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He’s tall, with rippling arms covered in tattoos, and he’s as beautiful as the tabloids said he’d be. Blond hair, green eyes, a smirk that promises trouble. I just know he knows every single way to ruin a girl’s life.
And his eyes are fixed on me.
“Yes,” I say, clearing my throat when the word gets stuck. “My father wanted to offer his compliments on tonight’s meal.”
I flick a look over at my dad and see that he’s regained his composure. He’d never show so big a weakness as to have an emotion in front of a stranger.
My ability to compartmentalize, both a gift and a curse, I get from him.
“Yes, congratulations…,” he extends his hand towards him, “I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”
This is one of his favorite power plays, reminding the other man of just how unimportant he is to him. But the chef looks completely unconcerned, his gaze not even moving over to meet my father’s as he shakes his hand.
“Marchesani,” he says. Finally, he meets his eye. “Luca Marchesani.”
He looks back at me and I should be flattered by his interest, but his eyes are green instead of blue and I find myself comparing him to Tristan.
“The meal was delicious. I particularly enjoyed the deconstructed surf and turf. Very clever.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Luca says, calling over to a passing waitress. “Marie here will bring you a dessert, on the house. To thank you for being such excellent customers.” He turns towards my father for the last part, pandering to and manipulating him in a way that he doesn’t even realize.
He’s too happy crowing about how yes, he is in fact an excellent customer, to notice that he’s been effortlessly handled by Luca.
Something tells me he wasn’t ignorant to the argument and impending explosion happening at our table when he walked up to it.
Luca excuses himself after a couple more minutes of obsequious conversation and gives me one last look before he leaves. Thankfully, my father’s attention is so diverted by the promise of free dessert that he forgets that we were about to argue.
It’s definitely better for me that he not remember.
Not long after that first time purging in my bathroom, I’d gone to my dad’s office to meet him for lunch. I’d walked in to find him fucking his secretary on his desk, a photo of his family inches from his dick as he pounded into her. That’d killed the remaining embers of my fatherly affection for him.
Before today we’d never discussed his affair. I never brought it up to him and he never acknowledged it. It was imprudently hot-blooded of me to confront him when I learned only too recently the extent of his rage and need to control. I know better than to lose the firm grip I have on my emotions around him, and yet I did.
Sloppy.
He orders an espresso and I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. I haven’t eaten much tonight so I don’t feel overly stuffed, but I want to see if I can get rid of some of it anyway.
With my father in town, Coach Krav will definitely weigh me this week and I dread having gained even a single ounce.
I walk past the open kitchen into the hallway and see Luca coming back from the men’s bathroom, drying his hands on the white towel at his waist. He slows as he spots me, eventually coming to a stop before me.
“Thanks for the assist out there,” I tell him, unsure what else to say.
“No problem. It seemed like he was about to lose his shit,” he replies, lifting his shoulder and eyeing me with a calculated gaze. “That's typically not great for business.”
I nod and take a step to walk away, but he takes a matching backward one, stopping me in my tracks.
“Go out with me,” he says. “Let me take you to dinner.”
I lift a brow at him. “You don’t know me.”
A charming grin curves his lips. “It’s lucky that I know just the place where I can get to know you then. They have this char siu pork that’ll make your taste buds weep.”
I turn so my back rests against the hallway wall and consider it, both him and his offer.
“I don’t date,” I tell him, truthfully.
After getting a front row seat to the fiasco that is my parents’ marriage, watching every one of my parents’ friends cheat on their spouses, and experiencing my own terrible relationship with Rex, dating is off the cards for me.
