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“You’re going to worry yourself into a heart attack like Dad.” Reaching forward, Luca snagged my hand and gave it a tight squeeze. “The job is mine. I’ve made it my own. It doesn’t own me like it did when I first took over. The fact is, I’m just not ready to share my wife full time yet. Call me a fiend, but I like being able to get her naked—”
I yanked my hand away. “Whoa, all right. Gross.”
He laughed. “You know I have sex, right?”
“Yes. Obviously. But knowing it in an abstract way and thinking about it are two different things.” I waved my hands in front of me. “Don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson about asking when you’re having kids. I won’t be doing that again.”
“Huh. I’m going to remember this when Mom guilt-trips me for not giving her more grandkids.”
I arched my brow. “You’re going to tell our mother you have sex?”
He winced, falling back in his chair like I’d shoved him. “Hell no. I’d rather have bamboo shoved under my fingernails. Forget that.”
I folded my arms at my middle. “I suppose one of the good things about the dissolution of my marriage is not having the pressure to procreate looming over me.”
“For now. I have no doubt our mother is going to start fixing you up with her friends’ nice, divorced sons as soon as she thinks you’re ready.”
I shuddered. “Horrific.”
“Almost as bad as when you tried to set me up with your friends. They were basically clones of you.”
“They weren’t.” His chin lowered, and his brows rose. I sighed. “Fine. My former friends weren’t exactly your type, but you found Saoirse before you were subjected to any blind dates. I’m never marrying again. I’ll have no cover when Mom decides my mourning period is over.”
“Mourning period?” He scoffed. “Is that what she calls ridding yourself of your stiff-necked, boring, unhinged—”
“I know who Miller was. There’s no need for you to describe his finest attributes.”
Talking about my ex wasn’t my favorite activity, which Luca was aware of. After all, he’d been the one to uncover exactly the kind of person Miller Fairfield actually was—and it wasn’t at all the man I’d thought I’d married. Those rough first days of realization, Luca had held me while I utterly fell apart. Then Nellie came, and I’d had no choice but to put myself back together.
“All right.” Luca smoothed his hand over the side of his hair. “I came in here to talk to you about the meeting with Motor Zone next week. I went through the initial proposal last night. On paper, it sounds good, but I want to hear your thoughts.”
Just like that, I flipped from sister to COO of the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the United States. This conversation wasn’t in my schedule, but I mentally shifted things to make room for it.
There were few things I enjoyed more than having nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts discussions with Luca about Rossi Motors—and not just because this business was an integral part of my life. It was sharing this responsibility with my brother, having my opinions valued and my point of view honored even when he didn’t agree. It was the freedom to express all my thoughts with him, unfiltered, unlike what I offered the rest of the executive team. It was the excitement we shared to move Rossi forward—to grow and expand what our great-grandfather had started before we’d even been a twinkle in the sky.
This was why I loved my job.
Working with my brother, as annoying as he was capable of being, was something I’d never trade.
Chapter Four
Clara
Sitting in traffic on my way home, I cursed Luca’s name.
His visit had thrown me off track the rest of the day. I’d been late picking Nellie up from day care, and that meant she was starving for dinner and our time together had been cut by a half hour. It might not have sounded like a lot, but our hours were already so limited thirty minutes was precious to me.
It also meant once she was in bed, I’d be in my home office finishing the tasks I’d left undone instead of vegging out on the couch with a glass of wine and a smutty romance novel.
I relied on those books and an hour or two of laziness to get me through the week.
Damn Luca and his distinct ability to lure me into long conversations. He was too good at saying the exact thing I needed to hear to be distracted.
“I’m hungry, Mommy.”
I glanced at Nellie through the rearview mirror. “I know, honey. I’m trying to get us home as quickly as I can. What would you like for dinner?”
“Noodles.” She kicked her feet to punctuate her excitement for this particular food, which made up at least fifty percent of her diet.
