Her mother glanced up at the clock. “Remind me I have to give him his pills at nine.”
“I will.” She peered down at her niece, smiling. “Ready to go?”
“Yup.”
Vicki skipped out the back door and down the back steps, running to join her brother in the yard. Theresa followed at a slower pace, watching them. She couldn’t believe how big they were. Wasn’t it just yesterday she was visiting them in the hospital? She remembered their tiny pink faces were serene with contentment as she held them tightly in her arms, then lifted them to her nose and inhaled deeply, intoxicated by their pure, innocent baby smell. Tears threatened and she shook them away. Jesus, what was wrong with her? It felt like anything could set her off these days. Reese, her father, the kids . . . maybe she was having a nervous breakdown.
“Okay, you two,” she called, joining them. “I’ll pitch and you can take turns hitting. Phil, clock your sister with that bat and you’re a dead man, got it?”
“Yeah,” Phil muttered.
Both kids complained of the cold, but Theresa wasn’t having any of it. It wasn’t cold at all; they were just so used to sitting slack-jawed in front of the TV they’d forgotten the joys of brisk, invigorating exercise. When she had kids, she’d sure as hell make sure they got some fresh air once in a while.
When she had kids.
Theresa felt the bottom of her stomach drop. It had always been if, not when. Yet looking at Vicki and Phil, who were busy now squabbling over who would get to hit first, Theresa was overcome with a hollow feeling inside. Where is this coming from? she puzzled, frightened by how real and deep the feelings of longing were. Yes, she’d always dreamed of getting married, but kids had always been an abstract concept. Clearly, this was somehow related to Reese. Or—
No.
Genuinely unsettled now, she focused her energies on being an aunt. Her brother stuck his head out the back door and called the three of them in for dessert. Walking back towards the house, she was actually looking forward to losing herself in adult conversation.
But when she entered the dining room she found Michael Dante sitting there.
He was surrounded by her family, all smiling like cats who had swallowed canaries.
“Let me guess,” she sighed. “You were walking by and decided to stop in.”
“I invited him,” her brother confessed.
“Look, Terry, Michael brought cannolis from Dante’s for dessert,” her mother interjected, clearly hoping to forestall World War Three from erupting between her two children.
“Gee, cannolis. Well, that makes it all right, then,” Theresa said sarcastically.
“Who wants coffee?” Debbie asked with false cheer.
“I’ll have some,” Michael said politely, holding his cup aloft. His eyes sought Theresa’s but she refused to look at him.
Coffee poured, Michael engaged in small talk, to which Theresa’s family eagerly responded. She couldn’t get over how much they liked him. The beatific smile on her mother’s face when she looked at him . . . And her father! Madonn’, telling him things about other relatives he hardly ever talked about outside the circle of the immediate family. How could they do this to her? Good old, stupid Theresa, doesn’t know when a man is good for her. Let’s invite Michael over without her knowing and see if she finally gets it. After the tenth or eleventh time her brother referred to Michael as “Mikey D,” her last frazzled nerve gave way.
“Will you stop calling him that?” she snapped. “He’s not one of the Back Street Boys, for Chrissakes.”
“That’s his nickname,” Phil said defensively. He looked to Michael for confirmation. “Am I right or am I right?”
“You’re right,” Michael said tepidly.
“It’s moronic,” Theresa insisted.
“What?” her brother jeered at her. “You can come up with something better?”
Theresa laughed ominously. “You don’t want me to go down that road, okay?”
“Go down it,” Phil challenged.
“Drop it, cidrule,” their father commanded.
Theresa rose and started clearing the table. Well aware she couldn’t avoid Michael forever, she followed him out to his car when he left, knowing that behind the lace curtains in Phil and Debbie’s front window, her whole family was watching them talk.
“I don’t believe you,” she began, crossing her arms across her chest as she parked a hip against the hood of his car. “You think I like being ambushed?”
“It wasn’t my idea,” said Michael. A breeze rippled past, and Theresa caught a whiff of what she assumed was his aftershave, a clean, woodsy scent that she quite liked. Or would have, if someone else was wearing it.
“I don’t care whose idea it was,” she countered. “You should have said no.”
“I told you,” Michael said stubbornly. “I’m not giving up.”
“And I told you: You’re wasting your time.”
“Time’s all I got, Theresa.” Michael’s mouth eased into a slow, confident smile. “I’m in no hurry.”
Of all the stubborn, pigheaded, obstinate . . . he wasn’t going to take the hint, was he? It was futile. Useless. He would keep at her until she finally broke down. Unbelievable. Keeping her expression bland, she regarded him.
“If I go out for coffee with you, will you get off my case?”
“How about dinner?”
“How about a swift kick in the pants?”
“Is that a yes?”
Theresa’s jaw dropped. “You are one pushy SOB, you know that?”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Michael replied, actually looking pleased.
“Take it however you want!” She could hear her own voice rising in disbelief.
He jingled his car keys in his pocket impatiently. “So, dinner?”
Theresa threw her hands up in the air. “Fine, dinner! Whatever it takes to get you off my back!” She turned towards the front window, cupping her hands around her mouth. “I’VE AGREED TO HAVE DINNER WITH HIM!” she called loudly. “YOU CAN ALL GO BACK TO YOUR OWN LIVES NOW!”
She saw the curtain flutter slightly. She turned back to Michael. “Call me at the office. We’ll figure out a date and time.”
“Sounds good,” Michael murmured.
“Now do you mind if I go back inside with my family?”
“Go right ahead. And please, thank your brother again for inviting me. That was really nice of him.”
“Phil’s a nice guy when he’s not meddling in other people’s lives.”
She made her way back inside, frowning. Her family was gathered around the TV, watching with forced concentration. Seeing them, she almost burst out laughing. Deciding to play along, she sat down and pretended to be absorbed in what was on the screen, too. Finally her mother couldn’t take it anymore.
“So, when are the two of you going out to dinner?”
“I don’t know, Ma,” Theresa said, still staring at the TV. “But as soon as I find out, you’ll be the first to know.”
CHAPTER 09
“This is insane ! ” Theresa fretted aloud. “How do I know you’re not going to slit my throat and dump my body in the Rockaways?!”
“Just relax,” Michael commanded, his tone laced with amusement as he eased his car away from the curb. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“It fled the minute you insisted I put on this blindfold.”
“Trust me, okay?”
Theresa flinched when Michael reached out and gave her leg a reassuring squeeze, mainly because she couldn’t see it coming. She tried tilting her head back to peek out from beneath the silk that was binding her eyes, but it was useless.
Michael had tied it good and tight.
Okay, she was intrigued. No one had ever shown up for a date—wait, wrong word, this was a mercy meal—and asked her to put on a blindfold. Clearly the man had a few creative bones in his body. And maybe a few screws loose as well.
“Is this going to take long?” she asked ne
rvously.
“What, the ride or dinner?”
“Both.”
“Ever thought of getting a ’scrip for Xanax? You need to calm down.”
“Oh, so now you’re a psychiatrist, too,” Theresa jibed. “Hockey player, restaurateur, shrink. Is there no end to your talents?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
Theresa groaned and concentrated on enduring the ride to God knows where. Two weeks had passed since she’d been ambushed at Phil and Debbie’s; close to four since Reese had sent her the flowers and chocolate. She and Reese had talked by phone, but still hadn’t managed to pin down a date for dinner. He’d been traveling a lot, to LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami. Theresa knew why his work schedule was so busy—almost weekly, she and Janna read in the trades of yet another PR firm fallen to Butler Corporation. Reese always mentioned these buy-outs on the phone, using it as a segue to ask where she and Janna were in terms of selling. Theresa didn’t like to think about the subject and increasingly found herself getting defensive whenever the question arose. She hated when that happened.
But she hated thinking about the whole Butler Corporation situation even more.
She and Janna barely spoke about it.
It was as if they’d made a silent pact agreeing that if neither of them mentioned it, it would just disappear. Which was ridiculous. Ted Banister called Janna daily. She and Janna were working hard to drum up business. But so far, it was yielding little.
“This music okay?”
Theresa left her thoughts to focus on the question. She’d been totally oblivious to the music. Now she listened. “Andrea Bocelli?”
“Yup.”
She could hear the pleasure in Michael’s voice that she had recognized it and sighed dramatically. “You’re such a wop.”
“It’s good music,” Michael countered. “It has nothing to do with being Italian. Just relax and enjoy it.”
“Is this what you play in the locker room to get pumped up?”
Michael laughed. “Yeah, right. Anthony turned me on to it. He plays it in the restaurant.”
“It is nice,” Theresa admitted. She wondered what other drivers thought, catching sight of a blindfolded woman in the passenger seat of a Mercedes. Probably that it was some sex game. Or that the driver was going to elaborate lengths to surprise his companion. The thought made Theresa feel guilty. Michael was going through a lot of effort for her benefit, and all she hoped was that it would be finished and done within two hours.
The ride went quickly because they talked. About the restaurant, mainly. Work. Family stuff. She realized with some surprise that Reese never asked about her family. But that was because they were into discussing culture and ideas. They communicated on a more artistic level.
“Okay, we’re here.”
Theresa felt her pulse surge slightly as the car rolled to a stop. The temptation to tear off the blindfold was strong, but she didn’t want to spoil whatever carefully calibrated plans Michael had laid down. Still intrigued, she let him open the car door, take her gently by the arm, and lead her a few feet towards another door, which he steered her through.
“You can take off your blindfold now,” he said.
Swallowing nervously, Theresa untied the strip of silk from around her head.
They were in Dante’s. The entire restaurant was empty save for a young woman with long, streaming red hair, who was busy tuning a violin. The table they usually sat at to do business was beautifully set, with a single rose in a bud vase and two long white tapers burning. Theresa turned to Michael, stunned.
“You closed the restaurant just for me?”
Michael nodded, his expression somewhat hopeful.
“Are you nuts? We’re supposed to be building your client base, not—”
“Sshh.” He put his index finger to her lips to quiet her. “Just relax, okay?”
“Okay,” Theresa said none too convincingly as she let Michael lead her to the table. “How on earth did you convince Anthony to close the restaurant on a Saturday night?”
“I have my ways,” Michael replied mysteriously as he pulled out the chair for her.
“Is he in the kitchen?” Theresa whispered, fearing a scene.
“He’s making a special dinner for us.”
Theresa clucked her tongue. “Michael . . .” She was touched, her heart filling with tender appreciation for his efforts. It was wrong to compare, completely unfair, but this trumped Reese’s flowers and chocolates. This was something she read about in women’s magazines, a fantasy scenario that happened to other women, not her.
In the flickering candlelight, the wine flowed and the violinist played, eyes closed and face serene, her slim, nimble fingers coaxing beautiful music that was bewitching. Theresa got to formally meet Anthony as he served their meal. The food was delicious. And Michael . . .
Well, he was a wonderful dinner companion, genuinely interested in everything she had to say. Theresa tried not to fall under the spell of the candlelight, but it was hard: He was a handsome man, and the fact he had gone through all this effort was astounding. It showed he was a romantic, just like she was. As the evening drew to a close, she found herself feeling disappointed that all too soon, it would be over.
“This was wonderful,” she murmured, because it was.
Michael’s face lit up, warmed by her praise. He folded and refolded his napkin, seeming to stall for time. “Would you like to come back to my place for coffee?”
Theresa hesitated.
“No pressure,” he assured her quietly. “If you’d rather I just take you home, I can do that.”
Theresa was flustered. How was it possible he could be so pushy one minute and so sensitive the next? Her mind harkened back to their kiss of almost a month before, the sweetness of it. Was it wrong to want to feel that again, that heady, unshakable sense of someone wanting you? If she accepted his offer, was she just being a tease?
She looked at him, really looked. There was no expectation in his eyes, only concern—for her. Her heart gave a small shiver of gratitude. Or maybe it was something else. Admit it, you like him. You liked when he kissed you. Take a chance.
His apartment wasn’t what she imagined.
She had expected to find herself in a miniature version of her parents’ house, complete with a couch protected by plastic slipcovers and huge, velvet, tasseled lamps on the end tables. It wasn’t like that at all. It was a duplex in a Park Slope brownstone that he owned, spare and tidy, with Danish modern furniture and a staircase leading up to the second floor. It was obviously an athlete’s home: Not only was his coffee table littered with sports and fitness magazines, but the first hockey stick he’d ever used as a peewee player was mounted on the wall, right above a bookcase containing every trophy he had ever won. A pair of battered skates lay at the bottom of the stairs, waiting to be conveyed to the second floor whenever their owner got around to it.
“No pictures of the Pope?” Theresa teased, settling down on the couch. “No Mario Lanza records?”
“I hid them in case you came over.” He kicked off his shoes, bidding Theresa to do the same, and lit two big candles, one red and one white. “What do you want to hear?”
“Whatever you have is fine.”
Michael crouched down in front of his small CD collection. “I don’t have much, to tell the truth. How about if I just put on QXR?”
WQXR, New York’s classical radio station. Another surprise. “That’s fine,” she assured him, taking a deep breath in an effort to stave off anxiety.
Michael flipped on the stereo and asked how she liked her coffee before disappearing into the kitchen. She offered to help, but he assured her he could handle it. Her offer had less to do with an assumption of incompetence than a strong desire not to be left alone with her thoughts. The last time she’d been in a man’s apartment . . . This is Michael. Stop.
She settled back in relief when he reappeared bearing a tray with two steaming mugs of coff
ee and some almond cookies.
“Sorry I took so long,” he apologized, handing her a warm mug.
“You didn’t.”
Michael’s face was guileless, an open book. “Well, it felt like a long time to me.”
Theresa waited for the conversation between them to become awkward and strained. She waited for the moment to arrive when she could politely jump up and put an end to the evening before it became uncomfortable. But it didn’t happen. And when he gently reached out to take off her glasses, she let him, unsurprised when, just as he’d done weeks earlier, he asked permission to kiss her. She granted it, certain that all her demons would be laid to rest once and for all.
But she was wrong.
Oh, the kiss was gorgeous. From the very second his mouth played across hers with a teasing brush of the lips, her entire body was taut and tingling with anticipation. Heady pleasure wound its way through her as his tongue slowly parted her lips so he could taste her fully, and she him, each telling the other without words that there was only this, now, a perfect fusion of softness that made her feel as if she were losing the battle against gravity.
But as she felt herself tremble with desire for him, she was overwhelmed with fear.
Feeling weightless was glorious. Feeling unmoored was not. And that’s what was happening. Despite the lovely, intoxicating sense of being carried away, she had to end it. Because if she didn’t, every image of herself she’d ever created would be called into question. And she couldn’t have that.
As gingerly as she could, she eased away from him, fumbling for her glasses.
“I can’t do this,” she said shakily, standing up. “I’m sorry, Michael, but I can’t.”
Bafflement clouded the joyous clarity that only a moment ago had shone in his eyes. “What?”
“This was wrong,” Theresa said quietly, knowing she was lying. It was anything but wrong, yet her feelings for this man terrified her more than she could even articulate. “Dinner was wonderful, and I enjoy talking to you, but I don’t have romantic feelings for you. I’m sorry.”
Pain flickered across the handsome face, followed by a stubborn set of the jaw. “I don’t believe you, Theresa.”
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