Page 87 of Men or Paws

We both glanced to the side slowly.

Completely oblivious to us, Marcello had come out of the house and was poolside.

He smiled and did a little wave. “Hi, Beth. Nice to see you again.”

“You, too.” I forced a smile, wondering how long Rocco was going to hold me against him.

Not that I was complaining, but we did have an audience now.

“I got a cramp in my foot and Rocco was trying to work it out,” I added.

Marcello arched an eyebrow, analyzing our body positions.

We were still clinging to each other like spider monkeys.

“A cramp in your foot, huh?” he said.

“Yup. All gone.” I quickly removed my two hands from Rocco’s chest, wondering how they’d got there in the first place. “Thank you for rescuing me, Captain Clapton.”

Rocco finally let go of me. “All in a day’s work.” He let out what appeared to be a deep breath of frustration, like he was so disappointed he’d had to remove his hands from my body.

Not as disappointed as me.

Rocco turned back to Marcello. “What’s up?”

“You have your video conference with Spielberg in fifteen minutes,” Marcello said.

“Steven Spielberg?” I couldn’t help asking.

“That’s confidential,” Rocco said, winking.

“They had to move up the meeting for some reason,” Marcello said. “I took the liberty of telling them you’d be available. I texted you, but you clearly have no place to carry your phone.” Marcello laughed and walked back inside the house.

Rocco turned to me and gestured to the house. “I should get going—I need to change and get on that call.”

I nodded. “Hey, since you’re back early, I was wondering if I could ask you for a big favor.”

“Anything,” Rocco said.

“The owner of the property I’m going to be leasing will be there today for a few hours, upgrading some light fixtures. He invited me to stop by for a walk-through. I know I’m supposed to watch Houdini, but I was wondering if I could sneak away for an hour or so.”

“Of course,” Rocco said. “Do you want some company?”

I blinked twice.

“What?” he said.

“Seriously?” I said. “You want to go with me?”

“Why not?” He grinned. “It’ll be fun.”

Fun? Maybe it would be exciting for me since I would be able to visualize my company there and how I wanted to organize and decorate the place, but fun? I wasn’t so sure about that. And why would Rocco want to go with me on an errand?

Maybe it was a dumb question after what had happened between us in the pool. If he were feeling like I was, he probably just wanted to spend more time with me, and it really didn’t matter what we were doing.

“Sorry—forget I even asked,” Rocco said. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that.”

“No!” I blurted out. “You can go with me.”