Page 196 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

‘Hmm...’ He put down his glass and rather elegantly hopped onto the large marble bench, watching her pulling out jars he clearly hadn’t known he had. ‘I’m seriously hungry,’ he warned, obviously not believing that nuts, cheese and some flour could be turned into much.

‘I know.’

‘Hey, Susie? What if your cooking is terrible?’ he asked, making her smile. ‘Do I have to pretend I like it?’ he teased.

‘Since when did you ever do that?’ She smirked. ‘You can give me your usual honest opinion.’

She was loving this...making pasta, stretching it, running it through the machine and watching as the lovely soft white sheets came out.

Dante sat watching her. It was unusual to see anyone other than Maria in his kitchen—and certainly he didn’t sit and watch his housekeeper cook.

‘I’ve got to go to court,’ he told her. ‘The wife read the husband’s letter yesterday.’

‘But he only posted it on Friday.’

‘Through her door. Where he shouldn’t even have been.’

‘Gosh...’

‘And he’s not supposed to contact her, so another rap on the knuckles for me. He’s offered, in his own handwriting, far more than had been agreed. Now he wants to change his mind. What a mess...’

‘Do you like the wine?’ she asked.

‘I do...’ He took another sip of wine, unable to voice more, because he could hardly believe he was drinking wine and thinking about the winery.

Thinking about taking on a little more responsibility for it.

He was grateful for the loud buzz as she blended walnuts, yet the large kitchen still felt peaceful.

Gio had never legally passed the business on to Dante’s father, even though it had caused a few arguments...

‘You’ll get it when I’m gone,’Gio would declare.‘For now, it stays with me.’

And that had proved important when tragedy had struck...

‘My father had very big ideas for the winery,’ he told her. ‘Though Gio wouldn’t let him get his hands on it. Rosa’s family did too. They wanted to blend the two of them...’

Susie looked up.

‘But Gio was having none of it. He would say, “You can do what you want with it when I’m gone...”’

‘Did you ever want to be a part of it?’

‘No—nor did Sev. Maybe we would have got involved somewhere down the line, but we wanted our own careers first.’

He watched as she placed little balls of mixture on the sheet of pasta, and found that watching Susie made it all too easy to voice his thoughts out loud. Towantto voice them.

‘If my father had been a shareholder on his death that share would have passed to Sev and I. And any of our spouses would have had a stake.’

‘Ah, but you’re going to be single for ever,’ Susie said.

There were little parcels of ravioli all over his bench now, and she was concentrating on her sauce.

‘Sev wasn’t single.’

‘No,’ Susie agreed, and turned to him and offered a sympathetic smile. ‘Rosa died, though.’

‘Where there’s a will there’s a family...’ Dante said. ‘Do they say that in England?’