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I think I’m in shock. I was fine when he kidnapped me from Mustangs. I didn’t even mind that he was waving a gun around at the patrons and employees of the joint. But Lorenzo thinks we’re going to get married in a few months, and that caught me so off guard that I can’t keep my head straight. “You said you’re a lifelong bachelor. That means you aren’t getting married.”
He corrects me with a quick tut of his tongue. “That would have been true a year ago. I’ve never had an interest in settling down. Most women bore me after a while. I think that’s why I waited so long to take you,” he adds with a rueful smile. “I needed to make sure that what we had was real.”
“We don’thaveanything,” I frown. “I-I-I’m a stripper. You’re a client. That’s it.”
Lorenzo makes an empathetic look. “Havana, how many hours have we spent together in the Diamond room?” When I tell him that I don’t keep track of that, he announces the answer for me. “About sixty hours, give or take,” he says with a quick shrug. “At least an hour a day, twice a week, for the last six months. Sometimes more, but never less. I paid for your time, after all.”
My father should thank him then because I didn’t see any of that money.
“Sixty hours, Havana. I know everything about you. I know that you want a cat, but you can’t get one while your father is going through treatment because you don’t want to introduce harmful bacteria to his system.” Lorenzo starts rattling off facts. “I know that you went to college and got a degree that you never use. And I know that even if you were using your degree, you’d be unhappy because you want to be a lawyer. I know what your Sunday nights look like and how you spend them meal prepping with your father. I know your hopes and dreams, your everyday life, and how you spend your extra money.”
He gives me a deep, sincere look that speaks directly to my soul. “Havana, in those sixty hours, I learned more about you than I know about anyone except for my brother.”
What did I learn about him? I struggle to come up with a good answer. I’ve asked him a million questions about the life he leads outside of his weekly Mustangs visits, but I can’t remember any of what he said. “I still don’t understand,” I admit. My frustration is at an all-time high.
Lorenzo frowns for only a second before the realization dawns on him that he missed telling me part of the story. He almost starts bouncing in his seat with excitement when he realizes how to remedy this situation. “I didn’t tell you about the thunderbolt,” he announces proudly. “Are you familiar with the thunderbolt?”
I’m familiar with a bolt of lighting. I’m familiar with thunder occurring during a storm. But a thunderbolt? “No,” I draw the word out to span across three seconds.
He’s like a little boy with a popsicle; he’s giddy. “Colpo di fulmine,” Lorenzo says with a tender smile. This time when he looks at me from the driver’s side, his eyes linger on my face. “The thunderbolt strikes a man like lightning. It turns him inside out and flips his life upside down.”
I can feel myself softening like the look that was on Lorenzo’s face. “Why does a thunderbolt happen?” I ask, now invested in finding out more information.
Lorenzo shrugs his shoulders. “I’m not sure. I don’t know if there’s a scientific reason behind it, but it’s love at first sight. It’s when you see someone and feel a spontaneous, instantaneous connection that you can’t deny.”
It almost sounds kind of beautiful. “How is a thunderbolt important?”
“Because I was hit with it the second I saw you,” he admits. “I knew from that moment on that my life would never be complete without you by my side.”
Many men have claimed to fall in love with strippers at first glance, but Lorenzo is the first man that I believe. He doesn’t look at me like he wants to devour me on the spot; he looks at me as though he wants to nurture and take care of me. He looks at me the way a man in love looks at a woman.
I’ve waited my entire life for someone to feel this way about me. I just never thought the person that fell head over heels for me would be a man like Lorenzo Riva.
9
LORENZO
Ican tell that I’ve piqued her curiosity, but she’s still reserved. Havana asks a few more questions before turning inward and remaining silent for the rest of the drive. She stares out the window at the passing scenery illuminated by the moonlight. It isn’t a long drive to Lawrence, but it’s long enough for me to wonder if I could have handled this better.
When we arrived at my home on the outside of town, the driveway is blocked with large stone pillars and a black, wrought iron gate strewn across the entrance. There’s a small number pad on the side of the pillar for guests, but I click a button in my car, and the gates slide apart before us.
“I knew you had money, but wow.” Havana whistles as I drive onto the grounds. “Is it only you here?”
It’s never been justanyonehere. My parents bought this home from the family that built it. With servants’ quarters behind the house and ten bedrooms on three different floors, our home was always too large for the four of us. There was always a friend staying at the house or family members that needed a place to live while they were between homes. My father opened the doors of our house to anyone and everyone that said they needed assistance.
He passed that gene onto me. The servants’ quarters are no longer servants’ quarters; they’re a makeshift mother-in-law suite. Except I don’t have a mother-in-law, so my parents have taken over the space. They have family over all the time staying in the additional bedrooms, but for the most part, it’s the two of them staying out of my hair.
I’ve housed cousins, far-off relatives visiting from Italy, members of the family, and more in the massive ten-bedroom mansion that my parents bought over four decades ago. “Not really,” I gruffly respond. “I think, right now, I’m the only one living in the main house, but my parents are in the back house, and my mother’s two sisters are visiting with their families. So they’ve been in and out quite a bit. They’re actually quite obnoxious because they keep leaving the back door unlocked. I think one of my cousins has been sleeping in the basement, but that might also be because there’s a game room down there, and he’s obsessed with the old-style Mario.”
I can tell that I’ve freaked her out. Her eyes are wide again and her lips are slightly parted. I don’t know how to ease her into how close the Riva family is, so I just keep going. “During Christmas time, all ten bedrooms are filled to the brim. The back house is packed with more kids than you think should be stuffed into a four-bedroom house, and there’s never a dull moment. But it’s nice,” I flash her a smile, “it truly feels like home during the holidays.”
“I’m an only child,” Havana admits after a few long seconds. “My mom left years ago. It’s just been Dad and I for a while. The noisiest holiday in our house is Super Bowl and that’s because my dad’s old friends show up and yell at the TV with him while I make appetizers for everyone.”
Her dad’s old friends. I wonder if they’re other members of the Calvino family. “Are you close to his friends?”
Havana shrugs her shoulders. “Not really. They all used to drive trucks together or something. My dad keeps in touch with them by text, but they’re busy, I guess. And it’s tough to see your friends happy when you’re suffering.” A frown puts a wrinkle on her forehead as she looks away from me. “What was it like growing up with all the chaos?”
There’s a wistfulness in her tone that almost breaks me. I struggle to hold myself together as I pull into the garage. “It’s an acquired taste, I think. My father is very charismatic and an extrovert. If you put him in a cage with a pair of lions, he’d wind up making friends. But my mother is a little more reserved and the big events wear on her sometimes. She’s fine around immediate family, but everybody shows up for the holidays and it gets a little overwhelming.”
