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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
MELANIE
I wasted half the morning categorizing my pen collection.
Dominic was always mystified that I kept so many pens around my desk when most of my work was done on the laptop. When I haughtily informed him that a girl could never have too much of a good thing, he had smirked like I’d just said something dirty.
I was already done with payroll, and I should have been catching up with entering the vendor invoices in the accounting system. Instead I was rolling a pen across my desk over and over again. I’d set my chin on the desk, and was pushing the pen lightly, watching it roll toward the far edge. Just before it fell off, I’d grab it, and feel triumphant for a split second. It was a simpleminded game that a curious toddler might play. At least that’s what Gio probably thought when he walked in the office.
“Having fun?” he asked wryly as he closed the door behind himself.
“Fun?” I snatched the pen just as it was about to topple off the desk. “There is no fun here. This is a den of extreme productivity.”
Gio snickered and pulled a chair up to my desk. He sat down.
“I didn’t even know you were here,” I said, twirling the pen in my fingers.
“Well,” he said, “with Dom gone, I just wanted to make sure you guys were okay.”
“I think we’re okay. The servers seem okay and the cooks seem okay and even the dishwashers seem okay. Really, we’re running like a well-oiled machine.”
Gio was observing me closely. “And you, Melanie?” he asked gently. “Are you okay?”
I smiled rather idiotically. “I’m great, Gio.”
He didn’t smile back. In fact he seemed rather thoughtful, like he had something heavy on his mind. “I know you probably have the impression that I don’t approve of Dominic’s relationship with you,” he said.
I stiffened. By now I knew that he knew that I knew that he knew ... or something like that. But Gio and I had never talked about it. I racked my brain for some kind of adequate response, but adequate responses were an endangered species at the moment.
Gio tilted his head and studied me. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just wanted to say that I don’t disapprove, not at all.”
“Does Dominic have a kid?” I blurted out, then slapped a hand over my mouth like that might yank the question back and return it to the depths of my mind.
Gio was completely taken aback. “Why in the hell would you ask that?”
“I overheard a conversation,” I admitted with a grimace. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked you. This is a topic better discussed with Dominic. Can you just forget that my mouth short-circuited a minute ago?”
“Ah, Melanie,” he clucked and shook his head. When his eyes met mine, though, his expression seemed kind.
“No,” he said firmly. “Dominic does not have a kid. That was an unfortunate rumor that I’m sure he’ll tell you more about if you ask him. But the answer to your question is no.”
Relief flooded through me. “Why did he go to New York?” I asked.
Gio looked uncertain all of a sudden. “That’s tougher to answer. I think you’d be better off waiting for him to explain.”
“I’m really tired of waiting for his answers,” I said with some resentment. “It’s probably easier to wrestle enlightenment from the Sphinx.”
Gio snorted and I gasped, realizing that not only was I trash-talking Dominic, but that his brother—my boss no less—was my audience. That had to qualify as an unwise and supremely shitty move.
“He can be a chore,” Gio admitted delicately. Then he snapped his fingers. “I almost forgot what I came in here to tell you. Dominic left you something. He wanted you to see it today, while he’s in New York.”
“Is it a pink slip?”
Gio grinned. “Maybe, but I doubt it. He didn’t clarify. It’s in the bottom drawer of your desk, though.”
There was a sudden sharp knock at the office door, and Patsy’s voice called, “Melanie?”
“Come in,” I hollered.
