So Irresistible (3 page)

Which was only one more example of his weird new “moral” behavior. Hell. If he didn’t let off some steam soon . . .

“I’m going out.” Shane stood amid the cast-off shopping bags. “I’ll be back”—he gestured ambiguously—“later.”

“Good idea.” Lizzy glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “Go grab a drink or something. Maybe it’ll loosen you up.”

He gritted his teeth. “I don’t need to be loose.”

“Of course not.” His assistant stifled a rare grin. Then she waved a book toward the door. “I’ll let myself out when I’m done. You go party. Show the Rose City who’s boss. Go crazy.”

Go crazy
. That wasn’t a bad idea, it occurred to Shane suddenly. If he did go crazy, at least for tonight, maybe he’d force out all the unwanted sentimentality and spontaneous smiling he’d been plagued with since arriving in Portland.

Starting tomorrow, he needed to bring his A-game. He needed to be the hard-as-nails fixer he’d always been. He needed to be tough, not transfixed by those damn rosebushes. That meant he had one night to unleash all the atypically sunshiny impulses he’d been feeling and get them out of his system. Once and for freaking all. He had one night to let himself feel . . .
everything
.

“You won’t let me smoke, but getting hammered is A-OK?”

Lizzy shrugged. “I’m complicated and mysterious.”

“You’re nonsensical and demanding.”

“You love it, and you know it.”

He did. Not in a romantic way, but he did. He loved Lizzy. In a sense, she was the little sister Shane had never had.

He’d rather be dunked in hot coffee like a gigantic Voodoo Donut than admit it. So . . . “I
should
love it. I pay you enough.”

At that, his assistant winked at him. “I want a raise.”

“Get me through this Portland job. You can have it.”

“I’d like those odds . . . if you weren’t so antsy.”

“After tonight, I won’t be. I promise.” Shane stopped at his apartment’s peninsula, then picked up a book. “Heads up.”

He tossed it to Lizzy. She peered at its spine.

Her eyes widened. “
Where
did you find this?”

“You know. Around.” Vaguely, Shane shrugged. “Don’t shelve that one. Take it home with you.” Lizzy had rented herself an apartment down the hall. He hadn’t seen it. “It’s for you.”

“I should hope so!” Awestruck, his assistant hugged the book. It was so threadbare that its leather cover was cracked in multiple places. “I’ve been searching for this book forever!” Her admiring gaze met his. “It’s
very
rare. Bordering on just being a rumor. I didn’t even think you knew I wanted it.”

He gave an offhanded wave. “You mentioned it once.”

“Sure, I did. In passing. Nine months ago!”

“Yeah. It took me a while to find it.” Shane glanced away from her, toward his bedroom at the end of the hall. He needed to change clothes before going out. Tonight, at least, he didn’t want to look like . . . himself. “Be careful with that book. Don’t light it on fire with those cigarettes you stole from me.”

Lizzy gave him an uncomfortably fond look. “Just when I think I’ve got you down pat, you go and surprise me.”

“Don’t get used to it.” Shane shrugged out of his typical black suit coat. He dropped it on his sofa, right next to his better judgment. “I’ll be back to being a badass tomorrow.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Her skepticism bugged him. It made getting away and forcing out all his unwanted vulnerability feel twice as urgent.

“Program a few cab numbers into my phone.” Shane whipped off his tie. He started unfastening his shirt buttons. “Taxis are scarce around here, and I don’t plan to be cognizant later.”

“Yes, boss.” Lizzy saluted him with her free hand. “Shall I set up a full contingent of hangover cures for you, too?”

“Can’t hurt.”
But unexpected spontaneity sure as hell could
. Shane knew that now. He wanted no further part of it. If he behaved as spontaneously as possible tonight, he would have no need for spontaneity later. When it came time to make his gambit on the Grimanis’ pizzerias, he’d be tough. Unstoppable.

But in the meantime . . . he was cutting loose. All the way.

Without the armor of his suit coat and tie, he felt naked already. But that was the whole point. To get this over with. To experience all the unaccustomed-to
feelings
he’d been feeling, so he could go back to being stoic and untouchable and strong.

He hated the feeling of being open. It made him nervous. But since he wasn’t a man who backed down from anything . . .

Determinedly, Shane reached for his belt buckle. “What’s least like something I’d wear?” he mused. “Jeans? Or maybe—”

Lizzy turned to answer him, stared for a second, then held up her hands. “Hey! Stop right there, you pervy show-off. I
don’t
want to know if you’re a boxers or briefs guy.”

Hands full of his belt buckle, Shane laughed. He looked down at himself. “There is a third option, you know.”

Her gaze skittered to his fly. “Commando? Gross!”

“And that’s how I know we’re in it for good. You’re the only person who’s ever been straight with me.”

“Shane.” Her voice lowered. “You know that’s not true.”

But by then, Shane had recognized Lizzy lecture number twelve in the offing—and he wasn’t interested. So he only raised his hand in a farewell, then headed down the hall.

“Enjoy your rare book,” he called, dropping his shirt as he went. “Don’t forget those cab numbers and the hangover stuff. If I do this up right, I won’t even recognize myself in the morning.”

Then, before he could get hung up on exactly why that idea sounded so appealing, Shane shut his bedroom door and shucked the rest of his clothes . . . along with all his inhibitions.

For one night only, he was going commando. Starting with his dumb-ass damaged soul. He was stripping it bare.

Maybe then, Shane reasoned, he’d find some damn peace.

Once upon a time, Gabriella used to
love
arriving at Campania. She’d glance up at the familiar sign (
PROUDLY SERVING PORTLAND SINCE 1959!
), duck under the awning festooning her family’s flagship redbrick pizzeria, then walk through the door into a wonderland full of yeasty, tomatoey, cheesy goodness.

To her, Campania had always been a second home. Gabriella had learned to toss pizzas here. She’d spent weekday evenings doing homework at the hi-top table near the wait station and weekends helping her dad scale and round hundreds of pounds of dough. She’d learned volumes about tomato sauce acidity, dough retardation, and fast pizza box folding. She’d worked out how to greet customers, how to bus tables, and how to tear fresh mozzarella into perfectly sized pieces to top a margherita pie.

She’d seized her family legacy . . . and then she’d thrown it all away during one stubborn, hotheaded showdown with her dad.

That was probably why, these days, Gabriella had to gird herself to walk through the doors at Campania. She had to smile at her customers and chat with them, no matter how tired or worried she was. She had to reassure them that the “bad news” they’d seen on a food blog or in
The Oregonian
was only referring to
temporary
closures of a few Grimani pizzerias . . . even while knowing she couldn’t be sure they would only be temporary.

The front of the house—where the dining room and wait station were located—was challenging. Much worse was the back of the house, where the line cooks and dishwashers
still
hadn’t eased up on their feelings of betrayal. Even though Gabriella was technically in charge, no one wanted to listen to her—or to forgive her. Not yet. Her leaving the pizzeria (admittedly in a huff, on the spur of the moment) had offended everyone.

In their business, they were family. Gabriella, in one regrettable moment, had become the black sheep of the family. She didn’t know how long she would have to make penance for that.

It was going to be a while, though. Because as Gabriella entered Campania’s open kitchen at the end of their final seating that night, shortly after 10:30, the hazing she’d been enduring for weeks now continued at full volume.

“Hey. What do you know?” Bowser, head of the make line where pizzas were assembled for customers, jerked his chin at Gabriella. “Look, everybody. Our little runaway came back.”

Our little runaway
. Gabriella still hated that nickname. But there was nothing to do about it now except take her lumps. If she didn’t hold her head high, no matter how difficult the circumstances were, she’d lose even more respect from her staff.

Besides, she’d only gone to chat with a customer for a minute. It wasn’t as if she’d abandoned her post as expeditor—the intermediary between the kitchen staff and servers—to flee to Astoria again. Even though that was (obviously) what Bowser was alluding to. Her onetime defection had irked everyone.

“Uh, hurray?” Emeril, a line cook, didn’t glance up from the end-of-night cleanup he was doing. “Do we all get medals for not skating midshift now? Because that puts me about a million medals behind schedule.” Industriously, he went on scrubbing.

Emeril had been hired after Gabriella had gone to Astoria. She didn’t know him well yet. She only knew that he’d come to restaurant work as a second career and that he loved the Food Network—which explained his nickname. Scooter, though, had been working at Campania as a dishwasher since Gabriella was a teenager. Maybe he’d decided to forgive her? She looked at him.

Sullenly, Scooter gave Gabriella a sarcastic “slow clap.” Then, with her return duly noted, he went back to slamming shut the industrial dishwasher. Grumpily, he twisted the dials.

No, then.
Oookay
. Gabriella breathed out. She glanced at the sign posted by the double-decker ovens:
NO CRYING IN THE KITCHEN
.

Tonight, that might be a challenge. Gabriella had never felt less welcome than she did at Campania these days.

Despite her efforts to keep the place open, earn enough money to rescue all the other Grimani pizzerias, and save the day, no one seemed to care. Everywhere Gabriella looked, she saw the same thing: angry people who were disappointed in her.

“She’s back? Again? Who cares?” With a muttered expletive, Hypo stacked plates near the ticket rail, where incoming orders usually hung. Frowning, he turned to show his left arm to the kitchen at large. “I think I have psoriasis. Look at my elbow! It itches like a mother—does it look red and scaly to you?”

As he scrambled for his cell phone to do an Internet search for his symptoms, Pinkie put down her chef’s knife. As a pastry chef, she was no less tough than the rest of them—but she did have a soft spot for Hypo’s antics. “Settle down. It looks like a mosquito bite to me. Get off WebMD and get back to work.”

“Ten bucks says it’s necrotizing fasciitis.” Jeremy, one of the servers, swooped in to pick up a final drinks order. He nodded at Hypo’s latest “condition.” “That would be cool.”

“You’re on.” Jennifer, another server, accepted his bet without looking up from her book. She scribbled something on an order ticket, stuffed her book in her apron, then nodded.

Gabriella might as well not even have been there. They were all being
that
pointed about cold shouldering her. But she’d had enough of this. Being tough was fine. Being a doormat was not.

“Of course I came back. I was only checking on that last table,” Gabriella informed them all with a glance at the wall clock. “Let’s fly on that caramel budino”—a type of rich Italian pudding that was a mainstay on Campania’s dessert menu—“for table six. After that, we’re done with service. I comped the budino, because their pepperoni-mushroom pie was messed up.”

At her reference to his earlier mistake, Bowser glowered. “Hey. I can’t help it if the whole pie had to be remade.” He jerked his chin sideways. “The fucking new guy got in my way.”

Adam, the target of his ire, froze with a mop in his hand. Shamefacedly, he looked at Bowser. He swallowed hard. He hadn’t even earned his requisite nickname yet. As the newest hire, Adam was simply “the new guy” until someone stole his unwanted crown—and the ribbing and pranks that sometimes went along with it.

“No more excuses, Bowser. Do your job.” Gabriella gave him a direct look. “Or I’ll find someone else to do it for you.”

“
Ooh!
” everyone chimed in unison, exaggerating Bowser’s job endangerment. “Look out, Bowser! Our little runaway is mad.”

With effort, Gabriella ignored their taunting. “Just get this place cleaned up and shut down. I’m ready to bail.”

A beat passed. Then, “Aren’t you
always
ready to bail?”

The gibe came from Emeril—and earned him a high-five from Scooter. Coming from him, that felt doubly hurtful. Scooter used to help her with her geometry homework. Now, he resented her.

Just like everyone else did.

On the other hand, they’d done almost a hundred covers tonight. For a small neighborhood restaurant like Campania, that was pretty good. If Gabriella was going to save the rest of her family’s chain, her numbers had to get even better, though.

Like, yesterday.

Feeling suddenly defeated at the magnitude of the job in front of her, Gabriella slumped her shoulders. She stood near the dessert station, dropped her gaze to the vanilla tuile cookies used to garnish the few sweets that Campania served, and snitched one.
Delicious
. It occurred to her that she’d been too busy to eat anything, too busy to have a glass of water, too busy to really consider exactly what she’d gotten herself into.

She was doing this for her family. That meant she couldn’t stop. No matter how difficult things got. Or how many tuiles she needed to munch until she could turn off the lights, lock up, and retreat to her own cozy bed for some much needed sleep.

Pinkie caught her in midreach for another tuile. Gabriella froze, cookie guiltily in hand. For an instant, she thought her friend was going to lambaste her for filching tuiles. As the pastry chef, Pinkie arrived earlier than everyone else did to do her setup and get in her baking time. She was one of the few employees who was trusted with her own set of pizzeria keys. Pinkie had every right
not
to have her station raided when she was trying to plate the last caramel budino of the night.

Gabriella raised both arms. “I only took the broken ones.”

Pinkie frowned at her, appearing unmollified by her excuse.

Then the pastry chef leaned nearer, so only Gabriella could hear her. “There’s a leftover salad in my lowboy.” She nodded toward her small refrigerator, one of two units that formed the base of her station’s counter. “Eat it. You’ll feel better.”

Instantly, Gabriella felt her mood lighten. “Thank you, Pinkie!” She stepped in for a hug, arms outstretched in unstoppable relief. “You’re a lifesaver. You don’t know how—”

“No hugging. We’re not there yet.”

Pinkie’s terse words squashed Gabriella’s good mood. “Oh.”

“Maybe we never will be. I thought I’d lost my job!”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Gabriella said hastily. “I swear, I’m going to fix everything. It’ll be better than ever. Really.”

But since
that
kind of talk was veering dangerously close to the radical ideas that had caused her rift with her dad, Gabriella shut her mouth. She didn’t need to overpromise.

She was having a hard enough time delivering as it was.

“Anyway, we can’t have our boss keeling over in midshift.” With one slender tattooed arm, Pinkie set her finished dessert on the pass-through. Implacably, she eyed Gabriella. “Order up!” she said loudly. “Caramel budino for table six is up!”

Clearly, Pinkie’s moment of compassion was at an end.

Just as clearly, Gabriella had a job to do. In an efficient tone that matched Pinkie’s, she said, “Pick up, Jeremy.”

As the server retrieved his order, Gabriella watched him. He strolled across Campania’s small but spotless dining room with poise and friendliness, bantered with his customers, then left them to share the caramel pudding. On his way back, Jeremy caught Gabriella watching him. His spine stiffened. He frowned.

Tartly, he asked, “Does my work meet your approval, boss?”

Gabriella bit back a sharp retort, feeling
almost
too beleaguered not to react with annoyance. It would have matched Jeremy’s. On the other hand, that’s what everyone expected.

“Good job,” Gabriella said seriously. It was late. Why not be honest? “Thanks for sticking by me. I appreciate it.”

Jeremy’s gaze softened. His frown wobbled slightly. For a heartbeat, Gabriella almost believed blatant vulnerability would work where sheer determination had not. Could it be that all she needed was to show a little tenderness to these pizza slingers?

Then Jeremy jerked his nose in the air. “I’m not sticking by
you
. I’m sticking by Campania,” he said snootily. “Sadly, the two of you are definitely
not
the same thing anymore.”

He retreated to the wait station, leaving Gabriella to shake her head. She needed a stiff drink, a solid meal, and a kind word—not necessarily in that order. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take. To no one in particular, she said, “I swear, the first person who’s actually
nice
to me is getting a raise, an on-the-spot bonus, and a big fat kiss on the lips.”

Predictably, no immediate takers stepped forward.

Jennifer shrugged. “All I know is, I just won five bucks from Jeremy.” She nodded toward her fellow server. “He thought it would take you at
least
another week to resort to bribery.”

Great. Now the staff was betting on her shortcomings.

Jennifer saw Gabriella’s undoubtedly disillusioned face and offered another shrug. “Hey, cheer up. You can still go double or nothing on this place folding altogether!”

Jeremy arched his brows. “We started a betting pool.”

“Odds are pretty good,” Jennifer informed her helpfully. “Depending on what you’re hoping will happen, of course.”

Improbably, that was when Gabriella decided to stand her ground. She nodded, then ripped a duplicate ticket from the spike used to hold finished orders. Grabbing the pen from her apron, she wrote an IOU on the dupe. She thrust it at Jennifer. “I’m in. On the side of Campania
succeeding
.”

The server gawked at Gabriella’s IOU. “A thousand bucks?”

Nearby, Jeremy whistled. Probably in pity, not awe.

“It’s all I have.” Gabriella raised her head, daring them to refuse her. “I expect to get it back and then some.”

Jeremy shook his head. “You’ve overdosed on confidence.”

“Or maybe you’re crazy,” Jennifer suggested. “Wow.”

But now that she was back on familiar ground, Gabriella felt better. A lot better. She gave the dining room a critical look. “You two have a lot of work to do. Better get on it.”

They both groaned, then reluctantly went to comply. By the time Gabriella reached the kitchen again, she felt renewed.

Apparently, she didn’t need booze, snacks, or kind words to feel better. All she needed were a dash of bravado and a load of impulsivity. Both had made her feel . . . hopeful again. If she hadn’t been all but blackballed in the restaurant biz, Gabriella would have known exactly where to find plenty more bravado and impulsivity, too: after-work drinks. But in the weeks since she’d been back, no one had invited her to come along.

She missed the camaraderie of sharing beers in a dusky dive bar, swapping stories about cooking and customers, and unwinding with a plate of something fried, salty, and off the menu with her restaurant family. Until Gabriella’s split from Campania, they’d been a close-knit house. Now, everything was different.