The path curved around toward a lake and Andy pulled the van to a stop beside it. Hopping out, he moved around to the double doors in back while Tessa stood by the side of the vehicle.
“I didn’t know this was here,” she said looking over the water. The sun was high overhead and scattered over the surface like little gold coins. “I wonder if the guests are still up there?”
“Well, seeing as we have all the food, they probably won’t hang around Briarwood for long.”
What she was really wondering was whether Graham was still there. Was he looking for her? Or did he actually know the exact reason why she’d left? Perhaps her actions that day had finally communicated all the emotions she hadn’t been able to put into words.
She heard Andy rummaging about in the van. There was the shifting of pans and what sounded like the unlatching of metal clasps. Curious, she came around to peek inside.
The interior was hollow and stacked with coolers and food carts with insulated compartments. Andy searched out a serving plate.
“I’m starving. I haven’t had anything but water and grapefruit for two days so I could fit into this dress.”
He stole a glance at her figure, but quickly looked away to search for forks. “Trust me, a muffin wasn’t going to kill you.”
“You’d be surprised what a few carbs can do to a gal.”
“Please.” Andy rolled his eyes.
The inside of the van smelled amazing. She glanced about, impressed with how organized everything was.
Then she saw it. Three tiers high, it stood in the corner. Her wedding cake.
A lump formed unexpectedly in her throat.
Andy followed her gaze. “Do you want to see how it turned out?” he asked after a moment.
She swallowed. “Why not?”
In truth, this had been the one detail where Tessa had a specific request. It had to be a tiramisu cake, for sentimental reasons. The best tiramisu ever, she told Julie.
Andy helped her up into the van, a feat as she was still in her wedding dress. She managed to squeeze in beside him as he crouched before the cake. Why was her pulse racing?
He made a grand gesture. “What do you think?”
She could barely breathe. “It’s beautiful.”
A tingling sensation gathered at the bridge of her nose. She hadn’t cried at all upon leaving Graham at the altar, yet here she was getting choked up over a tower of espresso and cream.
The cake belonged on the cover of Food & Wine magazine. Each tier was bounded by a circle of perfectly cut lady fingers dusted with powdered sugar. A floral pattern had been sprinkled onto the top in cocoa.
It was a dream. Exactly like she’d asked for. Better than what she’d asked for. It looked romantic and elegant. The stuff of memories.
“Tessa?” There was concern in Andy’s voice.
“The first time I had tiramisu was when I was twelve. It was at a wedding. I don’t even remember who it was who was getting married, but I remember the cake.” Tessa was babbling, but she felt the need to explain herself. “It was heaven. The best thing I’d ever tasted.”
It wasn’t just the cake. It had been everything; the flowers, the pretty dress her mom had bought just for the wedding. She had been Mom’s date since Dad was no longer living with them. From that moment on, this cake had come to embody the perfect day to her. Tiramisu was what wedded bliss should taste like. She had wanted to recapture that moment, how special it had felt to her to feel pretty and grown-up and content. But now this beautiful creation was stuck inside this van, all dressed up with nowhere to go.
Just like her.
A flood of emotion swept through her. It hadn’t been so long ago when she was full of hope. When she was giddy with happiness that she was getting married. That she had found her one.
But that too-bright haze of happiness hadn’t lasted long. Graham’s engagement ring was on her finger, the plans were underway, and then reality had intruded. She had just refused to see the truth.
She had wanted so much to be happy and had really believed, at least for a little while, that Graham was her chance. During the school year she hardly had time to remember to eat three meals a day let alone have a personal life. All the plants she ever brought home usually withered and died for lack of care.
Graham had shown up and swept her off her feet. He’d stop by between business trips and take her to fancy places. Curl up with her on the couch. It was so good to finally have someone to just be with. Who made everything easy for her.
They would stay up half the night on the weekends and by Sunday her mind would be back on her job and Graham would slip away to his. A whirlwind romance was all she had the time for.
How much had she known about him before saying yes? Enough, was what she used to think. Enough to know it was worth the leap. Because love was being able to take risks, right?
But now she doubted everything she thought she knew about Graham.
“I think we should have a piece,” Tessa declared.
A beat passed before Andy responded. “All right.”
He moved away and came back with a cake server which he handed to her. “I guess you should do the honors.”
Tessa held her breath as she positioned the server over the bottom tier. When she cut through the layers of sponge cake and mascarpone, a crushing sense of finality rushed through her. It was really done. There was no going back now. Not with a huge wedge missing from the wedding cake.
It was silly after everything else that had happened that day, but in her mind and heart, this was it. The gravity of what she’d done came crashing down. At the same time, Tessa felt lighter than she had in months.
Graham had proposed to her and then jumped on an airplane for yet another business trip. Ever since then, uncertainty and doubt had weighed her down. How would that burden have felt after five, ten, fifteen years of marriage? And all because she refused to speak up for herself, to make things unpleasant between them.
She eased the slice of cake onto the platter, relieved that it remained in a nice triangular shape. Then she cut a slice for Andy as well and laid it beside hers.
He took charge of the plate, holding it steady as he rummaged through a storage bin for plastic silverware—an oxymoron she always appreciated. Then Andy led her back outside, offering a hand as she lowered herself back down onto the grass. He landed lightly beside her, the cake balanced perfectly.
Without a word, they headed over to the picnic tables that overlooked the water. She sat on the bench facing the lake and slipped her heels off while Andy set the platter between them.
Tessa took a moment to absorb the surroundings. The sunlight glittered over the water while a summer breeze sifted through the grass. It would have been a perfect day to get married and the perfect place to do it, yet here she was, a complete wreck with her insides in pieces. She’d ruined everything and there was no going back, but at least there was cake.
Andy handed her a fork and they dug in at the same time. Tessa lifted the bite of cake to her lips. The moment she tasted it, every nerve ending in her body fired at once.
“Oh my God!”
He grinned. “It’s good?”
Smooth, rich cream infused with a kick of espresso enveloped between layers of moist cake. It was rich and decadent and made her want to say, “Graham who?” Her toes were practically curling.
She took another forkful. “This is amazing.”
“I’m glad you like it.” Andy kept his eyes on her as he finally took his first bite.
“Seriously, if you don’t eat faster, I’m taking your slice as well.”
“Be my guest. I’ve been eating test batches all week. There really is too much of a good thing.”
“Nuh-uh.” Her reply was muffled by a mouthful of mascarpone.
Between her starvation diet and the travesty that had become of her wedding, she swore this cake was the best thing she’d ever tasted. The best medicine in the world. She took another bite, not wanting this feeling of abject bliss to end.
“Julie was right. You’re perfect”—she caught a gleam in his eye that she swore hadn’t been there before—“for the job,” she amended.
He shrugged, kind of humble, but kind of not. “It’s impossible to ruin tiramisu. The secret to this one is the zabaglione.”
“Mmm . . . I love it when you talk like that,” she purred, another bite disappearing into her mouth. The taste of it did something indecent to her insides. “What’s za-ba-yi . . .”
“Zabaglione. It’s an Italian custard. Egg yolks, marsala. You cook it up while beating the heck out of it and then fold it in with the mascarpone. I had to bribe the recipe out of my nonna.”
“Dinners at the Ottavio household must be serious business.”
“It’s nothing but business, unfortunately. The family business.”
She slowed down her tiramisu consumption to a more respectable pace. “You mean . . . the mafia?”
He shot her an evil eye. She batted hers back at him.
“Dad owns a restaurant and now my older brother does, too,” he explained. “Ottavio’s and Ottavio South.”
“So you grew up around food?”
“Lots of restaurant leftovers, all the time.”
He leaned his elbows back against the table and reclined against it in a devil-may-care pose she found surprisingly sexy. Then she had to mentally smack herself for finding another man sexy just hours after running away from her wedding.
“Did you work in your father’s restaurant growing up?”
Andy made a face. “Nights, weekends, most holidays. Child labor laws don’t apply when you’re employed by your own parents.”
Tessa grinned. “I did not know that.”
“Yeah. There were no dates in high school either. I had to wait tables every night. Or do dishes if the dishwasher was backed up. Be a line cook if a line cook called in sick. I’d do my homework in the storeroom during break.”
“It sounds awful.”
“It was. God, I loved it.”
She laughed, and not an “I have to laugh or else I’ll cry” laugh, either. She was feeling warm between the tiramisu cake and the conversation that had nothing to do with her own personal angst, weddings, or jilted fiancés.
Which, she reminded herself once again, she’d deal with tomorrow.
“Then your brother opened his own restaurant?” she went on.
“Last year. I worked on the line there for a while, but I felt it was time to branch out and try my own thing. Of course, every time I picked up a job at another restaurant in the city, my father acted like I was betraying the family honor or something. The last place I worked at wasn’t even remotely Italian. It was a Japanese place downtown, and Dad still gave me hell for it every week at Sunday dinner. That’s Italian families for you.”
“It sounds awful,” she admitted. “I’d love it.”
Just the thought of Sunday dinner every week seemed so wonderful. A routine that kept a family together, talking—and even fighting—sounded better than spending long stretches apart, each person focusing on jobs and bills and just the endless stuff that didn’t last or create memories.
Silence descended after that. Tessa took another bite of no-longer-a-wedding cake. So did Andy. Nothing to cover up an awkward pause like dessert.
There wasn’t much of a dinner ritual at their place growing up. She and her sister had been latchkey kids with their mother raising them as a single parent. Even when her parents were still married, it felt like Mom was a single parent.
Oh, no. She was not going to do that thing where she went back into her childhood to identify all the lonely and traumatizing things that happened to her. At least she wouldn’t do it out loud.
“So is that why you started catering? So you wouldn’t infringe upon the family honor?”
His posture stiffened. He uncrossed his ankles, recrossed them again, his laid-back pose no longer so laid-back. “My family thinks it’s a complete waste of time because apparently they know everything there is to know about this business and catering isn’t real cooking.”
“Well, I think you do a great job of it.”
“Because this last gig was such a great success,” he said from the corner of his mouth.
She felt a pang of guilt. “Extenuating circumstances.”
Andy met her eyes and his look softened. “Hey, like they say when it comes to weddings. All you have to do is please the bride, right?”
Tessa laughed but it came out thin. “Right.”
Then why had she been so intent on pleasing everyone else?
“I figured catering might make me some extra cash. It’s not the same as working in a kitchen,” he went on. “But at least I get to make my own decisions. Plus, you know.” He raised his eyebrows, while his tone remained deadpan. “It’s a great way to pick up women.”
“Ha. Funny. As in, not.”
“Too soon?”
She kicked him in the shin, which likely did more damage to her than Andy given that she had only stockings on. A moment of silence descended. It had been so long since she’d felt this way. Lighthearted, free, bantering about nothing and hanging on every word regardless. Andy had a way of putting her at ease, but now she was bothered by it. She shouldn’t feel so relieved that she was no longer getting married.
“Hey, blue nail polish,” he remarked, looking down at her toes. He grinned like he’d just been let in on a secret.
“My sister did them for me last night for ‘something blue.’ We figured with the floor-length gown, no one would ever see them except—”
Except for her newlywed husband. She couldn’t even insert Graham’s name into that slot anymore. Tessa wiggled her big toe, feeling suddenly self-conscious. Feet were personal things.
“You know, this whole mess is all my fault,” she admitted.
“It doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault,” Andy assured, which was just him trying to be the good guy.
“No, I mean, I let it get this far. It certainly wasn’t Graham’s fault. After I said yes to his proposal, I felt like there was no taking it back, you know? Even though I started having misgivings over a month ago, I didn’t say anything to him about it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I guess I just talked myself into thinking I was overreacting. This was marriage and ‘I do’ was supposed to mean ‘I do’.” She pulled the hem of her skirt down to cover her something-blue toes, feeling sheepish. “I should have known that was a sign in and of itself that I wasn’t ready. Everyone says that communication is key in a relationship, but I couldn’t talk to Graham.”
“Well, did he talk to you?”
His challenging tone made her pulse jump. “Sure we talked, but—”
“You two were in a relationship, right? Didn’t he sense things weren’t quite right between you? I’m no expert on relationships, but I hear it’s a two-way street.”
“That’s the problem with long-distance relationships,” she argued. “Graham was out of town so much that every time we saw each other again, it was like a honeymoon. Everyone was on their best behavior, no one wanted to rock the boat. Things just evolved that way. I should have realized it before now.”
It was so clear to her now where things had gone wrong. Hindsight: 20/20.
“Look Tessa, I don’t know anything about you or your guy—”
“He’s not ‘my guy’ anymore.”
“Right.” Andy straightened, rolling up the sleeves of his chef jacket as if he were getting down to business. “But it seems to me like you’re taking an awful lot of the blame onto yourself here.”
Her face heated because he was right. “I do that sometimes. My sister Renata always goes for the bad boys. She wants that fiery, explosive sort of relationship. As if the conflict makes things more exciting for her, but I was never like that. I want things to be happy. I suppose that means I end up being too forgiving sometimes.” She looked at Andy to see him frowning at her, deep in thought. “But that’s not always a bad thing. Someone has to keep the peace.”
“You’re too afraid of making people angry, Tessa. If someone matters to you, if you matter to them, they’re not going to write you off because you called them out on something.”
“Thanks for the psychotherapy session,” she said dryly.
“It comes free with the wedding cake.”
She shoved the plate aside, feeling agitated. Couldn’t she just wallow, eat her cake, and be in denial for a while?
“It’s easier for you. Your parents are happily married. You have Sunday dinners and run restaurants together.”
Tessa hated sounding so defensive, but she couldn’t help it. This was who she was, the reasonable one. The perpetual peacemaker. If it weren’t for her, her family might never talk to one another.
“The only example I’d seen of a happy marriage was on TV sitcoms growing up,” she went on relentlessly. “But what those happy little episodes don’t show is that a marriage takes work. I’m no expert on relationships either, but even I know it takes compromise. And sometimes that means you have to bite your tongue and choose your battles.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I come from a family that likes to shout everyone down. We don’t have arguments, we have all-out brawls. It’s not easier for us than it is for anyone else.” As Andy started getting worked up, his gestures became more pronounced. “Do you know my mother once threw a knife at my father? And she didn’t just lob it, she chucked it at him like a ninja assassin. Dad barely got out of the way in time.”
Tessa choked back a laugh. Whatever heated reply she’d been planning slipped away. “I can’t imagine my mother ever doing something like that. How do you come back from that and end up married for thirty-five years?”
“He forgave her. She forgave him and they moved on.” Andy broke into a grin. “Plus I think the Ottavios might have a thing for fiery women.”
She made a face. “I’m certainly not your type at all then. There’s not a fiery bone in my body.”
“You know, I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” he said with a sly look.
“Trust me. I pride myself on being even-tempered.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.” He stood and held out his hand to her. “It might do you some good to lose it a once in a while.”