He took a slow breath.
‘I want you to work with me, Lou, not for me. I respect your skill, your judgement, but we both know that I could buy that out in the marketplace. What makes you special, unique, is that you’ve spent a lifetime breathing in the very essence of Bella Lucia. You’re a Valentine to your fingertips, Louise; the fact that you’re adopted doesn’t alter any of that.’
‘It alters how I feel.’
‘I understand that and, for what it’s worth, I think Ivy and John were wrong not to tell you the truth, but it doesn’t change who or what you are. Jack wants you on board, Louise, and he’s right.’
‘He’s been chasing you? Wants to know why you haven’t signed me up yet? Well, that would explain your sudden enthusiasm.’
‘He wanted to know the situation before he took off last week.’
‘Took off? Where’s he gone?’
‘He was planning to meet up with Maddie in Florence at the weekend. To propose to her.’
‘You’re kidding!’ Then, when he shook his head, ‘Oh, but that’s so romantic!’ Then, apparently recalling the way he’d flirted with Maddie at the Christmas party, she said, ‘Are you okay with that?’
He found her concern unexpectedly touching. ‘More than okay,’ he assured her. ‘I was only winding Jack up at Christmas. It’s what brothers do.’ His first reaction when Jack had tossed Louise in his lap had been to assume that it was tit for tat.
‘You must have really put the wind up him if he was driven to marriage,’ she said.
‘Bearing in mind our father’s poor example, I think you can be sure that he wouldn’t have married her unless he loved her, Lou.’
Or was he speaking for himself?
‘No. Of course not. I’m sorry.’
Sorry? Louise apologising to him? That had to be a first. Things were looking up.
She laughed.
‘What?’
She shook her head. ‘Weddings to the left of us, weddings to the right of us and not one of them held at a family restaurant.’ She tutted. ‘You know what you need, Max? Some heavyweight marketing muscle.’
‘I’m only interested in the best, Louise so why don’t we stop pussyfooting around, wasting time when we could be planning for the future?’ The thought of an entire evening with her teasing him, drawing out concessions one by one, exacting repayment for every time he’d let her down, every humiliation, was enough to bring him out in a cold sweat. ‘Why don’t you tell me what it’s going to cost me? Your bottom line.’
‘You don’t want to haggle?’
Definitely teasing.
‘You want to see me suffer, is that it? If I call it total surrender, will that satisfy your injured pride?’
Her smile was as enigmatic as anything the Mona Lisa could offer. ‘Total surrender might be acceptable,’ she told him.
‘You’ve got it. So, what’s your price?’
‘Nothing.’
He stared at her, shocked out of teasing. That was it? A cold refusal?
‘Nothing?’ Then, when she didn’t deny it, ‘You mean that this has all been some kind of elaborate wind-up? That you’re not even going to consider my proposal?’
‘As a proposal it lacked certain elements.’
‘Money? You know what you’re worth, Louise. We’re not going to quibble over a consultancy fee.’
She shook her head. ‘No fee.’
Outside the taxi the world moved on, busy, noisy. Commuters crossing en masse at the lights, the heavy diesel engine of a bus in the next lane, a distant siren. Inside it was still, silent, as if the world were holding its breath.
‘No fee?’ he repeated.
‘I’ll do what you want, Max. I’ll give you-give the family-my time. It won’t cost you a penny.’
He didn’t fall for it. Nothing came without some cost.
‘You can’t work without being paid, Louise.’
‘It’s not going to be for ever. I’ll give you my time until…until the fourteenth. Valentine’s Day. The diamond anniversary of the founding of Bella Lucia.’
‘Three weeks. Is that all?’
‘It’s all I can spare. My reward is my freedom, Max. I owe the family and I’ll do this for them. Then the slate will be wiped clean.’
‘No…’
He didn’t like the sound of that. He didn’t want her for just a few weeks. Didn’t want to be treated like a client, even if he was getting her time for free. Having fought the idea for so long, he discovered that he wanted more, a lot more from her than that.
‘You’re wrong. You can’t just walk away, replace one family with another. You can’t wipe away a lifetime of memories, of care-’
‘It’s the best deal you’re ever likely to get,’ she said, cutting him short before he could add, ‘…of love…’
‘Even so. I can’t accept it.’
‘You don’t have a choice,’ she said. ‘You asked for my bottom line; that’s it.’
‘There’s always a choice,’ he said, determined that she shouldn’t back him into a corner, use Bella Lucia as a salve to her conscience, so that she could walk away without a backward glance. Something that he knew she’d come to regret.
Forget Bella Lucia.
This was more important and, if he did nothing else, he had to stop her from throwing away something so precious.
‘That’s my offer, Max. Take it or leave it.’
‘There must be something that you want, that I can offer you,’ he said, assailed by a gut-deep certainty that he must get her to accept something from them-from him. Make it more than a one-way transaction. For her sake as much as his. ‘Not money,’ he said, quickly, ‘if that’s the way you want it, but a token.’
‘A token? Anything?’
Her eyes were leaden in the subdued light of the cab, impossible to read what she was thinking. That had changed. There had been a time when every thought had been written across her face, as easy to read as a book.
He was going into this blind.
‘Anything,’ he said.
‘You insist?’
He nodded once.
‘Then my fee for working with you on the expansion of the Bella Lucia restaurant group, Max, is a kiss.’
CHAPTER FOUR
MAX heard the words, struggled to make sense of them.
‘A kiss?’ What the hell…? What kind of a kiss? ‘Just one?’
‘Just one,’ Louise replied.
Even in his head words failed him.
He was being choked by a collar and tie that were suddenly too tight. He fought the urge to loosen them. This was a game. He might not have been able to read her mind, but she’d clearly been reading his.
And now she was asking for the very thing he’d been resisting with every fibre of his being. Teasing him. Raising the stakes…
She was so hot in that sexy little suit, those high heels. Her hair curled in soft wisps around her face that
