2. Ellie

ellie

. . .

I watched Gianni leave the tasting room, refusing to look at his butt in his jeans.

Okay, I looked.

But in my defense, Gianni’s backside is one of the best parts about him. It’s round and muscular and looks like it might be fun to grab onto—not that I’d ever thought about doing that.

Much.

But if I can see his butt, he’s probably not talking to me, and that’s when I like Gianni best—when he’s not talking to me. Actually, if he would just not speak at all, I’d like his face more too. I’d never tell him this, because he’s cocky enough as it is, but Gianni is undeniably, unreasonably hot.

It’s infuriating. Truly.

When we were in grade school, I didn’t think he was cute at all. He was tall and wiry, his dirt-brown hair was usually a mess, and his nose was crooked because one of his brothers broke it during a fight. His pants always had holes in the knees, his sneakers were always filthy, and he had this way about him that always made me think he was laughing at me.

And nothing was safe around him—not your fresh box of crayons or your neatly tied shoelaces, the homemade treat in your lunch box or the brand new book you were reading, which he’d take from your desk and hold over your head so high you had no chance to reach it. I couldn’t stand him.

But he grew up to look a lot like his dad, whom I call Uncle Nick and have always had a bit of a secret crush on. He’d gotten his dad’s strong jaw and sculpted cheekbones, the dimple in his chin and those thick black eyelashes. The only difference was that Gianni had his mom’s blue eyes, while his dad’s were dark.

I’d actually had a super sexy dream about his dad once as a teenager, which I’d never told anyone about because it was so embarrassing. For like a year afterward, I could hardly look him in the eye. But I blamed Gianni for that, since it was right around the time of the Cherry Festival and that stupid game of Seven Minutes in Heaven the summer after our junior year.

That night had messed with me. Badly.

Maybe it had messed with him too, because after that, he seemed to lay off me a little. We spent our senior year mostly ignoring each other, and then he’d left almost immediately after graduation for New York City, where his dad—who was also a chef—had gotten him a job washing dishes in some famous restaurant kitchen.

Of course, I loved his cooking, but who didn’t? Gianni talked a big game, but he had the talent to back it up. And he hadn’t ridden on his dad’s coattails—he’d made his own way, worked his way up from the lowest jobs in the kitchen, impressing even the most tyrannical chefs with his talent, his work ethic, and his tenacity. Occasionally his big mouth got him in trouble—I was pretty sure he’d been fired a couple times for insubordination—and he still loved to break rules, but at twenty-three, he was already making a name for himself in the industry. Mostly because of that ridiculous show, but there was no denying he’d been the standout star.

Despite what I’d said to him, I’d seen every episode—twice.

Okay, three times.

I’d also read all his press, which was how I knew so much about his career over the last five years and how in-demand he was. In fact, I’d been shocked when he returned to Michigan last summer and then accepted the job offer from my parents last fall.

I’d sulked like a toddler at the prospect of having to deal with him, his ego, and his constant poking at me day in and day out. But my parents had been thrilled, not only to have his name attached to the opening of Etoile and his expertise in the kitchen, but to have someone they considered family at the helm.

“This is better than we could have hoped for, Ell,” my dad said while I pouted. “Beyond Gianni’s skill and name recognition, he’s someone we trust. That means everything when you’re investing in a new business.”

I’d had no choice but to accept their decision. And since my parents were now empty-nesters—my older brother Henri was in grad school and my younger brother Gabe was a freshman at college—they’d decided to spend some extended time in France, where my dad had been born and where they’d met. Living there had always been their dream and I was happy that hiring Gianni had allowed them the peace of mind to achieve it, but he still drove me nuts.

And I’d be trapped in a car with him for hours tonight.

How the hell had I let him con me into that?

I was still brooding about it when Winnie MacAllister popped into the tasting room. Winnie, who’d been my best friend since kindergarten, had taken over for my mother as guest services manager and event planner at Abelard, and I loved working with her—it almost made up for the fact that I was stuck with Gianni Lupo too.

Right behind Winnie was her older sister Felicity, who’d recently moved back from Chicago. Last night, she and a friend had had dinner at Etoile.

“Morning,” Winnie said brightly.

“Good morning,” I said, smiling at them both. “I didn’t know you were working today, Win.”

“I’m not. I’m just showing Felicity around.” Winnie glanced down at her sweatpants and sneakers, then touched her messy bun. “Can you imagine if your mom saw me at the front desk in this?”

Laughing, I set the final storage case on the bar and unzipped it. “She’s in Paris. Even Mia can’t see sweatpants across an ocean.”

“Doesn’t matter. I feel like she’d sense it in the ether that I was not perfectly put together.”

I snickered. “Yeah, and she’d give you that look I got during my rebellious phase when I tried to sneak out of the house on a school morning in ripped jeans.” I imitated my mother’s voice. “Ellie, you have a closet full of beautiful clothes. Do you have to dress like you just rolled out of bed or put your pants in the blender instead of the dryer?”

“Oh, I remember that phase,” Winnie said with a grin. “It didn’t last long.”

“Nope. Which Mia was quite relieved about. Although she still loves to blame my teenage years for her seven gray hairs and two wrinkles. And probably the worst thing I ever did was get a B on a French test!”

“You got a B on a French test?” Winnie asked in surprise.

“Once.” I shook my head, angry at the memory. “Fucking subjonctif plus-que-parfait .”

Felicity laughed. “Were your parents that strict about your grades?”

“They weren’t strict exactly, they just had high expectations. I felt like I had to be perfect—I mean, I felt like I wanted to be perfect.” I placed two more wineglasses into the box. “I liked the way it felt to bring home good report cards or keep my room perfectly neat or hear my dad say he was proud of me. And I wanted to be just like my mom.”

“Really?” Winnie blinked at me. “I’ve never heard you say that. I always thought she drove you crazy.”

I shrugged. “She drives me crazy because she’s perfect. She’s never made a misstep in her life. It’s like she made a list when she was young—go to college, start business, find soul mate, fall in love, get married, have three children, build dream home, never look a day over thirty—and she just keeps checking all the boxes.”

Felicity laughed. “I’m sure she’d tell the story differently.”

“Maybe, but sometimes I feel like I’ll never live up.” What I didn’t say was that I had my own list too—I’d inherited my mother’s obsession with them—and so far, I’d only checked off one box: graduate college. Next on the list were things like, eliminate chemicals from our farming methods, grow brand awareness for Abelard, increase retail sales, prove to my parents I could run this place when they retired ... At some point I was hoping to meet the man of my dreams and have a family too, but I wasn’t in a rush. I was only twenty-three, and I figured that could wait until I was closer to thirty.

That’s why it really wasn’t too worrisome I hadn’t been on more than a handful of dates in the last six months, and all of them had ended with me alone on my couch in my pajamas, eating M&M’s off a spoon I’d dipped in peanut butter, and watching reruns of Friends .

“Anyway, how was your dinner last night?” I asked Felicity.

“Oh, it was amazing—thank you so much for getting us in.”

“You’re welcome.” I smiled at her. “I’m happy you enjoyed it.”

“The food was just incredible,” she gushed. “The friend I was with is a pretty influential food blogger and photographer, and she was really impressed.”

“Oh, nice! What’s her name?”

“Her name is Kate, but her blog is called The Side Dish.”

“Oh my gosh! I’ve seen it—she takes gorgeous photos.”

“Doesn’t she?” Felicity laughed. “It’s like food porn. I don’t know how she makes broccoli look sexy, but she does.”

“I didn’t realize she was from around here,” I said.

“She’s not—she lives in Chicago, but I begged her to come up and take some promo photos for me.”

“Lissy is starting her own food blog and catering business,” Winnie said proudly, putting an arm around her sister’s shoulders.

“Really? That’s great!”

“Thanks.” Felicity pushed her glasses up her nose. “I’m still in the early stages of putting a business plan together, but I’m excited.”

“What’s your blog going to be called?”

“I want to focus on plant-based recipes, so right now my favorite is The Veggie Vixen.”

I laughed. “I like it. You went to culinary school, right?”

“Yes. And I worked as a sous chef in Chicago for a couple years before veering sideways into food science. Which was interesting—I liked the test kitchen, and I learned a lot—but I missed being in a real kitchen, creating food from real ingredients that people would enjoy eating just for pleasure. Beyond that, I discovered that I don’t love working for a big corporation. I’d like to work for myself.”

I smiled. “I don’t blame you.”

“But that sort of means starting from scratch,” she said with a laugh, self-consciously tucking her straight dark hair behind one ear. “So here I am, age twenty-seven and living at home again, saving up money and trying to get a business off the ground.”

“I think it’s awesome,” I said. “And don’t feel bad. I still live at home too.” When I’d first moved back last year, my parents had let me stay in one of Abelard’s guest cabins, although my mother had reminded me daily how much that was costing us since it couldn’t be rented out to paying guests. Last fall, I’d moved back into my former bedroom in the main house, which I was trying to view as a smart financial decision rather than a backward move.

But it was so convenient—I worked a lot of late nights, didn’t have to drive home, and with my parents in France and my brothers away at school, I had plenty of privacy...not that I used it for anything fun. But a long dry spell was perfectly normal when you worked as much as I did, right?

“I told Felicity she could stay in the second bedroom at my place, but she turned me down,” Winnie said.

“Um, and listen to you and Dex going at it on the other side of the wall every night?” Felicity laughed and shook her head. “No, thanks.”

“It’s not every night.” Winnie blushed. “Just...most nights. But he and I could always stay at his place.”

Felicity poked her sister’s shoulder. “From the stories you’ve told me, I’d probably still hear you.”

I laughed—Winnie had fallen in love with the guy who’d moved into the condo next to hers last summer, and they were disgustingly crazy about each other.

“So will you work out of the kitchen at Cloverleigh Farms?” I asked Felicity. Their dad had been CFO at Cloverleigh Farms for as long as I’d known their family, and their stepmom’s family owned it. Like Abelard, Cloverleigh was a winery and an inn, although it was much bigger, with a large restaurant and bar on the premises, and soon they’d be opening a spa.

“In the beginning, yes,” said Felicity. “I have an arrangement worked out with Alia, the head chef there—I’ll use the kitchen during the hours between lunch and dinner at Cloverleigh for now, since I don’t want to step on Alia’s toes. But speaking of chefs, Gianni Lupo is incredible.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Yeah. I know.”

“Kate is a huge fan of Lick My Plate , and she was dying when he came over to the table to chat with us.”

That was something Gianni did at the end of every night, and I found it a bit show pony, but customers seemed to love it. I had to admit, Gianni could charm the fuzz off a peach. Many of our best reviews raved about the way he took the time to talk with people and ask about their dining experience. In a place as tiny as Etoile, it was possible to greet each table personally.

“His family is still here, right?” Felicity asked.

“Yes,” Winnie said. “I’ll have to take you to his dad’s restaurant too, Trattoria Lupo. It’s so good .”

“So is Gianni back in this area to stay?”

I crossed myself. “God, I hope not.”

She laughed. “You don’t get along?”

“There’s some...history,” said Winnie with a grin. “Gianni was sort of a rascal growing up.”

“Yes, and since our mothers have been besties for a hundred years,” I said irritably, “I was forced to spend time with him.”

Winnie’s blue eyes gleamed. “And when we were seventeen, they spent seven minutes in a closet, but neither of them will admit what happened in there.”

Felicity’s jaw dropped as she looked back and forth between Winnie and me. “What happened in there?”

“We don’t talk about it.” I sniffed, carefully lowering another glass into the box before changing the subject. “How did you like the Pinot Noir Reserve last night?”

“It was delicious. And you were right—it paired perfectly with the mushroom risotto.”

I smiled, zipping up the last box. “Good.”

“Ell, what are you packing up for?” Winnie said, eyeing the storage boxes.

“My tasting tonight in Harbor Springs. The guy’s a wine collector, so he might have enough glasses, but I always bring extra just in case.”

“Oh right, the editor’s dinner party,” she said, because she listens to me when I’m talking. “I hope the roads will be okay. Your car can’t be much better than mine in the snow—Dex is already on me to get better tires.”

“Dex is on you every chance he gets,” I teased. Not only was Dex a former Navy SEAL, but he was a firefighter, dad to two young girls, and a dozen years older than Winnie, so protectiveness ran through his veins.

Winnie blushed. “But seriously, want me to ask him if he’ll drive you? He’s off work today and tomorrow, and the girls are with their mom. We could take you up there.”

“Thanks, but I actually already have a ride.”

“With who?”

“Gianni.” I frowned. “He was in here bothering me already this morning, and when he heard I was planning to drive up there alone, he went all Italian caveman and insisted that he needs to drive me.”

“That was nice of him,” Felicity said.

“I know. I’m highly suspicious.”

“Oh, come on,” Winnie scolded. “I know you two bicker like cats and dogs, and he does have a bit of an ego?—”

“A bit of an ego?” I shrieked. “Has he told you about his Lick My Plate tagline— too hot to handle ? Or how they played ‘Fever’ any time he was onscreen? Or perhaps you’ve seen him featured in People magazine’s Sexiest Chefs Alive issue?”

“Okay, but at heart he’s a decent guy.” Winnie wouldn’t give up. “He offered to drive because he cares about you.”

“He didn’t offer, Winnie—he informed me he would drive. He was bossing me around.”

“You could have said no,” she pointed out.

“I did say no!” Then I hesitated. “At first. But he scared me with all these terrible things that could happen, and I thought about being alone out there on the road in the freezing cold because no tow trucks could get to me. And apparently he has good snow tires on his big macho SUV.”

“I mean, he’s not wrong.” Felicity lifted her shoulders. “It will definitely be safer if you’re together.”

“Maybe it’ll be fun.” Winnie’s voice was full of optimism. “Maybe you guys can work through some of the tension in your relationship.”

I shook my head. “The tension in our relationship stems from the fact that he walks around here like he owns the place, and he knows it makes me crazy.”

“That’s the thing,” Winnie said. “You make it so obvious that he gets to you. Why can’t you just ignore him?”

“I don’t know!” I threw my hands up. “I tell myself that all the time. I wake up and say, I will not give him the satisfaction today, and somehow I forget that once he’s around me, and I end up all...” I fidgeted, trying to think of a word for the way Gianni could make me feel—something close to the truth without being the actual truth, which I didn’t even like admitting to myself.

“Hot and bothered?” suggested Winnie.

“Let’s stick with bothered.”

“Wow, he’s really got your number,” Felicity said.

“He does,” Winnie confirmed. “And personally, I have always thought all that heat and friction between them would make for a good time, if you know what I mean.”

“Not even if it was the end of the world and he was the last man on earth,” I said, grabbing one of the storage boxes. “Now you can make up for putting that horrible thought in my head by helping me carry these upstairs.”

Winnie giggled and grabbed one of the boxes. “I’m just saying, it’s kind of a shame all the sparks that fly when you’re in a room together can’t result in something other than frustration. Maybe if you guys just went at each other one day, you’d get along better.”

“She might be right,” Felicity said, taking the third box in her arms. “And he’s so passionate about food, I bet he’s passionate in other places too. And probably excellent with his hands.”

“Yeah. Just ask him,” I muttered, leading the way out of the tasting room.

But truthfully, I did like Gianni’s hands. After his butt, they were probably my favorite part of him.

For a moment, I imagined them skimming across my stomach or sweeping down my hip or sliding up my inner thigh.

A memory gripped me so tightly it stole my breath.

“Ellie?”

I opened my eyes and realized I’d stopped halfway up the stone staircase leading from the cellar and tasting room into Abelard’s lobby. “Sorry.”

I started moving again, offering no explanation and doing my best to shove the memory and the thought of Gianni’s hands on my skin from my mind.

It could never happen again.