Hot and Bothered (Hot in the Kitchen) (39 page)

Well, she knew
that.
But any woman who told you she didn’t need to hear her man say it out loud was a lousy, rotten liar.

Mere inches away, he burrowed in his pocket and took out a piece of paper. As he unfolded it, she realized what she was looking at. Shit on a shingle.

“Evan wrote that,” she bit out pre-emptively.

“Liar.”

She couldn’t help her smile. It had been a long shot.

“You left this for me the last time you were at my house.”

The words she had written came back to her in a jumbled haze. As soon as she saw how far gone he was that awful day, the silly note was forgotten.

He smoothed it out on the scuffed-up, stainless steel counter.

Jules + Evan miss Tad (ez too spel!!) + luv him vary much.

“My heart was breaking and you pulled this manipulative crap on me?” He turned the makeshift card over to reveal the rest of it.

I am not adove using my kid to get wot I want. Luv Jules.

Helpless to control her reaction, she let loose a laugh. It was pretty funny, misspellings and all, but she needed to be strong here. She needed to be sure.

“That was then,” she said shakily, as if a week could have possibly changed one iota of her love for him.

“True, but let’s go back a little further than that, shall we? How about the moment you marched into this restaurant and made your knocked-up announcement? Do you remember that, Jules? How it all started? Because I do. You stole the show and you’ve been stealing stuff ever since—my sleep, my peace of mind, my fucking heart.” He grasped her hand and put it over his navel then moved it dangerously low and close to her favorite Tad part. Yes, even above the forearms. She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. Emotion welled in her throat, choking and freeing at once.

“Here.”

He drew her covered hand from the belt buckle higher over his abs.

“Here.”

He dragged it flush to his warm chest, now vibrating with the
thumpety-thump
of his heart through his double-breasted chef jacket. His next words were a strangled whisper.

“And here.”

Her throat burned. With her free hand, she swiped at the tears rolling down her cheeks.

“It’s the Holy Trinity of how I feel about you. I want you, need you, love you. There will never be anyone else for me, Juliet Kilroy. The day my parents died, I thought that was the end of me but it wasn’t. My heart went into stasis. Some kind of suspended animation waiting for you to jumpstart it to life. I’ve wondered why I couldn’t move on and the only possible conclusion is that it was waiting for you. This wonky heart of mine only works when you’re in the room. It only beats when you’re beside me. It only exists to love you.”

The tears kept coming and so did his words, relentless in their assault on her heart.

“A week ago, you made me an offer. You said you’d help carry me through the pain. You assured me your heart was strong enough to beat for two. You promised to bring me back into this life. It was the kindest, sweetest, best offer I’ve ever had and I screwed up when I turned you down. I can’t go another day without you. My heart needs what only you can give, so Jules, put me out of my misery and tell me I haven’t ruined the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Because it’s always been you.”

“Oh, Tad.” She threaded her hand from his heart to cup his strong jaw. Shockingly, that rock-solid model of manliness quivered under her touch. “I’ve been waiting for you to see me.”

“Jules, there’s never been a moment I didn’t see you. Never a moment I didn’t want you. You’re the—”

“Air I breathe?” she offered.

There it was.
That outrageously sexy smile that killed mutiple brain cells every time. She might never recover from it.

She might never need to.

He went on. “You’re the—”

“Blood to my heart?”

His lips twitched. “The sentence I haven’t finished.”

“The thought I haven’t formed yet.”

He kissed her softly, licking the tears that painted her lips. “Your lines are terrible.”

“I know,” she whispered around a sobby hitch in her throat. “Blimey, I know. What if we screw up?”

“What if we don’t?” He touched his forehead to hers. “Jules, we crossed the line weeks ago, maybe months before that. We always knew it would be tough to go back.”

“So that’s your reasoning. It’s easier to move forward than to go back?”

His smile was grimly beautiful. “Forward is never easier. It’s terrifying. But I know that we already have an amazing foundation here. We’re friends, we’re family, we’re very hot, attractive people. If we don’t make a go of this, the terrorists win.”

“You’re barmy.”

“I’m in love.”

His warm, rich laugh reached inside her and unfurled every tight bud of pain and every fist of doubt. She couldn’t speak or smile or move a muscle of her face while she worked on not breaking down completely.

At her silence, his laughter died and gravity took root on his handsome face. “Is it the women I’ve been with? Because I haven’t… not since…”

Her neck felt all tingly, as if she were getting a premonition. “You haven’t what?”

Raw emotion worked the muscles around his mouth. “That night you went cuckoo and jumped me changed everything. I haven’t so much as copped a feel with another woman since.”

Not until he placed a fingertip under her chin and pushed it closed did she realize that her jaw must have fallen slack.

“Say something, Jules. Don’t fail me now.”

Thought shards refused to bond. Tad hadn’t touched another woman in the last year.
A year.
Every second she imagined him with someone else had just been more wasted energy. After a moment, she finally managed to put something together.

“Those three seconds of horror—it made you gay?”

He pursed his lips, his mouth working for a suitable response.
Smartass
or
brat
or something equally appropriate.

“It confirmed what I already knew. It made me yours.”

Yours.
With quite possibly the worse kiss in the history of seduction, she had somehow won this man. And here she thought he was the one rescuing her. Truth was they were saving each other and there was no one else she could imagine sharing her life with.

Make hers a bad boy.

She looped her arms around his neck and kissed him like there was no tomorrow—or like all her tomorrows would be with him. A blast of consuming, possessive heat to let him know just how crazy she was about him.
Crazy.
How had she ever hated that perfect word? When they finally parted, he looked as stunned as she felt.

“Oh, crap, we’re really doing this, aren’t we?” she husked out.

Tad’s smile was as wicked as they come. “Yes,
mia bella
. We are.”

Swinging big. Going all in. Living balls-out.

“I’ve got something else for you.” He extracted another piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.

With shaky hands, she unfolded it. The logo for Green City Market topped the page followed by her name. The rest blurred through her tears.

“Is this what I think it is?”

He grinned. So, so sexy. “If you think it’s an approval to get your own stand at Green City Market, then yes, it is what you think it is. You’re going to sell all those amazing bruschettas and salsas and dips. We’ll also offer them for sale at Vivi’s and see about getting them into gourmet stores throughout the city. I have a few contacts in the food business, you know.”

Her mind flailed at how much faith this man had in her abilities. From the beginning, that had never wavered. The faith in them had taken longer, but it was worth the wait.

“About time,” Lili said, bounding in.

Following, Cara swiped at her eyes. Cara DeLuca Doyle was crying. Now Jules knew the apocalypse was truly upon them.

“Yeah, we were getting really tired of hooking you up with losers when the answer was staring you both right in the face,” Cara said.

“The smug marrieds always know best,” Tad said, shaking his head.

“Yes, we do,” Cara confirmed. “And we also know that it’s time to get this party underway or risk the wrath of DeLucas far and wide.”

“We should leave you to it,” Jules said, kissing her man.
Her man.
The words and the man tasted so right. Her chest felt full to exploding, like the gooey cheesey center of the perfect
arancini
. She didn’t want to leave, not when they had just found each other but she had to let him get on with it.

She pulled away but he held her close. Hmm, that was nice.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I thought the chefs would like to get to work.”

“Yes, they would. Maybe you should show her what she’ll be wearing,” Tad said to some point over her shoulder, a devilish smile shading his lips.

She turned to find Jack and Shane standing behind her.

“We got you something.” Jack held up a chef’s jacket covered in plastic. Above the breast, her name was embroidered in tight black stitching. More tears leaked down her face. This was too, too much.

Jack put an arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple. “There’s no crying in cooking, baby girl.”

“Nicely done, Jules,” Shane said with a wink.

“I told him the jacket doesn’t make the chef,
mia bella,
but I know you Brits,” Tad said. “You’re all about the pomp and circumstance.” His gorgeous mouth curled up at the corner. “You ready to cook with us?”

Oh, yes.

* * *

By the time one a.m. rolled around, relatives and friends had been sent packing and only core revelers remained at DeLuca’s Ristorante. The food—all recipes from Vivi’s repertoire—had been a rousing success and now Tad was moonlighting in his other, but no less important job: holding a sleeping Evan in his arms. Every muscle was stiff as a board but he wouldn’t swap that numbness for anything.

His eyes locked with Jules’s again. All night they had been staring at each other in wide-eyed wonder, not only because they had finally found each other but also because they could now gawk without restraint. No more hiding; love in the open.

“Okay, more toasts,” Cara said, raising her wine glass filled with water. “They say it’s bad luck to toast with a water glass, but the DeLucas have always made their own luck. To Tony and Frankie, on thirty-five years.
Salute.
”

All clinked their wine glasses for that, except Lili and Jack who had lifted water glasses like Cara.

A fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Jules. She shared a knowing glance with Tad then looked back at her brother.

“Wait a second…” Everyone stared at Jack, who actually managed to look more smug than usual. Yes, it
was
possible.

“Why aren’t you drinking? In fact, you haven’t been drinking all night,” Jules accused Jack.

Tad knew Lili had cut out alcohol while she tried to get pregnant, but for both of them to be sticking to
l’acqua
meant something very significant.

“Are you guys pregnant?” Cara blurted.

Jack and Lili shared one of their well-known hot looks mixed with something else. Lili’s shrug did nothing to mitigate her beam. “It’s sort of early to be announcing that kind of thing but…”

“Yes,” Jack whispered, his voice laden with emotion. “I figured if Lili has to suffer without wine for the next eight months, I can do it with her.”

Lili rolled her eyes. “As sweet as that is, I’d rather you drank so I can live off the second-hand residuals every time you kiss me.”

Everyone swarmed on yet another happy couple.

“How far gone—”

“Give her some space—”

“I think Jack’s going to faint—”

Francesca and Tony looked like they might explode with joy. Well, his uncle had both eyebrows raised, which was his version of happiness till the end of time.

Jules hugged her brother. “So you took my advice. Lit some candles, threw Barry White on the decks, dug out the sex toys from the back of the closet…”

“Watch it, you cheeky mare.”

“You’re a brave man to go without alcohol for the entire pregnancy,” Shane muttered around his wide grin. “I couldn’t do it.”

“Hey,” Cara said, nudging him gently in the ribs. “You’ve been well-compensated during this particular pregnancy, Riverdance.”

“Congratulations, Jack,” Tad said, shaking his cousin-in-law’s hand.

Jack nodded his thanks and another brick in that bridge they had been building fell into place. It would probably take a while to prove himself to Jules’s big brother but he had all the time in the world.

After giving everyone a few moments to soak up the great news, Tad cleared his throat and stood, feeling taller than he had in some time. “So I’d like to say a few words.”

Everyone groaned affectionately. A balled-up napkin was thrust from Shane’s direction and landed on Tad’s bread plate.

“I’ll be short, I promise.” He took a deep breath and glanced at his sister, who gave a short nod of encouragement. “Tonight, we celebrate Tony and Frankie but also Rafe and Vivi. A week ago was the anniversary of our parents’ death. Ten years gone and ten years of wondering what might have been. I’ll never stop missing them, but I know that wherever they are, they’re probably proud of us and—”