Some Like It Hotter (Sweet Life in Seattle #3) (41 page)

“I can’t believe you don’t have a single tattoo.” She rolls onto her side and props herself up on her elbow as she studies his body. Those thighs and that fantastic ass. “Not even one.”

He opens the closet to pull out a shirt. “That’s okay. You have enough for the both of us.”

Her brows go up. “Did I hear you correctly? Are you complaining about my ink?”

“I’m not complaining,” he says, reaching in for a pair of slacks. “But don’t get any more.”

“I’ll get more if I want to. In fact, I’ve been thinking about getting an
Ampelmann
from Berlin on my shoulder, or possibly my ankle.”

“You have beautiful skin, Lindsay. It doesn’t need to be adorned.”

“It’s my body, and I’ll adorn it if I please.” She goes quiet, trying to understand his resistance. “Is this about the ‘Queen of Hearts’ thing? Is that still bothering you?”

Giovanni comes over, carrying his clothes before he goes to take a shower. He sits on the bed next to her. “I admit, that did bother me, but only because I felt like you were keeping another secret.” He takes her hand. “Let’s not have any more secrets between us.”

Lindsay nods, but her stomach clenches because, of course, she does have another secret. A big one. Her infertility. She wonders if he’ll still love her ‘forever’ if he finds out she could never give him children.

Maybe it won’t matter
.

“What’s wrong?” he asks with his usual perceptiveness. Sometimes she wishes he were just a little bit dumber.

She shakes her head. “It’s nothing.” She knows she needs to tell him, but it has to be the right moment, not when he’s running off to the hospital. “Would it really bother you if I got another tattoo?”

“No, of course not. I just think you’re beautiful the way you are, that’s all.”

He leaves to get ready for work, and she decides to put this whole thing out of her mind for now. She’s learned that sometimes worrying about something too much creates a problem where there is none.

They’re both busy the next couple of days. He’s at the hospital a lot, and she works at the bakery in the mornings and then goes to her studio in the afternoon. She finally goes online to register for classes at the university—though she still has no idea how she’s going to pay for them.

There’s a party at Natalie’s on Friday. It started out as a girls’ night, but turned into an ‘everybody is invited’ sort of thing, so she and Giovanni go together. After they arrive, she learns Natalie has already found a manny. It’s the brother of Anthony’s assistant from work.

“You’re going to like him,” Natalie tells her, as Lindsay helps set up the buffet of food for everyone in the dining room. “He’s a great guy. Married and in school right now to become a kindergarten teacher.”

She nods with approval. “I still want to meet him, but I have to agree, he does sound perfect.”

Blair is there with her husband, Nathan, and she comes over to give Lindsay a hug. “You weren’t kidding about Anthony’s brother,” she says. “He’s really handsome and kind of intense too. Plus, he’s a surgeon—how hot is that?”

“Very fucking hot.” Lindsay grins and glances over to Giovanni, who’s talking to Nathan across the room. It occurs to her that they’d probably get along as they’re both well-traveled. She sees Tori, another friend, and they both wave hello.

“I have to ask, though.” Blair leans closer. “Does he pass the Bandito Test?”

Lindsay glances over at Giovanni again. The Bandito Test was this test Blair and Tori came up with to test a guy’s worthiness. The basic scenario is this: If you were kidnapped by a group of banditos, would the guy rescue you, even if it meant putting his own life in great danger?

“Of course, he’d pass,” Lindsay says. Hell, knowing Giovanni, he’d rescue her then go back and rescue everybody else who’d been kidnapped too.

He senses her perusal because his eyes go to hers and stay there. Neither of them can look away. It’s been like this all night. Eventually, he pulls her into Natalie and Anthony’s guest bedroom, the one they stayed in, which is now filled with coats and purses.

“Let’s get out of here,” he murmurs, pushing her against the closed door. “I’m going nuts. I want to be alone with you.”

She wraps her arms around his neck. “We haven’t been here long enough. Don’t you want to be social?”

“No.” He kisses her then trails his mouth down to her neck. “I want to take you home and do all manner of dirty things to you.”

“We have to stay at least a little while longer,” she tells him, to which he grumbles and growls.

They go back out and join the party, though he stays by her side, holding her hand and whispering in her ear as he nuzzles her some more. All the while, Lindsay giggles like a teeny bopper.

When she goes into the kitchen to grab some paper towels to help clean up a spill, Anthony is there. “I don’t know what’s going on between you and my brother,” he says with amazement, “but I haven’t seen Gio this happy in a long time.”

Later, she sees Natalie watching them with a little smile. By the time they announce they’re leaving, her sister whispers to her in the doorway, “You two look like you’re married for real.”

Unfortunately, that comment stays with Lindsay, and not in a good way. Despite how happy she’s been, a part of her is still nervous. She never wanted to marry again, to set herself up for that kind of pain, yet somehow this arrangement is turning into an actual marriage, and she doesn’t know what to do about it.

Over the weekend, Giovanni tells her more about his relationship with Olivia. It hurts her deeply to hear how he was used—not that he sees it that way, but she certainly does.

After he explains how he lied to his parents by telling them he was involved in various sports and other after-school activities when instead he was with Olivia, she asks how they managed it.

“Where did you go to be together? Her house?”

“Sometimes,” he says.

They’re sitting together on the couch after having dinner. He was at the hospital all day as usual, but it turns out he finally has tomorrow off. “I take it her husband was gone a lot for work?”

“He was, and occasionally we’d meet at her house, but mostly we’d meet at other people’s houses.”

“What do you mean?”

Olivia apparently owned her own interior design firm and had access to numerous empty houses while her clients weren’t around. Lindsay’s sure they would have been seriously pissed to discover how much she abused their trust.

“Were you ever caught?”

He nods. “A few times, but I think she liked it. Olivia enjoyed the rush. She was kind of a thrill seeker. She’d lie and tell them I was a design student, or if we stayed at a hotel, she usually told people I was her nephew.”

“And they believed her?”

“No one ever questioned it.”

She shakes her head. “I’m surprised her husband never figured it out. After all that time how could he not have suspected anything?”

He takes a swallows from his beer. “Sometimes I wondered if he knew. Not about me, but that she was with someone. She admitted to me at one point how there had been other guys before me.” He reflects for a moment. “There was someone after me too, I think.”

“Young like you?”

He nods. “That’s the impression I got. Olivia always seemed most concerned my parents would find out.”

“I’ll bet.” She tries to imagine what his parents would have done if they knew the truth. Olivia had good reason to be scared. She’s sure they would have gone after her with everything they had.

“I tried to break it off with her in the beginning.” He licks his lips. “I tried a couple times.”

“What happened?”

“She convinced me to stay.” He looks at her. “I once yelled at her and told her how I wanted to be a normal teenager and date teenage girls like I was supposed to.”

She reaches for his hand and squeezes it.

“In the beginning, she used sex to convince me, and it was difficult to resist. Then later, I fell in love with her.” He stares down at the beer bottle. “I’m ashamed to admit it, but at that point, I didn’t want to leave. I chose to stay with her, despite all the lies it involved.”

“Being manipulated like that is not really choosing,” she says, but knows he doesn’t believe her.

“For a long time afterward, I didn’t want to be with anyone else, and when I finally gave in to my own needs, I couldn’t give anything emotionally.”

He closes his eyes and leans his head back on the couch. There’s anguish on his face, and she feels it too, along with a deep rage for Olivia.
If she weren’t already dead, I’d go after her myself.

“We don’t have to talk about this anymore,” she says. “Not if it’s hurting you.”

He opens his eyes and looks at her. “No, I want to tell you. It’s weird, but I think it’s helping me. It’s like for years I’ve been frozen in a long winter, and now it’s finally spring.” He smiles and draws her in closer. “You’re my spring,” he says quietly. “My new beginning.”

She touches his face, her heart in her throat. “You’re mine too.”

The next morning, as Giovanni changes the bandage on her finger, checking for signs of infection, Lindsay tells him how she thinks he should consider talking to somebody about his past.

“What you do you mean? Like a professional?” he asks.

“Yeah, like a therapist or counselor.”

He gives her a wry look. “I don’t need therapy.” And then he leans down and kisses her on the mouth. “All I need is you.”

She disagrees, thinking it might be good for him. “You should consider it. I know you don’t believe this, but from everything you’ve told me, Olivia didn’t just fuck your body. She fucked your mind too.”

He pauses. “I’m fine. Look at my life. I’m not exactly struggling here.”

“It’s true that, professionally, you’re successful, but your personal life was a mess for years.”

“
Was
being the operative word.” He finishes cleaning off her finger with some kind of antibacterial spray and throws the cotton in the garbage. “I’m happy to say your finger is healing well, and I don’t see any sign of infection. We can leave the bandage off.”

She nods. “Okay, thanks.”

He goes over to the sink and washes his hands. When he’s done and drying them on a towel, he tells her how he’s going to buy some more fruit trees for the backyard soon, how he wants to plant some apple trees along the fence.

“We should finish setting up the rooms for Joseph and Sara too,” Lindsay says, thinking it over. She’s done some painting, but they haven’t bought beds yet. “Have you heard anything about the adoption?”

“I spoke to Phillip briefly the other day, and we’re still in a holding pattern. He’s worried, though. It sounds like things are growing even more politically unstable.”

“Can we do anything?”

“Not really, but I feel like I’m letting Paul down somehow.”

“That’s crazy. It’s not like you have control over any of this.”

“I know.” Giovanni gazes out the kitchen window. “I just wish I could do more.”

She goes over and wraps her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder. “You’re an amazing friend. Most people would never go to such measures.”

He hugs her in return, and they stay that way for a while.