Authors: Teri Wilson
* * *
For the second Sunday in a row, the thought of the weekly Arabella family breakfast filled Juliet with a sense of dread. But she showed up right on time, just like the dutiful daughter she’d always been. Up until a week ago, at least.
“Here goes nothing,” she muttered to Cocoa as she opened the front door of her childhood home and walked inside.
The scent of bacon and freshly brewed coffee immediately invaded her senses. So there was actual food being prepared this time? That was certainly an improvement over last week. At least if she was going to be confronted with an intervention again, there would be snacks. And caffeine. She still wasn’t fully caught up on her sleep. Although in the grand scheme of things, sleep deprivation was the least of her problems.
The family was all there—Alegra, Nico, Dad. And of course, Mom, who stood at the stove wearing a pink ruffled Arabella Chocolate Boutique apron. It looked as if she was stirring eggs, which was somewhat of a relief. Juliet had half expected to be force-fed the leftover strawberries for breakfast.
“Hey there, sis,” Nico said around the slice of bacon hanging from his mouth as he poured himself a cup of coffee. The last cup, apparently. He held the coffeepot upside down until the last drop landed in his mug.
“Morning.” Juliet wasted no time heading for the pantry for a new filter and the bag of Lavazza Classico blend her mother always kept on hand.
“Juliet, I have something for you.” Her mother turned to face her. “
Dio mio!
What happened to Cocoa?”
Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at the dog. Cocoa, who loved any occasion in which she was the center of attention, wagged her tail. It beat against Juliet’s legs.
“She looks like a bag of bones.” Juliet’s mother jammed her hands on her hips. “Have you stopped feeding her?”
Juliet rested a protective hand on Cocoa’s shaggy head. “Oh, she’s eating. She’s eating plenty. In fact, she got into some chocolate and had to have her stomach evacuated.”
“Evacuated?” Nico frowned around his bacon. “What exactly does that mean?”
“Trust me. You don’t want to know. But the end result was that they got all the chocolate out of her system.” The fact that it had been Mezzanotte chocolate was a detail Juliet didn’t feel the need to share.
She glanced at Alegra, but Alegra’s eyes were glued on her new iPad. Juliet wondered when Leo had managed to find time to purchase the thing, much less deliver it to Alegra. He sure managed to get around.
Well, if he was busy throwing his money all over Napa Valley, that was fine. The less time that man spent in the kitchen, the better.
“Since when does Cocoa get into the chocolate?” Her mother frowned and gave the omelet on the stove a flip.
Alegra glanced up. Finally. But she managed to keep her mouth shut.
“Believe me, I was as surprised as you are. She’s doing okay, though. Aren’t you, girl?” Juliet ran her fingers through Cocoa’s fur and prayed no one noticed the nervous tremor in her hands.
Juliet’s mother snatched the slice of bacon hanging from Nico’s mouth. He yelled in protest. “Hey!”
Their mother swatted him with her spatula. “Nico, don’t be selfish. Share that bacon with Cocoa. The poor dog is at death’s door.”
She tossed the bacon at Cocoa, who threw her newly slimmed-down frame in the air and lunged at it, proving that bacon apparently was a cure for lethargy. Juliet would have to remember that in case she lost to Leo at the chocolate fair and needed something to pull herself out of the deep depression she was sure to succumb to in the event of another crushing defeat.
She snagged the bacon out of reach in the nick of time and tossed it in her own mouth instead.
Mmm. Crunchy.
“She’s not at death’s door. She’s just lost a little weight. But she can’t eat bacon, or anything else we’re having. The vet put her on a special diet for a few days.”
Her mother rolled her eyes. “Nonsense. Dom, get the bag of meatballs out of the freezer.”
Her father obeyed.
Juliet didn’t bother trying to tell him otherwise. Her mother had spoken. Juliet would simply have to somehow intercept those meatballs. Besides, so long as everyone was focused on Cocoa’s scrawny state instead of the disaster at the balloon festival, she could breathe somewhat easy.
Her relief was predictably short-lived.
“I stopped by the Nuovo Winery yesterday, Juliet, but you weren’t at the booth.” Her mother picked up a knife to slice some bell peppers that were spread out on the cutting board. At least that’s what Juliet hoped it was for. “I thought I spotted you when I first arrived, but I must have been mistaken. Alegra said you were networking.”
Networking. So that’s what the kids were calling it nowadays? “Yes. I had a nice chat with one of the other vendors.”
Technically, it wasn’t a lie. Leo was a vendor. And they had chatted.
“I’m sorry I missed you, Mom.” Now that
was
a lie. “And I’m sorry about the strawberries. The sea salt maple bacon hearts were a hit, though.”
An awkward silence fell over the kitchen. Juliet’s brother, father and even Alegra seemed to look everywhere but at Juliet. She cleared her throat. “And I’m already working on plans for the chocolate fair this weekend.”
Her mother stopped slicing the peppers and set the knife down on the cutting board. Then she wiped her hands on her apron with excruciating slowness. Every move she made caused Juliet’s heart to beat with increased anxiety. She couldn’t ever remember wishing her mother would say something, anything, but she wished that very much right now. The waiting was almost unbearable.
Finally, her mother finished wiping her hands. She smoothed down the front of her apron, looked straight at Juliet and then walked right out of the kitchen.
Juliet exchanged glances with Alegra, then Nico and her dad. Alegra and Nico, obviously as much in the dark as she was, simply shrugged.
Her father held up a hand and nodded. “Be patient. Your mother has something up her sleeve. I’m sure she’ll be right back.”
That’s what I’m afraid of.
Where had she gone? In search of Juliet’s pink slip?
Apparently not. She returned to the kitchen with a book resting delicately in the palms of her hands. It was an old book with a worn leather cover that was peeling back at the edges. The spine was cracked in numerous places, making it look as though it might fall apart if someone opened it.
Juliet tilted her head, and a feeling of vague recognition washed over her. The book looked familiar. She could almost remember seeing it long ago, when most of the books she’d read had titles like
Goodnight Moon
and
Where the Wild Things Are.
She glanced at Nico out of the corner of her eye. He shrugged. Clueless as usual.
“Do you know what this is?” her mother asked, still holding the book as though it were a treasure on par with the Gutenberg Bible.
Juliet shook her head. “Not really. No. It does look sort of familiar, though.”
“This is your grandmother’s recipe book.” Her mother’s eyes misted over.
Juliet might have remembered seeing that book, but she’d never once seen her mother cry. Ever. Her own throat grew instantly tight. “Grandma’s recipes. Wow.”
“Yes, and I want you to have them.” Her mother offered the book to her.
Juliet stared down at it, almost afraid to lay a finger on it. “I don’t understand. Why?”
It wasn’t as though the recipes were top secret. Not anymore. The Mezzanottes had sold those very recipes years ago. What was she supposed to do with them now?
“Just take the book.” Her mother thrust it toward her again.
Juliet took it from her hands as gingerly as possible, certain it would crumble the moment she touched it.
“Promise me you’ll read it.” Her mother crossed her arms. “Now.”
“Now? As in right this minute?” She still hadn’t had a drop of coffee, much less breakfast.
“Yes. You can read while you eat. This is important, Juliet. There’s more to this than a few lists of ingredients and baking instructions. You’ll see.” Her mother tapped the cover of the book with her pointer finger. It was a subtle gesture, yet somehow still eerily ominous.
Juliet gripped the book more tightly. “Okay, I will.”
Of course she would. She’d expected to be chastised again, and instead she’d been asked to read her grandmother’s recipe book. She would have done so without prompting. In her hands was the foundation for everything she’d ever held dear. These recipes were what had started it all. Even though they’d been stolen, their secrets mass-produced and packaged in cheap paper and foil and sold to the public for less than a cup of Starbucks coffee, they still represented her family’s history. In a way, they were like an inheritance.
But why now?
“All right. It’s settled, then.” Juliet’s mother cast a fleeting look at her father. And that one glance spoke volumes.
He nodded ever so slightly in return.
Juliet watched their exchange with mounting curiosity. She’d spent a lot of time with her parents over the years. And they still worked together, side by side, nearly every day. Juliet had witnessed similar silent communications before.
Her mother’s eyelashes fluttered, and for a cryptic, fleeting moment, her lips curved into a satisfied smile. If Juliet had blinked, she would have missed it—the unmistakable look of triumph on her mother’s face. It had been quick and oh-so-subtle, but very much there.
Her father began to whistle and went about setting the table for breakfast.
No doubt about it. They were up to something.
And whatever it was had everything to do with the book in Juliet’s hands.
She flipped open the book’s cover, and the spine creaked. Juliet suppressed a shiver and told herself she was being ridiculously overdramatic. It was a recipe book, for goodness’ sake. She’d probably only get a glimpse of her grandmother’s attempts at creating the perfect chocolate candy.
She got far more than she bargained for as her eyes skimmed the yellowed pages. The book wasn’t simply a collection of family recipes. The dates and notations scribbled in the margins chronicled her grandmother’s struggles, both culinary and nonculinary alike. Those faint, penciled-in notes recorded every detail of her friendship with Donnatella Mezzanotte, along with the crushing loss of that friendship and the pain of Donnatella’s betrayal.
Page one:
May 10, 1938, Donnatella and I opened the shop today. Our dream has finally come true!
Then later, scribbled next to a recipe for a rich Mexican chocolate sheet cake that Juliet remembered learning how to make on her tenth birthday:
August 1, 1939, Donnatella has been so quiet of late. Baking her favorite chocolate cake as a surprise.
August 15, 1939,
above step-by-step instructions for orange ginger white chocolate disks,
Worried about my dear friend.
A few pages later, beside the step-by-step instructions for dark cappuccino chocolate candy, now a Mezzanotte Chocolates bestseller:
September 10, 1939, Donnatella thinks we should sell our recipes to a candy bar company. Thinking of giving away everything we’ve worked so hard for hurts my heart.
And on and on it went, until the final page:
I don’t know which pain cuts deeper—the loss of these recipes I’ve been working on for years, or my closest friend. She was like
una sorella
to me.
Una sorella.
A sister.
There was no recipe on that page, or any of the blank sheets of paper that followed.
Juliet closed the book and rested her hand on the worn leather cover. She knew it was silly, but she could have sworn she could feel the beat of her grandmother’s heart pulsing beneath her fingertips. Those pages held the real secrets Juliet’s mother had wanted her to uncover. No doubt her mother thought reading of her grandmother’s pain at the hands of a Mezzanotte would serve as a warning to Juliet, would make her think twice about trusting anyone with that last name, no matter how genuine he seemed.
12
Sugar scrambled out of Leo’s lap and let out a high-pitched whine as the car slowed to a stop in front of the address Leo had procured from Alegra.
He took the whining as a good sign. Maybe Sugar somehow sensed Cocoa’s presence, meaning he’d truly found out where Juliet lived. Alegra didn’t seem to hate him with quite as much passion as she had at first, but her feelings for him still appeared to vacillate between intense dislike and mere tolerance. He half suspected she’d given him a fake address.
But as he grabbed the canvas grocery bag from the passenger seat and approached the front door, he caught a whiff of bittersweet chocolate, and he knew Alegra had told the truth.
After four fruitless days and nights, he’d given up trying to catch Juliet alone at Arabella Chocolate Boutique. From what he could tell, she was always surrounded by a bevy of Arabellas during the day. Arabellas who would sooner see his head on a platter than let him walk through the front door of their store. And as soon as the purple shadows of twilight descended on the valley, Juliet made herself scarce.
He sometimes wondered if she was intentionally avoiding him. His ego wanted to believe that was nonsense, that she’d simply been just as busy as he had preparing for the chocolate festival.
His macarons were done, finished just this morning. Since they were best eaten one to two days after baking, they were currently biding their time in the walk-in cooler at Mezzanotte Chocolates. Tomorrow he would get started crafting the tower, but in the meantime he had an entire evening ahead of him. An evening he planned on spending with Juliet.
Waiting to see her again had been excruciating. With the macarons to distract him, he’d somehow managed. But now that he had a moment to breathe, he simply couldn’t take the loss of her any longer. It was a loss that made no sense to him, but a loss nonetheless.
He had to see her straightaway. Before he went mad.
He knocked three times, glanced down at Sugar spinning small circles on the welcome mat and smiled. If Juliet was tempted to slam the door in his face, Sugar’s antics just might buy him a minute or two to convince her to let him in.
The door swung open more quickly than he expected. He jerked his head up and took in a surprised, somewhat disheveled Juliet. Clearly, he’d caught her in the middle of a cooking frenzy. Her hair was piled haphazardly on top of her head, and she had a smudge of what looked like cocoa powder on her cheek.
Adorable.
His gaze traveled lower. The sight of her long bare legs stretching out from beneath the hem of a saucy red apron went beyond adorable, venturing into more tempting territory. He had the sudden, intoxicating thought of how great those lithe legs would feel wrapped around his waist as he moved inside her, pushing in deep.
A spark of electricity shot straight to his groin.
He almost dropped the groceries. “Juliet.”
“Leo.” Predictably, she sounded less than happy to find him at her door. “What are you doing here? This isn’t a good time. I’m in the middle of a...” Her luminous green eyes flitted somewhere over her shoulder. Toward the kitchen, Leo presumed. “Project of sorts.”
“I know all about your ‘project.’” The
chocolat chaud.
If Alegra hadn’t told him that Juliet had been holed up for days trying to duplicate his recipe, he would have been able to guess what she’d been up to simply from the aroma emanating from within her home.
From the smell of things, she was getting close. Closer than he’d anticipated.
“I doubt that.” She crossed her arms. Her tank top shifted, giving him a brief glimpse of a wisp-thin, lacy bra strap. Red again.
Another jolt of electricity zinged through him. If she didn’t let him in, he’d have a long, lonely night ahead of him.
“You think I can’t recognize the scent of my own recipe?” He narrowed his gaze at her. Even Sugar’s tiny nose appeared to quiver in recognition.
“
Your
recipe.” She grinned. At last. “So I’m that close, huh? I knew it.”
“Why don’t you let me in? I can give it a taste and let you know exactly how close you are.” He gave her door a slight nudge with his foot.
She rolled her eyes. The front door didn’t budge. “Right. You’re here to help me duplicate your
chocolat chaud.
Do you really expect me to believe that?”
He gestured to the bag in his arms. “See for yourself.”
She rose up on her tiptoes, lowered her lashes and peered inside. Then she went very still for a prolonged moment until she looked back up and fixed her gaze with his. “Chocolate. Vanilla. Cinnamon. What is this, Leo?”
“Supplies. I told you—I’m here to assist with your project.” He took advantage of her surprise and maneuvered past her. Sugar scrambled to her feet and romped across the threshold alongside him.
With its soft, violet-colored walls and abundance of drippy candles, her condo was warm, feminine and inviting. Three black-and-white photos of cobblestone streets, sidewalk cafés and arched doorways hung on the wall opposite the entryway. Italy. Rome, in particular, if Leo wasn’t mistaken.
He waited for a twinge of homesickness for Europe to wash over him. But it never came. Strange.
Just as he was thinking how nice it would be to stretch out on her overstuffed sofa—preferably with Juliet beneath him, or at the very least, beside him—a massive, shaggy head poked up over the back of that sofa. Cocoa looked a fair bit better than the last time Leo had seen her, he noted. When she leaped off the couch to greet Sugar, he could see that she’d lost weight, but other than that, she looked none the worse for the wear.
Juliet bent to give Sugar a pat on the head, giving Leo a magnificent glimpse of her creamy, generous cleavage. In an effort to remain at least partially a gentleman, he averted his eyes. After a beat or two, the temptation proved too great, and he looked his fill. Until Juliet glanced up and caught him.
She abruptly straightened, her cheeks glowing pink in that way that always made his chest tighten. “The kitchen is this direction.”
He followed her to a room with a terra-cotta tile floor and a rustic butcher block in the center. It was larger than he’d expected. More pictures of Italy were tacked up on the red vintage refrigerator, and every square inch of counter space was covered with open boxes and cartons. Whipping cream, milk, sweet cream butter, just about every variety of sugar Leo had ever seen, and bar upon bar of bittersweet chocolate.
An ancient-looking book was spread open on the center island. Its pages were brittle and as brown as a farm fresh egg. To Leo it looked like the type of thing that would hold secret magic spells, but he spied the words
caramel silk
and
roasted hazelnuts
and figured it must be a collection of recipes. Someone had written dates and notes in the margin in script that had faded over time until it was nearly invisible.
An oven timer went off, drawing Leo’s attention to the red gas stove. Three burners were going at once, each topped with a simmering saucepan of warm chocolate. Juliet killed the heat to one of the burners and gave the contents of its corresponding pan a quick stir with a practiced flip of her slender wrist. Everything about the action suggested she’d been doing this for quite a while. If Leo had to guess, he would have estimated countless times over the past forty-eight hours alone.
He set the bag on the center island, next to the antique cookbook, and let out a low whistle. “This is quite the production. No wonder I haven’t seen you around your shop. You’ve been busy.”
“Yes. Well. When I commit to something, I give it my all.” She gave her stirring spoon an innocent lick.
Leo’s pulse kicked up a notch. He ground his teeth together, averted his gaze and focused instead on the interlocking pattern of the butcher block island. Sugar maple. He’d bet money on it. “Clearly.”
He wondered if this staggering level of commitment applied to her relationships, as well. He suspected it did, given her devotion to her family. Did George Alcott III have any clue what a lucky man he’d once been? Doubtful, or his ring would have ended up on Juliet’s finger.
Leo frowned. Since when did he consider anyone within striking distance of having a ring on their finger lucky?
Juliet reached into the canvas bag and began unpacking the ingredients he’d picked up on his way over, lining them up one by one. When she got to the vanilla paste, she turned the bottle over in her hand and inspected the label. “This is the good stuff from Madagascar. Nice. And I have to say, food was the last thing I expected to find in that bag.”
“I like to think outside the box and carry actual groceries in my grocery bags. I’d hate to be predictable.” He winked.
“Oh, you’re anything but predictable,” she said dryly.
He raised an eyebrow at her tone. “And what did you expect me to be carrying in that bag?”
“Honestly? Money. Lots of it. At least, oh, I don’t know...1,232 dollars. Thereabouts.” Her elegant shoulder lifted in a nonchalant shrug.
A jackhammering began in Leo’s jaw and traveled up to his temple.
So they were going to talk about the vet bill? Marvelous.
It had taken every ounce of self-control he possessed, and then some, not to return her money. To march right into Arabella Chocolate Boutique and fling it at her feet. But as furious as he’d been to find all those dollars on his doorstep, he knew she’d be doubly furious if he tried to force her to take them back.
Her eyes blazed with indignation. Or was it hurt? “I have my pride, Leo.”
And he didn’t? “I felt responsible.”
She waved a hand at Cocoa in the living room. The big dog was lolling on her back, letting Sugar bat at her face with one of her dainty paws. “Why would you? It was my dog.”
“Yes, but it was my chocolate.” Leo gave her a playful tap on the tip of her upturned nose. As strongly as he felt about wanting to pay for Cocoa’s veterinary care, he was willing to let the matter drop. For now. They already had enough working against this attraction without adding 1,232 dollars to the mix.
“I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree.” She leaned toward him, bathing him in the intoxicating fragrance of chocolate and Chantilly cream, then appeared to realize what she was doing and righted herself.
What a pity.
It’s okay,
he wanted to say.
Lean in. Lean all the way in.
He had to stop himself from reaching for her, from pulling her soft, lithe body against his so she could remember how perfectly they fit together. Like they were made for one another, last names be damned.
He’d already shown up uninvited. He certainly wasn’t going to force himself on her. What he wanted most of all was for her to lose control again, to show him how much she wanted him. He wished she would stop thinking so much and just live in the moment with him, grab him by the shirt and kiss him so hard that she bruised his mouth. Hell, until he bled.
But he feared those days were over.
He moved closer to her, barely a heartbeat away. But he made no move to touch her. An ache throbbed to life deep in his center. The unfulfilled longing that had come over him that first night in the vineyard had blossomed into something he could no longer control. He was right there on the cusp of begging, of falling to his knees and pleading with her.
Must you leave me so unsatisfied?
“I didn’t come here to argue with you,
bella.
” His words scraped against the inside of his throat, leaving him feeling raw and altogether too vulnerable.
She blew out a soft, shaky breath, as if she was trying to hold anything and everything she might be feeling inside. Out of his reach. But her eyes gave her away. They glittered, dark, lovely and full of unspoken desire.
Perhaps those days weren’t over, after all.
“Leo.” She swallowed, and for the briefest of moments those delicious lips of hers parted, rendering him spellbound. “Exactly why did you come here?”
* * *
Bella.
The endearment just about did Juliet in.
It meant
beautiful,
and it sounded infinitely more romantic in Italian than in English. Or maybe it was just the way Leo had said it. With complete and total abandon, rather as if he hadn’t planned on saying it at all, and his use of it had surprised him every bit as much as it did her.
“Leo.” She paused for a steadying inhale, as if anything could calm the beating of her heart at the moment. “Exactly why did you come here?”
“I already told you—to help with your project.” He winked at her. That wink zinged straight to the center of her chest with laser-guided precision.
He was here to help her re-create his
chocolat chaud.
What a load of crap.
He smiled at her, grabbed a spoon from the countertop and dipped it in one of the saucepans. He appeared to be entirely comfortable in her kitchen.
Too
comfortable. And by all appearances, he was completely relaxed. If he was lying to her, he certainly wasn’t nervous or anxious about it.
Then again, neither were psychopaths when they lied. Or serial killers, for that matter.
She dropped her gaze. It was easier to think without his dreamy blue eyes and perfect bone structure invading her senses.
Fate must have been smiling down on her at that moment, because her eyes landed on the one thing capable of dragging her back to reality.
Her grandmother’s recipe book.
She had to hand it to her mother. Giving her the book had been deviously brilliant. God, why did her mother have to be such an evil genius? And what exactly had she seen at the balloon festival?
Juliet squared her shoulders and looked back up at Leo. He was busy tasting the batch of
chocolat chaud
that Juliet considered her best effort thus far. Still, it was missing that special something. Would she ever put her finger on it?
“This one’s the closest.” Leo nodded and rinsed the tasting spoon in the sink. Leonardo Mezzanotte...in her kitchen. Who would have ever predicted such an occurrence? “But you probably already knew that.”