her own stupidity. Of course, he was. Eight years had gone by. Those eight years had been very good to him. She was the one with the past she wanted to hide. And if she made a big deal of this, he’d probe until he discovered the things that would humiliate her. Even if she told him she’d enrolled at university with Melony but had stayed behind the first semester to give her sister a taste of freedom, it would just prove it had taken her almost eight years to get her life together.
She led them to the table, slid out of her coat and sat, pretending that being so close to him didn’t set off a firestorm of flutters in her stomach. “I’ve been fine. Busy. How about you?”
“I’m actually between jobs. I’ve been offered a partnership in a restaurant in Paris. I’m probably going to take it but I have a few weeks to think it through.”
She smiled. “It’s nice that you have options.”
His blue eyes twinkled with the joy of his success. “It is. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t appreciate how lucky I am.”
He shifted a little closer, not something the old Mic would have done, and Lily’s nerves prickled. Even in his expensive jacket and designer jeans and shirt, she’d been seeing him as the Mic she’d loved. But as he had said, eight years had gone by. He had money now and fame.
She looked deeper into his shiny blue eyes, and saw an edginess that hadn’t been there before.
“And it’s the fact that I’ve always been lucky that makes it all the more puzzling that you dumped me.”
“I didn’t dump you. I just didn’t accept your marriage proposal.”
“Why?” He moved closer and ran his thumb along her jaw. “You certainly couldn’t complain about our chemistry. So what happened?”
Oh, she was tempted to tell him. To admit that she’d loved him too much to risk the success he was working so hard to achieve. But that glimmer in his eyes scared her silly. Her Mic had been proud but sweet. This Mic was strong. Sophisticated. If she told him she’d worried that she and her troubles would drag him down, God knows how he’d react. Would he see her sacrifice for what it had been? Or would he see her act of love as a slur against his manhood? The great Michele Patruno could make kings putty with his fine food, but he couldn’t support the woman he loved?
She rose from her seat. “It’s over now. Water under the bridge. No point in talking about it.”
He sat back, bracing his arms on the chairs on either side of him, looking so sexy and male she could have swooned. “Interesting. I would have thought you’d simply remind me that you didn’t love me.”
Her face reddened. Why hadn’t she just said that? “Why make me repeat it?”
“Why not? If it’s a simple fact, it should be easy to say.”
“After eight years, it shouldn’t matter.”
“After eight years, you shouldn’t stumble over it.”
She shook her head, furious with him for pushing. “Don’t criticize me for not wanting to say something that was hard enough the first time.”
He rose in a movement so swift and fluid she didn’t realize what he was about to do until he caught her wrist. They stood so close she could almost feel his chest rising and falling and the heat coming from his muscled body.
“Is that what you think I’m doing? Criticizing you?”
She lifted her chin, met his gaze. “Aren’t you?”
He shifted a millimeter closer. Everything feminine in her trembled with longing. Reality combined with memories and she had fight not to fall into his arms and beg for another chance. But she’d lost her chance with the Mic she’d loved, and this Mic—Oh, this Mic—might be a little too much for her.
“I’m not criticizing you. I’m just curious. Interested.”
The shimmer that came to his blue eyes scared her silly. Eight years of working in some of Europe’s finest restaurants, meeting some of the world’s
