Page 118 of Falling for the Grumpy Bad Boy

41

RHETT

La Tavola was busy as always, even on a Wednesday afternoon. I watched my mother move through the dining room, greeting her customers like she had known them all her life. I supposed it was true for a few of them.

I sipped the soda one of the other servers brought me and watched her work. I offered to take care of her. I could buy her a home and make sure she never had to make another bowl of pasta for anyone for the rest of her days, but she refused.

The restaurant was her new home. Her new life. After my father’s arrest, she used her savings and a loan to buy out his share from the government auction. The restaurant was completely hers, free from any taint of his money.

I was proud of her for making her own way. No one in the family looked down on her for choosing her own path. What they said about mob wives wasn’t entirely wrong. When you were in, you were in for life. But my mother was respectful of the family. She loved them but didn’t want to be involved.

I supported her decision. Hell, I had done the same thing. We weren’t on the outs with the family, but I wouldn’t say we were on the inside either. It was better that way.

“Raffaele!” she called when she spotted me, using my real name like she always did. To the rest of the world I was Rhett Voss, but to her I’d always be Raffaele Voscari, the little boy who used to stand on milk crates to reach her stove.

She finished taking an order from a table of businessmen, then made her way over to where I was waiting by the hostess stand.

“Come,” she said, linking her arm through mine. “We’ll eat on the patio. It’s heated, and I want to look at you while we talk about all this nonsense I’ve been reading.”

The heated patio overlooking the street was one of my favorite spots in the restaurant. We settled at a small table, and she immediately started fussing—bringing me antipasti, pouring wine, adjusting the heater even though it was perfectly comfortable.

“Mama, sit,” I said. “Please.”

She finally settled across from me, fixing me with those dark eyes that had always been able to see straight through to my soul. I knew she’d seen the media. She would have to be blind not to. Usually, she ignored it. She was the one who told me to ignore the crap they wrote about us and our family. But certain things she demanded I explain.

And the situation with Clementine was going to be one of those times.

“So,” she said, picking up a piece of bread. “Tell me about this Hartley girl.”

I should have known she’d cut straight to the heart of it. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything. Starting with why you look like someone stole your favorite toy. She’s a good girl. I like her. She likes you.”

Despite myself, I smiled. “She’s—she was amazing, Ma. Smart, funny, talented. She made me want to be better.”

“Was?”

“It’s over.” I took a long sip of wine. “Her family doesn’t approve. The media attention. It’s complicated. She’s too young. Too new in this world. It’s not fair to her to attach her clean reputation to mine.”

My mother set down her bread and fixed me with that look—the one that had made me confess to breaking her good china when I was eight, the one that had gotten the truth out of me about every lie I’d ever tried to tell. She could have been one of Dad’s enforcers. The woman looked all sweet and grandmotherly, but she was a master at interrogation.

“Your reputation is wrong, Raffaele,” she said firmly. “You know this. I know this. Anyone who takes five minutes to look past the headlines knows this.”

I shook my head. “Ma⁠—”

“No.” She held up her hand. “You listen to me. You think I don’t see what you do? How you take care of everyone? You pay for your cousin Tony’s kids to go to private school. You send money to your Aunt Maria every month so she can keep her house. You hire people who need second chances, who other restaurants won’t touch.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it? You think the newspapers write about that? You think they care that my son works eighteen-hour days, that he built something beautiful from nothing?” Her voice was getting louder, more passionate. “They write about your tattoos, about your father, about fights you got into when you were twenty-two and stupid.”

I stared down at my wine glass. Usually, I ignored these little pep talks. She’d been doling them out since I was a child. That’s what moms did. But it felt different this time. Or maybe it was because I needed to hear it. I needed my mother to tell me I wasn’t a bad man.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s fine. It wasn’t anything serious.”

My mother made a disgusted sound. “You’re too old to be making out in closets, tesoro mio. When you love a woman, you should shout it from the rooftops! Forget the strangers in comment sections and articles. What do they know about love that we don’t?”

“It’s not that simple.”