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“Coffee’s hot.” Massimo’s strong voice doesn’t get lost in the spacious apartment. “And breakfast is almost served.”
As much as I want to run toward breakfast because it smells so good, I gingerly pad across the Italian tiles to the kitchen, and it almost feels like a walk of shame because last night, I put myself in Massimo’s arms and nuzzled into this warm chest, and this morning, I don’t know how I feel about that.
I slide onto a stool at the kitchen counter, and he flashes me a grin that sends all kinds of mush through me.
Really, the man is too attractive for his own good.
I let my gaze slide down his ridiculously perfect body and try to figure out why a black pair of pants with a belt and silver belt buckle are so outrageously sexy on a shirtless man. Bare feet too.
“How do you like your coffee?” he asks.
“I don’t drink coffee,” I reply, trying to shake out the tangles in my hair.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” He hands me a cup. “Try it.”
I look at the thick, black liquid.
“It will put hair on your chest,” Massimo says.
“I don’t doubt it,” I say. It smells delicious but I’ve never been a coffee drinker. It gives me too much of a buzz, and I get jittery.
The door buzzer sounds.
“Saved by the bell,” I say, sliding off the stool. “I’ll get it.”
I peer through the peephole. On the other side of the door is Eve and she’s carrying a large gold box in her arms.
I open the door. “Eve!”
“Ooh, hello, what are you doing here?” Her eyes gleam with mischief as they sweep over me wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt. She grins. “Playing sleepovers with my brother? It’s about time you two stopped playing cat and mouse and finally did the deed.”
“Oh, no it’s not like that—”
She waves me off and breezes past me into the apartment. “I’ve already made up my mind what’s happening, and it’s way more interesting than oh no, it’s not like that.” She puts the giant gold box onto the kitchen counter. “Hello, gangster brother. Is that coffee fresh?”
Massimo seems unfazed by the tornado that is Eve barreling into his apartment.
“Ignore her,” he says to me as he takes a nonchalant sip of coffee. “She keeps forgetting how I am a powerful man who can have her killed.”
Eve scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Like you could live without me.” She hands him a luxurious looking black envelope. “As requested.”
I don’t know what is going on, but I get the feeling that Massimo has been up for hours making things happen.
He hands her my cup of coffee. “Bianca doesn’t drink it.”
“Is she unwell?”
“No, she doesn’t like it.”
Eve looks confused. “I don’t understand.”
It’s my turn to roll my eyes at their teasing but can’t help but laugh when she takes a sip of coffee and sighs dramatically. “God, it’s almost as good as sex.
Which I’m hardly a good judge of.
“You know, I expect a gigantic bonus for getting out of bed early on a Sunday morning,” she says, taking another appreciative sip of her espresso. “Thankfully, the box was ready to pick up when I got there, and an assistant met me out front so I didn’t have to wait around. And in reality, it should be you that’s thankful, because waiting around on a Sunday morning before her first cup of coffee could make this girl a little bit surly toward her stepbrother. Mmmm, this coffee is good, I need one of these coffee machines in my apartment.” She taps the complicated-looking coffee machine. “Christmas is just around the corner, just saying.”
Massimo lifts an eyebrow. “Eve..?”
“Hmmm..?”
“Take a breath,” he says.
“I can’t, I’ve got things to do and people to see.”
She drains her cup of coffee.
“Anyway, I must be off now. I have a breakfast date, and then I plan to spend the rest of the day in bed with her, so do not ring me. I mean it, Massimo, it’s my day off. I don’t care if the sky is falling in or a limb has fallen off. Do. Not. Call. Me.”
She disappears in the same cloud of sparkling energy as she arrived, and Massimo closes the door behind her.
“I wish I had her energy,” I say.
“We all do. She makes me feel like an old man.”
“I can’t imagine you as an old man.”
“Just as I am now but even more handsome.”
“And modest, no doubt.”
“Modesty is completely overrated.”
I look at the gold box in front of me. “So what’s all of this about?”
Massimo leans against the marble counter and takes a sip of his coffee. “Go ahead and open it.”
I give him a quizzical look. “It’s for me?”
He nods, and my heart flutters in my chest.
He bought me a present?
I undo the silky ribbon, lift the top of the box, and immediately gasp. Inside, beneath layers of soft tissue paper, I see a flash of ruby-red silk, and tears spring to my eyes. I carefully part the layers of paper with shaky fingers, and the moment my fingers touch the silk dress, my first tear falls.
