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Was he out of his ever-loving mind?
He had propositioned his friend and when she laughed him out of the room, he had gone back for more. So going back had worked out fairly well. Very well. Even now in the cold, harsh light of day, his body heated in remembrance of those soft lips parting for him, giving up that last token of resistance. A preview of coming attractions. Jules was stubborn and he bet she was like that in bed.
He shouldn’t have kissed her, but hell, there was no unringing that bell. Now his brain was tripping on the taste of her lips and the flare of surprise in her eyes when he had taken her in his arms. That by-now familiar tug of desire in his groin turned sharp, but today it felt different. One erection should feel like another, but when images of a blond, green-eyed knockout met memories of how her soft, womanly body had felt against his hard-as-titanium dick, it was easy to see that this particular morning wood had Jules Kilroy’s name on it.
He looked at his phone. Too early to call her. Too desperate.
But damn he was dying to hold her again and feel her flush against him. See how her eyes changed color when he entered her and she arched into him, begging him to fill her. Do her like no other guy could.
“So this is it.”
Startled out of his fantasy, Tad looked up from the staffing schedule he had been unable to focus on and found his uncle Tony standing in the doorway of Vivi’s.
About freakin’ time.
He had played this moment out in his head and now it was here, he felt shockingly unprepared.
Genius.
“This is it,” he said.
Tony stepped inside and gave the place a good going over. His flinty blue eyes, the same as his father’s, appraised and judged.
“How many bottles?”
“Fifty-six to start; we’ll expand later.”
For the last two years, while Tad had tended bar at DeLuca’s, he had been working toward opening this place. Tony had been ambivalent, to say the least. When Tad had finally broken the news that he would be striking out on his own, his uncle had given a curt nod and returned to stirring the gravy. Talking had never been their strong point.
“You want the tour?”
Over the next ten minutes, Tad did the proud owner impression and tried to ignore his uncle’s clear disapproval at seeing Derry making himself at home in the kitchen. As they walked out to the front of house, Tad steeled his lungs for Tony’s pronouncement.
“Your father did not want this for you.” Leaning against the bar, Tony loosed the sigh of a familial patriarch. The younger generation of DeLucas was nothing but a thorn in the old man’s side. “But if you must be doing this, you should be cooking. It is where your talent lies.”At DeLuca’s,he didn’t need to add.
“I need to do something for myself. Something separate from the DeLucas.”
And cooking was not on that list. Tony needed a successor, given that Lili and Cara wouldn’t follow in his footsteps at the restaurant. Lili came close but she’d found photography and Cara was a born event planner, not a chef. Which left Tad, the only male cousin in a family overrun with estrogen. The natural heir to the DeLuca throne.
There was a time when Tad had wanted a life on the line more than anything.
Afternoons with Tony, learning the ins and outs of a professional kitchen. Evenings with Vivi, learning how to infuse his food with love. Cooking had been fuel for his soul but all that changed one rainy night. A soul as black as his couldn’t be redeemed by the perfect ravioli.
Tony looked thoughtful. “Why would you want to be separate from your family?”
Tad choked back the bitter laugh that scratched the back of his throat. That was about the nicest thing Tony had said to him in the last ten years. Sure beat out the things he hadn’t said. Things Tad imagined hovering on his uncle’s lips, fighting to find voice.
Your selfishness killed my brother.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about how it feels to lose the two people in the worldyou care about the most. Don’t imagine their mangled bodies twisted up with blood-scoredmetal or lying in a hospital bed with tubes and electronic heartbeats for company.
And the worst of it was that all he could do was imagine. Because he had been dead to the world in a drunken stupor with not a care.
If he had been somewhere else—if he had been someone else—then his parents would be here today. In their house, cooking and laughing and nagging him about when he was going to settle down and give them chubby little bambinos.
He had robbed his parents of the opportunity to meet Jules and Evan. Given the chance, they would have fallen madly in love with Jules’s sunshine grin and Evan’s boundless energy. It would be impossible not to.
At Tad’s silence, Tony’s face softened slightly. “Taddeo, we have not talked properly in a while. If you have time—”
