Page 2 of One Naughty Night (Single in South Beach)

He’d been engaged to a woman raised with the same traditional values as him, but evenshe’dgotten scared off at the last minute by the idea of lifelong commitment. According to Celeste, she couldn’t allow her first lover to be her last.

Not that he blamed her exactly, but he would have liked to have been informed of her decision before he showed up at the altar in his tux.

No, he definitely wasn’t in any hurry to be snapped up by anyone right now. He shoved his pilfered bread in his mouth and resumed watching the erotic flow of scantily clad bodies out on the dance floor. Still leaning in the doorway, he could easily monitor the activity outside the room while occasionally helping Giselle with her work in the kitchen. Even after all formal food service ceased at midnight, the main kitchen still buzzed with activity until almost dawn thanks to twenty-four hour room service and the prep work that needed to be done before the hotel’s three restaurants opened for breakfast.

Despite the high titillation factor of the action in the lounge, Renzo wasn’t here to take in the floorshow. He usually spent his few evenings away from his carpentry work at Club Paradise in order to keep an eye on his baby sister, although tonight there was an added chore. Later he needed to meet his older brother Nico to discuss the Cesare family finances and how in the hell they were going to cover their little brother’s law school expenses without going broke. Renzo was already working every spare second of the day. He needed to figure out a way to channel a more high-end product to a higher paying clientele, but so far he hadn’t come up with how to accomplish this.

“Oh please. Renzo Cesare the monk?” Giselle ladled her sauce over a fresh batch of spinach noodles and slivers of grilled chicken. “Don’t try and tell me you’re swearing off women. It’s been six months since Celeste went back to Rome. Move on already.”

“And you’re such an expert on heartbreak?” Renzo hadn’t mentioned his new financial concerns to Giselle, knowing his sister felt guilty enough about spending her inheritance by investing in Club Paradise. And although the idea of Giselle opening her own business where she could indulge the full extent of her culinary skills had sounded great at the time, none of the Cesare men had been prepared for her to bake bruschetta among half-naked bodies in South Beach’s most racy club.

Giselle garnished the teriyaki dishes with a curly strip of orange peel and a healthy chunk of Tuscan bread while Renzo rang a pager to signal the one of the wait staff.

“Admittedly, no. I’m not an expert since men never get close enough to me to break my heart thanks to you.” She frowned up at him, her forehead damp with steam from the stove.

“Just because the last guy you dated didn’t break your heart doesn’t mean he didn’t cause you a lot of grief. Excuse me for trying to make sure that doesn’t happen again.” Some married S.O.B. had lied to Giselle that he was single and taken her for a ride last winter. Renzo still hadn’t forgiven himself for not keeping a better eye out for her.

“I’m entitled to make my own mistakes. You and Nico have suffocated me with big brother watchfulness ever since then. If you don’t hook up with some majorly distracting females soon, I may be forced to strangle the both of you.”

“Sorry, sis. Cesare men don’t throw their women to the wolves, and this place of yours is crawling with them.” He snagged a plate of teriyaki for himself along with an extra slice of bread. “But since you’re feeding me tonight, I’ll give you a reprieve and you can have the next hour to yourself.”

Giselle shoved him toward the door. “I swear you and Nico are only playing watchdog so you can eat for free. Will you at least try to look mildly charming and less like a terrifying bouncer while you chow down so maybe some naïve woman will steal you away for a few days?”

Renzo reached for a bottle of water before he backed out of the kitchen and into the club. “I’m not interested in the kind of women who want to steal me away. Neanderthals need to do all the stealing.”

As the heavy metal door swung shut behind him he heard Giselle call him a chauvinist pig and he smiled. No news there.

Dance music flooded his senses as he melted into the crowd to search for a table. Snippets of conversation around him drowned out his own thoughts, escalating into an unintelligible, continuous rumble of noise and laughter.

Although he made zero attempt to look charming while he ate at his table for one in the back of the bar, tempting women approached him twice. Part of him responded to their frank come-ons and slinky attire. It had been six months since Celeste, after all. Antiquated values be damned, his sister had been right to suggest he was no monk.

But he had more on his mind than sex—- even with the thumping bass of R & B music pulsing through the dance club and the swirl of moody red and blue lights above him. As the clock behind one of the bars struck midnight, Renzo reminded himself he needed to do a better job of looking out for his family—a sacred trust passed along to him and his brothers by their father on his deathbed. For starters, he had to figure out how to pay for his younger brother’s latest bills while the rest of his family built their careers.

Obviously he needed a second job to supplement his carpentry, but—

Holy hell.

Renzo’s attention snapped from finances back to the action on the dance floor. The scene that a moment ago had been a mass of rump shaking, thigh flashing, and heavy breathing got a little more interesting as a petite blonde dressed like a fairy in a high school play glided into view.

Renzo had her pegged for the glasses and hair-in-a-bun type in two seconds flat. Her fluttery lavender dress looked like the kind of thing other women wore to church. Yet here she was, flitting through South Beach’s most notoriously exotic club in an ankle-length skirt.

She had a schoolteacher walk too. Very proper. No lazy hip-rolling or swinging of arms going on there. In fact, she seemed to take up as little space as possible, edging her way through the crowd, shoulders delicately drawn in and her blue eyes wide with palpable surprise at the sex-drenched atmosphere.

She stood out to him— a sweet anomaly in the room packed full of skintight clothes and do-me heels.

Not that anyone else seemed to notice.

While Renzo tracked her with his eyes as she inched between men and women playing complex games of flirtation, he realized no one else noticed the incongruity of this reserved creature in the midst of the urban jungle.

Talk about being thrown to the wolves. The feathery blonde looked completely unprepared to handle herself in a flagrant meat market like this one. Where washerbig brother, damn it?

Rising to his feet without quite having a plan in mind, Renzo passed off his plate to a harried busboy. As he moved closer to the dance floor, all thought of second jobs and law school tuition were forgotten for the moment.

Not that he was attracted to this woman, he told himself. Just that the protector in him couldn’t stand to watch her brand of innocence stomped by the entitled lounge lizards populating the club.

He had already glimpsed some slick Don Juan type headed her way, two drinks in hand. And no way did the guy know the wide-eyed blonde. Renzo had seen this particular Romeo at the club every night he’d checked on Giselle for the past month. Nico had tossed the dude out on his ear last week for aggressively dancing with a woman who obviously wanted no part of his company.

Renzo finished his bottle of water and tossed it onto the bar, keeping his eye on the silk-suited barracuda closing in on little Miss Innocent. Giselle wouldn’t exactly mind if he didn’t get back to the kitchen for another hour.

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