“How’s your family?”
They fell into a brief, easy conversation, like most people who’d grown up in the neighborhood usually did. Except Izzie-who hadn’t yet rediscovered that easy camaraderie with all the people she’d grown up with. While the two of them chatted, Izzie tried to regain her cool, forcing herself to look at this guy like she looked at every other guy. As nothing special.
Fat chance. She couldn’t do it. He was special.
It had to be because he was the first man she’d ever wanted. Never having had him made the intensity of her attraction build. With no culmination-no explosion when she finally had him and got him out of her system-she’d remained on a slow, roiling boil of want for Nick for years.
So take him and get it out of your system.
Oh, the thought was tempting. Very tempting. Part of her desperately wanted to ask him to go with her to the nearest hotel and do her until she couldn’t even bring her legs together. If she thought he would, and that he’d then forget about it, never expecting a repeat and never-ever-breathing a word about it to anyone, she’d seriously consider it.
But he wouldn’t. Not in a million years. She knew that just as surely as she knew he’d never have even kissed her when she was underage, not even if she’d leapt on him and held him captive. Which, to be fair, she had…at the wedding.
He was a Santori. With everything that went with the name. His upbringing, his family, his own moral code meant he would never have a meaningless sexual encounter with his sister-in-law’s younger sister. The daughter of his father’s friend. The girl up the block. No way in hell.
He was the kind of guy who would have to date a woman he slept with. Dating-neighborhood style-as in hand-holding and miniature golf and pizza at his family’s place and cannolis at her family’s place. The whole deal. Gag.
Not that he’d actually asked her on a date. If he did? Well…that might have thrilled her once-years ago when she had actually thought the bakery and her family and Little Italy were all the world she’d ever need. Now, however, it just made her sad, because as she’d already realized, dating Nick equaled strings. Strings could very well choke her.
“Well, see you tomorrow,” Bridget said as she walked out.
Izzie hadn’t even noticed Bridget and Nick were finished talking. Cursing her cousin for bailing on her, Izzie cleared her throat, about to tell him she had to get back to work.
He spoke first. “So, do you forgive me?”
“Yeah, sure, no big deal,” she replied, forcing a shrug.
A tiny smile tugged at those amazing lips of his and the dark eyes glowed. “No big deal? You seemed pretty mad.”
Damn. He’d noticed.
“I wasn’t mad. More…amused.”
“Sure. That’s why my chest is bruised where you shoved me.”
Her jaw dropped and she immediately began sputtering denials. Then she saw his wide grin. “You’re an ass.”
“And a shithead,” he replied, his grin fading though the twinkle remained in his eye. “I really mean it, Iz, I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.” Stepping around the counter to see her better, he cast a slow, leisurely look at her. From bottom to top. Then down again. “But you have to give me a little bit of a break. You don’t look much like you did.”
“I’m not addicted to Twinkies anymore,” she snapped.
“You weren’t chubby.”
“I was the Michelin Man in pink tights.”
He shook his head. “You were just baby-faced the last time I saw you. A kid. Now you’re…not.”
“Damn right.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, still watching her as he leaned against the counter. The pose tugged his gray T-shirt tight against his shoulders and chest, emphasizing the man’s size. Lord, he was broad. But still so trim at the waist and lean at the hips. It was the hips that caught her attention-the way his faded, unbelted jeans hung low on them, the soft fabric hugging the angles and planes of his body.
It really wasn’t fair for a man to be so perfect.
“So…about our conversation last night.”
When staring at him-overwhelmed by his heat-she could barely remember her own name. Much less any conversation. “Huh?”
“What do you say? Will you give me your number?”
Oh, what she wouldn’t have given to hear those words from him ten years ago. Or hell, even two months ago-if she’d happened to run into him in Times Square and he’d proposed a sexy one-night-stand for old time’s sake. One nobody in Chicago would ever have to know about. She would have leapt on the offer like a gambler on a free lottery ticket.
“I don’t think so.”
“Come on, you know you can trust me. I’m not some stranger stalking you. We’ve known each other since we were kids.”
Well, he’d known her since she was a kid. From the time she’d met him, Izzie had only ever seen the glorious, hot, sexy man. Even if he had been no more than fourteen.
“Just a night out for old time’s sake?”
He was so tempting. Because the only old times she recalled were the heated ones of her fantasies. And the incident at the wedding. He’d ended up between her legs during both. “Well…”
He moved again, coming closer, as if realizing she was wavering. Dropping his hand onto the counter near hers, he murmured, “No pressure. We could just go grab a pizza.”
She stiffened, any potential wavering done with. The last thing she would consider doing is having a public meal with Nick Santori at his own family’s restaurant. Not when her sister would hear about it and tell their parents, who’d then get their hopes up about Izzie remaining safely in the nest, as they’d so desperately wanted her to do when she was eighteen.
Leaving home after high school had been a struggle. She’d been an adult, legally free, but she’d still had to practically run away in order to pursue her dream of dancing professionally. Especially because she was the only one of the Natale daughters who’d inherited their father’s gift in the kitchen.
Probably because she loved food so much. As evidenced by every one of her porky-faced school pictures from kindergarten through tenth grade.
Her father had been crushed that she didn’t want to work with him. But she had known she had to escape-had to take her shot while she could or risk regretting it the rest of her life.
So she’d gone. She’d hopped a train, determined to stay away until she’d given her dream of being a professional dancer everything she had to give.
Making it at Radio City hadn’t eased her parents fears of her being “out there all alone.” It had actually increased them once they’d realized she was unlikely now to ever come back.
If they knew just how wild her life had been for the first few years she’d been on her own, they’d have felt justified in their fears. Like any good girl kept on a tight leash, she’d taken great pleasure in breaking every rule in the book once she was free and able to make her own decisions. Especially once she had men surrounding her and money to do whatever she wanted.
It had been wild. It had also been reckless-so in the past couple of years, she’d settled down. Stopped partying, stopped hooking up, stopped blowing every dime. She now had a nice nest egg…which she hoped to use to re-establish her life in New York. She’d been approached about going back to work at Radio City, as a choreographer this time. And she knew she’d probably get the same offer from her other modern dance company.
Or she could teach. She could open her own school…she had the money to at least give it a shot. That was among the things she’d been considering doing when she got back to reality.
Her parents, however, would give anything for her to stay here and never go back to that other life, the one that didn’t include them beyond the weekly phone call and twice-yearly visit. Openly dating a local guy-a friend of the family-would raise their hopes unfairly and hurtfully. So she couldn’t do it.
Before she could say so, however, he stepped closer. Close enough to stop her heart. “You’re a mess,” he murmured. He lifted a hand, touching a strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek. Closing his fingers over it, he slowly pulled, wiping away flour or cream or whatever had happened to be there.