Page 42 of The Sweet Life

“Eventually you will, though. But more important, you’re letting yourself down. Just because the founding partners backtracked on this doesn’t make them good guys. You deserve to be treated better. You all do. And as far as your clients go, Renata and Brenda will take care of them. I’m sure you have everything prepared for them anyway.”

“I do, but it’s not just my clients at the firm. It’s the women I represent at Chrysalis House.”

“I can help you with that.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “Please, just think about it, okay?”

Her phone rang, and she nodded, glancing at the screen.“It’s my nonna.” She looked up at him and knew exactly what he was thinking. “Not one word to her about this.”

He pressed his hand to his chest. “You think I’d out you to your grandmother? I told you, the woman scares me. There’s no way I’m going to tell her you’re thinking about going back to work tomorrow.”

Chapter Fourteen

Idon’t know if this is a good idea,” Jake said as Sage drove into the parking lot of her family’s restaurant. La Dolce Vita had been as much her home as the apartment beside it.

She backed into a parking space. “It was either come here or they’d bring dinner to us, and trust me, we wouldn’t get rid of them for hours. This way, we grab something to eat, and we have an excuse to leave. We have to lock up after the cleaners are done anyway.”

“All right, but don’t tell them I let you spend the day helping me at Alice’s.”

“You didn’tletme help, Jake. I’m a thirty-year-old woman who does what she wants, when she wants.”

“I know that, and you know that, but your grandmother is another story. I’m already in her bad book because your autonomous self decided to stay at the farm with me.”

She laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from Carmen.”

“I don’t need your protection,” he said as he got out of the car and joined her on the walkway. “I just—” At the sound ofa woman yelling in rapid-fire Italian, he broke off and leaned back, looking at the side of the restaurant where the kitchen windows were open, wincing when the yelling was followed by the crashing of pans. “Is that your grandmother?”

She nodded. “Don’t ask me what she’s yelling about. Other than swear words and the restaurant’s menu, I don’t speak Italian, but she’s always yelling in the kitchen. My aunt and my mother are the same. Half the time, I don’t think they realize they’re yelling. It’s just their thing. When they cook together, tempers flare, and words and dishes fly.”

“Has anyone ever called the cops?”

“They used to, but then Bruno, my grandmother’s fiancé, suggested they put a warning on the menu.”

“I take it back. Maybe I do need your protection,” Jake said as he opened the restaurant door for her, the smells of garlic, tomato sauce, and fresh-baked bread greeting them. “If the food tastes half as good as it smells in here, the women in your family can yell at me all they want. It’ll totally be worth it.”

She inhaled deeply and smiled. “The smells of my childhood.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she felt guilty for saying them so soon after the altercation with Jake’s mother. Sage could only imagine what his childhood had been like. But it wasn’t as if she could explain the guilty look he’d no doubt noticed on her face without making everything worse, so instead, she said, “You and Alice must have come here to eat, didn’t you?”

“Are you kidding me? You worked here. You would have dumped a bowl of pasta on my head.”

“I wasn’t that bad.” She grimaced. “Was I?”

“You were the worst. You made me feel about this small.” He held his hand to his knee.

Now it was her turn to feel small. “I’m sorry. I wish I could take back every mean thing I said to you. I was jealous of your relationship with Alice. I admired her so much, and you know how great everyone in my family is—they really are, even with the yelling—but there were six of us, all women, and that meant drama and not always getting a lot of one-on-one attention, and Alice was—well, you know, she was so calm and even-tempered and…” She trailed off at the expression on Jake’s face. “What?”

He motioned for her to follow as he stepped back onto the walkway, letting the restaurant door close behind them. “I was teasing you. You never made me feel small. We both gave as good as we got. We were hormonal teenagers, and”—he shrugged—“I had a crush on you.”

“You did?”

“Oh come on, you had to know that I did.”

“No! I thought you hated me. You completely ignored me at school and had a new girlfriend every other month.” To this day, she could name every one of them. They were always the most popular girls at school.

“You were too good for me. I didn’t think I had a chance with you, and Alice basically told me hands off.”

“Don’t say that. I wasn’t too good for you, and you stood more than a chance with me. I had a crush on you too.”

He shook his head with a laugh. “You don’t have to say that to make me feel better.” The amusement faded from his voice, and he stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. “I sawyour face when you made the comment about your childhood. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t want you to see or hear what you did today. I don’t want your sympathy, Sage. I don’t want you to feel guilty about how good you had it compared with me.”

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