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“You know, it’s very disturbing when someone knows you so well.”
“Too bad for you then, because your twenty closest relatives would all say the same thing.” Uncle Mike chuckled and reached around the small table to slap him on the shoulder. “Your father needed the same pushing when it came to Theresa. For some reason, he clutched when it mattered most. He didn’t want to move to Tuscany, didn’t want to leave his home. And now look at them. Four gorgeous children, thankfully with enough Irish in them to balance out that boiling Italian blood.”
Enzo swallowed the rest of his Killian’s. “I’ve seen you boil a time or two, Mr. Mild-Mannered Irishman.”
“Have to keep up with all of you, don’t I?” Laughing heartily, he waved over the waitress. She held up a finger, indicating she’d be over soon. “Go forth and conquer, son.”
Enzo let out a breath and ripped off more bread. “Okay. You’ve convinced me. And if I don’t end up conquering anything but my own sex life, you owe me.”
“What would you like?”
He thought it over while he soaked his bread in the stew. “The night off.”
“You already have the night off.”
“Then you have nothing I want. Guess I have to succeed.”
“That’s the kind of twisted logic I love you for.” Uncle Mike grinned and leaned forward, resting his broad forearms on the edge of the sturdy table. “Tell me this. Is she pretty?”
“Absolutely beautiful. Gorgeous dark red hair—” He stopped, catching himself. “Yeah, she’s perfect.”
“Is she Irish?”
Enzo speared a hunk of beef and shook his head, smiling. He didn’t know for sure, but with hair like Elena’s, he figured there was a damned good chance. “You’ll find out when and if. Now eat your lunch and stop badgering me.”
Ten
Elena rolledher shoulders and flexed her wrists. She’d been sitting in the same position for her entire lunch break and she needed to stretch out the kinks. But not now.
Right now, she needed to finish this scene. She’d taken to mirroring her sexual exploits with Enzo on the page between Victoria and Franz, and she was just about to get to the big climax. She still hadn’t worked out how the final scene would play, as these two were giving her some trouble. They didn’t fight. They had passion, but no drama. No angst.
She pushed her index finger against her temple as her nerve started to jump, right on cue. It wasn’t surprising. Any mention of strife, real or virtual, and she tensed up. Another offshoot of her upbringing. Raised voices weren’t allowed.
Better to stay bottled up and end up hospitalized for high blood pressure caused by stress, as she’d discovered her father had been this morning.
Hell, no. Life was just too short.
Which meant she was going to Utah, sooner rather than later. It also meant she’d fessed up to being a writer of steamy romances to her mother on the phone. That hadn’t gone great, but she’d felt relieved, at least until her mother asked her to email her work-in-progress.
A demon must’ve been sitting on her shoulder, because she actually had. To keep from puking, she’d punched out for lunch and started writing more sex.
She enjoyed it. Maybe that made her weird or some kind of horny bunny, but she was beginning not to care. This was what she’d chosen to do, and it was working for her.
If anyone didn’t like it, they could screw off.
Smiling, she started to type. Then her email dinged and she almost levitated through the ceiling.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
So much for being brave.
It took her five minutes to gather her wits enough to check out what she’d received. Much to her surprise—and relief—her message was from a reader named Jo, who wanted to thank Elena for “saving her sex life.”
By the time she’d finished reading Jo’s gushing words of praise for her “tantalizing prose” that had “helped reignite the flames of lust” between her and her husband, Elena was tempted to start chair dancing.
Thiswas why she wrote. Not just to titillate or make some money on the side. She wanted to affect people in positive ways, even if those ways seemed small and insignificant to some.
And even if some others thought what she wrote was trashy.
