“Gotta go,” she whispers. “Hang on, yeah? One night at a time.”
I squeeze her hand. Gerard, the head chef, can be a living nightmare to work for. “You, too.”
I watch Savannah hurry back into the kitchen, take a deep breath, and drag myself back to Clive. “The kitchen is on it, sir. Would you like something else while you wait?”
“No,” Clive snaps. Then, in a much sleazier voice: “Unless you’re on the menu.”
My spine stiffens.
From behind him, I hear a chair scrape. I don’t have to turn to know whose.
“Be careful, Mr. Bernardi,” Luca says, voice calm, but laced with something darker. “The staff here is off-limits.”
Clive snorts. “Didn’t know you owned the place, Lucchese.”
“No,” Luca replies. “But I know the value of respect.”
The tension crackles. I feel it like a storm brewing in the air. Before it explodes, I force out a laugh and say, “I’ll be right back with your dish, sir.”
As I walk away, I feel Luca’s eyes on me. Watching. Burning.
But I must be imagining it. There’s no way he’d glance at me twice. No way he’d find anything special to look at in me.
Right?
2
LUCA
She’s exhausted. I can see it in the way her shoulders slope forward, in the way her hands tremble when she balances that overloaded tray. But she doesn’t complain. Not once. Not even when Donald, the pathetic excuse for a manager, throws another barked order at her like she’s a mutt in a kennel.
Erin Monroe.
The name is soft on my tongue, though I’ve never spoken it aloud. Not to her. Not yet. As far as she’s concerned, I’m her stalker, her shadow in the dark. The presence she feels at the back of her neck when she’s walking into the subway on the way home.
But she hasn’t noticed me. She’s trusting, myangioletto. She can’t fathom anyone wanting to do her harm. She lives in the bowels of the Bronx, surrounded by human misery, but somehow, she hasn’t let it taint her. She shines, like a light in the dark.
Mylight in the dark.
She isn’t shining now, though. In fact, she’s flitting from table to table like a ghost, half-present, all grace despite the fatigue weighing her down.
I’ve watched her for weeks. Months. Every night, I reserve the same table. Every night, I sit down and pretend to read reports while I trace the line of her spine with my eyes.
It’s a problem, this obsession of mine. I know that. I’m not the kind of man who has problems. I’m the kind of man whosolvesthem.
But Erin? She’s not just a problem. She’s a temptation.
And that’s so much worse.
“You’re going to burn a hole through her uniform,” Riccardo mutters beside me, barely looking up from his Negroni. “You know that, right?”
I shift my gaze to him just long enough to deliver a glare. “Shouldn’t you be obsessing over the sous chef?”
Riccardo scowls. Next to him, Valerio, hisconsigliere,chuckles. “Touché.”
My ownconsigliereAlberto leans forward, grin wide. “This is going to be fun.”
“Silenzio,” I mutter, but his grin only grows.
