She understood—she was trying to build her own brand. She’d always striven to be ethical, but competition was stiff, like in every other business. And temptation could be lurking right around the next corner.

  Damian’s father relaxed a bit. “It’s Jakob. And explain that to your brother Cole.”

  “I can’t. We’re not exactly on great terms right now.”

  Jakob looked between her and his son, a perceptive twinkle in his eye. “I don’t ask why.”

  Damian muttered something, but it seemed as if the tension had broken.

  “It’s a little late in the game, but why did you want me to stop by, Dad?” Damian asked, his tone holding a note of forbearance.

  Jakob suddenly chuckled and lightened. “Yes, I have something to give you.” His gaze drifted to Mia. “And looks like the timing may be good.”

  They all followed him into the nearest office, which was sparsely furnished with a metal desk, two chairs and file cabinets.

  Jakob picked up a small red box and held it out to Damian. “Here. Your mother wanted you to have this. Some of her personal possessions that she wanted divided between you and your brother by the time that you were both thirty. You weren’t in Welsdale for Valentin’s last birthday, so I’m doing it while I know you are here. This one’s yours.”

  Damian took the box slowly. “Thanks.”

  Jakob nodded. “You don’t have to open it now.”

  Damian rubbed the back of his neck. “Yup, I think Mia has seen enough drama.”

  All weekend. Mia took a deep breath. First her family, then the Musils, and she wasn’t even counting the little interlude with Damian in between.

  Dear sweet heaven, she’d slept with the enemy—and now she was having trouble remembering that’s what he was supposed to be.

  Things happened quickly after that. Jakob invited them to stay for coffee, and she quickly learned that for all the awkwardness and roughness, the Musils were bound by loss and a deep history. Jakob and Valentin were soon called away by business, however, and Damian announced that he and Mia needed to get on the road.

  That’s when Mia was brought back to the realization that she still had a long drive back to New York in close quarters with Damian...

  NINE

  “Well, that went well,” Damian remarked dryly as soon as he and Mia were on the road again.

  “Hmm.”

  He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Hmm?”

  “I’ve never been inside JM Construction before.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t think so, even though you had a reputation for being rebellious back in high school.”

  She turned her head toward him. “Meaning I might have broken in?”

  “I said rebel, not spy. That wouldn’t have fit the role.”

  “And what tipped you off? The purple hair? The nose ring?”

  His lips twitched. “Yeah, what happened to that ring?”

  She folded her arms. “I got bored with the experiment, and the hole closed by itself.”

  He chanced another glance at her. “You mean you’d achieved your goal of shocking your family, and it was time to move on.”

  She swept him with a look of mock affront. “You think so, Mr. Straight-and-Narrow?”

  “Hardly.”

  She gestured at him. “Look at you. So clean-cut, there’s barely a swerve to you.”

  “Meaning I had no surprise moves last night?” he parried.

  She sucked in a breath.

  “I love it when you get all bothered over me,” he teased, before adopting a thoughtful expression. “You know, it surprised me when you went into fashion.”

  “Because of what I was like in high school?”

  He nodded.

  “It’s not that surprising,” she sniffed. “I have two aunts on my mother’s side who were talented seamstresses before they sold their shop and retired. I spent a couple of summers with them in Italy, sort of apprenticing.”

  “Ah, no wonder I didn’t see you in a new bikini every season.”

  She tossed him a quelling look. “Lots of Serenghettis are creative types. Even construction is an art form if you think about it.”

  “So I suppose that explains why you came to my father’s defense back there. One artist backing another.”

  She opened and closed her mouth. “I wasn’t choosing sides, just trying to see both.”

  He quirked a brow at her.

  She glanced out the window. “My family doesn’t like that JM Construction hired away some of their employees, but there’s nothing illegal about it. And every construction company has run afoul of complicated codes over the years. With any luck, they weren’t serious violations, and they’ve learned from them. Every company also tries to attract new business. As far as Kenable, though, your father admitted he might not make the same business decision today.”

  “Says the entrepreneur.”

  She tossed her hair. “Whatever. But yes, I’ve got some insight now that I’m running my own company.”

  “Naturally.”

  “You know, that was the first time he said that he might have made a mistake. Maybe it was the occasion of passing along heirlooms. Or maybe...it was because you were there.”

  She flushed.

  He liked that Mia had warmed to his family. He also liked that she didn’t think of his father as just another wrongdoer. Damn it, he liked her.

  She shifted in her seat, as if uncomfortable with her own admissions. “Do you mind if we play some music?”

  “That depends,” he teased.

  “On what?”

  “Your musical tastes.”

  “You’re impossible,” she said, leaning forward and fiddling with the car stereo.

  When she glanced out the window again, he caught the faint sounds of classic rock. They settled into a companionable silence, and he took the curves of the open road that wound between rolling hills.

  She seemed lost in a reverie but eventually started mouthing some lyrics. Soon, to his amusement, the mouthing turned into humming and then singing under her breath.

  “Caterwauling?” he commented.

  She turned toward him. “What?”

  “Do you always sing in the car?”

  “Are you saying you don’t like my voice?”

  “I like it.” He’d dreamed about it.

  She tossed him a quizzical look. “I get the singing from my mother. She loves musicals. In fact, she named Cole after Cole Porter.”

  Damian rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, thinking it had escaped without even a punch yesterday. “Your brother lived up to his eloquent namesake yesterday. His words were music to my ears.”

  Mia tried and failed to suppress a smile.

  “I should have guessed you took after your mother. Even aside from being beautiful, you also like music.”

  Mia grew flustered and glanced out at the passing landscape.

  They drove in silence except for the low music, and the next time Damian glanced over at her, he was surprised to find that her eyes had fluttered shut. She’d dozed off.

  A feeling suspiciously like tenderness swept over him. This weekend had tired her out. When he reached Manhattan, though, he knew he needed to rouse her because they would soon be at her place.

  He turned up the volume and started crooning along to “My Girl.”

  Within minutes, Mia blinked and opened her eyes. Stretching, she asked, “What’s that caterwauling?”

  Damian laughed. “That’s my girl...”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “What, you don’t like the song? You know, we are in May, and you are—”

  “Not sunshine. Please.” She looked pained at his reference to the lyrics.

  He grinned.

  “You know, your singing voice isn’t half bad,” she sniffed.

  “You should hear me in the shower,” he purred.

  “Caterwauling at the break of dawn.”

  He chuckled. “I’m not familiar with that song.”

  “Of course not.”

  When he pulled up in front of her building, there wasn’t a parking spot in sight. Damn it. If they’d been at his place, he could have tossed the car keys to a doorman. But she lived in a walkup above her studio, in what looked like a renovated tenement on a side street in the Garment District. That much he’d established when he’d picked her up for the Ruby Ball—what seemed like eons ago.

  Before their world had shifted. Before they’d hooked up. Before he’d met her family and she’d met his. Before she’d had his back, and he’d had hers, and they’d had each other...

  She turned to look at him. “Thanks for the ride.”

  He nodded, flexing his hands on the steering wheel. Because otherwise it would be too tempting to reignite the passion between them, even with the passing pedestrians offering no privacy.

  “I’d better get out before you, you know, get a ticket.”

  Nodding, he got out along with her. He was pulled up alongside some parked cars, and traffic continued to plow by on his driver’s side.

  After opening the trunk, he passed the overnight bag to her.

  When their hands brushed, she stilled, and he quirked a knowing brow.

  Her phone buzzed, and shifting, she fished it out of her handbag with her free hand. She frowned down at the screen for a moment. “I’d better get this. Work calls.”

  Text me. Call me. Sleep with me. But he said none of those things.

  Instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets and watched her walk into her building.

  But not out of his life.

  They needed to see their arrangement through as far as the Bensons and their daughter were concerned.

  And hell if he’d let himself be ghosted.

  * * *

  “I’m worried about you, cara.”

  “Stop, Mom. I’m fine. Really.” Mia paced inside her work studio. The late afternoon sun filtered weakly through the security bars on the back windows, little particles of dust floating in the beams of light.

  “I don’t know... You don’t seem yourself.”

  Mia blew out a breath. In other words, let’s talk about the kerfuffle that happened in Welsdale this weekend with Damian Musil.

  “Should I come down to New York to see you?”

  Ack. No. It was enough trouble when her brothers dropped into the city. Mia absently twisted the tie on her denim jumpsuit.

  Next time, she thought absently, she’d add a hidden cinch waist. She was always searching for ways to make her next design better...

  “We could get reservations at a nice restaurant. There’s a new place—”

  “Mom, everything is okay.” She’d gone restaurant hopping with her mother in the past, but right now the last thing Mia needed was for her mother to come to New York.

  “Are you sure?”

  Mia sighed. “You’re really calling about Damian, aren’t you?”

  She needed to say she’d consigned Damian to the scrap heap—or pretend that she had. Or least admit they weren’t in a real relationship. It was all a mutually-beneficial temporary arrangement, and anything that had happened in the bedroom had been one big mistake... But somehow the words wouldn’t come.

  “Your father wanted to call, but I said no. ‘Serg, fermati. Stop.’”

  Who was her mother kidding? Calling sounded so innocuous. Yelling, now that was more like it when it came to her father.

  Camilla cleared her throat. “I—how do you say?—reasoned with him. I said, ‘I know you are upset, but Mia will make her decisions and tell us when she’s ready.’”

  Mia blinked. “Thanks, Mom.”

  Her mother had always been the one to run interference between her husband and her children, even if she remained a protective parent herself. Over the years, though, Mia had pulled and tugged on familial ties until they had stretched...all the way to New York.

  “Did I tell you how your father and I met?” Camilla asked suddenly.

  Of course, Mia knew the basic facts, having heard them discussed dozens of times. Her father had been a tourist in Tuscany when he’d first encountered her mother manning the front desk of a hotel. Before he’d checked out, a flame had been lit.

  “My family didn’t approve of him.”

  “You’re kidding.” This was news to her after thirty years.

  “Your father doesn’t like to bring it up.”

  “Of course.” Her father had a lot of pride.

  “But I had my heart set on Serg.”

  “Why didn’t they approve?”

  “They didn’t know him, and they were suspicious. Too many Casanovas checked in and out of the albergo.”

  Mia choked back a startled sound. She’d never thought anyone would compare her father to Casanova. Still, she couldn’t help being curious. “How did you know that Dad was the one?”

  “He was persistente.” Camilla laughed, her voice full of reminiscence. “I started dating someone else, and your father arranged another stay for himself at the albergo.”

  Damian was nothing if not persistent...

  “Anyway, this is about you. I know your father and brothers are worried. You know they don’t like the Musils.”

  “I met them,” Mia blurted.

  There was silence on the line. “And—”

  “Mom, they seemed like any other family in the construction business. Except, you know, it was really up by your bootstraps because Damian’s father didn’t start his company until he moved to Welsdale. Then he lost his wife and had two young kids to raise.”

  Mia finished what she was going to say all in one breath. She’d heard enough about Jakob Musil and JM Construction over the years to know that Damian’s father had arrived in Welsdale as a young man—whereas her own father had been born and bred in the area. If any of her relatives could appreciate being a new arrival and settling down in unfamiliar territory, it was her mother.

  “Hmm.”

  Mia could tell her mother was torn between conflicting impulses. Camilla had been thrilled to see her sons married off, and she’d never been shy with questions about whether Mia was dating anyone. But no doubt, she’d never imagined the boyfriend candidate might be Damian Musil.

  Wait, there was no candidate. No contender. No contestant.

  “I don’t know, Mia. Be careful.”

  Mia could practically picture her mother shaking her head resignedly. “There’s nothing to be careful about,” she responded lightly. “Damian and I aren’t really a couple. We just had...a couple of dates.”

  There. Vague but accurate.

  Her mother sighed, and Mia wondered if that was relief she heard.

  “On the other hand, your father and I are heading toward forty-five years—”

  “Yup, I know.”

  “—if we’re lucky.”

  Mia perked up. She was glad for the change of topic, but this sounded not good. “If we’re lucky?”

  Her mother sighed. “You know the expression, no? How do you say? Don’t count the eggs before they hatch?”

  “Chickens, Mom. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”

  “Sì, okay. What does it matter? You understand me, no?”

  Mia was used to her mother’s mashups of Italian and English. “Well, Dad seems to have put his stroke behind him these days,” she said carefully, “so there’s nothing to worry about, right?”

  “Except for his new television career,” her mother muttered.

  Mia laughed, relaxing. “What? Don’t tell me his Wine Breaks with Serg! segment has gone to his head?”

  “He’s giving me advice about my own show.”

  There’d been a time when her father had seemed threatened by her mother’s second act as a local television personality—at the same time that he’d had to step back from the construction company that he’d built. But it had appeared that lately things were going well.

  “Next he’ll think we’re rivals.”

  “Dad likes to think big. That’s how he became a successful business owner. You know, he’s competitive.”

  “Ha! You don’t need to tell me.”

  Honestly, didn’t her father’s competitive streak also help explain why he’d held tight to his dim view of JM Construction? But on television, her mother was the established player, and her father was the upstart. “Just remind him that he owes his whole show business career to you. Without Flavors of Italy, there’d never be a Wine Breaks with Serg!”

  “You remind him, cara,” her mother huffed.

  “Nice move, Mom. Why don’t you let me know when he’s ready to talk calmly with me?”

  And Mia doubted that her father would appreciate her pointing out that these days he and Jakob Musil had something in common—they were both upstarts.

  But he’d welcome any news that she currently had no plans to see Damian again. Now why didn’t that make her feel relieved?

  TEN

  Since the weekend, and especially after the call with her mother, Mia had thrown herself into work.

  Still, scenes from the weekend had replayed themselves in her mind, like an auto rewind. They’d pretended to be a couple for the Bensens. And then they’d had a confrontation with her brothers before jumping into an episode of Meet the Musils!

  Why couldn’t she stop thinking about Damian?

  Yes, they’d had sex. Yes, it had been good. Yes, it had been spectacular. But now that part was over and never to be repeated...no matter what Damian thought.

  Of course, she hadn’t heard from him either in over forty-eight hours. And that’s exactly how she wanted it, she told herself, unless he was getting in touch about the Bensens and Katie.

  She moved bolts of fabric in a corner of her cramped studio, looking for the one that she planned to use for an asymmetrical skirt for her new line. She wanted to expand the range of her business.