Tempted in the City

by Jo Leigh

  “Your mother doesn’t like it. She thinks when I sit there, I’m working.”

  “He doesn’t need to work,” Theresa said, “but he saw Sal at the corner today. He said something’s wrong with the Fox job. That’s all your father could talk about on the walk. So tell him everything’s fine and he can sit where he wants.”

  Tony tried not to react, but that rarely worked with his mother.

  “So something is wrong.” She sighed, as if the burden was too much to bear.

  Luca, always the peacemaker, pulled one of the chairs from the far side of Tony’s office and brought it next to his mother’s. “Nothing’s wrong. She’s making some changes, that’s all. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Nothing to worry about except you’re in charge now? What, so she finally admitted she’s going to sell?” Theresa poked Joe in the shoulder. “What did I say, huh? She’s a smart girl. She knew she could make a fortune on that house. But then she met Tony, so she said she was staying. Now she knows better.”

  Tony stared at his mother. “She didn’t... She wasn’t scheming. Catherine wanted to stay, and it had nothing to do with me. But you’re right about one thing...now she does know better. She’s too damn good for our neighborhood. What the hell kind of people have the right to be so ugly to someone who’s cared more about that old house than anyone we’ve ever worked with? You knew nothing about her, and all you could do was gossip about how this one wasn’t Italian and that one wasn’t Catholic, and how anyone who wasn’t just like us was nothing. And Nonna, telling her right to her face that she would never stand a chance with me? Like I’m better than her?”

  “Wait a minute,” Joe said. “Nonna would never—”

  “Catherine works for the UN. She speaks perfect Italian. She lived in Italy for years.”

  Theresa’s eyes widened. “Why didn’t she say?”

  Tony slapped his hands on his desk and leaned over stiff arms. “You shouldn’t have had to know. You should have been nice to her regardless. Welcoming her like good neighbors would. I swear, between my own family and those judgmental old women who live next door to her, why would she want to stay?”

  He slammed his ledger shut, making Joe jump, and walked away from the desk. Tony never spoke to his parents like this, but goddamn it. “And after all the work she’s done. She knows more about the history of the building than I do. She could conduct tours at the Tenement Museum, and I know that because I was there when they asked her to. She’s studied all the history of the architecture from before our families arrived. Is paying a fortune to restore everything she could about that old house. The fireplaces, the bathrooms, the floors, the tile, the tin plate backsplash in the kitchen. She was making it into something extraordinary.”

  His mother stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. He walked to the file cabinets and it was tempting as hell to pull out every single drawer and throw them across the room.

  “Tony, tesoro, what’s going on?”

  “He’s been seeing her,” Luca said. “He asked me to take over, so it wouldn’t be too complicated.”

  “Nonna was right?”

  Tony faced his mother. “No. Nonna had it backward. I’m the one who thought I’d have a chance with Catherine. She woke me up, Ma. Because of her, I fell in love with this neighborhood again. I was helping her with the restorations, and they were like hidden treasure. All the things we paint over without a thought. She was going to build a roof garden, big enough to share with the families around her. She wanted her neighbors to grow their own vegetables, teach their kids about what a privilege it is to eat things you planted. And you know what else? I tried to talk her into renting out the basement, but she said no. That space was to be filled with her family. With her children. She wanted them to have a legacy. Everything we’re doing with the trust, she wanted to do that for her family. In honor of Belaflore Calabrese, who raised her because her parents were too caught up with their own lives.

  “And Nonna thinks I’m too good for her? I wasn’t just seeing her. I fell in love with her. But I know she can’t love me back because—” He had to stop or he was going to lose it. “She should flip the house and get the hell out of this neighborhood.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Theresa said. “I would have—”

  “What? Told me how she wasn’t Italian? That she was too modern? That I had an obligation to the family?”

  Theresa stood up, her face flushed, her eyes worried. “Probably. But I also would have listened to you. I would have seen that you care deeply for this woman. I would have told you to be happy.”

  “I wish I could believe that,” he said.

  “Why do you think I didn’t push you to stay with Angie? She wasn’t right for you. I could see. But it sounds like you think Catherine is.”

  Tony felt empty. He’d assumed telling his family what he really thought would make him feel better. He sank onto his chair, the weight of despair too heavy. “I think I’ve just lost the woman I was meant to be with.”

  “I don’t believe that’s quite accurate.”

  Tony looked up at the unmistakable sound of Catherine’s voice. She was standing at the open door. Gina was behind her, smiling like the cat that got the cream. Of course she’d been eavesdropping, but he didn’t care. Catherine was here.

  He slowly got to his feet. “What are you...?”

  Catherine smiled. The way she used to smile before everything had started to fall apart. He could see she wasn’t at her best. Her eyes looked puffy and her hair was falling down from where she’d pinned it, but he’d never seen anyone more beautiful.

  “I came here to talk to you. To listen. Face-to-face. When I heard that you didn’t want to work with me anymore, I thought you didn’t want to...” She glanced around at his family. “I took it the wrong way.”

  “No. God no. I didn’t want work to come between us. That’s all. I wanted to make sure you knew I was serious. That I’d fallen in love with you.”

  She took a step toward him. “Not exactly the way I pictured the moment, but I’ll take it.”

  Luca coughed. “We’re all gonna just leave the office and have some dinner. And Gina’s coming with us.” He herded Tony’s parents toward the door, but his mother hesitated by Catherine.

  “Okay, so you’re not Italian by birth, but I think you are in your heart. He’s a good man, and he deserves someone smart, who can appreciate him. Hai la mia benedizione.”

  Then Joe touched Catherine’s arm. “I liked you that first day. Remember? Now, tell him to make you an honest woman so you can get busy making my grandchildren.”

  * * *

  THEY WERE FINALLY ALONE. Just the two of them. And Catherine couldn’t manage to make her feet move.

  Tony shook his head. “Fair warning. Despite giving us her blessing, my mother’s not going to change.”

  Catherine’s heart was beating so fast she probably needed to sit down. After hearing what he’d said about her, she was afraid she might be dreaming. Regardless, she’d never felt braver. “Well, good thing I’m not marrying her.”

  “I’ll say. Wait. Did you just...?”

  “Yes. I think I just did.”

  Oh, the way he looked at her. He took a step and she took a step and they were close enough that she could see the love in his eyes.

  He brushed back a tendril of hair that had caught on her lashes. “The answer, if you didn’t know already, is yes.”

  She kissed him
lightly on the lips. “That, I could read. Finally.”

  Tony smiled. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know. You’ll never have to guess. Starting with the fact that you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. I don’t give a damn that you’re not Italian. I don’t give a damn what my parents think. Or the neighbors. Or anyone else. I love you. I didn’t know I could love like this.”

  Thank God she’d used up all her tears for a lifetime. However, she wasn’t so sure her voice would hold up “Me, too,” she said finally. “I love you, Tony Paladino. So much it’s just a little overwhelming. But about those grandchildren...”

  “Ignore him. It’s because he’s been ill—”

  “I don’t want to ignore that. But I also want to take some time to just be with you. Out in the open, where everyone can gossip about us as much as they like.”

  “Excellent plan.”

  “And also, it doesn’t matter, but you should know. My parents aren’t going to be all that thrilled.”

  “What, they don’t want a New York contractor for their only daughter?”

  “They’ll adjust,” she said.

  “I hope so.”

  “You know who would be ecstatic about this?”

  “Me?”

  “Besides you. Belaflore. I think she had you in mind when she told me every single story she could remember about Little Italy.”

  Tony pulled Catherine even closer, until she put her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry I never met her, and I hope you tell me all those stories, but I have to kiss you now.”

  “About time,” she said.

  Then he kissed her. Like in a fairy tale. But even better. Because he was real, and he was hers.

  * * * * *

  Look for the next book in the fun, sexy NYC BACHELORS miniseries featuring Luca Paladino. DARING IN THE CITY by Jo Leigh wherever Harlequin Blaze books are sold!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from HOT SEDUCTION by Lisa Childs.

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  Hot Seduction

  by Lisa Childs

  1

  HOT BREATH CARESSED his skin as someone panted in Cody Mallehan’s ear. Then a wet, warm tongue slid over his naked shoulder. He shivered and shifted on the stiff firehouse cot. His body tensed. He hadn’t brought anyone back to the firehouse with him the night before. He had never done that, so he had to be dreaming.

  The tongue moved to his face now, slobbering all over him. He cursed and opened his eyes and met the adoring gaze of a besotted female. Too bad she was a bitch.

  He pushed off the oversize puppy. She was some kind of mixed breed of big dog and even bigger dog. Maybe an English sheepdog and a mastiff because her black-and-gray hair was long and so were her drooling jowls. With the back of his hand, he wiped her doggy slobber off his face. His stubble, which always came in darker than his blond hair, scraped the skin of his hand. He needed to shave. And after the doggy tongue bath, he definitely needed to shower, too.

  “Annie, what the hell are you doing here?” he wondered aloud.

  Someone had abandoned the mutt at the firehouse a few weeks ago. But Stanley—the kid that Cody had convinced the superintendent to hire to do odd jobs around the house—was supposed to have delivered her to the humane society.

  A chuckle—too deep to be Stanley’s—echoed off the cement-block walls of the bunkroom. As far as Cody knew, he was the only one who’d been crashing at the firehouse. He sat up and looked around and discovered his boss kneeling just inside the doorway as Annie jumped all over him.

  “It’s not like you to turn away a female’s attention,” Superintendent Braden Zimmer said. His eyes, which were the same brown as his hair, twinkled with amusement.

  Cody grinned. He liked seeing the other man like this—joking around again—instead of all depressed over his divorce. So he didn’t correct him. Everybody had the impression that Cody was some big player. Okay, maybe that was because he worked hard to give that impression. But he didn’t even date during wildfire season—unlike some of his fellow Hotshots who’d recently fallen in love.

  Hotshots were the US Forest Service’s elite firefighters. During the off-season, they were regular firefighters, working out of firehouses all over the region. Cody worked out of the village of Northern Lakes, Michigan. He was in Northern Lakes now even though it wasn’t the off-season. There had already been a couple of huge blazes here in the Huron National Forest. And it was probable that there would be another... Unless they caught the person who had been setting the fires.

  No, Cody was too focused on the job to date, especially now with an arsonist preying on the town. He couldn’t afford any distractions. And he had never allowed himself any entanglements.

  “You must be having a dry spell,” Superintendent Zimmer continued.

  Maybe he hadn’t been working hard enough on his womanizing image. Or maybe he’d been with the Huron Hotshots long enough that they were getting to know the real him. This was his second season with them, and two years was longer than he’d stayed anywhere. His blood chilling, he shivered with dread. He didn’t want anyone to know the real him. “What makes you say that?”

  “Since your cabin burned down, you’ve been sleeping in the firehouse instead of some woman’s bed.”

  “I never sleep in some woman’s bed,” he quipped cockily.

  “That’s because he’s worried her husband will catch him,” another deep voice chimed in as Wyatt Andrews stepped into the bunkroom. His black hair was all slicked back with sweat; he must have just finished a workout in the weight room. “Cody only goes after other guys’ women.”

  He only flirted with them because he knew it was safe. He knew there was no risk—beyond getting his ass kicked. He could handle the physical pain. It was the emotional pain he avoided at all costs. A split lip or a black eye hurt a hell of a lot less than someone letting him down.

  Cody grinned. “Getting nervous?” he asked Wyatt. “There’s still time for your fiancée to realize I’m the better man.”

  Wyatt snorted. He had every confidence—and with good reason—that Fiona O’Brien would become his bride. Their wedding wasn’t until the wildfire season was ov
er, though. The only thing that might thwart their plans was the arsonist. They needed to catch him.

  Cody wiped sleep and the rest of the dog’s slobber from his eyes, and peered at the clock on the wall behind Wyatt’s sweaty head. Had he slept late?

  “Why are you guys here already?” he asked. “The team meeting isn’t for a few hours yet.” Adrenaline coursed through his body. If there was a local fire, he would have heard the alarm. No matter how tired he was, he couldn’t sleep through that ear-piercing siren. So they had to be getting called out to a wildfire.

  He lived for this—for the travel, for the adventure, for the excitement and most especially for the triumph when they extinguished the blaze. All those things were why he had become a Hotshot. And the fact that he’d needed a couple of years of experience as a Hotshot before he could get a position as a smoke jumper.

  That job involved even more travel and adventure and danger.

  “Where are we going?” he excitedly asked. “Washington? California?”

  Wildfires had been raging out west for a while. They’d already done a couple of week-long stints on the front lines of each of those blazes, cutting breaks—trying to contain the beast. By removing all the vegetation, they starved the fire of fuel, until it eventually burned itself out.

  The hard work burned out a lot of Hotshots, too. They were probably needed to relieve another team.

  Braden shook his head. “No, I passed on this assignment.”

  They had been called up and Superintendent Zimmer had refused to go?

  Cody cursed—because he knew why. “That damn arsonist.” That was undoubtedly why Braden had called the whole team together for a meeting later that day. But that didn’t explain why Braden and Wyatt had come in to the firehouse so early.

  “Why are you two here now?”

  “Because of you,” Wyatt replied.

  “What about me?” Cody asked as his blood chilled again. The air was blasting in the firehouse, and the cement-block walls kept it cool. But that wasn’t why he was cold.