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Luca leaned back, his arm still resting along the bench behind her as he sighed dramatically. “Just the kind of man I am.”
“Homemade pasta sounds like a lot of work,” Conor murmured.
Harper got the impression he didn’t like their contractor flirting with her, which made sense. For the immediate future, Luca was basically their employee.
Conor struck her as the kind of guy who did not mix work and play, but he didn’t know her well enough to know she was in no danger of succumbing to Luca’s charms.
“No good Italian nonna would buy noodles in a box.” Luca crossed himself as if simply using the words “noodles” and “box” in the same sentence was a sacrilege.
Harper leaned back, sighing blissfully, as it finally sank in that she was here. She’d done it, made the switch from model to chef. This moment had been the light at the end of the tunnel for so long, she’d started to think she would never make it. “I can’t tell you how happy I am.”
“Happy?” Conor asked, clearly surprised, given the way the night had gone.
She waved her hand. “I mean the fire thing sucks, but it sounds like the building is okay. Hopefully this won’t set us back too far.”
“From what Aldo said,” Luca chimed in, “we should be okay.”
Harper smiled at him, then looked back at Conor. “As for being happy, I was referring to finally being here in Philadelphia. Tonight is the first night of the rest of my life. I’ve been counting down to this day for years.”
“Really?” Luca asked.
“Yep. Because I’m doing exactly what I want to do.”
Luca frowned. “You didn’t want to be a model.”
Harper wasn’t sure how to answer that question. Of course, she had the standard line, the polished one, but when she spoke, those weren’t the words that came out.
“Modeling wasn’t exactly a choice I made. It’s not like I said I want to grow up to be a model. It was just what I was. My mom put me in a beautiful baby contest five seconds after I was born, then in pageants. That evolved into commercials, then photo shoots, then walking the runway, followed by big contract deals. I did love it. All the attention, the traveling. It was exciting, and then…”
“And then?” Conor asked.
Harper’s answer to that wasn’t simple…and it occurred to her she’d taken this conversation too far off course. “It wasn’t,” she admitted. “There was a lot of pressure to always be perfect, always be on, always be spotlight-ready. My manager had created a very definite Harper brand, and I was expected to live up to it.”
“Girl next door,” Luca added.
She rolled her eyes. “Yep. Harper Branson, the fresh-faced, smiling, pleasant, upbeat girl everyone wants to be friends with.”
Conor frowned. “I don’t mean to upset you, but we’ve had a lot of conversations, and you do strike me as a very positive person.”
She laughed. “To be honest, I am. Bradley didn’t mold a bitch into a nice girl. He worked with what he had. The trouble is, it’s hard to always be happy, you know? I have sad days just like everyone. Or days where I was stressed out and preoccupied. Or even just days when I got out of bed on the wrong side and felt grumpy. I had to smile through all those days.”
Luca took a sip of his beer. “That would suck.”
“Yep. I had to weigh a certain weight, smile that smile, and be the person everyone expected rather than the person I was that day.” Harper picked up her drink and took a large gulp, just to stop herself from talking. “Wow. That was a lot of oversharing for the first night. Sorry about that.”
“I don’t mind,” Luca said sincerely.
She gave him a grateful smile, chalking up her loose lips up to the fact she was overtired from the long, traffic-riddled drive here, over-giddy—she hadn’t lied about how good that Quarter Pounder tasted—and uncharacteristically comfortable with these two men, who were essentially strangers.
In her mind, they represented the realization of a dream, so she was acting way too familiar with them, too quickly. “Anyway,” she said, aware it was time to change the subject, “I just realized I was ready for the next big challenge, for something different.”
If there was one thing she’d learned the hard way, it was to play her cards close to her chest. Being a celebrity came with a price, one that meant well-meaning friends weren’t always as sincere as she thought, using her renown to make money by selling her story to the tabloids or to steal a few minutes of fame for themselves. Which was another reason why she was surprising herself by being so open and honest. “I guess what I’m just trying to say is that I’m really happy to be embarking on this next chapter in my life.”
“I’m glad we’re going to be a part of it,” Conor said.
Harper had picked up bits and pieces of her dinner companions’ personalities through their Zoom meetings, things like Luca’s charm and wit, and Conor’s serious nature and intelligence. Luca laughed easily and she’d enjoyed his sense of humor as much as she was impressed by his expertise and vision when it came to bringing her dream restaurant to life.
Conor, in some ways, was Luca’s polar opposite. Managing to provoke a smile from Conor felt like a bigger deal, more like an accomplishment, because he didn’t smile much. Not that he came across as grumpy or miserable. He was a brilliant businessman, and while they were partners in this venture—fifty-fifty—he’d felt more like her mentor this last year, answering her countless questions about running a restaurant and about the city. He was patient and kind, though a bit too quiet for her rather boisterous personality.
