“I saw the ring. I assumed,” Dario says, hearing how weak both his voice and his reasoning sound.
“You could’ve asked me before all of this,” Charlie says, waving at the table. The only person here who seems to have enjoyed the massive spectacle is Michelle, and even she’s eased off a bit since Ansel’s angry exit.
Dario hangs his head in shame. He inherited a flair for the dramatics from his grandfather and his mother. Still, it’s no excuse. “You are right. That was my mistake.”
A chair scrapes across the stone. Dario can’t bring himself to look up and see whose it is.
“You think you would’ve known the ring wasn’t mine since I’m not the kind of guy you marry, right?” Charlie says.
Dario rears back. Had Charlie overheard him in the kitchen with Paola?
The blatant offense etched on Charlie’s face tells all before he turns and storms back into the villa.
The ensuing silence could strangle them all.
“Scusi,” Dario finally forces out to the remaining few before crossing the lawn toward the barn house. He needs to be alone. He flops down on the bed in anguish.
Thewhy notchasing after him at the will-reading switches to awhy bother.
Why bothertrying to satisfy his dead grandfather’s wishes. There is no way he is going to meet the marriage deadline to inherit Amorina. Maybe he shouldn’t inherit it if he is prone to letting his emotions cloud his judgment as quickly as he did today.
Public confrontation was a bad move all around. Not only did he read the situation wrong, but he hurt Charlie’s feelings.
Charlie, who’d never been on a plane or a vacation in his life. Charlie, who seemed to care about Amorina unlike the others. Charlie, who has the warmest chocolate eyes and kindest smile of the bunch.
Not the kind of guy you marry. That is not exactly what he meant. He likes Charlie as he is, and he fears if he were to bring Charlie center stage, the audience viewing his life through a proscenium might hurl their waiting tomatoes at them. Though, maybe Dario is more worried about optics and the metaphorical dry cleaning bill for his five-piece suits rather than about Charlie’s well-being.
God, he is an asshole.
And assholes don’t deserve inheritances, promotions, weddings, or partners like Charlie Moore.
Dario might as well give up now. Emilio can run the business.
Run the business right into the ground for all he cares.
He is too, too tired to care.
TEN
CHARLIE
The next afternoon, Charlie stands behind his designated workstation in the Amorina School of Chocolate.
Selina pins her chef’s hat in place. Beau uses some of the cooking utensils to bang out a beat on the worktop. Michelle bobbles about in chunky, open-toed shoes and large pieces of costume jewelry, overdressed for what is evidently going to be a messy day.
One down,at least, Charlie thinks, noticing Ansel’s empty station. Not that he has any better of a shot with Dario after all that occurred last night. He should have kept his temper in check at the table to demonstrate his maturity. But his hackles rose to an all-time high.
Dario enters the room wearing a white chef’s coat. His name is stitched in gold script on the left breast beneath the Amorina logo. The lapel of his coat is striped to look like the Italian flag. His hair is tied back in a tiny bun, which draws attention to his expressive, puppy dog eyes. They brighten when they land on Charlie in the back row. Charlie refrains from reading into it.
“Buon pomeriggio a tutti,” Dario says, sporting a showman’s smile. “Today we begin our journey into the art of making Amorina chocolate. But first, I’d like to apologize again for the theatrics last night. I do not normally operate that way. I think the newness of this experience has churned up some feelings I wasn’t aware were sitting under the surface. I deeply apologize for my behavior.”
A chorus of “It’s okay” rings out from the others, but Charlie holds back. There is a personal conversation to be had that the whole room need not be privy to. He shoves his hands in the apron pockets, still feeling like the least likely person in the room to end up marrying this man when he obviously needs it the most.
Once he wrestled himself to sleep, he suffered an awful nightmare where he stood in front of a packed church waiting for a nameless, faceless someone to march down the aisle. Bit by bit, his tux got stripped away by an unseen force until he was naked and shivering before the congregation. The ruinous winds stripped all the decorations, tore the church to pieces and sent the gatherers soaring. At the end of it, he stood in a roofless, windowless church covering his unmentionables and wondering what curse he must be under to be so unmarriable.
“Ansel left the villa this morning. If any of you, at any point, become overwhelmed or uncomfortable with the parameters of this week, you need only to tell me and I shall see to it other accommodations are arranged for you, or that you are ferried safely home as promptly as you wish,” Dario says. Charlie avoids a direct line of eye contact, shifting behind Beau. “Now let us begin.”
An incredible amount of math and science go into the production of chocolate. The numbers and calculations and history make Charlie’s head spin.
