“He asked for you,” Brittney said, rubbing her baby bulge. “Should I tell ’im to fuck off?”

“No!” Holy cow, the girl was blunt. “Even if he is enemy-number-one, he’s still a customer. We have to maintain a professional attitude no matter what. We’re better than that sort of pettiness.”

The pregnant teen nodded, tucking a blonde flyaway strand behind her ear. “Right. So you want Lucas to just spit on his burger?”

“No!” I spun and peered between the warmer shelves. “No spitting in any of the food. Ever. You hear me Lucas?”

The small man smiled, nodding. “Si. No spitting. Got it.”

“Jesus, you people are brutal.”

Brittney shrugged. “Sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind.”

“What’s that even mean?”

She shrugged again. “Dunno. Saw it on a T-shirt once.”

“Not everything you read on a shirt is worth repeating,” I said.

“Noted,” she said on a loud burp that somehow added an extra syllable to the word. Her shoulder’s drooped. “I think I just peed a little. God, pregnancy sucks.”

“You might want to make a note of that, too,” I said and pushed through the kitchen door to the diner.

Jack Pensione sat in the same booth he almost always sat in. Three booths in from the front door, facing the kitchen door with the New York street to his left. He turned from staring out the window just as the kitchen door swung close behind me. A smile shaped his mouth when he saw me, and he straightened a smidge in his seat.

My heart fluttered in my chest and things deep inside me warmed. What was it about this guy that tripped all my girl hormones? Why couldn’t I see that sexy green-eyed grin and still keep my motor skills working smoothly? It was like my base, animal instincts were overriding my brain. I didn’t even like Mr. Moneybags. Not really. It was just those eyes, and that smile and the body . . . Annoying.

Jesus, I was sure I’d friggin’ lose it if he’d come to gloat. “Hello, Mr. Pensione. What can I do for you?”

“Miss Affetto.” He gestured to the bench seat across from him. “Please, have a seat.”

“No.” That came out harsher than I’d intended. I made it better. “Thank you.”

He blinked at my tone and his smile dimmed at the edges. “You didn’t come to see me last night.”

“Did you really think I would?”

“Yes. Why wouldn’t you?”

It was my turn to blink, like working through a brain glitch. He was serious. “One, because I’m not in the habit of going to a strange man’s apartment late at night—”

“Galli gave you the message at four in the afternoon, and we’re not exactly strangers.”

I ignored his attempt at derailing my building rant with logic. “Two, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to listen to you gloat.”

“He did tell you I had an offer for you, right? Something that might solve your problem?”

Clearly the man couldn’t grasp the importance of keeping the momentum of a rant going once it’s started. “Three, I’m no home wrecker. I doubt your new fiancé would have approved of my late-night visit.”

“Again, four in the afternoon and, what fiancé?” He was smiling again. God, that was just so annoying . . . and sexy, and distracting, and . . . damn it!

“Four!” Not sure why I was shouting now. “The whole idea seemed pointless seeing as how you’d just won the right to kick us out of our home. The dirty deed was done. No more problem to solve.”

“Why are you shouting?”

Shoot, I was hoping he hadn’t noticed. I cleared my throat and crossed my arms under my chest. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. But let’s be realistic. I’m not really kicking you out of your home,” he said. “It’s a business.”

“Not to us,” I said. “Not to the people who work here. We’re family. You don’t understand what this place means to each of us.”

Jack sighed, deflating a half inch. “You’re right. I don’t. But it doesn’t matter—”

“Ha! Typical,” I said, triumphant.

“I didn’t mean it like—” He sighed again. “This would be so much easier if you’d sit down. Please.”

I rolled my eyes and checked back toward the kitchen. The little window at the top of the door was nothing but blinking eyes, smooshed noses and squished cheeks, everyone crushing together to see.

Maybe I was being more difficult than necessary. “Fine. But I have a business to run. I really don’t have time to sit around shooting the breeze.”

“Right,” Jack said, scanning the restaurant, no doubt noting a grand total of three other customers. “You must be swamped.”

“It’s always slow between the lunch and dinner rush,” I said.

“Of course,” Jack said. “Thank you for sparing me a few minutes.”

I didn’t detect any sarcasm so I accepted his apology by way of a one-shoulder shrug. The truth is, it was way too easy to forgive the hottie business mogul. Victory looked good on the man, his dark gray suit perfectly tailored to his hard body, his dark chocolate hair brushed back from his forehead in a silky wave, and those hypnotic green eyes seeing through my flimsy pretense.

“Please. Sit,” He asked again.

I slipped into the seat across from him, catching a whiff of his sweet manly fragrance and that extra something—something earthy, like trees, wet bark and rich soil. I breathed the scent deep into my lungs, letting it tingle through my veins. God, it was friggin’ addictive. “What’s that smell?”

“Excuse me?” Jack stiffened, touching his lapel.

“No. Sorry. I meant you smell weird,” I said, mistakenly trying to speak during a particularly bad brain glitch. “I mean—not weird. Different. But good. You smell good, but . . . weird.”

His smile turned cocky and he lowered his eyes. “Umm . . .”

Crap. Had that sounded more flirty or crazy? Either way. Crap. “By weird I didn’t mean bad. I mean, obviously, you’re wearing cologne so you smell ah-maaazing . . . but there’s some other stink—”

“Stink—?”

“Smell. Aroma. Fragrance?” I sighed, the effort to seem sane just too exhausting. “You smell like the outside, okay? Like a forest after the rain. It’s nice, but . . . different—weird in an unexpected kinda way.” And for some reason it makes me stupid.

His smile brightened, amusement glinting in his eyes. “So you’re saying I stink pretty?”

“Forget it.” I become an idiot around him, might as well accept it. “What’s this about an offer?” Smooth.

Jack’s shoulders shook once with a suppressed laugh and he cleared his throat. “Yeah. Uhm, this might sound strange but . . . will you marry me?”

I stared at him, sure there must be more coming, or some clever joke I was missing. “I’m sorry. What?”

He shifted forward, leaning across the table, lowering his voice. “Marry me. Marry me, and I’ll stop your eviction.”

I blinked, giving my brain its much-needed processing time. “Aren’t you already engaged?”

He flinched, brows creasing. “No.”

“But that actress,” I said. “I saw you on TV. You gave her a ring.”

“Oh, that.” He shook his head, looked away and back again. “No. She saw the ring. Said she liked it. So I bought it for her. That’s it. We’re not engaged.”

“Does she know that?”

“Yes.” Jack shrugged. “I think. It doesn’t matter. This is different. It’s business.”

“I’m sorry. What?” I was seriously missing something.

Jack looked behind me at the kitchen door. Judging by the frown that flashed across his face, we still had an audience. He exhaled and refocused on me. “You want to save The Sweet Spot and I want to be . . . head of my family.”

“You mean CEO?” I asked. “I heard you and your father talking yesterday.”

“Yes,” he said. “But to, uhm, get the job I have to be married.”

“Wow, really? How archaic.”

His smile tensed. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“And I’m guessing it doesn’t matter who you marry,” I said.

“Exactly. The CEO spot is kind of my birthright. I just have to marry and it’s mine.”

“And if you don’t get married?” I asked.

“If no other married family member challenges—I mean, applies for the job, it still goes to me. But that’s not going to happen.”

“Right. Sorry, but I’m still confused,” I said, trying to massage the burgeoning headache from my temples. “You literally have some of the most beautiful women in the world falling over themselves to profess their love to you. Hell, you already bought the last one a ring. Why not marry one of them?”

Why was he asking me? My stomach fluttered. I couldn’t help it. I’d had a pretty steady diet of Disney fairytales as a kid. I was screwed up to the point that a part of me really believed the orphaned stepsister could win the prince, and that an awkward village girl could grow up to lead an army, save her people, and win the heart of the hot military dude.

If the nerd girl could tame the heart of a beast and earn the love of the sexy castle owner, why couldn’t I, a fellow awkward, nerdy, orphaned girl from New York, find true love?

“Like I said, this is business. I don’t want to confuse the situation by marrying someone I’ve had a romantic relationship with. It has to be understood from the start that any sort of romance is out of the question.” Jack leaned back and my childhood fantasies died a little.

“Okay. I guess that makes sense,” I said. “But, not to sound insensitive or self-absorbed, I still don’t follow how this helps me.”

“Right.” His expression lifted. “Whether you want to believe it or not, I’m not the one evicting you. Not me personally. It’s my family. My family’s company actually. But, as CEO of my family’s company I’ll call the shots. I can cancel the eviction. I can renew your lease. I will.”

I perked up. Finally, a motivation I could get behind. “If I marry you, my restaurant can stay where it is?”

“Yes.”

My smile bloomed for three solid heartbeats and then reality hit. “Wait. I can’t marry you.”

“Why not?” He seemed genuinely confused.

“Because I don’t love you.”

“Exactly. And I don’t love you. It’s perfect.” He sounded so pleased with himself and his wide smile was so adorable my heart skipped a beat.

“No. It’s not,” I said. “I can’t spend the rest of my life with someone I don’t love. Someone who doesn’t love me.”

He shook his head, leaning forward again. “No. You don’t have to. That’s the beauty of it. We only have to be married for a month or so. However long it takes to get a divorce. Then we go our separate ways.”

“Wait.” My brain sifted back through the conversation. “I thought you said you couldn’t be CEO unless you were married.”

He scrubbed a hand over his mouth and chin then exhaled. “Yeah. See, my plan hinges on a technicality. My family doesn’t believe in divorce.”

“They don’t believe in it?”

“As in, they don’t acknowledge it,” he said. “We can get a legal divorce but in my family’s eyes you and I will always be married.”

“Forever?” I asked, just to be sure.

“Yes,” he said. “But don’t worry about it. It’s just my family. After the divorce, you’ll never have to see them again. You can go back to live your life however you want, run your restaurant, fall in love, remarry. Whatever you want.”

“But to your family you’ll still be married to me,” I said. “What if you find someone in a few years and fall in love?”

He shook his head. “Not gonna happen. If it does, I’m not interested in marriage. Ever. I’m only considering it now, with you, as a means to an end.”

“Wow. That’s kinda sad,” I said. “I mean, I feel bad for you. Why so against love and marriage?”

Jack laughed and there was a vulnerability to it that caught me by surprise and made my heart thump.

“I’ve seen what a bad marriage can do to people,” he said. “I was raised with the belief that there’s one right person for each of us, a soul mate—a life mate. And once you find them, you can’t live without them.”

“Romantic.”

“Sadistic,” he said. “There’s no way to know if this person or that person is the one. I mean, how many relationships have you been in? Do you think any of them were your soul mate? Well imagine if your family insisted that the first guy you were serious with, your first love, was the one for you, the one you’d be with for the rest of your life. The one you had to marry.”

“The first guy I thought I loved kept wanting to suck my toes, and massage my feet,” I said. “It was fine at first, but when I caught him inhaling the inside of my boots, it got too weird. He owns a high-end women’s shoe store now.”

“See? It’s a crap shoot. Imagine being stuck married to that guy for the rest of your life,” Jack said. “Do you have any idea what the odds are of finding the love of your life right out of the gate? And that’s nothing compared to the odds of an arranged marriage resulting in anything but misery.”

“Who does arranged marriages anymore?” I snorted a laugh.

Jack stiffened, his mouth a flat straight line. “My parent’s marriage was arranged. Half the members of my family had arranged marriages. And if I don’t choose someone on my own, my parents will pressure me to marry someone they’ve chosen. I won’t do it, of course. But that won’t stop them from trying and at the moment they have the power to make my life . . . difficult if I defy them.”

“Are your parents happy?” I asked, already guessing the answer.

His gaze dropped to his napkin-wrapped silverware. He picked up the tight bundle, fidgeting with it as he spoke, not meeting my eyes. “No. Not that they’ll admit it. My father cheated on my mother. Everyone knew about the affair, but she couldn’t leave him because we mate for life. They insist they’re life mates, fated to be together until the end, no matter what. But anyone can see they’re miserable—at least my mother is. It’s all bullshit. I don’t want any part of it. I’d rather die alone than pretend to be happy in a toxic marriage. I’d never bring children into a world like that. I don’t want that for the rest of my family either. Which is why I have to become the next alpha—I mean, CEO. I want to change things, make them better for the people I care about.”

I sat in silence for a few seconds, processing and then asked what seemed like a perfectly reasonable question after hearing about arranged marriages and mating for life. Mating? Seriously? What are they, wolves? “Where’s your family from?”

“Italy, originally,” he said. “But that’s got nothing to do with it. We’re just . . . different.”

“No shit,” I said half under my breath. I sighed. “Mr. Pensione—”

“Jack. Please. I’ve just asked you to marry me and help manipulate my family. I think we can be on a first name basis.”

Good point. “Okay, Jack. I understand the position you’re in . . . sort of, and I feel bad for you. I do. But I just can’t do it. I can’t marry you knowing that it’s not real. I don’t want to be a divorced woman. Marriage is more than a means to an end for me.”

“Even if the end is saving your restaurant?” he asked, but then didn’t let me answer. “I thought your restaurant was everything to you. That there was nothing you wouldn’t do to save it.”

“I thought so too,” I said, honestly. “But I guess I was wrong.”

He laughed but it sounded bitter. “Funny. I didn’t peg you as a quitter. Guess I was wrong too.”

“I’m not a quitter. I’m just not that desperate.”

“Yet.” Jack stood. “Give me a call when you get there.”