Rooted (The Pagano Family Book 3)

by Fanetti, Susan

  “Morning, glory. How’re you feeling?” Carmen went and got herself some coffee, too. She felt a little bit like she’d had a wild night out.

  “I’m okay. Embarrassed, and a little wiggly, but okay.” She looked okay, too. Fresh-faced, even.

  “No need to be embarrassed, sis. We don’t need to see those guys again.”

  Rosa looked up from her coffee at that, her eyes sharp. “But I want to. I want to have the day we planned today.”

  “It’s a bad idea. Let’s just move on.”

  “But Theo—you like him.”

  Carmen scoffed, but she had to look away. “Please. I barely know him.”

  “No, you like him. You’re nice to him. And he looks at you like there’s a heavenly light shining down on your head. Plus, he’s hot. For an old guy, he’s wicked hot.” She sipped her coffee, which was half milk—Rosa liked it sweet and creamy and barely worthwhile. “He’s really old, though, isn’t he? I mean, he’s their father.”

  Carmen shrugged. “Didn’t ask. Don’t care.” She’d done the math, however. Eli was twenty-five or so. There was mention in Orchids of him being twenty when Maggie died, and that was about five years ago, she thought. So Theo was mid-forties, probably. At least. But he looked closer to her own age.

  “Pfft. You care. I can tell. And anyway, I like Jordan. He’s fun and weird and has amazing taste. I want to go shopping with him, and I want to do our fancy date. I want to see Eli in a tux.”

  “You still like Eli? Even after last night?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know if he likes me still, but he was nice to me. I remember everything. I wish I didn’t. I was obnoxious. But he was nice.”

  He had been pretty nice to her, but one thing stuck in Carmen’s craw. “He was calling you Jersey Shore, Rosie. That didn’t seem so nice to me.”

  She was quiet for a few seconds. “Yeah. That didn’t bother me last night, but I guess it does now. He’s not even right. Jersey and Rhody aren’t the same thing.” Again she paused. “Is my accent that bad?”

  It was more than the accent—in fact, the accent was probably the least of it—but Carmen wasn’t about to take that all on during this morning-after moment. “It’s broad, yeah. But all your friends sound the same. At home, it’s not so noticeable, you know?”

  “You and Carlo hardly have one at all. Luca and John, neither. Just me and Joey. How come?”

  Joey’s wasn’t even as broad as Rosa’s—and Joey’s had been all but gone since his speech had changed. That answer was easy, and also difficult. “Mom wouldn’t let us. If we dropped our Rs or whatever, she’d make us say it again. She did that with you, too, but you were still young when she died. I guess you were still picking up your speech habits.”

  She sighed. “Mom dying really fucked me up.”

  Carmen agreed—she was just beginning to understand how much. She reached over and gave her sister’s arm a squeeze. “Okay. Theo gave me his number. If you’re sure you’re up for it, I’ll call and see if our plans are still on for today.”

  They could have a nice dinner and then say good night. She could be around Theo and not have it ignite something. He was just a man. Beyond a booty call, for which Theo was no longer a candidate, she had no need of a man.

  ~oOo~

  Theo had sounded relieved and thrilled to hear from her, but she tried not to encourage him. They arranged to meet for lunch, and afterward, he and Eli would go off for a few hours while Carmen allowed herself to be dragged around through boutiques with Rosa and Jordan.

  Lunch was friendly. Carmen kept her distance, and after a few minutes, Theo let her. She made a point not to notice the looks he was sending her way and instead focused on Rosa and the boys. She was particularly interested to see how Eli treated her sister this morning. Though Jordan dominated the conversation with Rosa—he seemed to be, generally, a conversation dominator—Eli was friendly and kind, behaving as though he were still interested. Maybe he was. Rosa was certainly interested in him.

  He called her simply ‘Rosa,’ and he asked, without snark, how she was feeling. Maybe the ‘Jersey Shore’ thing had mostly been about her drunkenness.

  When the two groups separated after lunch, Theo caught Carmen’s eye. He didn’t say anything, though. He merely cocked his head and held her gaze, then turned and went the opposite direction with Eli.

  Carmen felt guilty, and that was dumb. There was nothing between them, and so nothing to feel guilty about.

  When she turned to Jordan and Rosa, they were both giving her a look, like they knew something she didn’t. She ignored them.

  ~oOo~

  “Oh. My. Sweet. Fanciful. Goddess! Look at yourself!” Jordan clapped, his hands just under his chin, and Carmen wondered how much of his attitude was burlesque, a performance. He stood there with a long, ivory silk scarf draped around his neck—that and a vintage tie pin were his only purchases of the day thus far—and looked her up and down. “That’s it! Try nothing else on—you have found the dress.”

  She went to a standing mirror and considered herself. The dress was form-fitting and mostly black. It was sleeveless, with a demure jewel neckline, and on the short side, the hem landing at about mid-thigh. She had good legs and knew it—long and shapely, with slender ankles. When she had to subject herself to dress-wearing, she liked this length. Not so short as to be trampy, but showing plenty of leg nonetheless. Along the sides, curving inward at the shoulders and at the waist, the black jersey gave way to panels that were quite close to Carmen’s olive skin tone. The effect seemed interesting.

  She liked the dress first and foremost because it was comfortable. It was snug, but the jersey had some give, so she didn’t feel like she was trapped in it. The neckline was high, so she wouldn’t need to worry about keeping her boobs in place. And the length was such that she wouldn’t be on her bare ass when she sat.

  Was she also thinking about what Theo would think of the dress? She couldn’t lie to herself. Yes, she was. In little more than twenty-four hours, he’d wormed his way into her head dangerously. Despite her best intentions, she kept flashing to the feel of him, the smell of him. The taste of him. And when she wasn’t thinking about that, she was remembering the highlighted passages of his book. She tried to cool all that by remembering his growing list of stupid lines, but those were becoming increasingly charming as all the other memories rubbed off on them.

  She shouldn’t have called him. But she watched her sister bantering happily with his son, and, remembering Rosa’s drunken, naked despair of the night before, remembering her weeping in Carmen’s lap, she couldn’t deny her this day.

  It had occurred to her that the fact that Rosa was a sad, weepy drunk was important. Carmen was realizing that there might be a lot going on under that trendy sheen.

  Rosa stood on a platform amid three huge, ornately gilt mirrors. She was wearing a brilliantly spangled gold dress. The bodice was strapless and all large sequins. The flouncy skirt was silk tulle and dotted with more sequins. Wow. The skirt was trampy short, which was Rosa’s preferred length, and when she spun in place—as she was doing now—it was quite clear that if she bought Midas’s lampshade and planned to wear it, she would need to wear more substantial panties than the thong she currently had on.

  “Rosie? What do you think?”

  Rosa stopped her pirouetting and eyed Carmen up and down. “Oh, nice, Caramel. Not everybody can pull off an illusion dress without looking like they’re trying to hide something, but you totally rock it. That’s perfect. And it’s no knockoff. That’s a McCartney, right?” She turned again. “What do you think of mine?”

  Carmen bit back the comment about Midas’s lampshade. Rosa obviously loved the dress. “It’s very glittery.”

  “That’s an observation, not an opinion.” Rosa huffed and put her hands on her hips.

  While Carmen smiled vaguely and tried to think of something not snarky to say about Rosa’s hooker ballerina getup, Jordan jumped in and saved the day.

 
“It’s going to catch all the lights and sparkle like crazy. No one will be able to take their eyes off you.”

  That did the trick. Pleased and beaming in both face and body, Rosa turned back to the ostentatiously scrolled gilt mirrors. Which she matched.

  This whole consignment shop had a Louis XVI vibe to it. Lots of faux decadence. But Carmen was more comfortable here than she’d been while they were browsing through the actual designer boutiques. A peek at a couple of price tags out there had nearly made her swallow her tongue. She was financially comfortable, but she was so because she didn’t buy thousand dollar pairs of shoes or two thousand dollar dresses. That was nuts. Rosa wanted designer, so they were shopping consignment. The shop advertised that the clothes were cleaned and refurbished before being offered for sale. Carmen supposed they could trust that. For an eighty-percent reduction in cost, she’d trust that.

  “Now, ladies,” Jordan announced, “You need shoes.”

  Carmen turned to see him standing with two pairs of shoes in his hands—gold strappy sandals with a mile-high heel, and nude platform pumps, also with a deadly high heel, though not as high as the sandals. Probably four inches, though. She would break a leg on those. Or her neck.

  Rosa squealed at the gold sandals and snatched them from Jordan’s hand, but Carmen shook her head. “No. Those will kill me. Jordan, I wear work boots and sneakers every day of my life. There’s no way. I need a lower heel. And maybe black. How about boots? I’m good in boots.”

  “Boots would be terrible with that dress. And the nude will extend the line of your amazing legs.” He waved the pumps at her. “Come on, just try. You’ll look so fantastic, it’ll be worth a death or two. You’ll see.”

  She took them from him, to humor him and to prove her point. No shoe would look good enough to risk certain maiming.

  In the end, she bought the shoes.

  ~ 6 ~

  Carmen had backed off dramatically, and Theo wasn’t sure why. When they’d been in her bedroom, she’d been right there with him, feeling and responding to the same intensity of connection that he felt. He had not been alone in that heady moment. He knew it. She’d been there.

  But then Rosa and the boys had come back, and somehow something had changed for her between the moment that they’d heard the elevator, and he’d pulled his hand out from under her top, and the moment that she’d sent them away for the night.

  He had no idea what. Was it the way Rosa had returned? Was she holding him responsible for Eli and Jordan not taking care of her little sister? He was disappointed himself, but she’d seemed last night to have been more accepting than he had, putting more of the responsibility on Rosa.

  He didn’t know. He also didn’t know why he cared so much. Or, rather, he knew why. He simply didn’t know why her, why now. After years of wanting little more than the solitude that came with marriage to a memory, why had a woman like Carmen—resistant, elusive, possibly uninterested—woken need in him again?

  But she’d called in the morning, and they had fixed their plans for the day. Nothing had changed, after all. Until lunch, when she made a point to keep her distance, embedding herself in the conversation among the youngsters rather than speaking to him.

  While Jordan shopped with Carmen and Rosa, Theo and Eli took care of extending Eli’s visa, so he could stay longer in Paris. Then they went back to the apartment, changed, and went out for a run. Theo knew he was being a terrible companion, unable to keep up his end of any conversation, until Eli simply stopped trying, and they spent the afternoon mostly in companionable silence. He was distracted, working through the new puzzle of Carmen Pagano.

  Theo was a writer, a poet, and that made him a student of the mind. The human condition in both micro and macro scale. His job was to reach into people’s heads and draw pictures on their brains. Perhaps the years had made him rusty in the ways of the female mind, but he knew he’d figure Carmen out.

  By the time he, Eli, and Jordan were dressing for dinner—Jordan in a midnight blue tuxedo, with his patent leather slippers and a crème-colored silk scarf, Theo and Eli simply in dark suits and ties—Theo thought he might have gotten it. She was afraid of the intensity. The roar of the connection, transcending the physical, that had turbo-charged his interest in her had instead spooked her.

  But then, he was the one who’d felt understood, who’d been read in more ways than one. She hadn’t given him enough yet for him to return the favor.

  As he stood at the mirror in the bathroom, straightening his tie, he decided that he’d play it cool. Let her decide when she wanted to be read.

  ~oOo~

  Hunter had given him the keys to his Range Rover, which was a ridiculously large vehicle for Paris, but Theo was sufficiently comfortable driving in the city, even in a yacht like the Rover. They were only a few blocks from Carmen and Rosa’s place, but the restaurant at which he’d made reservations was in the Latin Quarter, too far to walk, especially dressed for dinner. So he and the boys drove to pick them up.

  Rosa answered the door upon Theo’s knock and immediately looked past him to smile over his shoulder at Eli. “Hi! Come in. We’re just about ready. Carmen is whining about her shoes.”

  Theo tried to imagine the woman he was getting to know whining. Nope. Couldn’t see it.

  They followed Rosa in. She looked…festive. Lovely and sparkly in a vibrantly sequined, strapless dress. Theo turned to Eli; she certainly had his son’s attention.

  He and Eli had talked a little about Rosa while they were out on their own in the afternoon. He thought she was fun and ‘hot,’ and he was interested in ‘hanging out’ with her. He hadn’t minded that she’d gotten so drunk; he’d seen lots of girls like that in college and ‘that’s just what they do.’ He did mind that he’d caught flack for not stopping her, asserting that it wasn’t his place to make her choices. He’d kept her safe. End of job.

  Theo assumed that Eli had the kind of attitude he should adopt as well. The kind of attitude he’d had briefly about Carmen, after that first encounter. Fun. Companionship. And then, when it was time, a parting.

  And then Carmen came out of the bedroom, her shoe problem evidently solved, and he just wanted her. All of her. Her dress was snug and black and looked pasted on somehow, caressing her sinewy body. Her legs were miles long. She—or maybe Rosa—had done her hair up, in a sleek bun or roll or something. And she was wearing makeup. Theo realized that he didn’t think she had been wearing it when they’d been together before. Her beauty was simply natural. Now, it was dramatic.

  “Jesus.”

  “I know, right?”

  Theo turned to Jordan. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken until his son had answered him. Now Jordan was grinning at him with something like pride. “When she tried it on, I knew she had to wear it tonight. You know, for you.”

  They were across the room from Carmen and speaking quietly. Hoping she couldn’t hear their muttered exchange, and unable to resist, Theo asked, “She bought it to wear for me?”

  “Pfft. Dad. Not that she knows—or not that she’ll admit, anyway. She’s a cagey one.”

  His twenty-year-old gay son was better versed in the female mind than he was. Sheesh.

  It was becoming awkward, their standing in a far corner and not greeting Carmen, so Theo walked over. She smiled as he approached. In her high heels, she was as tall as he was. Six-two.

  “You look…breathtaking.”

  For a flash of a moment, her responding expression was open and young, vulnerable. Pleased. Then it formed itself into something more skeptical, but still warm. “Thanks. You clean up nice, too. All three of you.”

  Eli asked, “Are we ready to go?” His arm was around Rosa. They both looked pleased about that.

  Carmen turned back to Theo. “Where are we going, exactly?”

  “To a place I’ve heard about. Great reviews. Had to name drop to get a reservation. La Chanteuse. It’s like an old-style nightclub, jazz vibe. Dinner, music, dancing. Apparently, they do
it all up so Duke Ellington would have felt right at home. Sound good?”

  “I don’t dance.”

  Rosa sighed dramatically. “Carmen. You do, too, you liar.” She looked at Theo. “She did dance lessons for like a thousand years when she was a kid. There’s pictures all over the place of her in her little tap shoes or her tutus or whatever.”

  Carmen gave her sister a deadly look. “I didn’t say I can’t dance. I said I don’t dance.” She faced Theo again. “But it’s fine. Just setting the expectation. I don’t dance. I’m not good with a partner. I tend to lead.”

  At that, Theo laughed. “Why am I not surprised? Well, if you change your mind, I’m willing to tangle with you for the lead in a tango or two.”

  ~oOo~