That's Amore (3 page)

The look on her face told him that hadn’t been a brilliant thing to say. He ducked into the kitchen while she shouted after him.

“That was a sexist thing to say! What, do you think we’re born with a diapering gene?”

Yes, Paige had definitely become more outspoken in the last couple of years. He tried to backpedal. He hadn’t meant to sound like a pig, it was just that in his family, all the girls did know how to diaper a baby.

“No, I just meant, girls usually like to babysit and stuff. I don’t know anything about babies.”

Justin was his nephew, but he was usually so surrounded by cooing females at every family event, that Jeff never saw much of the kid. Once Justin hit about five years old, they would take him into the male circle of the family and initiate him into the ways of football, power tools, and beer.

Well, maybe they’d wait until high school on the beer.

He methodically checked every cupboard in the all white kitchen. Nothing. They were going to starve.

“I don’t know anything about babies either!” She came around the kitchen, holding Justin at arm’s length.

The smell hit him like a back alley on garbage day during a heat wave. “Oh, hell. That’s nasty.” He wrinkled his nose.

“Change him.” Paige’s pretty little pink lips were pursed in disapproval.

Justin kicked his legs up and down, spreading the smell further into the kitchen. “Get him out of here. You’re contaminating the kitchen.” He covered his nose and tried to breathe through his mouth.

He offered a solution. “Why don’t we change him together?” That seemed like a good compromise. It wasn’t fair for either of them to have to deal with the toxic waste sitting in Justin’s pants.

Paige tilted her head and considered his offer as they went back into the living room. Finally, she set Justin down again, who toddled off like a drunken sailor, heading for the window.

“Okay, that sounds fair.”

That was settled. They looked at each other. “So,” Jeff said as Paige shrugged out of her red suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves on her white blouse. “What do we do first? Don’t we need, like… equipment or something?”

Jeff was in the construction business. He thought in terms of equipment, tools, and supplies. Constructing, fixing, and quality workmanship.

Any job could be tackled with the right tools.

Paige tried to focus on Jeff’s question, but all she could think was that nothing had changed in the last three years. Oh, sure, she had moved out of Little Italy, gotten a car, worked her way up through two promotions at work, yet one thing hadn’t changed.

She still had the hots for Jeff Benedetto.

And somehow she had wound up in an empty apartment with him. Well, not empty. There was Justin after all.

A dirty diaper should serve as an effective barrier between her and Jeff and the lust that was strong enough to choke her.

“I think we need a clean diaper and something to wash the… stuff off of him.” She couldn’t bring herself to say what that stuff was.

Justin was toddling around the room in his cotton shorts and T-shirt, bending over now and again to gnaw on the corner of the furniture. The poor kid had no idea of the incompetence he was surrounded with.

“I can go to the store.” Jeff sounded doubtful.

Now that the initial fear had receded, Paige wondered if they hadn’t overreacted. She crossed her arms and said, “I don’t think this is going to work, Jeff. Can’t we just drop him off at your mom’s?”

Jeff was eyeing Justin like he wanted to do nothing else but ditch him with the first relative he could find. But he shook his head. “My mom cannot protect him from Johnny Romano and Vinnie Cucuzza. Right now we have the edge. They don’t know where we are. If we lie low for a couple of days, we can keep Justin safe.”

Tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans, he gave another long look at the baby. “I’d never forgive myself if something happened to him.”

Paige felt like a heel. He was right. Of course he was right. The important thing was making sure Justin was safe, not worrying about her libido.

Her cell phone rang and she dug it out of her purse.

“Paigey, it’s Gina.”

“Gina! Where are you? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” The distinct sound of Gina sipping through a straw hit Paige’s ear. “Johnny Romano always had a crush on me, you know. He’s treating me like glass.”

“Well, that’s good.” Paige smacked herself in the forehead. Nothing was good about this. She turned to Jeff and said, “Gina’s fine.”

Then she said to Gina, “Do you know where you are so we can get you?”

“I’m not telling.” Not the answer Paige had expected to hear.

Before Paige could ask her why the heck not, Gina said, “I figure this is a golden opportunity for Frank to miss me. Worry about me a little. By the time I get back he’ll be so worried he’ll finally set our wedding date.”

“That’s not going to work!” Leave it to Gina to take advantage of her own kidnapping. “No one even knows where Frank is.”

“He’s with Vinnie Cucuzza. The idiot’s gotten himself messed up in some bad business. I think they double crossed Johnny or something.” Now Paige could hear Gina chewing, talking with a full mouth.

“What are you eating?”

“Chips. Johnny went to get me more daiquiri mix.” She swallowed. “How’s Justin? Does he miss me?”

If he did, he wasn’t talking. “If you’re okay, I’m taking Justin to your mom’s. I don’t know how to take care of him.”

“No! Johnny may be treating me all right, but I don’t trust him not to snag Justin, trying to flush Frank out of hiding. You know I’ll put myself at risk, Paigey, but I’d never risk anything happening to Justin. You’ve got to keep him hidden.”

Paige knew that was true. Gina might be willing to play games with Frank, but she wouldn’t let anything happen to Justin. “Okay, fine, we’ll keep him.”

“We?” Gina crunched another chip.

Darn it. “Jeff’s with me. It’s a long story.”

“My brother?” Gina snorted. “Hey, maybe this will be a good thing for you too. You can get a little action.”

Paige felt herself blushing and turned to the left so Jeff wouldn’t see her face. She whispered, “I don’t want a little… you know, with Jeff.”

“Bull! You’ve had the hots for him since we were in like the eighth grade.”

Some things were secrets even from your best friend, especially when they concerned your best friend’s brother. At least Paige had thought they were secret. Obviously not.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh. But just so you know, Justin sleeps like the dead, so if you want to fool around while he’s napping, I don’t mind.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” She gritted her teeth and turned her back to Jeff. He was trying to get her attention, making gestures like he wanted to talk to Gina. There was no way she was going to let him do that. No telling what little gems of advice Gina might give him.

“Oh, I gotta go. Johnny’s back. Just make sure Justin drinks vitamin D milk, okay, honey? Love you.”

The phone went dead.

Jeff looked at her exasperated. “I wanted to talk to her. What did she say?”

“She said to make sure Justin drinks vitamin D milk and that’s she’s fine. Johnny’s treating her like glass.” In fact, Gina sounded like she was on a vacation.

“She begged me to keep Justin in hiding though. She’s still afraid Johnny will try and get Justin.”

“I told you.”

She ignored that and said, “I guess you should get more than diapers at the store, then. We’ll need food, besides the milk that is.”

Brushing her hair out of her eyes, she considered all the clients she needed to call and cancel appointments with.

Then she thought about Johnny Romano pointing that gun at Jeff and she panicked. “What if Johnny sees you at the store?”

“You think Johnny’s going to be shopping at Giant Eagle?” Jeff gave her a grin.

Paige frowned at him. That grin was bad news. That grin had been melting her insides to marshmallow for twelve years, and it looked to still have the same affect on her today.

“The man’s got to shop, just like everyone else.”

He reached out and tweaked her nose. “You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

Cute? He thought she was cute?
Annoyed escalated to furious. At twenty-six years old no one should be tweaking her nose but her grandmother. She didn’t want tweaking from Jeff Benedetto. Nope. Tweaking wasn’t even close to what she wanted from him.

Nor did she appreciate that tone he had taken. He was talking to her like he had when she was still in high school and he was living in his first apartment. Patronizing.

“Just go to the store!” She pulled the remote control out of Justin’s mouth and wiped the spittle off on his shorts.

“When I get back I’ll call my brothers and see if we can get this mess straightened out and find Frank.”

“You do that,” she snapped.

He spun her car keys around on his finger. “I might be awhile. We’ll need a lot of supplies if we’re going to be here for a few days. It could even be as long as a week.”

With that prophesy, he left the apartment and she groaned out loud, locking the door behind him. “A week? A week alone with Jeff Benedetto?”

She had to be strong. She had to resist him. She had to remember how he had left her the last time. Alone and humiliated.

She had to ignore the fact that he made her pulse race, and that he always been kind to her when they were growing up. Protective and sweet. But most of all she had to ignore that he had a rock solid chest she had once gotten to taste and touch…

Presing her fingers to her temples she looked up at the ceiling and pleaded, “Deliver me from Temptation!”

Her mother would be so pleased to know she was praying.

EFF HAD ONLY BEEN gone five minutes when Paige’s cell phone rang. Skirting Justin, who was working his way along the couch in a hand over hand method, Paige leapt for her phone.

Maybe it was Gina. Maybe Gina was safe and sound back home and Paige was saved.

“Hello?” she said a little breathlessly from vaulting over the coffee table in a business skirt.

“It’s me.”

Oh, no, that wasn’t Gina. This
me
was Jeff, his low voice in her ear, confidential and intimate, causing her to swallow hard.

“How did you get my cell phone number?”

There was a crash on Jeff’s end. “I called Gina’s cell phone and she answered.”

Paige was about to ask what the crash was, but promptly forgot to at his words. “Gina’s answering her cell phone? Was she okay?”

“Fine. She was watching a talk show.”

How was it that Gina could manage to get kidnapped and have her every whim catered to?

Paige also wondered if Gina had opened her big mouth on the phone and mentioned any little crushes that a certain someone might have on a certain brother. That would be nice and mortifying.

“Listen, I’m calling because I’m at the store.”

“Yeah?” Paige sat down on the leather couch and smiled at Justin. He rewarded with her a grin in return and a baby shriek.

“Okay, so I’ve got one of these cart things and I’m pushing it. Now what do I do?”

Paige rolled her eyes. Justin giggled.

“I mean, I’m staring here at all these diapers and there’s about fifty-two different kinds, Paige. How in the hell am I supposed to know which kind to get?”

“Read the labels.” She turned to Justin and whispered, “Duh.”

Justin squealed with delight.

“Okay, this kind says girl.”

Really. “Well, that would be wrong then.”

This was starting to become amusing.

“Okay, right, that’s good. We need boy.” His voice trailed off and Paige visualized him scanning the shelves earnestly.

Then he said suddenly, “Why do you think it matters? I mean, what’s the difference between the boy diaper and the girl diaper?”

“I don’t know!”

“They probably need more room in the boy diaper. You know, for his package.”

A burst of laughter flew out of her mouth before she could stop it.

“What? I’m serious.”

Paige grinned and crossed her leg. That was the scary thing. She knew he was serious. “I know, I believe you. You’re probably right.”

“Yeah, right, you guys wish,” she whispered to Justin, who smiled, drool looping from his mouth to his fist.

“I’ve got them! Boy, age twelve to eighteen months. How many should I get? Here, I’ll just get the jumbo pack.”

“I’m hanging up now,” Paige told him, having no interest in talking Jeff through every aisle of the grocery store. “But don’t forget to get bottles or those sippy cups for Justin.”

“Hold it. What the hell is a sippy cup?”

“You know, those cups with the lids that click on.” She had seen enough one year olds at the mall tipping those things over and dribbling juice on the floor to figure out they didn’t work. But it seemed to be the thing to do.

“Get one of those and get a couple of bottles in case he’s still on the bottle. And don’t forget about the nipples.”

There was a long pause. “Nipples?”

“Yes, for the bottle.”

“Oh.” His voice was strained.

Paige’s face went hot. Ohmigod. She had said the word “nipples” to Jeff Benedetto.