I could smooth over almost any situation Sebastian’s single-mindedness landed our company in. Since remarrying, Sebastian had become much more levelheaded and no longer required constant damage control. Suddenly he was partnering up with our competition instead of demolishing them.
Romano Superstores was a ship that didn’t require two captains. If running the family company was important to me, I could have justified my right to stay at the helm. We’d built it up together. Had I not stepped in each time Sebastian had faltered, we might have lost everything—but I was proud to see my brother standing tall again. I wanted only good things for him.
I just wasn’t sure what that meant as far as my role now.
I’d hoped returning to Europe would bring me the answers I’d been seeking. Sadly, all I’d learned was that Felix was still . . . Felix, and I wasn’t the playboy I’d once been. I had no desire to hit the clubs or pick up any of the beautiful women I’d exchanged looks with.
So what did I want?
“Gian and Christof are jealous you’re in Paris without them.” Sebastian’s comment pulled my attention back to our conversation. “Gian wants to know why you couldn’t have waited until he was on school break.”
“I’m sure.” I smiled. Both of my younger brothers could afford to travel if they wanted to, but neither had done much of it. For Christof, the comment had likely been a joke. He was a numbers guy. Laid back and steady, like our father. Travel and excitement weren’t his thing. Gian, on the other hand, might have actually wanted to come with me. I hadn’t asked him, though, because I didn’t want him to miss a class. I couldn’t have been prouder of him for doing as well as he was at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.
Attending a college several hours away from home had been a difficult move for him. He’d come to our family because his biological mother, Aunt Rosella, wasn’t mentally stable. Technically, he was my cousin, but in my heart he has always been my brother. I swear he’s never traveled without us because part of him feared we wouldn’t be there when he returned. That was why we’d all gone down to see the school with him—to show him that the distance wouldn’t change his place in our family.
It was also why, since then, we’d rotated visiting him with flying him home to Connecticut every other weekend. In my family, a person could wander as far as they wished as long as their ass made it back home for Sunday meals with our parents.
For Gian, the family dinner traveled.
That level of mutual support was why it was impossible to resent Sebastian for wanting full control of the family company again. He hadn’t so much as said it, yet it was not only obvious but also a good move for him. He needed the win, and despite how we ribbed each other, at the end of the day my brothers and I were all on the same team. It was time for me to bow out gracefully.
“Mom told me to remind you to see Nonna in Montalcino before you come home. Her pasta alone is worth the trip. Careful, though—the cousins will try to marry you off. They introduced me to every single woman in the town. I kept trying to explain about Heather, but my Italian isn’t very good. You’re single, though, so who knows? You might come home with a wife who cooks as good as Mom.”
I laughed at Sebastian’s words. “Tempting as that sounds, I’ll skip that trip. Wouldn’t want to accidentally end up married.”
“You might want to consider settling down. You’re not getting any younger.”
“Oh my God, you’ve been married less than a year and you already sound like Dad. Marriage isn’t for everyone.” Love? My parents, as well as Sebastian and Heather, were living proof that it was real, but I’d never even come close to being in love. I was beginning to doubt I was capable of it. That thought made me a little sad. I loved my family, and it was strange to imagine a future without one of my own—as strange as realizing I didn’t know where I belonged now.
I had been given a chance to start over after my brother’s return. I had the resources to build something on my own. Was that what I wanted? After so many years of knowing exactly what needed to be done and what role I needed to fill . . . I didn’t like how not knowing felt. “I have to go, Sebastian. I’ll text you later with my plans.”
“You haven’t taken a vacation in years, Mauricio. Enjoy Paris.”
“Will do.”
With that, we ended the phone conversation, and I stepped onto a wooden-floored pedestrian bridge, Pont des Arts: the “love lock” bridge. Plexiglass panels flanked either side in a valiant attempt to stop romantics from around the world from burdening the bridge with a metal symbol of their love. I leaned over the railing and saw a few metal locks tied to a rope near the base of the bridge.
People were idiots. How did anyone consider a lock from a hardware store romantic? Okay, I could see why men would go along with the practice, but . . .
My phone rang again.
Felix. “You’re alive,” I said with heavy sarcasm.
“Barely.” His voice was thick and slurred.
Annoyance swept through me. He sounded stoned. “Where are you?”
“At Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. Sorry about our meeting, but I had an emergency surgery.”
“Surgery? Are you okay?”
“I’m better than okay. They gave me the best painkillers. I’m feeling good.”
“What the hell happened?”
His voice lowered. “Can’t tell you, but I need you to do me a favor.”
I glanced to my right and realized a backpacker was actively listening to my conversation. I walked away as I said, “Whatever you need, but what do you mean you can’t tell me?”
His voice was a loud whisper. “It’s better if you don’t know.”
I’d probably watched too much CSI, but I instantly imagined him with a bullet wound. What had Felix gotten into this time? As a rule, I stayed on the right side of the law, but for a friend in need, I’d do what had to be done.
Unless he’d done something so fucking stupid that he deserved the consequence.
“I’m not doing shit unless you’re up-front with me, Felix.”
He made a pained sound, and I felt like an ass. For all I knew he’d just received a terminal diagnosis and was fighting to sound brave.
Felix? Brave?
“I broke my dick,” he mumbled.
“You what?”
“It’s called a penile fracture.”
“How the fuck did you break your dick?” As I said the words, maybe a little too loud, I glanced around. An older couple shot each other a look. The man, in his eighties if he was a day old, cringed as his wife graciously looked away.
“How do you think? Remember I said I was working in my father’s office now? Well, a friend came to visit me. I thought I could squeeze a little fun in before my first meeting of the day. I was rushing—”
I lowered my voice. “Okay, too much information. What do you need me to do?”
“Remember I told you about Cecile?”
“The Englishwoman? I didn’t know you were still seeing her.”
“It’s on and off. When she has time off, she comes to see me. Nothing serious. But she’s staying at my apartment right now.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t go to the hospital with you.”
“She wasn’t the friend I fucked at the office.”
“Ah. Gotcha.”
“And she can’t know about this. Any of this. I can’t be the man with the broken dick.”
In the scheme of things, that didn’t seem like the most important aspect of this, but no man would want that label. “How broken is it?”
“Bad enough that I had surgery, but if I take a month off from sex, I should be fine. The doctor said he has seen much worse. Sometimes they blow up like eggplants.”
“Stop. I got it.” I did not want to picture that. Ever. And now it was all I could.
“I knew something bad had happened when I heard the pop. It didn’t hurt as much as the doctor said it could have, but it was like a little deflated purple balloon.”
<
br /> “Oh my God. I’ll do whatever you want if you promise to stop talking about this.”
“I’m just saying it could have been worse.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t. Now what about Cecile?”
“I’m being discharged tomorrow, and I’d like to hide out at my place. You need to get her out of my apartment. Tell her I had to leave town on business. Tell her I’ve been arrested. I don’t give a shit. Just don’t tell her where I am or what happened, and make sure she gets home safely.”
From the stories Felix had shared over the years about Cecile, that might not be easy. She owned a mirror-manufacturing company that she’d started on her own. She was a self-made millionaire and proud of it. Intelligent. Beautiful. What she saw in Felix had always been a mystery to me, but some women enjoyed the challenge of trying to change a man.
If she found out Felix had been with another woman during her time with him, he might end up more broken than he already was. Lie to her? Try to escort her home? Neither were things I could imagine going well.
I wasn’t even a good liar. I’d much rather slap the truth down and let people do with it what they will.
I’ve never broken my dick, though.
I’d like to think Felix was a good enough friend to cover for me if our situations were reversed. “Okay. Send me her number and I’ll see what I can do.”
“You might have to go to my apartment. She’s anti–cell phone when she’s in Paris. She says it’s the only way she can unwind.”
I flexed my neck to one side. This was getting better and better. Fuck. “Is she there now?”
“Probably. She said she was bringing a friend from college over for dinner. Some American woman. I don’t remember her name. Dinner is our code word for a threesome. Shit, I can’t think about that right now. I’m not allowed to get excited.”
I rubbed a hand over my forehead. Felix hadn’t changed at all. “I’ll do what I can, but this sounds like a real clusterfuck. If I go to your apartment and Cecile’s not there, I’m not camping out until she comes back. I’ll check you into a room somewhere else, and you can figure this shit out on your own when you’re clearheaded.”
He sighed. “She’ll be there. I wonder if her friend is hot.”
“You have problems. You know that, right?”
Felix laughed, a clear sign that he was still flying high. “I know. Don’t tell anyone what happened, okay? Especially not my family. I told my father I did this by walking into a doorknob. It was the best story I could come up with at the time.”
“God, Felix.”
“God is right. I’ve been praying like a bastard since it happened.”
It was my turn to laugh. “I’ll text you later.”
I ended the call and realized the older couple was still watching me. The older woman raised her square tinted glasses and smiled at me. “We hope your friend recovers quickly.”
“Ice,” her husband said with a straight face. “A lot of ice.”
I nodded and walked away. There wasn’t a question I could ask him that I wanted to know the answer to.
CHAPTER THREE
WREN
“Just do it. What are you afraid of?”
Afraid wasn’t how I’d describe what I felt when my friend Cecile whipped her bikini top off and tossed it on the floor beside the partially concealed terrace hot tub we were sitting in. Uncomfortable. Awkward. Embarrassed. I looked away and kept my top on. “Nudity has never been my thing.”
“Maybe it’s time you try it.” Her tone was amused, but not cruel. Nothing about my current behavior should surprise her. We’d attended the same college in New York. I didn’t skinny-dip with her back then; that much hadn’t changed about me. “There is nothing shameful about the human form.”
“I agree.” I did. In theory. I just couldn’t help that I’d been raised with closed doors by fully dressed parents. Once . . . once I’d walked in on my mother changing, and she’d locked her bedroom door ever since. I’d had a great childhood. Wonderful parents. We just didn’t do naked. Ever.
“Tell me you’ve had sex.”
I turned to glare at her. “You know I have. There was golfer boy freshman year. Then creepy guy from the third floor senior year. Remember how he followed me around for months afterward?”
“I mean recently.”
My cheeks warmed. “Of course I have.”
“When?”
I counted on my fingers. Then sighed. In months, I’d need more than my fingers and toes. In years . . . it was depressing to think in those terms. “It’s been a while.”
She rolled her eyes and tucked a curl back into her loose bun. “I’m glad you came to Paris. I worry about you.”
I tried not to get defensive, but I couldn’t help it. “Because I didn’t become a millionaire like you?”
Luckily, Cecile knew me too well to take offense. Even though we hadn’t seen each other in years, we’d stayed in touch. She was like family to me. The good kind of family, the ones you want to see at the holidays. “You could have if that had been your goal. I admire that you chose to move home and help support your family. It’s just . . .”
“Just what?”
“I remember why you went into engineering, and it wasn’t to pay your parents’ mortgage. How is your father?”
With close friends there were no secrets. No shame. “Same. He still has good days and bad days.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He does the best he can. Isn’t that all any of us can do?”
“I guess. Is he still too stubborn to wear a prosthetic arm?”
I sighed. “Stubborn. Proud. He says none of them do what he needs them to. I used to think I—” I stopped there. There’d been a time when my interest in engineering had been about sharing a common passion with him. My father was brilliant. If his life had taken a different route, he might have done something history would remember him for. When I was younger, I believed I was born to create something with him—for him. Like a child dreaming of becoming a famous singer or a superhero. Eventually reality stepped in, and I chose more realistic goals. Now, when I left him smiling, I let that be my achievement. “He has yet to find one he likes.”
“Are you happy, Wren? I’m only asking because I care. Is something wrong?”
I closed my eyes and leaned back against the neck cushion. Was I happy? I hadn’t allowed myself the luxury of that selfish question.
What was happiness?
I had a good life. I was healthy. I had friends. Enough money to be able to help my parents. What did I have to complain about?
But happy? I didn’t know if I would have gone as far as to say that. Most days I focused on the positive in my life, because I refused to add the weight of my discontent onto either of my parents. Being so far away from them allowed me the freedom to be honest. “I hate my job.” The admission burst out of me. I opened my eyes and looked across at Cecile.
Although we talked regularly, I hadn’t laid this topic at her door. Her success with her manufacturing company was incredible. I celebrated her success rather than face my own situation. There was no benefit to lamenting what wasn’t. Still, it felt good to vent for once. “It’s so fucking boring. All I do is visually inspect sprinkler systems. I walk around with a tablet, taking notes. That’s what I do with my mechanical engineering degree. And if something is broken, I’m not even the one who fixes it.”
“Then why do it?” Easy for a millionaire who had been raised by two healthy, upper-middle-class parents to say. Still, it was a question worth addressing.
How had I painted myself into this corner? “It’s stable money. Good benefits. You know I wanted something near to my parents, and NE FireSP offered me a job right out of college.”
“You chose safe over fulfilling.” She reached behind her, filled a glass with champagne, and handed it to me.
Yep, that sounds about right. I downed half of it. “I did what I had to do.” My defense sounded hollow to even my o
wn ears.
She reached for a glass of her own. “Did you? I get the path you chose. I get you. All I’m suggesting is that it might be time to reevaluate that life plan.”
“I can’t. My mother isn’t able to work as much as she once could. Some of their bills have become my bills.” I raised my hand in a plea. “Before you say anything—I want to help them. My parents are everything to me.”
Cecile filled a flute of champagne for herself. “I don’t doubt that. You’re a good person, Wren, but you can’t put aside your life for theirs. What are you afraid of? What do you think would happen if you did something for yourself?”
Her question tapped at a fear I usually denied. My father was a good man, but I’d grown up in the shadow of his demons. I knew exactly what I feared would happen if he lost his battle with them. Just thinking about it had me downing the rest of my glass in one gulp. “Nothing I could live with. My mom can’t handle my father on her own,” I said with a shrug of resignation. “They need me.” It was that simple and that complicated. No, it wasn’t fair that I wasn’t as free as many people my age were—but life wasn’t fair. If it were, my father would have come home from his time in the army holding his head high like the hero he was, and not as a broken man none of us had ever found a way to heal. I let Cecile refill my glass. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be such a downer.”
Compassion and love met my gaze. “Hey, don’t be sorry. I love you. I just wish I knew what to say. I don’t know what it’s like to have someone rely on me the way your parents rely on you. If there’s anything I can do . . .”
I gave her hand a squeeze. “You already have. You invited me to Paris. You don’t know how much I needed this vacation—to step out of my life for just a little while. This is the perfect way to recharge my batteries. I’m not unhappy, Cecile. Everyone has responsibilities. I don’t resent mine; I just always thought I’d be more than I am . . .”
Her hand tightened on mine. “Stop right there. Don’t you dare say a bad word about my best friend. You are—”
The Wild One Page 2
