Tony looked shocked by Rafe’s assessment. “You are wrong,” he said fiercely. “She cares, too much perhaps. She has tried to distance herself, I think, out of fear. She is trying not to let it matter, in case she is not able to keep it open.”
When Rafe would have responded, Tony stopped him with a sign. “Wait, there is more. There is one thing that matters more to Gina than food.”
“Her friends,” Rafe guessed.
Tony gave a curt nod of satisfaction. “Precisely. And can you see how that has affected what she’d done these past weeks? She has taken their burdens as her own, but she has not shared hers with them.”
“And she has stayed on because she cares about her friend Karen,” Rafe said slowly. “She will stay on longer because of you and Francesca. If there is another friend with another crisis, she will extend her stay yet again.”
“True, but it is more than that. She has stayed because a man she trusted, a man she believed in and counted on, betrayed her. Bobby Rinaldi is a criminal to you, but to Gina he was a friend. Think about that,” Tony said quietly. “I will go and get us another bottle of wine.”
He left Rafe feeling shaken. Not once had he stopped to consider the impact Bobby’s actions would have had on Gina emotionally. He’d thought only in terms of dollars and cents, only in terms of the business, not the friendship, quite likely because he had never established such deep ties to another person.
Of course Gina had been devastated. To the woman Tony had described—the woman Rafe was only beginning to know—losing a friend would be far worse than losing a restaurant.
Rafe wasn’t entirely sure he could understand that depth of feeling for another person. He didn’t profess to understand love, either, and this was something altogether different, something he’d always assumed would be less intense, less demanding.
In his world, there were no messy, emotional connections. No long-term lovers. As he had explained to Gina, there were colleagues, business associates, casual acquaintances. Even his relationship with his mother was coolly polite, rather than loving. He’d grown too jaded over the years, first by watching his parents’ marriage disintegrate, later by watching criminals—and yes, his colleagues, too—manipulate the legal system.
But when he thought of the way Lauren had rushed to Gina’s defense while knowing none of the facts, when he considered how Emma was prepared to staunchly defend Gina, he could see that there were people in the world to whom loyalty and friendship were more than mere words.
A part of him wanted that kind of closeness to another human being—to Gina—but he was afraid to risk it. People who made commitments risked betrayal and hurt. He had only to look at what Bobby had done to Gina to see that.
And yet never, not even once, had he had the sense that Gina regretted her friendship with Rinaldi, only that it had come to this tragic end. Though she had never said the words, he realized that was also why she had been so slow to join forces with him, so reluctant to leap to her own defense and throw Bobby to the wolves. She hadn’t been ready to give up on her friend.
Rafe wondered wistfully what it would be like to be deserving of that kind of loyalty. Bobby certainly wasn’t. Was Rafe? He thought of what could still happen to take Café Tuscany away from Gina. He had set those wheels in motion with his suit against the restaurant and Rinaldi. Would Gina ultimately blame him for that, especially if it cost her the business she had poured her heart and soul into? Would she hate him for it? Or would she understand and forgive?
Time would tell, he supposed, then he shuddered at the thought. It implied far more patience than he had. But what choice did he have? None. Professionally and personally, he was going to have to see this through on whatever timetable it took. He tried to see beyond that to the future, but to his frustration it was disturbingly blank.
“Sorry I took so long,” Gina said, sliding a plate of steaming lasagna in front of him. “This is Francesca’s favorite, and it took a while to get all the ingredients together. I sent some home to her with Tony.”
“Did he tell you about her homesickness?” he asked, amazingly unsurprised that Gina had thought of preparing Francesca’s favorite dish.
She nodded. “I told him to take her to Italy, that I would cover for him.”
Rafe grinned, pleased that his estimation of her reaction had been proved right. “I told him you would do that.”
She regarded him with surprise. “Did you? Do you approve, especially since it means another delay in getting back to New York?”
“You weren’t prepared to go anytime soon, anyway. I’d accepted that.”
“But you’re not happy about it, are you?”
He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Sticking around here for the time being is who you are. Since I seem to like who you are more and more, how can I possibly argue with your decision?”
“A wise man,” she said approvingly.
“Not so wise,” he said, tucking her hand against his thigh. “But I’m getting there.”
There were a half dozen messages for Rafe when he returned to his hotel room. He checked them while Gina retreated to her own room next door, the room she had insisted on booking even after he’d said she could stay with him.
“Not here, where my parents will hear about it,” she had told him.
“Do you honestly think being next door will be much of an improvement? People will draw whatever conclusions they want anyway.”
“Maybe so, but at least I can tell them that we are not living together in plain sight of all their neighbors.”
He’d been forced to accept her reasoning. At the moment he was grateful since two of the messages were from
