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“So Jack, your DNA’s a hot commodity on the New York baby market?” Lili asked.
“Too right. Women would kill to have kids with this bone structure,” he joked, foolishly relieved she was speaking to him again, though the vapid topic could only further harden her opinion of him from sandstone to granite.
“Kill? Would they even have to bother?” Lili shot back. “I hear you’re so virile you could probably impregnate a woman just by looking at her crooked.”
Tilting his head, he slanted her a smile. “Let me know where to send the child support checks in nine months.”
She burst out laughing and the current spread along a fuse, igniting and drawing him in.
His laugh blended harmoniously with her opulent, full one and his chest contracted at the beautiful sound. Yeah, this.
Everyone at the table stared as if they’d never heard laughter. Jack knew how inappropriate this conversation was but where Lili was concerned, self-control was as hard to come by as morels in the fall. She dipped her head to study her barely-eaten veal, but not before he noted her lips still lifted in a sensual curve. Pride swelled his chest. He had done that. A fierce pulse thrummed through him, a biological signal telling him that he needed to be alone with her.
Now.
To hell with her family’s gapes and to hell with Tony and his tangible disapproval. He had kissed this woman thoroughly, not started World War Three. And he had every intention of doing it again.
Tony butted in, his tone stentorian. “Liliana, the dessert.”
“Sure, Dad,” Lili answered on a sigh, her bright aura muted once again as she swayed off to the kitchen.
Eighteen
On her way home from her parents’, Lili cast out thoughts of Satan, aka Jack Kilroy, and tried to focus on the restaurant’s troubles without wiping out on the Vespa. Last week, they’d had some Tuesday night success with two-for-one entrees, but her father hadn’t approved. He hated sales gimmicks, which, in his words, ‘cheapened the integrity of the food.’ Jack’s promise to have butts in seats for six months after the show aired was all well and good, but if her father insisted on running the restaurant like his personal fiefdom, any benefits to being featured on TV would disintegrate into dust.
She longed for the taping to be over. For Jack Kilroy to go back to where he came from so she wouldn’t have to think about the smile that melted her insides. Or the beginnings of a five o’clock shadow that made her fingers itch to shape his granite jaw. Or how he had quietly challenged her father at dinner when the subject of her unsuitable friends came up. She didn’t need anyone to defend her, but she had to admit it had been nice. Really nice.
Damn Cara and her crazy promises. And damn Jack Kilroy for giving her a glimpse of what might be possible. Today he had fed her food and chunks of his life story, and gone out of his way to help her. He had overwhelmed with his charisma and culinary chops. It wasn’t fair of him to instill such hope and want and need.
It wasn’t fair of him to be so dazzling.
After parking the Vespa, she trudged the block home, her precious veal parmigiana leftovers swinging in a plastic bag at her side. Playing catch up on The Bachelor with a limit of one fat-free yogurt was the tantalizing menu for the rest of the night.
“Mow any innocent bystanders down on your way home?”
She looked up, only to be leveled by a brash grin and moss green eyes. Jack was draped against the wall of her building, all feline grace, looking every inch like he belonged there.
Annoyance and attraction battled for space in her head. As usual, attraction won.
“Just a couple. Slow night,” she said, feeling a smile building inside her. She pushed it down but it burbled up like a crude oil spurt.
He unhooked his thumbs from his jean pockets and pushed one of her uncooperative locks away from her face. She resisted the temptation to fold into his hand.
Focus, Lili. It’s just the dazzle.
“We didn’t get a chance to talk properly at dinner,” he said. “You were so busy playing at serving wench.”
She took a mock bow. “You honored us greatly by eating at our table, my lord.”
His laugh was warm, enriching the air around her. Making him laugh pleased her more than it should have. Had Ashley brought a smile to his face? No matter, undoubtedly she had other talents.
“What are your cousins up to these days?” he asked.
She was currently last in the TMZ poll on Jack’s Gallery of Bangable Broads but, with the help of her posse, was closing in fast on the actress Jack had been wearing to film premieres a few months ago.
“Oh, a Facebook page called ‘Jack’s Fat Chick Rules,’ a Twitter war with my butt. You know, the usual.”
This time she laughed with him. It seemed churlish not to be a good sport about it.
