Page 3 of The Holiday Hate-Off
But I have to be totally honest: I’m the main reason we were banned.
On my first week at Love at First Sip, a gorgeous blonde woman ran into the café sobbing. I was alone. Eileen was on a store run to pick up more oat milk, and no one else had come in, so I flipped the sign to CLOSED, made the woman a Byron, and sat down across from her. She told me all about her problems with her boyfriend Lorenzo, who constantly prioritized work and family over her. I patted her hand and assured her that she had every right to feel important in her own relationship.
Turns out she’d been talking about Enzo Cafiero, the Cafiero golden child and eldest son.
Apparently Enzo moved to New York City years ago to work as some kind of consultant. But that particular weekend, right after I’d moved here, he and his girlfriend were visiting his family here in town. According to her, he’d ignored her the whole time. He sounded like a total jerk and a terrible boyfriend, and I let her know it.
Within an hour of her conversation with me in the café, she’d dumped him and reserved a weekend spot at The Haven.
I know this because Enzo stormed in with a red face later that day and asked who’d given his girlfriend such stupid advice. I knew it was him because of the leading question, and also because he looked a lot like his two younger brothers—tall and broad with olive-toned skin, black hair, and thick, arching eyebrows over dark eyes surrounded by long lashes. Charlie describes the Cafiero eyes as brooding. Brooding eyes are her favorite to paint, even on the dogs she does portraits for.
It was not as fun to stare into a pair of brooding eyes on a six-foot-one man, especially one with a frown that instantly made me feel smaller. He was gorgeous, he obviously knew it, and he was even more intimidating because of it.
I gulped in air, choked on it, and then raised a hand like a middle schooler who knew they had the wrong answer.
He gave me a withering look and asked, “Do you know who I am?”
“No,” I lied, because anyone who asks that question should be given exactly that answer.
“I’m Lorenzo Cafiero.”
I didn’t give him the reaction he was obviously searching for; I just tilted my head slightly.
“I’m the man you screwed over. What qualifies you to give relationship advice to a stranger? You’re what, twenty-one, twenty-two?”
Honestly.I’m perfectly capable of being confrontational when the situation calls for it—I had to stand up to medical professionals while taking care of my mother—and I wasn’t about to take BS from some gorgeous alpha jerk.
“I’m twenty-eight,” I told him, standing up straighter.
“And you still haven’t answered my first question.”
“Seriously?” I said, exasperated. “Fine. Nothing qualifies me. But I’m not the one who made your ex cry, or the one who broke up with you. And the fact that you’re here complaining and not kneeling at her feet says a lot.”
He stared me down for a solid twenty seconds. And I stared back, full of anger but frozen in place, like I’d been turned into a mannequin. Then he shook his head, swore in Italian, and said, “I don’t kneel at anyone’s feet.”
The way he’d said it unnerved me, but I found myself replying, “Then we both know why she wasn’t satisfied.”
It was a dumb thing for me to say, considering how little experience I’ve had with real-life dating, but I’ve read hundredsof books, maybe thousands. I know what men do to satisfy their women, even if I’ve mostly been left cold.
Someone in the café started giggling, but Enzo darted a furious glance at them, and they stopped immediately. He shifted his gaze back to me. “Ineverleave a woman unsatisfied.”
The intensity of his tone, paired with that dark glower, was very…intimidating. It made my knees feel like jelly. But I stood tall and lifted my chin, saying, “Then I guess it must have been your sparkling personality she found lacking.”
Enzo glared at me for a moment, his jaw clenched. Then he just stormed off…
The next day the Cafieros posted a flyer announcing our banishment from their deli, right where we were sure to see it, on the door by the stairs leading down to Hidden Italy. Not just a written notice either, but a flyer with actual photos of me, Charlie, and Eileen—stolen from our Facebook accounts—with big Xs printed over our faces.
People came in and asked us about it all day long, and each time, it generated a fresh wave of embarrassment. Especially since the whole town of Hideaway Harbor is always playing a game of telephone, where stories become embellished with each telling until they only slightly resemble what actually happened.
For a whole week, that flyer stayed up. Until finally a torrential rainstorm took care of it. I suppose it could’ve been one of the other Cafiero boys who actually took it down. They’re big and handsome like Enzo, but they aren’t outwardly hostile. Then again, they did allow their family’s anti-us flyer to stay up for a whole week.
That was nearly four months ago, but even now, Eileen’s offhand comment about Francesca Cafiero still being “cross” with us brings all the humiliation rushing back. Until those damn Cafieros, I’d never been banned from anywhere.
“The Cafieros are all jerks,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat with remembered embarrassment. “Hot jerks, but still jerks.”
“Well, I’m not so sure about that,” Eileen says. “Though I haven’t forgotten that Enzodidbehave abominably toward you that day.”
“Exactly. He’s not at all the kind of man I’d want to be set up with. So let’s move on. Mom said I need a man with a soft heart.” In addition to the magic ball, my mom also left me a heartfelt letter I’ve read at least a hundred times. In it, she wrote that she was sorry she wouldn’t be able to make it to my wedding and listed all the qualities she thought I should look for in a man.
