Daring Delfina's Heart

Unwanted Customers

Delfina considered she might be being punished for wishing death on another human being. Holding lasagne platters for table six in her arms, the sight of the people at table eight almost had her dropping the dishes onto the floor.

Her previous thoughts about not finding orgasms in her parent’s restaurants came back to mock her.

Ruggero Rapallino was a drop-dead gorgeous specimen of a man and as he leaned back with his arms outstretched over the back of the largest booth behind his sister and mother’s shoulders he exuded power. She knew from Ercole he was wealthy in his own right from investing his trust funds he received when he’d turned twenty-one and making a big name for himself on Wall Street. Every function they’d ever attended where he was present, Ruggero always escorted a different woman on his arm, but she knew the way he doted on his mother and sisters, he was the consummate gentleman. Ercole called him the most handsome p***y on the planet and said more than once despite Ruggero’s intelligence and power, he’d be the kind of man stupid enough to marry for love. Ercole had been drinking a lot that night and the thought had rendered him to giggles.

She shot one last annoyed glance at the dark brown eyes staring at her intently from across the diner and sighed. Thankfully table eight was the one furthest from the door, with the most privacy and most importantly, not her section. She looked to the teen girl who worked after school and on weekends and prayed she could handle the table of five because she didn’t want to approach it at all.

Dropping off the dishes she heard Perla’s snide “oh isn’t this quaint” made Delfina to give half a mind to dump the steaming hot pasta over the blonde’s head.

“Oh, there she is!” Ernestina’s voice carried out, “Delfina, over here!”

She turned to look over her shoulder with a sneer before she gave her own customers her attention. She set the plates down and smiled at the customers at her table, “can I get you anything else?”

“This looks amazing, Delfina. Tell your mother one of these days she simply must pass on the recipe.”

She smiled at one of the women, Delfina thought her name was Carol, who attended church services with her mother, “I’ll let her know but if you knew how to make it, you’d stop coming in. I think my father would say it’s bad business.”

“Delfina!” Ernestina called her name again, this time with a whine to her name.

She put a hand on her hip and swung her head around, her ponytail whipping behind her, “I am with a customer. Your server will be with you shortly.” She turned her attention back to her table, ignoring the gasped “rude” from the woman at table eight.

“They don’t look like they’re from around here,” Carol leaned sideways out her booth. “They drove up in a Mercedes-Benz and all three of those girls have those shoes with the red soles. Our little town doesn’t usually get the fancy pants visiting.”

She smiled at Carol, “I met them when I lived in the city the last three years, and you are correct. They don’t belong here.”

The teenager server, Lourdes, tugged on her sleeve. “Um, Delfina, they don’t want me to take their order. They only want you.”

“For f**k’s sake,” she heard the gasps of her mother’s church friends and witnessed firsthand the horror on the teenager’s face and checked herself. “My apologies. I am so sorry. It’s been a rough couple of days.”

“You might need your mother to pray for you,” Carol patted her hand and then whispered, “but if it makes you feel better this morning, I slammed my finger in the cutlery drawer at home and said the D word. It happens to the best of us.”

She was forever going to be surrounded by judgemental bible thumpers if she didn’t get out of this town someday soon. She flicked an irritated glance at the Rapallino clan and noticed Ruggero Rapallino’s tongue darting along his lower lip before his eyes rose from her backside back to her face. Huh.

After asking Lourdes to get the table more water, she stormed over to table eight and folded her arms over her chest, “I’d like to say what a pleasant surprise but lying isn’t on my to-do list. What do you want?”

“We are paying customers,” Olympia looked her up and down. “It’s lovely to see you again,” she paused, “where you belong.”

“Thank you. I’m happiest here. I was always happiest here.” She wanted to ignore the way Ruggero looked her over but there was something hungry in his gaze. She wasn’t imagining the tongue thing she’d noted earlier. He was eyeballing her.

“You look fifteen with your hair in a ponytail and your little uniform. Not even a stitch of makeup on.” Perla said snottily. “You really dress down, huh. We heard you were working here but surely there is a strip bar or an exotic night club you could make more money at.”

“If you’re not ordering, then leave,” she started to walk away when Ruggero grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back.

“Perla enough. I’m sorry for my sisters’ and mother’s attitudes. We’ll have five of the Sunday specials, water all around. We also want ten minutes of your time. We have questions only you can answer.”

“Let me guess, you found the contents of his safe, his secret office in the garage with all his hidden s**t in the weird compartments or you found a finger or appendage somewhere on the property.” She smugly watched as their mouths all dropped open incredulously. “No? Oops. My bad. What do you want?”

“He has a safe in a secret office?”

“No. He has a safe in the home office. Behind the big ugly self-portrait of himself which he swore made him look like Napolean. He has a desk in the secret office.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to put your orders in. I’ll be back with water.”

“Wait.” Ruggero still hadn’t released her wrist. “Why did you marry him?”

“I was forced between two horrible choices, and I took the one which would allow me to live with myself.” She uncurled his fingers from her wrist, “excuse me.”

“Delfina!” one of high school acquaintances sat down at a table nearby. He leaned in his chair and stretched his legs out. She had a brief recollection of him being a quarterback. “Holy cow, girl. I haven’t seen you in years. Your mom said you were away working in the city. You came back? What the heck for?”

Her mom. Damn it! Her mother was meddling again. She needed to shut this down and fast. First telling her what she could do with her body and now trying to find her a replacement husband for her dead one.

“I was married, and my husband died. I came home to spend time with my folks,” she shut down the conversation ignoring his shock and motioned to the other server, “I took your table eight, you can take this one for me.” The last thing she wanted was to listen to conversation about the good old days.

Caprice was leaning against the counter, just arriving from church to head into the kitchen but stopping when she overheard the comment. She nudged Delfina’s hip, “playing the poor widow card, huh?”

“If it gets me out of dating anyone Mom tries to set me up with, then yes. His mother goes to church with Mom. I’ve been home eight weeks and haven’t seen him once. Mom must have told him to come over. It’s getting worse with the religious folk in here. I need to move.”

“She did invite him too. I was right there.” Caprice cackled as she wrapped her apron around her hips watching as Delfina put in the order. “Who are they? You looked like you’d rather bludgeon yourself to death than take their orders.”

“The older lady is Ercole’s daughter.”

“Oh hell no. What are they doing here?”

“Apparently, they have questions. I lived with him the last three years so I’m guessing they found something they can’t explain in the house and need an interpreter.”

“Like what?”

“Well, my original guess which seemed to shock them was an appendage or finger. It seems it wasn’t it.”

Caprice shook her head, “he never hit you? Not even once? I find it so odd considering how much of a barbarian he was.”

“Nope. I can’t say he was a gentleman because he was not, but his fists were reserved for others. He was a strong bastard though. Stamina for days. He could pound the piss out of someone and not break a sweat and he was in his seventies. I cannot imagine the destruction he wielded when he was younger.”

“You were afraid of him.”

“I was afraid of what he would do to others,” she admitted as she put in the order and grabbed the five waters with wedges of lemon.

“Should I spit in their food?”

“No. Please don’t. I’m hoping they get whatever curiosity they have out of their systems and then I’ll never see them again.” Lifting her tray of water up, she carried it back to the table, pausing at Carol’s table to inquire on how the first few bites were and reminding them to save room for dessert. “I made my famous chocolate mousse cake, Carol. Mom said she took it off the menu when I was gone because nobody could make it correctly.”

“I feel like if I have the cake, I’ll need to go back to church because it’s sinful.”

She giggled and then carefully set the water on the table.

“You cook here?” Olympia’s question surprised her.

“The desserts. I went to school to be a pastry chef.”

“What the hell were you doing with my father if you’re a trained chef?” Olympia sputtered.

“I signed an NDA.” She pretended to pull a zipper over her lips. “All I can tell you is it was a contract.”

“He’s dead.”

“And even if he were alive, Olympia, he wouldn’t tell you. If I break my NDA, I owe his estate a million-dollar penalty. Personally, while I know his body is in the ground, I’m not convinced the old bastard isn’t haunting me and won’t come out all boogedy-woogedy at me when I’m in my bed tonight. I am not risking the NDA I signed out of the sheer possibility even in death, I’m sure the agreement he made with the devil would allow him to come back and exact a punishment. To hell with that.” She gave a snort, “no thank you. I’ll be back when your food is out. Do you want a basket of bread and rolls while you wait? Made fresh this morning.” She looked at Perla and Ernestina, “you probably don’t eat carbs at all, huh?”

“I eat carbs, bring the bread,” Perla wriggled her fingers.

“Huh. Your grandfather once told me you were more of a protein gobbler than carbs.” The insinuation behind the words as she dramatically wiped the corners of her mouth made Perla blush. Delfina snickered and walked away shaking her head aware the five people at the table were now even more confused than ever.

She was going to enjoy telling them to go f**k themselves.