“I really need a coffee.”
He stretched his neck slowly before jerking a nod and stepping over to the barista machine. In no time at all, he was working it like a pro.
“Where are all the staff?” she asked into the silence.
“I only have a skeleton staff on Sundays, and they’re at church.” He turned his stare to her. “Are you hungry?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sit down. I’ll make you some midnight spaghetti.”
“I don’t think I can get on the stool,” she confessed. “I feel too wobbly.”
A moment later, his hands were at her waist and he was lifting her onto one of the high stools around the island. As soon as she was safely seated, he let go and walked away without a word, which unsettled her more than his contained coldness until she reminded herself that he’d only been all over her in the nightclub because of the charade they’d been performing. And she’d only been all over him due to the same charade. Normal private service had resumed, which meant physical contact was strictly limited to sex.
“I don’t know if I can manage pasta,” she whispered when he filled a large pan with boiling water and a liberal amount of salt.
“Trust me, nothing will help your hangover more than a double espresso and a bowl of midnight spaghetti.”
Gabriella didn’t have the energy to point out that she would never trust him. Also, saying it would make her sound churlish, and while she was still unsettled about such contained coldness from a man usually brimming with heat, there was something comforting about the way he was taking charge and feeding her. She’d have expected him to take joy in watching her suffer, not help her feel better.
Folding herself over the island and resting her cheek on her arms, she watched him add spaghetti to the boiling water and wondered if she’d drunk all her loathing for him out of her system, because right then, she couldn’t find it.
“How come you can cook?” she asked as he chopped garlic like a professional. She’d never seen an Esposito do anything more domestic than pour themselves wine or whisky.
“I can’t. I’ve just watched Luigi make it for me enough times in the middle of the night to have an idea of how he does it.” He added a liberal amount of olive oil to a sauté pan and grated pecorino and chopped parsley while it heated. Moments later, the chopped garlic was sizzling in the oil, followed by flakes of red chilli pepper, and then he was using long tongs to lift the spaghetti out of the water and into the pan, stirring as he added the pecorino and parsley.
Barely ten minutes after he asked if she was hungry, she’d finished her espresso and was presented with a bowl of midnight spaghetti that made her mouth water.
It tasted every bit as good as it smelled and, even better, her poor, abused stomach didn’t reject it. “This is really nice,” she said gratefully.
Having taken the stool next to her, he shrugged as if her compliment meant nothing to him. It probably didn’t. To Tommaso, she was a treacherous rat whose opinions on anything were held in less esteem than the views of an actual rodent. Why he’d taken pity on her hangover was beyond her. There was nothing friendly or welcoming about his demeanour, which she supposed was proof that he was as good at acting as she was. She just hoped the disappointment gnawing at her was another hangover symptom.
“Do you remember what you told me last night?” he said, when she’d eaten most of the pasta.
Aware that he was watching her closely, she twirled another load of spaghetti around her fork. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“On the drive home.”
She felt the flush of heat scald her face and neck like the light of a switch being turned on, and hesitated before saying, “That I wanted to have sex with you?”
“You didn’t say that.”
“Oh.” Embarrassed to look at him, she put the spaghetti in her mouth and gazed down at the bowl. She might not have explicitly told him she wanted to have sex, but she’d shown it with her body language, even in the car when it had been just the two of them. All that alcohol had loosened Gabriella’s inhibitions as she’d always feared it would. It’s what had stopped her from getting properly drunk before; terror she would do or say something that would give away her secret loathing of the Espositos. The closest she’d come had been that night at the casino when she and Niccolo had confided in each other, but even then she’d been in control of herself. If Niccolo had responded differently to her question about liking the Espositos, she’d had enough wits left to change the subject and keep her loathing of them a secret contained tightly in her heart.
Now that her treachery was out in the open, there was nothing left for her to hide anymore.
It was ironic that the alcohol had softened her to the only Esposito she’d never been afraid to show her loathing of. But then, her loathing of Tommaso had taken a very different form to her loathing of the rest of them, had always felt intensely personal.
“I’m talking about what you said about our fathers.”
Confused, she lifted her stare back to him.
“You told me my father killed yours.”
“And?”
“And?” he repeated tautly. “You remember saying that?”
