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“You never asked,” she whispered.
“I know.” I nodded, taking a deep breath. There were a lot of things I never asked, but I’d make up for it, even if it took the rest of my life. “So, I thought I’d buy you one.”
“The piano is mine?” She blinked in confusion, her gaze veering from the piano to me.
“No.” I shook my head, hating how the hope in her eyes diminished at my one word. “It’s all yours.” I stepped back and raised my arms. “The entire bar is yours.”
She choked out a laugh. “What?” Her head snapped left and right. “What are you talking about.”
“I bought you a piano bar.” My words were low, my confidence waning. I’d never second-guessed myself, but I felt like I was constantly doing that with Aida.
“You bought me a piano bar?” I nodded, wincing as she stared at me like I’d lost my mind. “You’re insane.” She stepped forward, her stomach at the same level as my head with her standing on the stage. “You’re totally, completely insane.” Her hands gripped either side of my face. “But damn if I don’t like it.”
I grinned, my muscles finally relaxing now that I could see the smile on her face. “You like it, then?”
“Like it?” She sighed. “I love it.” Her stare met mine, her light-brown eyes capturing me and promising to never let me go. “I suppose I should play you a song now, huh?”
“I wouldn’t say no to that.” She bent at the waist, placed a barely there kiss on my head, and spun around. I couldn’t look away from her as she stroked the piano and pressed a couple of the keys, but it was when she started playing a haunting tune, getting lost in each of the notes, that I realized how much music meant to her. She was in a world of her own—just her and the music—and I knew then that I would do anything to protect her, even if it was from me.
CHAPTER 14
AIDA
“This is the way my ma taught me how to make cannoli,” Lorenzo’s ma said, putting some ingredients into a bowl. I listened intently, not wanting to miss a single word she said. “First, you add all of the dry ingredients.” She glanced up at me. “Then the butter.” She placed the butter in the bowl and started to mix it with her hands. “You mix it until all of the lumps are gone.” She lifted her hands out of the bowl and pushed it toward me. “You try, cara.”
I grinned at the term of endearment she’d started using as I pushed my fingers into the bowl. I’d never made cannoli before. My ma always made savory things because it meant she could batch cook them. I was excited not only to be spending time with Lorenzo’s ma but also learning how to make them the traditional way that she’d been taught.
Ma cracked an egg into a bowl and added something else, whisking it up. “Is it lump-free?”
“I think so.” I wasn’t really sure, but one quick look over my shoulder had her nodding.
“Mix this into a dough,” she said, placing the wet ingredients in and watching as I tried to mix it all together. It mostly stuck to my fingers, and I panicked, thinking I was messing it up. “Here.” Ma reached into the bowl, pulling the mixture off my fingers and then taking over. She was a pro at it, and in no time had made it into the glossiest-looking dough I’d ever seen.
“What do we do now?” I asked Ma.
“We rest and chill it overnight.” She wagged her finger in the air. “Too many times, people try to rush the process, but you need to let all the ingredients merge together to permeate into a tasty dough.” She wrapped the dough in some plastic wrap and moved across the kitchen to the huge fridge. “Perfection takes time, cara.”
I nodded, understanding what she was saying. Sometimes it would take all day to make the perfect pasta sauce, but everyone wanted everything right away. We lived in a fast-paced world, one where we could place an order for food on our phones and it would be at our door thirty minutes later. Traditions were being lost, and I wanted to make sure I was doing everything I could to uphold them.
“Did I not say you weren’t allowed in here again?” Lorenzo’s deep voice came from the doorway.
I raised a brow and turned to face him, holding my sticky dough-covered fingers in the air. “You did.”
He stared at me, tilting his head to the side. “Then why are you in here with Ma?”
“I’m learning how to make cannoli.” I turned to wash my hands and then leaned back against the counter to give him my full attention. “You have a problem with that?”
“Yeah.” He stepped toward me, his eyes flashing, but I didn’t take any notice of his facial expressions. I was too focused on the way his shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and the way his chest moved with each of his breaths. “You’re defying me again.”
“I am,” I breathed out, biting down on my bottom lip the closer he came. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, and I couldn’t look away from his tan skin, remembering what was beneath the rest of the material. “What are you going to do about it?”
I knew there was nothing he could do, not right then anyway, because it was the middle of the day. Uncle Alonzo and Antonio had only arrived twenty minutes ago, and whenever they came to the house, they’d be holed up in his office for hours at a time.
“Don’t tempt me into something you’re not prepared to finish, Aida.”
I blinked up at him, having no intention of not following through. Weeks had gone by since I’d told him I would give us a proper chance, and since then, we’d done nothing but kiss.
I wanted more.
