place is no more. Would you like the second key?’
‘No, I have one from my uncle.’ Luca had run Rosa with a naive degree of trust in some respects. This became more and more clear to Scarlett the more she learned about the restaurant.
‘Then perhaps we should go.’ Lorenzo uttered the words quietly.
‘Yes.’ Scarlett glanced up. The expression in Lorenzo’s eyes made her breath catch in her throat.
Awareness, consciousness, memory. They were all there and for one brief moment they were all inside her, too. The feelings were so unexpected, and so opposite to what Scarlett had believed she felt towards him for five years, that she froze.
He drew a breath and stilled for a moment too before he blinked and got his feet moving and led the way to the kitchen doors. He pushed one open and stood back for her to precede him.
Somehow they made it outside and somehow she managed to say something about work as they headed across the square towards her bedsit. Her landlady had told her she travelled a lot, which suited Scarlett just fine. ‘I hope the staff will realise they’re not being given unreasonable conditions with the changes I’ve handed to them tonight.’
‘If you continue to make and implement all your decisions without informing me before you put them into action, you’ll make your job here harder than it needs to be.’ His words were a soft murmur as his gaze travelled once again over her face, her eyes, and dropped…to her mouth before he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
Scarlett forced herself to breathe carefully and evenly and not allow herself the same examination he had just taken. ‘You feel that, as Head Chef and Manager, we should join our forces more?’
She had wished she could avoid him as much as she possibly could for the duration, but even Scarlett could admit that wasn’t very practical when he was her assistant, and the most pivotal employee of Rosa.
‘I don’t want to usurp your authority here, but, yes, I do feel we need to work together.’ His expression told her he wanted co-operation between them. ‘I believe your likelihood of success will be better if we combine our efforts.’
He held out one hand, palm up. ‘We would present a united front to the rest of the staff, if nothing else.’
‘It would make for smoother sailing, provided you can accept my—’ Authority? Her being further up the employment ladder than him? Scarlett didn’t quite know how to put it, and she’d never worried about that kind of thing before!
‘Provided I can accept your leadership in this workplace.’ He turned, just a little turn towards her, but it made the difference between two people talking from their safe distances as they faced forwards and walked, and something just that little bit more intimate.
Scarlett doubted he was even aware he’d done it, and she could have taken one step away from him in any direction to put an end to that feeling, but instead she continued to walk exactly as close as she was to him.
Scarlett shoved her ribbon into the pocket of her dress and told herself to get over it.
Whatever it was, exactly.
Well, she supposed ‘it’ was this strange feeling she had that felt like a combination of history and remembering and becoming conscious of Lorenzo all over again in ways she hadn’t anticipated and didn’t welcome.
Except that no matter how much you tell yourself you’re not, there’s a part of you that is aware of him.
‘I’m prepared to discuss things with you, but my decisions about the finances here are still final, no matter whether you agree with them or not.’ Even so saying, she felt the need to temper her statement. ‘I can see that two heads might be better than one with some of this. I suppose we can at least try.’
She had to do what was best for Rosa. If she felt this was best, such a decision didn’t have to feel dangerous to Scarlett, dangerous to her emotional well-being. She wasn’t about to fall in love with Lorenzo again, for crying out loud. They could work side by side for the betterment of Rosa. In fact, doing so would be really good for her because it would prove to her that she could remain completely emotionally distanced from him.
And physical attraction, Scarlett?
These few moments this evening of feeling a little too conscious of him, well, they were probably just a couple of old memories surfacing. They didn’t mean anything and would be long gone and forgotten by tomorrow morning when she met him again at work.
Scarlett drew a breath that filled her lungs with the blunted scent of his aftershave lotion and realised they were somehow walking even closer than they had been. Their shoulders were leaning towards each other. He smelled familiar and…she was far too tired for this right now. Her defences were not as strong as they should be.
‘Thank you. I want to help you, Scarlett, not get in the way of what you’re trying to do here.’ Lorenzo drew a deep breath.
They arrived at her bedsit and stepped into the lee of the door lintel.
‘Goodnight—’
‘Thank you for seeing me—’
He reached for her hand, perhaps to shake it.
Scarlett took a step towards the door as he did so, and they each stepped into the other’s path. Lorenzo’s hands came up to cup her elbows, perhaps to hold her still while he stepped around her.
Instead she glanced up. He glanced down into her eyes and a moment later, their lips met.
Chapter Four
‘GOODNIGHT. I—thank you for seeing me home.’ Scarlett uttered the words through lips that wanted to deny what had just happened.
Wanted to deny a kiss that had lasted less than a second, a mere brush of lips against lips before she and Lorenzo had both…broken away. They’d each stepped back as though they’d been burnt. ‘I have to—’
She couldn’t make calm words come out, couldn’t do anything to downplay something that shouldn’t even need to be downplayed and yet, to Scarlett, the entire world had stopped and then started up again and now it was spinning strangely and nothing felt quite right because of Lorenzo’s kiss…
Barely even a kiss, Scarlett.
Somehow she got her key straight into the lock, twisted it and got the door open. Her feet carried her through and she closed the door. She didn’t look back, and then through the closed door she heard his footsteps taking him away in a rapid stride that went, and then half missed a step, and then kept going.
He’d hesitated.
And as that happened Scarlett had leaned her shoulder against the closed door and shut her eyes and silently willed…What? For him to stop? Keep walking away?
She should have said something. Scarlett shouldn’t have allowed that kiss to happen in the first place. And that was the problem. Scarlett didn’t believe either one of them had anticipated the kiss happening. It hadn’t been planned or thought about. How could she protect against the possibility of something she simply hadn’t expected?
