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“I’ve already had Aunt Sylvia calling in a complete conniption. It was all the congregation at seven a.m Mass at St. Jude’s could talk about.”
“Aunt Syl called?” Lili glared at her own phone, lying like a time bomb on the coffee table. Church bells chimed faintly in the distance, and her throat went dry. Her aunt was probably interrogating Father Phelan this very minute about the going rates for an exorcism.
A tremor started up in Lili’s thigh, and not the sexy kind either. If Sylvia knew about Lili’s fallen woman status, her parents were waking up to the joyful news right about...
Lili’s phone started to vibrate.
Now.
“That’s Mom,” Cara said as her own phone rang out with Beyonce’s All the Single Ladies, which meant Dad was leaving a message on Lili’s phone. “Ciao, Mom.”
Lili shook her head fiercely from side to side, the signal for I’m-not-here-to-anyone-especially-parents. Cara raised a razor thin eyebrow and uh-huh-ed and um-ed through the conversation before ringing off.
“You need to call her. Il Duce’s on the warpath.”
“Who’s Il Duce?” Jack’s crisp voice penetrated through Lili’s fugue as his bare feet whispered across the plush carpet.
“My father,” Lili said. “I’ve brought shame upon the entire family.”
She stared at Jack, daring him to come up with some smug, charming response so she could punch him in the arm. His face registered only concern. He slid an arm around her waist and slipped his fingers below the border of her cargo pants, caressing. A chef’s hands, scarred and callused. She had never felt so grateful for the touch of another human being.
Moving behind her, he skated his hand beneath her tank top while his muscle-corded forearm banded beneath her breasts. Usually, when a guy cradled her, she felt big and graceless, but not with Jack. He was the right size for her, and dare she say it, she was the right size for him. She allowed her body to rest into Jack’s hardness and strength, marveling at how quickly the tremor abated.
“It’s going to be all right,” he said, his lips tickling her ear. She didn’t believe a word of it but her rapidly-heating skin clearly appreciated the effort. If it had been Marco, he would have made some off hand comment about her loveable squishiness.
Cara’s lips formed a grim seal. “Well, there’s work to be done. Jack, you’re still coming to Casa DeLuca for dinner tonight?”
Lili’s discomfort zone expanded alarmingly. Her father and the man she had publicly groped at the same table with easily accessible steak knives, her matchmaking mother, and Aunt Sylvia wringing a novena out of the rosary beads?
“Counting down the hours,” Jack said easily.
Cara’s eyes scanned her phone, then squinted up at Lili. “Now, no more PDAs, you two, especially during the taping. There’s only so much we can edit out.” Her sister strode out, leaving a blast of air in her wake completely disproportionate to her slight frame.
Jack still held tight, his strong arm feeling so good twined around her. Her body prickled with pleasure before ratcheting up to high alert. She told herself there’d be no more kissing. She was most insistent.
“How are we doing?” he asked, low and seductive.
The sheer absurdity of the situation crashed down on her hard. Was there such a thing as a sympathy concussion? Because if there was, she must have it. Considerable damage to her grey matter could be the only way to explain her presence in that video, in this man’s hotel room and by extension, his solid, ripped arms.
She jerked away. “You just can’t stop, can you?”
“I told you I can’t help flirting with hot women. You’re a hot woman, so you’ll just have to put up with it. Most women would be happy to receive this kind of attention.”
Perhaps, but in the cold light of day, when forced to address your panda eye make-up and the run in your stocking, clarity kicks in like a bitch. This was no longer a bar on a steamy summer night crawling with tipsy Frenchmen, stunning Brits, and oversexed Italian girls. This was the morning after the night before. The Brit was still hot. She was just a punch line on the Internet.
“I’m not most women—” she was certainly not hot “—and right now, I’m more concerned with my reputation. And the fact I’m known all over the Twittersphere as the fat chick.”
“You’ve changed your tune from ten minutes ago.”
“Ten minutes ago, I was anonymous Kilroy bait in a bar. Now I’m famous.” He grunted. “You’re not famous. No one knows who you are.”
She wasn’t too hopeful of that lasting long, not once her cousins got involved, but they weren’t here to blame and he was.
“This is entirely your fault,” she snapped. “You and your grabby hands.”
“I’d say your grabby hands are what’s driving Internet traffic this morning.”
“Oh, God.” Both offending hands went to her burning face. How was she ever going to live this down? She met Jack’s grin, now bright enough to power the grid for the Chicago Loop.
