“I’ve never brought a woman here before,” he said.
She stared up at him, shocked. He’d been with countless women. She just had to go to a supermarket to see his face plastered on all the magazines. He always had a woman on his arm. Usually it was a movie star or model. Sometimes an heiress. Always someone. She’d read the articles and looked at all the pictures. She even had a few magazines stashed in her home, just because she liked to look at his picture. That was before tonight, when she’d discovered the little game he played when he was out with his brothers and cousins. She was certain she’d throw those pictures away.
“Mr. Ferraro.” A woman came right up to him, in spite of the fact that there were two couples waiting to be seated. “We have your table waiting.”
“I texted them,” he said, by way of explaining to Sasha. “Thanks, Berta,” he added.
Keeping Sasha’s hand, he followed the hostess to a large, curved booth set in the shadows of the restaurant. He stepped aside and allowed her to slide in first and then he slid in beside her. Close. Thighs touching. She didn’t think she could handle touching any part of him without having a reaction. Butterflies were having a field day in her stomach and her heart was racing. She knew it was silly to have any reaction at all. Giovanni wasn’t for her.
Berta handed them menus. “Wine?”
He nodded. “Ours, you know what I like. Sasha? Do you drink wine?”
She mostly drank beer or a mixed drink, but she was game to try. She shrugged. “I’ve not had a lot of wine. I don’t like white, but I’ve tried a couple of reds I enjoyed.” She was going to be absolutely honest with him. She didn’t want him to think she was trying to be something she wasn’t. Or after him. She wasn’t chasing after him at all. She was going to spend a few nights thinking about him, but she wasn’t going to pretend. “Back home, there wasn’t much opportunity to drink wine. It was mostly beer or hard liquor.”
“If she doesn’t like it, Berta, bring her a beer,” Giovanni ordered. “And bring the antipasto and breadsticks while we’re deciding. Who’s working tonight?”
There was something in his voice that had Sasha observing him carefully. She couldn’t tell from his voice why, but it mattered to him who was making their pizza.
“Benito is on until closing.” Berta glanced at her watch. “He closes right at three. Tito will open for lunch.”
“Thanks. How’s your mother doing?”
Giovanni asking after the hostess’s mother shocked Sasha. The fact that he knew she had a mother, or that he cared, shocked her.
“She’s much better, Mr. Ferraro. She’s out of the hospital and is doing physical therapy. We really appreciate your family helping us when we needed it.”
He waved that away. “Emme and Francesca said they thought she’d be able to walk without crutches soon. Anything else she needs, you let one of us know.”
“They came twice a week to check on her,” Berta said. “It really cheered her up, and they always brought her some little gift. That sister of yours is so sweet. And Francesca, she knew exactly what to bring mia madre. I truly don’t know what we would have done without all of you. I was so worried about the bills …” Tears swam in her eyes.
“Berta.” Giovanni’s voice was so gentle it turned Sasha’s heart over. “The only thing that matters is your mother’s recovery.”
He glanced down at Sasha and smiled. That smile nearly robbed her of breath. The man was lethal.
“You want to try their meat pie? No one makes it better than Benito. There’s black olives on it as well.”
“With mushrooms,” she supplied when she could quit staring at his mouth.
“There you go, Berta. House meat pie with mushrooms.”
The hostess nodded her head and hurried away, leaving Sasha alone with him. She rested her elbow on the table, put her chin in her hand and stared at him. “How well do you know her?”
“Berta? Her parents have been here as long as mine have. She graduated a couple of years ago from high school, was going to college and then her dad was in an accident. It was industrial. He worked away from home and there was some kind of explosion. He lived about eighteen months and Berta and her mother took excellent care of him. He was a good man, and they were very devoted to him. She didn’t want to go back to college and leave her mother, so she stayed home with her.”
“She’s around my age then,” Sasha said. “Were you close to her family?” She didn’t know why she had to press, but she did. She needed to understand the dynamic going on. He didn’t seem the same man as the one she’d met in the nightclub.
“Not particularly, but she’s from the neighborhood.”
That didn’t answer why his family had helped out with bills and care for Berta’s mother. “Why don’t you take other women here?” She felt silly calling him Mr. Ferraro when they were having dinner together, but he was technically her boss and she wasn’t about to call him Giovanni. She had no idea how to address him, so she didn’t call him anything.
“It’s home. On my home turf, I don’t have to be that man.”
She wasn’t about to let him get away with that. “That man?” She kept pushing because she really wanted to understand—she liked this Giovanni Ferraro.
“You saw him. The playboy. The man partying it up every night. My cousins come into town and what else would we do but go clubbing? Fly to New York, or San Francisco, or anywhere in the world, what’s expected of me? Of us?”
There was the slightest hint of bitterness in his voice. That didn’t make sense, either. “Can’t you do the unexpected?”
“For the outside world? No.” That was adamant. “Here? Where I live? Where I count the people mine? Yes. I’m doing it right now.”
He fascinated her, when nothing had for a long time. She was beginning to relax in his company, even with his thigh pressed tight against hers. She’d turned toward him, angling in her seat, one leg drawn up. Her denim-clad thigh rubbed against his immaculate suit. She was becoming a little fixated on his eyelashes. They were unexpectedly long and thick and even curved up on the ends. That should have softened his features, but it didn’t. It only made him look more intense and compelling. Then there was his mouth …
“You sounded as if you really liked Berta and her family, as if you were close friends.” She knew she should quit pursuing it, but Giovanni Ferraro had secrets, and for some insane reason, she wanted to know every one of them.
She leaned closer to him, her eyes on his face. When he talked about Berta and her family, he was different—animated. Most of the time, his handsome features were set in stone, those angles and planes unreadable, but she was certain Berta’s family was something very important to him because his entire demeanor lit up when he talked about them.
“I do like them,” he admitted. “They’re hardworking. Honest. Loyal. You can’t ask for better people.”
She bit back her surprise, knowing if she blurted out how shocking his statement was to her, it would tell him that she thought he was shallow—which she had. Berta arrived with the antipasto, breadsticks and wine. Expertly she took out the cork and then grinned at Giovanni, her eyes laughing.
“Nice job,” he commented, a teasing note in his voice.
Sasha had to change everything she’d thought about him. She couldn’t equate this man with the one in the club, hunting women for a game and money. She detested that he had been so demeaning toward women, although after listening to Mary in the employee restroom go on about how to trap one of the Ferraros, she had a better understanding of his life.
“Right?” Berta said. She poured a small amount into Giovanni’s wineglass. “Do you have any idea how many corks I ruined learning to do this? Benito told me he was taking the wine bottles out of my paycheck.”