Jessica Hart - Here Comes The Bride

“Watch your step,” he cautioned Reese as they stepped down another makeshift wooden staircase at the opposite end of the room. It led into a smaller room with a patio table and a couple of lawn chairs. Plastic sheeting prevented her from looking out at the ocean.

Alex seated her. “Take a look through this. I’ll be right back.”

Intrigued, she opened the looseleaf binder he pushed in front of her. It was full of photographs mounted beneath transparent overlays. The yellowish color on the edges of the pictures told her they’d been taken a long time ago.

Though she’d never been to Greece, the charming, centuries-old country house hidden by greenery couldn’t be located anywhere else. Many exterior and interior angles revealed the detail of beamed ceilings and stone walls with niches containing icons.

She loved the ancient stone fireplace and indoor tile trim running the length of the heavy beams that curved with age.

In the front of the off-white villa was a delightful patio and fountain inlaid with stone. The whole place was smothered with overgrown vines and trees.

By the time she’d looked at the last set of photos, which included a much younger Alex and his grandparents, she marveled to realize he was recreating that same villa here in Malibu, the kind that looked several hundred years old.

He came up behind her and put a can of cola on the table next to her. “What do you think?”

Her heart gave a strong kick. “When this is finished, you will have captured the enchantment of your grandparents’ home. I absolutely adore it. How long do you think it will be before you and the woman you love can live here?”

She’d decided to come right out with it so he wouldn’t think she was getting any romantic ideas about him.

He sat down opposite her and began drinking from his can. She watched his throat work, enjoying the sight of him relaxed and seemingly content. She studied his long, powerful legs stretched out in front of him. His fingers were long and lean, too. Everything about him was beautiful. Too beautiful.

After he put his empty can on the table, she felt his penetrating gaze. “We won’t be living here.”

His comment set her straight with a vengeance. “I don’t understand.”

“This is going to be a Greek restaurant.”

“Restaurant?”

“That’s right. I’ll do the cooking. She’ll help me run the place.”

“You cook?”

“I do.” He pulled the looseleaf binder toward him and pointed to one of the pictures. “You see that patio with all the tables?”

“Yes?”

“My grandparents enlarged their house and ran a taverna there for many years.”

“You never told me that before.”

“I thought I did. I learned to cook in my grandmother’s kitchen.”

“Well, I remember you saying something about that, but I had no idea you meant she turned it into a business.”

He nodded. “She taught me how to make everything according to her exact specifications. It was a sad day when she passed away. My grandfather stopped wanting to live. He died within the year.”

She lowered her head for a moment. “How hard that must have been for you.”

“You would know,” he murmured. “The place was so full of memories, and so empty, I couldn’t stay there alone. So I put it in the hands of a Realtor to rent, and I left for New York on a worker’s visa.”

“I can relate to wanting to leave.” No wonder Alex was being so solicitous of her today. His ties to his grandparents were as great as hers to Lilian. She loved him that much more for being sensitive to her needs.

No man she’d ever met could measure up to Alex. Reese was shattered by his admission that he was deeply in love with someone else.

“There are plenty of Greek restaurants in New York in need of a good cook,” he continued to explain, unaware of her agony. “I had all the work I wanted while I continued to study English and begin the arduous process of becoming a citizen.”

How come he’d waited all these months before confiding this kind of personal information to her? When she thought of the many talks they’d had…

“What brought you to Los Angeles?” Even though she knew there was this important woman in his life, Reese couldn’t prevent herself from asking more questions. As long as he was giving her the opportunity, she had this incurable need to learn everything and anything about him.

BENEATH his dark brows, Alex’s black gaze trapped Reese’s. “You fell into acting because of a fluke. So did I.”

“How did it happen?”

“I worked under a famous Greek chef at the Athena Plaza in downtown Manhattan. Someone suggested he do a pilot for a television show. He needed an assistant and asked me to help. It meant more money for me, which I badly needed to support myself.”

“That’s how you got on TV? A cooking show? Fabio Andretti?” She couldn’t believe it.

His smile reached his eyes. “Not Fabio. The upshot is, the pilot did well, but the weekly series didn’t. My boss didn’t have the personality of a Chef Emeril, who’s been a great success on American television.”

“I love his show!”

“You and everyone else who changed channels to watch him instead of my boss. But it was my lucky day because a Hollywood soap producer happened to catch a few of the episodes, and he contacted someone at the network doing our show. I was asked to fly out to LA to read for a part.”

“I’d call that destiny,” she whispered in a shaky voice.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but I do now. You’re absolutely right. It was destiny.”

She had an idea he wasn’t talking about his career alone. “Then this woman you love isn’t from Greece?”

“Who told you she was?”

“No one. But you know how people gossip. I heard you were committed to someone, so I just assumed as much.”

He leveled his all-encompassing gaze on her. “If that were the case, I would never have left Greece in the first place. As it was, I needed a total change of scene. New York seemed the right destination for me.

“When the offer came, I jumped at the chance to see another part of the country and make a decent salary. But the producer of the network in New York warned me not to do anything until I’d found myself the right agent.”

“Nobody in the performing arts should make a move without one.”

Alex nodded. “He gave me a name. That favor turned out to be critical for me. This agent wouldn’t let me sign any contracts until I’d auditioned for as many soaps as I could. He wanted me to hold out for the top salary.

“Naturally the money was important, but I also realized that if I was asked to play a part I couldn’t abide, then it wouldn’t have mattered how much I was offered.”

“I know what you mean,” Reese inserted. “If I’d been asked to play the role of Melissa, I wouldn’t have done it. I’m not an actress at heart. I couldn’t act the part of a person of whom I didn’t approve, even if it was all for pretense.”

“That makes sense. The first few scripts I read didn’t interest me either. In both cases I was supposed to play a mobster from the underworld. I didn’t want to start out like that and then be typecast forever doing the same roles.”

“You were smart.”

“Not really. The truth is, they held no appeal. I wanted something different. Out of the blue my agent asked me if I could do an Italian accent. Since one of my good friends was Italian, that was easy. I just mimicked him for my agent, and he took matters from there.”

Reese smiled. “As my aunt told me, you’re the quickest study she ever met.” She’d said a lot of other wonderful things about him, too, but Reese didn’t dare tell Alex or he would realize how deep her feelings for him went.

“It’s because of that accent I got the part of Fabio Andretti, the priest who left the monastery because his soul was conflicted.”

“Just as yours was,” she said quietly.

He studied her for a minute before nodding his dark head. “It tore me apart to leave Greece. It tore me apart to stay.”

“I’m sorry you had to be in that kind of pain, Alex. No wonder you played the part of Fabio so convincingly. Many times during our scenes I felt it and knew it had to come from someplace deep within you.”

She kneaded her hands beneath the table. “Has your sorrow diminished at all?”

“Of course. No one stays in that dark place forever. One day I took a drive and ended up here. The minute I saw this damaged gallery, I could envision my grandparents’ villa. It would be like planting an old vine in new ground.

“Once that idea took hold, I never let go of it. By December, I had enough money saved to make an offer on the property. A Christmas present to myself.”

Her eyelids prickled with unshed tears. “It’s a fantastic plan. But-”

“But what?” he broke in.

“There’s always a fire danger here. Malibu’s not protected from the worst of the Santa Ana winds like Orange County or San Diego.”

“I’m aware of that fact. The Realtor warned me I might find myself having to remodel again in a few years, or even be forced to build an entire new restaurant.”

He leaned toward her. “It doesn’t worry me. As long as I have my memories, I can rebuild anywhere.”

She averted her eyes. “I’m sorry I brought it up. Believe me, I didn’t mean to sound negative. More than anything I want your project to be a great success.”

“I know you do, and I appreciate your concern.”

“What are you going to call your restaurant?”

“Kousina Sofia.”

“Your grandmother’s name.” Her eyes lifted to his face once more.

“That’s right. Sophie’s Kitchen.”

“She’ll be overjoyed.”

One black brow lifted expressively. “You believe in the afterlife?”

“Don’t you?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact I do.”

Reese was enjoying their exchange too much. “So…how will you fulfill your dreams to run a busy restaurant and balance your acting career at the same time?”

He closed the cover of the looseleaf binder before flashing her a piercing glance. “No one told you yet?”

She frowned. “Told me what?”

“I didn’t renew my contract. I’ve left the show, just like you.”

Alex had left the show?

“Today was my last day, too.” He answered the question she hadn’t voiced yet because she was so stunned.

“Your news has to be this year’s best kept secret-” she blurted.

“That surprises me. Usually everything leaks out.”

“Not this time!”

She took a deep breath while she tried to sort through this new development. Except that what he did or didn’t do was no longer supposed to be of any consequence to her. He was in love with someone else!

“What are the writers going to do about Fabio?”

“As I told you earlier today, he’ll go back to the monastery. Melissa will manage to infiltrate, believing she is torturing Fabio. But when he finally removes his hood, she’ll discover she’s been harassing the wrong monk.

“He’ll tell her Fabio has gone, and no one knows where he went.” Alex spread his hands. “That’s as much as Stan would tell me.”

Reese started to laugh. “Oh, boy. I can’t wait to watch when she hears the news.”

Alex chuckled. “I can’t either. Leah’s the best at being the worst.”

Though they shared an amusing moment, Reese was dying inside. He wouldn’t be on the show anymore. From here on out the woman who loved him and had the right to love him would claim his undivided attention.

It was still too much for her to process all at once. She had dozens more questions to ask, not knowing where to start first.

“H-how soon do you expect to open for business?” she stammered.

“Two months. Hopefully six weeks, but that would probably be pushing it.”

“I see. Are you going to live in Malibu, or commute from Culver City?” Her aunt had contacted a friend who’d helped him find a good apartment there.

“That depends on a variety of factors. I’ll worry about it later. Right now my main concern is to get this place ready. I’m of two minds how to treat the windows. I’ve known you quite a while and have discovered we have similar tastes in a lot of things. I’d like your opinion.”

“But I’m not Greek!”

“You’re a woman with a woman’s instincts for what works.”

“What does your girlfriend think?”

“I’m asking you,” he asserted. “When you walk in here two months from now, do you want to be able to see the ocean through a wall of glass?”

“That sounds very contemporary.”

“It would be a concession for those tourists who’ve come from all over the world to visit Malibu and eat by the water.”

“That’s true. But I thought the whole idea was to reproduce your grandparents’ Greek villa.”