“Now what’re you thinking about?”
“Am I frowning and furrowing again?”
“Sort of.”
“I’m thinking of the time I met Justin Bieber, actually.” He also doesn’t need to know I’m thinking of the Biebs in the context of having no reaction at all to him while Jason makes my nipples hard. Why is that exactly?
“What was that like?”
I shrug. “Nothing special. He came into my family’s restaurant with a group of people. I waited on them while everyone else had a nuclear meltdown.”
“I can picture you all calm, cool and collected while everyone else freaked out.”
“I don’t go crazy over famous people. I’ve been meeting them all my life.”
“Is that right?”
Nodding, I get up to stretch and then sit on the table next to him. “Giordino’s is very well known around here. People come from all over to eat there. Gloria Estefan and her husband celebrate their anniversary there every year. JLo comes in whenever she’s in town. George Clooney and his parents were in last year.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. Has it always been in your family?”
“My father’s Italian parents opened the restaurant when they first moved to South Florida from the Bronx in the fifties. Cubans moved into the neighborhood that became known as Little Havana in the sixties. Then my parents met and fell in love, and when they eloped, my father brought my mother into the business and insisted on making her part of it. From there, it’s evolved into one side Cuban and one side Italian, with my grandmothers hosting their sides of the house. They bicker like crazy, and people come from all over to see their show.”
“So they don’t get along?”
“Actually, they’re the best of friends behind the scenes, but you’d never know it. Their public persona is very comical. They say it’s good for business, and they’re right.”
“That’s amazing. I love it. I can’t wait to see them in action.”
I try to picture him amid the chaos at Giordino’s. “The only way you can come there with me is if you’re planning to marry me.”
CHAPTER 6
JASON
I stare at her, shocked and unreasonably aroused by everything she says and does. “Marry you?”
She laughs at my reaction. “You have to know my grandmothers. They’ve been trying to find someone new for me since about two years after Tony died. If I bring you there, they’ll pounce on you like the fresh meat you are and call in the priest before the main course is served.”
“Whoa.”
“I know, which is why I can’t take you anywhere near them unless you’re prepared to say ‘I do.’”
I know she’s exaggerating, to a point, which is probably what spurs me to throw gas on the fire that’s been simmering between us all day. “What if I’m not afraid of them?”
She lets out an inelegant snort. “Spoken like someone who’s never met them or seen what they’re capable of.”
“Eh,” I say, waving a hand. “After what I’ve been through, what can a couple of grandmothers do to me?”
Carmen stares at me with dark-brown eyes fringed with extravagant lashes that other women would kill for. Her flawless skin is a lovely golden brown, and her lips are what take her face from pretty to stunning. I’ve never seen a more kissable mouth in my entire life, not to mention she’s curvy and lush and smells so good it’s all I can do not to bury my face in her hair and breathe her in. “You haven’t the first clue what you’re talking about.”
I’m well aware that I have absolutely no business categorizing Carmen Giordino’s many attractive attributes. I’m in enough trouble as it is without having salacious thoughts about the young woman who’s trying to help dig me out of the hellhole I’ve fallen into since I found out what Ginger really wanted with me.
“You’d protect me, wouldn’t you?”
Before she can answer, the officer who brought us to this room returns. “You’re both free to go. The impound lot found the registration to the Porsche. Might be a good idea to keep that handy going forward. We had to wake up the guy who runs the impound, which is why it took so long.” To Carmen, he adds, “Sorry to keep you waiting. We asked him to wait for you so you can get the car tonight. He, um, wouldn’t waive the fee, though. We tried.”
“Thanks for trying,” Carmen says.
Great. Another six hundred bucks out the window. Good thing I work so much that I hardly ever spend any money. The Porsche is my one major indulgence. My apartment in New York is a studio because I’m hardly ever there. I gesture for Carmen to lead the way out of the interrogation room.
The officer escorts us to the main door and sees us out.
We head in the direction of the impound lot.
“I’m having déjà vu.”
Carmen laughs. “I know. Me too. I really am sorry about all of this. I should’ve just called an Uber for Betty.”
“What fun would that’ve been?”
“Ah, well, I wouldn’t have done two stints in the slammer today.”
“You’ll be dining out on this story for the rest of your life.”
“No, I won’t! I don’t want anyone to know I was in jail. My God, my parents and grandmothers would die if they knew.”
“It was all a misunderstanding—both times. If you tell them that—”
“It’s jail, Jason. I can’t tell them.”
Something about her prim-and-proper tone turns me on like crazy, even as I tell myself to knock it off. I love that she’s such a good girl, that she’s never been in any kind of trouble before today.
We arrive at the impound lot, where the grumpy owner is waiting for us. “I think you should waive the fee since you forgot to give me back the registration the first time.”
“Is that what you think, pretty boy?” He’s a scary-looking dude with huge muscles and a tattoo on his face.
I meet his gaze and refuse to blink. “That’s what I think.”
“You should’ve asked for your registration when you picked it up before.”
“Why would I assume you’d take the registration out of the car when you impounded it?”
“Look, it’s one o’clock in the morning. I want to go home. I can either give you your car or keep it. Up to you.”
I can’t take the chance that this is going to get ugly or physical. I’d never risk damaging my hands for six hundred bucks, and I won’t put Carmen in the middle of something like that, either. I hand him my American Express card. Again.
He takes it, runs it and hands me the receipt to sign.
“Be right back.”
“It’s total bullshit,” Carmen says when we’re alone.
“Not worth fighting over. That’s for sure.”
“Now I owe you twelve hundred bucks.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
We continue to bicker back and forth about the money until the Porsche comes to a skidding halt outside the office.
Grumpy is grinning from ear to ear. “This thing is sweet.”