style="font-size:15px;"> After Dani rejected the final option, Maria shook Rafe’s hand, then Dani’s and said, “I’ll check our listings again and get back to you.”
She slid into her car and Dani sighed, glad to be rid of her. Not that Maria wasn’t nice, but with her decision about staying in Italy up in the air, looking for somewhere to live seemed premature. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize quite yet.” He pulled his cell phone from his jacket and dialed a number. “Carlo, this is Rafe. Could you have a key for the empty condo at the front desk? Grazie.” He slipped his phone into his jacket again.
She frowned at him. “You have a place to show me?”
He headed for his SUV, motioning for her to follow him. “Actually, I thought Maria would have taken you to his apartment first. It’s a newly renovated condo in my building.”
She stopped walking. “Your building?” She might be smart enough to realize she and Rafe were a bad bet, but all along she’d acknowledged that their spending too much time together was tempting fate. Now he wanted them to live in the same building?
“After Emory, you are my most valued employee. A huge part of Mancini’s success. We need to be available for each other. Plus, there would be two floors between us. It’s not like we’d even run into each other.”
She still hesitated. “Your building’s that big?”
“No. I value my privacy that much.” He sighed. “Seriously. Just come with me to see the place and you will understand.”
Dani glanced around as she entered the renovated old building, Rafe behind her. Black-and-white block tiles were accented by red sofas and chairs in a lounge area of the lobby. The desk for the doorman sat discreetly in a corner.
Leaning over her shoulder, Rafe said, “My home is the penthouse.”
His warm breath tickled her ear and desire poured through her. She almost turned and yelled at him for flirting with her. Instead, she squelched the feeling. He probably wasn’t flirting with her. This was just who he was. Gorgeous. Sinfully sexy. And naturally flirtatious. If she really intended to stay in Italy and work for him, she had to get accustomed to him. As she’d realized after she’d spoken to Paul, she would need discipline and common sense to keep her sanity.
He pointed at the side-by-side elevators. “I don’t use those, and you can’t use them to get to my apartment.”
His breath tiptoed to her neck and trickled down her spine. Still, she kept her expression neutral when she turned and put them face-to-face, so close she could see the little flecks of silver in his eyes.
Just as her reactions couldn’t matter, how he looked—his sexy face, his smoky eyes—also had to be irrelevant. If she didn’t put all this into perspective now, this temptation could rule her life. Or ruin her life.
She gave him her most professional smile. “And I’d be a few floors away?”
“Not just a few floors, but also a locked elevator.”
Dangling the apartment key, he motioned for her to enter the elevator when it arrived. They rode up in silence. He unlocked the door to the available unit and she gasped.
“Oh, my God.” She spun to face him. “I can afford this?”
He laughed. “Yes.”
From the look of the lobby, she’d expected the apartment to be ultramodern. The kind of place she would have killed to have in New York. Black-and-white. Sharp, but sterile. Something cool and sophisticated for her and distant Paul.
But warm beiges and yellows covered these walls. The kitchen area was cozy, with a granite-topped breakfast bar where she could put three stools.
She saw it filled with people. Louisa. Coworkers from Mancini’s. And neighbors she’d meet who could become like a family.
She caught that thought before it could take root. Something about Italy always caused her to see things through rose-colored glasses, and if she didn’t stop, she was going to end up making this choice before she knew for certain that she could work with Rafe as a friend or a business associate, and forget about trying for anything more.
She turned to Rafe again. “Don’t make me want something I can’t have.”
“I already told you that you can afford it.”
“I know.”
“So why do you think you can’t have it?”
It was exactly what she’d dreamed of as a child, but she couldn’t let herself fall in love with it. Or let Rafe see just how drawn she was to this place. If he knew her weakness, he’d easily lure her into staying before she was sure it was the right thing to do.
She pointed at the kitchen, which managed to look cozy even with sleek stainless-steel appliances, dark cabinets and shiny surfaces. “It’s awfully modern.”
“So you want to go back to the farmhouse with the holes in the wall?”
“No.” She turned away again, though she lovingly ran her hand along the granite countertop, imagining herself rolling out dough to make cut-out cookies. She’d paint them with sugary frosting and serve them to friends at Christmas. “I want a homey kitchen that smells like heaven.”
“You have that at Mancini’s.”
“I want a big fat sofa with a matching chair that feels like it swallows you up when you sit in it.”
“You can buy whatever furniture you want.”
“I want to turn my thermostat down to fifty-eight at night so I can snuggle under thick covers.”
He stared at her as if she were crazy. “And you can do that here.”
“Maybe.”
“Undoubtedly.” He sighed. “You have an idealized vision of home.”
“Most foster kids do.”
He leaned his shoulder against the wall near the kitchen. His smoky eyes filled with curiosity. She wasn’t surprised when he said, “You’ve never really told me about your life. You mentioned getting shuffled from foster home to foster home, but you never explained how you got into foster care in the first place.”
She shrugged. Every time she thought about being six years old, or eight years old, or ten years old—shifted every few months to the house of a stranger, trying unsuccessfully to mingle with the other kids—a flash of rejection froze her heart. She was an adult before she’d realized no one had rejected her, per se. Each child was only protecting himself. They’d all been hurt. They were all afraid. Not connecting was how they coped.
Nonetheless, the memories of crying herself to sleep and longing for something better still guided her. It was why she believed she could keep her distance from Rafe. Common sense and a longing for stability directed her decisions. Along with a brutal truth. The world was a difficult place. She knew that because she’d lived it.
“There’s not
