“One,” I said.
“Two.” His grimace matched mine.
“Three.”
I spooned a serving of ice cream into my mouth at the same time he bit into my chip.
Silence filled the room, interrupted only by the crunch of food and the hum of the fridge.
I’d braced myself for a wave of revulsion, but the combination of French vanilla and soy sauce was…
That can’t be right.Maybe my taste buds were broken.
I helped myself to another scoop just to make sure.
Dante’s mouth curled into a knowing grin. “Going back for seconds already?”
“Don’t act so smug. It’s notthatgood,” I lied.
“In that case, I’ll take the ice cream back—”
“No!” I pulled the bowl closer to my chest. “I’ve already eaten from it. It’s…unhygienic to share food. Get your own bowl.”
Dante’s grin widened.
I let out a sigh. “Fine. It tastes good. Are you happy?” I shot a pointed look at the island top. “I’m not the only one who was wrong. You’ve finished half the chips in the past five minutes.”
“That’s an exaggeration.” He dipped another pickle and chip combo in the pudding. “But this isn’t as terrible as I thought.”
“See? I’ll never steer you wrong when it comes to food.” I dug my spoon into a fresh scoop of vanilla and relaxed into the unfamiliar but not unpleasant ease between us. Maybe the truce had been a good idea after all. “How did you come up with this combo, anyway?”
I couldn’t imagine Dante sampling different food pairings in his free time until he found a winner like I had. From what I saw, he barely had time to eat.
He was silent for a long moment before he said, “Luca and I hung out in the kitchen a lot as kids. We had a game room, pool, all the latest toys…pretty much everything anyone under the age of twelve could want. But sometimes, we wanted company other than each other, and the chef was one of the few people in the household who treated us like actual people. He let us play around in there when he wasn’t cooking.” Dante shrugged. “We were kids. We experimented.”
My insides warmed at the mental image of little Dante running around the kitchen with his brother.
“You two must be close.”
I’d met Luca at the engagement party. He’d been polite enough, though I got the sense he wasn’t thrilled about my marriage to his brother. We’d only talked for a few minutes before he abruptly excused himself.
Dante’s face shuttered. “Not as close as we used to be.”
I paused at the strange note in his voice. For some reason, his brother was a sore subject.
“Does he work for the company?” I ventured when he didn’t offer any more information.
I didn’t want to push Dante too hard and have him shut down when we were finally making progress, but I couldn’t contain my curiosity. I didn’t know much about him beyond what was public knowledge.
He came from a very old, very wealthy family that made its fortune in textiles before his grandfather founded the Russo Group and expanded the family empire into what it was today. He’d graduated top of his class from Harvard Business School and increased his company’s market value fivefold since taking over as CEO. He eliminated his competition with shocking effectiveness, either by crushing or acquiring them, and the ruthlessness of his security team had catapulted him to mythical status.
I may have read up on Dante while he was in Europe.
“He does now.” Dante’s tone suggested the change had not been Luca’s choice. “He interned at the company in college. It was a disaster, so our grandfather allowed him to ‘pursue his passions’ instead of taking on a corporate role. He already had me as an heir; he didn’t need Luca. But giving my brother too much freedom was a mistake. Luca bounced around from job to job for a decade. He was a DJ one day, an actor the next. He sank half his trust fund into a nightclub that folded within eight months of opening. He needs stability and structure, not more time and money to burn.”
It was the most words I’d heard come out of Dante’s mouth since we met.
“So you gave him a job,” I surmised. “What does he do now?”