Page 32 of The Virgin’s Dance with the Devil (The Martinelli Wedding #3)

Off Limits

CHAPTER ONE

Jenna

I rubbed my four-month-old godson’s back. There was something about his solid weight and that baby smell, and the way he curled against me so trustingly, that brought out a disturbingly strong maternal instinct.

And then he let out an impressive belch over my shoulder, while simultaneously crapping into his diaper. I felt the vibration against my palm where I was cupping his bottom and then the potent smell confirmed my suspicion. My burgeoning maternal instinct took a nosedive.

With impeccable timing, my BFF, Ashling Sullivan, reappeared from where she’d been taking advantage of my visit to have a shower and freshen up. She had the bad grace to look as gorgeous as ever, with added curves.

She reached for Dylan, wrinkling her nose. ‘I’ll change him and put him down. He should sleep after that feed.’

Not even trying to hide my envy, I told her, ‘Your boobs are amazing.’ We both used to commiserate over our average-sized breasts. But since being pregnant and breastfeeding, Ash has left me in the dust, going from a B-cup to at least a D.

She smirked at me over her shoulder as she put Dylan down on the changing table. ‘Johnny likes them too.’

I put up a hand, ‘ Eww, TMI.’ I felt a pang to acknowledge just how much Ash’s life had changed since leaving LA and returning to New York to live full time about sixteen months ago.

We’d made a pact on her return to New York to veto men in favour of getting our business off the ground.

(We’d both had brutal break-ups – in my case I’d found my last boyfriend in bed with someone I’d counted as a friend.

Face between her legs, to be specific. Which had been even more galling because he’d never seemed particularly eager to go down on me.)

But Ash hadn’t counted on falling in love with Johnny Ryan and getting pregnant, and I didn’t begrudge my bestie her happiness for a second.

It wasn’t as if I didn’t want what she had – of course I did, someday – but I had a tendency to fall too hard and fast for guys who didn’t feel the same way for me, and so I was tucking my heart away for the time being and enjoying some breathing space.

The truth was that I no longer trusted my own judgement. I blamed my parents for my penchant for falling in love. They hadn’t been in love. Their relationship had been born out of bowing to pressure to get married when my mother had fallen pregnant with my older brother, Jack.

Then I had come along and they’d settled into a life of emotional stagnancy. They’d eventually divorced, but the lack of emotion on either side had scared me to death and had made me seek it out at all costs, as if to prove that I was capable of making someone love me.

My brother, Jack, seemed to have gone the other way – closing himself off to emotion. Perenially single, he’d cultivated a reputation as a commitment-phobe. I’d seen too many girls and women coming and going over the years, looking heartbroken in the aftermath.

I sighed. It must have been audible because Ash looked at me after laying a freshly diapered Dylan down in his cot and said, ‘Time for coffee and cake. Come on.’ She picked up a baby monitor and we left the bedroom to head into the spacious open-plan kitchen-dining room.

She and Johnny had recently moved from his loft apartment to this bigger place and there were still packing boxes. I unpacked one while she made coffee and cut some cake, and then we chitchatted about work while sitting at the kitchen island.

We were cofounders of MacSullivan, an agency that supplied a team of stylists and hair and make-up artists to shoots – everything from fashion to commercials.

With Ash’s background in make-up on films and mine in styling, our dream to become a one-stop agency had become a reality faster than both of us had been prepared for, and then since Ash had had to take maternity leave, we’d taken on staff.

My role now was more in managing everything than hands-on styling, and I had to admit I missed those early days of working together and winging it. It had been exhilarating.

‘I feel guilty that we were only hitting our stride when Dylan came along,’ Ash said now.

I felt guilty for missing the early days. ‘You stop that right now. We’ve been doing so well that we can afford staff and you’ll be back soon.’

Ash looked concerned. ‘Yeah, but I know you’d prefer to be hands-on styling rather than organising things.’

She knew me too well. I forced a smile. ‘I don’t miss the five a.m. calls.’

Ash snorted. ‘As if we both don’t know you’re so worried it all goes well that you’re first on location anyway.’

My face got hot. Busted. Keeping people happy was another leftover of trying to keep my parents from breaking up. And look how that had turned out.

‘Yeah, well, that’s why we have such a good reputation.’ I felt defensive.

She touched my hand. ‘Don’t think I don’t appreciate you holding the fort.’

I felt a surprising surge of emotion and blamed Dylan for getting to me, the little poop-machine. I waved a hand. ‘You’ll be back soon enough, so make the most of this and your temporarily inflated boobs.’

Ash stuck out her tongue at me. And then an expression crossed her face as if she was about to tell me something, but then she stopped and avoided my eye, taking a sip of coffee. Immediately I was alert. ‘What was that?’

She looked at me innocently. ‘What?’

I pointed at her. ‘You thought of something and then looked guilty.’

‘Godammit, you’re worse than Johnny.’ she said, grumbling. But she went on. ‘I was in the bar the other day, with Dylan and Johnny, for brunch.’

She was referring to their family bar that her older brother, Liam, ran in Manhattan – Sullivan’s.

‘And?’

‘Someone came in to see Liam.’

‘Who was it, Ash?’

I expected her to mention my last cheating boyfriend who I couldn’t care less about, so I wasn’t prepared when she said, ‘It was Nico Donato. He said hi, he asked how you were.’

CHAPTER TWO

Jenna

Domenico Donato. My heart skipped a beat and thudded on again at an irregular rhythm. Nico Donato had been the lust of my life since I’d developed hormones and started noticing how gorgeous he was. And, he was also my brother’s best friend. And slightly lesser best friend to Liam.

They’d all hung out together as we’d grown up. Nico had been the odd one out – the Italian American among the predominantly Irish American neighbourhood. But an early fist-fight had cleared up any animosity and the guys had become inseparable.

My interactions with him had always been pretty superficial as he, Jack and Liam had come and gone about their business.

Ash and I would have seriously cramped their style.

He used to ruffle my hair and call me ‘Freckles’ for crying out loud, although the way he’d said it hadn’t ever made me feel like it was a negative thing.

But that had stopped when I’d begun to avoid him, feeling shy and self-aware.

‘I hadn’t heard he was home.’ Ridiculous to feel betrayed – it wasn’t as if we’d had a separate connection.

I hadn’t seen Nico in about five years, since we’d been at a barbecue, all of us together.

I’d been about twenty-two. He’d left not long after to go and work abroad as a news photographer. Mainly in war zones.

Even though I’d known he was seriously off limits and so not interested in his best friend’s little sister, I’d been desperately conscious of him that day and hoping he’d notice me in my cut-off shorts and button-down sleeveless shirt, with about as many buttons undone as I could get away with when in the same vicinity as my brother.

I could still picture him in his T-shirt and worn jeans.

His usual intense self. Always brooding.

Rarely smiling. Dark hair, olive skin. Hard jaw, shadowed by a growth of beard.

Grey eyes that held a multitude and looked like molten silver, wide and beautiful, under dark brows.

And his mouth, perfectly sculpted and sexy.

And then there was his body. Six foot plus of wide shoulders, narrow hips and long legs. Every inch of him muscled and honed. He had boxed to work out. He’d glanced at me briefly, but even that had been enough to make me giddy.

More mortifyingly, I could still remember the woman he’d been with that day, as if to really drive home that I was not and never would be Nico Donato’s type.

Sleek and sultry, with perfectly smooth dark wavy hair.

Voluptuous curves bursting out of a tiny slip-dress.

She’d been twined around him like a vine.

I’d fallen out of the Irish Celtic ancestry tree and hit every branch on the way down. Pale skin, freckles, green eyes, unruly red hair. My brother on the other hand had managed to inherit not a freckle or ginger lock of hair. So unfair.

‘Why are you scowling like that?’

Ash’s voice brought me back into the room. I said as blandly as I could, ‘Nico Donato? Wow, that’s a blast from the past.’

Ash raised a brow. She’d known all about my crush, but thankfully she didn’t bring it up. ‘He mentioned he’s thinking about moving home for good.’

My insides swooped. The thought of my historic crush becoming part of the scene again was disturbing enough to propel me off the stool.

Ash’s eyes widened. ‘Yo, what’s up?’

‘Nothing at all,’ I white-lied. ‘I, um, should get home to sort out some stuff for Lucy tomorrow for the shoot.’ Lucy was the new stylist I was training in.

Ash stood up and enveloped me in a hug. She was the best hugger. She pulled back. ‘It’s down at the piers, right? Just a one-day shoot?’

I nodded. ‘That’s it ... and then we have nothing booked in for a week.’

Ash smiled. ‘Good, you deserve a break.’

I stepped back and gathered up my things. ‘Give that sweet boy a kiss for me when he wakes up.’ I blew her a kiss and left before she intuited any more about what a bombshell it had been to hear Nico Donato was home - and the fact that he still affected me.

CHAPTER THREE

Nico