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PROLOGUE
December 23
“No. For the last time, I am not buying your wife thong underwear for Christmas.”
Joe Santori didn’t go so far as to shake his finger in his brother Tony’s face, but he shot him a glare that said their argument was over. Tony had been needling him for twenty minutes about what Joe should purchase for his wife. Joe had drawn her name in the annual Santori family Secret Santa exchange.
“Come on, it’s not like I’m asking you to kill somebody. Just get her something hot—maybe a teddy—to make her start thinking that way again.” His brother frowned like a kid who’d had his favorite toy taken away. Tony, the oldest of the six Santori children, had been dubbed “the little prince” by their mother on the day of his birth, and had taken the title to heart. He wasn’t used to being told no. Joe mentally snickered. Apparently, lately, Tony’s wife had been the one saying it.
“Please? I’ll pay for it and I’ll throw in an extra hundred bucks. Do it ’cause I’m your big brother, huh, Joey?”
“You’re sick,” Joe said as he reached for his beer. They sat at a table at the crowded pizzeria their parents owned. All around them, people called out greetings and holiday best wishes at an ear-deafening level. He leaned closer to the table to make himself heard. “Why don’t you just buy them for her yourself?”
Tony groaned. “Because then I’ll be a sex-craved pervert who doesn’t respect the ordeal she’s gone through.” Tony seemed to shrink in his seat as he continued. “I’ll hear all about the worst pregnancy ever, the thirty-hour labor and the four months of being enslaved by my demanding, colicky son. And I’ll add another month of celibacy to my sentence.”
Joe hid a grin. Tony Santori—the Mack truck of the Holy Name High School football team a few years ago—was completely whipped by a woman who stood no taller than his chin.
No thanks. None of that for him. No matter how hard his family pushed brown-eyed beauties in his path to try to rope him into marriage, Joe was staying free and clear. Not that he had anything against brown-eyed beauties. Hey, he’d gone out with two different ones in the past few weeks. But he didn’t like the hearth-and-homey women his mother, grandmothers and sister-in-law kept coming up with.
No hearth. No home. No wife and ring and hapless husband who couldn’t get laid for months because he’d been, one, stupid enough to get his wife pregnant and, two, nutless enough to agree to no sex because his wife didn’t feel sexy after the pregnancy.
No thank you, not for Joe Santori.
“So, you want me to be the one who’s the sex pervert?” Joe asked. “How’s Mama gonna like that, me giving Gloria a wrapped present with hooker drawers inside?”
Tony tsked. “It’s a secret exchange, Joe.”
Joe shot him an incredulous look. “And you haven’t realized after all these years that Mama decides who everybody draws?”
Judging by Tony’s wide-eyed look, no, he hadn’t known. Joe loved the little—big—prince dearly. But he was often damn glad the gene pool had spat out the bulky and slow progeny first, leaving the lean and sharp genes for him—son number two.
Finally, feeling sorry for the poor, horny bastard, Joe muttered, “How about I get her a gift certificate to some store that sells that kind of stuff? Would that work?”
Tony’s face lit up like a starving dog who’d been thrown a bone. Then he frowned. “But don’t get one from a department store or somethin’. She’ll spend it on the baby.”
“Ladies’ store only,” Joe agreed.
“But a kinda skanky ladies’ store, okay? If it’s a nice one, she’ll buy some white boob-high granny underwear or nursing bras or something.” His brother visibly shuddered.
Dear God, please get me out of this conversation without hearing any more details I really don’t wanna know.
“Fine, Tony. I’ll do it.”
And that was how Joe found himself eighteen hours later at a brand-new Michigan Avenue shopping complex, The Red Doors. Some of Joe’s workers, who’d come into the office today to pick up their holiday bonuses, had mentioned the place. Not skanky in any way, its boutique, Sheer Delights, reportedly sold only the sultriest lingerie. He doubted he’d see any nursing bras. Not that he’d ever seen one on a woman before, thank heaven. That’d be enough to make any bachelor turn celibate.
Joe had to admit the complex was a good idea. The Red Doors was a one-stop center where women could shop for themselves in the boutiques, but also where men could shop for the women in their lives. Its unique hook was the computer system where guys could enter their wife’s or girlfriend’s measurements, coloring and preferences, and come up with the ideal gift. Either jewelry, lotions and perfumes, or, as in the case of Sheer Delights, lingerie. It was probably especially successful with men who got palpitations at the thought of entering a lingerie store and confronting all kinds of scary undergarments.
Inside, he asked about the gift certificate and was told that since the center had only been open a short time, he’d have to wait while they found some. In the meantime, he was invited to look around, and was especially encouraged to check out the private computer kiosks.
Following the instructions of the perky salesgirl, Joe made his way through the huge bottom floor of the complex. He passed a comfortable-looking coffee shop area, complete with juice bar and attentive staff.
Toward the back, beneath the sweeping staircase that led shoppers up to the three boutiques, he found several closet-size kiosks with louvered doors. Inside a vacant one was a desk with a computer terminal. He pulled up the program as if he were really shopping. “What would I like to purchase? Jewelry? Nah, let’s cut right to it and see some silk and lace,” he muttered out loud.
When the computer asked him to enter the coloring of the woman for whom he was buying, he paused. “Not Gloria.” No way was he going to put his sister-in-law’s information in here. The thought gave him the heebie-jeebies. Instead he started entering details off the top of his head. “Long, straight, light brown hair,” he said as he chose. He added more preferences: midnight-blue eyes, heart-shaped face. “Tiny cleft in her chin.” What could he say? He liked a bit of stubbornness in a woman.
When it came to body shape, there was no contest. He liked curvy women. Very curvy women.
After he’d finished, he leaned back in his chair to wait, wondering if he was about to see Julie Roberts’s head on Marilyn Monroe’s body. “This’ll never work,” he said with a sigh.
