was very last minute, but Lorenzo was sure he could pull it off. I wouldn’t have been able to. Not with the things on the menu.’
Oblivious to Scarlett’s surprise, Isabella went on. ‘The movie star was happy, though. One of the kitchen hands made the delivery and Lorenzo said at the prices he insisted on to do the catering, the restaurant will have cleaned up on it financially.’
A movie star?
A last-minute order for a special lunch for twelve people?
This was the reason why Lorenzo hadn’t come immediately to yesterday’s meeting?
Why hadn’t he said so? Scarlett stared at her cousin as yesterday’s impressions realigned themselves. ‘I wasn’t aware—’
‘I thought Lorenzo would have explained it to you. He’d just finished tempering the chocolate rolls when he asked me to take over while he had his meeting with you. I was a nervous wreck even in that short span of time. I can cope with our regular menu, but that?’ Isabella’s eyes glazed over as she started listing dishes.
‘Chocolate tart, limone mousse, a chocolate and hazelnut gateau, vanilla and raspberry chiffon cake, lime-custard-stuffed profiteroles, built into a profiterole tree if you please, and that was only one course of the menu.’ She drew a breath. ‘Even with the meeting with you in the middle of it, Lorenzo managed and got flawless results.’
‘Oh.’ Scarlett found herself in the rare position of feeling as though she hadn’t really behaved appropriately in relation to her work, that she’d perhaps brought personal issues into it and allowed those to colour her judgement. That she’d been hard on Lorenzo and hadn’t really given him a chance to explain things. That was bad management on her part, and, no matter what her personal feelings might be towards him, he’d shown dedication and commitment to Rosa.
‘Well, I’d better get going.’ Isabella gave her a quick hug again. ‘See you in a while.’ She walked off.
‘Yes. See you.’ Scarlett frowned and started towards the restaurant.
It appears I may have misjudged you yesterday, Lorenzo. Scarlett practised the words in her mind as she pushed open one of the kitchen’s swing doors. Lorenzo might have played her false five years ago, and Scarlett wasn’t about to forget that. But when Scarlett made a mistake in her work, she admitted it. Now she just had to find Lorenzo, and say those words to his face. Then she could get on with the real work of the day with her thoughts at peace.
It only took a second for Scarlett to realise that her hopes of catching Lorenzo alone were not to be. Two seconds later she comprehended that the conversation being conducted beyond a bank of open shelving was not a happy one.
Lorenzo and another male stood with their backs turned to her. They were unaware of her presence. They spoke in Italian in muted voices that seemed all the more intense for that fact. The young kitchen hand had a backpack dangling from his hand, and Lorenzo plunked two bottles of some kind of spirits down on a work surface before he turned back to the boy.
From the stiffness of Lorenzo’s back, and the guilt Scarlett could see written all over the boy even from this distance, it was clear Lorenzo had caught the young man trying to steal the bottles. What was the teenager’s name? Scarlett ran her mental list from yesterday’s ‘meet the staff’ moments. Dante…
Scarlett’s brows drew together. Was this where Rosa’s profits had gone? Taken by light fingers? She wanted to wade in, and yet something in Dante’s posture and expression, and the way Lorenzo was holding his emotions in, made her hesitate. And the boy was young. He couldn’t have worked here all that long. Certainly not long enough to sink Rosa financially through petty theft, even though this was a very serious thing to have happen.
As Scarlett stood there Lorenzo’s low words carried to her.
‘This stunt—’ He gestured towards the bottles. ‘I can’t believe you’d do such a thing. You’re not a bad boy, Dante. Not everyone on this team is here by my choice but you’re someone I’ve really wanted to keep. You try hard; you’re keen to learn. You’ve always made your shifts without any problems at all. You’ll take direction and you have a natural flair in the kitchen. You have it in you to become a good chef one day.’
‘I’m sorry. I know this was stupid. Mamma has this new boyfriend—’ The boy cut his words off abruptly and for a moment looked trapped. ‘I knew taking the bottles was wrong and I’ve never done it before. I promise you.’ The words were passionate. ‘Please, don’t fire me.’
‘You’re the only child at home, if I remember rightly?’ Lorenzo said the words as though they meant nothing, yet Scarlett could see enough from the view of his profile to understand that he wanted to know more.
‘Yes. I’m an only child.’ The boy confirmed this.
‘You took Luca’s hidden spare key yesterday and came in to steal the wine this morning.’ Lorenzo made the statement flatly. ‘Weren’t you worried I might catch you? Everyone knows I start earlier than my shifts and often work later, too.’
‘I don’t know.’ Dante shrugged skinny shoulders and then seemed to almost wince as he stopped the movement. ‘I guess I didn’t think about that.’
But Lorenzo was thinking about that.
And Scarlett thought about that.
Why would this boy, who seemed clever and capable and able to plan such a thing in the first place, plan it for this late in the morning?
If a part of Dante had hoped to be caught, then Scarlett was inclined to believe he hadn’t done this before and hadn’t really wanted to do it now. Was his behaviour a cry for help?
Even so, how to deal with such a thing? Should she step forward? Intervene? Before Scarlett could decide or announce her presence, Lorenzo spoke again.
‘Trouble in here is the last thing I need right now, Dante. The last thing any of us needs.’ He tugged his chef’s jacket into order. ‘Our new financial manager will want an accounting of every Euro that comes and goes in this kitchen. You couldn’t have picked a worse time to try to steal.’
The boy looked stricken. ‘If you speak with her—’
‘She may be just as cold about this as her mother would be. Scarlett Gibson is Lisa Firenzi’s daughter. Don’t think for a moment that Scarlett isn’t equally capable of the same level of business-minded lack of emotion.’ He drew a breath. ‘I don’t know if I can protect you from where Scarlett might want to take this.’
Until then the boy had still maintained a small amount of youthful expectation that the ‘real grown-up’—in this case, Lorenzo—would be able to fix this for him. That expectation faded to outright concern now.
In tandem with Dante’s reaction, anger inside Scarlett began to bubble up. So she was the ogre of the piece now? The one who could single-handedly destroy this boy, who clearly simply needed someone to help him get back on a straight path?
Scarlett would have Lorenzo know that she had…Never dealt with anything quite like this.
Scarlett drew a deep breath, but it still didn’t help her to dispense with the tight ache in the middle of her chest that had come from Lorenzo saying she was cold.
Could
