lost in thought, she’d momentarily assumed Sal had come back to retrieve the racquet, letting himself in with an extra copy of the key. And he was uptight enough to do it. The rat.
She was glad now she’d kept her condo even when her relationship with Sal had started getting serious enough that they’d contemplated moving in together. She’d bought the small two-bedroom five years ago, and at the time, it had been a major step toward independence and security.
She wondered where Cole called home these days. In all likelihood, a sprawling penthouse loft. She wouldn’t be surprised if he lived in one of his own constructions.
One thing was for sure. He was still one of Welsdale’s hottest tickets while she... Well, shapely was the most forgiving adjective for her curves. She was still a nobody, even if she had a name at the Pershing School these days.
“What’s with you?” Serafina asked, taking off her cross-body handbag and letting it slide to the floor.
“I was thinking of a place to bury Sal’s squash racquet,” she responded and then waved a hand at the back of the apartment. “It’s in the hall closet.”
“Nice.” Serafina smiled. “But with all the dogs in this complex, someone’s bound to sniff out the cadaver real quick.”
“He needs it back.” She’d been hurt when she’d been dumped. But notwithstanding her irritation at Sal at the moment, these days she simply wanted to move on.
Serafina’s lips twitched. “The racquet is an innocent bystander. It’s not like you to misdirect anger, especially the vindictive kind.”
After a moment Marisa sighed and lowered her shoulders. “You’re right. I’ll tell him that I’m leaving it on the table in the building foyer downstairs.”
Ever since her debacle with Cole in high school, she’d been worried about being thought of as a bitch. She didn’t need Cole Serenghetti; she needed a therapist.
“But tell the jerk what he can go do with it!” Serafina added.
She gave her cousin a halfhearted smile. Serafina was a little taller than she was, and her hair was a wavy dirty blond. She’d been spared the curly dark brown locks that were the bane of Marisa’s existence. But they both had the amber eyes that were a family trait on their mothers’ side, and their facial features bore a resemblance. Anyone looking at them might guess they were related, though they had different last names: Danieli and Perini.
While they were growing up, Marisa had treated Sera as a younger sister. She’d passed along books and toys, and shared advice and clothes. More recently, having had her cousin as a roommate for a few months, until Serafina found a job in her field and an apartment, had been a real lifesaver. Marisa appreciated the company. And with respect to men, her cousin took no prisoners. Marisa figured she could learn a lot there.
“Now for some good news,” Serafina announced. “I’m moving out.”
“That’s great!” Marisa forced herself to sound perky.
“Well, not now, but after my trip to Seattle next week to visit Aunt Filo and Co.”
“I didn’t mean I’m glad you’re leaving, I meant I’m happy for you.” Three weeks ago her cousin had received the news that she’d landed a permanent position. Serafina had also gotten plane tickets to see Aunt Filomena and her cousins before starting her new job.
Serafina laughed. “Oh, Marisa, you’re adorable! I know you’re happy for me.”
“Adorable ceases to exist after age thirty.” She was thirty-three, single and holding on to sexy by a fraying thread. And she’d recently been dumped by her fiancé.
Of course, Cole had been all sunshine and come-here-honey...until he’d recognized who she was. Then he’d turned dark and stormy.
Serafina searched her face. “What?”
Marisa turned, heading down the hall toward the kitchen. “I asked Cole Serenghetti to do the Pershing Shines Bright fund-raiser for the school.”
She hadn’t died of mortification when she approached him for a favor after all these years, but she’d come close. She’d fainted in his arms. A hot wave of embarrassment washed over her, stinging her face. When would the humiliation end?
Some decadent chocolate cake was in order right now. There should be some left in the fridge. A pity party was always better with dessert.
“And?” Serafina followed behind.
Marisa waved her hand. “It was like I always dreamt it would be. He jumped right on my proposal. Chills and thrills all around.”
“Great...?”
“Lovely.” She spied the cake container on her old scarred moveable island. “And yummy.”
Cole Serenghetti qualified as yummy, too. There were probably women lined up to treat him as dessert. A decade and a half later he was looking better than ever. She’d seen the occasional picture of him in the press during his hockey days, but nothing was like experiencing the man in person.
And tangling with him was just as much a turn-yourself-inside-out experience as it had always been.
“Um, Marisa?”
Marisa set the cake container on the table. “Time for dessert, I think.”
The kind in front of her, not the Cole Serenghetti variety, even though he probably thought of her as a man-eater.
Marisa uncovered the chocolate seven-layer cake. She’d been so insecure about her body around Sal—she had too many rounded curves to ever be considered svelte. But now that he was in the past, she felt free to indulge again. Of course, Sal had a new and skinny girlfriend. He’d found the person he was looking for, and she was the size of a runway model.
“So Cole was thrilled to see you?” Serafina probed.
“Ecstatic.”
“Now I know you’re being sarcastic.”
Long after high school Marisa had told Sera about her past with Cole, and how things had heated up between her and the oldest Serenghetti brother during senior year—before they’d gone into a deep freeze. Her cousin knew Marisa had confessed that Cole was responsible for the ultimate school prank, that Cole had been suspended as a result and that Pershing had lost the Independent School League hockey championship soon after.
Getting out two plates and cutlery, Marisa said, “It’s not a party unless you join me.”
Serafina sat down in one of the kitchen chairs. “I hope this guy is worth five hundred calories. Let me guess, he still blames you for what you did in high school?”
“Bingo.”
Marisa relayed snatches of her encounter with Cole, the way she’d been doing in her mind since leaving the construction site earlier. All the while, Cole’s words reverberated in her head. I’m not as big a sucker for the doe-eyed look as I was fifteen years ago. Oh yes, he still held a grudge. He’d been impossible to sway about the fund-raiser. And yet, damningly, she felt a little frisson
