Page 18 of One Naughty Night (Single in South Beach)

But at least she was here. By his side.

Contemplating a business partnership with him.

He couldn’t have screwed things up too badly last night if she was willing to look at his furniture with him, and that was all the encouragement he needed. He might have intercepted her last night because she looked like she needed assistance, but he sure hadn’t kissed her just to be helpful.

No, Esmerelda Giles in her understated dress and bold nakedness beneath it had managed to turn him inside out with her confusing mix of feminine signals. And something about that brash determination underneath the delicate exterior thoroughly captured his attention.

Made him want to stick around long enough to figure out which Esme was real.

As he pulled into the driveway on the quiet street, he noticed her eyes narrowed, focusing on the house he’d lived in his whole life.

“This isyourhouse?” Her voice registered her surprise as she took in the sprawling contemporary ranch home perched on a low rise.

“For now. My dad left it to all his kids but we took a private vote to turn it over to my oldest brother, Vito, when he returns from adventures abroad. Until then, I’m overseeing the place.” He whipped the mid-size pickup into one of three arched concrete carports.

“This is your family home?” She slid out the passenger door before he could open it for her, her feet carrying her to the middle of the driveway to take in the Cesare family compound with its rock façade and low peaked roof. “It’s gorgeous.”

“Yeah? My mother always said it was too 1960s Hollywood-tacky for her, but my dad considered it his personal palace. Now it’s just home.” He waved her toward the side door, the closest entrance to the climate-controlled section of the attic where he kept his furniture pieces.

“Does your mother still live here?” Esme smoothed her silky blond hair with one hand and straightened her long gauzy skirt with the other.

He probably should have just averted that inevitable question by speaking of his mom more firmly in the past tense, but no matter how long his parents had been gone, they still seemed a part of life to Renzo and his siblings. Real. Present.

“She died in childbirth after she had my youngest brother Marco. She’d been pregnant with twins and lost the second baby—my other little sister.” The loss had been devastating for the whole family, a sudden gut punch that sent them all reeling for years afterward. “My father followed them twelve years ago after a heart attack. Giselle said he missed my mom too much, but who knows? My brother Vito took over parenting then.”

Which was why Renzo and Nico refused to ask Vito for financial help with their youngest brother now. Vito had more than served his time as head of the household.

He turned to her as he opened the door to let them in. “Whoops. Way too much information for an impersonal working relationship, right? Come on in.”

She edged past him sideways in that delicate manner she had of not taking up too much space.

“I’m sorry about your folks,” she murmured, meeting his eyes in a moment of quiet sympathy before turning to absorb the rest of the house. “That must have been very hard for all of you.”

He shrugged past those old hurts, grateful he’d still had family to turn to after all they’d lost. Instead, he focused on Esme, watched her as she stepped inside the kitchen, peering all around as if cataloging every detail.

“The houseisvery sixties Hollywood.” She looked back at him over one shoulder. “You know that’s totally chic now?”

“Chic or not, my mom wasn’t sold. She liked her more traditional house in Naples— Italy, not Florida-- and this house was the epitome of American tackiness in her eyes.” He opened the refrigerator and hunted for something appropriate to offer her. “I’ve got lemonade in a can or beer.” He turned to her, one in each hand. “Not exactly a gourmet’s choice, but--”

She accepted the can of lemonade and punctured the lid. Renzo kept the bottle of beer and twisted off the top before clinking his glass against her aluminum. “Then here’s to new beginnings.”

Without waiting for agreement, he led her behind the kitchen to the narrow stairs he’d built himself for quick access to the storage area. “The roof is low up here, you’ll have to be careful.”

She laughed as she reached the top step and entered the low overhead area. “You meanyouhave to be careful. The room feels just right to— ohmigod.”

Her eye locked on something behind him. Turning, he spied the object of her fascination— a walnut sideboard he’d built on a huge scale that didn’t exactly have great practical application. Running almost the length of the whole space, the giant piece was one of the few furnishings that he hadn’t covered with a dust cloth and it probably wouldn’t even fit in the average dining room.

“I know that’s a little over proportioned,” he admitted, scrambling to pull the protective sheets off some of the other pieces. “But I’ve got lots of other things that are more traditional—chairs, tables, bookshelves…”

And beds. An item he didn’t mention aloud, but which remained prominent in his thoughts as he focused on Esme’s graceful frame amid all the heavy furniture.

“I love this.” Her hand smoothed over the dark surface of the wood, around one curved corner to linger on the paneled doors. “You did a great job not letting the gothic touches overshadow the lines of the piece. And the aged look of the stain is amazing.”

He dropped the armful of dust cloths he’d gathered and joined her in front of the gargantuan sideboard, close enough to catch a whiff of her perfume—something soft and maybe vanilla scented. She made soft exclamations over every detail. The smooth operation of the hidden hinge mechanism. The genuine wood backing on the entire cabinet. The fretwork he’d carved as decoration along one edge.

The artisan within him enjoyed her approval. The man within him wished she would trail her fingers over him the same way she caressed the polished wood.

She examined everything with the same thorough attention, feeling the flat surfaces along with the rungs and legs of various pieces. She withdrew her phone from her purse and opened a notes app before tapping away, all the while praising him for minute particulars no one had ever noticed about his work before.

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