“I rule in favor of the defendant.” Judge Shane Lang slammed his gavel with a loud crack that echoed off the tall ceilings of the courtroom.

“What? Why? They didn’t even bother to show up themselves.” I was whining and I didn’t care. “I should get extra points for at least showing up.”

The Pensione lawyer snickered from the table next to ours.

“Kate . . ,” Uncle Max, my crappy excuse for a lawyer, said.

Okay, that’s not fair. Uncle Max is usually a great lawyer. He wasn’t really my uncle. He was my mom’s uncle. And he wasn’t charging me anything, which technically makes him an awesome lawyer. But he’d told me going in we couldn’t win. Crap.

“I did give you extra points, young lady,” the judge said. “And I’m still ruling in favor of the defendant. I agree, it is unfortunate that the termination of your lease will likely cause a catastrophic loss to your business. But you signed the contract, Miss Affetto. You knew this was a possible outcome. They are within their rights to offer you terms to purchase the space, or decline to renew the lease at the end of the contract date. I’m sorry.”

“Terms? That’s a joke,” I said digging my wallet out of my purse on the table, checking my cash and bank ledger. “Where am I going to get three million dollars? I have . . . thirty-five dollars in my bank account. And . . . Three dollars and . . . eighty four cents in my wallet. Will they take that, huh?” I waved my wallet at the judge and then turned to the Pensione lawyer. “Will they sell me my space for thirty-nine dollars?”

The lawyer raised a dark brow and made a dismissive sound before looking away.

I didn’t bother to tell them the reason I only had thirty-five dollars in my bank account was because I’d loaned Lucas, my cook, four thousand to put down on an apartment for him and his brother. They’d gotten evicted from Lucas’ last place when the landlord found out his brother had moved in. I let them both stay in the back room of the restaurant for a week and a half, but the board of health was giving me hell about it. Luckily Phil, the board of health guy, is a friend so he looked the other way for as long as he could to give the guys time to work something out.

“Let’s be reasonable, Miss Affetto,” the judge said.

“Reasonable? But that’s what I’m saying. Three million dollars isn’t reasonable. Not for a small business owner like me.”

“Perhaps you could get a business loan.” I could tell by his tone the judge was beginning to regret not getting off his bench the second his gavel hit.

I snorted at his suggestion. “I’ve only had The Sweet Spot for five years. This is the first year I expect to make a real profit. The restaurant isn’t worth three million. It’s not worth one million.”

In truth, I wasn’t sure what the place was worth. I wasn’t sure it was worth anything except to me and brother . . . and the employees who’d become like family.

“Then I am sorry. But there’s nothing I can do for you.” He slammed his gavel again and sprang up from his big leather judge chair—gettin’ while the gettin’ was good. Couldn’t blame him.

“I’m sorry too, honey,” Uncle Max said. “We knew it was a long shot going in.”

An outsider would never guess Uncle Max and I were related—even distantly. He didn’t look much like me. He didn’t look much like my mom. We each had the rusty brown hair I’d inherited, but that’s where the similarities stopped. My mom was beautiful. She had blue eyes that sparkled like sunlight on a cool lake when she smiled. She was petite with a smile that made most men stop in their tracks . . . or so I’d been told. I don’t really remember much. I have a few pictures.

George and I had both inherited mom’s eyes and I’d gotten her hair. George’s lighter blonde had come from our father. I thanked God every day that I’d received absolutely nothing from that man.

Uncle Max was kind of short for a man, even for a man in his mid-seventies who’d lost an inch or two to shrinkage over the years. He had brown eyes, and a perpetual five o’clock shadow on a jaw line that sagged past the bones and tugged down his whole face. Actually, he kind of reminded me of a basset hound.

I’d take a basset hound for an uncle over the alternative, which was zero family besides George. Our parents were gone. Uncle Max was all there was. I didn’t see him enough. I had to remember to fix that.

“Thanks for trying, Uncle Max,” I said, wrapping my arms around him for a hug.

He hugged me back. “No problem, honey. You call any time you need me.”

“I will.” I leaned back, my arms still on his shoulders. “Hey, you want to come over for dinner tonight? I’ll make rigatoni and fresh garlic bread.”

“Not tonight. I have a date,” he said, droopy eyes suddenly bright.

“Ooo . . . is it serious?”

Aunt Lizzy, Uncle Max’s late wife, had passed away years ago. It was good that he was putting himself out there again.

He shrugged. “She’s no Lizzy, but she laughs at my jokes and lets me put my feet up on her coffee table. Who knows?”

“I’d still love to meet her,” I said.

“We’ll see how it works out.” He gave me a wink and grabbed his old leather briefcase. “Give Georgie-boy my love.”

“You bet.” I had to collect my paperwork, the contract I’d signed, notes from loyal customers, rental sheets on other spaces in the area. I’d brought everything I could think of. The judge refused to look at any of it.

By the time I had everything wrangled up and back in the big paper envelope I carried it all in, Uncle Max was gone and people were filing in for the next case.

I zigzagged around them and pushed through the heavy wooden doors at the back.

“Miss Affetto, may I speak with you?” The Pensione lawyer stood across the hallway from the courtroom, holding up the wall, his legs crossed, one hand in the pocket of his slacks, the other holding his sleek briefcase at his side.

He made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I’m not sure why, but there was something about him, something that tripped my instincts. He was attractive enough in his early forties, with neatly trimmed hazelnut hair, a well-fitted suit and a thin line of fur that traced his jaw to his chin then made a landing strip to his bottom lip. A similarly trimmed patch of hair lined over his top lip. I’m not a fan of facial hair. Just sayin’.

“Actually, I’m kind of in a hurry. I have to get back to the restaurant. I seriously cannot trust my brother to check in the produce. He’ll take it whether it’s full of rotten—”

“It’ll only take a moment,” the lawyer insisted.

I glanced toward the heavy lead glass doors with their brass push bars and people passing in and out to the street and sighed. “Fine. What can I do for you, Mr. . . .”

“Galli,” he said pushing off the wall to meet me halfway. “Mr. Pensione authorized me to present you with an . . . unusual opportunity that may solve the problems you’re experiencing with your restaurant.”

“You mean the problems he and his family are causing? No thanks.” I turned to leave.

“Miss Affetto, wait. You’re not even curious?”

I looked back at him. “I’ve been talking to Jack Pensione nearly every day for weeks when he stops into The Sweet Spot to harass me.”

“You mean to order lunch? I was with him a few times if you remember,” the annoyingly precise lawyer said.

I lifted my chin. “Just because he ordered food doesn’t mean I didn’t find his presence harassing.”

And by harassing I meant distracting, nerve-racking, and generally a big, hard-bodied, well-dressed, sexy, mental speed bump I cruised over about every five minutes from the time he arrived until he walked out the door.

“Yes. Well, be that as it may, I assure you he is motivated to listen now.”

I turned to face him, intrigued. “What’s changed? He just won the lawsuit I brought against his family. He’s already getting what he wants. Why would he want to help me now?”

“I’m afraid that’s not for me to say,” Mr. Galli said. “He’d like you to stop by his apartment this evening to discuss the matter.”

“His apartment?” I barked out a laugh. “What kind of offer does he plan to make? The Sweet Spot is my heart and soul, but I draw a line at trading sex to save it.”

Okay that may have been a little premature. Of course, I wouldn’t have sex with him just to save the restaurant, but as an added bonus? No. Right. That would still be wrong.

Mr. Galli pulled a small envelope from his pocket, about the size of a business card, and held it out to me. “From Mr. Pensione. His home address.”

I took it. “Thanks. But you can tell him, I pass.”

“It’s your choice. Keep it in case you change your mind,” Galli said, then held up a finger. “I, uh, trust you’ll keep that address private.”

I shrugged and tucked it into my purse. “You bet.”

* * *

“George?” I flicked on the light switch and closed my apartment door behind me. A heart stopping moment later, my brother popped up on the couch. A quick squeal of shock, after that another head popped up beside him.

“Hi, Kate. Welcome home,” George said. “This is my . . . friend Lenny. He’s uhm, staying for dinner. Okay?”

I nodded but I was still puzzling things out and waiting for my heart to start beating again. “Sure. Hi . . .”

“Lenny,” the man with the Russell Brand hair sitting next to my brother said. He stood, offered his hand over the back of the couch. “It’s nice to meet you.”

After a half second brain fart I lurched forward the few steps to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you, too.”

The gangly man smiled. “So you’re Kate Affetto. Been waiting to meet you.”

I glanced at George. “Really?”

George was staring at Lenny, a bewildered smile lifting his face. Lenny must’ve felt the question weighing in the air and flicked his attention back and forth between us.

“Oh. George mentioned he had a sister,” Lenny said. “I’m an only child. An orphan, actually. Family’s important to me.”

“I can imagine,” I said and dropped his hand. “You like rigatoni?”

“I love all things Italian,” he said and then turned his smile to my brother and winked.

George practically melted and I rolled my eyes. God, the kid was already in deep. I laughed and headed for the kitchen. I’d been taking care of my little brother and myself since I graduated high school and got a job at a local fast-food joint. I was seventeen. That’s when our father decided his responsibility to his children had been fulfilled and left to “finally live his life.” Yay for him.

I’m only four years older than George, but I’m pretty much the only mother he’s ever known. There were tough times along the way, especially back when George accepted that he was gay. He never did tell our father, but the kids at school had a way of figuring out that sort of thing. As his big sister, I protected him as best I could, but in the end George had to learn how to stand up for himself.

I think it made him stronger, more comfortable in his own skin. It certainly made him more well-adjusted when it came to romance . . . at least compared to me. Hell, he’d had more steady relationships than I had.

We’re family. He depended on me to take care of things. I couldn’t let him down. It’d been just me and George for so long, and no one in the world meant more to me. Above everything else, I had to keep The Sweet Spot running for my little brother, to provide the means to take care of him. The Sweet Spot was all we had.

“So how’d it go?” George asked settling under Lenny’s arm on the couch again to watch TV.

“I lost.”

“Guess Uncle Max was right.”

“Yeah, well, I still think it was worth a shot.”

“So now what?” George asked without peeking back at me.

“I’m meeting Mr. Hardy at the bank tomorrow. He thinks he can make The Sweet Spot look good enough on paper to get us a loan. Said it would take a day or two to get an answer.” I pulled out the pots I needed, snipped three basil leaves, and grabbed a clove of garlic.

“A loan for three million dollars?” George made a doubtful snort. “Good luck with that. Hope you have a backup plan.”

“Right?” I laughed, but my stomach suddenly turned sour. I didn’t have a backup plan. The bank loan was my backup plan, and it was a longshot at best. If it didn’t work . . . I’d lose the restaurant. There was no way around it. What were we going to do? How would a keep a roof over our heads?

I exhaled, forcing the worry, and thoughts of The Sweet Spot, and Mr. Galli, the Pensione family and the harassingly sexy Jack Pensione in particular, from my brain. With practiced precision, I started chopping. I mixed and stirred, adding a pinch of this and a dash of that . . . after a few minutes, the magic took me over and I was lost to the sublime high that always freed me when I cooked.

It was better than alcohol, better than drugs—I knew. I’d tried both back when I was stupid. Cooking provided an escape like nothing else. I was more alive, my mind more free, more inspired when I was in the kitchen. Truth be told, opening a restaurant wasn’t just a way to support George and me. It was a way to stay sane.

An hour later I sighed, totally relaxed, setting the big bowl of pasta in the center of the table. “Come eat.”

The guys didn’t have far to travel from the couch to the table. George and I shared a one bedroom apartment. I got the bedroom, George slept on the couch. The rest of the apartment wasn’t much bigger than that, a narrow kitchen with a breakfast bar that overlooked the living room. The dining table was on the other side of the breakfast bar across from the couch. It was a round table, so George sat next to Lenny and so did I.

George and I always talked about getting a bigger place, maybe a house in the suburbs—when things at the restaurant leveled out and it started making real money. We’d never lived in a house growing up. Always crummy apartments too small for the number of people who had to live there. We never lived in the suburbs. And now it was starting to look like we never would.

“Hey. Isn’t that that guy?” George waved a finger at the TV. “The guy. The Pensione guy. Y’know, Money-bags, the one who’s always coming into The Sweet Spot—the one who likes you.”

Likes me? I started at the TV. Sure enough, the camera panned over a glitzy crowd of people coming out some hot new nightclub in New York. Jack Pensione walked at the center of the crush, his arm around a beautiful starlet who’d just nabbed her second Golden Globe award.

“Turn it up,” Lenny said, and George aimed the remote.

“Jack, Jack,” one of the paparazzi yelled. “Is she taking you to the Oscars? Did you give her that ring, Jack?”

Another voice yelled to Jack’s date. “Jen, Jennifer, are you going to be the heiress to the Pensione fortune? Are you guys signing pre-nups? Is he the one, Jen?”

Neither of them answered a single question, but the show’s hosts suddenly leaped to assumptions when the starlet’s smile beamed and she held up a bedazzled ring finger. She cuddled close under Jack’s protective arm as he kept her near, pushing their way through the crush of photographers to the waiting limo.

“Oh, that looks like an engagement ring to me,” The pretty TV hostess said.

“Jennifer sure seems to think so,” the co-host said. “But then again, this is Jack and Jen. Neither of them have a great track record for relationships. Wasn’t Jack Pensione just photographed with supermodel Elizabeth Norshell, last week?

“I think you’re right, Mark,” the female hostess said. “And it wasn’t more than a month or two before that there were rumors flying about him and the new star of NBC’s latest hit police drama, Blue Heart. Is it different this time? Is the playboy Jack Pensione finally ready to settle down?”

“Hard to say, Nancy,” Mark said. “Maybe Jen’s the one to finally get him to the altar. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Sorry, guys and gals. Looks like these two gorgeous eligible singles may finally be off the market.”

My chest tightened and I snatched the remote from my brother, thumbing the power button.

“Hey,” George whined. “I was watching that.”

“We have enough drama in our lives,” I said. “We don’t need to let Jack Pensione’s hormonal high-jinx distract us.”

“Sorry, Kate,” George said. “I know you had a thing for him.”

“Pfftt . . . No I didn’t.” Oh God, I think I did.

“Look at it this way,” George said. “At least you were never mentioned as one of his throwaways.”

“Right. Because that would’ve sucked.” Almost as much as never being the type he’d pick to date in the first place. I tried to smile. It wasn’t totally successful.

Ugh . . . I seriously need therapy.