Waking Up to You: Overexposed (21 page)

Gloria personified the world in which he’d grown up. She’d worked in her parents’ business, gone to high school right here in the neighborhood. Married an Italian boy up the block. Gone to work in
his
family’s business. And proceeded to produce lots of little Italian babies who looked just like her husband.

Though they were both hardheaded and volatile, and had been known to shout the street down when they got going, Tony and Gloria were absolutely crazy about each other. They had the kind of marriage anyone would want to have. The kind he would be lucky to have...once he figured out if he really wanted it.

Not knowing what he wanted was proving to be a real pain in the ass. Made more painful by the very sexy distraction called the Crimson Rose. He’d been able to avoid her for the rest of last night while working at the club, but every time their eyes met, she reminded him that she knew he was attracted to her.

“Nick?” Gloria prompted. “Everything okay?”

“I’m good, where are the boys?” he asked, looking past her for his two older nephews, or the carriage holding the baby one.

“I came in through the back...Tony Jr. and Mikey are in the kitchen with their father.” She raised her voice, never shifting her eyes toward the swinging door leading into the kitchen. “Who had
better
not be giving them candy outta Pop’s candy jar if he wants to
live
another day.”

From the back room came the sound of Tony’s deep laughter. Nick would lay money the boys were already high on Pop’s secret stash of gummy bears. “What about the baby?”

Gloria frowned, glancing toward the door of the restaurant. “He should be here any second. It’s hard enough bringing the boys to mass without Tony there to help me. No way could I handle three of them. So he stayed with Auntie Izzie.” Smiling in relief, Gloria nodded. “Here they are now.”

Something about seeing Izzie pushing a baby carriage into the restaurant made Nick’s stomach twist. Not because she looked like an absolute natural doing it...but because she looked miserable. Uncomfortable as hell.

He had to laugh. The woman was
so
unlike anyone else around here. Maybe that was why he couldn’t get her off his mind.

“Hey, Iz, how’d you do with my little prince?”

“He puked in my hair. Twice.”

Gloria swooped in and lifted the three-month-old out of the stroller, cuddling him close. “Aww, what’d you do to him?”

“I told him if he puked on me again I’d take him to the zoo and drop him in the bear cage,” Izzie muttered. “What do you think I did to him?”

Gloria patted the baby on his back. “It’s okay, Auntie Izzie’s just grumpy because she doesn’t have a sweet man to cuddle up with...much less four like Mommy’s got.”

Nick almost choked on his water at that one. If Gloria had been facing her sister, she would have seen the death ray that had come from Izzie’s eyes. Apparently she heard him...because suddenly that death ray was sent in his direction.

Nick held up his hands, palms out, in a universal peace gesture. “I’m with you. Don’t drop me in a bear cage.”

Her glare faded and she half smiled. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Careful, Nick,” Gloria cautioned, still focused on the baby, “our Izzie’s not quite the sweet young thing you remember. You don’t want to tangle with her.”

Oh, yeah, he did want to tangle with her. Tangle his hands in her hair and his tongue in her mouth and his arms around her body and his legs between her thighs. Mostly he wanted to tangle in her life...and tangle her in his. At least enough so she’d give him a chance to win back some of that interest she’d once felt toward him.

Before Izzie could say anything, the door opened and more family members poured in. His parents and his brother Joe—with wife and baby in tow—led the way. Folks from the neighborhood followed. Next came lots of cousins and aunts and uncles, all of whom came to the restaurant every Sunday for a big family meal.

Izzie’s whole body went tense. He could see it from five feet away. She didn’t want to be part of this—didn’t
feel
a part of this. And Nick, more than anyone else in the room, understood. So without saying a word, he got up, took her hand and tugged her toward his table.

She resisted. “What...”

“Come on, it’ll be okay,” he whispered as he pulled her down to sit beside him. “I’ll tell you who I recognize, you tell me who you recognize and we’ll get through this together.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide, her mouth trembling. Looking for a moment like a trapped deer, she seemed on the verge of fleeing. She appeared unable to deal with something as innocuous—yet painful—as a neighborhood gathering.

“It’s okay,” he repeated. “You can do it.”

It took a few more seconds, but that panicked look slowly began to fade from her eyes. As family friends and neighbors greeted her, he felt her begin to relax beside him. She even chatted a little, smiling at people she hadn’t seen in years.

Everything went fine. Right up until the minute some old lady from the block clapped her hands together, then pinched Izzie’s cheek. “Oh, you’re a beautiful couple!” she exclaimed. “At
last
you’ve got your man, Isabella Natale. All those years and you’ve finally landed him!”

Everyone fell silent, immediately turning in their direction. Especially Gloria. And Nick’s parents.

“Shit,” Izzie mumbled under her breath. Her face turned as red as a glass of the chianti Pop loved so much.

Nick put a hand on her leg under the table. But she pushed it off. And with a quick goodbye to her sister and the family—and a glare at Nick—she strode across the restaurant and stalked out the front door, not looking back. Not even once.

* * *

O
VER
THE
NEXT
couple of days, Izzie gradually began to lose her mind. Began? Heck, she’d been losing her mind since the night she’d toppled onto a table full of cookies and Nick Santori had landed on top of her. The man had been consuming her for
years.
This week, however, he was on track to win the gold medal in the Let’s Drive Izzie Crazy games.

After her failed seduction attempt at Leather and Lace, he’d avoided her as much as he could when on the job. They hadn’t been alone at all the rest of Saturday night, or when they’d both worked again Sunday. Just as well. She was still ticked about what had happened at the restaurant that afternoon.

He did take his job seriously, making sure she went nowhere alone. But
he
hadn’t been alone with her for one minute. It was as if he feared “Rose” would make another move on him the first chance she got, and was making sure she didn’t get the chance.

Grr...men. So untrusting.

But if Nick was frustrating her with his aloofness at the club by night, he was absolutely killing her by day. He’d come by several times in the past few days, popping into the bakery for a muffin and a coffee. Every time he was all cute and sweet and sexy. So different from the dark, brooding guy at the club that she’d have thought they were two different people.

She honestly didn’t know which man appealed to her more. Probably whichever one she happened to be with at the time. Funny...he knew her as two different women. And while his name was Nick either way, she knew him as two different men, too.

Both of them were messing with her head. She’d been making all kinds of stupid mistakes at the bakery today—like using peppermint extract instead of almond in a batch of cookies.

Giving up in the kitchen since she had several hours before the restaurant orders had to be delivered, she decided to do some paperwork before closing. It was well after lunch, she was working alone but could hear the bell if anyone came in.

But even that didn’t go well. She’d added up a column on a deposit slip four times and still hadn’t gotten it right. She was tempted to call Bridget to ask her cousin to straighten out her books. But judging by the conversation they’d had earlier in the day, Bridget had finally worked up the nerve to ask her shaggy-haired used-car salesman out. And Izzie didn’t want to do anything to distract her.

Izzie just wished
she
had a distraction. Because she couldn’t get Nick out of her head. He’d invaded her life. No,
both
her lives. When he stared at her across the club and devoured her with his eyes at night while physically spurning her, she felt ready to howl in fury.

Showing up here by day—the handsome guy next door who wanted to lick the cream out of her cannoli—and her having to refuse him? It was pure hell.

She wanted Nick the bodyguard at night. Not Nick the sexy guy up the block by day.

She wanted sex. Not romance.

Wanted temporary. Not ever after.

Wanted to
do
him. Not date him.

It was simply a matter of wills to determine which of them got what they wanted first. God, she hoped it was her.

“Izzie?”

Startled, Izzie yelped and spun toward the front of the shop, seeing a customer at the counter. So much for thinking she’d hear the bell—she’d been deafened by her own thoughts.

Recognizing the woman, a weary smile curled her lips. Lilith was a regular, who could supposedly read the future. A bit out there, but a good customer, and a nice one. “I’m sorry.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “My head was in the clouds.”

“If the clouds all smell like this bakery, that’s not a bad place to be.”

Maybe for the customers. But after practically living in this place for two months, Izzie was
over
the nauseatingly sweet smells that invaded her nostrils from morning till night. “Believe me, it’s not so great going home from work with hair scented like anisette and clothes that reek of ginger.”

“On the positive side, they say the scent of licorice is great for dieters because it controls your appetite.”

Didn’t seem to her that the sexy, short-haired brunette had anything to worry about in that regard. Frankly, neither did Izzie. She’d long since lost her taste for sweets...no more cookie-induced panty girdles for her. “Twizzlers can keep it. I try to ignore the smells unless someone burns something.”

“Oh, come on, no one at Natale’s ever burns anything.”

Quickly washing her hands, Izzie had barely dried them before Lilith pointed with impatience at the lone cannoli remaining in the front display case.

When Lilith told her she’d be eating in, rather than taking the cannoli to go, Izzie asked, “Got a reading?”

While she didn’t entirely believe in that stuff, Izzie knew a lot of regulars swore by Lilith’s spiritual readings. Though she’d never considered it before, Izzie half wondered if the other woman could help her figure out the quagmire that was her life. Especially the Nick part of that quagmire.

“Nah, I’m taking a break from the medium world right now.”

“Just my luck. For the first time in my life I think I’d actually
pay
to have someone tell me who the heck I’m going to be next week.”

Izzie the baker? Izzie the stripper? Izzie the New Yorker? Izzie the Chicagoan?
Izzie the horny?

That was the one she really wanted an answer to. Was she ever going to get laid again, and oh, please, please, please, would it actually be Nick Santori who did the laying?

She didn’t ask Lilith any of those things, though the medium promised she’d try to help her as soon as she was “back in business”—whatever that meant. But that might be too late. She might already have done something stupid—like having sex with Nick the bouncer as the Crimson Rose. Which would be fabulous but would make him hate her if he found out the truth.

Or something
more
stupid, like going out on a date with Nick, the guy up the block, which would have her parents planning their wedding. Then she’d hate
herself.

Ordering a cappuccino to go with her treat, the mysterious brunette made herself at home at a front table, firing up a laptop. After making the frothy cappuccino, Izzie carried it over. “Doing some surfing?”

“I’m going to try. The most I’ve ever used the web for is updating my website and answering email.”

“Don’t forget shopping. Or maybe you’re going to start haunting chat rooms?”

“No, I’m doing research.”

Leaving the woman to it, Izzie went back to work. Concentrating on cleaning out the display cabinet, she was surprised to hear the bell jangle as another late-day customer came in. This one she didn’t recognize—and she definitely would have, if she’d seen her before. The leggy brunette was dressed entirely in sleek, black leather and she looked like a predatory cat. The sexy little motorcycle parked outside the door suggested the woman was a risk taker and a rule breaker.

Izzie liked her on sight.

“Hey, Izzie,” Lilith called, “what do you know about computers?”

Offering the new customer a quick smile, she answered, “Well, I don’t know how to find any naked pictures of Heath Ledger, and I haven’t figured out how to send a death ray to spammers, but I do the website for the bakery.” It was a basic one, but Izzie was pretty proud of it.

“I hear ya. So you know how to enlarge pictures? Other than ones of naked movie stars?”

Izzie grinned. “Yeah, give me a sec.” She looked at the newcomer. “What can I get you?”

“Espresso and a cannoli.”

“Sorry, Lilith took the last.”

Settling for just the espresso, the woman paid her and waited for her drink. After making it, Izzie went over to Lilith to see what help she could offer.

It wasn’t much. It turned out the medium needed to enlarge a grainy newspaper picture in order to see a ring on some guy’s finger. And Izzie just didn’t have the know-how to do it.

The newcomer in black leather, however, did. Joining them, she asked a few questions, then bent over Lilith’s computer and went to work. Watching her type, her fingers flying on the keys, Izzie figured she was experienced at this. But when the woman acknowledged that she was hacking into the newspaper website to try to find the original photo, she suspected there was a lot more than simple ballsiness to the woman.

She was mysterious. Maybe even a little dangerous.