Miracle for the Girl Next Door / Mother of the Bride: Miracle for the Girl Next Door

For some reason her comment irritated him. “Does my supposed fame impress you?”

“Of course. It makes me a little sad for you, too.”

His brows met. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you were always such a private person. It’s quite ironic what’s happened to you when I know how much you hate to be recognized everywhere you go. I honestly don’t know how you’ve dealt with it for this long.”

Her comment pleased him in ways she couldn’t imagine. “Perhaps now you understand why I wanted to see you again. While the rest of the world makes the wrong assumptions about me, you alone know the real truth.”

She flashed him a wistful, yet beguiling smile. “You used to complain on a regular basis that you always minded your own business, so why didn’t everyone else mind theirs instead of yours!”

A chuckle came out of him. “That doesn’t sound so good. I must have been pretty impossible to be around.”

“Not at all. You were your own person who spoke the truth. I liked that as much as I enjoyed watching the genius at work.”

“Genius—” he scoffed as the woman placed their order on the table.

“Don’t be modest, Tino,” she said after they were alone again. “All those drawings and experiments you did on that scooter made your fortune. A lot of the guys were jealous of you, my brother among them.” She paused. “He was the reason you never stepped on our farm, wasn’t he? Mamma always wondered why you stayed away.”

“I didn’t want him to get upset with you because of me.”

“Papa told him to watch over Bianca and me. I’m afraid he took his job a little too seriously.”

He took a deep breath. “That’s all in the past. I’m sure Silvio does very well for himself these days.”

“I’ll admit he’s a great help to Papa. Out of my three brothers he will be the one to take over the farm one day.”

“Unlike me,” he muttered. “I just came from being with my father. When I offered to do the inventory with him, he told me to run along. I’m a no-account in his eyes.”

“You’ve been away a long time. He’s probably so thrilled to see you, he’s terrified you’ll leave again if he says something you don’t like.”

Her observation surprised him. “You think?”

“I know.”

She said it with such authority he almost believed her. “In his eyes I’m not the dependable type, not like Silvio.”

“You’ve already proven you can be whatever you make up your mind to be.” She studied him thoughtfully. “If you’re here to help your father, just give it a little time and he’ll start to believe it.”

Maybe she spoke the truth, but right now Valentino didn’t want to talk about his father or her brother, who’d given them both grief growing up. He pushed the torta toward her. “The cake of the seven veils. Why don’t you eat the top layer, I’ll start at the bottom and we’ll meet somewhere in the middle.” He handed her a fork.

With a mysterious smile, she took it from him. “Maybe one bite.”

While she toyed with a couple of mouthfuls, he didn’t waste any time making inroads. After swallowing some of the hot liquid he said, “So that’s the secret behind your weight loss.”

A little chocolate remained at the corner of her pliant mouth, tempting him to taste both. The errant thought took him by surprise. Before he could blink she wiped it away with her napkin.

“The Rossettis have always been a hefty bunch. Three years ago I saw a diet plan in a magazine and decided to try it. Bianca had just gotten married and she went on it with me.”

“Does she have an hourglass figure, too?”

Again he watched the blush fill her cheeks. “She looks good. Now she’s pregnant again.”

“Bianca has a baby?”

“Yes. Little Paolito. He’s so sweet. I wish he were mine.”

The throb in her voice didn’t escape him. “How old is he?”

“Six months.”

So much had gone on while he’d been pursuing his dreams. “So tell me what you got up to after I left Monta Correnti.”

“You mean besides running the fruit stand?”

“Anything you want to divulge.”

She studied him for a minute. “Do you remember Lia?”

“Of course. She was your favorite cousin who had a little white fox terrier named Horatio.”

“Yes. I’m afraid he finally died of old age. Anyway, she met a man from Naples who has his own construction company. They got married five years ago and live there with their two children. Last year she begged me to come and stay with them.

“I accepted her invitation thinking I’d only be gone from the farm two weeks. Instead I got a job in his office and started business classes at college.”

His dark brows lifted in surprise. “Business? What aspect of business were you thinking of going into? You told me you would never leave the farm.” He’d thought he knew all of her dreams.

“The inspiration didn’t come into my mind until after you left for Monaco.”

“Which meant I stunted your growth.”

“Don’t be silly.” Though she broke into gentle laughter of denial, Valentino realized he really didn’t know all there was to know about her at all. That bothered him. In the past he’d taken everything about her for granted. For the first time it hit him what a shallow man he’d been. That bothered him even more.

“You’ve got me intrigued.” Mystified was more like it.

“As you know, I spent my life in our lemon groves. One day I got this idea for doing something with lemons besides selling them.”

“But not lemon furniture polish since it had already been invented, right?”

More laughter rumbled out of Clara. “Actually I came up with my own recipe for limoncello.”

“Limoncello—?” In his opinion her mother was the best cook on the planet, so he probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Again it showed him he’d been so consumed by his own thoughts and interests back then, he hadn’t taken the time to explore hers. “Is it good?”

“My business teacher thought it was the best aperitif he’d ever tasted. He urged me to work up a model for its manufacture and distribution to present in class.”

Valentino felt a sudden onset of adrenalin. “I’m jealous he got to sample it first. When am I going to taste it?”

“There’s some left at Lia’s, I think. I’ll phone her and ask her to bring it when she comes for a relative’s party tomorrow. You’re welcome to try it.”