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“Cara, what time Mass do you attend in New York?”
“Nine-thirty, St. Patrick’s Cathedral,” Cara replied without missing a beat. Clever girl. No one but tourists attended St. Pat’s, but Sylvia clearly wasn’t in the loop, or had any idea that Cara lived forty blocks uptown.
“Better than your sister. She can’t be bothered,” Sylvia said.
“Too busy with those atheists. Those artists,” Tony snarled, to which Lili inhaled deeply and turned a dull shade of red.
“Tony,” Francesca murmured. “Not now.”
That would normally be a cue to let the uncomfortable moment slide but Jack didn’t like how Tony’s tone sucked the conviviality out of the proceedings.
“Atheist artists?” he asked innocently.
Tony delivered a pained expression. Shocker. “My daughter spends too much of her time with unsuitable people.”
“Good for her.” Jack met Tony’s glare head on. “Can’t be any worse than restaurant folk. The people who work for me are a bunch of miscreants and reprobates. Probably the same for you, I imagine.”
Tony’s stone-faced expression didn’t budge a millimeter. Francesca smiled at him brightly. Jack caught Lili’s look of surprise and succumbed to a pleasurable dizziness.
Sylvia leaned in close and gave him a flash of crinkly bosom that turned his wash of dizzy to nausea. “Are you Catholic, Jack?” Jesus Christ.
“Sylvia,” Francesca warned.
The Italian Inquisition flapped her hands. “They say most relationships start in the workplace. Where else is Cara going to meet a man?” Her eyes flashed with an oddly lascivious disgust that made him shudder. “Even if he’s a donnaiolo, at least he’s good-looking.”
He had no idea what he’d just been called, but he needed to nip this in the bud. “Cara’s the best producer I’ve ever worked with and we make a great professional team, but that’s as far as it goes.”
Cara winked and gifted him a wide grin. “Thanks, babe, your check’s in the mail.”
“We’re very proud of her,” Tony said with a genuine smile that completely disconcerted Jack, probably because it was the first time he’d seen the older man do it. “Plenty of time for her to settle down.”
There was no missing how Lili’s expression faded to hurt at Tony’s words. Those bright eyes, that sunshine smile, dulled to dishwater in the face of some family dynamic Jack tried hard to grasp. Lili, loyal, hard-working, by all accounts a wonderful daughter was on the outs with her father. Sure there was the video, but Lili couldn’t be blamed for that.
“So Jack, are you in the market for a wife and children?” Francesca asked at which he almost choked on a ribbon of linguine.
“Mom!” Lili and Cara exclaimed together, echoing his own horror.
“I’m so sorry,” Lili said, the first words she’d spoken to him all evening. “Ever since my mother beat cancer, she thinks it’s given her license to say whatever the hell she wants.”
“I don’t want to die without getting all the answers,” Francesca said with an astonishing smile that reminded him of Lili. In twenty years, she’d still have that smile. Her kids would have that smile. Their kids…Hold your horses. She has a nice smile. Enough said.
Tony gave his wife a tender kiss on the cheek and muttered something in Italian.
At Jack’s raised eyebrow, Cara repeated it slowly. “Casa senza fimmina 'mpuvirisci. It means ‘how poor is a home without a woman.’”
How poor indeed. Lili’s words about her father’s devotion to her mother came back to him. The man might be a hard nut with his daughter but he clearly loved his wife with a frightening and enviable passion.
Lili spoke again, her voice smooth as warmed butter, and he imagined that restful tone soothing him after a hard night or a bad day.
“If Jack was to get hitched, I can see it now. Riots in the streets. Women the world over tearing their hair out. It would be best if he stays single. The fate of womankind depends on it.”
“She’s right,” he agreed affably. “My public wouldn’t stand for it.”
“Never underestimate your capacity for marriage and parenthood, Jack,” Francesca said sagely. “You may be surprised at how rewarding it is.”
“Of course, Jack’s had plenty of chances to father children,” Cara said, knowing full well her words would cause a widespread halt to the collective chewing. It did. “He gets constant offers from busy career women and New York socialites who want him to be their baby daddy. I’m surprised he hasn’t taken anyone up on it, if only to ensure the genius lives on.”
Jack speared his producer with a murderous glare, though his irritation stemmed more from the fact he couldn’t flat out deny it. He’d had several offers from women who wanted a child without the inconvenience of finding a husband first. Note to self: tear the blabbermouth Frenchman limb from limb.
