Love and Reservations by Dee Rollings

Author:Dee Rollings [Rollings, Dee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-05-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

I hurried into the restaurant, embarrassed that it was twenty minutes past the time we’d agreed to meet. This was not how I wanted Sal’s family to get to know me. I scanned the busy steakhouse, finding our party already seated at a table in the corner.

I smoothed my skirt, trying to calm my nerves as I approached the empty chair behind Sal. He was deep in conversation with Camilla, sitting across the table from him. Their grandmother sat next to her, and two women I didn’t know sat at either end of the table. “I’m here now, sorry.”

Sal stood, wrapping his arms around me in a welcoming hug. He was really great at making this believable. “Hey, honey.”

I pushed up on my toes to kiss him hello, for the sake of our audience, but as if he suddenly remembered the last time I tried to kiss him, he turned his cheek to me. After pressing my lips to his smooth skin, I turned to the rest of the table. “I’m so sorry I’m late. The contractor finally showed up to update me on the kitchen renovations, and I couldn’t get out of the office.”

Sal pulled out the chair for me, motioning for me to sit down. After he sat, he put his hand on my knee, calming me. “I just got here, too, actually,” he admitted.

Camilla smiled from across the table. “Lizette called me an hour ago and said she wasn’t going to make it. We were just wondering if you two were going to stand us up, too. ”

“Sorry, you’re stuck with me.” I laughed a little as I said it, before realizing that in a little while we’d have to stage our breakup, and I might never see her again. I ignored the pain the thought caused and focused my energy on their grandmother and the other ladies at the table. “Good afternoon, Nonna.” She smiled at me and said hello before I nodded to each of the women I hadn’t met before. “It’s nice to meet you both . . . .”

“This is Blake.” Sal finished my sentence. Then he gestured to the curly-haired brunette on the end next to him. “This is my cousin Giovanna.” Then he pointed to the woman on my right, “and this is her sister Bianca.” Giovanna looked like the younger sister, maybe twenty-five, but Bianca looked to be about my age. “Their mom is our dad’s sister.”

I gave each of them an awkward little wave. “It’s nice to meet you both.”

“So,” Camilla started, “how busy was the restaurant this weekend?”

Sal leaned back in his seat. “Our busiest yet.”

Nonna leaned forward a little. “Did you call your father, Salvatore?”

I caught the slight grimace on his face before he smiled at her. “I did, actually. He didn’t answer, but that’s beside the point.” His hand left my leg and moved to the nape of my neck, rubbing slow circles with his thumb. I wondered how much of it was to calm him as well as me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.