“Oops,” she said, and we both turned to look at Fabio.
He had stopped walking and whirled around in alarm. Maybe he thought it was a gunshot or something. Who knows, but for a moment there, the mighty Fabio had been afraid. “What the fuck?” he swore.
I managed to keep a straight face at his expression.
“What happened?” he demanded, clearly barely able to hold on to his temper.
Charlotte slightly raised her hands. “Sweaty palms, I guess,” she said. “Your glass slipped.”
Chapter 39
Sienna
“You’ve caused thousands of dollars’ worth of damage,” he fumed, as he glared at her.
“Sorry,” she offered. “But maybe you shouldn’t have given it to me.”
He turned to look at me. “She has a point,” I said mildly.
He waved his hand vaguely towards a door. “There’s a broom in one of the closets in there. Perhaps you’d like to clean up the mess you made,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Fabio, you’re being rude to my friend,” I said. He was incredible.
He headed over to the fridge to retrieve ingredients. “Oh,” he said. “How so?”
“There’s a broom in one of the closets over there? You’re expecting her to clean up?”
“Well, I don’t have my housekeeper or the maid in the house right now. I sent them all away for the night since I incorrectly assumed this was going to be an evening with just the two of us and you might like some privacy.”
Charlotte pretended to gasp in horror. “I’m not welcome?”
He took a deep breath and forced a smile. “You know what? We obviously started on the wrong foot. Let’s start again. As I said before, any friend of Sienna’s is a friend of mine. So of course, you’re welcome, but you can’t blame me for not feeling disappointed that I do not have Sienna all to myself, but I console myself with the thought that there will be many, many years for us to be together.”
He smiled again, this time it was broader and slightly more genuine.
“Today, I’m going to prepare my mother’s favorite spaghetti dish for both of you. I promise you are going to absolutely love it. Come with me to the kitchen and you can sit and watch while I prepare my masterpiece.”
I rolled my eyes at Charlotte as we headed over to sit on the stools around his massive granite white and grey island.
All the ingredients he needed were already laid neatly on the counter, presumably by his housekeeper. There was freshly made fettuccine covered with a towel, tomatoes, olive oil, ground beef, a bulb of garlic, a chunk of parmesan, and a bunch of parsley in a jar of water.”
“My mother has only ever used this recipe for our family over the years. Trust me, it tastes like a miracle has exploded in your mouth. Sienna … you and your friend are going to love it.”
“Can’t wait,” I said, and watched him as he began to look around possibly, for pans.
He seemed quite clueless as to where everything was and it made me feel slightly guilty for leaving him to his own devices. Anyway, I was sure my reluctance to help would somehow translate into a joke in future family gatherings of how useless I was in a kitchen. I slid off the stool and rounded the counter. “Do you need any help?”
“Perhaps just chop those tomatoes, and peel the garlic for me. I hate the smell of garlic on my fingers.”
“Sure,” I replied and got to work, even though I hated the way he seemed to be getting me to do the work he didn’t want to do.
“What about you, Charlotte? Would you like to help too?”
Even I had to stop and blink. I turned to see Charlotte had the same astounded look on her face.
She looked at me with an expression that said, we’ve got a live one over here, then she jumped off her stool. “Why not? What do you want me to do?”
“You can fill up that pan with water and put it on the stove, then you can grate some parmesan.”
Giving me another look, Charlotte went to fill the pan he had indicated with water and put it on the stove to boil. Then returned to the counter and began to grate the cheese.
Fabio folded his hands and addressed Charlotte. “So … what do your parents do?”
“My parents are academics. My mom is a secondary school teacher and my father is a contemporary art professor at UCL.”
“You mean UCLA,” he corrected.
“No, I’m referring to the University College in UK, not the University of California.”
“Ah,” Fabio said. “Interesting.”
“What is?” she asked.
He laughed. “Nothing really, but it seems that means that you are middle class and I would have expected you to be more familiar with doing chores. You seemed so surprised earlier when I suggested you clean up the shattered tumbler. And it is just myself and Sienna currently slaving away to get dinner ready.”