I don’t.
She set a small board of canapés on the island before anything else: thin toasts brushed with oil and rubbed with raw garlic, topped three ways: ricotta and lemon with an anchovy laid across, fresh chopped tomatoes with a pinch of salt, and a fine dice of roasted peppers slicked with olive oil. On the side, a short bowl of mixed olives and a wedge of Parmigiano with a proper hunk chipped out. We pick at it without ceremony. She eats the same way she works, focused, quick, no fuss.
“Start the oven at one-fifty Celsius,” she says, head in the fridge. “Convection if you have it.”
“I do.” I turn the dial.
“Good.” She straightens, holding the lamb shoulder like she found treasure. “Paper towels?”
I hand them over. When our fingers brush, something tightens low in my back. She doesn’t react, which is its own kind of reaction. She sets the lamb down and dries it like she’s patting a sleeping dog.
“Okay,” she says, eyes on the meat. “Anchovy, garlic, rosemary, lemon peel, a little pepper. You have salted capers?”
“In the pantry.” I nod at the small door by the butler’s pantry. “Top shelf.”
She flashes me a quick smile, grateful, and I go get them because that smile does more to me than I’m willing to admit.
On the way back, I pass the La Marzocco, and the espresso in my blood begs for a second life. Not yet. The bottle of Albori Sangiovese sits on the counter, waiting until the right moment. She glances at it once every few minutes without touching it, as if building the anticipation.
It makes me want to pour her a glass and watch her mouth around the rim again, watch the tip of her tongue brush her lips to soak up every drop of flavor with her eyes half-lidded in pleasure. It makes me want to be that glass.
“Capers.” I set the jar down.
“Grazie.” She rinses a handful to lose the extra salt, then tips them onto a towel and blots. When she gathers them back up, she does it with the backs of her fingers, careful with the brine. “Mortar?”
I pass it over. She drops anchovies and garlic in first. The pestle moves in steady circles. The room smells like the sea and Sunday lunch. I lean on the other side of the island and let myself look at her because there’s nowhere else I want to look.
“You’re enjoying this,” I say.
“Obviously.” She doesn’t look up. “This wine wants lamb. It would be rude not to give it lamb.”
“Always teaching manners,” I say.
“Somebody has to.” She flicks me a glance. Then she adds capers, rosemary, lemon peel, grinds again, lifts the pestle to sniff. “Needs more lemon.” She hands me the grater without asking and nudges a fruit toward me with her wrist. “Zest, please.”
I oblige. The rasp hums over the skin. She keeps working, folds in oil, and the paste goes from coarse to glossy.
“Taste,” she says, tipping the mortar my way, quick as feeding a bite to someone at the stove. I take a small touch on my fingertip. Salt, herb, lemon, that low anchovy zing that makes everything around it stand up straighter. Heat blooms in her eyes while I lick my finger clean.
“Good,” I say.
She nods, quickly turning back to the lamb. “We’ll score the fat, not deep—just enough to get the paste in.”
I reach for the knife. “I’ll do it.”
She watches the first shallow crosshatch with open approval. “You’ve done this before.”
“Once or twice.” I hand the knife back, and she smears the paste over the lamb, working it into the lines, pressing some between bone and flesh like she’s tucking someone in for a nap.
When her hands are washed, she looks around for a towel. I hold one out. She takes it, and for a second, her fingers brush my wrist instead of the cloth. Not a shock. More like confirmation. Then she pulls back.
“Roasting rack?” she asks.
I pull one out and set it over a rimmed pan. She settles the lamb onto it and ties it with twine in three confident loops, snug but not strangling. There’s nothing performative about how she moves. The competence itself is the show.
“Into the oven,” she says. “We’ll start higher for thirty to get it moving, then drop it low and let time do the rest.”
“How long?”
