“Oh, are you a real estate agent?”
“She’s my executive assistant,” Declan says, slurping his clam and mussel posillopo. He turns to me and says, “Best I’ve ever had. On every level. Don’t know what I’d do without her.”
“Nonna, can I have the recipe for this soup? Whatever you put in it, I need to feed it to him every day.”
“No,” she snarls.
“It’s not the soup, it’s the Guinness,” Mamie stage whispers. “Every nice word out of that boy’s mouth is from the Irish side. Everything good my boys got to give a woman is from the Irish side.”
I share a look and a sly grin with Hannah and Aiden’s wife.
I don’t know about that, Mrs. C, but what your boy’s got is awfully good.
Twenty-Three
Declan
IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE UNFINISHED BUSINESS
While everyone else is crowding into the family room to play Christmas Carol Pictionary with the kids, I pull Maddie into the guest bathroom with me and shut the door. I had wine with dinner. I’m feeling really full and warm. And I caught her unbuttoning and unzipping her jeans about an hour ago, and I just can’t wait to get my hands on that warm, round belly.
“Declan,” she whispers. “What are you doing?”
I lift her sweater up, drop to my knees, and kiss the flesh that’s bulging out of her tight jeans.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Yes, and I need to get you out of these pants.”
“Seriously? You’re horny right now? I can’t even think about sex—I can barely even breathe.”
I try to get her pants down, but they won’t budge, not even an inch.
“Declan.” She puts her hands on either side of my face and pulls me up. I fucking love it when she puts her hands on my face. I try to kiss her mouth, but she dodges out of the way.
“Hey. What’s wrong?”
She frowns at me. “What’s wrong is you need to talk to Hannah, and you need to talk to Brady. I don’t care if you talk to them separately or together, but you need to talk to them.”
I shrug. “About what?”
“Dec.”
“Hey, you’ve never called me Dec before. I like it.”
“Mr. Cannavale. You need to talk to your ex and your brother. In private. I’m telling you this as your assistant whose job it is to make you a less terrible person.”
“I don’t recall giving you those instructions when I hired you.”
“It’s something I do pro bono.”
“Then we’re on the same page. I am very pro bono right now too. Take those pants off.” I make one last attempt at getting her pants down, but they’re attached to her. They’re mean, and I hate them.
“Declan. I mean it.”
“So do I. Take off your pants.” I finally look up at her beautiful sexy face, and her eyes are glistening. With tears. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so serious. “Baby…”
“Dec. If you can’t talk to them, at least let them talk to you. Please. For me.”
For her.
Shit.
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. Right now. I will do that. For you…my long-suffering assistant.”
She nods. “And newly suffering fake girlfriend.”
“Right.” I stare down at her mouth, her quivering lower lip.
“Declan.”
“Right. So that’s a no re. the quickie?”
“It’s a no re. me ever getting these jeans off again, I think.”
I stare down at those curves. “I can focus on the top front quadrant and get you out of here in three minutes.”
She tries to laugh and gives me a playful shove. “Ooof. I need to lie down. Go deal with your emotional baggage.” She slips away from me, opening the door.
“You coming too?”
She presses her back against the wall, trying to breathe. “Just leave me here. Save yourself!”
I manage to steal two kisses before going to deal with my emotional baggage. Because kissing my assistant and my fake girlfriend is more fun than dealing with my ex and my former best friend.
I stand in the doorway to the family room and wait for Hannah and Brady to notice me. Everyone’s still writing things down on scraps of paper. Hannah and Brady are on the same team, of course. I guess they always have been. Not that they were cheating when Hannah and I were together. I believed my brother when he told me that. But they look like they’ve been a couple forever.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at pictures of Hannah and me for months after I got the news. But I looked through old photos of us about a month ago. We were a good-looking pair of people, that’s for certain. And I did love her. And I know she loved me. But I look at them, and I think about what we looked like together, and it wasn’t what I’m seeing before me now. We were two people who loved each other and were trying to make a relationship work. Hannah and Brady are a couple. Simple as that.
I finally catch Brady’s eye when he drops a few pieces of paper into the bowl. I point back and forth between him and Hannah and then to myself and then gesture down the hall. He gives me an incredulous look and mouths Dude.
I roll my eyes and then mouth to him, Not a three-way. Idiot. Talking. I make the international sign of talking with my hand.
He looks so damn happy I could cry. He gives his fiancée a little nudge and nods in my direction, whispering in her ear. She nods, tells Casey to start without them. I go to the living room to take a seat in the armchair. The power seat. I sit like Al Pacino in The Godfather II.
And then I hear Maddie’s voice in my head, reminding me that this isn’t a negotiation, and I reassemble myself in a more friendly pose.
They walk in together, side-by-side but not hand-in-hand, which
