Page 31 of Remember That Time

"Vasso, do we have anything non-alcoholic for Mr. Galeazzi?"

"Hot or cold, sir?" Vasso asked.

"Oh, cold if you have it," Gianni replied.

Vasso nodded once. "Right away, sir."

Gianni waited until Vasso walked away before glancing at me. "He seems...nice."

"Vasso is very good at his job and that is all I care about." The man had actually been with me for many years. We weren't friends, but I respected him.

I smiled as I pressed my hand to the middle of Gianni's back. "Come on, let's head out to the patio. Dinner is just about ready."

And tonight was just starting.

Chapter Nine

~ Gianni ~

I was nervous as all hell.

I wanted this to be a date even if I knew we needed to just stay friends at this point. Maybe sometime in the future we could be more, but right now my world was so chaotic, I couldn't even entertain the idea of dating someone and starting a relationship.

I also didn't want to explain to Janos why I couldn't date. I'm sure he would instantly assume that I had loose morals. Explaining that I didn't even know who the father of my child was would be horrible. I didn't want to lose whatever was between us already, even if it was just friendship.

"Is that Coltrane?"

Janos grinned. "You know your jazz."

"Not really," I replied. "I just have a few of his records."

It was nice that we had similar tastes in music.

I blinked as soon as that thought ran across my mind. Why would it matter if we liked the same music? We weren't dating. We were barely even friends.

I needed to stop thinking like this.

The setting that awaited me on the patio did not help me at all. A fire pit was glowing with a roaring fire. Candles in glass jars sat in different areas around a small square table covered with a white tablecloth. That, along with the sultry jazz music playing in the background, made this a very romantic scene.

Right after we sat down, Vasso brought us our drinks. Janos's glass looked to be filled with red wine. I wasn't sure what mine was. It was red, too, but I had specifically asked for something non-alcoholic so I wasn't sure what I had gotten.

I raised the glass. "This is?"

"Sparkling red grape juice, sir."

Oh.

I smiled brightly after taking a sip of the bubbly liquid. "Thank you."

"Your very welcome, sir. I'll have dinner out in a few minutes."

I drew in a deep breath as I looked out over the city view beyond the railing surrounding the patio. "I can see why you like this view so much."

"I bought this building for a song about ten years ago. Your father's company, in fact, did the retrofitting on it."

"It seems like it was a good investment."

Janos snickered. "People laughed at me at the time, thought I was crazy for buying it. Now, the property is worth ten times what it was when I bought it."