He shrugs. “It’s still true.”
I manage a smile despite the butterflies staging a full revolt in my stomach. “Your parents are going to hate me.”
He smiles patiently. “They’re going to love you.”
“Easy for you to say,” I retort. “You’re their son. Of course they have to love you.”
He reaches over and takes my hand. His thumb traces circles on my palm, which would be soothing if I weren’t actively spiraling.
The drive to Queens takes forty minutes, during which Nico opens his mouth to say something approximately seven times. Each time, he closes it again and looks out the window instead.
That’s not suspicious at all.
“You okay?” I ask after the fourth aborted attempt.
“Fine,” he replies.
“You keep looking at me like you want to tell me something,” I insist.
His jaw tightens. “Just nervous about tonight.”
Nico Rossi. Nervous. The man who faced down a boardroom coup without breaking a sweat.
I don’t push.
My mind wanders to work things.
Speaking of work, he still hasn’t officially mentioned a promotion since the board meeting. It’s been three weeks. Maybe he changed his mind. Maybe the board talked him out of it. Maybe I imagined the whole thing.
Maybe you should stop catastrophizing and just ask him.
But I can’t. Because I’m too worried he’s going to say it’s not happening, and then I’ll have to deal with that. And right now, I just want to focus on getting through tonight.
The Rossi family home is a modest two-story in a quaint neighborhood.
When the door opens, I recognize Isabella Rossi immediately. Warm eyes, silver-streaked dark hair, and an unlike the formal attire she wore during her office visit with her husband, today she’s wearing an apron that saysKiss the Chefin faded Italian flag colors.
She takes one look at me and pulls me into a hug so tight I actually squeak.
“Finally,” she says against my hair. “Finally he brings someone home.”
“Mama,” Nico sighs behind me.
“What?” she says to him. “I was starting to think you’d become a monk.”
I snort. Can’t help it.
Isabella pulls back and holds my face in her hands, studying me with the kind ofintensity that makes me want to confess every sin I’ve ever committed. “Beautiful. And you have kind eyes. Good. He needs kindness.”
“I try,” I manage.
Antonio appears in the hallway. He’s broader than Nico, with the same dark eyes but a mustache that belongs in a 1970s cop show. He looks me up and down like he’s assessing whether I’m worth the trouble.
“So you’re the one keeping my son out of worse trouble,” he says.
“I’m attempting to, sir,” I reply.
Something that might be approval flickers across his face. “Good. He needs it.”
