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He mouths something to me that I can’t make out since I’m too busy wrapping my dress back around me.
I watch in silence as he moves away from the window and disappears around a corner.
I take a step back in an effort to retreat from the vulnerability I’m feeling.
When he appears again, there’s a dark haired woman in a white one-shoulder jumpsuit next to him. Her hands are wrapped around his bicep, her gaze pinned to his handsome face.
He glances my way briefly, but I move out of view.
I can’t watch him with another woman. I turn my back to both of them and button up my dress before I grab my keys and purse and head straight out my door.
Chapter 10
Rocco
I curse under my breath as I watch my beautiful neighbor bolt from her apartment.
I know exactly why she’s headed out into the rain. She made an assumption about the brunette standing next to me.
There’s no way the woman who was undressing for me could know that my unexpected visitor is my cousin.
Gina Calvetti has an uncanny ability to show up at my apartment at the worst possible time.
I’m pissed off, but I fight the urge to express that. Instead, I reach for Gina’s hand and give it a slight squeeze. “I’m going to put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.”
She lets go of my arm. The fact that I’m only wearing a towel didn’t register with Gina when I opened my apartment door. She dove into a one-sided conversation about her ex-boyfriend and his wife as she led me into my living room.
Gina looks to me for relationship advice. She has yet to realize that I’ve never offered any words of wisdom related to the men she’s been involved with. It’s not that I don’t have an opinion. I do. Gina is like a sister to me, but she never lets me get a word in.
“Hurry,” she says, tapping her foot against the floor. “Do you want to get something to eat?”
“Sure.” I’d ask what she’s in the mood for, but our grandmother would see it as a betrayal if we went anywhere but Calvetti’s.
I have no problem sitting down for a meal at any one of the thousands of other restaurants in Manhattan, but Gina’s loyalty to the family is unwavering.
Guilt will haunt her if we hit up the French restaurant I recently invested in. I’m a fan of the food and the head chef, Lucien, but Gina won’t make it through the appetizer course before she’s on the phone with Marti confessing her culinary sin.
“I’ll order an Uber,” she mutters under her breath as I walk toward my bedroom. “I have so much to tell you, Rocco.”
I’m sure she does. Gina’s never been short of words.
I’ll sit with her and eat a plate of my grandmother’s pasta while I listen to her complain about her life. The entire time I’ll be thinking about the briefest glimpse of my neighbor’s body that I caught before the promise of more was stolen from me.
***
“Do you know her?”
I turn back to look at Gina. She’s sitting across the table from me, her hand wrapped around a glass of expensive red wine.
She knows that Marti will foot the bill for this dinner, so she’s indulging.
I’ll even the scales by sending a bouquet of pale pink peonies to the restaurant tomorrow afternoon. They’re Marti’s favorite and never fail to bring a smile to her face.
“Do I know who?” I question.
Gina rolls her eyes. “You keep looking over your shoulder at that woman with pink hair. Who is she?”
She’s not who I want her to be.
