Chapter One – Grazia
It’s been four months since I lost everything.
Since my apartment burned to the ground, since I lost months’ worth of work for my business and a decade’s worth of designs for my passion: fashion design.
Worse than the financial setback, I lost memories. The doll my Nonna gave me when I was four, the photo album loaded with pictures of some of the best years of my childhood—high school. I lost my prom dress and the books my stepfather gave me when I was little.
Worse than that, I lost the roof over my head.
The place I’d made my home since college.
I lost dreams, hopes, goals.
Devastated is too miserly a word to describe how the entire situation affected me, and the truth is, without Marshall, I’m not entirely sure I’d have been able to cope with the loss.
It wasn’t just my home, it was my business. Everything, all my party stock, all the dresses that were ready to sell, went up in flames with the rest of my stuff. I’ve never leaned on a man before, but I leaned on Marshall, and he didn’t let me down.
In the biggest leap of faith in my life, I didn’t fall. I can’t quantify how relieved I am about that. I trusted, and Marshall was there.
A shudder works through me, as it often does when I think back to those early days after the fire. Almost like she knows what I’m going through, Jessie presses a hand to my shoulder and asks, “Hey, where did you go?”
I blink up at her. “Nowhere,” I lie.
“Yeah, right.” She eyes me askance, disbelief written on her features. “Pull that with someone who doesn’t know you as well.”
I shrug. “Seriously.”
“Lies, all lies,” she teases gently. “I hate it when you disappear on me.”
“Not as much as I hate it when I disappear.” I purse my lips. “I was just thinking about things, that’s all.”
“I gathered as much, and by things, you mean your life.”
“You’re annoyingly accurate, aren’t you?” I glower at her. “Can’t a woman have a little privacy when she’s thinking?”
Jessie grins. “Of course, but you’re the one who’s so transparent. I can’t help knowing what’s going on behind that pretty face of yours.”
Rolling my eyes at her, I grumble, “I can’t believe I pay you to be a pain in my ass.”
Her grin turns into a cheeky laugh. “I’m lucky, aren’t I?”
“You’re damn well more than lucky.” My lips twitch, and I reach over and squeeze her hand. “But then, I’m lucky too. Who else would put up with my shit?”
“Apparently Marshall,” Jessie retorts, a twinkle sparking in her eyes as she turns left.
“Stop digging.”
“A girl can try.”
I ignore her attempt at worming more information out of me. “You need to take the next right here.”
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” she chides.
“No, it’s your second.”
She chuckles. “Look, it isn’t my fault you’re a control freak when it comes to these vans.”
“Wouldn’t you be? The insurance premiums on these rentals are a nightmare.” I sniff.
“You’re only letting me drive because you’re too worn out from your after-hours jiggery pokery sessions.”
That has me blinking, as well as thanking Christ that my other employees are at the venue already and not listening to Jessie dissect my private life. “Jiggery pokery? What the hell is that?” Hey, it’s not a crime to buy some time.
It’s her turn to sniff at me. “Sex. Lots of it. In lots of different positions and orifices with Marshall, the sex god.”
My cheeks heat. “Jessie, for Christ’s sake.” When she takes the next right and starts to pull in to a space allocated for us, relief floods me—escaping this conversation is my idea of wonderful. I’ve been managing to avoid it for the past four months, and I’ll keep on doing it for as long as I can. “Let’s get started.”
“Yeah, we’ll get started, but this isn’t over.” For the first time, there’s something other than humor in her tone. There’s concern. I can avoid the humor, swerve past it with ease, but the concern? Shit, if she’s really worried about me, then my days of avoidance are over.
I reach for her hand and squeeze her fingers. “I’m okay, Jessie.”
“I think okay is a relative concept. You’re doing fine considering what’s happened this year.”
I pull a face. “Marshall’s helped me get through a lot of it.”
“He’s a miracle worker, huh?” She cocks a disbelieving eyebrow. “It’s not like you to let a man help you so much.” She clucks her tongue. “That sounds bad.” She amends, “It’s not like you to let anyone help you at all, never mind a man. A rich one.”
“We’re dating. Who else should help me?” I hedge, but I know exactly what she means.
“Don’t play dumb.”
I sigh. “I’m not playing dumb, exactly. Look, when it happened I was with him. He just… He took charge. I was in shock at how much stuff I’d lost, at how many things I’d never see again. I wasn’t even thinking financially at the time, I was just horrified by how many memories had been destroyed. I was too out of it to even cry, dammit. I sat there, in bed because he’d sent his driver over to my place to pick up some stuff for me, and listened to him tell me I’d lost everything.” I jerk a shoulder. “Then he took over.”
“And he’s been taking over ever since.” Jessie narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t deny it.”
“I won’t.” I purse my lips. “It’s been nice not having to be in control of everything.”
“Yeah, and you can see why I’m concerned, can’t you? Therein lies the rub, because you, my little control freak, usually dislike it when someone takes over something on your behalf. You only let me take some of your workload because you hate technology and I deal with it so you don’t have to. If it weren’t for your inability to switch the damn tablet on, I’m sure you wouldn’t let me handle as much as I do.”
Because she’s right, I don’t argue, just wrinkle my nose. Hell, she’s right in more ways than one.
“What’s different about Marshall, Grazia?” she asks me softly. “Why are you letting him take charge?”
It takes me a few minutes to reply, and when I do, my weariness is evident. “Because I’m tired.”
“You’re depressed,” she immediately contests.
I shrug. “Maybe I am. I still feel like I’m in shock after what happened. An electrical fault. A goddamn loose wire, and suddenly my life is up in flames.”
“It was up in flames far before that. Everything was changing when you let Marshall in.”
My lips tighten at that. “What can I say to that?”
“Maybe admit that I’m not talking bullshit.” She peers at me, a worried frown puckering her brow. “Maybe admit that he means more to you than you let on.”
“I can’t,” I whisper. “I don’t know what he means to me. I still don’t. I know he makes me do things I wouldn’t expect of myself.
“When he asked me to be his mistress, I wanted to slap him, not date him. Then somewhere, out of nowhere, I was telling him I’d never be a man’s mistress, but a girlfriend was another matter entirely…”
Before I can continue, she butts in, “You don’t exactly do that either, though, Grazia. Be a guy’s girlfriend, I mean.”
She’s right. “I know. Everything got weird after that. I just… I wanted him. Suddenly I needed him, and even when I had to sign that non-disclosure agreement to have him, I did it. Things have been out of my hands ever since.” I’m telling her no less than the truth. “I didn’t expect to still be with him all these months later, though. I mean, why would I? I figured it would be a brief affair.”
“But it isn’t.”
“No. I mean it could still be classed as such. We’ve only been dating just over four months, but I’m living with him, Jessie.” And then, making the admission like it’s poisonous, I whisper, “And I like it.”
She looks as astonished by that admission as I feel. She clears her throat. “Well, I’m glad, Grazia. I really am.”
“Don’t be glad. I’m not. I don’t get it, and I want to understand why I let him in the way I do.”
“Maybe you’re just meant to be together.”
I snort at that. “Don’t be painting a happily-ever-after for me and him, Jessie. That’s not where this is going.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he’s Marshall Levitt and I’m a nobody.”
“You’re not a nobody. You’re Grazia Fabiola. And he has to be with someone.”
“No, that’s just it. He doesn’t.”
“Yeah, he does. Unless he wants a very lonely life. He couldn’t do much better than you, Grazia. You’re loyal to a fault, honest, faithful… A guy like him, with what he has, those have to be highly valued traits.”
“He could always get a dog if he wants someone loyal, honest, and faithful in his life.” I roll my eyes at her. “We need to get to work.”
“I know, but I…” She purses her lips. “Look, don’t go mad, but I want to meet him.”
I wince. “Do you have to?”
“Yeah. I do. I want to see you together. I need to know you’re safe with him.”
That has me scowling. “Of course I am. He’s been looking after me since the fire, Jessie.”
“Yeah, and I’ve never seen you so ill at ease and so content at the same time.” She jerks a shoulder. “It’s unnerving as hell. It’s like you’re at peace but then you have a burr under the saddle which is totally wrecking your calm.”
It’s a good metaphor, because that’s exactly how I feel. Like I’m happy but I know I shouldn’t be. It puts me on edge and it wrecks my calm.
“Maybe if I saw you together, I could see why,” she continues earnestly.
That she cares fills me with warmth. She’s always been more than an employee; since the early days of her working with me, we’ve been friends. I reach for her, leaning forward to drag her into a warm hug.
“Thank you for giving a damn,” I tell her, pressing a kiss to her cheek.
“Of course I do!” she chides. “Hell, if you hadn’t had Marshall to prop you up these last months, I’d have been there. You know that, right?”
My lips twitch. “I do. But I’m glad I didn’t have to impose. I’m not sure I’d have fit in your apartment with you and your roommate.”
She smacks my arm. “I’d have made space for you.” A wink wends its way to me. “You could also have slept with Chris. He has plenty of room in his bed, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded having a guest.”
Laughter bursts from me, because Chris is most definitely a cutie and most definitely gay.
Both of us sigh, thinking the same thought—what a damn waste for the females of the city.
“Please,” she urges. “I won’t push, but let me see you together so I can feel a little more at ease.”
I nod. “I’ll sort something out.”
“Thanks, Grazia.”
Her smile makes me feel like an ungrateful bitch. Here she is worrying over me, and I hadn’t realized.
As I climb out of the rented van, a helicopter flies overhead and I peer up at the sky. It’s far away enough that the rumble isn’t inordinately loud, but its presence is still obvious.
I watch the little blip make a landing on top of the building, and can’t help but wonder which guest has just arrived.
This event is an unusual one. It’s a reception for a wedding where the actual ceremony took place a few months ago.
Stranger things have happened, though, so it’s not too out there. The rest of the crew have been setting up all day. There’s a Chinese theme to the reception, or more precisely, the tea ceremony.
On rushes dotted around the venue, we’ve hired actors to perform the tea ceremony, brewing green, oolong, red, and black teas, as well as white, yellow, Pu-erh, and flower teas.
Finding people capable of learning the ancient art in an afternoon had been interesting. I’d almost taken over a stand myself! But we’d found seven actors with enough brains to handle the intricacies.
The interesting thing about the tea ceremony in Chinese culture, most specifically at Chinese weddings, is the respectful thanks that are passed from the bride and groom to the parents as they serve the tea.
In traditional Chinese culture, the children are fully independent when they marry, and only then.
The bride’s great-grandmother is Chinese, and this entire rigmarole is for her.
I can see disaster brewing, truth be told. The bride is trying to embrace that part of her ancestry, but a great-grandmother who knows her culture inside out can and will poke holes in the actors’ performances.
That’s something I’m really dreading. A crotchety old woman bitching because one of the actors isn’t pouring some tea right.
I want to roll my eyes at the notion, but it’s actually very important this goes well. We’ve managed to hire two employees from a Chinese tea shop on the Lower East Side. They seem to know what they’re doing, and they’ll be helping the other seven as they go through the intricate moves.
“I guess we’d best pretend this doesn’t have ‘disaster waiting to happen’ written all over it,” Jessie tells me cheerfully as she rounds the side of the van with a big box in her arms.
She’s incorrigible enough without me laughing at her, but laugh I do. “I know, I was just thinking that.” I open the back door and grab another box.
Carefully, we navigate the street, then the lobby as we take the elevator to the venue with the boxes of china cups in our arms.
When we reach the reception area, which is already styled and decorated, I head over to Lauren, another person on my staff, and say, “Good job getting this finished on time.” I wave a hand at all the screens we’ve had to set up between the tea stands. “There are more boxes of china downstairs. Could you grab William and bring them up?”
“Sure thing, Grazia.”
Lauren takes off with William and disappears into the elevator as I start to unpack the china cups onto the red tea stand.
We’ve created seven pathways, each one to be chosen at the drinker’s will, which lead to the center of the room. Things are a little less formal there, until you see the back of the room where there are more rushes and a more intricate layout of the tea service. That’s where the bride intends to sit, in front of all the guests, as she brews tea for her family.
I know for a fact she’s incredibly nervous about the whole thing, and it begs the question why she’s going to the effort when her family doesn’t seem all that aware of their Chinese heritage.
But, mine isn’t to question why. I just do what needs to be done to make sure the clients are happy.
The next hour passes in a blur as we finish setting up within the nick of time. The bride appears twenty minutes before the doors open, wandering amid the setup, making sure everything is how she envisioned it and how we planned it.
I look to her before I open the doors to let the guests filter in. As her husband comes up behind her, pressing a hand to her lower back, she shoots me a thumbs-up and a big smile… if that smile is tinged with nerves, who can blame her?
She’s going to be undertaking the intricacies of a high-culture ceremony for the first time and in front of a couple of hundred guests!
Thanking Christ the catering is being handled by the family and I’m just there to coordinate and don’t have to worry about the menu, I open the doors and immediately disappear into the background.
The actors got to work on the ceremony, brewing the different varieties of tea seven times as per tradition.
I have to admit that the entire process is fascinating. The way the leaves have to be ‘awoken’ before the tea can be brewed is a quaint notion. I had to watch the technique several times to get the knack of it. It’s not that it’s complicated—boiling water is added and then discarded from the teapot—but there’s a movement with the hands, a smooth elegance that comes from being at ease with the tradition.
It truly is a beautiful ceremony.
As I dive headlong into my job, sorting out a little argument among the waiters, who are about to come to blows over when they should be serving the canapés, I ignore the arrival of the guests.
It takes about an hour for them all to arrive, and whenever I look at the bride, she appears distinctly green around the edges as the major ceremony approaches. Faintly amused, I aim to make the rest of her day easy.
It’s a complete surprise when a hand comes to rest on my lower back as I’m talking to one of the actors about brewing more black tea.
Before I can even stiffen, I relax as I realize who’s behind me.
The ease I have with Marshall astonishes me. It truly does. I’ve never known anything like it.
Letting down walls has never been so simple or so complicated.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, turning to him with a smile. It’s hard to be annoyed when he’s grinning, proud at having sneaked up on me. “You weren’t on the guest list.”
He grins. “Top secret thing with Garrett.” Garrett was the groom.
“You know him?”
“Yep. He works on my product development team. He invited me, and I won’t lie, I was going to decline until I saw his party on your schedule and couldn’t resist.”
“What are you doing looking at my schedule?” I ask, though there’s no heat to my voice. I cock an eyebrow at him when he sheepishly wrinkles his nose. “I told you not to do that, didn’t I?”
“Well, it was purely accidental.”
“What? You accidentally opened my binder?”
“No. It was open, actually. On the kitchen counter. I was eating cereal and was in dire need of reading material.”
As an excuse, it was pathetic, but I’ve come to know his habits well. When he sits still for more than a handful of moments, he has to read something. He’s incapable of just doing nothing. And to him, eating means doing nothing.
If he doesn’t occupy his mind, he starts fidgeting like crazy.
“Don’t do it again,” I reprimand. Then, realizing he can’t always help it, I amend, “Well, at least, try to read something else.”
He salutes me. “Scout’s honor.”
“You weren’t even a scout.”
“Was so.”
My eyebrows soar in surprise. “Really?”
He grins. “No. But I got you thinking I was, didn’t I?”
“Liar.”
He shrugs that off. “Not much call for scouts in housing projects,” he tells me. “I’d have done it, though. Anything to get out of the house.”
Unconsciously, I reach for his hand and squeeze it. He reciprocates. “I can’t imagine you as a scout. You’re far too much the computer nerd to like the outdoors.”
“Shows how much you know. I have a cabin in Montana. Deep in the heart of nowhere. It’s perfect.” He rubs his hands together. “We’ll have to visit.” Marshall narrows his eyes. “Let Miranda know your schedule and she’ll arrange something.”
That has me groaning. “Do I really have to talk to her?”
“She still giving you problems?”
I hate feeling like a tattle-tail, but Miranda is the biggest bitch in Christendom and I’m really tired of dealing with her attitude whenever I call her. “A little.”
He grimaces, reaching up to tug at his collar.
“She has a crush on you.”
“I know,” he admits with a sigh. “Was hoping you didn’t know it too.”
My lips twitch. “I can’t exactly blame her, can I? Not when you drive me crazy too.”
“I do, do I?” He slips his hand around my waist and tugs me closer to him.
“You know it. And I’m working.”
He shrugs. “So? No one’s watching. They’re all trying to not laugh at Sue as she botches an ancient ceremony.”
I bite my lip to withhold the smile. “She’s that bad?”
He rolls his eyes. “Worse. I didn’t know it was so hard to pour tea, but she’s already broken one of the pots.”
“Seriously?” I stand on tiptoe to look at the stage, but see nothing thanks to the panels in the way. “I should go and help out.”
“Jessie’s there. She popped up out of nowhere, replaced a couple of the pots and the kettle. If only she could take over the rest of it. It’d be less of a disaster.”
“Poor Sue. It was really important to her, too.”
“She’s too nervous.” He shrugs. “Garrett was helping out when I decided to leave them to it and find you.”
“I wonder what her great-grandmother will think.”
“If she’s the old lady in the wheelchair, I think she was trying not to laugh.”
That has me chuckling. “Well, that’s something, I guess.”
“I doubt it’s what Sue had in mind, but hell, at least she’s been entertaining.”
“Don’t tell Garrett that. You’ll offend him.”
“I’ve told him worse,” he tells me carelessly, peering down at the filled tea cups. He selects one and takes a sip. “At least the rest of the party is going according to plan.”
“It’s barely started,” I protest. “There’s the meal and everything else to go through.”
“God, I hate things like this,” he grimaces. “They bore me shitless.”
“I’d never have guessed,” I tell him, rolling my eyes at him. “You can’t stand it when you’re attention isn’t on business, can you?”
He grunts. “I’m not as bad as you.”
That has me hooting. “Well, that’s okay, then. Because I’m not a control freak. Not one bit.”
Marshall smiles. “Okay, so we’re control freaks together. Like likes like.”
“That’s a lot of liking.”
“I know. What we do best.” He sighs. “When can you leave?”
“When the party’s over, dumbass.”
“Shit,” he grumbles. “I have a present for you.”
“You do?” Despite myself, I perk up. His presents are unusual, and more often than not, I accept them even though I know I shouldn’t. He’s too impossible to say no to.
“I do.”
“Is it here?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s too big to fit into my pocket,” he retorts with a grin.
“You’re a tease. I have at least another four hours here.”
He taps me on the nose. “You’ll just have to exercise patience then, won’t you?”
A chuckle escapes him as he wanders back to the party, pressing a casual kiss to my forehead as he leaves.
As I watch him leave, I ask myself what it is about him that puts me so at ease while putting me on edge too… A special kind of crazy is all I can think.