“Less than a week.” I laughed at the look of disbelief he shot me.
His eyes widened, and his jaw slackened. “No shit?”
“No shit.” I twisted the blade of grass into a knot and pulled it tighter. “She’s different from any woman I’ve met in a long time. She’s smart, she’s beautiful, she’s independent but not in that haughty way.”
He eyed the knot in my hand, tipping his head at it. “Looks like she’s got you tied up in one of those. What’s the problem? If she’s everything you say she is, why isn’t she a candidate to settle down with? Mama would be thrilled.”
I exhaled deeply, shaking my head as I pressed my lips together. “No, she wouldn’t be. Addy’s great, but she’s American.”
“Oh.” His shoulders fell. “You’re right. That is a problem. Mama would tear you a new one and probably chase her out of the house with a broomstick.”
I chuckled, but the sound was humorless. “I know. Luckily, it’s nowhere near the point of her meeting our mother. I just like her, you know? I still don’t really want to settle down, but if I was going to, I could see myself doing it with someone like her.”
“But not with her?” His brows pulled together. “Mama would get over it eventually. Probably. Maybe.”
“You know she wouldn’t. She would lament for the rest of her life about how I didn’t choose a nice Italian girl.” I closed my eyes for a second longer than necessary when I blinked. “Anyway, like I said, we’re nowhere near that point.”
Aldo placed his palms on the grass and pushed himself up. “Then you have nothing to worry about. Enjoy whatever you’ve got going with her and take it as it comes. There’s nothing you can do about her heritage. In the meantime, come race me. I need to see if my training is paying off.”
He held his hand out and jerked me to standing when I took it. The conversation had made me restless, so I agreed to his race.
Aldo took off with no warning, but I caught up to him soon enough. My sneakers pounded against the path and then on the compacted ground beyond it.
With every step I took, I pushed myself harder. I needed to get Addy out of my system. I’d never be able to regret what we’d done last night, but I had to take a step back. For both our sake’s.
Addy was the kind of girl most men spent a lifetime looking for. She was the whole package, the brains, the looks, the confident businesswoman in the boardroom, and the seductress in the bedroom.
But as Aldo said, there was nothing I could do about her heritage. My mother’s heart had already been broken once. I couldn’t be responsible for breaking it again.
At some point, I couldn’t hear Aldo’s footsteps behind me anymore. I turned around and ran backward, finally spotting his red ball cap in the trees between the path and the park.
He was cheating. Fucker.
Shoving all thoughts out of my head, I turned around again and gave it everything I had. I made it back to our starting point seconds before Aldo did, planting my hands on my knees and bending over as I tried to catch my breath.
“You cheated,” I said when he came to stand in front of me, adopting a similar pose to mine. I lifted my head and smirked at him. “It must be because you’re the younger brother.”
“By two and a half minutes, you fucker.” He pierced me with a glare but then dropped the act and started laughing. “I guess I have a lot more training to do if I actually want to win this thing. For now, though, all I want is a beer. You in?”
I nodded. “Sure. I could use a drink.”
A drink for starters, then a plan. Somehow, I was going to have to balance working with Addy while wanting her more than anything, while also not getting myself into a situation that would hurt my mother.
Fuck. This was not going to be fun.
Chapter 16
Addy
I had my very own office. I’d even gotten to decorate it this week.
It was down the hall from Marco’s, situated next to a corner office. My one large window provided a view of the narrow street outside and the stone building beside ours with its red roof and dark green olive trees planted in pots outside it.
Some natural light filtered in, but I also had an old-fashioned mini-chandelier hanging in the center of my space that emitted a bright glow. A maroon and emerald green area rug covered the portion of the floor between my door and my desk, but the rest of the hardwood remained visible.
A four-person conference table and a stand with a potted plant on it took up one side of the room while my desk with its visitor’s chair took up the other. Heavy maroon pinch-pleated curtains hung on a wooden rail to frame my window, while bookshelves lined the wall closest to where I sat.
I loved the warm tones here and had worked to retain the old-school character of the space. All things considered, I thought I’d done a damn good job of mixing the old with the new.
My desk was glass-topped and my chair was a fancy ergonomic model covered in real black leather. A sleek new laptop sat on the desk, accompanied by a small printer and a conference phone.
I tapped my nails on my desk as I studied the spreadsheet open on my screen, then moved my gaze over to the book I had open beside it. There was still a lot I had to learn, but Marco had provided me with every resource I could need, hence the bookshelves.
He’d offered to get me subscriptions to the publications online, and he had gotten them anyway, but I’d always learned better when I
