this party might actually get all the Esposito and Domenico kids back together?”
“It’s going to be wonderful.” Violetta’s tone had softened and she accepted the change of topic. “I talked to Camilla yesterday. She asked if we could spare a few hours that Saturday afternoon to help decorate the church hall.”
“Tell her I’ll put it on my calendar.” Camilla was Marco’s older sister, the one who’d done most of the arrangements for the upcoming party.
Violetta changed the subject then, and they chatted for a few more minutes before saying goodbye.
But as Sophie hung up the phone, she knew her peaceful evening was at an end. Most of the time, she deliberately refused to think of Marco. It was the safest way. But knowing that he was home, here in the very same city, had every nerve cell in her body dancing a kick line, and the memories came flooding back fast and hard through the gates that Vee’s words had opened.
Marco.
Her stomach fluttered. She could picture his face as if he were standing before her, dark eyes gleaming with goodnatured amusement at the world, well-sculpted lips and classic Roman nose, his black curls cropped ruthlessly short and dimples winking in his lean cheeks. His sisters had teased him about being a “chick-magnet” years ago—did he still project that same irresistible aura? Did those eyes still promise a woman secret pleasures beyond all imagining? He’d curled her toes every time she so much as looked at him.
And look she had.
She’d longed for him ever since she’d started to notice boys. Marco was seven years older than she was, and at eighteen, he’d already had girls lined up around the block. If he thought of little.Sophie Domenico at all, it was only as the neighbor guys’ kid sister.
But that hadn’t mattered to her adolescent heart. He’d bestowed a casual kiss on her cheek at the party they’d thrown him before he left for college, and at the ripe old age of eleven, she’d been his forever. No teen idol’s face had ever adorned her bedroom walls; Marco was the only man she’d fantasized about. At her Sweet Sixteen party, she’d been on cloud nine all evening simply because Marco had been home. He’d already finished his undergraduate work and had his first assignment as a research assistant under his belt.
That time, he’d kissed her lips before he left. Just a friendly, brotherly peck, to be sure, but to her it had been as good as a proposal of marriage. Though she’d dated through high school, she’d never gotten serious with anyone. Compared to Marco, all the boys she’d gone out with seemed like . . . well, like boys. Marco was all man, and her breath grew short and her heart beat faster every time she thought about him.
It had been the silliest thing, she thought, looking back. He’d gotten home maybe four times a year and most of the time, he’d barely noticed her. If he had, it was to tug on her hair and tease her. She’d watched through her curtains jealously when he brought girls home to family picnics, and she’d cried after she saw him kissing stupid Ella Pescke at the Espositos’ annual New Year’s party, a rowdy neighborhood event complete with dancing and enough wine to float a boat.
Then she’d turned nineteen. Her birthday was July nineteenth, right in the middle of the summer. Her parents had taken the family out to eat to celebrate. Everyone came, even her second oldest sister Arabella, Vincente’s twin, who was overdue with her first baby. Some of the Espositos had come along as well, and Sophie had nearly melted into a little puddle on the floor when Marco walked in with Stefano and Tomaso, her big brothers. He’d just gotten into town and was leaving again in the morning, he said.
He’d winked at her and wished her a happy birthday, and her evening had been complete. She could have sat and looked at him all night. But right in the middle of the meal, Arabella’s water had broken. While Belle’s husband Lionel ran for the car, the rest of the family had gotten their food in doggie bags to take to the hospital and once there, they’d simply taken over the waiting room.
Marco had come along. “So I can give Ma a personal report in the morning,” he’d said, white teeth flashing in a grin.
Sophie could still remember the stunned look on the nurse’s face when she’d opened the door to tell them Arabella had had a girl. “You can’t all be family,” she’d said, falling back a pace.
And then, her prayers had been answered....
It was nearly dawn, and everyone headed home for some sleep. To Sophie’s delight, Marco slung a friendly arm across her shoulders as they all trooped down the corridor. “You can ride with me,” he said. “Keep me company so I don’t fall asleep on the way home.”
She was too breathless, too thrilled, to reply. Marco had parked in the lot at the opposite end of the hospital and they left the others at the doors. He talked, drew her out until she relaxed, and they spoke of little things during the drive home: her college plans, his recent work with environmental geophysics in western Australia, their various siblings, most of whom were in the early years of marriage and parenting. They’d stopped at an all-night grocery and gotten sodas and talked some more. The sky was growing light and everyone else had beaten them home, from the look of all the parked cars on the street when they pulled up in front of their side-by-side homes.
He got out of the car and came around to open her door.
“Thanks for riding with me,” Marco said “Happy birthday.” Then he put a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up to his, pressing his lips lightly to hers.
It had been intended only as a familiar, brotherly caress, she thought, with the wisdom of hindsight.
But at the first touch of his mouth on hers, she lifted her arms to his wide shoulders and gave herself to the kiss, making a small whimpering sound of delight deep in her throat. Marco froze for an instant, and a part of her registered his shock. Then his arms came around her and he pulled her hard against him, fusing their bodies together in a breath-stealing fit that made her moan again.
He caught the sound with his mouth, tracing her lips with his tongue, then opening them for the masterful invasion of his tongue. Kissing her deeply, repeatedly, he stroked his palms over the soft flesh of her back down to the upper swell of her buttocks and back up to her shoulders until she was hanging limp in his arms, surrender a foregone conclusion.
When he finally lifted his head, there was a look of utter bemusement on his face. “Whoa,” he’d said, breathing hard, and she thrilled to the feel of his hard body against hers. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
She blushed to the roots of her hair as she realized how forward she’d been, and struggled to free herself from his arms. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It wasn’t—”
But he shut her up in mid-sentence simply by kissing her again, and as before, every cell in her body had recognized him, and she responded with everything in her. When he lifted his head the second time, he said, “I didn’t say I didn’t like it, I just wasn’t expecting it. ”
He paused, and an odd look crossed his face. She got the impression he was weighing something in his mind, and then he said, “Tomorrow night. Dinner? And a movie?”
Sophie put down her book and paced to the window of her apartment, looking out into the night as if she might see him there. Altogether he’d taken her out less than two dozen times, flying in for a quick visit in between assignments.
In between times, she’d waited impatiently. He never called, never wrote. She never knew when he was coming until she heard
