Chapter 29

TWENTY-NINE

“ W ill you stop fidgeting already? God, Frankie, you’re worse than the kids, do you know that?”

For the fourth time that evening, I stopped pulling at the hem of my dress while I waited impatiently for the car to arrive at Chie. No, not a car. A freaking limousine.

One week after his big reveal to my family, Xavier had done more than just invite us to the opening of Chie. At seven o’clock on Friday, an enormous limo pulled up outside of Nonna’s house, where he’d instructed me to get ready instead of Brooklyn. It was large enough to carry all six of us, plus Sofia, Lea’s brood, Nonna, even Nina wedged next to Matthew.

We hadn’t even reached the restaurant, but I was already out of my league.

We were all in our finest for the event—I had planned to wear Nonna’s black dress again, but Kate shook her head and pulled out something I hadn’t seen in a long time—the slinky red number I’d worn the night I found out I was pregnant.

“No way,” I said. “I can’t pull that off anymore.”

“Frankie, you teach aerobics classes four nights a week and you do crunches like it’s your religion. Your ass and abs could win awards, so just put it on and see what it does.”

What it did was surprise. Once I had the dress on, every one of my sisters piled into Joni’s room to ooh and ahh at the thin red silk. Even Sofia darted in with the gold and white party dress that Xavier had bought her, informed me that we both looked like princesses, and then ran back out in search of her stuffed unicorn, which suddenly needed a party dress of its own.

Now we were here—the Zola family, zooming down the West Side Highway like a bunch of movie stars, not a middle-class family from Belmont. Kate had styled all of us using her considerable skills and the clothes at her disposal.

“Oh my God, could you be showing any more leg?” Marie chided Joni, who was wearing a particularly short gold number that, yes, showed off her dancer’s legs.

“Should I have dressed like a nun instead?” Joni retorted, looking at Marie’s long black dress that, while form-fitting, was fairly conservative.

“Can you two cut it out?” I hissed. “This is a really big deal tonight, both for Xavi and Sofia. And all of us, really. It would be nice if you could act older than twelve for once.”

“Holy crap,” Joni said, ignoring me completely as she looked over my shoulder.

The limo came to a stop. I turned to see what had her so rapt. And was practically blinded.

Cameras were everywhere , and their flashes lit up the night. The sidewalk was lined with photographers, reporters, and what looked like the kinds of screaming fans I’d seen on E!. I could just make out some music playing over the hum of the crowd and a searchlight soaring upward toward the heights of the city. Beyond that I spotted the entrance to the restaurant itself—enormous black doors, over which a sign written in delicate, looping script read Chie.

“What is going on?” Lea asked as she stared at the crowds. “You’d think this was a movie premiere, not just a little restaurant launch.”

Beside her, Mike looked like he wanted to hurl. The boys were too interested in a video game to notice much of anything.

“Restaurant openings are a big deal,” Kate said knowingly. “Especially in New York. And especially when it’s someone like the Parker Group. I’m guessing there are a bunch of celebrities coming too.”

“I’m sure,” Nina said. “All the ones I’ve attended usually have at least three or four.”

Lea rolled her eyes but had the good sense not to say anything rude when she caught Matthew’s eye.

“We might meet someone famous?” Joni squealed. “Oh my God, I knew I liked your man, Frankie.”

“He’s not my man,” I said stubbornly, even while I was feeling out of breath.

“Mama?”

I looked down at Sofia, who was clutching her stuffed unicorn against her chest and staring at the cameras. “What’s up, bean?”

“Do we have to go in there?”

I looked at the cameras, then back at Sofia. “We do. Daddy’s in there waiting for us. Why, does it look scary?”

Slowly, she nodded. “Daddy’s in there?” she repeated.

I nodded back. “That’s right. Waiting to see you. He named this place for you, you know.”

At that, she grinned. She and Xavier had shared more than one FaceTime discussion this week talking about it. “Chie. It’s Japanese for Sofia.”

“Well, then, we’d better see what it’s all about,” I said. Then I turned to everyone else. “You go on. I’m going to take her around to the back entrance.”

“You’re not going to walk the red carpet?” Joni demanded. “That’s the best part! We might even get our pictures on Page Six !”

But I just shook my head. “We’ll be fine. Have fun.”

Sofia and I waited for everyone else to exit the limo. To my surprise, Matthew and Nina remained in the car with me, apparently wanting to keep their own presence discreet as well.

“I’ve done enough of those for a lifetime,” Nina said kindly. “You’re not missing anything, I promise.”

The driver took us around to the back alley, where a door was open onto the street, leading into the kitchen of the restaurant. Feeling a little like a stowaway, I followed Matthew and Nina through the kitchen, ignoring the irritated looks of the staff until we had found our way to a pair of swinging double doors through which servers were running in and out with trays and other things balanced on their shoulders.

Then we were inside. And I couldn’t believe what I saw.

Xavier had designed a dream. Chie sparkled with tiny droplet lights hanging from a black-blue ceiling, over sophisticated black tables and chairs clustered throughout the large space that seemed to tunnel into the city. A long glass-topped bar wound through the room like a starlit river, beginning near us, where a live band played music to a small crowd of dancers. The bar eventually reached the other end, where a hostess stood imperiously at the front entrance.

Every other inch of the place, however, was pink and purple. Camellias, cherry blossoms, and lilacs bloomed on nearly every inch of the walls and ceiling, as well as on the table tops and arranged in vases as tall as me. It was a color scheme borrowed directly from Sofia’s bedroom.

The restaurant was jam-packed, so we grabbed the first space we found—a bar style table near the dance floor surrounded by four high stools—but only after Matthew found the others at a table and a booth on the other side of the room.

I picked up one of the paper menus sitting in the middle of the table. On the back, I spotted a small children’s section decorated with a tiny drawing at the top—a flower I would have bet my life had been drawn by Sofia. Beneath it was a few simple Japanese dishes: Somen Sofia, Okonomi Sofia. They were all named after her. As I read through the ingredients, I recognized bits and pieces from some of the meals he had made her over the last few months.

This wasn’t just a restaurant. It was Xavier’s love letter to his daughter.

“Want something?”

I jerked and turned to find Xavier standing next to us, a shy smile on his face. Even through his nerves, however, he still projected dark confidence, several inches taller than most of the people in the room and lording over this little world he had created in an exquisitely tailored black suit with satin lapels.

“Daddy!” Sofia yelped, launching herself off her stool and into his arms without a thought for his fine clothing.

Xavier didn’t seem to care either.

“What do you think, Sof?” he asked her as he bounced her lightly on his hip. “Like it?”

She looked around the restaurant with the discerning eye of a food critic. “I do,” she told him. “Especially the colors. You did what I said.”

“Pink and purple, just for my girl,” he told her. “Did you see the menu?”

“Daddy, don’t be silly. I can’t read.”

I held it up so they could both see it.

“That’s my flower!” Sofia squealed. “And that’s my name!”

“That’s right,” Xavier said. “And see right there? It’s the dish we made. Somen Sofia, just for you, babe.”

“With the uni sauce?”

“Absolutely. Just for my girl.”

Sofia grinned so hard it looked like her face might break, and Xavier grinned right back, their twin smiles and sapphire eyes practically lighting up our small corner of the restaurant.

Something deep in my chest tugged. Hard.

Sofia kicked her little legs, begging to be let down. “I wanna go show the boys,” she said. “They didn’t believe the restaurant was mine.”

She snatched the menu from me and trotted off through the crowds like she owned the place. Xavier and I watched until she had reached the booth where Lea and her family were. Then Xavier turned back to me and opened his mouth like he wanted to say something. But nothing came out.

I frowned. “You okay?”

“Fucking hell,” he murmured, rubbing the side of his jaw.

“What?” I asked. “What is it?”

His eyes raked down my body, then back up to my face, looking somewhat overheated by the time he was done. “Wow. That’s a, um…that’s a dress, Ces.”

I peered down at my dress, then back up at him with a smile. I couldn’t help it. Any doubts about whether or not I could still pull off this slinky thing vanished with Xavier’s heated expression. “Thanks.”

“No, thank you .” He swallowed, appearing to compose himself. “Sorry. But you should know you look, ah, bloody fantastic.”

His voice creaked slightly on the last word, and my smile only grew as mentally I made a note to thank Kate again for forcing me to wear it.

“ This is fantastic,” I told him, gesturing around. “I had no idea. When you said you were opening a new Japanese restaurant, I thought it would be, I don’t know, like a regular sushi bar.”

Xavier just smirked. “I don’t do regular, Ces. You know that.”

“It’s for her, isn’t it?” I asked. “Not just the name. The flowers, the menu, the decor. All of it.”

His smirk disappeared. Looking almost bashful, he nodded. “She’s been a help.”

“She loves you.”

“And I her,” Xavier said plainly. “She’s taught me…” He shook his head. “Christ, she’s taught me how stupid I was about all of it. I had no idea what love was until I met her. No fucking clue.”

I chuckled. “Kids have a way of doing that.”

“She’s not the only one.”

He looked me over once more, then curiously took my hand and turned it over and back, like he was examining a precious stone, or maybe an ingredient in the kitchen. Then, slowly, he raised it up and pressed his lips to my knuckles.

“Xavi…” I started, though his hand was already slipping around my waist. I felt myself moving closer, lost, like a magnet.

For once, though, it wasn’t just lust in his eyes. There was something deeper there. Some odd longing I knew was probably echoed in my own.

It wasn’t a good idea.

Was it?

“Ces—” he started.

“Xavier! Mr. Parker!”

We both turned to locate the source of the interruption—a slight man with short, bleached hair waving his hand madly at Xavier.

Xavier turned back with a lopsided smile. “Shit. That’s Leonard, the manager. I’d better sort that. Get you a drink later?”

I nodded. “Sure. Take your time.”

“You know he hasn’t stopped staring at you all night?”

I turned to find Kate next to me, sipping a yuzu cocktail while she peered across the room at Xavier, who was back to holding Sofia in his arms while he spoke to someone who looked a lot like Benedict Cumberbatch.

“That’s a laugh,” I said. “And anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t?” Kate eyed me closely. “Are you really telling me there’s been nothing between the two of you since you…you know?”

I sighed. I’d broken down and told Kate about the little one-night mistake Xavier and I had made a few months ago. Just like I’d told her that since, he’d been the perfect gentleman.

Well, almost the perfect gentleman.

I shrugged. “Nothing. Not that it’s a problem. It would complicate things too much.”

I also wish I believed that as much as I thought I did.

“Are you sure about that? You don’t think it might make things…better?”

“Kate, please. You know what he said. How is it going to make anything better for me to go down that path again? You think it’s easy, watching him with her? I already know what it was like being in love with the man before he was a wonderful father. Now…” I shook my head. “He can’t love me. He said so.”

We both watched Sofia giggling into her dad’s shoulder while he tickled her lightly and made some sort of joke. Both of their eyes gleamed.

“That doesn’t look like a man who can’t love to me,” Kate said. “It looks like a man who is completely besotted.”

“With his daughter,” I told her. “We are not the same person.”

“No, you aren’t. But that doesn’t mean he can’t love you too.”

I could only shrug. I knew the score. Xavier was attracted to me, sure. But sex wasn’t love. I’d already made that mistake with him. I wouldn’t ever do it again.

“Well, in case you meet someone else tonight, I wanted to let you know that I’m bringing Sof home with me,” Kate said. “I’ll take her to Nonna’s in the morning. You can take your time tomorrow. Sleep in. Or, you know, not .”

I turned. “What? Why? I don’t have any other plans after this.”

“ Yet ,” she added meaningfully. “You don’t have any plans yet . Don’t waste a good red dress, Frankie.”

Before I could argue, she strode off into the crowd, swishing her drink and her hips, clearly satisfied with putting me in my place.

“Brat,” I murmured, but didn’t chase her down. To be honest, I could have used a night alone. My emotions seemed to be all over the place. I needed some time to think.

“Frankie?”

I turned around to see the last person I expected to find in a place like this.

“Adam?” I wondered. “What are you doing here?”

Adam Klein looked completely different than he did at school. Dressed in a sleek gray suit, light brown hair combed back neatly. Only his tortoise-shell glasses remained of the messy art teacher I knew. He actually looked quite dapper.

“My dad knows some people. I pulled a few strings. It’s a bit much, isn’t it?” He gestured around. “The flowers, I mean.”

I glanced around at the walls with their vibrant pinks and purples. “I think it’s nice. It’s for Sofia.”

Adam frowned. “Sofia? You mean your kid?”

I sighed. “I—well, yes. The owner is her dad.”

Adam’s brows popped up well above the rims of his glasses. “Oh, that’s right. I almost forgot. You’d never know.”

I frowned. “You can’t see it? Most people think they look like twins.”

Adam only shrugged. “Honestly, I just thought she looked beautiful, like her mom.”

His sideways glance was full of meaning. But I did my best not to meet it. I knew what he was doing.

“I have an idea,” he said. “What about a drink and a dance instead of coffee?”

I glanced around, spotting the rest of my sisters mingling in the crowd. Joni was cutting a rug on the dance floor, twisting back and forth between two eager partners, while Matthew and Nina were swaying slowly together in one corner, uncaring for the tempo and utterly lost but for each other. Kate was at the bar, handing her card to one rich prospective client after another. Marie sat with Nonna nearby, both of them devouring plates of Xavier’s scrumptious menu with glee, while next to them Lea and Mike were busy trying to keep their kids from scaling the walls.

And of course, in the middle, still held by her father like a precious bouquet of the flowers that covered the walls, was Sofia, arms wrapped around Xavi’s neck while she giggled and bounced and grinned like I’d never seen.

Xavier’s bright gaze lit on me, hope in his eyes, but morphed immediately into a scowl when he spotted Adam next to me.

Shit.

I sighed. Kate was wrong. Even if I wanted to put my dress to use as she suggested, this was not the place to do it, under the watchful eyes of my family and an overeager coworker. And that was even if I was in the mood to go looking for love or lust or whatever else people did in places like this.

I turned back to Adam. “I’m sorry, but I think I’ll take a rain check.”

He frowned. “Why, because of him ? You can’t let him run your life, you know.”

“He’s not,” I said a little too sharply. “I’m sorry, but I really need to go.”

Sometimes there were benefits to being small. Namely, the ability to move quickly through tight spaces.

Before Adam could stop me or anyone else in my family could figure out what I was doing, I deposited my glass on the bar top and darted quickly out of the restaurant. I took deep breath after deep breath as I stepped out to the curb and held up my hand for a cab.

This was right. They were right. Sofia was cared for. The only thing I wanted now was to go home and sort out whatever this odd feeling was in my stomach. A cross between regret, yearning, maybe something like hurt.

Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.

A good book and a cup of tea would sort me out. It had to.