ran his hand along the back of his neck. “We’re fine.”
Lily quietly said, “Yes, Chef Rafe. We are fine.”
But Rafe took Mic’s shoulders and turned him to the back door. “No. I hear this all day. I grow tired of it. Go outside and solve it.”
Lily followed Mic out the door. When it closed behind them, he turned on Lily.
“You gutted me with your refusal of my proposal. You said, ‘No. I can’t marry you.’ Then you’d looked me in the eye and said, ‘I don’t love you.’ What did you expect me to do?”
She stormed over to him, as angry as he was, and poked her finger into his chest. “I expected you to think. My God, Mic. I was eighteen and I had a ten-year-old sister who was grieving her parents. You were the bright spot in our lives and at my first confused answer, you left. You didn’t even come by the next day to ask if I was sure. To talk it out. You just left.”
He caught the finger jabbing into his chest. “You want me to say I’m sorry you broke my heart? Are you nuts?”
She looked up into his eyes. “I want you to say my sacrifice was worth it. That you’re who you wanted to be. That you’re grateful.”
“Now I’m to be grateful that you broke my heart?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Yes.”
The sight of her tears kicked away any common sense he might have. He caught her shoulders and drew her up as his head lowered. Their lips met in a blinding flash of need so intense it seemed to swallow both of them in its angry vortex. Her lips answered his raw need as he plundered her mouth. Desire burst through him. Heat that he remembered from a long-ago love.
Lily. His Lily. Was in his arms.
Breathless desire tumbled through Lily. Fire and ice raced down her spine. It had been so long since anyone had kissed her, touched her, that her soul wept with longing. She just wanted to be loved again. To feel whole again.
The only time she’d ever felt whole had been with Mic. But as quickly as she thought that, she remembered that this might be Mic, but he wasn’t the same man she’d loved. This Mic was strong, smart, sophisticated. In the eight years she’d struggled for food and shelter for a ten-year-old sister, he’d seen the world.
She pushed herself away from him. “Don’t. Stop.”
His blue eyes skimmed her face. “I’m to be sorry for this too?”
She cleared the ache in her throat, took a few more steps back. “No.” Running her fingers through her hair, she glanced to the right, unable to meet his gaze. How did a woman say no to the man who had once been the other half of her?
“This is wrong.”
“This feels right.”
“Really? You’re going to stay this time?”
He laughed. “Wow, you get right to the hard questions. You couldn’t even let us spend a few weeks, or even days, together before you took us right to the bottom line.”
“We’re not the same people.”
“So?”
“So that means we can’t pick up where we left off. We’d have to start over. And I’m not sure that’s possible for us.”
“Because I hurt you?”
She smiled slightly at the fact that he was finally admitting it. She met his gaze. “Because I hurt you.”
“We hurt each other.”
“And in eight years apart we became two different people.”
He looked away, then looked back at her. “I think I see.”
She expected relief to sigh through her. Instead, tears pricked her eyes. “I better get back in.”
She turned quickly and returned to the kitchen, but she didn’t stop or even pause. The tears in her eyes were bursting through and she needed a minute.
A few quick dodges of tables, customers and waitresses took her to the restroom. Inside, she locked the door and leaned against the cool wall.
Though she believed every word she’d said to Mic—they were different people; they could not pick up where they left off—she hated them.
“Lily?” Mila, one of the other waitresses, knocked on the door. “Are you okay?”
She grabbed a tissue from the box on the counter. “I’m fine.”
“Do you need to talk?”
Her breath shuddered into her lungs, heavy with the need to sob, but she straightened her shoulders. “No. I’m fine.”
She was always fine. In eight years, she hadn’t broken down. She’d done her duties. Raised her sister. Taken care of Signor Bartolini. And even planned a real future when she enrolled in university for next semester. She had everything under control. She did not need a shoulder to cry on, someone to take care of her. She was strong.
But that didn’t mean she didn’t want one more night with Mic. One night when she wouldn’t feel alone.
Mic understood Lily avoiding him the next few days at the restaurant, but he didn’t like it. He scheduled himself for the same day off that she had, but she didn’t go to the coffeehouse as she had on her other day off.
He sat in the quiet bistro, waiting for her, not quite sure what he expected. He only knew that kiss had been explosive. The way she’d clung to him gave him a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach, a need to protect her so fierce it threatened to consume him.
After tossing his coffee cup into the trash on the way out, he pushed open the door and breathed the very cold air of Monte Calanetti in January. He decided to take a walk, but didn’t get too far before he saw Lily coming out of an older, but renovated building. He stopped. Not seeing him, she turned to the left and headed up the street. He stared at the building. She’d struggled after he’d left. So what was she doing coming out of a newly renovated building this early in the morning? Unless this was the home of her lover?
Jealousy, swift and hot, raged through him. He followed her up the street, keeping a safe distance, not quite sure what he expected to see. The coffeehouse was in the other direction. So he knew she wasn’t going for coffee for her lover. But maybe a bagel from the bakery?
That quickened his steps. He didn’t know why he cared so much. He’d had lovers over the past eight years. But Lily … was his. Or had been. Maybe it was time to remember that?
He nearly turned to walk away, but she shifted to the right, across the street, toward the fountain.
