CHAPTER ONE
“ the rush? Got a date with Prince Charming or something?”
Typing out the last of my lifestyle article for News Daily, I hit send and grabbed my coat before answering Aja’s question. “Don’t I wish? Gram needs help with a new client.”
“And you agreed?” I heard shock in the rise of her tone but ignored it. “I thought you’d told her no more matchmaking?”
I rolled my eyes to the dingy office ceiling. “She needs the money.”
With a half grin, Aja filled a paper coffee cup from the pot on the counter beside my cubicle and handed it over. The last journalist had left the office over an hour ago, and besides Aja and the custodial staff, I was the only loser with no excuse to leave early on a Friday evening.
“She always finds a way to persuade you.”
“And I’ll always say no until she guilts me into doing it again the next time. Besides, this one is a high profile client. Extra secretive means extra cash.”
That earned a more scrutinizing glare from Aja. Since moving to New York with the dream of “being found” on the streets and cast as the next Runaway Star hadn’t panned out for her, speaking of dollars and ways to earn them always got her attention.
“I get the whole padding your pocketbook thing, but honestly, you need sleep.”
Aja walked me to the door before turning to lean on the wall. “You’re a walking zombie. And it’s been ages since we’ve had a girls night out. Come on. What do you say? Just this once, blow her off and come out with me. You need a break.”
“Gram needs the money more.” I smiled and sipped the golden liquid of life she’d poured me while walking toward the front of the building. As assistants went, Aja knew little about the newspaper business, but she kept me loaded on the two things that mattered most—the latest in pop culture TV and caffeine. Not to mention, she could lay on a guilt trip.
“Next weekend I’m all yours. Promise.”
Before I could step out the front door, Aja blocked my path with one hand on her hip and the other extended out toward me. “I can’t let you go unless you pinky promise. You can’t spend your life cooped up in that small apartment doing the bidding of your Gram.”
“I like our apartment.” I wrapped my pinky around hers and tugged with a genuine smile. “And Gram isn’t so bad. Pinky promise. Next weekend, I’m all yours.”
I pushed the doors open and Aja moved just fast enough for me to step out without the tail of my coat and my messenger bag catching between them.
In the last year, life had fallen into a steady rhythm. On weekdays, I wrote pieces for the Living section of the Daily News; and during the evenings and early mornings, I worked on my novel. Weekends were spent filling in at Madame Johanson's, my grandmother’s gypsy-themed shop and matchmaking service below our apartment in Jackson Heights. From time to time, when I couldn’t find an excuse otherwise, Gram taught me the art of matchmaking, the way her mother had taught her and her grandmother before that. Things were slow but simple. Just the way I liked them.
By the time I walked the four blocks to our street, I’d finished the coffee and felt the buzz kicking in. The second cup from the vendor on the corner wasn’t as good as Aja’s, but it’d keep me going through the meeting with Gram’s new client and a late-night session of writing, even if Gram does complain I drink too much of the stuff.
Around the last corner, I lifted the cup to chug the last of it at the same time a wall of dark-suited muscle, walking on the left side on the busy sidewalk, slammed into my raised hand. In painfully slow motion, my hand moved to my face, and the cup, with nowhere to go but up, sprang from my fingers. The lid popped up, and brown liquid spewed from the top seconds before the warmth covered the front of my chest. With quick fingers, I brushed it from my coat, hoping against all hope the dark roast wouldn’t stain the wool trench I’d saved for months to purchase.
Someone cleared their throat and my gaze lifted until I found myself staring into the most stunning pair of light blue eyes. Other than the large stain of coffee on his chest, he had “tall dark and damn good-looking” written all over him, from the dimples dotting the corners of his grin, to the broad shoulders blocking my view of the oncoming pedestrian traffic.
“Ciao.” Along with my arm, he must have hit my head, because whatever had just come out of his mouth didn't sound like a word. “Are you hurt?”
The force of our connection still had me off-balance and I swayed. He reached for my elbow and my gaze flew back up to find two of the most perfect rows of white teeth between the palest pink lips I've ever seen on a man with such dark, thick hair and tanned skin.
“Oh! I, I'm fine,” I managed to force out, though it was a stammered mess.
His smile deepened, and while my legs turned to jelly and my heart did a stupid little teenage style flip flop in my chest, he reached for the coffee cup and handed it to one of three men in a dark suits behind him. “Alifonso, find a shop nearby and replace this with another.”
“Uh...” The words I wanted to say formed in my brain but seemed to bypass my mouth. It took two tries to get them out. “That isn’t necessary. I was almost done and I’m in a hurry and—”
“No coffee then,” he said, still holding my elbow. His other hand reached up and he brushed coffee off my forehead with the side of his fingers. “I'm staying in Manhattan, or I'd offer you my hotel room to clean up in.”
Still staring like a fool, I blinked a couple times. Alifonso cleared his throat and lowered his dark glasses until his deep brown eyes stared into mine.
“That won't be necessary either,” I mumbled. “ I only live a block away.”
“Good.” Blue Eyes answered. He held his hand out to Alifonso with the coffee cup. “If you live so close, maybe you'd be willing to take a foreigner on a tour of the city? I’m Antonio, though my family and friends call me Tony.”
It wasn't until then I noticed his accent. The people of Jackson Heights came from all four corners of the world, and in my time helping Gram run Madam Johansen's, I'd learned a thing or two about recognizing accents, but I couldn’t place his mixture of Italian with hints of German.
“Maybe dinner tonight?” He handed me a white card that the man behind him had given. “My number is on the back.”
I tried to avoid those light blue eyes rimmed with dark lashes, but my gaze shot right to them like heat seeking missiles. A mental shake of the head loosened their grip, and I found my voice. “I have to work tonight.”
“Antonio,” the man behind him spoke up, followed by words I couldn't understand but recognized as Italian.
Tony grinned at me and nodded his head to the man. “ I’m sorry.” He took my hand in his. “I have a prior engagement I’m late for. Alifonso is very impatient.”
He lifted my hand and kissed the back of it. His lips were soft and warm against my skin, and the scent of mint and something spicy filled my nose. My whole body reacted in a shiver that started at the nape of my neck and ran all the way to my toes.
“I didn't get your name.”
“Liza,” I answered in a trance.
His eyes twinkled in the light of the setting sun and he winked. “ Arrivederci, Liza.”
He took my hand for one last kiss and I watched him walk down the sidewalk with the entourage of suits following close behind until they disappeared around the next corner. I took a deep breath and shook my head as I finished my walk to the back door of Gram’s shop. Men like that never came to Jackson Heights, and they never talked to girls like me in the city. I stuffed his card in my pocket and ran my fingers over the raised print of his name. If only I believed in matchmaking, I’d give the card to Gram and ask her if he could be a match. But superstitions and magic weren’t real, even if Gram made a living on people’s hopes that they were, and men like that didn’t fall for writer-girls from Jackson Heights.
With a stiff sigh, I pushed the back door of Gram’s shop open and let the warmth of his kiss on my hand fade into the coolness of the evening air.