Page 78 of Ache for You (Slow Burn 3)
“Try getting a job like the rest of us!”
“Doing what? You know the only things I’m good at are working out and planning vacations.”
I think of all the time we spent together at the gym and researching trips we’d never end up taking, and get depressed all over again.
Sometimes what passes for a relationship is nothing more than having someone around to fill your free time.
“You’re good at mixing cocktails and chatting up strangers, too. You could get a job on a cruise ship.”
“Ha.”
“I have a solution, but you’re not going to like it.”
He says cautiously, “What is it?”
“Marry a dude.”
He scoffs. “Please.”
“I’m serious. Ask your attorney what that trust actually says. Get a copy of it and read it. I’ll bet your father didn’t put anything in there that stipulates you have to marry a woman. The thought never would have even occurred to Mr. Family Values.”
Brad’s quiet for a while, then he starts munching again, furiously fast.
“Yeah, marinate on it. And while you’re marinating, go back to the States.”
“Before you hang up, I have one last thing to say.”
“What is it?”
He takes a deep breath. “Do you think your stepbrother is into guys?”
This idiot. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. “It’s a miracle you’ve made it this far in life without being murdered. You’re the most clueless person I’ve ever met.”
I hang up before he can ask me for Matteo’s phone number.
TWENTY-TWO
MATTEO
Two days later, she still hasn’t called me.
Forty-eight hours. Two thousand eight hundred and eighty minutes. One hundred seventy-two thousand eight hundred seconds. That kiss replays in my mind’s eye the entire time. My erection has become a cliché.
By Wednesday afternoon I’m wound so tight I could snap.
“What’s wrong with you?” scolds Antonio, frowning at me over the rims of his glasses. “You’ve been pacing like a caged tiger since yesterday!”
We’re in the atelier, working on the new collection. Scratch that. One hundred full-time master sewers and technical staff are working on the new collection—I’m wearing grooves in the floor. “I have a lot on my mind.”
Antonio watches me execute three more agitated passes in front of his desk. He’s dressed in his never-changing outfit of black turtleneck, black slacks, and snowy-white athletic shoes. A measuring tape dangles from his neck, curling at the ends. An elastic pincushion bristling with needles hugs his wrist. He leans back in his chair, lights a cigarette, and exhales a cloud of smoke.
“What’s her name?”
I don’t bother asking how he knows my mood is due to a woman. His sixth sense is uncanny. His mother was a gypsy fortune-teller. I think it runs in the genes.
“Kimber.”
He squints at me through the coils of gray fumes wafting around his head. “As in, ly?”
