Nomafiosos.
But there were children in my daydreams. A baby boy sometimes… or a four-year-old girl in a pretty red dress…
But there was no way in hell I was going to tell Giorgio any of that. I didn’t want to scare him off.
So I just stuck to the other things about my life that made me a little embarrassed.
“I don’t know… Bianca has her own store…”
“Which her in-laws bought for her,” Giorgio pointed out.
“But she’s talented. She deserves it. I don’t have anything like that. I don’t do art, or fashion, or business… and I don’t really want to.” I shrugged. “I just want to be happy.”
Giorgio nodded. “Same with me.”
I wanted to say,Oh yeah? What about your job?
But I knew he would give me that same annoyed look he had earlier. Once when I’d asked about his car, and again when I’d joked aboutDon’t you know who I work for?
So I just kept quiet.
It hurt my stomach a little not to say anything, but I ignored it. Pushed it down.
“What?” Giorgio asked.
I knew he could sense that I’d put up a wall, but I didn’t want to get into it, so I just said, “I don’t want to scare you off on our first ‘official’ date by talking about how many kids I want.”
“Doesn’t scare me at all,” he said nonchalantly. “I want seven.”
I hadn’t expectedthat.
“SEVEN?!” I cried out.
He laughed. “Yeah – how many doyouwant?”
“I don’t know! I was thinking maybetwo!”
“Okay, we’ll compromise. Six.”
NowIwas the one laughing. “It’s our first date, and you’re negotiating with me about how many kids we’re going to have?!”
“Might as well make sure we both want kids.”
“Well,yeah,I want kids, but there’s no wayI’m havingsixof them.”
“Why not? A nice, big Italian family – ”
“Said the guy who doesn’t have to carry them around for nine months and givebirthto them.”
He grinned. “Okay, point taken. Five, then.”
“No. Three atmost.”
“Four?”
“Three.”
He held out his hand. “It’s a deal.”
