The Marriage Recipe. Michele Dunaway

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СКАЧАТЬ ponytail, letting the dark, straight locks fall around her shoulders. She was one-quarter Italian, although she considered herself first and foremost simply an American. Heritage wasn’t really that important, except perhaps to the man sitting across from her.

      “Marco, do you love me?” she asked.

      He blinked. “What kind of question is that?” His tone bordered on indignant. “Of course I do. I asked you to marry me. Do you think I didn’t have an array of women to pick from? I wouldn’t have chosen you had you not been special. I love you.”

      Rachel sat there, arms folded across her chest. Marco was smart enough not to approach her. Normally after a fight, he’d hug her, run his fingers through her hair and whisper words that made everything better. If he tried any of those now, she’d slug him. No, how Marco really felt was clear. She’d be a big fool if she thought Marco was marrying her for anything but to protect his bottom line and his profits.

      “I can’t marry you,” she told him.

      Surprised, he frowned. “What? Your ring is right here. Just slide it back on and we’ll call the priest and let him know we still need our date. Anything you’ve canceled can easily be restarted. I’ll spare no expense.”

      The offer was pointless. As much as zebras couldn’t change their stripes, Marco couldn’t change, either. She sighed.

      “Marco, be honest. You don’t really love me. You like that I’m convenient. I’m a great chef. Your family accepts me. But I can’t ever trust you again. I can’t even fathom touching you with a ten-foot pole. It’s better to put this behind us and move on.”

      A vein twitched in his forehead. “You’ll make a fool of me,” he said, revealing the real reason he was still insistent on the marriage.

      She shook her head, disagreeing. “People end engagements all the time. There might be a little press, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You’re Marco Alessandro. You’ll spin this news into more sales of calamari and caviar.”

      He tapped his fingertips, his elbows firmly planted on the desk. His mouth edged downward. “I was afraid you were going to be stubborn. Anthony worried that you might be. He suggested I see my lawyer before I left for Italy.”

      “Lawyer?” Rachel said, her eyebrows arching in shock. Anthony had made a point to avoid her since the “event.” So what was Marco trying to do—get her on a breach of contract? She’d given him back the ring. She didn’t owe him one darn dime. If anything, he owed her.

      “You have a contract with Alessandro’s,” Marco said, his voice level. “As long as you were my fiancée, that contract was merely a piece of paper. A formality. Now that you no longer plan on marrying me, Anthony insists that I…the restaurant, I mean…well, I suppose all of us must protect ourselves.”

      “Anthony,” she said. “What is it that he wants? Are you firing me?”

      “No, no,” Marco said quickly. He grabbed the ring box and tucked the diamond back into his pocket. “I have no desire for you to leave. Neither does my brother. Despite your stubbornness, I’m sure that in time you’ll come to your senses and forgive me. Then all will be well and we can stop this foolishness. Until then, Anthony just wants things on the up-and-up.”

      “Meaning,” Rachel prodded. She knew that Marco was using his brother as a ploy to make Marco appear less the bad guy.

      He brushed some lint off his jacket and then locked his gaze on hers as he delivered his ultimatum. “We want you to turn over your recipes. Anything you developed here while working for Alessandro’s belongs to us.”

      “Are you crazy?” Rachel said, jumping to her feet so that she had some height on him. She couldn’t believe he’d demand such a thing. “Those are mine.”

      “No,” Marco said with a patronizing shake of his head. “They’re my recipes. Alessandro’s. You created them as works for hire while we were paying you a salary. Since you don’t want to marry me—well, it’s all right here.” From an inside pocket of his jacket he drew out a large cream-colored envelope. He placed it on his desk and slid it toward her.

      Rachel could see the law firm’s return address printed in the corner. Fingers trembling, she picked up the packet and removed the contents. There, in black ink, was a legal demand that she relinquish all recipes created or suffer being taken to civil court. She couldn’t believe Marco had been so…premeditated. “You’re giving me a demand letter?”

      “It was Anthony’s idea,” Marco said, as if blaming his brother made the letter less of an evil. “This would all be so much simpler if you married me as we’d planned. We had a good thing going.”

      “Until you couldn’t keep your pants zipped,” Rachel pointed out as she skimmed the appalling letter again. “I don’t understand the rationale behind this action. I work for you. I bake here. My desserts feed your customers. That won’t change just because you and I are no longer engaged.”

      “But in the future, it might. What if you choose to leave?” He tapped his fingertips again.

      “I have a six-month noncompete clause,” she reminded him.

      “Yes, and six months is a mere drop in the ocean of time. If you go, all the money Alessandro’s has invested in you flies out the window. We run a business here, and as much as I’d like to be generous, Anthony’s right. We can’t let you take our property with you.”

      Now he was talking way over her head. She planted her hands on her hips. “Let me see. Either I marry you, or I turn over my recipes?”

      “Marriage to me wouldn’t be that bad,” Marco said with a smile. “At least you’d get something permanent in return.”

      “Who says I’d turn over my recipes then?” she demanded. The gall of the man.

      He seemed taken aback by her outburst. “As I’ve always said, husbands and wives share everything. And when you became pregnant and stayed home to raise our children, your replacement would continue your work. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

      Pregnant? Stay home and be barefoot in the kitchen? What had she seen in him? “You are archaic.”

      “Tradition is part of my heritage.”

      “Oh, please,” Rachel scoffed. She was sick of the charade. “Enough of this. You’re a third-generation Brooklynite whose trips to Italy are all for show. Give me a break. You’re not getting my recipes, which by the way originated from my grandmother’s cookbook. Not your kitchen.”

      “Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be,” Marco said. He stood and gestured. “You’re overwrought. Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone to Italy. I should have wooed you more. Made amends. I’ll call Anthony and have him cover for me tonight. We’ll go out. See a show. You can pick out a new piece of jewelry.”

      “No.” Rachel placed both hands on his desk and leaned forward. “This is over. You and I are through. T-H-R-O-U-G-H.”

      He stepped around the desk, as if sensing the situation was spiraling out of his control. “Rachel, please calm down. Be sensible. I’m not your enemy.”

      “No, Anthony is.” Rachel waved the letter in front of Marco. “Well, СКАЧАТЬ