“I’m done,” she said in a clipped tone after they’d been in the office for a good three hours.
He stretched his neck. “Where to next?”
Her lips tightened.
He smiled. He knew damned well that when Siena had said she had a busy day, it was all bullshit to get away from him. She rarely worked on Sundays. “I’d like to take you somewhere to eat.”
Hostile eyes met his.
“If you want to keep finding work for yourself to get through the hours until evening, then carry on, or we can go and eat. Either way, you’re stuck with me.”
Closing her eyes, she breathed in through her pretty nose before jerking her head. “Fine. We can go eat. Where do you want to go?”
“Carlo’s. Do you know it?”
She shook her head, sliding the strap of her handbag over her shoulder.
“They do the best carbonara in Naples.”
“Every restaurant in the city makes the best carbonara.”
He grinned. “In Carlo’s case, it’s justified.”
She strode to the door. “I’ll take your word for it.”
* * *
Carlo’s turned out to be a very narrow, very long, dimly lit restaurant even more tucked away than the café her family used as a front for their gambling hub. Everything from the décor to the music being piped out gave it an old-school vibe, like something from a movie set decades and decades ago. It didn’t surprise Siena that they were by far the youngest people in there. It was so busy she thought it unlikely they would get a table.
A man in his sixties with a bald head and pot belly just like her grandfather’s, and the thickest moustache she’d ever seen, bustled out of the swing door separating the restaurant from the kitchen and strode over to them with his arms spread wide.
“Elio!” he cried when he reached them. “How good to see you, my friend.” He planted loud, smacking kisses to Elio’s cheeks. “Where have you been?”
“Busy,” Elio answered, returning the kisses. “I got married.”
Outraged, the older man clasped Elio’s forearms. “Married? Without telling us? Where was our invitation?”
“Meet my wife,” he said. “Carlo, this is Siena.”
Any thought Siena had that Elio had avoided the man’s question was abandoned when Carlo finally looked at herproperly, and his eyes widened, first in recognition and then in understanding.
“You are Lorenzo’s daughter?”
Although the man asked the question in a kindly enough manner, she sensed hostility towards her father. On edge, she nodded. She was indisputably in Elio’s turf.
“My condolences on his death,” he said.
“Thank you.”
He held her stare another moment before he nodded and smiled. “I’ll take you to your table.”
To reach their table, they had to walk the gauntlet, and it really did feel like a gauntlet. Carlo’s effusive welcome had attracted the attention of the other diners, and every one of them was watching them. A significant number called out greetings to Elio, which he responded to with handshakes and more kisses, leaving her alone and feeling exposed for long seconds at a time.
Their table was the furthest from the entrance, close to a door marked private. It didn’t surprise Siena that Elio took the seat with the best view of the entrance. Her father had never sat with his back to a main door, a habit all his children had adopted. In this restaurant, her view of the entrance partly obscured, she instinctively knew any hostile stranger who entered would be a friend to her.
“Two carbonara?” Carlo asked once they were both seated.
She flicked her eyes to Elio, whose lips curved knowingly at the corners.
