Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO CAME BACK FOR COFFEE
Luca returned the following morning.
This time, he did not bring a complaint.
He brought an empty pie box.
Rose looked at it.
"Another spelling emergency?"
"My grandmother wanted me to tell you the pie was excellent."
"That's nice."
"And that you owe her an apology."
Rose stopped wiping the counter.
"For what?"
"Apparently, she spent forty minutes explaining to her friends why the first pie said Carmen."
Rose pressed her lips together.
"Did she enjoy explaining it?"
"Immensely."
"Then I provided additional entertainment at no charge."
Luca laughed.
It was a surprisingly ordinary sound from a man whose reputation suggested he had forgotten how.
He ordered coffee.
Rose poured it into a chipped ceramic mug.
"Six dollars," she said.
Luca looked at the cup.
"For coffee?"
"Five for the coffee. One for frightening my assistant."
He paid ten.
Rose handed back four dollars.
"I don't accept intimidation tips."
Luca studied her.
"You're not afraid of me?"
"Of course I am."
His expression changed.
"But fear doesn't make your coffee worth ten dollars."
He laughed again.
And came back the next morning.
Then the next.
By the end of the week, Luca had learned that Rose opened her bakery before sunrise, baked everything herself, and employed three people whose paychecks depended on her ability to sell enough pies.
He also learned that Rose had inherited the shop from her father, who had died leaving behind a failing business and a handwritten recipe book.
She had spent six years turning it into something people loved.
But she was barely keeping it alive.
The rent had increased.
Ingredient prices had risen.
A new luxury development threatened the entire block.
And Rose's younger sister, Tessa, needed money for college.
Tessa was seventeen, brilliant at mathematics, and convinced that her acceptance into Northwestern's summer engineering program was a clerical error.
Rose disagreed.
"You earned it," she told her sister one evening.
Tessa stared at the tuition statement.
"Rose, it's too much."
"We'll figure it out."
"You always say that."
"Because we always do."
But after Tessa went upstairs, Rose sat alone at the kitchen table.
The bakery's accounts were open before her.
She had thirty-seven days before the next rent payment.
And almost no money left.
The following morning, Luca arrived carrying a newspaper.
He placed it on the counter.
"Your landlord sold the building."
Rose froze.
"What?"
"Three days ago."
She snatched the paper.
The buyer was Vance Urban Development.
Serena Vance's family company.
Rose knew the name.
Everyone in Milwaukee did.
Vance Urban Development bought old neighborhoods, demolished what it considered inconvenient, and replaced them with buildings ordinary people could not afford to enter.
"Wonderful," Rose whispered.
Luca watched her.
"Do you know Serena Vance?"
"No."
"She's my former fiancée."
May you like
Rose looked up.
For the first time since meeting him, she had nothing sarcastic to say.
