The Devil Served Desire (29 page)

Maria noticed Dante had yet to reach for his fork. He'd been watching her eat, a small smile on his face.

"You aren't having any?" she asked, the fork halfway to her mouth.

"I'd much rather watch you. I never really get to see anyone eat my food."

"Pity. After all that hard work, too." She smiled and put the bite into her mouth.

Her description hadn't done the dish justice. Dante's tortellini was a food fit for a goddess. "This is"—she dipped the fork into the dish again, scooping up another bite, eating it and swallowing before she could formulate words—"amazing."

"You sure it isn't too salty? I have a tendency to be a little heavy on the salt sometimes."

She shook her head. "No, it's perfect."

"And the noodles? Al dente?"

She looked at him. "What's this I detect? A little cooking insecurity?"

"Hey, I'm not perfect."

She laughed. "That's a relief. I was beginning to think you were." She forked up a third bite, gave it a moment to connect with her palate before allowing it to make its sweet descent into her stomach.

"You really like it?"

"Dante, I love it. Honest." She laid a hand over his. "I
never
lie about food."

Excitement lit up his eyes and he scrambled to his feet. "Do you mind trying something else I made today?"

"Are you crazy? Sure I would. I'd eat anything you cook." She leaned forward, lowered her voice to a whisper. "Don't tell Mamma, but your cooking rivals hers. May even be better."

He grinned. "I'll never say a word." Then he turned and hurried to the stove. On a second plate, he served up a slice of lasagna. He paused to grate a little bit of fresh cheese over the dish, then brought it back to her. "Try this."

"What is it?"

"An experiment."

She picked up the first bite. When it settled against her tongue, an explosion of flavor—chicken, spinach, cheeses—ran through her senses. "Oh, God, this is incredible, too," she said after she swallowed, but not before she had another bite at the ready.

"Good." He let out a sigh of relief. "I wasn't sure you'd find it as tasty as the tortellini."

"You have no worries there." She sent a second bite of paradise into her mouth. Around them, the kitchen staff had gone back to work, apparently no longer interested in their conversation. Vinny was preparing food; Franco had gone out front, probably to supervise the readying of the tables.

"At least one thing in Vita is going well." Dante leaned back in the chair and rubbed at his neck.

She paused in eating, caught by his troubled gaze. "Did something happen?"

He hesitated.

"I run a business, too. If anyone understands, it's me."

His gaze met hers. "That's one of the things I like about you. You understand me. The way I think. No one else seems to."

She reached for his hand. "It takes a special kind of person to be in business."

"Yeah, a crazy one who doesn't mind a little bankruptcy." He let out a gust, then sighed. "The
Globe
found a new favorite in the North End."

"Oh, Dante. I'm so sorry." She knew what that meant to his business. She'd seen it happen to other places. Diners could be fickle people, running from one hot spot to another. Now that the focus would be elsewhere, Vita would be relegated to the shadows for a while.

"The thing that bugs me the most is my mother is probably right. This place is an albatross. I'm never going to make it into what my father wanted it to be."

Maria knew then why Dante had valued her family so much. Her mother may be persistent about getting her daughter married, but she always had Maria's best intentions at heart and would never say or do anything that didn't support her only child's dreams.

Mamma had been at Gift Baskets the day it opened and had always been one of the shop's most vocal supporters, spreading the word around the North End better than a tissueless two-year-old with a cold.

"You inherited this, but you also inherited what your father made it," she said softly. "Not everything sits on your shoulders, you know."

"I never thought of it that way." He looked past her, out the small window on the back wall. "My father wasn't much for being a hard-nosed businessman. He was always letting people run up a tab and then never making them pay it, stuff like that. But even though he wasn't a success money-wise, he taught me something."

"What?"

Dante flattened his palms on the smooth metal table. "After my father died, I was going to close Vita. I had no intention of going into a losing proposition. My mother certainly didn't want anything to do with it. She had already put the house up for sale and booked a flight to Florida. But at the funeral, hundreds of people came. People he'd helped. People he'd given credit to. A meal when they couldn't afford one. Or simply a listening ear on a bad day."

"He sounds like a good guy."

"He was. A better man than me." Dante shrugged, his smile wry. "He wasn't a man who talked much. Or was home much. But yet, everyone else said how kind and. generous he was."

"But that generosity cost him. This place. You."

"Yeah. He overdid it a little. Still, I couldn't let go of his restaurant and kill his dream, too. And once I started working here, I fell in love with the place, just like he did." Dante pulled back and ran his hands through his hair. "But with that new restaurant picking up all my business, I don't see how I can ever turn Vita into a success."

"Why? You've survived before."

His shoulders dropped and he shook his head. "I'm tired, Maria. It's hard being the one man behind the show. I've run out of ideas. I can't compete with all the other restaurants in the North End. I mean, we're all doing lasagna. How can Vita be different?" He sighed. "The name means 'Delicious Life' and it hasn't quite worked out that way yet. Especially not for me. This place is my life. It isn't so delicious when you work seventy hours a week and still don't see anything for all that effort."

Delicious life.

Maria thought about those words for a second. Wasn't that what she'd been seeking all these weeks? And also trying to avoid? Yet every time she denied herself her favorite foods, she ended up bingeing twice as badly the next day.

"This lasagna," she said, scooping up another bite onto the fork, "do you have it on the menu?"

"No. It's just something I cook for the kitchen staff. I like to experiment with new things and this week it's been low-calorie versions of their favorites." He grinned. "As Rochelle likes to remind me, bathing suit season isn't all that far away and they've been dipping into the garlic bread too often this winter. So they asked me to make something lighter."

"Are you planning on putting it on the menu?"

"This? Nah. It's just for fun. When people come here, they expect a certain type of meal. They want what my father gave them. If there's anything people in this neighborhood like, it's predictability."

Maria laughed. "If there's anything I run from, it's predictability."

"That explains a lot."

"What if"—she cut off another bite and ate it, "you gave your customers something unexpected, yet predictable at the same time?"

He shook his head. "I’m not quite sure what you mean."

"The best of both worlds. Right here in this kitchen. Your father and you, in one."

"You mean ...
change
how things are done at Vita?"

"Yes."

"No."

"Why not?"

He sat straighter in his chair. "I haven't changed anything in here since my father died. I'm not going to start now."

"Well, maybe you should." She leaned forward, the plate forgotten. Around them, the kitchen hummed with its daily activities, but in this corner, only Dante and Maria existed. "I think I'm not the only one who's afraid here."

"What do you mean?"

"You
say
you want a wife and kids. Yet you work so much, it's impossible to have that. You complain the hours at the restaurant are killing you, but you won't change anything to make it easier on yourself." She arched a brow at him. "What are
you
avoiding, Dante?"

"Nothing."

"Liar." She scooted her chair around the table until she sat on the same side as he. It felt good to be close to him again. Comfortable, like she'd known him for years. That feeling made her get a little more honest. "You were right about me. I don't have control over anything, as much as I'd like to think I do. You, however, control things too much. And it's making you miserable."

"I do not." Dante paused, looked around the kitchen. Thought of all the jobs in the restaurant that he handled himself instead of letting someone else do it. All the stresses he put on his own shoulders. All the choices he'd made that didn't have to be his alone. "Okay, I do. It's easier that way, though."

"Tradition is comfortable, isn't it? Yeah, I may be afraid of getting too comfortable but you are afraid of getting out of the comfort zone."

He got to his feet, a tease in his eyes. "You think I'm afraid?"

She rose, her gaze meeting his head-on. "
Terrified
."

"Hey, I can change. Step out of that comfort zone, as you called it. I'll prove it to you." He looked around the kitchen and as he did, an African-American woman entered from the back door. "Rochelle! Just the person I want to see."

"Me?" She narrowed her eyes, her jacket halfway to the hook. "Why? What'd I do?"

"You've just become my new dining room manager. With a pay raise to go along with the title."

"I... I..." She blinked at him. "I what?"

"No one can get the waitresses' and the busboys' butts in gear like you can. Hell, they don't even listen to me. But you, you ride them like a rodeo cowboy, but they still like you at the end of the day. And I have to admit..." he took a breath, "you'll do a better job than me."

Her mouth dropped open. She stared at him for a long time, before shutting her jaw again. "I don't know what to say."

He laughed. "Now that's a first."

"Okay, I do know what to say. Yes. And... thank you." Rochelle stepped forward and threw her arms around him, hugging Dante for a brief second before moving back and thrusting out her hand. "Guess I should start being professional now."

"Be yourself. That's all I expect." He took one of her hands in both of his.

"Hey, Boss. What about me?" Vinny called from across the kitchen.

"You, Vin? You're the... head sous chef."

"No way. Really? I was just sous chef yesterday. Now I'm the head. Man, wait till I tell Theresa. She's going to bust a gut."

"Hopefully not before that baby is due."

"Oh, yeah, true. I'll wait to tell her." Vinny jerked his chin in Dante's direction. "And Boss, thanks for the, ah, other day. She said yes."

Dante grinned. "Good. You deserve happiness, Vinny."

Vinny nodded furiously and swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. "You gotta excuse me." He abandoned his pepper chopping and headed toward the rest room. A second later, they heard the sound of happy sobs coming from behind the door.

"Well," Maria said. "I stand corrected. Maybe you can change." She pushed her empty plate to the side. "I have an idea."

He grinned. "I always like your ideas."

"But you have to trust me." She gestured toward the plate. "Make up a lot more of this and make it one of the specials tonight."

"But—"

"Don't but me. You did the impossible already. You got me to try the tortellini." She leaned forward and pressed a quick, hot kiss to his mouth. "Now listen to me on this. I'll be back later. I promise."

"You promise?"

She grinned. "Yeah. I have to come back. We have unfinished business, you and I."

"I told you I'd pay that invoice."

"Not that kind of business. We never finished our last chess game. If I remember right, I was winning."

He cupped her chin in his hand. "
I
was less naked than you."

Her fingers skipped along the soft cotton of his shirt, promising more than she could do in a busy kitchen. "Maybe. But
I
was the one with my hands on both your knights." She grinned, gave him another kiss, then turned on her heel. "I'm coming back for the king."

After the shop closed for the day, Maria stopped at home to change and freshen up. While she was there, she stepped on her scale. She closed her eyes. After a few seconds, she peeked one eye open. The needle hadn't moved upward at all. In feet, it looked like it was nudging downward almost a half a pound from the weight she'd been three days ago.

She stepped, off. Got back on. The needle did the same little downward dance.

Maria ran through her food choices over the last couple of days. Working with Arnold, she'd put together a fairly livable diet. Except for the tortellini, she'd managed to stay on the light side of the menu today, too.

The scale, apparently, agreed.

Her plan could work. Maria got dressed, grabbed her coat and dashed out of the apartment, nearly running the few blocks over to the church for the Saturday night Chubby Chums meeting. Arnold saw her the minute she entered the basement meeting room.

"Maria! How are you?" He pulled her into a hug. This time it felt like an embrace from a friend, not suffocation by human burrito. He stepped back and looked over her form. "You know, I think you're becoming a new animal."

"I am?"

He grinned. "Yep. You're not a chinchilla anymore. You're a mink." He gave her a nod. "Looking good."

"Thanks."

"I don't think you're looking so much like a teddy bear anymore either."

He nodded, his race full of happiness. "I'm down five in two weeks."

"Hey, that's great!"

He flexed out an arm and thrust his chest forward. "I may end up with the body of a bobcat, but I'll always have the heart of a teddy bear."

"I know you will, Arnold." She smiled and patted his chest. He'd held the Schwarzenegger pose too long and the breath whooshed out of him.

Together, they went into the Chubby Chums meeting. The others—Audrey, Bert, Homer, Stephanie, and the rest of the regulars—each greeted her like an old friend. She wasn't an outsider anymore. She was part of the group.