Читать книгу The Vineyards Of Calanetti - Rebecca Winters - Страница 20

Having chased after her, Mic entered the building housing her condo. As he’d hoped, her last name was on one of the mail slots, but when he rang to be let up, no one answered.

The next day at work, she couldn’t run from him. Or so he thought. Every time he tried to get a minute with her, privately, to apologize, to finish talking this out, she had an immediate need to be away from him.

He cursed.

Rafe sighed heavily. “In my kitchen, only I curse.”

“Apologies, Chef Rafe.”

“Accepted,” Rafe said, casually, knowing it was his due.

Mic would have laughed, except his stomach was in knots.

“You and Lily,” Rafe said as he raised the lid on a pot of marinara. “I forgot you had a past when I invited you to work with us. You both are tense.”

“This time it’s my fault. Yesterday, we met at the fountain. I made her feel bad.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t my intention. Everything between us just keeps getting confused.”

“You should have resolved your problems eight years ago.”

He looked up at Rafe. “I thought we had.”

“You don’t resolve anything by leaving.”

He knew that now. With eight years of life experience under his belt, things were all very, very clear. It was the present he couldn’t fix. “So much has happened in both of our lives that now we’re like strangers.”

“You aren’t like strangers. You are strangers.” Rafe took a long sniff of the marinara, pronounced it good with a nod and looked at Mic again. “She’s a good woman. A strong woman. Not a woman prone to silliness. When she wouldn’t marry you eight years ago, she had a good reason. So maybe it’s better you let her alone.”

Mic glanced at the door. She’d had a good reason, all right. She didn’t trust that he could support her and her sister. God knows how long she’d spent desperately trying to scrape together the money to keep their apartment, then the week on the street before Bartolini had taken her in. The trouble she’d endured shattered him.

She entered the kitchen for two bowls of wedding soup. Her spine was stiff and straight. Her eyes downcast.

He walked over to the pot and took the ladle from her hand. “I will get this.”

“I’m fine.”

“I know. You are always fine.” He waited a beat. Long enough for her gaze to rise and meet his. “And I am sorry.” He meant that he was sorry for what happened the day before but when her eyes darkened with hope, he sucked in a breath, caught her hand. “I should have come back the next day. I should have pounded on your door until you would have talked to me. I should have known you loved me.”

She said, “We were young.” But her gaze clung to his.

They weren’t young now. They were both free. A world of opportunities awaited him, and her responsibilities to her sister had been fulfilled.

Would it really be so wrong to try again?