Hot and Bothered (Hot in the Kitchen) (36 page)

She reached for Jack’s hand and squeezed it.

“For the future of us, Jack. But in coming here to Chicago, I was running away from what I’d done and I risked falling into that pattern again, of letting other people decide the big stuff. Moving into my own place, deciding to date, getting a job—these are all ways I’ve taken control of my life these last few months.”

Falling in love with Tad was part of that, too. She had lowered the fence around her heart and let Tad in, and though it had spiraled out of control quickly, she had no regrets, only precious memories.

Jack squeezed her hand back. “This is what you want? Simon to be in Evan’s life?”

She shrugged. “Not really, but I have to take responsibility for what happened, Jack. I had unprotected sex with an unreliable guy and had a baby. That baby has a father with rights.” She divided a look between her brothers. “If it had happened to either of you, how would you feel if Tony went all Vito Corleone and ran you out of town?”

“You know she’s right,” Shane said out of the corner of his mouth.

“Of course I know that,” Jack snapped. “I just hate that she is.”

“Shane, you’re my witness. Jack just said I’m right.”

On Jack’s grunt, Shane threw back his head and laughed. “Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears. Next, he’ll be saying you can date whomever you want.” Shane gave her a conspiratorial wink.

“Hold your horses, Shane. I’m just getting used to my baby sister acting more maturely than me.” Jack leaned in and kissed her forehead. “I’m not going to be nice to St. James, Jules. You might be an adult capable of making your own decisions but there’s a code here and he broke it. I definitely won’t be extending an invitation for him to join us on the family vacay to Tuscany.”

“Tuscany, bro?” Shane’s face lit up. “Hypothetical or for real?”

“I’m looking into it,” Jack said with a grin. “Thought we should buy a villa for the girls.”

“Suh-weet.”

They high-fived each other while Jules looked on indulgently. How lucky was she to have such cool elders in her corner?

“Now, as for the dating,” Jack said, directing his hard fraternal gaze back at her. “Sweetheart, no one’s good enough for you but if you find someone who makes you happy and he’s not a complete pillock, then I suppose I’ll have to get on board.”

She ducked her head to look under the table, then picked up a frosted glass candle holder and turned it over. “What have you done with my brother?”

He chuckled. “Look, you’re an adult and you have to make your own way. You were always an amazing girl, but since you’ve come to Chicago I’ve watched you grow into an amazing mother and woman. And I know you hate how in touch I am with my feminine side”—he slid a withering glance at Shane who had laugh-snorted at that—“but I’m not going to apologize for loving the crap out of my sister. And loving you means having to respect that you might be able to make your own decisions. In all things.”

She swallowed past a lump as large as a side of beef in her throat. “So you’re not going to go all Cro-Mag when I bring home the ex-con with a latex fetish and mommy issues?”

Her brother slid a dark look to Shane then wheeled it back to her.

“You
would
do that to piss me off, you cheeky mare.”

The sound of their laughter covered her too-fast heartbeat.

Shane raised an astute eyebrow. “What about Tad? Isn’t he the guy you want to bring home, Jules?”

She hoped her swallow didn’t sound as loud as it felt in her throat. True, the only guy she wanted to bring home was the one who was the very definition of home. He had been since the moment she stepped into the kitchen at DeLuca’s Ristorante and made the first decision to change her life for the better.

With Tad, she had found a soul connection that should have been strong enough to break free of all that held them back. But sometimes we come to enjoy the cozy confines of the cages we’ve spent so long building. Tad’s faith in her had given her wings; she only wished he could let her do the same for him.

“Tad and I aren’t going to work out. We’re better as friends.”

Concern furrowed Jack’s brow. “Did he hurt you, Jules?”

“No,” she lied. “He just hurt himself.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“At the table with good friends and family you do not become old.”
Tad pulled up outside Casa DeLuca on the Harley, his stomach rumbling with what he wished was hunger but what was more likely a case of sour grapes. Lili had warned him but he had to see for himself.

Quietly, he let himself in the front door and made for the kitchen, but instead of heading outside, he watched the gathering around the big picnic table through the window that faced the backyard. They had a full house today, all the usual suspects and one special guest.

Simon St. Fucking James.

He was one of a cozy pair of bookends with Jules on the other side and Evan in the middle. The wily little prick said something over Evan’s head and her soft, musical laugh wafted over the unseasonably warm May breeze through the open window. Tad felt it like a chef’s knife to his heart.

Demon threw his dino-giraffe on the ground and Jules stood up to retrieve it, giving him the full picture. She had pulled her hair into a top knot like you might see on a dolled-up poodle. Her oversized tee hung off one perfectly round shoulder, a streak of something pea-green—probably peas—cutting a path across one breast. Peeking below the shirt’s hem were the white ravels of cut-off denim shorts, frayed over her creamy thighs. The whole image should have been fairly nondescript, but in Tad’s eyes, she was so fucking beautiful.

He lifted his hand in a wave but Evan chose that moment to screech for the damn toy and she turned back to the table without seeing his greeting. For the briefest moment, he questioned if he was even here. He felt oddly insubstantial, strangely transparent. Talk and chatter continued, all that vitality moving on and around him. His life for the last ten years had been like this—an ebb and flow, where he would sometimes pull up to the shore only to have his progress ripped from under him by the greedy surf.

Simon now bounced Evan on his knee, making the kid giggle while Jules looked on indulgently. Tad recognized that look. She was happy—cautiously so, but happy all the same. They had created a bundle of life together, and no matter the guy’s sins, he was still Evan’s father. An unbreakable bond of blood and genetics. And Tad was still his parents’ son.

Doing the right thing had never felt so wrong.

Frankie bustled in, barely looking at him, and wrenched the fridge door open. She pulled out a large ceramic bowl of
zabaglione
.

She pushed a plate of washed strawberries toward him with a knife. It was a move she tried every now and then, as if his hands would start chopping involuntarily, somehow possessed by muscle memory. Every time she did it, he ignored it, and every time he did that, she sighed deeply like the Italian mama she was.

“How is business?”

He curled his hand around the butt of the chef’s knife and started to bisect the ruby-pink fruit.
Watch your fingers, Taddeo.

“The
Tasty Chicago
review is going to be bad but we’ll survive it.”

She nodded her understanding. As the wife of a restaurateur, she’d suffered her fair share of poor reviews over the years. Nothing was so bad they couldn’t bounce back from it.

“How did you spend the day?”

He focused on his knife work.
Be one with the knife.
It kept him from shaking.

“The usual.”
Got wasted, screwed the girl he was crazy about, broke her heart.

“Ten years is a long time, Taddeo.”

Common sense acknowledged that but in his heart, ten years still felt like ten minutes. Every detail was as sharp now as the day he lived it. His thumping head, the hard bench in the cell, the unyielding expression on Tony’s face when Tad stepped into that interview room at the CPD Third District after a dreamless night.

For one brief glittering moment while he made pasta with his beautiful girl, he had thought he might not need to go on that bender this year. Something—or someone—would be here to distract him. Keep him sane. The dead part of him flickered to life every time he saw Jules and Evan, though it had no right to get so excited.

“I hear you helped Jules through this business with Evan’s father.”

Through the window, Jules and Simon were focused on their son and at that moment they chose to share the connection with one of those Hallmark eye-locks that seemed to spark the air around them.
Look at what we have created.
Envy formed a rock in his stomach, a lump of green desire that threatened to consume everything around it.

He turned to find Frankie looking at him curiously, perhaps wondering why he would do something so clearly against his self-interest.

“She lets Jack push her around. He’s Evan’s family and that’s important.”

“Yes, it is. But that man will never love Evan as much as we do.”

Something crumbled inside his chest, probably one of those stupid fucking bricks Tad the engineer had become so adept at building. Next thing he knew, his feet had moved his body out back to stand behind St. James. The conversation petered out as awareness of Tad’s presence stole across the group.

Jules looked up at him, her sparkling eyes big as the platters on the table. He had no idea if his argument had helped her come to this decision but one look was enough to know she didn’t hate him. He held onto that while he waited.
One, two…

St. James turned around and arched a supercilious eyebrow. He thrust out his hand.

“Tad, isn’t it? We haven’t met officially. Simon St. James.”

Tad ignored the hand. Sure it was a dick move, which was okay because right this minute, Tad DeLuca was the biggest dick who ever lived.

“I’d like a word with you in private.”

He could feel the stares of his family like a nasty kitchen burn, particularly Tony, whose expression registered concern. Shane shook his head slightly in warning while Jack’s eyes narrowed to slits. Ignoring them, he turned and walked to the gable of the house and waited.

Thirty seconds passed before St. James rounded the corner.

“How can I help you?” he asked, his nervousness not quite covered by that swanky accent.

“By not fucking up.”

“I don’t plan to. This means a lot to me.”

Tad scanned Simon’s face for signs of insincerity and came up empty. No matter, the road to hell and all that.

“Jules is part of this family and we’ll protect her and Evan against all comers. You’ll get to do the father thing, but Evan’s going to grow up a DeLuca.”

A bomb of emotion went off in his chest, blowing those bricks to kingdom come.
Evan would grow up a DeLuca.
He meant that Evan was a part of
la famiglia,
but Tad wanted so much more than that. He wanted Jules and Evan to have
his—Tad’s—
name.

“Hold up there, tough guy,” Simon said, his hands raised in mock defense. “I get that you Italians are a clannish bunch but there’s no need to get shirty. As long as I get to see my son, we’ll get along just dandy.”

The urge to punch this idiot took root in his core, but Tad never lost his temper. Years ago, he had learned to control his anger because the one time he had whaled on a guy had set in motion a chain of events that ended with his parents’ lying six feet under. But if ever he was ready to pound a guy into the wall, it was now. How did a douche like this get to have a beautiful kid like Evan? Where was the justice in that?

With the last remaining threads of his control straining to breaking point, Tad willed his body and voice to calm. He had a good four inches on this guy. Time to use it.

He stepped in close. “You’ll get to see him. You’ll get to call him son. You’ll get to hear him say ‘Daddy’. But if I hear of one single instance of you forgetting to call when you should, or canceling that visit on his birthday at the last minute, or doing a single thing to piss off my girl, you’d better hope you’re on good terms with the saint in your stupid fucking ass name because you’ll need him when I get through with you. We clear?”

St. James swallowed and nodded.

“Everything all right here?”

Over St. James’s shoulder, Tad locked eyes with Jack.

St. James moved aside and divided a look between them. “No problem. Just getting acquainted.” His superior smile looked like it might cause him an injury. “I should get back to my son.”

Got it. You have the luckiest sperm on the planet.
Tad watched his retreat, rage nuking every cell.

“You need to hit something?” Jack asked.

“Will you hold still or should I get Shane out here?”

Jack sighed. “Perhaps I was a little hasty when I spoke the other day. I don’t like what’s happening here but I understand now that you had Jules’s best interests at heart.”

“Always.”

A flicker of understanding ignited between them that felt like the beginnings of mutual respect. Nice, but Jack’s quasi-acceptance didn’t change a thing between Tad and Jules. Her interests would be best served if he stayed the hell away from her.

The pause stretched from uncomfortable to… well, comfortable, if he was being honest.