Loving Gigi

  They did find one subject they disagreed on. They’d been sitting in a pub listening to a local band when Kane had asked Gigi to say something to him in Italian, and she had refused. She’d claimed not to speak it anymore even though he had heard her use it quite fluently at her brothers’ weddings. He thought back to when he’d visited her mother’s house and remembered that she’d spoken, even then, only in English.

  “Aren’t you Venetian?” Kane had asked because he’d wanted to gauge her reaction to the question.

  “My mother is,” Gigi had answered stiffly, pulling back from him emotionally. He could almost see her slamming up protective walls to hide behind.

  He’d kept his tone light. “So, what do you consider yourself?”

  “Not my mother,” Gigi had answered shortly. “Can we talk about something else?”

  Kane had let the topic drop, but it had reminded him of something her mother had said. Leora had lost more than her lover and her paintings; she had lost her daughter as well. He hoped to rectify that one day.

  Kane was walking to meet Gigi for dinner when his phone rang. Nick. “Hello.”

  “Kane, I’m in Edinburgh with Luke and Max. We need to see you. Tonight.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “We’ll tell you when we see you. Come to the hotel.”

  “I can’t right this minute. I’m meeting Gigi.”

  “Gigi’s fine. She’s with Rena and the girls.”

  Kane stopped dead in his tracks. “Did something happen?”

  “Meet us in the bar on the first floor.” With that, Nick hung up.

  Kane hailed a taxi. A variety of horrible possibilities played out in his mind. He called Gio.

  “Hello?” Gio answered curtly.

  “Thank God. I thought you were dead.”

  “That’s a novel way of saying you missed me.”

  “Hey, Nick just called me. He’s here in Edinburgh with Max and Luke. They want to talk to me.”

  “And you thought that meant I had kicked the bucket?”

  “The possibility had crossed my mind. They said Gigi is with their wives. It sounded serious.”

  “It was. Gigi called Julia, and she was upset.”

  “Upset? I’ve been with Gigi every day. If she were upset I’d know about it. What did she tell Julia?”

  “I don’t know. Julia wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Why are your brothers all here?”

  “I promised Gigi I wouldn’t get involved.”

  “So you sent them?”

  “I am not my brothers’ keeper. I can’t stop them from going over there and beating the shit out of you if you’ve done something to hurt Gigi.”

  “I haven’t hurt Gigi. We’re dating. That’s it.”

  “Save your explanations for my brothers.” Gio hung up.

  Kane started swearing. He tapped the window between him and the cab driver and gave him new instructions. He had no problem meeting up with Nick and the others, but he had something he had to do first.

  Before he answered anyone else’s questions, he had a few of his own—questions only Gigi could answer.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‡

  Feeling a little shell-shocked, Gigi followed a waiter to a table and took a seat with three of her sisters-in-law. She smiled at each of them tentatively. She was still new to having a large family. Was this what they did? Descend en masse without warning? She didn’t hate the idea, but it definitely wasn’t what she was used to. “What a nice surprise. Kane should be here any minute.”

  Rena looked at Cassie and Tara before saying, “I wouldn’t count on him showing up for a little while.”

  Gigi’s stomach did a nervous flip. “Did something happen?”

  “Not yet,” Rena said mysteriously.

  Luke’s wife, Cassie, put her hand near Gigi’s on the table. “We’re all here to make sure you’re okay.”

  Gigi studied each of the women’s faces again. Tara, Max’s wife, nodded in agreement. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Rena tapped a finger thoughtfully on the edge of her plate. “I told Nick we should call you, but when Gio gets worked up about something, the family charges first and asks questions later.”

  “I don’t understand,” Gigi said slowly, then remembered something. “What did Julia say?”

  Tara looked to Cassie. “I don’t know. Do you?”

  Cassie looked to Rena.

  Rena shrugged. “Nick didn’t give me specifics. He said Gio called him and said he needed to find out what Kane had done to upset you.”

  Cassie added, “Nick called Luke for his opinion?”

  Tara waved a hand in the air in conclusion. “Luke called Max and voila, here we are. Are you saying that Kane didn’t do anything?”

  Gigi covered her face with her hands for a moment. “This is bad. This isn’t what I wanted at all.” She lowered her hands and quickly met the eyes of each woman. “I’d explain, but it’s a long story.”

  A waitress came by and took drink orders. Once she left, Rena said, “We have time. Start at the beginning.”

  Gigi went beet-red as she remembered how she and Kane had spent their first night. Cassie rushed to assure her, “Or whatever part you’re comfortable sharing.”

  Gigi shook her head. “You will all think I’m . . .”

  Rena sat back in her chair and said, “Gigi, whatever is going on, we’ve all been there. I hid my relationship with Nick for a long time then almost lost him because I was too afraid to trust what we had.”

  Tara chimed in. “There was a point when I thought Max and I wouldn’t work out. Every relationship has its challenges.”

  Cassie took a sip of her water and then added, “Right up until Luke proposed I wasn’t sure what was happening between us. So, trust us, Gigi, whatever you say isn’t going to shock us.”

  Gigi chewed her lip for a moment as she debated how much to share. When she started talking, it all spilled out. Every last bit of it. She told them how she’d met Kane first at their wedding, how he’d been when he’d come to Venice. She looked away and said they may have rushed into things when Kane first came to Scotland. “I called Julia because I’m so confused. I asked Kane to take things slowly, and he has. He’s been wonderful. In some ways I feel like we started over, built a friendship where there had only been a physical attraction before. We’ve spent a lot of time together, but now he’s dropping me off at my place without even trying to come in. I’m starting to worry. Did I suck the life out of something by trying to make it into what it wasn’t? I don’t want to be his friend. I want more. But what if I’ve ruined it? I called Julia because I needed to get it out of my head. I told her I was thinking about breaking up with Kane.”

  Tara waved frantically at Gigi, but Gigi was finishing off her thought and didn’t stop.

  “So, you see, Kane is not the problem. It’s me. I don’t want to be with him like this.”

  Rena place one hand on Gigi’s arm and pointed above her shoulder with her other. Gigi cringed and turned slowly. “Kane.”

  There was a definite hardness in his expression that Gigi had never seen before. He looked as if he were about to say something, then turned on his heel and strode out of the dining room.

  Gigi turned to the other women in horror. “How much did he hear?”

  Rena whistled. “I’d say only the worst part.”

  Tara threw her napkin on the table. “What are you waiting for? Go after him.”

  Gigi hesitated.

  Cassie looked on sympathetically. “Unless you really don’t want to be with him.”

  Gigi stood. She knew why she had issues trusting men. Deep inside the strong woman she considered herself to be, there was still a young girl who had believed her father would never leave her, a girl who had never gotten over the way he’d left her. She hated how hard it made her to believe in anyone.

  Gigi thought about how sweet Kane had been to her for the last month. She didn’t chase hi
m because she didn’t know what she’d say if she caught him. There was one more piece to how Gigi was feeling that she hadn’t told the other women about. She didn’t want to face it herself.

  Kane, it’s worse than what you heard. Much more fucked up than that.

  I’m falling in love with you.

  And I’m terrified.

  I’m afraid to lose you.

  But I’m more afraid I’ll change to keep you.

  You’ve done nothing to find my mother’s belongings, but I want you so much, I tell myself it doesn’t matter. I’ll take you on your terms.

  I’m ready to beg you to stay with me, no matter what that means.

  That’s how my mother was with my father, and I hate myself for feeling this way.

  Oh, Kane. Why couldn’t you have at least tried to bring me a dragon?

  Rena touched Gigi’s arm softly. “Are you okay?”

  Gigi shook her head and rubbed her forehead with a shaky hand. “No. No, I don’t think I am.”

  She excused herself and stepped outside the restaurant. She called the one person who knew her better than anyone else. Annelise. She felt badly about walking away from her family, but they were still getting to know her. She needed someone who knew both her and Kane. Annelise had seen them together many times over the last few weeks. And she understood Gigi’s reluctance to trust men. She’d be able to unravel the tangle Gigi’s thoughts were in.

  A few hours and two bottles of wine later, Annelise tucked herself beneath a throw blanket on Gigi’s couch. “Do you want my opinion?”

  Gigi took one last gulp of wine and tucked her bare feet up beneath her on the chair across from her friend. “That’s why I called you.”

  “I like Kane.”

  “But?”

  “But you’re not ready for him.”

  Alcohol put a slur to Gigi’s next words. “Technically, I’ve already been with him.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Some people are like racecars. Zero to love with no looking back. That has never been you. Hell, how long did you avoid your brothers before finally meeting with them?”

  Gigi leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “I’m a coward.”

  “Maybe not a coward, but you have some serious trust issues.”

  Gigi opened one eye. “Thanks, Annelise. You’re not making me feel better.”

  Annelise shrugged. “You didn’t call me because you wanted me to cheer you up. You asked me what I thought, so here it is. You push people away then you wonder why they leave. You say you do it because you’re scared. Okay. We all get scared. We’ve all been disappointed by someone. My question is: What are you going to do about it?”

  “Do? About Kane?”

  “I don’t care about Kane. Kane is irrelevant. I’m talking about you. What are you going to do to conquer that fear? Until you do, you’ll never trust anyone because you can’t trust yourself.”

  Ouch. The truth was painful. Gigi put her glass of wine down with a sense of finality. “Can you cover the office for a few days? There is someone I need to talk to.”

  Annelise nodded and yawned, before closing her eyes and saying, “Tell your mother I said hello.”

  * * *

  Kane downed a shot of Dalwhinnie Scotch in the bar of his hotel. He waved for the bartender to bring him another.

  He was D.O.N.E. Done.

  With Scotland. With Gigi. With love.

  If he’d doubted his feelings before hearing Gigi say she wanted to break up with him, the pain spreading through his gut to all of his extremities confirmed it. Nothing but love could cut a man so deeply.

  He’d briefly considered confronting Gigi at the restaurant, but short of throwing her over his shoulder, carrying her out of the restaurant, and demanding she love him, there wasn’t much he could say. Especially not beneath the watchful eyes of the Andrade wives. No, it hadn’t been the time or the place to address what she’d said.

  The irony of it was he’d done everything Gigi had asked. He’d played by her rules, waited because she’d asked him to. His desire for her had burned like an eternal torch within him, but it hadn’t been unbearable. He found pleasure in her laughter, in the way she wrinkled her nose at him when she disagreed with something he said, and in the simple warmth of her hand in his.

  He’d never met a woman who could make him feel giddy with just a look. When she complimented him, he felt invincible. There was not one part of their month together that hadn’t felt significant. Each time he saw her he fell a little more in love with her.

  He had begun to see forever in her eyes while she’d been planning her exit strategy. How could he not have known she was that unhappy? He scoured every memory he had of them together. What did Gigi want that he hadn’t given her?

  A month of putting his own needs aside for hers surfaced as irritation and frustration. He downed his second shot. This is what happens when you date someone you know you shouldn’t. I saw this coming. I told myself to steer clear. But I went for it anyway.

  Out of the corner of his eye he noted the seats on either side of him filled simultaneously. He tensed and briefly glanced in one direction and then the other.

  Luke Andrade was on his right. Nick and Max were on his left.

  Perfect.

  Kane waved down the bartender for a refill. “I’m in no mood to talk.”

  Nick pushed a hundred-pound bill across to the bartender and motioned with a move to his neck for Kane to be cut off.

  Kane put two hundred on the bar and motioned for another. “Keep ’em coming.”

  Nick slapped another hundred down and handed all four to the bartender then waved him away. He put a hand on Kane’s shoulder. “There is nothing good at the bottom of a bottle.”

  Kane shrugged his hand off. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

  Nick raised his hands in mock surrender and said lightly, “Hey, I’m on your side.”

  From the other side of Nick, Max said, “He is. He actually wanted to come find you. I’m here under some coercion. Don’t get me wrong, I hope you and Gigi work it all out, but I don’t want to know the details.”

  Luke pushed a glass of water in front of Kane. “Real nice, Max. Kane, bottling your feelings up isn’t healthy. Cassie told me what happened at the restaurant.”

  Kane picked up the glass of water and rolled it, swirling the water within. “I don’t want to discuss it.”

  “Cassie said Gigi was describing how she’d called Julia because she was considering breaking it off with you. She wasn’t saying she was still going to.”

  Nick interjected, “I don’t see how that is any better.”

  Luke countered, “I’m trying to make a point, Nick. Kane only heard part of the conversation.”

  Pushing the water away, Kane said angrily, “I heard enough.”

  “Gigi cares about you,” Luke stressed.

  “Really?” Kane asked harshly. “I would have believed that yesterday. Today, I’m not sure about anything.”

  Nick drummed his fingers on the table. “Me, either. Rena tried to explain it to me, but all I got out of it was you’re not an asshole, and Gigi is confused.”

  “Are we done?” Kane asked abruptly.

  “Not yet,” Luke said, laying one hand flat on the wooden bar beside him. “Do you love Gigi?”

  Kane shoved the water away from him and growled, “I’d be a fool if I did.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “What do you want, Luke? You want me to say until about an hour ago I thought Gigi and I had a future together? Do you want me to describe how hearing her say she wanted to break it off with me felt like someone stabbing me with a dull knife? That I can’t think straight yet because I still don’t believe she didn’t enjoy this past month as much as I did?”

  Max leaned into the conversation. “Oh, man, you do have it bad for her.”

  Kane slapped his hand on the bar and stood. “Thanks for checking in on me, but this conversation is over.”
br />   Luke surprised Kane by stepping in front of him, blocking his exit. Had it been either of the other men, Kane would have given them a not-so-subtle shove out of his way. But getting aggressive with Luke would feel like swearing at Gandhi. In a low, tight voice, Kane said, “Get out of my way.”

  Luke took out his phone, dialed a number, then held it up between them and put the call on speakerphone. “Gio? Yeah, we found him. He’s taking it pretty hard.”

  “He should. His ass needs to be over there apologizing,” Gio said shortly.

  Kane snorted angrily. “For what exactly?”

  Gio didn’t have a ready response to that, so instead he said, “For possibly ruining everything. We finally have Gigi in our lives. I won’t lose her over something like this.”

  “How she feels or doesn’t feel about me has nothing to do with her relationship with you.”

  “You’re wrong. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. If you two break up, she’ll want to avoid you, and that means avoiding us.”

  Kane shrugged. “Then I’ll make sure I’m not around.”

  Gio barked, “No one wants that either.”

  Max interjected, “Fifty pounds on him saying it.”

  Nick shook his head, “You’re on. He won’t. He’s too angry.”

  Kane hunched his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Gio. I knew it was a bad idea to come here, but I couldn’t stop myself.”

  “Kane, people make mistakes, and you’re like family to us. If being perfect was a requirement for that, do you think the three little shits next to you would still be around?”

  “Hey.” Max laughed as he pretended to be offended. “He’s referring to us, Nick.”

  “That’s because he’s angry, not deaf,” Luke said dryly.

  Nick joked, “For the record, Gio, the bet was Max’s idea.”

  “Way to throw me under the bus,” Max countered and gave Nick’s shoulder a shove. “Besides, Luke, Gio said three. You would be one of those little shits he’s referring to.”

  A hint of a smile pulled at Kane’s lips as he watched the men bicker. He’d known them since they were all in their early teens. Although they had each become successful, they sounded remarkably the same as they had back then. “I get your point, Gio, but I’m not apologizing when I have no idea what I’m supposed to have done wrong.”