“Meet me tomorrow at Jimmy’s Bar. I’ll be there at one.”
Pasquale nodded, smiling. “Thank you.”
Frank waited for Pasquale to walk away and join two other men sitting at a corner table, before retaking his seat. If he hadn’t been eating with Justine, he would’ve told Pasquale to fuck off. Despite sharing blood, he never liked his mother’s nephew, who wanted to believe he was a throwback to old-schoolgangsters, who felt it was his right to intimidate and physically abuse anyone who stared at him too long because of his different-colored eyes.
“Sorry about that,” he said to Justine, who met his eyes.
“Something tells me you don’t like him.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because you looked as if you were ready to detach that poor man’s head from his body.”
Frank’s smile resembled a sneer, the gesture not reaching his eyes. “There was a time when I wanted to do exactly that but didn’t because it would upset my mother. He happens to be her nephew.”
“What’s the expression. We can pick our friends and not our relatives.”
Frank picked up his wineglass and drained it. “I’ve never heard you talk about your relatives other than your mother and grandmother.”
“That’s because I was never close to them. My uncle’s wife left him when he returned home shell-shocked after World War II and took his four children with her when she moved to Detroit, while both my unmarried aunts never had any kids.”
“Are you still in touch with your mother?”
Justine shook her head. “Once I left to live with my grandmother, she accused me of thinking I was too good to live in the Bronx because her mother had gotten a position as live-in cook for a well-to-do family in Mount Vernon. I sent Mama a Christmas card a few years ago, but it came back that she’d moved and left no forwarding address.” A wry smile twisted her mouth. “So now it is just me and Kenny.”
Frank wanted to tell Justine it didn’t have to be just her and Kenny. That he also wanted to be a part of her life. He’d tried every way he could to convince her that he wanted them to be together exclusively. It had taken a brush with death for him to realize if Justine had changed her mind about marriage,he would marry her within days of their filing for a license.
Then he would buy a house in the suburbs, where she wouldn’t have to work so she could concentrate on earning her college degree at the same time Kenny earned his. And he would ask her if he could legally adopt Kenny, give the boy his name, and make him heir to his estate. Frank realized he was becoming delusional. There would never be a Mr. and Mrs. Francis D’Allesandro and son. It was something he had to get used to and accept.
He picked up a forkful of creamed spinach and winked at Justine when she smiled at him. Aside from Pasquale’s unexpected intrusion, their first date was nothing short of perfection. He had to admit to himself that he liked the more mature Justine Russell. She’d cut her hair. It was now parted in the middle and tucked behind her ears, the straightened strands covering the nape of her slender neck. Her jewelry was a pair of tiny gold hoops in her pierced lobes and a wristwatch. Everything about her was simple and elegant.
At the end of their dinner, they both opted for coffee rather than dessert. When Frank left Brooklyn to drive back to Manhattan, his mood lightened appreciably when Justine told him she had enjoyed going out with him and wanted to do it again.
There were so many places he wanted to see with her, yet he knew it would have to be at her convenience. Not only did she have a full-time job, but she was also planning to attend classes at night at the same college where Kenny would enroll as a full-time student.
He walked her to her apartment door and brushed a light kiss over her lips. “I’ll call you in a couple of days to see if we can get together again.”
Justine stared up at him under lowered lids, unaware how sensual it was. “You know where to find me.”
Frank left the building, returning to where he’d parked hiscar. He thought about stopping to check on his mother, then changed his mind. Ever since Gio had moved into the brownstone with his family, Kathleen spent practically every hour with her mother-in-law. Gianna doted on her latest grandson, to whom she only spoke Italian. Even Gio’s daughters had begun to speak the language and had become almost as fluent as their older brother, Frankie.
Frank still worried about his godson, who appeared to have a new girlfriend every few months, and found his “love them and leave them” attitude disturbing. When he had broached the subject with Frankie, his namesake told him most of the girls he dated didn’t want to have sex, so it was onto the next. It was when Frank predicted that one day he would fall in love with a woman who would break his heart because she wouldn’t sleep with him unless he married her. His nephew, who had turned women’s heads because of his resemblance to movie heartthrob Tony Curtis, laughed and said it would never happen. Frank hoped and prayed he was wrong.
He arrived home, tossed his keys and money clip on the kitchen table, and then walked into his bedroom and changed, wondering what business venture Pasquale wanted to discuss with him. If he hadn’t been blood, he would’ve dismissed him like someone waving away an annoying fly buzzing around his head. But Pasquale was family, and he owed it to him to listen to what he had to say.
Frank stripped down to his underwear and lay across the bed. Exhaustion had swept over him like a fog rolling in off the water. Fatigue, a common side effect of his cancer treatments, continued to plague him when he least expected it. There were times when the voice in his head told him he was dying—but then, wasn’t everyone from the instant they drew their first breath?
He was forty-two, and he wasn’t ready to die.
Not yet.
CHAPTER23
Frank was sitting at a table in the back area of the bar when Pasquale walked in, minutes after one o’clock. His cousin knew his penchant for punctuality and had made certain to come on time. He stood up and motioned to the back door. “Let’s talk outside.”
Pasquale frowned. “Are you crazy, Frankie Delano? It’s hotter than Jerusalem outside.”
“I’m not talking business in here, so the decision is yours. Out or in?”
