Page 41 of The Billionaire Player

“My grandfather. He loved to cook, my grandmother was horrible at it, so it worked out for them. He taught my father who then decided to use the knowledge to open up a restaurant. This is one of his favorite recipes,” she said.

I could see the love in her eyes and hear the pride in her voice when she talked about her family. I loved that she was so involved with them and they were close. I had other girlfriends and lovers get annoyed with me when I wanted to spend time with my family over them. I could tell that Lexi would never feel that way. She would understand and want time with her own and respect my need to be with mine.

“How did your parents lose the restaurant? If you don’t mind me asking,” I said as I poured us both some more wine.

“No. I don’t mind talking about it. Running a restaurant is hard, as you know.”

“Thank you for saying that,” I interjected.

She stopped stirring for a second and looked at me. Giving me one of her soft sweet smiles that made my heart jump just a little.

“You’re welcome. You have an advantage that you can throw money at your business if things start to go south. You have more wiggle room in hard times, but you run a good restaurant. I can see that.

“My parents did too, but food got more expensive, staff was difficult to hire and keep, rent started to go up. It became harder and harder for them to make ends meet, much less make a profit. When my sister and I got older and went away to school and had our own lives, they tried to figure out what to do next. When the landlord raised their rent to a rate they couldn’t afford, they had to end up closing,” she said.

“Why didn’t they move to another location?”

“They could see the industry was changing. More and more corporations were getting involved, pushing the small businesses out. They looked but anywhere else they couldn’t afford either, so they called it quits.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Are they doing okay?”

“Yeah. They had some savings, and they own their house so that helps. They don’t need much and I help them out when I can,” she replied

“You’re a good daughter, I can see that.”

“I try. It doesn’t mean they don’t annoy me sometimes and make me happy that I don’t live near them, but they’re good people. I love them and would do anything for them.”

“As they would for you.”

“I hope you’re hungry,” she said as she turned off the stove.

“Starving. It smells delicious. What is it?”

“Roasted tomato pasta with basil, chili, and garlic.”

I followed her to the table as she took our plates and I took our wine glasses. The rigatoni pasta looked amazing with bits of roasted tomatoes mixed in with garlic, basil, and chili flakes. I put the glasses down then held out her chair for her as she put the plates down.

Neither of us talked as we dove into our dishes. I hadn’t been able to eat lunch and I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I was sitting in Lexi’s kitchen. The smell of the food had only made me hungrier and now that it was in front of me, I dug right in.

“Wow! That’s a lot of garlic and spice,” I said after my first bite.

“Is it too much? I thought you could handle some heat,” she said with a smile.

“It’s incredible. I might try to steal this recipe for my place.”

“I’ll see if my grandfather is willing to sell it to you for a price.”

“If he can give me more of this, I might take you up on that. He should do a cookbook.”

“I’ll let him know.”

My words pleased her and it made me happy to see her smile and a bit privileged that she wanted to share a part of her and her family with me.

“Was this a bit of a test? Were you trying to see if I could handle my garlic and spice and what I’d say about your cooking?”

“No. Though, maybe it should have been,” she said with a laugh. “Actually, I picked something I’d been making for years, that I could do in my sleep and not mess up, because I wanted to impress you,” she admitted.

“You have impressed me from the moment you walked into my life.”

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