“Senza più lacrime,” he said. “No tears.” But his eyes looked a little shiny all the same.
“Who taught you that?” she asked, knowing the answer but needing to hear him say it.
“My mother.” The crack in his voice sliced through her quicker than the blade through the onion. He returned his gaze to the board. “Vivi taught me everything.”
“What was she like?”
In the pause, she thought he was going to ignore her but then he spoke in a low, husky tone. “She was a pain in the ass. Stubborn, pushy, with a laugh that lit up a room. She could cook anything, make everyone feel better with a hug. She was the best person I’ve ever known.”
“And you miss her terribly.”
He shrugged, but it was shaky. Pain bracketed his mouth. “It felt like her life was unfinished, like she had so much left to accomplish. Some people aren’t meant to leave us so soon.” He looked up and the hollowness in his eyes shocked her to the core. She didn’t like that statement or its implication.
That some peoplearemeant to leave.
Jules’s mother had died when she was two, her father three years later, and she didn’t remember either of them very well. Jack hadn’t been around much and living with her aunt and uncle, she may as well have been an emancipated minor. She was used to people leaving, but the last two years had opened up a new world for her. Being alone was not natural.
People were not meant to leave.
“What were they like together? Your parents?”
“Happy. Devoted. Kind of like Tony and Frankie, but more open about it.”
She knew what he meant. Tony and Francesca were one of those model couples. They had survived Frankie’s cancer, their restaurant almost failing, the pain of their eldest daughter’s anorexia, and had come out stronger than any marriage she knew. But they were quiet about their devotion. It was one of the things Jules had noticed first about the DeLucas—how non-stereotypical they were in their Italianness. None of that “Mamma Mia” and constant hugging that you saw on TV or in the movies. Even Cara and Lili were more reserved, sort of like Jules herself. Lili was fond of saying that Jack was more Italian than any of them and he didn’t have an Italian bone in his body.
Hearing that Tad’s parents were demonstrative was fascinating. Tad was like that, too. He was more tactile than she was used to, unafraid of human contact, but in the last year, he hadn’t touched her much since she’d tackled him on her sofa. Probably worried she’d get wicked ideas.
Last week he’d endured her hug when he offered her a job and today, he had let her get close again. Affectionate bookends to that scorching, but far too short, kiss from a few nights ago. She’d forgotten how much that physical closeness meant to her, how the contours of his body seemed to find a worthy match in her soft curves. If only any hard, hot specimen of maleness could do it for her, but with every crappy date, it became increasingly obvious that only one man turned her crank with the simplest touch.
Taddeo Gianni DeLuca.
He might not know it, but he needed it as well. This pulsing desire within her to comfort him, to fill those deep pockets of sadness he wore, pounded through her with a merciless beat. She wanted to draw him out, let him know she could be as strong for him as he had always been for her.
“So your mom taught you how to become handy with a knife. How come—”
“I don’t cook?”
She nodded.
The corner of his mouth hooked up but she could see it took effort. “You do realize that practically every DeLuca cooks before they can walk? There’s always someone on deck. Except Cara.”
Cara could run a kitchen with military precision but put a frying pan in her hand and the room would either burn or starve.
“Just because everyone else cooks doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. If not professionally, then… for yourself.” She wasn’t sure why but this exchange had taken on unexpected significance. So he came from a family of mega-talented chefs and he didn’t want to cook.
No biggie, except her conversation with Frankie about Tad’s dream of being a chef and his reaction when his parents died played on a loop in her brain.
The joy left him.
“How about you give it a go?” He slid the chef’s knife across the cutting board.
So that wall would remain in place with the “No Trespassing” sign for another day.
That was okay. She picked up the knife and let the weight fill her palm. “Are you thinking ‘be one with the knife’?” he asked wryly.
“I’m so one with it you should be wearing armor.”
He smiled, just a flash. “Good girl.” He placed the other half of the onion in front of her.