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“I thought you said you bought a lot,” I say, “not half of the state.”
“I bought several. I still haven’t decided what I want to build on this one, so I’m acquiring all the available land. Just in case.” He takes my hand and leads me back to the car. “Are you hungry?”
I expected the lot he mentioned to be somewhere in the city, but we drove two hours to reach it.
“I’m starving,” I mumble, looking down at our intertwined fingers. I should pull my hand away. But I don’t.
“There’s a restaurant twenty minutes from here,” he says as he opens the passenger door for me. “I eat there when I come this way.”
“Some posh place, I presume?” I ask when he starts the car.
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
I gape at him. “I’m in fucking jean shorts, Salvatore. Even if they let us in, everyone will stare.”
He gives me one of those pinning looks of his, then reaches for his phone and calls someone.
“Jonathan,” he says into the phone, “I’m coming for a lunch with my wife in fifteen minutes. We don’t want to be disturbed.”
He doesn’t wait for the person on the other end to reply, just ends the call and throws the phone onto the dash. Rude much? And what will this Jonathan guy do, anyway? I assume he’s the manager.
I shake my head and train my eyes on the road in front of us. “You have a very strange way of handling phone calls.”
“How so?”
“What happened with ‘Hello, how’s your day?’ or ‘How are you?’ You know, common courtesy.”
During the two-hour drive over here, his phone rang at least seven times. With each one, he said exactly two words: “yes” when he took the call, and then either “yes” or “no” after listening to the person on the other end of the line. He’d cut the call right afterward.
“I don’t care how they are or how their day is going, Milene.”
I turn my head and stare at him. I kind of assumed that was the case, but I didn’t expect him to be so blunt and admit it. “You are one exceptionally rude person.”
“What I am, isuninterested.”
“Uninterested.” I nod. He’s absolutely nuts. “About the people who work for you, or people in general?”
“In general. With one exception,” he says and levels me with that unnerving gaze of his. “You.”
I blink in confusion and quickly avert my eyes. Should I be flattered or terrified?
Probably both.
* * *
“Whoa.” I stop in my tracks as we pass through the restaurant’s rear French doors.
The place is situated near the edge of a forest. It’s a big one-story colonial style mansion. What leaves me speechless, however, is a huge garden in the center, placed under an enormous iron dome covered with vines and greenery. The tables and chairs are all done in white wood, with flowerpots scattered around to create a jungle-like aesthetic. It’s magnificent. And completely empty of people, excluding the manager who greeted us at the doors.
Based on the size of the parking lot and the number of tables, the place can accommodate more than a hundred people. It’s lunch time. How come there is not even one table occupied?
Salvatore’s hand lands on the small of my back as he ushers me toward a table on the side of the garden area, set next to a lemon tree planted in a red terracotta pot. He pulls out the chair for me and takes a seat opposite.
“Is something wrong with their business?” I ask in a quiet voice.
“No. Why?”
“Well, I’m under the impression you need guests to run a restaurant business.”
