CHAPTER ONE
THE women whose hearts had been broken by Joseph Romano, and the ones who yearned for the same fate, agreed that he was a black-haired, blue-eyed, sexy-as-hell, untamable, gorgeous hunk.
The old-line financial wizards who watched as Joe amassed millions on the San Francisco stock market said he was a cold-blooded, hot-tempered upstart. And they called him things a lot more graphic and less polite than "hunk."
Joe's grandmother, who'd adored him for the entirety of his thirty-two years, told anyone who would listen that her Joseph was handsome as a god, sweet-natured as an angel, and as smart as the you-know-what. Nonna had just enough of the Old Country left in her so that she wouldn't say the devil's name out loud any more than she'd say any of these things to Joe's face.
What she did tell him, as often as she could, was that he needed to eat his vegetables, get to bed on time, find a good Italian girl to marry and give her, Nonna, lots of beautiful, bright bambinos.
Joe loved his grandmother with all his heart. She and his brother, Matthew, were all the family he had left. And he tried to please her. He ate almost all his vegetables, except the ones no real man would ever eat. He went to bed on time, though his interest in being there had nothing to do with sleep and everything to do with the succession of beautiful women who passed through his busy life.
But marriage ... well, a man didn't put his neck in that noose until he was ready.
Fortunately, Joe had never felt that ready. He didn't expect to, not for a long, long time.
An intelligent man, Joe never mentioned that to Nonna during the last-Friday-of-the-month suppers they both enjoyed whenever he was in town. Supper with her, and a bachelor party for one of the guys he played racquetball with, was why he'd flown back to San Francisco on a warm Friday in late May.
He'd been in New Orleans, checking out a small start-up company whose stock looked interesting. When the stacked redhead who'd been walking him through the firm's data leaned in close and said, in a sexy whisper, that she. hoped he'd let her give him a more intimate tour of the French Quarter over the weekend, Joe had grinned and started to say he'd surely love that.
Then he'd remembered the bachelor party. More than that, he'd remembered that this was the last Friday of the month. Nonna had made a special point of reminding him that she expected to see him for dinner.
That was unusual. She never had to remind him because Joe never forgot. If anything, Nonna was always telling him that she didn't want him to feel locked into their once-a-month Fridays.
"You have other things you want to do, Joey," she'd say, "you do them."
Joe had hugged her and told her that he'd sooner break a date with the queen than miss a Friday with her.
It was true. Sometimes he figured his grandmother was the only reason he'd made it through childhood in one piece.
She'd taken him in a zillion times when he was a kid and his old man was looking to beat the crap out of him for some numbskull antic. She'd been a rock for him and Matt when their mother died. She'd never given up on him, even after he'd pretty much given up on himself. And, when he'd finally straightened himself out, joined the Navy and then the SEALs, been honorably discharged and completed his college education, Nonna had simply said she always knew he'd make something of himself.
So Joe had flown back to San Francisco that May night, climbed into his cherry-red Ferrari, stopped to buy a bouquet of spring flowers and the smooth-as-silk Chianti he and his grandmother liked. Then he drove to her clapboard house in North Beach. She'd lived in it as long as he could remember, despite the efforts of both Joe and Matt to convince her to leave it.
Nonna greeted him on the back porch.
"Joseph," she said, "mio ragazzo." She gave him a big hug. "Come inside, sweetheart, and mangia."
The hug and the smile were normal. The Italian was not. His nonna had come to the States as a bride of sixteen. She spoke English with an accent but English was what she spoke, never her native Italian. Not unless she was nervous.
What was there for her to be nervous about? Joe frowned as he stepped inside the old-fashioned kitchen. Her health was excellent. He'd taken her to her doctor himself just a couple of weeks ago for her annual checkup. And he knew all was well with Matt and his wife, Susannah.
But Nonna was definitely behaving strangely. She was babbling-something else she never did, except when she was under some sort of stress-asking him about his trip but not giving him time to answer, telling him about her week without pausing for breath ...
Maria Balducci.
The hair rose on the back of Joe's neck.
That was the last time he'd seen his grandmother in such a state, the night she'd tried to set him up with Maria Balducci, who lived up the street. He'd shown up for supper and Nonna had greeted him just like this, with an unaccustomed flurry of Italian and a table loaded not just with antipasto and lasagna or manicotti but everything imaginable. Veal piccata, shrimp scampi, steak pizzaola.
A table without so much as one vegetable on it, unless some crazed nutritionist had suddenly decided olives and garlic were the equal of cauliflower and, even worse, carrots. A table that had looked, to his suspicious eyes, very much like it looked tonight.
Joe fought back the desire to flatten himself against the wall as he checked the room, but no one else was there. Certainly not Maria, and she would have been difficult to miss.
"Joseph." Nonna smiled a bright smile and bustled around the room. "Sit down, sit down, mio ragazzo, and have some antipasto. Prosciutto, just the way you like it. Provolone. Genoa, sliced thin as paper..."
"We're alone?"
Nonna clucked her tongue. "Of course. Do you think I have someone hidden in the broom closet?"
Anything was possible, Joe thought but he didn't say so. Instead, he pulled out a chair and eased into it.
"No matchmaking," he said carefully. "Right?"
"Matchmaking?" Nonna laughed gaily. "Why would you even ask such a thing, Joseph, huh? You've told me how you feel. You aren't ready to marry a nice Italian girl, settle down and raise una famiglia, even though it's the one wish of my heart. So, why would I try and play matchmaker?"
Joe rolled his eyes. "Anybody ever tell you that you have a way with a phrase?"
"I have a way with food." His grandmother poked a finger at the platter of antipasto. "Mangia."
"Yeah. Sure." Obediently, he dug in, transferring what had to be a billion grams of fat and an equal number of calories to his plate.
"Good?" Nonna asked after a minute.
"Delicious." Joe reached for the basket heaped with garlic bread, hesitated, then snagged a piece and mentally added two miles to his morning run. "So, what's this all about?"
"What is what all about?"
He tried not to wince as his grandmother filled two water glasses with the elegant Chianti he'd brought and shoved one at him across the heavy white tablecloth.
"Come on, sweetheart. You made every dish I ever loved. You didn't even try and disguise carrots and cauliflower the way you always do in hopes you could slip them past me. And there are Italian words falling out of your mouth. Something's up."
'Non capisco, " Nonna said.
Their eyes met, his the blue of the Mediterranean, hers as dark as the hills of Sicily. Joe grinned, and his grandmother blushed.
All right." Her voice was prim, her shrug small but eloquent. "Perhaps something is, as you say, 'up.' But it has nothing to do with matchmaking. Believe me, Joseph, I have given that up, completely."
Good manners, but mostly the knowledge that his nonna probably wasn't above boxing his ears, kept him from pointing out that he saw her cross herself as she rose from the table
and went to the stove.
"I'll bet you have," he said pleasantly. Joe shoved his chair back from the table and folded his arms. "So, I can relax? Some eager female isn't going to come sailing through that doorway with a tray of cannoli in her arms?"
Nonna swung towards him, a pot of espresso in her hand. 'Certainly not. I know full well that you prefer your dimbos to real women."
"Bimbos," Joe said, trying not to laugh. "And they aren't. They're just pretty young women who enjoy my company as much as I enjoy theirs."
Nonna sighed as she put the pot on the table. "Monday is your birthday," she said. taking cups and saucers from the cupboard.
The sudden change in conversation surprised him almost as much as the information.
"Is it?"
"Yes. You will be thirty-three."
"Now that you mention it, I guess I will." Joe smiled. "Of course. That's the reason for the feast." He grabbed her work worn hand and brought it to his lips. "And here I thought you were up to something. Sweetheart, can you ever forgive me for being so suspicious?"
"I am your nonna. Of course, I forgive you." Nonna sat down and poured their coffee. "But, ah, this meal is not your gift."
"No?"
"No. Surely, a man's thirty-third birthday deserves more than food."
"Sweetheart." Joe kissed her hand again. "This isn't just food, it's ambrosia. I don't want you to spend your money on-
"You- and Matthew give me more money than I could ever use in this lifetime. Besides, I have spent nothing."
"Good."
"But I am giving you a gift, nevertheless." Nonna beamed at him over the rim of her cup. "Giuseppe, mio ragazzo.”
Joe's eyes turned to slits. In a boardroom he'd have leaned towards the guy trying to scam him and said, bluntly, "Cut the crap." But this wasn't a boardroom, and this wasn't some smart-ass dude in a pin-striped suit. This was his grandma, and he loved her, so he sat up straight, folded his arms over his chest again, and fixed her with a steely look.
"Okay," he said, "let's have it."
Nonna looked pained. "Have what?"
"You're trying to con me."
"Con? What does this mean, this 'con'?"
"It means you want to convince me to do something I don't want to do."
"How can you think such a thing, Joseph?"
Joe arched one eyebrow. "How?"
"Yes." Nonna lifted her chin. "How?"
"Maria Balducci."
"Oh, not that nonsense again. Honestly, Joseph-"
"It was February," he said calmly, "and it was snowing. I showed up for supper and you plied me with steak pizzaola, shrimp scampi-"
"What is this 'plied you'? Did I grab that handsome nose of yours and drag you to the table?"
Joe plucked his napkin from his lap and dropped it on the table. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Grandma."
"Grandma? I am your Nonna, and don't you forget it."
"You're the biggest matchmaker in North Beach," Joe said, shooting to his feet. "You dazzled me with goodies that night and then you brought out the big guns."
"I brought out espresso, as I recall."
"And Miss Italy 1943."
Nonna stood up, too. "Signora Balducci was your age, Joseph."
"She was dressed all in black."
"She is a widow."
"She had one giant eyebrow that stretched across her forehead."
He saw his grandmother's mouth twitch. "It was two eyebrows that merely needed plucking."
"How about that long hair growing out of the mole on her chin?" Joe's mouth also twitched, but he wasn't going to laugh, not yet. "I suppose that could be plucked, too?"
"You see? That's your problem, Joseph. There is no way to please you. That time I introduced you to Anna Carbone-"
"The teenybopper at that festival you dragged me to last summer?"
"I did not 'drag' you," Nonna said with dignity. "I merely said I needed you to drive me there. It was coincidence that Anna should have been waiting for me. And she was not a teeny-banger. "
"Bopper. Yes, she was. It's a miracle she didn't still have braces on her teeth."
"She was twenty. But I did not argue when you said she was too young, did I?"
"No," Joe said coolly, "no, you didn't. You just waited awhile and found Miss Eyebrow."
Nonna's lips twitched again. "Actually, I'd never noticed the eyebrows. Not until that night, in this kitchen."
"Du-huh. When the signora just happened to arrive at the door with dessert."
"And the mole."
Joe and his grandmother looked at each other and smiled.
He sighed, took her in his arms, and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
"Okay," he said, "let's have it."
"Have what?"
"I want to know what 'gift' you're giving me for my birthday, and why you're buttering up me up beforehand." He looked over her head, at the door. "Is my dessert arriving by female express?"
Nonna made a face. She bustled past him, opened the freezer and took out a bowl. "Gelato. Just so you know that your dessert is not climbing the porch steps."
Joe smiled and sat down again. "Homemade ice cream. Nonna, you're going to spoil me."
Nonna smiled. She waited until he'd spooned up a mouthful. "Good?"
"Wonderful. The best you ever made."
Her smile tilted slyly. "Good. But I didn't make it."
Joe looked up. "You must have. Not even Carbone's has gelato this delicious."
"You're right. Signor Carbone would kill for this recipe."
"Well," Joe said, "if you didn't get it at Carbone's and you didn't make it, who..." The words caught in his throat. Slowly, he put down his spoon and looked at his grandmother. "All right," he said grimly. "Let's have it. And don't embarrass either of us by giving me that wide-eyed, what-you're-talking-about look."
Nonna folded her hands on the white tablecloth. "I worry about you, Joseph."
Despite what she'd said before, here it was. They were going to go over the same old thing again.
"Nonna," Joe said patiently, "we've been all through this. I'm not lonely. I don't want a wife. I'm happy with my life, just the way it is."
"You remember once, I asked you who sews the buttons on your shirts, huh? Who irons them?"
"And I told you," Joe said briskly. "The guy at the laundry. And he does a great job.' '
"Yes. And you told me your house is cleaned by a cleaning service.”
"That's right. The same service I wish you'd let me send here, so you don't have to bother-"
"I prefer to clean my own house," Nonna said primly. She leaned forward. "But, Joseph, who cooks your meals?"
Joe sighed. "I told you that the last time around, too. I don't eat home much. And when I do, there are all these terrific little take-out places a couple of blocks away ... What?"
Nonna was smiling, and something about the smile made him want to get out of the chair and run for his life.
"I have accepted that perhaps you will never be ready to marry, Joseph, and that you are happy to let strangers iron your shirts and clean your home. But I have never stopped worrying about your meals."
"There's no reason to worry, sweetheart. I eat just fine."
"I will not worry from now on." His grandmother dug deep into the pocket of her apron. "Happy birthday, Joey," she said, and thrust a folded piece of paper at him.
Joe took it and frowned. "What is this?"
"Your birthday gift." His grandmother was beaming, her eyes bright with joy. "Open it."
He did. Then he looked up. "I don't understand. This is just a name."
'Si. It is a name. Luciana Bari."
The vowels and consonants rolled off his grandmother's tongue. Joe's jaw tightened.
"And-just who in hell is Luciana Bari?"
"Do not curse, Joseph."
"And don't you try and change the subject. We just spent an hour talking about teenyboppers, overage widows and your sneaky attempts to marry me o
ff. If you for one minute think you can get away with this-"
Oh, damn. His grandmother's eyes filled with tears. Joe grabbed her hand.
"Nonna. Sweetheart, I didn't mean to call you sneaky. But after all we discussed, for you to imagine I'd be pleased by-"
"Luciana Bari isn't a woman," Nonna said. "She is a cook."
A tear rolled down her cheek. Joe took out his handkerchief and gave it to her. "A cook?"
"Yes. A talented one." Nonna dabbed at her eyes. "She made the gelato and even you admit it was delicious."
Joe sat back. Trapped! Warning bells began to sound in his head; lights flickered and flashed before his eyes.
"Well," he said slowly, "yeah. It was. I mean, it is. But what does this Luciana Bari have to do with me?'
"She is your gift, Joseph." Nonna's lip trembled. "My gift to you. And I am saddened that you would think I was trying to, as you say, 'con' you."
Dammit, she was. Joe knew she was-but her lip was still trembling and her eyes were still glittering. And, to be honest, the lingering taste of the gelato was still in his mouth.
"My gift," he said carefully. "So, what does that mean, exactly? Is this Luciana Bari going to cook me a birthday meal?"
Nonna laughed gaily. "One meal," she said, waving her hand. "What good would that be? I would still worry that you were not eating right. No, Joey. Signorina Bari is going to work for you."
"Work for me?" Joe got to his feet. "Now, wait just a minute-"
"She will cost you very little."
"She will cost me?" His eyes narrowed. His grandmother had reduced him to playing the role of a not terribly smart parrot. "Let me get this straight. You give me a cook as a gift, and I get to pay?"
"Of course." Nonna stood up. "You wouldn't want me to spend my money on your cook's salary, would you?"
Joe's eyes got even narrower. There was something wrong with her logic. With this entire thing, for that matter...
"What if I say no?"
"Well," Nonna said, and sighed, "in that case, I suppose I'll have to phone Signorina Bari and tell her she has no job. It will be difficult, because she needs one so badly." She turned away and began clearing the table. "She has debts, you see."
"Debts," Joe repeated. It was parrot-time again. "She has debts?"