Hard to Hold (True Romance)

by LETO, JULIE

  “There’s never a problem when a guy is being honest. At least, I don’t think there is. It’s such a rare occurrence, I don’t think there are any set rules. What about Egypt? Did you tell him about your trip?”

  Anne frowned. The thought hadn’t even occurred to her. She and her yoga partner, Adele, had planned their vacation long before Michael had come into her life. “I will. When the time is right. First, I want to make sure this thing has legs, you know?”

  Anne and Shane chatted for a few more minutes and made plans to meet up for knitting and wine the next night. Anne called a few other knitters to make the group a foursome, then headed back up to her office.

  Billy had finished looking over her article. He’d made a couple of good changes and one that she decided to ignore for stylistic reasons rather than technical ones. Once she keyed in the quote she’d obtained from the prosecuting attorney, she e-mailed the finished article to Pamela—five hours ahead of her deadline— then checked her inbox for any leads on her next article.

  Oh, who was she kidding? She was looking for an answer from Michael.

  She wasn’t disappointed. He hadn’t crafted another press release, but he’d sent her a note thanking her for the laugh. And at the bottom, he’d attached a document she had to double click in order to read.

  Printed over a fancy background, she read:

  Invitation:

  Café Davoli

  Dinner starting at 8 pm (unless later is needed)

  Menu

  Appetizer:

  Tomato, fresh basil and fresh mozzarella salad

  with vinaigrette dressing

  Fresh Italian bread with rosemary and

  extra virgin olive oil for dipping

  Angel hair pasta in marinara

  Main Course:

  Eggplant Parmigiana in a tomato basil sauce

  Dessert

  Anne’s surprise

  Plus an assortment of red wines.

  After dinner activity TBD.

  As she read, her hunger intensified, her mouth watering over the menu selections—only to have her lips instantly dry the minute she read the very last line.

  After dinner activity TBD. To be determined.

  Determined by whom? She could only hope that Mike would take responsibility for this call. Judging by the way her insides liquefied in anticipation of having Michael cook for her and serve her not just one of her preferred red wines, but an assortment, she figured that by the end of the night, her ability to make a good decision about what they did once dinner was done might be in serious jeopardy.

  Nine

  MIKE LEANED OVER THE MARINARA gurgling on the stove and took a big whiff before dipping in a hunk of crusty Italian bread. His mouth watered while he blew on the steaming sauce, readying his mouth for the explosion of flavors. The garlic was a little strong, but that’s how he liked it. The salt balanced nicely against the sweetness of the tomatoes. He added an extra dash of red pepper flakes, stirred the pot, then set to his next task.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cooked such an elaborate meal. Sure, he’d pitched in at Christmas in the family kitchen, but creating an entire meal for the sole purpose of seducing Anne’s senses with good food, great wine, and clever company tested even his culinary abilities.

  And yet, he couldn’t wait for her to arrive.

  All day, he’d been struck by the fact that last night had been much like living a romantic comedy. From the casual meal on the couch while the girl revealed her wacky obsession with a television show so antithetical—and yet, so revealing—of her personality to the witty conversation that ended up revealing more than either intended.

  And then there was the mouse.

  And better—the kiss.

  God, the kiss.

  All day, Mike had fought the memory of his lips on hers, resulting in distraction and uncharacteristically low productivity at work. Instead of finishing the press releases he knew had to be done by the end of the week, he’d worked up a fake announcement regarding imaginary mouse infestations in the building where Anne worked most often. Instead of completing his report on the new legislation making its way through the state senate regarding funding for prekindergarten programs, he’d planned tonight’s menu, made a shopping list, and researched a selection of red wines to match each of the meal’s three courses.

  If any of his friends had witnessed his behavior, they’d call him whipped. Except Nikki. She’d helped with the wine choices. Then again, she’d been encouraging him to get whipped over someone— anyone—practically since they’d met.

  Nikki was a self-avowed lover of love. She believed that the powers of infatuation and lust were limitless. He’d disagreed with her up until the moment he met Anne. If this was what whipped felt like, well, it was very, very nice.

  Anne had, likely without realizing it, slid into the nerve-ending-rich area between his insides and his skin. She intrigued him. She invaded even his most mundane thoughts and had made brief but impactful appearances in his dreams. She kept his senses on edge. With her around, he had to be ready for anything—including rescuing her from dead mice.

  When a knock sounded on his door, Sirus jumped down from the couch and barked. He ordered her to quiet down. Instead, she sniffled loudly at the crack between the apartment and the hallway, hunting for the scent of whomever was coming to visit.

  Mike told her to sit, and then wiped his hands on a kitchen towel, popped a breath mint to counteract the garlic he’d eaten as he cooked and tasted, and then answered the door.

  “Am I late?” she asked.

  He was instantly struck by the scent of chocolate and sugar coming from a bright-white pastry box she held in her hands, but a split second later, his senses forgot about sweets and focused on her. Dressed in a light sweater and snug jeans, her hair pulled back loosely at her neck, she looked pretty and casual and confident. Her eyes gleamed with what he hoped was pleasure at seeing him again.

  He took the box and inhaled appreciatively. “You took my dessert request seriously.”

  “Dessert is serious business,” she replied. The minute he tried to undo the tape holding it shut, she reclaimed the treat. “But it’s a surprise. No peeking.”

  He held up his hands in surrender. Sirus was wiggling where she sat. If he didn’t give her permission to greet Anne soon, she might crack her spine.

  After a slightly distrustful and wholly affected glare, Anne gave him the box again, then immediately dropped to her knees to pet the dog. He put the box of delights on top of the refrigerator and then poured her a glass of wine.

  “Zinfandel?” he asked.

  Her eyebrows rose as she caught sight of the trio of bottles lined up beside six wineglasses. “Are you expecting company?”

  “It’s just us,” he replied, handing her the glass and then taking a sniff of his own. “Nikki, one of the women I work with, knows a guy at a wine store. He suggested that having different glasses for each wine would impress you. Was he right?”

  “Do I have to wash dishes when we’re done?”

  “No,” Mike answered with a chuckle.

  She raised her glass in a toast. “Then I’m impressed.”

  He gestured her to the living room, then sent Sirus to the fluffy bed beneath the window that was her normal napping spot. He took his appetizer out of the refrigerator, removed the plastic wrap, and set the plate in front of her. He’d artfully arranged slices of fresh mozzarella alternately with thick red discs of beefsteak tomato and bright green strips of basil. He poured his homemade vinaigrette over the top, then handed her a fork, small plate, and napkin.

  “This is gorgeous,” she said, spearing a helping onto her plate.

  “My mother always said that visual presentation is as important as the taste of the food.”

  “You’re mother is right. Is she Italian?”

  “My father’s Italian. My mother is the Jewish half of my genetics.”

  “Right,” Anne said. “I’ve always
found that Jews and Italians have a lot in common. The overbearing mothers. The guilt over the state of the universe.”

  Mike handed her a knife. “Not to mention the emphasis on food.”

  “Best of both worlds, baby.”

  She oohed and aahed over his mozzarella salad and was sufficiently impressed when he confessed that he’d whipped up the vinaigrette from his own recipe. They talked about her own culinary skills, which he had to admit, he was a little surprised to learn were not deficient. She didn’t like to clean, but she loved to cook. Her claims about the deliciousness of her pancakes made him wonder how to get an invite for breakfast without sounding like he was suggesting they spend the night together first.

  “More wine?” he asked, bringing out the fresh Italian focaccia he’d picked up at the store, but had rewarmed in his oven.

  Her glass wasn’t quite empty yet, but as she dipped a hunk of the bread into a swirl of spiced olive oil, she smiled. “You have a lot of wine there. We need to pace ourselves.”

  “That’s the beauty of us living in the same building. Neither of us has to drive.”

  “Good point,” she said, holding out her glass. “Just half, though. I want to have room for everything and I don’t want to embarrass myself by getting drunk. Unless that’s your intention?”

  She batted her eyelashes suggestively.

  “It’s been my experience that I have better luck with women when they’re sober.”

  “Do you have a lot of luck with women?”

  He’d gone to the kitchen to drop his precooked angel-hair pasta back into the salted, starchy water for a quick reheat, but stopped dead at her question.

  “Define luck,” he countered.

  “A lot of girlfriends?”

  “Define—”

  “A lot,” she supplied. “Okay, I guess what I’m asking is, how heavy is your emotional baggage?”

  He pondered her question as he stirred the tomato-basil sauce. “I don’t think I’d get charged extra by the airlines.”

  She smiled. “Average, then.”

  “You don’t get to our age without a few broken hearts.”

  Once again, Anne’s luminous brown eyes and easy manner coaxed him into revealing more than he’d ever imagined in so short a time. As he prepared the next part of their appetizer, warming and draining the pasta, ladling the sauce, and topping the small bowls with freshly chopped parsley and grated parmesan, he told her about Lisa.

  Anne listened and ate, and while she shook her head when he recounted some of the more perplexing turns of the tale, she didn’t criticize his ex to gain points with him. He found her attitude not only wise, but also empathetic and sincere.

  “Life just sucks sometimes,” Anne concluded.

  “Yeah, it does.”

  “But I think,” she said, twirling her last fork of pasta, “she seriously missed out.”

  “You’re just saying that because of my marinara,” he countered, wanting to move the conversation away from his romantic past.

  “There are worse reasons to date a guy than his culinary skill,” Anne pointed out.

  Questions about her love life up until this point danced on his tongue, but he bit them back. He didn’t really care. Anne seemed like the type who would travel light with minimum baggage, no matter the distance to the destination or the length of stay.

  And this was a good thing. He wasn’t looking to get serious. He cherished the time it took to become friends with a woman first, get to know her, before risking either of their hearts.

  “You might want to wait until you taste my eggplant parmesan before you make any judgments.”

  He cleared away the appetizer dishes, teasing her mercilessly when she insisted on helping, and then cruelly jumping at her from behind when she dared open up his dishwasher.

  She nearly dropped a stack of plates, but retaliated by grabbing a dishtowel and snapping him a few times in the butt before she was satisfied that his punishment fit the crime. When he spun around, she was right there, flushed from laughing and though he admittedly didn’t try very hard, he could not resist stealing a kiss.

  She tasted of wine and warmth. Trapped with her back against the counter, he pressed full against her, reveling in the way her curves molded against his body. She slid her hands around his neck, speared her fingers through his hair, and drew him even deeper into the kiss.

  His heartbeat accelerated, pumping blood into his extremities. His fingers tingled as they clutched at her hips. His legs ached from the act of remaining vertical when other parts of his body screamed for horizontal relief.

  “You taste like garlic,” she murmured, smiling from beneath lazy lashes.

  “So do you. We cancel each other out.”

  Then he kissed her again.

  He might have feasted on her for hours if the buzzer over his stove hadn’t cracked the sexually charged air into a thousand electric fragments. They jumped at the sound and then laughed. To give him a minute to pull himself back under control, he directed her to pour the next round of red wine while he grabbed an oven mitt.

  He bit a curse when he realized his carefully stacked towers of eggplant, mozzarella, and sauce had toppled during the baking process, but he slid them as artfully as he could on to plates while Anne brought the glasses of chianti to the table he’d set beside the window.

  His apartment didn’t have much of a view, but the streetlights bathed the corner in a nice pink glow. He enhanced the effect by dimming the harsh lighting in the rest of the apartment. And although he suspected she might think he was a total dweeb, he lit the single candle in the center of the table.

  “You should open a restaurant,” she raved.

  “Been there, done that,” he said, shaking his head.

  She put down her fork and retrieved her wineglass. “You used to own a restaurant?”

  “My parents,” he explained. “It was nothing fancy, just one of those places at the state fair every summer. But I learned about counting money, ordering inventory, and serving customers from a very early age. I prefer to cook for friends and family. They’re way more appreciative.”

  Anne nodded. “My parents ran a business, too. Furniture. Funny how we both have families with business backgrounds, but neither of us followed that path.”

  This spawned a deep and revealing conversation about why she’d chosen to be a journalist and why he’d pursued a life in public service. She was surprised but impressed to learn that he’d worked on the last presidential campaign and that his current job with a group that lobbied for educational reform stemmed not only from his questionable experiences as a student with a disability in an often indifferent system, but also because both his mother and sisters were schoolteachers.

  “So you hated school,” Anne said as she finished the last of her wine and the eggplant parmesan on her plate, which was reduced to a smear of sauce and flecks of onion, basil, and garlic.

  He took her plate and slid it beneath his similarly empty one. “For the most part, but I love learning. I read a lot. I’m a curious guy, so if something interests me, I find ways to know more about it. College was way more fun than primary and high school.”

  “Isn’t it always? Well, don’t learn anything more about cooking or I might have to eat here every night and then I’ll weigh a ton.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want you to weigh a ton on my account,” he said, “but you can come here for a meal whenever you’d like.”

  Together, they tidied the kitchen, but before either of them could fit another morsel of food into their mouths, they decided another walk was in order. Sirus, who’d behaved with amazing restraint during the entire meal, leapt with the alacrity of a four-legged pogo stick when Mike put on his jacket and grabbed her leash. When Anne returned from her apartment sufficiently bundled, they headed out onto the streets, this time opting not for the park, but for a quick walk around the neighborhood.

  “You seem in an awful hurry to get back upstairs,” Anne pointed out whe
n Sirus made one last stop at a tree in front of the building. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with the to be determined after-dinner activities, would it?”

  He could seriously get used to being around a woman who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind.

  “I was thinking more about dessert,” he said, matching her suggestive tone.

  “Those aren’t the same thing?” she challenged.

  He groaned, fighting the urge to tug the leash hard and hurry the dog. Instead, he turned away from her so that she couldn’t continue to torture him with her eyes.

  Upstairs, he washed his hands and opened the last bottle of wine, an investment Nikki’s pal had insisted would be the highlight of the evening. He poured the recioto into the glasses while Anne retrieved her bakery box from atop the fridge.

  She slid her finger underneath the flaps to break the seal, then handed him the box. Intrigued, he lifted the top and immediately started to laugh.

  Two mice, shaped out of sweet, ricotta cheese with ears and tail made of dark chocolate and cookie, stared back at him.

  “This mouse thing has gone too far,” he said.

  “Wait until you taste them.”

  As it was nearly eleven, Mike suggested they flip on the television and catch the latest episode of The Daily Show. She hesitated for a split second when he informed her that unlike her, he kept his television in his bedroom, but after grabbing a cookie sheet to act as a makeshift tray, they headed into his room.

  He flipped on the lights, then the television. God, there were about a thousand things he’d rather do with Anne Miller in here than watch Jon Stewart poke fun at the day’s political gaffs, but he had to stem the rush of lust coursing through him. Luckily, the delicious wine and clever mice kept their mouths too busy to worry about moments not spent kissing. During commercials, Anne wandered around the room, checking out the memorabilia and pictures displayed neatly on his shelves.

  “Where was this?” she asked, holding out a picture of bedraggled, rain-soaked hikers.