THAT'S AMORE

by

Erin McCarthy

♦ Chapter One ♦

N HER DREAM, Paige Lombardi was wearing a knock-out bikini, being served a chilly drink pool side by a gorgeous, tanned, muscular… howling cat?

That wasn’t right.

Prying her eyes open, she tried to banish the loud shrieking wail that had appeared without warning in her otherwise delicious dream.

The cat kept wailing.

Swiping hair out of her eyes and removing her cherry red floral comforter from over her head, Paige rolled over.

And screamed.

“Ohmigod!”

The dying cat was real. It was in her bedroom.

Only it wasn’t a cat. It was a baby, strapped into a stroller and howling for all he was worth two feet from Paige’s ear.

She knew this baby, and it wasn’t hers.

It was her best friend Gina Benedetto’s baby, sporting the trademark mop of Benedetto black hair.

Her friend Gina who had an awful lot of explaining to do. Especially when Paige jumped out of bed and stumbled around her small apartment in her bedtime boxer shorts. She determined within seconds that Gina was nowhere to be found.

Paige wasn’t really surprised. Since they had met in kindergarten at Holy Rosary School, Gina had been getting Paige into trouble. Gina had been considered wild by most people’s standards, and downright sinful by the nuns.

Everyone said it was the result of being the younger sister of three charming troublemaker Benedetto boys. Their exploits were famous on Murray Hill, and the mention of any of the Benedetto siblings earned head shakes from Italian mothers.

Paige had always been a good girl. Who by a twist of fate, or an act of God, had wound up sitting next to Gina in kindergarten. She had shared her Twinkies with Gina, and they had been best friends ever since.

“This is so like her,” Paige fumed, taking a circuitous route around the stroller, eyeing the baby warily.

Paige didn’t do babies. She had no clue what to do with the creature squalling in front of her. An only child, with zero babysitting experience, Paige would rather bungee jump than be responsible for damaging someone else’s child.

How she would do that, she didn’t know, but it seemed inevitable. She was bound to feed it something it shouldn’t have, or screw up the whole diaper changing business. Gina was actually very good at motherhood, which had shocked everyone who knew her. But Paige was terrified of it.

Only it wasn’t an “it.” It was Justin, Gina’s one year old son fathered by her long-time boyfriend, Frank Macelli, who swore to Gina they’d get married any day now. Paige wasn’t holding her breath on that one.

“Where is your mother?” she demanded of the baby. “And why would she leave you with me when she knows I’ll probably kill you by accident?”

It wasn’t that she didn’t like kids. In fact, she thought babies were pretty darn adorable when they weren’t drooling. She wanted to have one of her own someday in about ten years after she read every book available on the subject and attended child rearing classes.

Taking care of one right now was not something she was qualified to do.

Justin, whose little face had gone red, suddenly waved his arms up and down as if he were shaking them in fury at her. He reminded her of the teacher she’d had in the fifth grade, Sister Mary Clarence. Same round head and screaming.

“I’m sorry! I don’t know what you want.” Maybe he wanted out of that strap thingie that was cutting across his gut. Sort of like pantyhose.

Paige poked around the baby’s middle, found the clasp and studied it a full minute before finally figuring out how to release the seat belt. When it popped free, Justin started to slide out of the seat.

“Whoa! Hang on there.” She picked him up and settled him on her hip. As Justin stopped crying, she noticed a piece of paper had fluttered down to the carpet.

“Hey, what’s this?” She was already starting to figure out that a baby was a great excuse for talking to herself out loud.

It was a yellow piece of paper ripped from a steno pad. She read, “Paigey.”

She stuck her tongue out in disgust. “I’ve been telling Gina to stop calling me that since we were eight.”

Justin blinked, a large tear still clinging to his eyelash.

Paige wiped it with her finger and smiled at him. He was cute. It wasn’t his fault his mother was insane. She continued with the note. “I need you to watch Justin for me for a few days. It’s an emergency. Love you, Gina.”

She crumpled the paper up and threw it towards the wastebasket. “Sheesh. How do you like that? No explanation, no number, no nothing.”

Starting towards her phone, she tripped over the wheel of the stroller and stumbled, nearly tumbling herself and Justin to the floor.

“See?” she said. “I told you I would cause bodily harm to you.”

Yet Justin was giggling, an earthy belly laugh, from having been bounced up and down in her arms when she stumbled.

She grinned at him. “Think I’m funny, do you?”

He let out a happy squeal. At least she thought it was happy. Either that or he was calling her an idiot in baby talk.

In rapid succession, she dialed every single number she could think of to get a hold of Gina. She didn’t answer her cell phone, her voice mail picked up at home and work, and Frank didn’t answer at his apartment.

She resorted to calling Gina’s mother.

“Hi, Mrs. Benedetto. This is Paige Lombardi.”

“Paige, honey, how are you? I saw your grandmother the other day. She says you moved out of Little Italy.”

Sinking onto her bed, Paige struggled not to sigh. Free of her arms, Justin crawled over her comforter and sprawled out on her pillow. It was a good idea considering it was six a.m. and by all rights she should still be sleeping now.

“Yes, I moved to University Heights.”

“Why?” Mrs. Benedetto expressed proper horror as had every single living member of Paige’s family when she had decided to move an entire whopping four miles away.

Gina’s mom went on. “You can’t get a decent meal there. Sure, they’ve got coffeehouses, but you can’t live on coffee.”

“I’m happy here.” And she was. At twenty-six she had been feeling strangled in Cleveland’s Little Italy, where everyone knew her parents, and intense records were kept of who went to church and who dated who.

She had needed to get her own life, and she had. Most of the time she was satisfied with that. After all, she did have access to great coffee.

But the real issue here was Gina and her “dump Justin with Paige” act. She wondered briefly if Gina and Frank had eloped, then dismissed it. Frank would have to be bribed with six figures to actually make a commitment to Gina.

“Have you seen Gina, Mrs. Benedetto? I’m trying to get a hold of her.”

Justin began sucking on her comforter, long gooey strands of saliva oozing from his mouth down over the fabric. Paige hated the laundromat. She gave another sigh and hoped Mrs. Benedetto would announce that Gina was sitting beside her in her kitchen.

“No, I haven’t talked to her at all this week. Try Frank’s.”

Darn it. “Okay, thanks.”

After fielding invitations from Mrs. Benedetto that included pasta and her grandmother, Paige hung up.

It was time for something drastic. She was going to have to get in the car and find Gina. It was Tuesday. Gina had to go to work, right?

Paige would just surprise her there and return her bundle of joy.

The glitch in that plan was that Gina was an accountant for Benedetto Construction, the family business, and she worked in the company office.

As did Jeff. Gina’s older brother.

Who Paige had spent the better part of three years avoiding like fat grams.

“I don’t want to see your uncle,” she told Justin as she scooped him up and headed towards her closet. She would dress for work, drop Justin off, then still be on time for her nine o’clock appointment.

When you were investing a half of a million dollars for a client, they sort of liked you to be on time. It was a basic rule for being a good investment counselor. And Paige liked to be good at everything she did.

Justin looped his finger around a strand of her long hair and pulled. She grappled with his finger, trying to remove it, without much luck. He had a grip like a dog on a bone.

She said, “Ow. I’m serious. I don’t want to see Jeff. Ever again. I’ll die of humiliation if I have to see him.”

She pulled out a blue suit from the closet and wondered how in the world she was supposed to get into her clothes with a baby on her hip. Her appreciation for mothers rose, as did her determination to use birth control.

Of course, in order to use birth control, she was going to have to have sex, and that was nothing but a distant memory.

Justin grabbed the shoulder of the suit with his wet hand and squeezed, leaving a tiny slimy hand print on the dry clean only garment.

“Hey!” She threw the suit on the bed and starting shifting through the closet for another one, minus the drool. “If I do run into Jeff, you can bet I’m going to be looking good.”

After all, it wasn’t every day you ran into the man you had lost your virginity with.

The man who hadn’t bothered to call you ever again after the fact.

Jeff Benedetto didn’t appreciate having a gun waved in his face.

There was just no reason for that kind of overreaction.

“Look,” he told the brawny idiot in front of him, “I told you, I don’t know where Frank is. I don’t keep tabs on him.”

This guy was making him nervous. Jeff had doubts that this sweaty, breathless guy even knew how to fire the gun he was holding in his shaky hand. But accidents could happen.

He had no intention of taking a bullet sitting behind a desk in a construction trailer. Especially not in the name of someone as worthless as Frank Macelli, his sister’s freeloader boyfriend.

“I thought Frank works here.” The man wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his black silk shirt, leaving a wet stain on it.

Jeff shifted in his chair, trying to take his forehead out of line with the barrel of the gun. “He does work here.” When he bothered to show up. “But he doesn’t usually get in until after nine.”

“Well, you tell old Frank I’ve got a message for him.”

Jeff raised an eyebrow. This little scene was starting to sound like a high school production of The Godfather. “Yeah?”

“You tell Frank I’ve got his girlfriend, and if he wants to see her again he’d better stay away from Vinnie Cucuzza.”

Jeff went still, all amusing thoughts of telling his brothers Sam and Sal about his visitor over a beer fleeing his head. “What do you mean, you’ve got Gina?”

A nervous laugh left the man’s mouth, and spittle pooled in the corner of his lip. “That’s right. I’ve got Gina, and if Frank doesn’t watch it, I’ll grab his kid too.”

Jeff didn’t know what this guy wanted, but that was enough. There was no way he was going to just sit here and let this bozo threaten his nephew. And if he really did have Gina, he better hope he hadn’t hurt one hair on her overprocessed head.

The guy was shaking even harder now, the gun rattling back and forth in his hand. Jeff pushed his chair back, waiting for the right minute to spring forward and smack the gun away.

A knock came on the trailer door. “Jeff?” A female voice called in to him. “Is Gina with you? Sal told me she might be here…”

Hell. He recognized that voice. He would never forget that voice. That voice giving little gasps of pleasure in his ear still haunted his dreams.

Damn. That was Paige Lombardi, the last person he needed to see right now.

“Paige, don’t come in here,” he commanded in a firm voice.

The guy in front of him stood still, alert and looking ready to fire a few rounds into the intruder if necessary, from the grip he held on his gun.

Paige’s voice came through the door, sounding all in a snit. “Well, of all the nerve. Can you believe that? I told you I didn’t want to come here.”

“Who’s she talking to?” the guy asked in confusion.

“I don’t know.” He was wondering that himself. He was also starting to wonder how his day had gone south so fast.

Ten minutes ago he’d been eating an everything bagel and nursing his coffee. Now he was facing a gun and the only woman who had ever made him feel like a complete jerk.

The door flung open. The Brawny Guy turned, gun pointed. Paige stood in the doorway, Jeff’s nephew Justin in her arms.

A scream ripped from her as she caught sight of what was facing her.

Jeff didn’t know what she was doing here, or why she had Justin, but he wasn’t about to let anything happen to either one of them. He jumped up, knocked the fat guy’s hand up into the air and elbowed him in his ample gut.

The gun clattered to the ground.

Jeff yelled, “Run, Paige.”

A meaty arm came around his neck and he side stepped quickly, giving a shove to his opponent with his shoulder. The guy hit the wall hard and clipped his arm on the shelf holding Jeff’s dusty boxes of office paperwork.

The sound of tearing fabric filled the trailer. “Hey!” the guy yelled, enraged. “My shirt ripped. This is silk.”

“No great loss,” Jeff said, eyeing the shirt that made the guy look like a pimp from a grade B movie.

Then he noticed Paige was still standing in the doorway, frozen, Justin playing with her earrings. It had been three years since he had seen Paige, and despite the situation he couldn’t help but take a nice long look at her.

Gorgeous. Sensual. Frightened senseless.

Her eyes widened as she noticed his stare. She said, “Look out!”

Three hundred pounds of cholesterol landed on his back as the guy gave him a shove from behind. The force sent him staggering towards the door, where Paige was backing up, tottering down the wooden steps in her high heels.

He got a nice view of shapely leg as he lost all pretense of balance and headed down the stairs after her head first.

This was going to make a good impression.

He slid to a stop in the dirt at her feet and found himself staring up her skirt. Maybe the day wasn’t so bad after all.

She was wearing black lace panties. Mamma mia.

♦ Chapter Two ♦

HERE HAD BEEN A TIME when Paige had wanted Jeff Benedetto down on his knees in front of her.

This wasn’t what she’d had in mind.

Yet despite the fact that her heart did a funny little seizure in her chest at the sight of Jeff, she couldn’t squelch the feeling that this was a bad situation.

A man had pointed a gun at her, she had a baby in her arms, and she strongly suspected Jeff was looking up her skirt.

And it didn’t look like she was going to make that nine o’clock appointment.

The guy with the gun was still rustling around in the trailer, probably looking for his weapon so he could finish what he had started. Shaking off the vague feeling that she knew him from somewhere, she stepped back away from Jeff.

“Jeff, the guy…”

Jeff was on his feet in an instant, towering over her, his black hair sticking up. He wiped his hands on his black T-shirt and dusted the seat of his jeans. “I told you to run.”

She stumbled as he grabbed her hand and pulled her in the direction of her car. She tried to defend her lack of action. “I froze, I’m sorry. You never know how you’re going to react in a dangerous situation until you’re confronted with one.”

Jeff opened the driver’s side door of her car, giving no appearance of hearing her. When he got in, she stopped in confusion, then slid into the passenger seat with Justin, afraid of being left behind.

“Give me the keys,” he demanded.

Jeff’s attacker loomed in the doorway of the trailer, wearing his ripped shirt and a look of vengeance.

She gave the keys to Jeff without hesitation, yelling, “Hurry up!”

“Don’t worry about it.” He threw the car in reverse and raced out of the parking lot, spewing gravel behind them.

A dozen construction workers looked up from their various tasks at hand building an office high rise. Paige grabbed the door and hung on, Justin bouncing up and down in her lap. He wasn’t even buckled in a car seat. Sheesh. She had the kid for an hour and a half and she was already doing it wrong.

“Slow down!” she yelled.

Jeff shot her a look that made her pulse race in a manner that had nothing to do with fear. “First you want me to hurry up, then you want me to slow down. Which is it?”

She glanced over her shoulder and noticed a black Ford was hot on their tail. “Okay, hurry up.” Then she realized where she knew that guy from. “That’s Johnny Romano! He was a wrestler in high school at St. Ed’s. What is he doing waving a gun at you?”

“He’s looking for Frank.” He took the corner at fifty miles an hour and Paige’s stomach dropped to the floor where her hunter green umbrella was resting.

She had the feeling that she was going to regret showing up at Benedetto Construction. For multiple reasons.

“That’s funny. Frank’s missing too? I’m looking for Gina.”

“Good old Johnny back there says he’s got Gina, and he’s holding her until he hears from Frank. Seems they’ve got some unfinished business.”

“What?” She clung tighter to Justin. “Are you telling me Gina’s been kidnapped? Why?”

“I don’t know why.” Jeff took another corner, ran a red light and said with satisfaction, “I’ve lost him.”

“This is crazy.”

“Tell me about it. I didn’t even get to finish my bagel.” He slowed her Honda Accord down and cruised to a stop at the intersection. “Hey, did Gina ever mention anything about Frank working with Vinnie Cucuzza?”

“No.” She was staring at him. She couldn’t help herself. The whole thing was insane.

Yesterday she had been living her life, childless and happy, working her way up the corporate ladder and planning how to spend her first big bonus check due to arrive in a month. Today she was sitting in a speeding getaway car, running from an ex-wrestler with a silk shirt, bouncing a baby on her lap, and talking about her best friend’s kidnapping with Jeff Benedetto.

The Jeff Benedetto.

Who looked even better than he had three years ago when she had lost all common sense and spent one passionate night with him.

Only to find him gone before the sheets had cooled.

His black hair was shorter, and his face had more angles, but the difference was subtle. He looked mature now, deadly handsome as opposed to boyishly charming. Either way it didn’t matter.

She had developed a crush on him when she was thirteen and he had rescued her from the merciless teasing of Sal and Sam, the other Benedetto boys. Then nearly ten years later she had given her heart and body to him only to have him toss it back at her without a backward glance.

“What?” he asked, catching her staring.

“Nothing.” Only that she hated his guts and still wanted him, all at the same time.

“We need to find someplace to hide out where Johnny can’t find us, you know. He saw that you had Justin. He might try to kidnap him.”

Paige gasped, and held Justin tighter. She might not know how to take care of him, but she wasn’t about to let that walking fashion disaster have him either.

Jeff went on. “We can’t go to my place or yours, those are the first places he’ll look. Same with my mom, and Gina’s. This is mob business, you know.”

“Mob business?” she squeaked. “There’s no mob in Cleveland.”

As Jeff cruised her Accord past a brick wall painted red, green, and white in a faded mural of the Italian flag, he glanced at her in disbelief. “No mob? Where have you been all your life?”

“I know the Cucuzzas,” she insisted. “Vinnie and my father golfed together for years. He’s like an uncle to me.”

Jeff snorted. “Well, you know, I always figured your father to be one of the big bosses.”

“My father?” Nothing could be more impossible for her to imagine than her quiet father laundering money and calling hits on rivals. “My father is the most laid back, non-threatening man I’ve ever met.”

Dismissing his preposterous idea, she added, “By the way, my parents moved to Florida but my father still has an apartment here. We could go there while we figure out where Frank is. It’s right here on Mayfield just past the church.”

He gave her a long look across the seat that furthered her annoyance.

“What?”

“Your father keeps a spare apartment in town and you don’t think he’s in the mob?”

“Of course not! They use it when they come back and visit. It’s convenient. My mother doesn’t like the sheets in hotels.” Her mother didn’t like a lot of things, including Jeff Benedetto. Every time Paige had wanted to spend the night at the Benedettos’ her mother had always suggested Gina stay at their house instead, convinced one of those boys was going to corrupt her daughter.

Paige had spent the last three years wishing she had listened to her mother.

“You ever ask yourself how a guy like your father had all that money? You were the richest kid in the neighborhood.”

“Being well-off is criminal?” she asked in a huff. “His restaurant was very successful. He did a damn good chicken parmesan.”

Jeff laughed. “I don’t remember you being this out-spoken, Paige. You were always a quiet kid.”

“I’m not a kid anymore.”

His laughter cut off, and his brown eyes darkened. She had the feeling he was thinking about the exact same thing that she was.

That night in his apartment, soaked to the skin from a summer thunderstorm, when he had peeled off her sopping clothes and had shown her what it was to be a woman.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it was hot in her car. Why hadn’t he turned the air conditioning on against the August heat?

Jeff was paralyzed by the image playing in his mind of Paige on his bed, her blond hair spread out around her, gazing up at him with trust and longing. He had tasted and touched every inch of her naked body that night. He had nipped at her ribs and ran his tongue along…

The car hit the curb and the steering wheel jumped in his hand. He slammed on the brakes. He took a deep breath.

“We’re here,” Paige said, her voice husky. She pointed up to the windows above a trendy art gallery. “Third floor. I have a spare key.”

He couldn’t help but stare at Paige and wonder why he wasn’t more concerned for his sister. But his gut told him Gina was okay, and he had more pressing concerns right now.

Like a massive hard-on.

He had always wanted Paige. As long as he could remember he had been fascinated by his little sister’s shy friend with the golden hair. He had first noticed her when she was thirteen and he was sixteen, and she was crying because his brother Sam had locked her out of the house in her nightgown.

It had been a little satin thing, with a matching robe covering her, and he had been aware that his feelings weren’t as altruistic as they should have been. Horrified at himself and how young she was, he had spent a couple of years working hard on avoiding her.

Only he had always been aware of her. Aware that she had grown taller, thinner, and had developed curves. Curves that had kept him up at night knowing she was sleeping ten feet away in his sister’s room every other week it seemed like.

Curves that were hugging the blouse she wore right now.

He thought about reaching out for her. Kissing her. He was leaning forward a little, going with instinct, guided by the irresistible urge to taste her again.

Justin kicked him in the gut with a well placed tiny gym shoe. “Watch it, kid,” he told his nephew.

Justin gurgled, a big bubble forming on his lip.

Paige got out of the car and he followed her across the sidewalk and up the stairs. He said, “So how did you end up with Justin?”

“I woke up this morning and there he was, just sitting there in his stroller. The note from Gina said she had an emergency and she needed me to keep him for a couple of days.”

Distracted by the sight of Paige’s round behind sashaying up the stairs in front of him, Jeff barely heard her answer. It took a second to filter through his sex starved brain. “Wait a minute. If Gina was kidnapped, how would she know in advance to drop Justin off with you?”

“Maybe she suspected she was in danger.”

It didn’t ring right, but he didn’t know what else could have happened. He figured his best bet right now was to keep his eye on Paige and Justin, and make sure they were safe. He’d send his brothers out to look for Gina and Johnny Romano.

The apartment was ultra-modern, with expensive black leather furniture and chrome tables. Art that didn’t look like it had come from the framing shop lined the walls. The view out of the windows was of downtown skyscrapers. The air conditioning had been left running on full blast and the room was a chilly sixty degrees.

He knew Paige’s old man was mob. This apartment just cemented his opinion. There wasn’t enough chicken in northern Ohio to pay for all this.

Paige set Justin down on the hardwood floors and collapsed on the sofa. “I think Justin needs his diaper changed.”

Jeff failed to see how that mattered to him. “So why are you telling me?” He started towards the kitchen, wondering if there could be any food still hanging around in the cupboards. He hadn’t gotten to finish his bagel and he was starving.

“Because I don’t know how to change a diaper. And he’s your nephew. You should change him.”

Nephew or not, he wasn’t touching a dirty diaper. “How come you don’t know how to change a diaper? I thought every girl knew how to do that.”

The look on her face told him that hadn’t been a brilliant thing to say. He ducked into the kitchen while she shouted after him.

“That was a sexist thing to say! What, do you think we’re born with a diapering gene?”

Yes, Paige had definitely become more outspoken in the last couple of years. He tried to backpedal. He hadn’t meant to sound like a pig, it was just that in his family, all the girls did know how to diaper a baby.

“No, I just meant, girls usually like to babysit and stuff. I don’t know anything about babies.”

Justin was his nephew, but he was usually so surrounded by cooing females at every family event, that Jeff never saw much of the kid. Once Justin hit about five years old, they would take him into the male circle of the family and initiate him into the ways of football, power tools, and beer.

Well, maybe they’d wait until high school on the beer.

He methodically checked every cupboard in the all white kitchen. Nothing. They were going to starve.

“I don’t know anything about babies either!” She came around the kitchen, holding Justin at arm’s length.

The smell hit him like a back alley on garbage day during a heat wave. “Oh, hell. That’s nasty.” He wrinkled his nose.

“Change him.” Paige’s pretty little pink lips were pursed in disapproval.

Justin kicked his legs up and down, spreading the smell further into the kitchen. “Get him out of here. You’re contaminating the kitchen.” He covered his nose and tried to breathe through his mouth.

He offered a solution. “Why don’t we change him together?” That seemed like a good compromise. It wasn’t fair for either of them to have to deal with the toxic waste sitting in Justin’s pants.

Paige tilted her head and considered his offer as they went back into the living room. Finally, she set Justin down again, who toddled off like a drunken sailor, heading for the window.

“Okay, that sounds fair.”

That was settled. They looked at each other. “So,” Jeff said as Paige shrugged out of her red suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves on her white blouse. “What do we do first? Don’t we need, like… equipment or something?”

Jeff was in the construction business. He thought in terms of equipment, tools, and supplies. Constructing, fixing, and quality workmanship.

Any job could be tackled with the right tools.

Paige tried to focus on Jeff’s question, but all she could think was that nothing had changed in the last three years. Oh, sure, she had moved out of Little Italy, gotten a car, worked her way up through two promotions at work, yet one thing hadn’t changed.

She still had the hots for Jeff Benedetto.

And somehow she had wound up in an empty apartment with him. Well, not empty. There was Justin after all.

A dirty diaper should serve as an effective barrier between her and Jeff and the lust that was strong enough to choke her.

“I think we need a clean diaper and something to wash the… stuff off of him.” She couldn’t bring herself to say what that stuff was.

Justin was toddling around the room in his cotton shorts and T-shirt, bending over now and again to gnaw on the corner of the furniture. The poor kid had no idea of the incompetence he was surrounded with.

“I can go to the store.” Jeff sounded doubtful.

Now that the initial fear had receded, Paige wondered if they hadn’t overreacted. She crossed her arms and said, “I don’t think this is going to work, Jeff. Can’t we just drop him off at your mom’s?”

Jeff was eyeing Justin like he wanted to do nothing else but ditch him with the first relative he could find. But he shook his head. “My mom cannot protect him from Johnny Romano and Vinnie Cucuzza. Right now we have the edge. They don’t know where we are. If we lie low for a couple of days, we can keep Justin safe.”

Tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans, he gave another long look at the baby. “I’d never forgive myself if something happened to him.”

Paige felt like a heel. He was right. Of course he was right. The important thing was making sure Justin was safe, not worrying about her libido.

Her cell phone rang and she dug it out of her purse.

“Paigey, it’s Gina.”

“Gina! Where are you? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” The distinct sound of Gina sipping through a straw hit Paige’s ear. “Johnny Romano always had a crush on me, you know. He’s treating me like glass.”

“Well, that’s good.” Paige smacked herself in the forehead. Nothing was good about this. She turned to Jeff and said, “Gina’s fine.”

Then she said to Gina, “Do you know where you are so we can get you?”

“I’m not telling.” Not the answer Paige had expected to hear.

Before Paige could ask her why the heck not, Gina said, “I figure this is a golden opportunity for Frank to miss me. Worry about me a little. By the time I get back he’ll be so worried he’ll finally set our wedding date.”

“That’s not going to work!” Leave it to Gina to take advantage of her own kidnapping. “No one even knows where Frank is.”

“He’s with Vinnie Cucuzza. The idiot’s gotten himself messed up in some bad business. I think they double crossed Johnny or something.” Now Paige could hear Gina chewing, talking with a full mouth.

“What are you eating?”

“Chips. Johnny went to get me more daiquiri mix.” She swallowed. “How’s Justin? Does he miss me?”

If he did, he wasn’t talking. “If you’re okay, I’m taking Justin to your mom’s. I don’t know how to take care of him.”

“No! Johnny may be treating me all right, but I don’t trust him not to snag Justin, trying to flush Frank out of hiding. You know I’ll put myself at risk, Paigey, but I’d never risk anything happening to Justin. You’ve got to keep him hidden.”

Paige knew that was true. Gina might be willing to play games with Frank, but she wouldn’t let anything happen to Justin. “Okay, fine, we’ll keep him.”

“We?” Gina crunched another chip.

Darn it. “Jeff’s with me. It’s a long story.”

“My brother?” Gina snorted. “Hey, maybe this will be a good thing for you too. You can get a little action.”

Paige felt herself blushing and turned to the left so Jeff wouldn’t see her face. She whispered, “I don’t want a little… you know, with Jeff.”

“Bull! You’ve had the hots for him since we were in like the eighth grade.”

Some things were secrets even from your best friend, especially when they concerned your best friend’s brother. At least Paige had thought they were secret. Obviously not.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh. But just so you know, Justin sleeps like the dead, so if you want to fool around while he’s napping, I don’t mind.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” She gritted her teeth and turned her back to Jeff. He was trying to get her attention, making gestures like he wanted to talk to Gina. There was no way she was going to let him do that. No telling what little gems of advice Gina might give him.

“Oh, I gotta go. Johnny’s back. Just make sure Justin drinks vitamin D milk, okay, honey? Love you.”

The phone went dead.

Jeff looked at her exasperated. “I wanted to talk to her. What did she say?”

“She said to make sure Justin drinks vitamin D milk and that’s she’s fine. Johnny’s treating her like glass.” In fact, Gina sounded like she was on a vacation.

“She begged me to keep Justin in hiding though. She’s still afraid Johnny will try and get Justin.”

“I told you.”

She ignored that and said, “I guess you should get more than diapers at the store, then. We’ll need food, besides the milk that is.”

Brushing her hair out of her eyes, she considered all the clients she needed to call and cancel appointments with.

Then she thought about Johnny Romano pointing that gun at Jeff and she panicked. “What if Johnny sees you at the store?”

“You think Johnny’s going to be shopping at Giant Eagle?” Jeff gave her a grin.

Paige frowned at him. That grin was bad news. That grin had been melting her insides to marshmallow for twelve years, and it looked to still have the same affect on her today.

“The man’s got to shop, just like everyone else.”

He reached out and tweaked her nose. “You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

Cute? He thought she was cute? Annoyed escalated to furious. At twenty-six years old no one should be tweaking her nose but her grandmother. She didn’t want tweaking from Jeff Benedetto. Nope. Tweaking wasn’t even close to what she wanted from him.

Nor did she appreciate that tone he had taken. He was talking to her like he had when she was still in high school and he was living in his first apartment. Patronizing.

“Just go to the store!” She pulled the remote control out of Justin’s mouth and wiped the spittle off on his shorts.

“When I get back I’ll call my brothers and see if we can get this mess straightened out and find Frank.”

“You do that,” she snapped.

He spun her car keys around on his finger. “I might be awhile. We’ll need a lot of supplies if we’re going to be here for a few days. It could even be as long as a week.”

With that prophesy, he left the apartment and she groaned out loud, locking the door behind him. “A week? A week alone with Jeff Benedetto?”

She had to be strong. She had to resist him. She had to remember how he had left her the last time. Alone and humiliated.

She had to ignore the fact that he made her pulse race, and that he always been kind to her when they were growing up. Protective and sweet. But most of all she had to ignore that he had a rock solid chest she had once gotten to taste and touch…

Presing her fingers to her temples she looked up at the ceiling and pleaded, “Deliver me from Temptation!”

Her mother would be so pleased to know she was praying.

♦ Chapter Three ♦

EFF HAD ONLY BEEN gone five minutes when Paige’s cell phone rang. Skirting Justin, who was working his way along the couch in a hand over hand method, Paige leapt for her phone.

Maybe it was Gina. Maybe Gina was safe and sound back home and Paige was saved.

“Hello?” she said a little breathlessly from vaulting over the coffee table in a business skirt.

“It’s me.”

Oh, no, that wasn’t Gina. This me was Jeff, his low voice in her ear, confidential and intimate, causing her to swallow hard.

“How did you get my cell phone number?”

There was a crash on Jeff’s end. “I called Gina’s cell phone and she answered.”

Paige was about to ask what the crash was, but promptly forgot to at his words. “Gina’s answering her cell phone? Was she okay?”

“Fine. She was watching a talk show.”

How was it that Gina could manage to get kidnapped and have her every whim catered to?

Paige also wondered if Gina had opened her big mouth on the phone and mentioned any little crushes that a certain someone might have on a certain brother. That would be nice and mortifying.

“Listen, I’m calling because I’m at the store.”

“Yeah?” Paige sat down on the leather couch and smiled at Justin. He rewarded with her a grin in return and a baby shriek.

“Okay, so I’ve got one of these cart things and I’m pushing it. Now what do I do?”

Paige rolled her eyes. Justin giggled.

“I mean, I’m staring here at all these diapers and there’s about fifty-two different kinds, Paige. How in the hell am I supposed to know which kind to get?”

“Read the labels.” She turned to Justin and whispered, “Duh.”

Justin squealed with delight.

“Okay, this kind says girl.”

Really. “Well, that would be wrong then.”

This was starting to become amusing.

“Okay, right, that’s good. We need boy.” His voice trailed off and Paige visualized him scanning the shelves earnestly.

Then he said suddenly, “Why do you think it matters? I mean, what’s the difference between the boy diaper and the girl diaper?”

“I don’t know!”

“They probably need more room in the boy diaper. You know, for his package.”

A burst of laughter flew out of her mouth before she could stop it.

“What? I’m serious.”

Paige grinned and crossed her leg. That was the scary thing. She knew he was serious. “I know, I believe you. You’re probably right.”

“Yeah, right, you guys wish,” she whispered to Justin, who smiled, drool looping from his mouth to his fist.

“I’ve got them! Boy, age twelve to eighteen months. How many should I get? Here, I’ll just get the jumbo pack.”

“I’m hanging up now,” Paige told him, having no interest in talking Jeff through every aisle of the grocery store. “But don’t forget to get bottles or those sippy cups for Justin.”

“Hold it. What the hell is a sippy cup?”

“You know, those cups with the lids that click on.” She had seen enough one year olds at the mall tipping those things over and dribbling juice on the floor to figure out they didn’t work. But it seemed to be the thing to do.

“Get one of those and get a couple of bottles in case he’s still on the bottle. And don’t forget about the nipples.”

There was a long pause. “Nipples?”

“Yes, for the bottle.”

“Oh.” His voice was strained.

Paige’s face went hot. Ohmigod. She had said the word “nipples” to Jeff Benedetto.

“See you when you get back.” She hung up the phone and fanned herself, wondering if she needed to turn the air conditioning up. It seemed awfully hot in there.

“This is bad, going to worse,” she told Justin, who plopped on his bottom and studied her curiously. She didn’t even want to know what he saw when he looked at her.

Five minutes later, the phone rang again.

“Hello?”

“I’m drowning here.”

It was Jeff, sounding more than desperate, all trace of the nipple inspired lust gone from his voice.

“What is it now?”

“If I want apples, do I just grab one out of the bin? I just take as many as I want?”

If he didn’t sound so adorable, it would be just downright pathetic. “How have you managed to survive to the age of twenty-nine and not know how to grocery shop?”

“A mother, four aunts, six female cousins, and two grandmothers. That’s how.”

“There has never been a sexual revolution in your family, has there? No bra burners in the Benedetto clan.”

“Sure there has. That’s why Gina had a kid without being married and my cousin Annmarie is a lesbian. But that still doesn’t mean I know how to grocery shop.”

“Then why did you offer to go?” she said in exasperation.

“I was trying to protect you. I didn’t think it was safe for you to go.”

Now why did that make her feel strangely and unbearably warm in certain spots?

“Take as many apples as you want. They have little plastic bags in front of the bins for you to put them in. They’ll weigh them when you check out. Got it?” If he couldn’t figure it out from there, he was on his own.

“Got it. Thanks, Paige.”

“No problem.”

When the phone rang again, she debated not answering, then feared it might be Gina. Or worse, her boss, wanting to know why she had canceled her appointments for the next three days.

“Hello?”

“Okay, say I wanted to cook something like chicken. What kind of chicken would I want to buy?”

“Jeff!”

“Well, there’s all these parts here… there’s thighs and legs and… breasts.” His voice went hard.

She went limp on the couch like an overcooked noodle. “Breasts,” she managed to choke out. Then she hung up on him before a whimper could escape her mouth.

Jeff came back an hour later with approximately twenty-seven bags of groceries.

“Oh, is this all you got?” she asked in amusement, once he was done running up and down the stairs with arm loads of bags five times. The entire kitchen counter and floor were covered with grocery bags.

Justin was sitting on the ceramic tile staring at the sea of blue plastic in awe.

Jeff shot her a panicked look. “It’s not enough? Should I go back?”

“No! I’m kidding.”

Now he looked offended. “Well, what do I know? I did the best I could. Now give me a house to frame or a basement to drywall, and you better watch out.”

His male ego obviously needed soothing. Paige started poking in bags, hoping there was more than just guy food like beer nuts and pork rinds. “You’re right. And it’s better to have too much than not enough.”

He preened a little. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

Paige pulled out a bag of ready to eat salad and put it in the fridge. At least Jeff had remembered that vegetables exist, which is more than she could say for a lot of men.

“Hey, uh, Paige, why don’t you let me put everything away and you can change Justin’s diaper.”

Like she was falling for that. “No way. You said we would do it together. So we’ll put all the groceries away together, then do the diaper bit together.”

Her hands dipped into the bag and she pulled out a pack of bagels and six green apples. Very nice. No wonder Jeff was in such great shape. He ate healthy. Not that she had really noticed his shape. Much.

After putting the apples away, she hung the plastic bag on the doorknob to the pantry and started on another bag.

Jeff was digging through half a dozen bags, but wasn’t pulling anything out of them.

She watched him skeptically. “You might want to actually take the groceries out and put them away, you know.”

Paige found a box of crackers and ripped it open. She bent over and started to hand Justin a cracker. Looking at his little mouth, she pulled her hand back and broke it in half. That seemed better. “Here you go, sweetie, I bet you’re starving.”

The cracker was rammed into Justin’s mouth and he held his hand out for more.

“Hold on, let me get you some milk first.”

“Jeff, where’s the milk?” Paige started going through the bags on the counter, riffling around for a sippy cup and the milk.

“I’ll find it.” Jeff brushed her aside, none too gently.

Paige stumbled backwards and caught the heel of her shoe in the handle of a bag. “What are you doing? Trying to kill me?”

“No, I’m trying to help.” Jeff was pawing through all the bags frantically.

Ignoring Jeff’s weird behavior, Paige reached for a bag on the floor, conscious of Justin’s urgent wail at not getting more cracker. But if she gave Justin more cracker without milk, she had an image of dry cracker bits mixed with spit forming a choking sized ball in his mouth.

Better to get the milk.

“Don’t look in there!” Jeff yelled, pulling her hand back.

“What is the matter with you?” she snatched her hand away, disturbed by the warm feel of his skin.

“Here, I found the milk.” He held it up, his eyes studiously avoiding hers. His arm muscle bulged as he held the gallon of milk in front of her face, with no apparent strain whatsoever.

“Thank you,” she said in suspicion, setting it on the counter. “And the cup?”

“Right here.” He smiled at her as he handed her the blue plastic tumbler in colorful packaging.

As she turned and ripped it open, she saw Jeff bag diving again. “Are you looking for something?”

“No.” Then he gave a hiss of triumph and Paige saw him tuck something into the waistband of his jeans.

“What was that?” She dropped the packaging on the counter and ripped the lid off the cup.

“What?” He stood up and stared at her in wide-eyed innocence. His shirt, which had been tucked in a minute ago, was now out and hanging over his waistband. There was a slight bulge under the shirt above his jeans.

“What did you stick in your pants?”

“Nothing.”

Like she believed that. “You are such a liar. There’s a big bulge in your pants.”

Okay, wrong thing to say.

Jeff grinned. “There’s always a big bulge in my pants.”

“Oh, please.” Paige turned back and poured the milk, her hand only shaking slightly as she tried to forget that she had ever been acquainted with Jeff’s bulge.

It only took them twenty minutes to change Justin’s diaper, which Jeff thought was pretty good considering their amateur status as babysitters.

Unfortunately, Justin had been sitting in that diaper for a couple of hours by the time they got to it. At one point, Jeff thought they were going to need to bring a pressure washer in to get the kid clean.

But Paige had prevailed, and now Justin was squeaky clean and the two of them were… not so clean. And the apartment smelled from one end to the other like dirty diaper.

“Let me see if I can open a window.” Jeff headed towards the long windows in the living room.

“No, you can’t open those. Justin could push the screen and fall out. Open the one in the kitchen and the bedroom. He can’t reach those.”

And Paige claimed to know nothing about babies. He was finding it incredibly sexy to watch Paige’s maternal skills surface. Of course, everything about Paige was sexy.

She tugged at her blouse. “Do you mind if I take a shower? I feel disgusting.”

He wondered how she would react if he asked to watch. His groin spasmed at the thought as he shoved open the kitchen window, which resisted a little.

“Go right ahead. These bags left on the floor here have shampoo and stuff in them. And I went to that T-shirt shop next door to Giant Eagle and bought you some stuff.” He figured if they were going to be stuck here for days, she wasn’t going to want to hang around in the same business suit twenty-four-seven.

He didn’t add that he had bought her panties as well. That had been an agonizing five minutes spent staring at his choices. If he went thong or bikini in some silky material he was sending a message of sexual intent, and if he went cotton briefs he was suggesting she was big boned or something. He had gone with the high cut leg in solid colors and had hoped for the best.

“Thanks.” Paige took the bags and headed off towards the bedroom.

Justin was on the floor in the bedroom doorway playing with the blocks Jeff had bought him. Jeff went past him to open the window next to the bed. The shower was running.

As he pushed and shoved on the window, the image of Paige in the shower rose in his mind. Taunting him. He knew what she looked like naked. He remembered every curve and valley. The window went flying up with the force of his sexual frustration.

Damn, he was in trouble here.

He reached into his waistband and pulled out a box of condoms. What had he been thinking to buy these?

Well, he knew what he had been thinking. But it was a bad idea. Paige was out of his league. She always had been.

He tossed the condoms in the nightstand drawer and sighed as he sat on the bed. That had been the best and the worst moment of his life when he had realized that Paige had been a virgin. He had never even suspected she was until it had been too late.

She hadn’t told him he was her first, and when he had stared down at Paige, he had felt the most overwhelming tenderness for her. She had trusted him and he had felt thrilled, yes, but big time under-qualified for the job.

Paige was class, with her pretty manners and her shiny blond hair, and her private college education. He was construction, T-shirts and tools. He had gone to the local community college and preferred beer over wine any day of the week.

So instead of calling Paige like he had promised, he hadn’t. It had been a jerkish thing to do, but he felt like in the end it had been better for Paige.

He had left her free to find someone her mother could approve of.

Of course, now here he was sitting ten feet away from her, only a closed door between him and her naked, wet body, bubbly soap sliding up and down…

He sprang up. His pants were way too tight to stay sitting.

“I will not make love to Paige,” he said firmly out loud, to make it have more meaning.

Steam filtered under the bathroom door and the smell of berries drifted over to him.

“Unless she really, really wants me to,” he amended.

Paige adjusted the water temperature and told herself she was being ridiculous. Unless he had acquired x-ray vision, Jeff could not see through the bathroom door and through the shower curtain.

Yet it felt like he was.

Or maybe she just wanted him to.

And standing in the shower with nothing on and imagining all the interesting possibilities of showering with Jeff was not sticking to her vow to be indifferent.

She had left the door unlocked, which was probably her subconscious desire rearing its ugly head. What would she do if he strode into the bathroom, stripped, pulled back the curtain and stepped in behind her? One or six thousand ideas came to mind.

Slapping shampoo on her head with one hand, Paige turned the water faucet until a cold stream was hitting her. It was steamy hot in there without Jeff. She would erupt into flames if he stepped into the shower with her.

Rinsing her hair in three seconds, she cut off the water altogether. It was better to get some clothes on and step away from the taunting image of Jeff and cascading hot water.

With her clothes on she could think.

Or not.

Five minutes later Paige was appraising her image in the mirror. While it had been extremely considerate of Jeff to pick up some clothes for her, his efforts had fallen a little short.

In the midriff and the thighs.

Jeff had said he had gotten them at a T-shirt shop, but as Paige tugged at the body hugging belly top with the cleavage strategically ripped to show everything, she thought it was more likely he had gone to Sluts R Us.

Or the children’s department.

The black knit shorts were approximately seven inches shorter than she would normally wear them.

She suspected she made the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders look modest.

At least Jeff had gotten her reasonable underwear, and she was impressed with his thoughtfulness. If he had brought a thong back, she might have been tempted to shove it down his throat. And anything larger than a size medium and she wouldn’t have been responsible for her actions.

But he had gotten nice middle of the road panties, in a size small. Lucky him.

Trying to pull the pieces of cleavage together, she assessed her options.

She could stay in the bathroom forever. And starve or die of boredom, whichever came first.

She could put her business suit back on. And do what? Sleep in it? Not appealing.

She could go out there like this, rest assured that no one but Jeff was going to see her.

The third option made the most sense, really. After all, she and Jeff were mature adults. They could control themselves.

Or hopefully Jeff would be able to. She was starting to doubt herself.

♦ Chapter Four ♦

HEN PAIGE WALKED into the room, hoping she looked nonchalant, Jeff was fixing himself a turkey sandwich and drinking a soft drink.

Which he promptly spewed all over the counter when he saw her.

“Are you okay?” She rushed towards him.

Gasping and choking, his eyes watering, Jeff nodded, holding his hand up to keep her at bay.

“Did it go down the wrong way?” Paige looked at the spray all over the counter. “Did you buy paper towels, I hope?”

He took a deep shuddering breath and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Jesus. I think I bought the wrong size clothes for you, Paige. I’m sorry.”

Not that he looked sorry. He looked fascinated. His eyes were fixed on her chest and his mouth hung open a little.

It was kind of funny in a way. And it was either laugh or launch herself into his arms. Paige went with the laugh. “Better too small than too big, I guess. That would have had me wondering.”

“I always thought of you as thin, you know, but curvy, I mean, I know you’ve got great…” he trailed off, his hands up in the air outlining breasts.

Embarrassment warred with elation, which was wrestling with anger. Finally, she ignored all three, crossed her arms over her chest and said pointedly, “Where’s the baby?”

Jeff’s eyes refocused. “Huh? Oh, he’s in the chair.”

Paige peered around Jeff to the tiny table under the kitchen window. Justin was sitting on one of the black wrought iron chairs, boosted by several hundred dollars worth of suede pillows from the sofa. Not precisely what she would have chosen to have him sit on, but it worked.

“How is he staying up there?” She stepped closer to the baby and put her hand over her mouth when she saw Justin was strapped to the chair by a leather belt.

“Jeff! You belted him to the chair?”

“What? It works, doesn’t it? How else was he going to stay on?” Jeff gestured defensively. “He likes it.”

It appeared he did. Justin was bouncing up and down on the pillows, while the belt held him securely from sliding off. He was shoving pieces of turkey into his mouth and slapping his sippy cup down on the glass table.

Jeff sat down across from Justin with his sandwich. “Don’t you, buddy? That’s right. We men have got to stick together.”

Paige hovered in front of them, amused in spite of herself. It was cute to see Jeff diving right into taking care of Justin, instead of ignoring him or foisting him off on her. This was why she had always adored Jeff Benedetto.

Because he was one of the good guys.

Who owed her a serious, big time explanation. Which she could not bring herself to demand. The answer might be worse than not knowing.

“Sit down and eat with us. I fixed you a turkey sandwich.”

“You did?” Shoot, there was that nice thing again. If he was going to do that, she was going to wind up naked with him. It was inevitable.

No, she told herself firmly, as she reached for the plate with the sandwich on the counter. It would be a worse mistake than the first time you slept with him.

“Yeah, I figured if I did lunch, that meant you would have to do dinner.” Jeff grinned at her as she sat down at the chair between him and Justin. “What can you do with that chicken I bought?”

“So you slap together sandwiches and I have to produce a gourmet meal?”

“Hey, you’re the Parmesan Princess. Something must have rubbed off on you.”

Normally she hated to cook. But somehow, in the cozy kitchen with the afternoon sun streaming through the window, with Jeff smiling and Justin babbling, she wanted to cook.

That was the scariest thing of all.

Jeff took a bite of his sandwich and tried not to stare at Paige’s chest. There was no way that shirt had been that small when he had bought it. Yet there it was, stretched so taut he could see the outline of her bra and the beading of her nipples.

He swallowed the turkey in his mouth with a great deal of effort. Paige had never been one for sexy clothes. In high school, more often than not he’d seen her in her Catholic school skirt and white blouse. Then after college, during those few weeks when he had been seeing Paige almost every day, alone, she had usually been in shorts and sandals and those shirts with no sleeves. It had been casual, nothing overtly sexy at all.

This was eye popping. This was a fantasy come true.

It didn’t really suit her. He liked the subtle sensuality of Paige, because she was usually so unaware of her beauty. But this was still quite a view.

“I’ll cook dinner if you promise to stop staring at my chest,” she said.

Busted. “I’m trying, I am, but hell…”

“Don’t swear in front of the baby. And you’ll have to try harder.” She looked like she was hiding a smile, but she was serious nonetheless.

“Alright, alright.” He dragged his eyes back to his plate and focused on the crumbs of his bread. He could do this.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you I called Sal and Sam while you were in the shower. They’re on it. They’ll track down Frank, Vinnie Cucuzza, or Gina, whoever they can find first.”

“Should we call the police?” Paige nibbled at her sandwich, suddenly worried about Gina all over again. The whole thing seemed so farfetched and unreal.

“I don’t think so. Not yet. We’ll see what my brothers come up with. And Gina’s fine. When I talked to her before, she sounded like she was actually enjoying herself.”

“She wants Frank to miss her, so he’ll marry her.” Repeating Gina’s words out loud, they made even less sense than they had when she had heard them the first time.

Jeff snorted. “She needs to tell that bum to take a hike and find some other woman to mooch off of.”

“I take it you don’t like Frank?”

“The guy’s irresponsible, unmotivated, and he’s been stringing my sister along for four years.” He nodded towards Justin. “And he doesn’t give a darn about Justin. Not really. He never asks to see him. It’s always Gina pushing for them to do things.”

“I know. That’s how I feel. But Gina loves him.”

“How could she love somebody like that?”

Paige pictured Frank, with his beady eyes, mono-brow, and bowlegged swagger. “I have no idea.”

Jeff stood up. “Oh, well, maybe when Frank doesn’t miss her, she’ll finally see the light this time.” He opened the refrigerator. “I bought pudding. You want some?”

“Pudding?”

“Chocolate or vanilla?” He held the containers up for her to view.

“I haven’t had pudding since grade school.”

“Then good thing I bought it. You’ve been missing one of the joys of life.” He set a chocolate pudding down in front of Justin and pried the lid off.

Justin’s fingers went right in, and started smearing pudding all over the table, his mouth, and the front of his shirt.

“Shouldn’t he have a spoon?” Paige watched Justin finger paint his cheek in horror.

“I don’t think he can use a spoon. He can barely get things into his mouth as it is.”

Jeff gave her a vanilla, and himself one of each.

“Why did you give me vanilla?”

“You look like the vanilla kind.”

“Really?” She reached over to the silverware drawer, and pulled two spoons out. “How can you tell?”

“You’re traditional. Sort of prim. Classy.”

Somehow none of that sounded like a compliment. “So what’s chocolate?”

“Outspoken. Impulsive.” He took a big bite of his chocolate and licked the spoon clean. “Voracious.”

Chocolate sounded more fun. Vanilla sounded like the good girl you brought home to meet your parents. Chocolate sounded like the girl you fantasized about and had wild sex in an elevator with.

Which was probably why she’d never had wild sex in an elevator.

“I could be chocolate if I wanted to.”

His eyes danced with mirth. His mouth turned up in a lazy grin. “I wouldn’t want you to be all chocolate. They’re high maintenance. But mostly vanilla, with bits of chocolate swirled in for a surprise here and there… mmmm, delicious.”

It sounded mouth watering to her. But were they talking about dessert foods or something else entirely? Paige had no idea.

She did know she wanted to be delicious to Jeff, that she wanted to make him have a taste, then want another.

Without thinking, she reached over and dipped her spoon into his chocolate, lifting up a hefty portion. She licked it off slowly, her tongue sliding up and down through the cold smooth pudding.

Jeff’s eyes darkened to basic black. He leaned forward and put his spoon in her vanilla and ate a bite, watching her.

Then he said, “What do you think they taste like mixed together?”

“I don’t know. Like milk chocolate?” She licked her lips.

Jeff dipped his finger into the chocolate, then the vanilla. “Come here and I’ll give you a taste.”

Paige shivered. Oh, he was good at this. Making her irrational and consumed with lust. So good she wasn’t going to say no. She leaned forward.

Jeff’s finger touched her bottom lip, sliding pudding across her, back and forth. Paige darted her tongue out to taste, and caught his finger with the action.

They both drew in their breath as the mood shifted from flirtatious to sensual. Jeff followed her tongue back into her mouth with his finger. She sucked it, cleaning every last drop of pudding off, her eyes half closed. His finger was warm, hard, and tasted sweet.

Paige let a moan slip out.

Jeff swore. He pulled his finger back and grabbed her shoulders. He was hauling her forward, his intent to kiss her obvious. He was so close, so warm, smelling like sunlight and dessert, and she wanted to sink into that kiss with a lifetime of desire.

It was tempting. She hadn’t faced temptation this great since Gina had asked her to toilet paper Mary Fran Antenucci’s house in the seventh grade.

Even though Mary Fran had been a snot, who had sneaked into the boy’s bathroom and had written Paige’s number on the wall as a “good time,” Paige had resisted the urge to take revenge.

She couldn’t resist Jeff’s kiss.

He was so close she could feel his breath teasing across her lips.

Then he said, “Dammit!”

Paige jerked back, startled. “What?”

She saw what was wrong before he could even say. There was chocolate pudding sliding down the side of his face, dripping off his eyelashes and dangerously close to ducking into his ear.

Jeff shook his head at Justin. “Hey, kid, do you mind? I was kind of busy.”

Paige giggled and stood up, both amused and relieved. She wasn’t sure she was ready for a kiss. One kiss and she would be probably be on her knees begging for more. And more.

“I’ll get you a paper towel.”

As she handed it to Jeff, she eyed the two of them. Jeff’s face and finger were sticky, and just about all of Justin was covered in a brown film. He had even managed to spike his hair up with drooly pudding fingers while she and Jeff had been… distracted.

“I think Justin needs a bath. Between this and the diaper fiasco, he’s not exactly fresh.”

“And I need a shower.”

Paige started clearing up their lunch plates. “Okay, let me give him a quick bath then you can shower.”

“I’ll give him a bath.” He undid the belt and picked Justin up. “I have a feeling this guy splashes. No sense in both of us getting soaked.”

Justin stuck his hand into Jeff’s mouth. Paige nearly dropped the plate she was holding when Jeff pretended to eat Justin’s hand, causing the baby to give a squeal of delight.

This was dangerous to feel this way. Like a hot air balloon had gone up in her chest.

Jeff prompted Justin by waving his own hand. “Tell Auntie Paige see you later. We’re going for a bath, big guy.”

Justin flapped his hand in an interpretive wave.

Paige struggled to produce a smile. The words Auntie Paige had just reached into her chest and ripped her heart out.

She was in love with Jeff. She always had been. Since she was thirteen years old and he had rescued her from Sam and Sal’s taunting.

There had been a time when she would have married Jeff in a New York minute. She could have really been Justin’s aunt. But Jeff had never even come close to asking her to marry him. He hadn’t lasted beyond one night.

She was falling to pieces here. Impatience ripped through her. How could she be falling for him like this?

God, a couple of nice gestures and some smoldering looks and she was ready to cook him pasta and have his babies.

The pudding cups went into the garbage and she scoured the table with a sponge and far more vigor than was needed.

This is exactly what had happened last time. Only she had been a lot more naïve then.

It had started by accident. She had just graduated from college and was living at home for a few weeks looking for her own apartment. Away from college friends, and isolated from Gina by her relationship with Frank, Paige had found herself with time on her hands.

She had taken to strolling out along Mayfield Road every night to get out from under her mother’s somewhat smothering love and attention.

One night she had seen Jeff in the bakery. They had walked together and had talked a little.

The next night they had met again.

And the next and the next.

Neither of them claimed they were anything more than accidents, just two strollers who bumped into each other, but it was intentional on both their parts, she was sure. Some nights they had gone to dinner or a movie and sometimes they just walked or got pastries from the bakery and shared them.

After awhile, Jeff had even started saying, “See you tomorrow, Paige.”

It had been wonderful, a blissful two weeks of friendship and something else that was growing and changing.

Then one night they had gotten caught in a summer thunderstorm. They had run to Jeff’s apartment, which was right down the street, and had stumbled in, drenched and laughing. When he had kissed her, it had seemed like the logical next step for them to take.

And when she had surrendered her virginity to him, she had done so eagerly, with love and the knowledge that she could trust Jeff to respect her and care for her.

Only to wake the next morning, in his apartment, completely alone with a note from him saying he had to go to work and that he would call her.

Well, three years later he still hadn’t called.

And here she had almost gone and made the exact same mistake. That pudding kiss wouldn’t have stopped there and she knew it.

Which made Jeff a creep, plain and simple, out for one thing only. The S word.

Paige stopped trying to wipe the pudding off of the suede pillow Justin had been sitting on, and tucked her hair behind her ear.

Her mother had warned her about the Benedetto boys, and she had been right. Bad boys took advantage of good girls like Paige. Chocolate. Vanilla.

Ugh. She threw the last dirty towel in the trash and wandered into the living room.

The shower was running. Paige cocked her ear. The shower? Didn’t Jeff know better than to put a baby in the shower? When he had said bath, she thought he understood you were supposed to plug the tub and fill it with water.

Already annoyed with him, herself, and the whole situation, Paige stomped into the bedroom to set him straight. She knocked on the bathroom door.

There was no answer. She opened the door and got hit in the face by a vaporous cloud of steam. The room was empty.

Panic set in. Had Jeff been ignorant enough to put the baby in the shower and leave him? She knew they would wind up killing Gina’s baby. Hadn’t Jeff heard that babies can drown in inches of water? Didn’t he ever watch Oprah?

She flung the shower curtain back, her heart in her throat as she prepared to face tragedy.

What she encountered was not a tragedy.

It was a gift to woman kind.

A very naked, very muscular, very wet Jeff was holding a smooth skinned Justin on his hip while he doused them both with the spray.

Water was dripping off Jeff’s nose and jaw, running down his broad chest to disappear into his… ohmigod.

Paige fell back against the bathroom wall, rattling the towel bar as she clung to it for support.

Jeff turned and his eyes went wide. “Paige! What are you doing?”

“I thought you were going to give Justin a bath.”

He shrugged, which sent a ripple effect throughout his shoulder, bicep, and chest. “I thought this was easier.”

She couldn’t think of a thing to say, just stood there in pure female adoration for the irresistible combination of a masculine man cuddling with a chubby naked baby.

“Did you need something?” he asked after a second, his eyebrow going up.

“No, I just was worried that Justin was in here alone.” Then without having any control over them whatsoever, her eyes dropped below his waist.

Holy cannelloni.

“We’re getting water all over the floor.” Jeff shifted Justin to his other arm as they both stared at her in question, their black hair sticking up in matching spikes.

“Oh, right, sorry. I’ll let you get back to things.” Paige reached out and pulled the curtain closed, her face burning in embarrassment.

In a semi-comatose state she wandered into the living room and sank onto the couch, the image of Jeff hot, hard, and wet playing repeatedly in her mind. Her mental VCR seemed to be stuck on rewind and play. Over and over she saw him, Justin’s little naked bottom resting on Jeff’s solid hip.

Reaching for her purse, she flipped the stomach of her shirt up and down to create a breeze. She was sweating like Johnny Romano in his silk shirt.

Paige dragged her cell phone out and dialed Gina’s number.

“Frank?”

“No, it’s Paige.”

“Where the hell is Frank? That bastard hasn’t even called looking for me once.”

Paige was distracted from her own problems by the pressing nature of Frank’s jerkiness. “Does that surprise you, Gina? Frank takes you for granted.”

Gina sniffed. “Poop. I think you’re right. If he doesn’t start showing some concern pronto, that’s it. I’m cutting him off.”

“Are you serious?” Paige asked in astonishment. In four years she had never heard Gina even so much as suggest ending things with Frank.

“Yeah, I’m serious. I’ve got a kid now. I need to show him how to act. Better he see me in no relationship than in a messed up one.”

That statement alone almost made seeing Jeff naked recede from her mind. Almost.

“That’s great, Gina. I’m proud of you.”

“So how’s it going? You and Jeff doing some tonsil tasting yet?”

Gina had such a unique talent for turning everything into something crass.

“Listen, that’s why I called. I need you to get me out of this. I’ve got to either take Justin to your mom’s or you’ve got to let your brothers come and rescue you. I can’t stay here with Jeff.”

“Why not?”

She darted a glance towards the bathroom. The door was still tightly shut. “I saw him naked,” she blurted into the phone. “And I liked it!”

There was no sound for the next three minutes but Gina’s hysterical laughter.

Then her alleged best friend, sister of her heart, and lifelong troublemaker, said quite clearly, “I’m not telling you where I am. There’s still time for Frank to come around. Besides, you and Jeff are like pizza and pepperoni. You’re meant for each other. Ciao.”

♦ Chapter Five ♦

EFF WRAPPED JUSTIN in a soft, white towel and rubbed his arms dry absently. He eyed the spiky hair on Justin’s head. “Sorry, kid, you got the Benedetto cowlick, didn’t you?”

Jeff tried to smooth it all down, but one piece stayed standing at attention right on the crown of his head. Giving up, he set Justin on the floor and dried himself off.

Man, Paige was getting to him. Throwing that shower curtain back, just checking him out oh-so-casually. She had glanced down once, but that might have been just vulgar curiosity.

Unlike the desperate ache that he was suffering from.

The ache he couldn’t and wouldn’t act on until they settled things between them. He thought they were getting along well, and actually enjoying each other’s company, but the tension was always there.

That funny little barrier between them that had been erected when he had walked out on her with no explanation.

He was the one who had to fix this, pull down that wall.

And not because he wanted to sleep with her. Though he really did want to sleep with her.

But because he had hurt Paige and he owed her the truth.

He put his jeans back on, but left his shirt off. The room was steamy and damp and he wasn’t all the way dry. Scooping Justin and the towel up, he walked into the living room barefoot, his feet sticking to the hardwood floors.

Paige was on her cell phone, discussing something business like. He heard the words stock, rate of return, and the DOW, and he tuned out.

He put Justin on the floor and went off in search of the diapers. Justin immediately escaped the towel he was wrapped in and crawled off at a fast clip, his knees making squeaking sounds on the wood floor.

Jeff jogged to the kitchen, his sense of danger kicking in. That’s all he needed was Justin taking a leak on the floor while crawling. He’d be back at the store buying sixteen different bottles of cleaning supplies and a mop, since he had no idea what worked best on potty accidents.

God, had he just actually thought the word potty? There was something really wrong with that.

Jeff had to clamp the pack of diapers between his legs to pull one out, since they air-packed them so tightly. He had it half out when a thunk from the other room came, followed by a low wail rising up and reaching window breaking levels.

“What happened?” He rushed back in to find Paige had pulled Justin up off the floor and was holding him close against her chest. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine. He just was crawling, lost his grip, and hit his head on the floor.” She dropped a kiss on Justin’s still damp head. “It’s okay, sweetie, it’s okay. Auntie Paige is here.”

Justin’s cries trailed off and he nestled in between her breasts, drawing in a deep shuddering breath.

Jeff was jealous of his nephew.

He was also having some kind of prick in his chest at the sight before him.

Paige was beautiful. Inside and out.

“I should have called you,” he blurted out, coming towards her.

“What?” she glanced over at him in surprise, rocking Justin back and forth.

“After that night, I should have called you.” He reached her and touched a wisp of her hair resting on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t bother to act ignorant as to what he was talking about. She didn’t try and act like it didn’t matter. Instead, her lower lip quivered and she said in a quiet voice brimming with hurt, “Why didn’t you, Jeff? I don’t think I pressured you or anything.”

“No, that wasn’t it.” Hell, how was he supposed to explain this?

He pulled his hand away from her. He had to know why she had picked him three years ago, out of all the guys who probably would have loved to have slept with Paige. Knowing about her virginity had been the cause of a lot of guilt for him in the last three years.

He asked her, “Why didn’t you tell me it was your first time? If I had known, I would have handled things differently.”

Her eyes went wide. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to act differently. I wanted to be with you and that was all.”

Like he had wanted to be with her. But it wasn’t the same. He had been older, she had been his little sister’s best friend. He should have been able to control himself.

“I felt like the biggest jerk, Paige. Like I had just seduced you or something. I mean, if you had waited all that time, you must have wanted it to be special, with someone you really cared about.” Dammit. He wasn’t making any sense. He stepped back and raked his hand through his hair.

“I did. I was.” She gave him a bewildered look, her hip jutting out further to accommodate Justin’s weight as he began to drift off into sleep. “You must have figured out by then that I had a crush on you.”

Had he known that? Maybe he always had. But it still made him feel that strange combination of exhilarated and horrified at the same time. He was wrong for her. Why couldn’t she see that?

“I don’t know if I knew that or not.” In those days, he’d been thinking more about his feelings than hers. “But I’d always had a thing for you.”

“Then why didn’t you call me?” There was moisture in her eyes.

Hell, if she cried, he was going to lose it. He would pull her into his arms, make love to her, and never let her go. Which was a bad idea.

“Because I wasn’t good enough for you, Paige. You deserved better.” He fought the urge to touch her and shoved his hands into his jeans.

“You remember that crystal bowl and figurines my mom had that she set out in the living room? It was heirloom stuff from Italy and my brothers and I weren’t ever allowed in there because she was afraid we would touch it and break it. That’s what you always were to me, Paige. Look, but don’t touch. That night, I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted you so much…”

Had wanted her enough to bypass common sense and strip her wet clothes off piece by piece.

Her voice was tight, her eyes now shining with anger, not hurt. “I’m not crystal. I don’t break. And whether or not you were good enough for me was my decision, Jeff, not yours.”

With that, she turned and left him standing there, feeling like a huge fool. He’d tried to apologize and all he had done was tick her off. But what had he expected really? That they could be friends?

That seemed impossible given that there was always something standing between them.

Like his erection.

Paige didn’t know whether to be furious or ecstatic. She was a combination of both as she went into the bedroom and carefully laid Justin down on the bed to nap.

It was a balm to her wounded ego, not to mention a jolt to her libido, to find out that Jeff had been attracted to her for a long time before their night together. It was good to know she hadn’t somehow fantasized to the point of thinking he was interested when he wasn’t during those two weeks they had been meeting every night.

At the time she’d thought she hadn’t been wrong about the way he had looked at her, with interest and desire, and it turned out she had been right. But his silence had left her in serious doubt for the last three years.

So he admitted now he had been attracted to her.

Yet she was still so mad she could spit. The nerve of that creep to think he knew what was best for her.

People had been doing that her whole life.

It was the only downside of being adopted. Her parents had wanted her so badly and had waited so long to have her, that she became the center of their lives the minute they had brought her home.

She had been cooed over and cuddled and cosseted until she had become shy and terrified of disappointing everyone who mattered to her.

It had taken four years of college and a lot of growing up to come to the point of understanding that she needed to please herself first.

That’s why when she had met Jeff again by accident in the bakery, she had allowed herself to admit the way she’d felt about Jeff. She had tried to let him know she was interested in him, even if her attempts had been muted and bumbling.

She had known what she wanted, there had never been any doubt in her mind about that. That night she had wanted Jeff. And she would have made love to him again if he hadn’t left.

Of all the presumptuous, arrogant, chauvinistic things to do…

Paige stomped off into the kitchen where she could at least have the outlet of slamming some pans around.

She nearly ripped the refrigerator door off the hinges.

Jeff poked his head in. “Uh, can I ask what you’re doing?”

“I’m figuring out what to fix us for dinner.”

“I can help.”

“No, thanks.” She slammed the door shut again and went to look in the cupboard to see if he had bought any pasta.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Just waffling between wanting to strangle him or kiss him, but otherwise, fine.

Jeff looked doubtful.

Paige stopped with her hand on the cabinet and said, “You know what, I’m not fine. I’m furious. Do you have any idea what it’s like growing up blond in an Italian neighborhood with a name like Paige?”

He blinked. Then his finger pointed to his head. “Seeing as I’m a guy with black hair, no, not really. How did you get the name Paige anyway?”

“It’s my birth mother’s name.”

His jaw dropped. “You’re adopted?”

“Where have you been? Of course I am.” She thought everyone knew she was adopted. It had certainly felt that way growing up. “Two people with black hair cannot make a blonde baby, Jeff.”

Jeff just stared at her.

She went on. “So if you don’t know what it’s like to grow up here blond, I’ll share with you. You get treated like a glass figurine, that’s what. Like a pet.” She slammed the cabinet shut after realizing it was empty.

Jeff winced.

“And to make matters worse, since I’m adopted I’m an only child. See, your mom just let all four of you run wild. I think she figured if something happened to one of you, she still had three left.”

Jeff grinned a little. “Could be.”

“But my mom had all her biological eggs in one basket, so to speak. I was it. Her one shot at getting it right.”

He said, “She was a little overprotective, wasn’t she?”

“That’s like saying King Kong was a big monkey.” Paige looked at Jeff in exasperation. “She was hugely overprotective.”

“Okay, you’re right.” He frowned.

It was obvious he didn’t get it. Paige rolled her eyes. “What I’m saying is, I didn’t need you protecting me too. Got it? You should have let me make my own mistakes, if it even was a mistake. I have enough sense to know who I want to date and who I don’t.”

Jeff leaned on the door frame and studied her. “Did you want to date me, Paige?”

Duh. Where had he been for the last ten years? “Yes!”

Did he think she’d been prowling Mayfield Road every night three years ago because she’d liked pastries? Surely he had figured out she’d been looking for him.

His mouth twitched up in a smile. “So I wasn’t just someone safe for you to get that first time over with?”

That had never even occurred to her. She hadn’t been eager to shed her virginity. She had been eager to shed it with Jeff.

“No,” she said in a more normal voice.

“Then I really am sorry.”

She believed him. He looked too sincere not to be believed. “All right,” she said grudgingly. “There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

Tugging on the belly top, she said, “What… what was it to you, Jeff? Just a lucky opportunity, so you took advantage of it?”

She winced. That was a stupid thing to ask, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

He still had the power to hurt her. Maybe not break her heart anymore, but he could kick a serious dent in it.

“It was something I’d been wanting for a long time.”

That wasn’t a bad answer. She gave in to a sigh of relief.

But Jeff wasn’t finished. He said in a hoarse voice, “I wanted you, Paige. I’ve always wanted you since as long as I can remember.” He came towards her, his jeans hanging low on his hips, revealing a tuft of black hair under his navel.

“I still want you.”

Her brain went dead. Her voice no longer existed. She was like those dreams where you can’t move and or make a sound, waiting to be consumed by night terror. Only this was Jeff heading towards her, and while he looked perfectly willing to consume her, she didn’t think there would be any terror involved.

More like mind blowing ecstasy.

He came closer. She pressed back against the counter, her breasts somehow mysteriously jutting out in invitation, without her aware that she had ordered them to do so.

There he was. Right in front of her. About to touch her.

A wild cry went up.

For an irrational second, Paige thought she had finally found her voice in a primal jungle roar.

Then Jeff swore and she realized it was Justin waking up from his nap with a hideous scream.

“Is he okay?” That didn’t sound like a hungry cry, or a lonely cry. That sounded like pain, even to her untrained ear.

Jeff was already jogging towards the bedroom. She followed right behind him.

“Oh my God.” Jeff was pulling Justin off the floor and swearing.

The baby had obviously rolled off the bed. She was an idiot. She should have known not to lay him on the bed. Why didn’t she know not to lay him on the bed? She was baby challenged, that’s why.

Paige would never forgive herself if something was wrong with Justin.

She yelled, “What? What’s the matter with him?” Her stomach rolled over and she tasted fear in her mouth.

Jeff turned towards her, cradling Justin, his hands feeling all over the baby’s body. “There’s blood everywhere. I can’t even tell where he’s bleeding from!”

“Don’t panic,” she shrieked in panic as she saw that Jeff was right. Justin’s face and chest were covered in blood.

“I’ll call 911.” She made a mad dash for her cell phone.

Jeff yelled, “Don’t leave me alone with him. What do I do?”

“I don’t know! Press where he’s bleeding.”

As she called 911, Jeff staggered out into the living room, wiping at Justin’s face with the bottom of his T-shirt. She wasn’t sure who looked worse, Justin or Jeff.

“I can’t hear anything, he’s crying so much.” Frantic, she covered her ear and spoke with the operator, who assured her an ambulance would be there in less than five minutes.

When she hung up the phone she sent up a prayer that Justin was all right. A real prayer this time. “Here, let me see him.”

As she reached out her arms for the baby, Justin’s cry dwindled off into a rattling gurgle.

“What’s that sound?” Jeff asked, his face an unnatural white underneath his olive complexion.

Paige saw the pool of blood in Justin’s mouth and bent him forward out of instinct. “He’s choking on a mouthful of blood.”

Jeff made a strangled sound as he watched blood splash out of Justin’s mouth. Then Paige stood there, arms full of baby, helpless to do anything as Jeff’s eyes rolled back in his head and he keeled over in a dead faint.

“Ohmigod.” Paige stared down at Jeff in shock.

But somehow, the sight of his uncle hitting the hardwood floor like a KO’d boxer startled Justin into silence. During which Paige gathered her wits and was able to determine that Justin had sliced the underside of his lip clear from one end to the other.

That was the cause of the gobs of blood. “Thank you,” she murmured in relief, squeezing Justin against her in a smothering hug as she breathed heavily in and out.

The wound was still bleeding but at least now she knew what it was. This was fixable. This she could handle.

The doorbell rang.

The paramedics. She placed Justin on her hip and opened the door.

“Hi, thanks for coming. We panicked a little when we called you.” In fact, her heart was still beating like a hummingbird’s.

Paige turned Justin out so the two EMTs could see him. “I think he just sliced under his lip, but there was so much blood and we didn’t know where it was coming from.”

They stepped into the apartment. The older man gave her a reassuring smile. “Well, we’ll just have a look at him and makes sure everything’s okay since we’re here.”

Paige led them to the couch and she sat Justin in her lap, taking his chubby hands into hers. “It’s okay, they’re just going to look at you, Justin.”

Justin was still sniffling and his nose was running, but he seemed okay. More okay than Jeff, who was still taking an unscheduled nap, bare-chested on the floor.

“Ma’am, there’s a man unconscious on your floor.” The paramedic stopped mid-bend as he started to sit down on the couch.

“There was so much blood, it was everywhere. We thought Justin was choking on it, and Jeff sort of keeled over,” she said in explanation.

The man nodded in understanding. “Happens to a lot of people.”

He turned to his colleague. “Jim, why don’t you check him out just in case and I’ll have a look at the baby.”

It was then that Paige realized the younger paramedic, who was about her age, was leering at her breasts and legs, which were barely covered in the Baby Gap outfit Jeff had bought her.

“What?” Jim asked his partner, his eyes never leaving Paige. Or rather, her chest.

“The guy. On the floor. Make sure he’s breathing.”

“Oh, right.” Jim drew his gaze away with an obvious effort.

Paige shifted Justin so he was covering more of her from old X-Ray Eyes over there. After a quick once over, the paramedic agreed that Justin was fine except for a split chin, which would need stitches.

He reassured Paige. “There’s a lot of blood in this kind of laceration. Don’t feel bad about calling 911. Better safe than sorry, that’s for sure.”

Jeff groaned from the floor.

Paige set Justin down and went over to Jeff, waving the paramedic out of the way. “Jeff, are you all right?”

“Paige?” He blinked. “What happened?”

“You fainted.”

Jeff tried to sit up. “What? I did not.”

“Sshh. Yes, you did. It’s okay, it was pretty gross.”

“Is Justin okay?” He paused in his effort to sit and rested on his elbows, his breathing labored.

“He’s fine. He’s sliced his chin open. We need to take him for stitches.”

“Benedetto men don’t faint.” Jeff squeezed his eyes shut and sat all the way up.

“Whatever.” She fought the urge to roll her eyes.

The paramedics started for the door.

She followed them and thanked them profusely, even as the younger one shot a last look of longing at her breasts.

The door slammed in his face.

Rooting out her purse, she said, “Where did you put my car keys? We need to take Justin to the ER.”

“I think on the kitchen counter.”

Justin had toddled over to Jeff and was holding onto his bent knees. Jeff said, “I’m glad you’re fine, kid. Don’t scare me like that again.”

Justin gave a grin and Paige and Jeff both saw that his six little teeth were stained a strange brown color from blood. Paige wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Jeff hit the floor again.

♦ Chapter Six ♦

HREE HOURS LATER Jeff was still arguing with her about it. “I did not faint that second time. I was resting.”

“Whatever, Jeff. I’m tired of this conversation.” They had been having it for two and a half hours solid, ever since she had casually mentioned that she thought his fainting had been cute.

The tough, macho, power tool wielding Jeff Benedetto hitting the floor over a little blood. It made her giggle all over again. But it was cute. It showed he cared about his nephew.

“Are you laughing at me?” he demanded as he started the car and backed out of the parking spot at the hospital emergency room.

Justin, exhausted from his ordeal of receiving a dozen stitches in the chin, was sound asleep on Paige’s lap.

“No. Don’t be so sensitive. A lot of people are afraid of blood.” She shifted Justin in her lap. “And we’ve got to get a car seat. This is so dangerous. Good thing it’s only a half a mile to the apartment.”

Jeff obviously heard nothing about the car seat, preoccupied with his masculine failings. “I was not afraid. More like startled, that’s all. Give me a break. Afraid? I don’t think so.”

Paige sighed, deciding she needed to deal with Jeff’s identity crisis now or they would be discussing this all night. “I know that. Of course you weren’t afraid. You’re very brave, Jeff.” She struggled to sound sincere, and keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

“Just look at the way you handled Johnny Romano. He was waving a gun in your face and you didn’t panic. You got Justin and I out of there and shook him right off our tail.”

Jeff’s chest swelled a little. “That’s right. I did.” He parked the car in front of the apartment building and turned to her. “Benedetto men aren’t afraid.”

Maybe not of bullets or participating in bar room brawls. But a little blood had him keeling over. And how about commitment? While it might not make Jeff faint, it had sent him running out on her three years ago.

Yes, Jeff definitely had his fears.

So did she. Fear of getting her heart trounced on again.

He smiled at her, his gleaming white teeth a straight and interesting perfection in a face that was more rugged than classically good looking.

Fear rose in her that it was already too late. She suspected if he wanted to trounce, he could. Her heart was teetering on the edge of the cliff and one more molten lava look from him and it was going to go free falling off the side, Wile E. Coyote style.

Jeff wondered what Paige was thinking. A little frown was furrowing her forehead and she was studying him as if he had just burped or something.

He was really ticked that he had passed out like that. Not exactly what a guy wants to do when he’s trying to make the moves on a woman. Hit the floor like some wuss who can’t handle a paper cut.

Then to make it even worse, at the ER, every male between the age of thirteen and ninety had gawked at Paige in her short shorts and clinging top. Jeff had a headache from glaring all those guys down.

It was unreal. I mean, it was obvious that she was a married woman with a baby, dealing with a family crisis. How could guys be so disgusting?

Wait a minute.

They weren’t married. Paige wasn’t even his girlfriend. They didn’t have a baby.

Then why had it felt so right, so natural, to be there with his arm wrapped around Paige’s shoulders while she held Justin tightly in her arms?

Because he was an idiot, that’s why.

He had been suffering from a thing for Paige for ten years and it was not getting better. It was getting worse. It wasn’t going away.

It had settled into his chest and was showing every sign of spreading, growing, reaching out into every inch of him.

Like cancer.

“Can you open the door for me?” she said finally, looking at him expectantly.

He blinked. “Yeah, right. Of course.”

He got out of the car, went around and opened the passenger door. “Here, let me get Justin.”

The sleeping baby was warm and snuggly in Paige’s arms, and he whimpered when Jeff lifted him up. Jeff settled him in his arms, heavy and smelling like apple juice from the bottle Paige had given him at the hospital.

A funny little jolt jerked through Jeff.

What would black hair and blond hair look like blended together in a baby?

Mud, that’s what. Jeff knew better than to get all squishy and warm over the thought of having a baby with Paige. He knew better.

Girls like Paige didn’t marry guys like him.

In three years he hadn’t learned a damn thing. He was still fantasizing about making Paige his.

Wake up and smell the power tools, Benedetto.

Paige unlocked the apartment after they went up the stairs, and Jeff was careful not to jostle Justin.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“I can’t see my watch.”

“It’s six-twelve,” Paige said as she leaned around to eye the kitchen clock.

“Is that all?” It felt like they had been in this apartment for three weeks instead of eight hours.

“Yeah, I guess I should get started on that chicken. I’m sure you’re starving.”

His stomach growled dutifully. “You don’t have to cook, Paige. We can order a pizza or something. After sitting around the ER holding Justin for three hours, I’m sure you’re tired.”

She stopped in the kitchen doorway and looked at him in surprise. Then she smiled. “You know something? You can be really sweet when you want to.”

“Is that a good thing?” While he had her relaxed and confessing, he might as well fish for more.

“It’s a very good thing,” she said in a soft voice as she reached her arms out over her head and stretched with a yawn.

The belly shirt rose up, up, up, until Jeff could see the swell of the underside of Paige’s breasts, covered in white lace.

Time to put the baby to bed.

Uncle Jeff wanted to play with Auntie Paige.

“Can you order the pizza while I put him to bed? On a blanket on the floor,” Jeff added, thinking of their disastrous mistake earlier.

Hey, they couldn’t be expected to know these things. Paige had laid Justin on the bed for his nap and it had made perfect sense to Jeff. A bed is where he slept, after all. It had never occurred to him that a one-year old could roll off and clobber his chin on the nightstand. But that still didn’t keep him from feeling guilty as hell.

“Okay, I’ll call Antonio’s. Sound good?”

“Sure.” Jeff went into the bedroom and assessed the situation. He was a smart guy. He could figure this out.

First he laid Justin dead center in the middle of the bed, eyeing him for any spontaneous rolling while sleeping that might go on.

Then he grabbed the entire blanket and folded it over Justin. He picked the bundle up, careful not to jostle him and wake him up, then laid him on the floor, smoothing the blanket back out and tucking the bottom over him to cover him up.

Justin’s grimy, blood stained shirt marred the innocence of the image. Jeff reached over and slipped the shirt off the kid’s head and breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t cry.

There. Much better. He looked downright adorable.

Except for the glaring bandage on his chin that pointed accusingly at Jeff.

“I’m sorry, big guy.” Jeff leaned over and brushed his fingers through Justin’s soft black hair, studying the amazing image of a tiny face, with miniature features.

“Good idea, putting him on the floor,” Paige whispered from behind him.

He grunted, embarrassed to have been caught caressing Justin.

Paige looked over his shoulder at Justin. “He’s such a cute kid.”

He was pretty adorable. “That’s because he takes after our side of the family instead of Frank’s.”

Then Paige’s hands dropped onto his shoulders and the word flashing through his head was not adorable.

Paige, with no clue as to his guttural thoughts said, “Come on, I ordered the pizza.”

While he was content just to sit there on his haunches, feeling Paige pressing lightly down on him, he was hungry. First he could feed his stomach and then maybe another appetite or two.

He stood and said, “Do you think he’ll just sleep all night?”

Paige looked at Justin in doubt. “I guess so. He’s a baby. They sleep a lot, right?

Hell if he knew. “I don’t know.”

What he did know is that he was experiencing some strange feelings whenever he looked at Paige. Feelings that were no longer just about attraction and the memory of her warm body beneath his.

Though that was part of it.

It also had to do with the way Paige had handled the emergency with Justin, and the way she looked warmly at the baby. And then there was the smile that played across her face when she looked at him, Jeff.

He wanted to make love to Paige. Desperately. Tonight.

Sitting next to her on the couch, he scarfed down three pieces of pizza then leaned back with a sigh. “I’m exhausted. What about you?”

He was tempted to add, “let’s go to bed,” but thought she might smack him if he did.

Paige blew her hair out of her eyes and wiped her hands on a paper napkin. “I am too. I can’t believe it’s barely after seven. Taking care of a baby is just as hard as I thought it would be. I don’t think I’m ready to be a parent.”

He slipped his hand over hers. “But you’re so good at it.”

“No, I’m not.” She blushed a little.

“Yes, you are. You’re a natural. You know exactly what to do with Justin.” He decided to go for broke. “And you look beautiful doing it.”

“Je-eff.”

“What?”

Her cheeks were pink, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. She tugged yet again on that too tight top. “What are we doing here?” she said, her eyes avoiding his.

“I’m thinking about kissing you.” He wasn’t just thinking, he was moving, zeroing in on her ripe plump cherry lips. A painful and slow death would be better than not getting to kiss Paige right now.

He was just an inch away, hovering, listening to her ragged breathing. He paused, than waited, his hand caressing hers as he listened.

“Why… why did you stop?” she whispered, eyes wide, lips parted.

“I’m waiting for an interruption. Every time I get this close to you, Justin breaks it up.” He cocked an ear, but there was nothing but blissful silence. “Nothing’s stopping me this time.”

“Nothing?” Her chest rose up and down fitfully, her breathing ragged.

“Unless you don’t want me to.” Please, please, let her want to. Jeff waited in an agony of desire, knowing if she said no he would probably be reduced to begging.

Probably?

Who was he kidding?

He’d be on the floor howling like a dog if she said no.

Her tongue slipped out and moistened her lip. “I want you to.”

Score! Jeff didn’t wait for her to change her mind or for Justin’s siren cry to go up. He bent forward and took Paige’s mouth with his.

Oh, yeah.

This had been worth the wait.

Paige was soft and warm and eager, tasting vaguely salty. His brain exploded, fried and frizzled.

She felt so good, so right for him, and he groaned. Paige’s fingers were in his hair and he gathered her close, holding on firmly to her rounded luscious curves.

All woman. All his.

His hand shot out and covered her full breast as he teased his tongue into her mouth. He was out of control already. Gone. Done for. Like a race car in a spin-out heading for the wall at one hundred and eighty miles an hour.

He commanded his crotch to heel for a minute. With a tremendous amount of effort, he forced himself to say, “Is this okay? Am I moving too fast?”

Of course, it would probably be a good idea to stop kissing her neck and fondling her nipple as he asked, but that was more than he was capable of right now.

Paige didn’t seem to mind.

Her head fell back and she thrust her breasts out. “Make love to me, Jeff.”

Yowsa. He stopped breathing.

Then his air all came back in one gigantic whoosh as he groaned into her neck. “Paige.”

Yeah, that was poetic, but hell, he was in a hormonal coma here.

She pulled him back to her mouth, and they tasted each other thoroughly for several long sweaty minutes until Jeff couldn’t wait another microsecond.

Feasting on her breasts straining against the clinging fabric, he reached for her shirt, intent on ripping all of it off for a full and unedited view.

He had it. He was lifting up.

“Jeff, wait.”

Aahhggrr. Wait? Wait for what? World peace? A woman president? Or for him to explode into a testosterone soaked fireball?

“What? What’s the matter?”

Any second now he would start frothing at the mouth.

“Do you have any condoms?” Paige’s eyes were half closed and she was softly grinding her thighs against his, damn her.

Jeff went into a panic. This was a trick question. He had the condoms, but did he admit it?

Possible answer number one—yes, he had condoms. Then Paige would do one of three things. Leap onto him in delight. Accuse him of assuming too much by being prepared. Or worse, accuse him of being some kind of male slut to carry condoms around all the time.

Possible answer number two—he could say no. This would mean he would have to stop, go to the store with the biggest erection in the history of mankind and buy another box of condoms.

During which time undoubtedly his nephew would wake up and ruin all wild and wicked plans for the evening.

Paige was staring at him expectantly.

Third option. Act innocent and pretend to find the condoms in the drawer.

Jeff ran his hands through his hair and stuttered. “I… no of course I don’t, but maybe there are some lying around here.”

Wrong answer. Paige blanched. “This is my parents’ apartment, Jeff. They don’t need condoms!”

There was a visual he didn’t need. “Okay, well, maybe other people have stayed here before.”

She calmed down a little, relaxing in his arms again. “My cousin Loraine did stay here with her husband over Memorial Day.”

Jeff gulped in relief. “See? There you go. Loraine was always a big…” he cut himself off quickly, wondering if it were possible to swallow his own tongue. He would be less of an idiot without it.

“Loraine was a what?” she asked in suspicion. “Did you date my cousin?”

“No!” Deeper and deeper. Where was a shovel when he needed one?

When in doubt, seduce her. He leaned forward and kissed her, running his fingers through her long hair.

She sighed and nestled against him.

“You go check in the bedroom, Paige, and I’ll look around out here.” Better she find them. More authentic that way. Especially since he was a lousy liar.

“Okay.” She sashayed off, her tight behind wiggling at him in those naughty little shorts.

Man, he was one lucky guy.

He jumped off and pulled out the drawer on the end table to make it sound like he was searching.

Paige’s cell phone rang, and he jumped. He made a grab for it, not wanting to wake Justin up.

“Hello?”

“Jeff? It’s Gina.”

Oh, yeah, his sister who was in the hands of a dangerous criminal. He was ashamed to admit he had forgotten all about her existence until now. “Gina, are you okay?”

She snorted. “I’m fine. I’m just ticked off, that’s all. That bastard Frank has not even noticed I’m gone. Sal and Sam found him slugging back beers at a bar, talking to some tart with red hair.”

Jeff wasn’t surprised, but he was sorry for Gina. “I’m sorry, hon.”

A sniffle came to him. “Yeah, well, that’s it. I’m done with Frank. I hope he gets what’s coming to him.”

At the very least, he was out of a job. There was no way Jeff was paying Frank to jerk around all day if he wasn’t dating Gina anymore.

“So, what now? Is Johnny going to let you go?”

“Yes. He’s figured out I’m not such a good bargaining tool since Frank didn’t even notice I was missing. Sal and Sam are picking me up in half an hour.”

Thank God. “Good. He didn’t hurt you, did he? Because he’ll have three Benedettos to deal with if he did.”

Gina sighed. “Nah, he didn’t hurt me.”

Jeff didn’t like the way she sounded. It was like she was depressed or something, which was very unlike Gina. But then again she had just figured out the man she had devoted four years of her life to didn’t care diddley squat about her.

That was enough to depress anyone.

“You want me to come and get Justin tonight?” she asked.

“No, you go home and get some sleep. We’ve got it covered.”

“You can take him to Mom’s if you want.”

If he was stupid.

Taking Justin back would mean waking him up and driving over to his mother’s, who was about the last person in the world he wanted to see right now, since he was sporting a major hard-on.

After dropping Justin off it was possible that Paige would just want to go home, and he was on shaky ground as to whether or not she would want him to join her.

No, hell no, he was not taking Justin to his mom’s.

“I’ll see what Paige wants to do.”

Liar. He was a total liar.

Only a man who didn’t want to have sex would tell Paige what was going on.

But since he did want to have sex, and right now, he would wait until the morning to explain things to Paige.

What difference would it make?

Just the difference between his cold, lonely, empty apartment and this place with a warm, willing, and eager Paige in his arms.

No contest.

♦ Chapter Seven ♦

HE MUST BE CRAZY to be doing this.

Paige tore through the bathroom, opening the medicine cabinet and looking under the sink, knocking over toothpaste and toilet paper willy nilly.

It didn’t feel like she was crazy. It felt like she was in love. With Jeff. Again.

Maybe she had never stopped loving Jeff. Maybe if she had had a little more confidence, she would have called him herself after their night together and gotten the whole thing straightened out three years ago.

That didn’t matter now.

What mattered was that she was here, alone, well sort of alone, if you didn’t count Justin, with Jeff, and she wanted to make love to him.

Hence her very embarrassing blurting out of exactly that. Jeff hadn’t seemed to mind, though. The look on his face showed he clearly wanted her as much as she wanted him.

The love thing she would deal with later.

Right now this was about giving in to three years’ worth of desire, patiently stored up and ready to go.

Boy, was she ready to go.

Giving up on the bathroom, she hovered in the doorway of the bedroom. If she were a condom, where would she be?

Easily reached. In the night stand, that’s where.

Tiptoeing carefully around Justin, she pulled open the drawer. Eureka! There they were. A completely unopened box of condoms.

Grabbing them victoriously, she vowed to give her cousin Loraine a big thank you gift for being such a Girl Scout, always prepared.

Forcing herself not to run, she went into the living room. Jeff was setting her cell phone down.

“Did someone call?”

“Uh, it was Gina.” He stood up and started towards her, strutting in her direction in a totally sexy way that distracted her.

If she didn’t look at his chest she could think. Or his mouth. Or his hair. Or his… she’d better just look at the floor.

“Has there been any change?” Paige felt guilty for looking forward to a passionate night when Gina was suffering imprisonment. Some friend she was.

“No, no change. Gina’s fine though.”

Don’t look, don’t look… Paige blew it. She looked up at him, unable to resist. Whew. He was hot, plain and simple.

While she drooled, his eyes dropped to the box in her hand.

“You found some.”

“Yes.” Paige was overcome with embarrassment. The passionate moment between them had passed and she felt ridiculous standing there with a box of protection in her hands. Protection that she had darted all around looking for.

Afraid that her desperate desire was in her eyes, she stared at the wall to her right and concentrated on slowing her heart rate. Right now it was doing a way too rapid tha-thunk, tha-thunk.

There was a black and white framed photo of a flower on the wall. It looked like a daisy. She started counting the petals, willing herself not to blush or throw herself at him like a sex-starved maniac.

Wait a minute. She was a sex-starved maniac.

“Hey.” Jeff took her hand and pulled her closer until her nose was snuggled into his warm chest.

She offered no resistance. Embarrassed or not, she wasn’t walking away from this opportunity.

Then he bent down and took her lips with his. It was heat, it was passion, it was her love for Jeff rising up and blending together until she went weak in the knees and whimpered.

His arms came around her tighter. She clung. Their mouths dipped and swayed and tasted, his teeth nipping along her bottom lip in a way that sent bursts of heat zinging through her body.

This was the way she remembered him tasting. Warm and clean, a light smell of aftershave clinging to him. And this was how she had felt that night. Cherished, loved, desired.

Yet there was a difference this time. She wasn’t letting him guide her now. She was meeting him half way, touch for touch, kiss for kiss. She was a woman now, on equal footing. Her desire was as strong as his, and she wasn’t ashamed of that.

This time she knew it wasn’t just a crush. This time she saw it for what it was. Love.

The word sent shivers racing across her skin.

“Cold?” he murmured.

“Hot,” she told him truthfully, tugging his shirt out of his waistband.

“Then let’s get these clothes off.” He stepped back, forcing her hands to fall away from his shirt.

She made a tiny sound of protest. She wanted her hands on that rock solid chest of his.

He admired her for a second, his chest rising up and down, and she burned under his gaze. She didn’t want to wait. She had waited long enough. With a small smile, she lifted her shirt up and off, flinging it on the floor behind her.

It pleased her to see that the move surprised him. More than surprised him. His eyes were bugging out. She reached for her bra hook.

“No.” He caught her hand. “Let me.”

She expected him to just reach out and rip the thing off of her. Instead, he taunted and teasing, tugging here and there, rubbing his fingers against her nipples and dipping into her cleavage with his tongue.

Torture. He had no idea what he was doing to her. “Jeff,” she panted as she raked his shoulders with her nails.

“Hmmm?” Jeff pulled the front of her bra down and sucked on the swell of her breast.

Eek. She had no idea what she had been planning to say. It was probably stupid and inconsequential. In fact, anything would be meaningless right now compared to the feel of his mouth on her and his fingers tracing down her back and cupping her… oh, my.

He was backing her up, pushing her left and right until the back of her knees hit the couch and she went down with the grace of a tipped cow. She wound up spread eagle and on her back, her breasts escaping up and over the top of her bra.

“Jeff.” She scrambled to adjust herself to a more vampish pose, sure this couldn’t look good from his perspective.

“What?” He dropped down on her and grabbed her shorts. In an instant they were off.

She forgot what she was going to say again when his thumb went to work, gliding over her panties and down lower, then back up, then down.

Dizzy. She was getting dizzy with desire. Lift her legs, that’s what she wanted to do. Meet him half way. Force him to do more instead of this tease torture.

Except that her legs were stuck to the leather couch. She frowned in impatience and lifted harder.

“Aah.” They gave with the burning sensation that reminded her of a leg wax job. Added to that was a loud suction sound. Limbs went flying, and her knee collided with Jeff’s chin.

“Damn!” He grabbed his jaw, and shook his head.

“Sorry. I was stuck to the couch.” She giggled, feeling giddy and wildly in love. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, but horny,” he said with a rueful grin as he rubbed his chin.

Paige laughed out loud. “Well, we can fix that, you know.”

“I was hoping you could.”

As Jeff unzipped his jeans and started tugging them down, Paige decided this was as good a time as any to tell him. She rested on her side and watched him, the light from the window playing across his bronzed chest.

“Jeff, there’s something I have to tell you.”

“Well, you’re not a virgin, so it can’t be that,” he joked with a wicked grin.

Distracted by his sudden nakedness, she reached out and touched him softly, running her fingers up and down him.

He groaned.

“I’m not a virgin, obviously, but I want you to know that I’ve never… I haven’t… been with anyone else.” She kept her fingers moving, deliriously enthralled by the effect she was having on him. “That night was my one and only time.”

Jeff was speechless. His eyes, which had been half closed enjoying the feel of her hand on him, flew open to study Paige. Had he heard her right?

In the three years since their mind blowing night together she hadn’t been with any other man?

Damn, that was sexy.

It made him feel possessive and powerful and grateful that this gorgeous woman wanted to share her body only with him, and no other schmuck out there.

Just this schmuck.

And if he had anything to say about it, she’d never be with any schmuck but him.

He was in love with her. There was no sense in trying to deny it anymore.

It had taken him ten years to admit it, but there it was. Paige meant the world to him.

Whether or not she’d marry him, well, that was up to her. But this time he wasn’t going to talk her out of being with him. He was going to encourage it.

He leaned over her and fingered her hair gently. “Gorgeous, I don’t know what to say.”

She must have her reasons why she was willing to be with him in a way she hadn’t been with any other man, and he hoped like hell those reasons had something to do with love. But now wasn’t the time for asking. Now was the time for showing.

Those blue eyes stared up at him with trust and passion as she said, “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know.”

Now that he knew, he decided to change his tactics. This was all about Paige and giving her pleasure. He’d waited three years to hear her moan again, and he intended to make her moan all night.

He put his mouth on the underside of her breast, moving back and forth over the silky skin with his tongue. She was tangy and hot, and her breath was falling over his cheek in warm blasts as she gave little gasps of pleasure.

That sound spurned him on, made him reach up and pull her taut nipple into his mouth and suck gently. He wanted to bite it, to tug and nip and pull, but he forced himself to take it slow.

Paige was inexperienced and he wanted nothing but pleasure for her.

“Harder,” she said on a moan.

He looked up, startled, his mouth falling off of her.

“No, don’t stop. Suck harder.”

That raspy begging went straight to his groin and squeezed. Hell, hell, hell. Paige wasn’t straight out of college anymore and he had to remember that.

She was a full blown woman and while she might not be experienced, she certainly knew what she wanted.

Instead of answering, he just obeyed. He sucked hard, letting his teeth graze her nipple.

Her cry was so loud, so passionate, that he found himself pulling back to taunt her. When she whimpered, he came back, this time placing his mouth on her breast while his hand slid down between her thighs.

Her panties were still on, so he brushed his hand under the waistband and into her moistness. One, two strokes and Paige exploded.

He felt the shudders course through her body, and the sweaty sweet smell of her satisfaction as she gripped his shoulders and rocked into his finger.

“Jeff,” she moaned.

“Paige, you’re so beautiful.” As she relaxed, he kissed her on the mouth, sucking her bottom lip.

Then she looked him straight in the eye, her face flushed and cocky and said, “Can I be on top? I wanted to try that last time but was afraid to ask.”

Jeff nearly hit the floor again. His body jumped and pulsed in agonized anticipation. Did she have any idea how sexy she was?

He hovered over her as she lay on the couch, her hair cascading over the leather cushions, and he feasted on the view. “You don’t need to ask, gorgeous, just take what you want.”

“Oh.”

Paige sat up and looked him over, up and down. She knew how this was supposed to work in theory, but didn’t exactly know how to implement it. But she was a smart woman. She had a degree and dealt with complex financial matters on a daily basis.

Though this probably fell more into the realm of physics, she could still figure this out with a little trial and error.

She waited until Jeff was done fumbling with the box of condoms, then she got on her knees and placed herself on his lap. Step one. Very good.

Pleased with herself and his hitched breath, she pressed against his erection, but used it only as her own brand of teasing. Meanwhile, she concentrated on wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him, her tongue swirling around his.

His masculine scent filled her nostrils and as she rubbed her breasts against his hard chest, she felt the cool sheen of sweat on his skin. She felt powerful, in control, responsible for the naked desire in his eyes and the urgent mating of his tongue with hers.

Jeff’s hands were on her back and they slid lower and lower as every inch of her quivered. Now, it told her. Take what you want.

She lifted her hips and with coaxing fingers guided Jeff to her. Then she held her breath, hoping she had done this right, and lowered herself down onto him.

Jeff groaned. She sighed. Aah. Step two. Very, very good.

“That a girl,” Jeff said as he sucked in air. His grin was wicked. “I knew you could do it.”

Then he moved to meet her and any witty reply she might have made fled her mind as they rocked with passion together.

She clutched his shoulders, and felt the couch hit the wall behind them with a rhythmic beat as they blended their bodies.

It was worth three years’ wait for this. Paige had never, ever known that her body was capable of this freedom, this sensual desire, this complete and total satisfaction.

When they exploded together moments later, Paige knew it was because she loved Jeff, because she felt safe and respected when she was with him.

Then she gave up thought and just collapsed against Jeff in wild abandon, her leg muscles straining from the position. Her body tingled all over and little shivers of pleasure were still rushing through her as Jeff dropped kiss after kiss on her jaw, cheek and mouth.

“You’re incredible. So sexy.”

She gave a low laugh. “Thank you. You’re pretty good yourself.”

Suddenly Jeff’s arms came around her and he squeezed her so tightly she had diminished lung capacity. “Damn, you feel so good,” he said.

It made her giggle. He looked, sounded, felt just as pleased as she did.

Paige was about to respond, when a pounding on the front door startled them so that they both jumped. Still entwined, Paige tilted backwards, off balance, and they nearly toppled off the couch together in an x-rated accident.

Disaster averted, Jeff put his finger to his lips while he handed Paige her discarded clothes.

She dragged her panties on, her heart pounding. What if it was Johnny Romano?

“Mr. Lombardi? Are you in there?” a woman’s voice demanded through the door.

Yikes. Someone who knew her father. And here she was, naked as the day she was born. As she pulled on shorts, she reasoned that they would go away.

“Mr. Lombardi, it’s Mary from downstairs. If you don’t answer, I’m going to call the cops because I heard banging around and stuff.”

Jeff swore. He whispered, “Call out to her. Tell her it’s just you.”

Trying her hook her bra, Paige walked towards the door and said in what she hoped was a casual voice, “Uh, Mary, this is Paige Lombardi, Gino’s daughter.”

“Oh! Paige. Is everything all right?”

Okay, her shirt was back on, Jeff was in his jeans. This looked totally innocent. She hoped.

She popped the door open a crack. The woman standing there in a skirt and blouse holding a phone in her hand, was Mary Dibiasio, who had been in Paige’s art class in high school. Mary’s finger was poised on the phone, ready to dial 911.

“Mary? I didn’t know you lived here.”

Mary smiled at her, obviously relieved that no one was being murdered, her grip on the phone relaxing. “Actually, I work downstairs in the art gallery. Are you staying here or something? I knew your dad was out of town and I heard all this noise, like banging and yelling and I thought maybe someone was breaking in, or that your dad was having a heart attack or something.”

No, Paige was the one having a heart attack. She knew that her face was cherry red. She could feel it. Mary had heard them downstairs? Banging and yelling? Yikes. Talk about being caught up in the moment.

“Oh, well, my dad’s still in Florida. My, uh, apartment’s being sprayed for roaches so I’m staying here for a couple of days.”

Mary looked over her shoulder and her face lit up. “Jeff? Jeff Benedetto? God, I haven’t seen you in years! How are you? How’s Gina?”

Paige crossed her arms over her chest and let the door swing open a little further. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Jeff coming to the door, a smile on his face, his chest still bare. Mary had her hands on her hips and looked ready to swoop in with the cheek kissing thing.

Was she the only one who found this a bit awkward?

“I’m great, Mary. How about you?”

“Oh, I’m good. The gallery’s really successful and I bought a house two streets over from my parents. I was married to Bobby Paniccone for a year, but we’re divorced now.”

Jeff grinned. “Good for you. Bobby was never good enough for you.”

Mary blushed and said, “Oh, stop. Hey, listen, since everything’s all right, I’ll get out of your hair, but with all that noise I thought it was better to check…”

As Jeff’s hand slid around Paige’s waist, Mary seemed to finally take in the situation for what it was. Paige knew they must look mussed and creased and just plain obvious.

Mary’s eyes went wide and she slapped her hand over her mouth. “Whoops. Sorry.”

“No,” Paige forced herself to say. “It’s good to know you’re keeping an eye on the place. I appreciate that.”

“Yeah, right, no problem.” Mary smirked a little and gave Jeff a wink. “I’ll let you get back to things.”

“Okay, good seeing you, Mary. And thanks again.” Her mother would be pleased to see how well trained she was. Her manners were impeccable even when she had been caught doing the deed with Jeff Benedetto on her father’s leather couch.

Well, not technically caught, but close enough.

Mary gave her a saucy smile and said, “By the way, Paige, you’re shorts are on inside out.”

With that she turned and left, flouncing down the stairs, her brown hair swinging across her back.

Paige looked down at her shorts, stricken. “Ohmigod. My shorts are on inside out.”

Jeff’s mouth was on her neck. “We could take them back off.”

Horror and humiliation were forgotten just from that feathery touch on her skin. “Do you think so?”

“Oh, yeah. Close the door and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

She slammed the door shut and turned, eager for him to strip her and start all over again. She no longer cared what Mary Dibiasio thought. She probably would again later, but right now the only thing that mattered was the burn in her body.

His hand landed on her thigh and slid up under her shorts. He said something, but all she could hear was the buzzing in her ears.

“What?” She forced her eyes back open.

“Let’s pull these off over on the couch.”

He had tugged the leg of the shorts over and his hand was cupping her. Stroke, stroke, went his finger. Then Paige had a wicked idea.

“Leave the shorts on.”

“What?” He sounded thoroughly shocked.

She blinked up at him. “It would work, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, but…”

Paige grinned. She had Jeff as near to blushing as she was ever going to see and it was fascinating.

“Then let’s try it.”

Jeff reached out, then dropped his hand. His mouth opened, then closed. He shook his head.

“Please…” she reached out and touched the front of his jeans.

He groaned and said, “Oh, hell, come here.”

Gladly.

Then she heard it. The very loud, very demanding sound of Justin crying from the bedroom.

What Jeff said was not fit for a baby’s ear.

Nor did he appear to be loosening his hold on her.

Brushing enticing visions of making love standing up aside, Paige said, “Let me go, Jeff. He’s probably scared and in pain.”

Jeff sighed and let her go. “I’m in pain.”

♦ Chapter Eight ♦

EFF MAY HAVE ACTED disappointed, but he was already heading to the bedroom with her, his eyes worried and his step quickening.

If she hadn’t been so concerned about the baby, she would have stopped to appreciate the good man that Jeff was. As it was, she was more focused on adjusting her shorts and stumbling beside him.

Justin was sitting up on the blanket on the floor, tears streaming down his face. Paige scooped him up.

“Oh, honey, shhh. Don’t cry.” She wrapped him in her arms and held him close. “Maybe he misses his mom.”

Jeff shrugged at her helplessly. “Is he hungry or thirsty, maybe?”

“We could try that.” Paige rocked Justin back and forth as they went into the kitchen. “Maybe his chin hurts. We should have bought some Children’s Tylenol.”

Jeff fumbled around in the refrigerator. “Maybe he’s sick, maybe it’s anything. We don’t know what the hell we’re doing here, Paige.”

His crabby tone made her bristle. “Well, we’ve got to try.”

“I know,” he grumbled as he emerged with a bottle of apple juice.

Paige forgot to be annoyed with him. He was standing there rumpled and sexy in his jeans, his hair sticking up in the front. She could almost feel his tongue on her neck again.

She shifted Justin, murmuring comforting words in his ear, appalled at her perverseness. They had a child in need here and all she could think about was Jeff naked. On top of her.

Whew. She looked out the window at the darkening sky and casually leaned over the air conditioner vent. A nice cool blast up her shorts and she would be able to think again.

“Dammit!” Jeff was screwing the bottle top back on, having filled it with juice. “I can’t get this thing twisted straight.”

He redid it, twisting so hard that half the juice sloshed out over the side of the bottle. “Christ.” He licked his hand.

Paige fought the urge to smile and planted a kiss on Justin’s downy head so Jeff wouldn’t see her amusement.

When the lid was back on, Jeff waved the bottle in front of the baby. “Here you go, nice juice. Yum yum.”

Justin blinked, his tears subsiding. He grabbed the bottle and rammed it in his mouth.

“See?” Jeff scratched his chest smugly. “Problem solved. Baby goes back to bed, and we finish what we started.”

Justin’s face screwed up, his arm went back, and he sent his bottle to the floor with a wind up pitch. It smacked, bounced and landed on Jeff’s foot, where it dribbled juice.

“Well, that was rude.” Jeff bent over and retrieved the bottle, shaking his foot a little.

Paige bit her lip hard to keep from smiling this time.

Jeff tried to hand the bottle back to Justin but he turned and buried his head in her chest. Her heart swelled with care and concern.

“Oh, sweetie, baby, it’s all right,” she crooned.

She said to Jeff, “I don’t think he wants the juice.”

“Oh, you think?” Jeff said sarcastically, slapping the bottle down on the counter.

“Don’t get snippy with me.”

“I’m not snippy with you. First of all, Benedetto men don’t get snippy. Second of all, I’m snippy at the situation, not you.”

Paige had to yell to be heard over Justin’s crying. “I thought you said you don’t get snippy.”

He frowned. “Don’t push me, Paige.”

His masculine indignation made her laugh. She reached out, her hand falling across his warm chest as she gave him an ample shove, in teasing.

He stumbled and looked at her stunned. “Hey!”

“You said to push you.”

Jeff started laughing with her. “Damn, Paige, I guess I won’t mess with you.”

“A lesson to remember,” she said, but her voice was drowned out by another round of violent shrieks from Justin.

Paige wished she knew whatever it is mothers know to calm their kids down. Without that secret knowledge, she settled for bouncing Justin up and down, convinced she was going to go permanently deaf if he didn’t stop squealing.

Jeff reached for Justin, wincing a little at the volume. “Here, let me try.”

She gladly handed Justin over, wondering if it was too late at night to call her mom in Florida and ask for maternal advice. Of course, that would require more explanations than she was willing to give right now.

Like explaining to her mother why she was alone with Jeff Benedetto and Gina’s baby. Somehow it didn’t seem like a good idea to tell her mother they were hiding from the mob.

Or that she had spent a portion of that time naked. And not just in the shower.

Justin cried harder.

“Jiggle him,” Paige suggested as Jeff stood there stone still with the baby in his arms.

Jeff took her words a little too literally. If Justin had had a full mouth of teeth, they would have rattled at the vigorous motion. As it was, he merely looked shocked, his cries taking on a washing machine vibration sound.

“I said jiggle him, not shake his head off.”

Jeff looked hurt. “You want to do this? Because I can give him back to you.”

Her arms ached at the thought and her ears pulsed. “No, no, you’re doing great.”

Hours later Jeff knew this was punishment. Pure and simple.

He was being tortured for lying to Paige about Gina. If he had come clean and told her that they could take Justin to his mother’s or to Gina, then none of this would be happening.

But, no.

He hadn’t been able to wait. He’d had Paige so close he had been able to taste her, and he hadn’t wanted the interruption, the risk that he could wind up alone for the night.

So now he was stuck with a squalling baby, his vision of making love to Paige until the sun rose shattered. If and when they ever did get this kid back to sleep, they were both going to be too exhausted to even think about making love. The only thing they were going to want to do was collapse on the bed and sleep straight through to the morning.

If they got the kid to bed.

Which right then seemed about as likely as the Indians winning the World Series.

“Walk him around,” Paige said, leaning against the wall for support, her shoulders slumping.

Jeff, his arms aching like he’d just been weight lifting with The Rock, trudged back and forth across the living room as Justin gave little whimpers and gasps in his arms.

The kid had cried himself out of tears by now. His eyes were puffy and huge quantities of snot were smeared across his face. The crying had petered down to snuffling and gasping, but he wouldn’t fall asleep.

And if Jeff so much as tried to set him down, Justin’s siren scream went up.

At last check, it was two a.m. The time of night when the only two things that appealed to him were REM sleep and Paige naked. This didn’t even come close to either.

“I’ll turn the TV on again,” Paige said with a yawn. “He liked that last time. Maybe you can sit down at least.”

Jeff watched Paige stumble over to the TV and feel around the sofa for the remote. It was really great of her to stay up with him and Justin like this, especially since the whole mess was his fault. Justin could be sleeping in his own crib right now if Jeff had taken him back to his mother after Gina had called.

Of course, Paige didn’t know that.

Now he was convinced Justin was never going to sleep again and all of his muscles were going to freeze in the position of cradling a baby. Which would make a pick-up game of football pretty hard to do.

Carefully, slowly, he eased himself down onto the sofa, sighing as Justin remained silent. The baby clung to Jeff’s T-shirt with chubby fingers, his swollen eyes drifting closed. Jeff couldn’t help but groan out loud a little as his back shot out electric jolts of pain.

Paige sat down next to him, and he turned his bleary eyes to the TV, the blue lights of the screen flickering around the darkened room.

He settled in to watch Princess Diana: The untold story, on the Biography channel.

Three seconds later he was asleep.

The phone woke Paige up. She jerked forward, and realized she was semi-sitting up.

Yuck. She had slept on the couch. And had the crick in her neck to prove it.

Jeff and Justin were both asleep, curled up on the far end of the couch. Justin was spread out across Jeff’s chest and his little body rose and fell with Jeff’s breathing. Jeff’s hand was still clasped on Justin’s behind and Paige smiled to herself at how adorable they looked. Jeff was a macho, tough kind of guy, yet he had taken to parenting with natural talent.

She’d always known he had soft edges. Seeing proof of that just made her want him all the more.

The cell phone sat on the coffee table and she grabbed it, not wanting her sleeping beauties to wake up.

“Hello?” she whispered.

“Paigey, it’s Gina. Is Justin still asleep or do you want me to come get him now?”

Paige blinked. “Gina?” Either she needed coffee bad or Gina’s words made no sense. Actually, either way she still needed coffee badly.

“Yeah. Who else would it be?”

Good question. Paige’s sleep deprived mind struggled to wrap itself around this one-sided conversation. “Are you home?”

“Yeah. So let me know when you want me to swing by and pick Justin up.”

Paige stood up as she sighed in relief. Well, that was one problem solved. Gina sounded absolutely fine. “Are you okay? When did you get back? Did Frank talk to Johnny?”

Gina’s voice was puzzled. “Didn’t Jeff tell you? I called him last night and told him everything.”

Paige remembered Jeff taking a phone call from Gina last night, but she distinctly remembered him saying there was no change in the situation. A bad feeling swept over her as she stumbled towards the kitchen to start the coffee.

“He didn’t tell me.”

“Johnny let me go last night, which there’s something I have to tell you, by the way, but it will keep until I see you in person. Anyhoot, Sam and Sal picked me up and I offered to swing by and grab Justin on my way home, but Jeff said you were fine keeping him for the night.”

Oh, did he? Paige’s eyes narrowed as she dug through the cabinets. Instant, decaf, she didn’t care what it was. She needed coffee now.

“What time was that?” Paige was trying to remember when Jeff had been on the phone, but her brain wasn’t working correctly after only five hours of sleep. She was an eight consecutive hour sleep kind of girl.

“I don’t know. Eight o’clock or so. Why?”

The can of Folgers in front of her went blurry and she remembered exactly what had been going on when Jeff had been on the phone with Gina. She had been in the bedroom looking for condoms.

She had been walking back into the living room carrying them right as Jeff had been hanging up the phone.

The cabinet slammed shut without her even realizing she was doing it. She no longer wanted the coffee. All the coffee in the world wasn’t going to fix this.

Her mother’s voice rang in her head. Benedetto boys are only after one thing.

Damn it, she really hated it when her mother was right.

Jeff had neglected to tell her Gina was coming home because they had been on the verge of making love. He had lied to get her into bed.

Fury was there, swift and sure, but hurt came like a bee sting, out of nowhere, a painful and pinching surprise.

Jeff wasn’t supposed to be like his brothers. He was supposed to be honest and thoughtful. She had been so sure he was.

But three years ago he had walked out on her. And last night he had lied to her.

“What’s with all the noise?” Jeff said from the kitchen doorway, lounging against the wall. “You’ll wake up Justin.”

He looked good enough to eat, standing there with tousled hair. He was wearing his wrinkled, black T-shirt that he had dragged on sometime during their walking sessions with Justin the night before. His jeans were getting that soft worn look, where they start to hang loose in strategic places, having stretched from wearing them for twenty-four hours.

“The phone rang,” she said carefully, wanting him to be innocent, wanting him to somehow deny what Gina had told him.

“Oh, yeah?” He yawned and started towards her, his arm reaching out for her.

She crossed her arms tightly across her chest so he couldn’t pull her into an embrace. “It was Gina.”

He stopped walking. His head snapped up. The sleepy look had evaporated. His eyes were wary. “What did Gina have to say?”

Geez, did he have to look so guilty? Paige’s stomach rolled. Forget coffee. Forget breakfast. She felt sick.

“She said that she came home last night and that she could pick up Justin any time today.”

Jeff didn’t say anything for a long pause, staring at her in horror, then said, “Well, that’s good. Whew. What a relief she’s all right.”

At least he was a bad liar. It made her feel a little better.

“She also said that she told you all of that last night, around eight o’clock, and that she even offered to pick Justin up last night and you refused.” Her hands went to her hips and she spread her bare feet out a little, ready for a stand off.

“Uh…” He shoved his hands in his pockets, evading her eyes.

“Jeff!”

He cracked like a criminal under interrogation. “I’m sorry! I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

Wrong answer. The fury resurfaced with a healthy dose of indignation. “What? You didn’t think it was a big deal that you lied to me? That the reason you lied to me was because you wanted to sleep with me?”

“That’s not true!” he burst out.

Then he frowned and shuffled his feet a little. “Well, okay maybe it was true. But come on. You wanted to be together too!”

She prayed that she wouldn’t strangle him. Her fists curled and uncurled and she took a deep breath. “Then you should have told me about the phone call. I would have stayed with you. You didn’t need to lie about it!”

“Well, I didn’t know that you’d stay, did I?” he said with perfect male logic.

Male logic that was so illogical to Paige that the only sound she could make was a garbled gasp.

“Paige,” he pleaded. “I’m sorry. It made sense at the time. I just didn’t want anything to interrupt our night together.”

His hand reached out and took hers off her hip. His rough thumb caressed the back of her hand. His voice had taken on seductive tones. “I’ve been missing you for three years. I couldn’t wait another night.”

Do not give in, do not give in, she told herself. Especially since it was his fault they hadn’t been together in three years.

Her body wasn’t listening to her brain commands. She was relaxing, letting him pull her forward. In another second she would be wrapped up in his arms, lost to all common sense.

She forced herself to ask, “Is there anything else you need to tell me? Have you kept anything from me or lied about anything else? Here’s your chance to come clean.”

Jeff’s hesitation was just long enough that she glared at him in suspicion, still an arm’s length away from him, with no intention of going further. “What is it, Jeff?”

“Nothing.”

Paige tried to catch his eye, but he was studiously avoiding looking anywhere but at her. Clearly lying. But what could he be lying about?

She hadn’t seen Jeff in three years, and during those three years he had never attempted contact. She didn’t think that their being in this apartment together was anything more than coincidence and rotten luck.

He had been surprised to see her, and that gun being waved in Jeff’s face back at the construction trailer hadn’t been a hoax.

Which meant it was something else. Something later.

Paige remembered Jeff’s frantic digging through the grocery bags and his not-so-innocent look when he’d stood up. The bulge in his jeans that was not due to nature, despite what he wanted to claim.

And the amazing coincidence that she had found an unopened box of condoms in the drawer of the nightstand.

“Jeff,” she said in warning.

She pulled her hand out of his and he crossed his arms, his black eyes guilty as sin.

“Did you buy those condoms at the store?”

His arms fell. His mouth dropped open. That was all the confirmation she needed.

“Jeff!” Her finger shot out without warning. She wagged it back and forth in the style of her Grandma Lombardi. “And you’d better not lie to me.”

He snapped his jaw closed. He cleared his throat. “Well, you see it’s like this…”

That was all she needed to hear. “Ugh, never mind, I don’t want to hear it. I’m leaving, Jeff. I’m done.”

She needed to get away from him, fast, before she said something she would regret. She was going home and never so much as looking at a man ever again.

The convent needed nuns. Maybe they would take her.

Torrid images of the night before flashed into her mind. Okay, so she wasn’t exactly pure anymore, but maybe her dad could pull some strings.

Either way, Jeff Benedetto was never touching her again.

♦ Chapter Nine ♦

EFF WATCHED PAIGE stomp off and slam the door to the bedroom. He heard her click the lock. Just in case he had any naïve misconceptions about following her, that deafening bolt forced them to shrivel up and die.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Every word out of his mouth was ticking Paige off. And he couldn’t blame her. He might as well have said he’d planned to bag her from the first minute he’d laid eyes on her yesterday. It couldn’t have gone over any worse than what he’d really said.

But while it was technically the truth, it wasn’t the whole truth either. Despite what Paige now thought, his feelings had never been just physical. It had never been about just getting Paige into the bedroom with him.

It had been about wanting her. Wanting everything about Paige. Anxious, desperate desire for all that she was. To have her, to touch her, to be with her.

To hear her laugh and to fit her body flush against his.

To love her.

Christ, he didn’t know how he was going to fix this.

Making himself some black coffee, heavy on the caffeine, he took it into the living room to see if Justin was still sleeping.

His nephew was still on his stomach on the sofa, his arms spread out up over his head.

He was getting kind of fond of the little guy. He might even offer to babysit for Gina once in awhile. Now that Gina was giving Frank the boot, Justin was going to need male influences in his life. Jeff and his brothers could step up to the plate and teach Justin how to play ball and spit long distances.

The kid was on his own when to came to women though. Jeff had no advice to give there.

Unless Justin needed instructions on how to tick off the woman you love in three easy steps.

Jeff brooded in the leather recliner and prepared to wait. Paige had to open that bedroom door sooner or later. He’d be sitting here when she did.

Paige threw the offensive T-shirt and shorts Jeff had bought for her in a crumpled up ball on the bathroom floor. If her father’s apartment had a fireplace, she’d burn them.

She settled for kicking them, wishing it was Jeff’s rear end. Every time she thought they were on the verge of happily ever after, Fate laughed at her and said, Wrong!

That was getting old.

Sometime during her twenty minute shower, when she had blubbered freely into the hot stream of water, she had come to a conclusion.

It was either Jeff Benedetto or it was no one.

After ten years of caring about him, and sharing two wonderful nights with him, it was no longer a possibility that another man could have that place in her heart.

Which meant the convent idea was starting to sound like a real possibility.

Or she could be a modern old maid at twenty-six.

Put that on her resume.

With a sigh, she pulled on her red business suit that she had picked out so carefully the day before. She would get out of this apartment, see Justin safely delivered to Gina, and head to work, where she was appreciated, needed, and treated like an adult with a brain in her head.

With a little luck, and about a decade or two, she might even be able to forget the last twenty-four hours had happened.

Ten minutes later, she was as ready as she was going to be with no make-up bag or a blow-dryer. The heels were a plus. Taller, she somehow felt stronger.

With a deep breath she unlocked the bedroom door and went out into the living room. Ignoring Jeff, who jumped up out of his chair, she went straight to Justin, who was toddling around with a bottle of juice hanging out of his mouth.

“Good morning, cutie. Let’s get you packed up and take you to your mom’s, okay?” Justin let her pick him up and settle him on her hip.

Despite the tension that had her shoulders nearly up to her ears, Paige smiled at Justin. He was adorable and it had kind of been fun getting to know him.

Ripped open chin, zero sleep and all.

Maybe she was more ready to be a mother than she had thought.

Then it occurred to her the only way she was going to be a mother was through artificial insemination.

The tender moment soured.

“Paige.”

“What?” she snapped as she turned around.

“We need to talk.”

“No, we don’t.” She felt along Justin’s bottom to see if his diaper was full. “Did you change him?”

“Yes.” His eyes pleaded with her, but she wasn’t in the mood to be swayed by bedroom eyes and rock hard biceps.

“Then it’s time to go. I’m taking him to Gina’s.” Though she felt like just leaving Jeff there to fend for himself, she forced herself to be polite. “Is there somewhere I can drop you off?”

Jeff looked like he was about to say something, his hand reaching for her. Then he dropped it, and his voice was neutral. “Sure. You can drop me off at the construction office.”

Disappointment surged through Paige, then annoyance. She should be glad he wasn’t going to force the issue, but it rankled that he had given up so easily.

She was hopeless.

“Fine, let’s go,” she said through gritted teeth.

“What about all the food we bought?” Jeff sat down and put his worn work boots on.

“I’ll come back for it.” In about a week, when the smell of Jeff was eradicated from the apartment. “But you might want to take those condoms with you now.”

That flew out of her mouth before she could stop it. Jeff’s mouth was gaping like a hooked trout at her chilly outburst, but after a second, he stood up and got the box from the end table. He shoved the whole thing into his pocket.

It didn’t fit, and the rectangle-shaped bulge mocked her, the feel of Jeff leaning over her flashing through her mind.

They walked down the stairs in silence, and Paige concentrated on the baby, bouncing him so he would laugh. When they passed Mary’s art gallery door, she knew her face must be the color of a maraschino cherry. The promise of a million dollars wouldn’t have enticed her to look at Jeff right then.

When they reached the sidewalk, Paige blinked, the bright summer sun blinding her as the heat wrapped around her with pulsing intensity.

There were people everywhere.

And ohmigod, where was her car?

“What the…” Jeff voiced her own sentiments.

The entire block of Mayfield Road was covered with vendor stalls, and all the restaurants, shops and galleries had their doors wide open. Hundreds of people meandered in and out of the shops and through the street.

“It’s the Feast,” Jeff said.

He was right, Paige realized. She had seen the signs earlier in the week. And everyone growing up in Little Italy knew that life stopped for the Feast of the Ascension, and the neighborhood became one gigantic festival of food, fun, and gossip.

Fishing her sunglasses out of her purse, she clutched Justin and said in desperation, “But where is my car?”

Jeff shielded his eyes from the blazing sun and spotted a very prominent No Parking sign on the road in front of the apartment building. Whoops. “Uh, they probably towed it. They can’t have any cars on the street with the Feast going on.”

Paige was an adorable picture of righteous indignation. Jeff couldn’t help but admire her, her blond hair still wet from her shower, loose over her shoulders and falling into soft wisps around her face.

If he hadn’t been such an idiot, she could have been his. Twice over. Well, she had been his twice over. But he wanted her to keep. Every night.

Which that wasn’t a good thing to be thinking about in broad daylight on the street. He stuck his hands in his pockets to give his jeans a little adjustment.

Paige seemed incapable of speech. “But… but…”

“We can walk to my mom’s. It’s only a block.” And Paige probably wanted to get away from him as soon as possible. Not that he could blame her. He wasn’t real crazy about himself right now either.

She nodded and they started walking.

Only to be stopped before they got two feet by Mrs. Castenetti and Mrs. Bodziony.

“Little Paige!” Mrs. Bodziony swooped down on Paige and grabbed her face with both hands while Jeff watched in amusement.

Jeff thought Mrs. Bodziony was going to double cheek kiss Paige, but instead, she said in a fierce voice, “What’s this I hear about you spending the night with one of those Benedetto boys?”

Hey. He was one of those Benedetto boys.

Paige gasped.

Before he could defend himself and his brothers, Mrs. Castenetti whacked him on the arm, causing him to jump back, startled. Jesus, for an old lady, she packed quite a punch.

“And you! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! You’re lucky Paige’s father isn’t here to see you disgracing her like this.”

“Uh…” What the hell was the proper response to that?

And the old lady had a point about Paige’s dad. It occurred to him for the first time that Mr. Lombardi might still have a connection or two in the neighborhood. He looked around carefully.

No men in suits swooping down on him yet.

“It’s not what you think,” Paige said. “Jeff and I are babysitting Gina’s baby.”

Mrs. Bodziony gave Paige a hard stare that made Jeff squirm. Paige, who used to be so shy and acquiescent, stared the lady down without blinking. Jeff got turned on by Paige all over again. She had definitely grown into quite a woman.

Finally, Mrs. Bodziony just shook her finger and said, “There’s a confessional with your name on it, young lady. You need to go and use it.”

Then the two women left, heading for the lemonade stand.

“Damn.” Jeff shuddered. “That was scary.”

Paige didn’t answer him. He was clearly still ranking somewhere in the area of freezer mildew right now with her.

The smell of sausage wafted over to him. Jeff’s stomach growled loudly. He had skipped breakfast. As they started walking again, he spotted the Italian sausage sandwich booth.

“Do you mind if I grab a sandwich?” He was close now. Another foot and drool was going to be spilling down his front.

Paige wrinkled her nose. “You want an Italian sausage sandwich at ten o’clock in the morning?”

“There aren’t time restrictions on Italian sausage. I could eat one anytime, anywhere.” Like now. He started towards the booth, his feet following the call of his mouth and stomach to grease.

Paige followed him, which surprised him a little. At least she seemed resigned to his presence now, even if she grimaced every time she looked his way.

But he wasn’t about to force it. If Paige didn’t want to hear his apology, there was nothing he could do. He wasn’t the guy of guy to pressure a woman. He would just have to accept her decision to hate him and spend the rest of his life as a bachelor.

Which sounded as fun as having bran cereal right now instead of a sausage sandwich.

“Three seventy-five,” the man at the sausage booth said after he placed his order.

Jeff looked up and recognized him. “Hey, Dave, how’s it going?” He had played football in high school with Dave’s brother.

“Not so bad. Helping out my dad here.” Dave threw his thumb over his wide shoulder.

Jeff went into his pants pocket to get his wallet. The box of condoms was stuck, snug against his leg and preventing him from pulling his money out. “Hang on a second.”

He used two hands, trying to pull the pocket forward with one, and reach behind the box with the other. Dave stared at him, eyebrow raised.

Paige said, “What are you doing?”

“I can’t get my money out.” He tugged and pulled. Nothing.

Paige rolled her eyes and shifted Justin to the other hip. “Do you need some money?”

Her impatient tone annoyed him. There was no way in hell he was borrowing money from her.

“No.” And he solved the problem by pulling the box out of his pocket and slapping it down on the counter in full view of everyone in the booth and the half dozen people in line behind him.

Pocket freed, he reached in for his money while Paige made a strangled sound.

Dave grinned. “Big box.”

That he was never going to get to use. Ever. They would completely biodegrade before Jeff would need them. He nodded in acknowledgment and handed Dave a five.

Paige was wheezing.

Dave said, “You need some water, Paige?”

“Thank you,” she said between labored gasps.

Jeff wondered if he should thump her on the back or something.

As Paige reached over the counter for the water Dave was handing her, Justin leaned over and picked up the box of condoms.

Jeff grabbed for them, but Justin tipped the box over and they spilled out across the pavement. Two long plastic rows of soldiered condoms on the ground for all the world to see.

The urge to laugh was overwhelming. Now Jeff was the one doing the wheezing. As people snickered and giggled, he bent over and said, “Whoops. Don’t want to lose those.”

Water hit him in the arm. “What the…?”

He turned around and saw Paige with water dribbling down her chin and onto her blouse. She had sprayed him with her spewed drink. He bit his lip to try and suppress a grin, but it erupted anyway.

Paige glared at all the snickering customers then looked pointedly at the condoms he was clutching in his hand, dangling down his leg.

“You do realize that I’m going to have to move now,” she said through gritted teeth, her cheeks tinted a pretty pink.

After stuffing the condoms back in his pocket, he bit his Italian sausage and groaned with pleasure. “Don’t overreact.”

They moved away from the booth and Paige whispered fiercely, “Don’t overreact? Everyone in the neighborhood knows we slept together!”

He didn’t think Mary downstairs and two little old ladies and Dave at the sausage stand counted as everyone, but it did seem to be news that was spreading.

“I don’t think that we’re the only two people to ever have spent the night together.” He spoke around a mouthful of sausage and bread. “Jesus, it’s modern times. Half these people walking around here probably slept together last night.”

Paige walked next to him, but her shoulder was turned away like he had cooties. Her hair had dried in frizzy little waves and she kept smoothing it down with her free hand.

“The difference is, no one knows that they did. Everyone knows that we did,” she said in a not-so-quiet voice.

“So?” He shrugged and would have reached for her hand had his not been full of food and hers occupied with Justin. “It was a helluva night together. I wanted it to be more. I still want it to be more. I’m not going to deny that to anyone.”

“Jeffrey Antonio Benedetto.”

Every muscle in his body froze. Holy hell. He knew that voice. His childhood was full of that voice. The power it had wielded still gave him occasional nightmares. Wincing he turned slowly and saw her. Four feet and eleven inches worth of fire and righteousness.

He’d never been one for praying, but he sent one up now.

Then tried to conjure up a smile and a look of innocence as he met the eyes of his all-knowing Italian grandmother.

♦ Chapter Ten ♦

AIGE DIDN’T HOLD BACK her grin. She couldn’t have planned this better. Let Jeff suffer now like she had at the food stand.

She still could not believe he had pulled that box out of his pocket and thrown it up on the counter. Was he trying to ruin her life?

Either that, or he didn’t understand the effect of scandalous behavior on a woman as opposed to a man. His friends would just clap him on the back and tease him. She was going to have to deal with reprimands and catty advice from women every time she showed her face in public from here to eternity.

At least now he looked miserably uncomfortable. It was something.

His grandmother was with his brother Sal, whose eyebrows were residing somewhere near his hair-line as he looked curiously back and forth between the two of them.

“Hi, Grandma Benedetto,” Jeff said in a cheerful, innocent voice she’d never heard him use. He leaned forward and kissed his grandmother on the powdered cheek.

His grandmother sniffed and shook her head, her steel gray hair never moving an inch from its frozen position. “Don’t you Grandma me,” she said in a cold voice.

“Why not?” He smiled at her in a charming and adorable manner that Paige knew was designed to make women melt.

It was possible it was working on her.

It didn’t look to work on eighty-five year olds. His grandmother narrowed her eyes. “I hear things. I know what’s going on.”

Justin squealed. Apparently he’d heard too.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Jeffrey Antonio. Your father is probably spinning in his grave.”

“But…” Jeff started to protest.

One Grandma hand up in the air and he instantly stopped talking.

Mrs. Benedetto turned to her.

Paige’s pleasure at Jeff’s discomfort evaporated. She had the sudden unnerving feeling that she was about to be included in the lecture. Which sounded about as fun as watching the video of Justin being born that Gina kept insisting she’d want to watch.

Paige braced herself. She was right. There was a lecture coming.

She was so rarely right. Why did it have to be now?

Knowing black eyes pierced her, studied her up and down until Paige felt sweat trickling down between her breasts. She tilted Justin in front of her as a shield, wimp that she was.

She had her own Italian grandmother. She knew.

Grandma Benedetto said, “I think you and Jeff should get married before the baby is born.”

“What?” Paige squeaked.

Sal gaped.

Justin let out a loud string of indecipherable sounds in Grandma Benedetto’s direction.

Jeff threw his arms in the air and backed up, his head shaking back and forth.

That expression of horror better be because of the baby comment, not because he didn’t want to marry her.

Her life as she knew it was over. Heat rushed through her, rose into her face and spread out to every inch of her body. A baby. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

Her legs went out and she wobbled in her heels.

Grandma Benedetto ordered, “Sal, take Justin.”

Jeff found his voice, even if it came out hoarse. “Grandma, I don’t know what you heard, but it’s wrong. There’s no baby.”

Paige surrendered Justin gratefully to Sal, whose eyes landed on her stomach as if he was trying to detect a baby growing in there. She glared at him.

He grinned.

While Justin had been heavy, she no longer had a protective shield in front of her. She felt naked.

Under the disapproval that hovered in the air.

Grandma Benedetto’s finger went up. “Are you trying to tell me that you and Paige haven’t been living together? And if you lie, God will strike you dead.”

Living together? It was worse than she thought. Thank the Lord her mother was in Florida and far away from these rumors that were spreading faster than the West Nile virus.

“We’re not living together,” Jeff insisted.

“But you’re sleeping together?”

Dead silence. Paige willed Jeff to deny it.

“Well, uh, I… you see.”

Even though he was well over a foot taller than his grandmother, Jeff managed to look vulnerable and sheepish standing in front of her.

“I’m waiting.”

“Yes,” Jeff mumbled to the sidewalk.

Paige looked around for a bus to throw herself in front of.

“Jeffrey Antonio.” His grandmother took a step towards him.

He backed up and said, “But there is no baby, I’m telling you.”

Oh, like that was going to make it any better. Paige started to shift towards the street. There was a handy elephant ear stand she could dodge behind and disappear into the crowd. She could have her apartment packed by dinner time and she could move far, far away where people ate spaghetti sauce from a jar.

“How do you know?” Grandma Benedetto demanded. “If you’re sleeping with her, how do you know there’s no baby?”

Jeff looked desperate. Suddenly he dug in his pocket and ripped something out, holding it high. “Because we used condoms!”

The plastic row of individually wrapped condoms swung in the air inches from Grandma Benedetto’s face.

“Holy…” Sal trailed off in shock.

“Ohmigod!” Paige covered her mouth in horror.

Nothing could be worse than this moment.

Her cell phone rang.

Thrilled at the interruption, Paige clicked the talk button. “Hello?”

“What is this I hear that you’re living with Jeff Benedetto?”

It just got worse.

“Mom!” Paige turned away from the staring contest Jeff and his grandmother were engaged in and cringed. “It’s just a rumor, Mom. A false one.”

“Mary Dibiasio doesn’t lie. Why would she say that if it wasn’t true?” Her mother’s voice was shrill, six octaves higher than normal and shaking with hysteria. “How am I’m going to show my face in church again?”

Paige noticed for the first time that an interested crowd of about ten people had gathered around them, listening to every word spoken. All they needed now was a TV news crew.

Gino Lombardi’s daughter dead from humiliation. Story at eleven.

“Mom, this really isn’t a good time.”

“I don’t care, young lady! I want some answers.”

“I’ll call you later.” Closing her eyes, Paige hung up on her mother. She would pay for that tomorrow, there was no doubt about it.

But right now they had to deal with Grandma Benedetto, who if it was possible, was even more frightening than her mother.

“You’ll get married right before Christmas,” Jeff’s grandmother was saying quite clearly.

Paige waited for Jeff to stand up to her, to tell her he was a grown man who could make his own decisions about who and when to marry.

His grandmother went on. “I’ll buy you one of those big trucks, an SUV, as a present.”

Jeff, who thankfully must have shoved those darn condoms back into his pocket once more, looked his grandmother straight in the eye and said, “Okay.”

“Jeff!” Paige screamed. That’s what it took for him to make a commitment to her? A four-wheel drive vehicle free of charge?

Without warning, Grandma Benedetto pulled her into her paper thin arms and hugged so hard Paige was gasping for air. This was no wimpy old lady. And she had just manipulated Jeff into agreeing to marriage, something that twelve hours ago Paige would have loved to have heard.

Without the incentive of vehicle compensation, anyway.

Grandma Benedetto said, “Oh, I’m so happy for you. You’re such a good girl, Gino’s little angel.”

Paige felt her face being tugged down lower and she was repeatedly cheek kissed over and over, floral perfume and the scent of face powder wafting over her.

“You’ll make a beautiful bride.” Grandma Benedetto wiped tears from her eyes. “I only wish my Marco were here to see you and Jeffrey getting married.”

Paige had nothing to say. What could she say? Her brain felt like a squashed grape and her tongue was a dried out sponge.

“Sal, I’m ready now.” Grandma Benedetto stepped back and waved her other grandson forward. “Let’s go.”

“What about Justin? And what happened to his chin?” Sal asked.

“Minor accident,” Jeff said.

Grandma Benedetto tickled Justin’s arm. “We’ll take him to your mother. Give these two kids time alone.”

Sal grinned, tossing Justin up on his shoulders. “Being alone was what got them in trouble in the first place.”

“Watch it, Salvatore. You’re next.”

“Oh, no. Forget it, Grandma.” Sal protested as they started down the street.

As they left, Paige stared at Jeff. He looked at her. He shrugged.

She lost it. “What is the matter with you? Why did you agree to marry me?”

He ran his hand through his short hair. “You try and argue with your grandma standing on the street. I figured if I said yes she’d leave it alone for now.”

“She’ll have the whole wedding planned by tomorrow, as if we weren’t already in enough trouble. And how could you just pull those things out of your pocket?” She was fully aware she sounded like a complete shrew, but she had reached her breaking point.

She was more than broke. She was shattered into minute pieces and ground into dust.

“I was making a point.”

“This is insane!” Paige looked at Jeff, still clutching his half-eaten sausage sandwich in one hand. “Just take me home. Now.”

Jeff eyed Paige warily. She looked about ready to crack. He didn’t really blame her. It had been a strange twenty-four hours. He wasn’t even really sure what was happening, except that he had agreed to marry Paige and his grandmother was giving him a truck.

The two things he probably wanted most in life. Except Paige didn’t want to marry him.

And his sandwich was cold.

“We’ll have to walk to my apartment, I guess.” Where had he seen that lemonade stand? It was hot and he was getting thirsty from all those strangling noises he had made when his grandmother had asked him if he was sleeping with Paige. He looked around and wondered if he could buy a new sandwich to go with the drink.

Instead of fresh squeezed lemons, he saw none other than Johnny Romano stuffing a piece of elephant ear into his mouth no more than fifteen feet away.

“Uh-oh.” He grabbed Paige’s hand and pulled her in front of him, turning his back to Johnny.

“What’s the matter?” Paige came to him, but was straining to see around him.

Her red suit and blond hair were sure to stand out in this summer crowd of people wearing shorts and tank tops. He whispered, “Stop moving. Johnny Romano is over there.”

Paige’s eyes went wide and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod.”

“Shh. He hasn’t seen us yet. Just start walking slowly.” He didn’t think Johnny would concern himself with them now that the kidnapping of Gina was resolved.

But then again, he had given Johnny the slip and ripped his best silk shirt. This could be personal now. Jeff had no intention of hanging around to find out.

Paige’s hand felt clammy in his, and her breath was hitched from fear. He didn’t know what he would do if this creep hurt Paige. Whatever it was, he was sure it wouldn’t be legal.

He glanced back. Hell. Johnny was looking right at him.

“Walk faster, Paige.”

Johnny called after them, “Hey!”

He put his arm around Paige and moved her protectively in front of him.

“Jeff, is he following us?” There was fear in her voice.

Jeff shot another glance over his shoulder.

Johnny had his arm in the air waving and he was yelling, “Hey, Benedetto, I need to talk to you!”

Like Jeff was stupid enough to stop and shoot the breeze with an irate hitman.

Then Johnny reached inside the pocket of his pants. Jeff saw a flash of black and knew it was Johnny’s gun. He remembered it vividly from when it had been pointed at his head the day before.

“Run, Paige!”

Tossing his sandwich in the general direction of a nearby garbage can, he started running. Paige gave a low scream, tottering on her heels next to him, struggling to keep up. Jeff dragged her through the crowd, weaving past kids licking ice cream cones and around a handful of women with luggage-sized purses.

A glance behind showed Johnny hot on their tail.

Johnny was overweight and breathing heavy, but Paige was in high heels and stumbling. It was possible Johnny could catch up with them.

Jeff pulled Paige behind a kid’s game booth and hunched over. “Bend down,” he told Paige.

Then he ran straight into an alley that lead them around the back of a row of shops. He didn’t look to see if Johnny was behind them until he had counted doors and ducked inside the fourth, dragging Paige along with him.

No Johnny. He shut the door and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Is he gone?” Paige clutched her throat.

Her legs wobbled. Jeff gathered her into his arms and hugged her close. If anything happened to her, he didn’t know what he would do. He’d never forgive himself.

“Yeah, he’s gone.”

“Where are we?” She looked around.

“My Uncle Leo’s bakery.” Jeff leaned against the kitchen counter and settled Paige in front of him, between his legs. “We’ll be safe here.”

“Where is everybody?”

The kitchen was quiet and empty, the air still and warm. “I don’t know. Maybe they’re out selling on the street instead of in the shop today because of the Feast.”

“Oh,” she nodded. But she still looked in need of a stiff drink.

Or some comfort.

He could comfort her. With a kiss.

It was a bad idea. Paige was mad at him. Vulnerable. Frightened.

But her lips were so soft and round, and so close to him. She was nestled into his thighs, her little belly pressed against him.

She was trembling.

He was moving. Slowly, waiting for her to push him away, or tell him to stop.

No hand shoved, no words of protest came.

He went in for the kiss.

Oh, yeah. He loved her mouth, plump and moist and molding against his with an eager grind that thrilled him.

Paige moaned. Paige pressed against him. Paige gripped his head like she would sink to the floor without the support.

His control snapped.

Wait a minute. He had never been in control. Around Paige, he was always desperate and irrational.

Which is why he made big-ass mistakes like walking out on her three years ago or lying about the phone call and condoms last night.

She whimpered and gripped his T-shirt.

His jeans were way too tight in front.

“Are you done being mad at me?” he asked.

“For now.”

That was good enough for him.

Jeff touched her hair, stroking its softness over and over. The blond strands spilled over his fingers as he kissed her until his thoughts centered on nothing but Paige.

Eager breasts were thrusting against him, and he let a hand slid up her side and cup the soft flesh. She sighed.

He missed the hottie shirt and shorts she’d been wearing the day before, but this was more Paige. The trim little suit with one button on the jacket. The well-pressed white blouse underneath.

He undid the button, wanting to see her glorious chest through the thin blouse. He pushed the jacket back and gripped her breast, nothing but the shirt and the scrap of lace underneath between her and his touch. A low moan pulsed from her.

She took the words right out of his mouth.

He was so relieved that she was okay, that they were both okay. Johnny Romano didn’t exactly strike him as dangerous, despite the gun, but he didn’t want to take any chances with Paige.

It made him plunge on, reckless and urgent, pulling her up so she was pressed against every inch of him with her fabulous curves.

Touch her, feel her, confirm she was safe and sound, and celebrate the fact that they were alive and together.

He would deal with the messy details later.

“You’re safe now,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ll always protect you, Paige.”

Her eyelids were heavy and half closed. “I know.”

Jeff wanted to make love to Paige in the worst way. Right there in the kitchen of Uncle Leo’s bakery, with the smell of bread and butter in the air. No one was there.

If he was quick…

He gave himself a mental shake. He couldn’t do that. Paige deserved better than a quickie leaning against a stainless steel counter.

Eyeing the counter, he realized it was also covered in flour and bits and pieces of dough. He had a sudden erotic image of rolling Paige in buttery flour. Then licking it off.

All the blood in his body rushed below his waist.

He needed to get the hell out of here.

Paige must have seen him looking at the counter.

She cocked her head and said with a wicked grin, “Want to try it?”

“Paige!” He was shocked. And not for the first time. Paige had something of a wild side to her, he’d noticed.

“What?” Fingers stroked his chest, the nails raking across his shirt. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to.”

No, he wasn’t about to say that. But it wasn’t right. Was it?

“You’re doing it again,” she accused him, pulling back.

“What?” He immediately missed the heat from her body.

“Treating me like a glass figurine. Like little Paige, Gina’s best friend.”

Then she reached out and stroked him. There. Oh, hell. He couldn’t breathe. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as she leaned forward and bit his lip.

Bit his lip. That’s right. Paige was biting his lip.

Jeff groaned.

“Treat me like a woman. I can take it, I promise.”

He could do that. Treat her like a woman. Oh, yeah, he could definitely do that. Starting with ripping that jacket off her shoulders and sending it to the floor.

When he saw her eyes widen in satisfaction, he didn’t see Gina’s best friend. He only saw Paige, the woman.

The woman he loved.

♦ Chapter Eleven ♦

AIGE’S HEART BEAT FASTER in triumph. Jeff had just about torn her jacket getting it off. He had never been so out of control with her, and she loved it.

Loved the way he was dragging her skirt up past her hips with rough and eager hands. Loved the way he turned and slammed her against the counter, reversing their positions.

The cool steel shocked her legs as he disposed of her pantyhose. Who had invented those stupid things anyway?

“Damn.”

“What?” Paige arched her head back.

“I put a hole in your… things, whatever the hell they’re called.” Jeff muttered as he nipped her ear lobe, his wet tongue darting in briefly.

“I don’t care.” He could throw bleach on her clothes and set them on fire for all she cared.

Especially now that he was unbuttoning her blouse and dipping his tongue between her breasts. She gripped the counter and her fingers pushed into sticky dough scraps. The room was small and warm and Paige was near to boiling.

“Jeff…” she groaned.

His answer was to pull back and drop his rough hands on her waist, gripping her hips tightly. Those black eyes were blazing. She panted in anticipation.

Then he lifted her up onto the counter, her behind scraping as she landed hard.

Whoa.

He appeared to have gotten over the glass figurine imagery.

Good.

She smiled to show him she approved.

He stood there, legs braced wide and unzipped his pants. Then dug into his pocket and pulled out the controversial condoms.

His eyebrows went up and down suggestively. “See? Good thing I had them in there.”

She laughed, and her heart did a weird sort of spasm that reminded her of when she ate too much garlic bread. But somehow she didn’t think an antacid was going to fix this.

Jeff, who had made quick work with the condom, slid inside her and she promptly forget to think. Or breathe.

A deep and probing kiss resuscitated her and Paige felt a groan starting from her toes and carrying up and out of her mouth.

Then he moved.

And she grabbed onto his shoulders and matched his rhythm.

Several delicious minutes later, Jeff leaned his forehead against hers and said, panting, “You have the best ideas.”

Paige relaxed her shoulders and sighed in contentment. “I’m glad you’re finally listening.”

“Got any more?” He pulled back and gave her a wolfish grin.

Oh, she was so in love, it was sickening. All he had to do was just exist and she was in awe.

“Yeah. Get me off this cold, hard counter.”

She grinned when he looked disappointed. But he complied and for several seconds they were both zipping, buttoning and adjusting clothing back into place.

Paige looked at the softball sized hole in her hose just above the knee ruefully. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said ripped. And these were an expensive pair too.

It was some kind of pantyhose law of nature. Only the good pairs rip. The pilly three dollar pair from the drugstore hung on until she just gave up and pitched them.

But why was she thinking about pantyhose?

As the moment of wild euphoria from their lovemaking slowed down, she realized Jeff was watching her.

His ran his hands down her arms, and gave her a tender kiss. “We need to talk.”

“You keep saying that.” Her heart started to pound again, only this wasn’t a good feeling. She was terrified of what he would say.

Jeff claimed that he hadn’t pursued her three years ago because he’d thought she was too good for him. But he had slept with her anyway. As he had now. Did that mean he thought she was too good to marry, but just fine for an affair?

That made no sense. And even allowing for the unexplainable nature of men’s logic, she still couldn’t swallow that one.

She could get past the little bit about the phone call from Gina last night and the condoms. But while her body kept saying yes to a purely physical relationship with Jeff, her heart knew she couldn’t handle it.

Jeff still held her arms, his look serious. “And we still haven’t talked.”

A noise to their right sent Paige leaping away from Jeff. The door to the bakery’s front shop area had swung open and a middle-aged woman stood there.

“Aunt Marie,” Jeff croaked out, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking guilty.

Paige blushed. Five minutes earlier and… her mother would have been dead of a heart attack. The phone call informing Louise Lombardi that her daughter had been caught doing the dirty on a kitchen countertop would have been the end, plain and simple.

Her daughter caught on a countertop with a Benedetto boy, of all people.

“Jeff. What are you doing here?” The woman wiped her hands on her red apron and shifted her gaze back and forth between the two of them.

“I had to use the bathroom, so I thought I’d see if you and Uncle Leo were around.” Jeff threw a thumb behind him. “Do you know the back door was open? You shouldn’t do that Aunt Marie.”

Paige was amazed at how casual Jeff sounded as he changed the subject smoothly. But then, she’d always been a good girl as a kid, and had never needed to lie. That’s what the fear of God and her mother had been able to accomplish.

On the flip side, the Benedetto kids, Gina included, had become experts at evading their mother’s suspicions.

His aunt waved her hand in dismissal. “I always leave that door open. If someone comes in here, what are they going to steal? Yeast?”

Paige liked his aunt already. Until she reached out and swatted at Paige’s skirt.

“You’ve got flour all over your skirt. What did you do? Roll around on the counter?”

Not exactly…

Before either of them could reply, his aunt smoothed her fluffy black hair down and said, “What’s this I hear about the two of you getting married?”

Well, that was the least embarrassing of the rumors running around anyway and at least it kept Aunt Marie from asking probing flour questions.

“Uh…”

His aunt interrupted Jeff. “Oh, before I forget, I just ran into Johnny Romano outside the store. He was looking for you.”

His aunt reached around Paige, her tank top straining to contain her as she leaned. “Excuse me, hon. I need some more wax paper.”

Paige shifted out of her way.

Jeff’s aunt continued talking as she reached up onto the shelf. “Johnny said when he finds you, you’re going to die.”

Paige blinked. Aunt Marie sounded completely unperturbed, but she felt a little sick, and it wasn’t from skipping breakfast.

Though he had stiffened, Jeff moved closer to her and squeezed her hand in reassurance. “When did you see him, Aunt Marie?”

“Just two minutes ago, right out front.”

Then a shadow fell over the door and there he stood. Johnny Romano himself, looking hot and angry. He was wearing a blue shirt this time, and he was hitching his dress pants up.

A thick meaty finger came out and shook at them. “Hey, Benedetto, I’ve been looking for you.”

Paige froze. But Jeff grabbed her hand and ran, dragging her back out the door they had come in.

“Hey!” Johnny yelled after them. “Get back here!”

Paige huffed and puffed, struggling to keep up with Jeff. “Maybe… maybe,” she gasped for breath. “Maybe we should talk to him.”

“And have him put a bullet in you? I don’t think so.” Jeff scoffed and kept jogging down the alley.

Paige winced as she twisted her ankle in a pothole. The hot sun and the smell of fried foods was not helping her upset stomach. “This is just getting a little ridiculous, don’t you think?”

“It’s been ridiculous right from the beginning.”

Well, that was a good point.

Paige followed Jeff into the back parking lot of Holy Rosary Church. “Where are we going?”

“Inside the church.”

She stopped running. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

Then she heard a curse from behind her as Johnny Romano tripped over a parking spot block and went down with enough force to crack the pavement.

“Never mind,” she said, picturing the look on Johnny’s face when he peeled his hefty frame up off the ground.

They went in through the side door, and Paige blinked in the soft lighting after the harsh mid-day sun outside. It was cool and quiet and Paige dropped her voice to a whisper automatically.

“Where should we hide?” It was a small church, and not given to nooks and crannies.

“In a confessional?” Jeff pondered, looking around the church.

Paige felt all the blood leave her face. The hairs on the back of her neck raised in fear. “No way! I’m not going into a confessional, not if I don’t have to.”

Jeff grinned at her. “Too many sins, Paige?”

“All involving you,” she told him with a swat on his arm as he reached for her.

“Okay, then, over here. You can’t see this from the parking lot door.” Jeff went and stepped behind the kneeler placed in front of the statue of Mary.

“You sit down here and hide and I’m going to have a little chat outside with Johnny.”

The look on his face wasn’t what she wanted to see. Jeff’s jaw was clenched and his hands fisted. He looked ready to launch himself on Johnny and do that guy thing where they roll around on the ground and try to land punches.

While it was sweet he was willing to do that for her, she was bothered by one little fact. Johnny had a gun.

“No! I don’t want you going out there.”

“Paige.”

“No, I’m serious. I’m not hiding unless you do. And can’t you find a better spot than that?”

Paige had visions of the priest coming in and catching them hiding underneath Mary. She’d rather redo the sidewalk condom confrontation with Grandma Benedetto than face a priest right now.

He looked set to argue, his eyes going to the door in longing. But he said, “Fine. Just come here and I’ll stay with you.”

Tentatively, she walked towards him, wincing at the loud echo her heels made on the floor. Jeff dropped to the ground. He patted the spot next to him and she sank onto the hard cold floor.

“So how long do we stay here?” she whispered.

“Just ten minutes or so.” Jeff shrugged, but he looked angry. “Then I’ll take you home and get my brothers and then I’ll have that little chat with Johnny Romano.”

Just skipping the little chat altogether would be better in her opinion. But she didn’t think Jeff was asking for her opinion.

Paige shivered. She had left her jacket back at the bakery and the air in the church was twenty degrees cooler than the kitchen had been.

Cold went to hot all over as the memory of Jeff throwing her up on the counter came rushing back. Very hot. Then she bit her lip and panicked. She shouldn’t think about stuff like that in church. Sheesh. What was the matter with her?

“Paige, look at me.” Jeff took her chin in his hand and turned her towards him.

The firmness of his words startled her. Paige’s heart started to beat wildly. Jeff sounded serious, tender, his black eyes wide and his mouth parted a little.

“Yes?” she whispered.

“In case anything happens to me, I want you to know that… I love you.”

Holy cannelloni. She hadn’t expected him to say that. Tears rose in her eyes.

He loved her. He had said he loved her.

And he looked like he meant it. He was stroking her cheek softly and his eyes were filled with love. Jeff loved her.

She tried to speak, but a choking sound was all she could manage. The tears spilled over and started down her cheeks.

“Oh, baby.” Jeff wiped the tears away, looking alarmed. “Don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

She gave a watery laugh. “It’s a good cry. Because I love you, too.”

It felt good to say what had been in her heart for so long, an unspoken secret. She loved Jeff. Always had. Always would.

Yet he looked amazed. “You do?”

“Of course I do.” It was starting to occur to her that Jeff’s strength wasn’t his ability to read people. But no one was perfect, and otherwise, he came pretty darn close.

Then he moaned and swept her into his arms. Jeff kissed her over and over until Paige was dizzy with love and desire.

His hands ransacked her hair and she clutched at his chest tightly for support, ready to topple over on the floor if he let her go. Jeff loved her and she felt it in every kiss, every touch.

“You’re amazing,” he murmured, pulling back to gaze at her.

Paige wiped her wet lips, giddy from his words. She had been waiting ten years for this moment, to see the look on wonder on Jeff’s face as he studied her face. As he proclaimed his love.

It was better than she had ever imagined it to be.

He reached for her. His hand touched her breast, stroking possessively.

Paige threw her head back. Movement from above caught her attention. Wait a minute. She snapped up straight and looked around, all amorous longings forgotten.

“What was that?” she asked suspiciously.

“What?” Jeff tried to nuzzle her neck.

She moved out of his reach, her heart starting to race. “I saw something move.”

If she didn’t know better, she would swear she had just seen the statue of Mary twist. It had looked a little like Mary had been shaking her finger at her in reprimand.

Jeff glanced left and right, his hands reaching for her again. “I don’t see anything.”

Frowning, she studied the still serene statue and said, “I guess I just imagined it.”

But she still pushed his hands away.

She certainly hoped she’d imagine it. It was either her imagination, she was going crazy, or Mary didn’t take kindly to make-out sessions beneath her.

Maybe it was a hallucination from all the stress. Plus lack of food. She was probably dehydrated. That had to be it.

Statues didn’t move.

Jeff watched Paige staring at the ceiling. Then she shook her head and turned back to him.

“It must have been my imagination.”

“I guess so.” He didn’t care what she’d seen, he wanted to get back to more important things. Like his lips on hers.

Nothing had felt better than seeing his sweet Paige look him in the eye and tell him she loved him. He was flying from that. Every inch of him was singing with gratitude.

It crossed his mind that this would be a good time to just put it all out on the table and propose to her, but he held back. After everything, the lying and embarrassing her in front of multiple people, he wasn’t sure she’d want to marry him.

He would rather cut his own leg off than hear her reject him.

Jeff was no wimp. He could hold his own drinking, fighting, and walking thirty stories up on a construction beam, but Paige had a way of making him vulnerable.

Later, when he was sure of her feelings about marriage, he would ask her.

He reached for her.

Something thumped him on the head.

“What the…?” He grabbed at the soft object as it tumbled down onto his shoulder and towards his arm.

Paige gasped.

He held up a rose in his hand and stared at it blankly. “Where did this come from?”

Paige whispered, “Ohmigod. That fell from the devotional to Mary. You know where people lay roses for Mary. It fell on your head.”

Jeff looked up. Mary had dropped a rose on him, huh? Maybe it was a coincidence, just a breeze blowing through. But maybe it wasn’t and he could take a hint.

When something hit him on the head, he knew he should take notice.

Don’t wait.

Resolve this thing with Paige once and for all.

Gulping, he took the rose and held it out to Paige. “Paige Lombardi, will you marry me?”

He held his breath. Paige stared at him, her mouth gaping. The seconds ticked by, and each one shaved a year off of his life expectancy.

She was going to say no… she was thinking of a way to let him down gently. He was going to die a bitter old man with a broken heart, after thirty years of mooching off his brother’s wives for home cooked meals…

“Yes.”

“Huh?” He must have heard her wrong, because it sounded like she had said yes.

“I said yes,” she repeated, louder this time.

Whew. All right then.

She was giving him another one of those watery smiles. It set him into action.

With a groan, he reached out and grabbed her, squeezing her hard against his chest.

“I’m so… I mean, you’re so… perfect.” Jesus, he really needed to work on the poetic thing.

He looked down at her ivory skin, her narrow nose and plump, kissable lips. “Can you forgive me for all the mistakes I’ve made? Walking out on you three years ago, lying about the condoms and Justin?”

She nodded. “As long as you promise to treat me like an equal. I’m not better than you, Jeff and I’m not fragile. I want to be partners.”

He liked the sound of that. Partners. He wanted that with Paige more than anything. “I can do that.”

He dusted a kiss across her very cute nose. “You know, when you’re raised the way I was, you’re taught to treat a wife with respect, not toss her up onto a bakery counter and have your way with her. It’s going to take some getting used to.”

Having his dad die when he’d been just a kid, Jeff had been raised by his mother and his grandmother. He had a healthy respect for women and their strength. But he’d also been taught to show a certain reverence for women, and the implied distinction that there were women you married and women you didn’t.

Wives didn’t roll around in flour unless they were baking with it.

She gave him a saucy grin. “Not everything your mother told you was right.”

He fought the urge to look around and make sure his mother didn’t pop up from behind a pew and hear Paige’s slanderous words.

Paige added, “So trust me, you can throw me up on any counter you want to. I really, really mean that. There’s nothing disrespectful about making love to me.”

Jeff knew she was right. He also felt his jeans go tight. In church, of all places. “Time to get out of here before we find ourselves on the road to hell.”

With pink cheeks, Paige said, “Good point.”

He helped her off the cold floor as she said, “You know, I really miss Justin. I got used to him being around.”

“Aside from the no sleep, the diaper changing, and the blood, yeah it was okay.” Jeff wasn’t about to admit that he’d gotten kind of attached to the little punk himself.

“Do you think we’re ready to have one of our own?” Paige dusted the seat of her skirt off and looked at him shyly.

He grinned. “I think we can have a lot of fun trying.”

♦ Chapter Twelve ♦

AIGE’S HEAD WAS SPINNING with images of planning their wedding as they walked out the front door of the church. Not to mention working really hard on making a baby after the wedding.

The Feast was going full force, and Paige glanced down the steps of the church at the crowd. Was someone calling her name?

“Paige Lombardi!”

That sounded like Gina. Paige spotted Gina pushing her way through the crowd, heading towards them. Gina was pulling a man along behind her, and they were holding hands.

Paige squinted against the bright sun. This was the second hallucination she’d had in ten minutes. She could swear that was Gina holding hands with Johnny Romano.

“What the hell is Gina doing holding hands with Johnny Romano?” Jeff said, coming to a dead stop on the stairs.

Shoot. She wasn’t hallucinating after all.

“Don’t you run away from us.” Gina held up her free hand to put emphasis behind her words. “Johnny and I have been looking all over for you. We have something to tell you.”

“Uh, Gina,” Jeff said, shaking his head a little. “Did I miss something here? Last I saw this guy, he was waving a gun at me and you were his prisoner.”

Gina marched up the steps in her short shorts and tank top, wearing cute little sneakers. Paige felt sweaty and dusty and frizzy in her suit. She found herself crossing her arms. Something was going on here, and Gina was behind it.

“There weren’t any bullets in that gun,” Johnny said, shrugging sheepishly.

“Well, that’s a comfort,” Jeff snorted.

Paige couldn’t pull her eyes away from Gina’s hand entwined in Johnny’s, an alarming familiarity obvious between them.

“It’s all my fault,” Gina admitted, though she didn’t look the least bit guilty. “I set the whole thing up. I wanted Frank to be jealous, so I asked Johnny to fake my kidnapping. That’s why I left Justin with Paige, because I didn’t want Mom to know anything about it.”

“Gina!” Paige was shocked. She didn’t know she was still capable of being shocked by one of Gina’s antics, but this did it.

Jeff looked ready to throttle his sister. “What? You have got to be kidding me.” His fists clenched and unclenched.

“No, I’m serious. It was a good idea!” Gina tossed her black hair over her shoulder defiantly.

Jeff turned to Johnny. “Then why the hell have you been chasing us all morning?”

Johnny gave a nervous laugh. “I wanted to apologize for the gun. And Gina and I have some news we want to tell you.”

Gina beamed at Johnny.

Johnny flushed tomato red.

Gina squeezed his hand and announced, “We’re getting married!”

“You’re what?” Jeff blurted out, his jaw hanging somewhere in the area of his waist.

Paige wasn’t capable of speech. Gina and Johnny? Married?

“Yep.” Gina grinned. “Johnny says he’s always loved me and going through all this for me proved it. And you know, spending time with him showed me what a great guy he is. He’s the sweetest man I’ve ever met.”

She shot a dewy eyed look at Johnny. “He’s treated me better than any man since Dad died.”

Well.

Johnny smiled at her. “It’s easy to do. You’re perfect.”

Okay.

Jeff closed his mouth and narrowed his eyes.

Paige forced herself to speak. “Wow, well, that’s fabulous news. I’m so happy for you.”

She reached out and gave Gina a hug. She was happy for Gina. Gina had always deserved better than Frank. Paige just never would have guessed that Johnny Romano would be better.

Whispering in Gina’s ear she asked, “What about all the business with the Cucuzzas? Isn’t Johnny mixed up in some bad stuff?”

Gina grinned. “Nah. Vinnie Cucuzza is his second cousin, but Johnny’s a regular guy. He owns a gym, actually. All legit.”

Jeff heard Gina’s remark and said wryly, “The family black sheep, eh, Johnny?”

Johnny laughed. “Got that right.”

As Gina pulled back from their hug, she looked at Paige’s outfit skeptically. “What’s all over your skirt? It looks like flour. And there’s a huge hole in your pantyhose.”

“Just a little bakery mishap.” Paige changed the subject before she had time to blush. “Have you seen Justin? Your grandma took him to your mom’s.”

“We were just there. Johnny’s great with kids and Justin really took to him. Johnny’s going to adopt him after the wedding.” Gina looked back and forth between the two of them. “But why did my son have stitches in his chin?”

Good question.

“Because I’m an idiot,” Jeff said. “He rolled off the bed.”

Paige opened her mouth to admit that it had really been her who had put Justin on the bed, when Jeff applied pressure to her elbow.

Then Jeff said, “I’m really sorry, Gina, I didn’t mean for him to get hurt.”

Paige melted like a snowman in a sauna. Jeff was protecting her again.

Protecting was good, as long as he knew she didn’t depend on his protection.

“It’s okay.” Gina shrugged. “No permanent damage. And I guess it’s sort of my fault for leaving Justin with you without any explanation. Geez, I can’t believe what that man drove me to do.”

Gina got misty eyed and so did Paige as she realized how much she wanted Gina to be loved and respected like she deserved to be.

“Well,” Gina said, firmly, “that’s all over. It’s a whole new life for Johnny and Justin and I.”

Jeff ruffled her hair. “Well, congrats on the wedding then. I just want you to be happy.” He turned and shook Johnny’s hand. “Take good care of my sister.”

“I will,” Johnny said fervently, that wondrous look of devotion on his face again as he stared at his bride-to-be.

“So what’s with you two?” Gina demanded, hands on hips. “You finally admit you’re both hot for each other?”

Paige shot Gina a warning look.

But Jeff just shrugged. “We’re getting married.”

Gina’s scream rang out so loudly, Paige feared for the safety of the church’s stain glass windows.

Gina jumped up and down and gave them each a smothering hug. “I knew it! I just knew you both were head over heels!”

Paige couldn’t help but laugh with her.

Gina added, “Paige, we’re going to be sisters!”

Paige hadn’t thought that far. Tears rose in her eyes. She had everything she could want. Friends. Family. The man she loved.

And it looked like she was moving back to Little Italy. Back home.

She fanned herself, drawing her eyes open wide to try and prevent her tears from spilling over.

“Oh, no, don’t go all weepy on me,” Gina said, sniffling and wiping at her own eyes.

“There’s no time for tears. We have two weddings to plan, Paigey.” Gina put her hands over her mouth. “Holy cow! We could have a double wedding!”

Jeff made a choking sound.

Paige pictured Johnny in a black silk shirt and red tie doing the chicken dance.

“I don’t think my mother would agree to that, Gina.” Her mother would rather go bald than share her daughter’s wedding with someone else. Especially the Benedetto/Romano wedding.

“Oh, you’re probably right,” Gina said. “Your mom is kind of stuck-up.”

Paige snorted.

“Can we go home now?” Jeff asked. “I’m hotter than hell standing here and I’m starving.”

Gina frowned at him. “Okay, keep your shirt on.” She turned to Paige. “Are you sure you want him? He can be such a jerk.”

Did she want him? That was the understatement of the decade. Jeff’s arm went around her. She smiled at him. “Oh, yeah. I want him.”

Jeff’s eyes went dark. He leaned down and brushed a soft kiss across her lips. His soft mouth and hard body surrounded her, and Paige knew this was where she belonged.

Gina grinned at them.

Mrs. Castenetti and Mrs. Bodziony walked by the steps of the church. They shot twin demon glares at Paige and Jeff.

Jeff called down, “Don’t worry, Mrs. C, Mrs. B. Paige and I are getting married!”

The two ladies stopped. Mrs. Bodziony assessed them. “When?” she challenged.

“When?” Jeff whispered to Paige out of the corner of his mouth.

She thought of Grandma Benedetto’s suggestion/command. “Right before Christmas,” she told him.

“Right before Christmas!” he called down with a big grin.

The women sniffed and moved on.

“Perfect,” Jeff said. “Now we don’t have to send an engagement announcement to the paper. Everyone in the neighborhood will know by dinner.”

Paige thought of her parents getting a phone call in thirty minutes from Mary Dibiasio’s mother. Paige’s mother would never forgive her if she found out about her only daughter’s wedding from a third party. Her only daughter’s wedding to one of those Benedetto boys.

“I’ve got to call my mom.”

“Well, we’re going to head back to Mom’s,” Gina said. “We’ll talk later.”

They hugged again and Johnny gave Paige a sheepish smile. “I really am sorry about the gun. I didn’t mean to scare you, I was just trying to be realistic.”

“That’s okay.” She probably had gray hair now, but hey, Gina was happy.

“I’m very skilled with firearms. I took a class at the community college. I got an A.”

“Wow, that’s great, Johnny.” Paige smiled and waved as they left.

“I need to call my mom right now and then we can go get something to eat, okay, Jeff?”

He nodded as she pulled out her phone and dialed, holding her breath hoping that the ladies of Little Italy didn’t have faster fingers than she did.

Her father answered the phone. “Hi, Daddy, it’s Paige. Is Mom around?”

“Paige! Hi, hon. Listen, what the hell is going on? Your mother is laying down with a headache muttering that she’s going to have to drop out of the Ladies Guild at church.”

Whoops. “Don’t worry, Dad. Just tell her my news and she’ll feel better. I’m getting married! To Jeff Benedetto.”

“No kidding?” Her dad sounded mildly interested. “I always thought you had a crush on him.”

Did everyone know she’d been mooning after Jeff for a decade? Not a pleasing thought.

“Well, congratulations, sweetie.” There was a pause, then he said in a low, hard voice she’d never heard before, “And listen, you tell that Benedetto boy that if he ever hurts you, I’ll have his legs broken.”

Paige gasped.

His voice returned to normal then as if he’d said nothing out of the ordinary. “I’ll have your mother call you later when she’s feeling better.”

Paige heard the click and swallowed hard. She looked at Jeff, stunned. Breaking legs?

“What’s the matter?” Jeff took the phone from her slack hand.

“I think I’m a Mob Princess,” she wailed. Her whole life she had never suspected. Could it be true?

And she really liked Jeff’s legs just the way they were.

“That’s okay, babe.” Jeff brushed her hair back. “I still love you.”

His lip was quirking up in a smile. She laughed.

“We should get a few things straight, Jeff.”

Paige knew she had been fighting her whole life to become independent and confident in who she was. That’s why she had moved out of Little Italy, and why she worked so hard at her career as an investment counselor.

Well, she was confident, and she was independent, and she could be all those things while still being a wife, a mother, and a daughter.

“I’m not the same shy little girl I used to be, Jeff.”

Jeff grinned. “I think I noticed that somewhere along the way.”

“I’m not quitting my job, even if we have kids.”

“I didn’t expect you to.”

She put her hand on her hip. This point was very important. “I’m not cooking every night. And you have to learn how to grocery shop.”

He held his hands up. “Done. Anything for you.”

“All right, as long as we’re agreed.” She let him tug her into his arms, not caring that they were still on the church steps and half the neighborhood was probably staring at them.

“Where are we going to live?” she asked.

“I don’t care. Anywhere you want.”

He kissed her forehead and she sighed in contentment.

“Of course, I’m kind of attached to that apartment now. Think your dad would let us have it?”

Paige thought that was a fabulous idea. Jeff was no poet, but he did have a romantic side. “It is ready to move into. Now.”

The idea held all kinds of appeal.

Jeff pretended to look shocked. “Paige, think what people would say. No, we’ll have to wait until the wedding.”

Then he ruined the proper effect by adding, “But we can sneak in and use it on the weekends.”

Now he was talking. “That’s true. Its got great furniture and it’s stocked with enough food to last us months.”

Jeff patted his pocket. “And I’ve got the protection.”

Paige laughed, than gave him a saucy grin. “That’s not going to last for months though.”

Dark eyes bore into her. “Hell, no.”

Then his voice softened.

“I love you, Paige, you do know that, don’t you? I always have, since as long as I can remember.”

Oohh, that smile of his. Marshmallow. That’s what she was. Hot and gooey.

“I love you too, Jeff.”

Then before God and the Italian sausage stand, he kissed her.

End

That's Amore

by

Erin McCarthy

First published as a Kindle Edition by Erin McCarthy, 2011
Copyright 2011 © Erin McCarthy
Cover Photo Copyright 2011 © Alina Isakovich | iStockPhoto.com
Cover created by Barbara Satow

All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Erin McCarthy.

About the Author

USA Today and New York Times Bestselling author Erin McCarthy sold her first book in 2002 and has gone on to pen more than 38 novels and novellas in the paranormal, contemporary romance, and young adult genres. A RITA award finalist and an American Library Association winner of the Reluctant Young Reader award, Erin is a member of Romance Writers of America, Horror Writers Association, and Ohioana. Visit www.erinmccarthy.net and www.vampireband.com for contests, excerpts, and the latest information on her upcoming projects.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

About the Author

Table of Contents