Giovanni DeRose was larger than life. Evie marveled at him from the door of his tattoo bay in total awe. Rippling muscles, a broad frame, and towering height… he was like a sleeker version of Luciano. The DeRose brothers really were something else.

“Gio,” Antonio said as he passed through the door. Giovanni stopped tattooing. He was working over a young man who was getting a back piece done. Evie didn’t pay attention so much to the client as she did to what the brothers were doing. Antonio strolled across the cramped space and Giovanni rose, setting his tattoo machine aside and snapping his gloves off. They hugged.

“Surprise, surprise. What’s my big brother doing here?” Giovanni asked. “And who’s the chick in the doorway?”

“Uh, hi,” Evie said with a bob of her head. “Name’s Evie Stuart. I’m one of the artists over at Bloom Tattoo. Antonio was just showing me around so I could get some ideas about renovations for the new shop.”

Giovanni’s eyes softened with recognition, then gained an impish gleam. “So this is Evie?”

“Stop before you even start,” Antonio warned.

“Nope. Luciano gave me the story.” Giovanni beamed, looking over his brother’s shoulder and back at Evie again. Evie blushed. She remembered the encounter with Luciano well. It hadn’t occurred to her that news would spread through the rest of the DeRose family. “What the hell are you doing settling for a dweeb like this?”

“Dweeb?” Evie laughed. “I think that’s the last word I’d use to describe him. Have you seen the body on him? The man’s no nerd.”

Giovanni waggled an eyebrow. “No, but I find it interesting that you have.”

Evie’s cheeks burned. She was sure her whole face was red.

“She finished my back piece,” Antonio said swiftly, stepping in. It looked like he hadn’t shared details of their kiss with anyone else, and Evie admired him for it. There was something almost heroic about keeping what happened between the two of them private, like it was sacred, even though everyone at the shop knew and teased them about it regularly.

“Right. Right. Of course.” Giovanni clapped Antonio on the arm. “Well, whatever. I’m just glad to see you here. We never see you anymore. You’ve started skipping out on weekly brother time at Lysander.”

Weekly brother time? Evie leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms, smiling. It was good to be a fly on the wall, at least for a little bit. Learning more about Antonio was fascinating. The primal part inside of her—the part that was attracted to him like mad—wanted to know everything it could about the serious, enigmatic man.

“Working all day at Bloom Tattoo and managing my accounts back at the office is taking its toll on me,” Antonio said in way of apology. “It’s going to be crazy for the next few months, maybe the next year. Us DeRoses never do anything half-assed, do we?”

“Nope.” Giovanni smirked. “And we never space out our craziness, either. The littlest DeRose is going to be born just after the holidays, and your new shop’s going to be less than a year old. That’s hardly enough time for the dust to settle. Hell, we bought the upstairs what? Six months ago? And we’re still not through the renovations.”

Evie had seen the gallery when she’d come through the front doors. It was beautiful, and it was exactly the kind of space she hoped to see at Thorn. It was good to know that at least some of her ideas for the shop were valid enough that they were already being executed at Thorn. In a way, it made her feel validated.

“Life doesn’t wait,” Antonio said with a shrug.

“And neither do I.” The doors to Evie’s right opened, and Luciano swept into the room. It was starting to get crowded. “I thought I heard things get about ten times more serious in here. Good to see I was right.” Evie chuckled. Luciano turned his head and smiled at her. “Didn’t know it also got about ten times more fun. Hey, Evie. How’s it going? You head artist yet?”

“Does it count if I have business cards already when I haven’t technically said yes?” Evie asked.

“Gimme one.” Luciano held out his hand, and Evie fished one of the cards from her pocket.

“Me too,” Giovanni insisted. Evie pushed off the wall and passed one of the cards to Giovanni’s outstretched hand.

“I’m still reserving the right to officially say no.” At the look on Antonio’s face, she couldn’t help grinning. “Just not today.”

“You sure know how to pick ‘em,” Giovanni said with a laugh. “First Riley, who hid the fact that she was a world-class artist because of her past, and now another reluctant artist? You got a thing for tortured souls you aren’t telling us about, Antonio?”

“Very funny.” Antonio rolled his eyes, and Evie couldn’t help but grin. There was something wholesome about seeing him like this—like he was a real person having fun with his brothers. The more time they spent together, the more she saw the man behind the professional facade.

Antonio was a good sport and had a great sense of humor, even if he seemed severe. It made Evie appreciate him all the more.

“Well, whatever the case, I hope you keep the position, Evie,” Luciano said. “You’ve got serious skill, and I feel like you’ve got the personality you need to tackle the position… not like Antonio here. Can you imagine if he tried to rally the artists?” Luciano made a flat, emotionless face and spoke in a monotone. “He’s oh so sympathetic. He totally understands the working man.”

“If he was any more emotive,” Giovanni said in a similar robotic voice, “he’d be the most sympathetic man in the world.”

“Okay. We’re leaving.” Antonio shook his head. “Let’s keep going with the tour, shall we, Evie? My doofus brothers are only going to get worse if we encourage them.”

Evie snickered. She hadn’t even paid attention to any of the new equipment in the room. Watching the three DeRoses was a treat she didn’t want to miss.

And as much as it warmed her heart, it also left her feeling hollow.

As Antonio led her from Giovanni’s tattoo bay and back into the hall, her spirits fell. “You know, the three of you are great together.”

Antonio made a sour face. “You think so?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “I never got to have any of that growing up. I was an only child. When I came home from school, it was just my parents or my babysitter around to keep me company, and… it’s not the same. You don’t joke around with your parents like that. My babysitter was a little bit more like a sibling, but there was still that respect there that was never breached. Besides, as soon as I was old enough, she stopped coming to look after me and I stayed home on my own.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Antonio said. He sounded genuine.

“I mean, it wasn’t like I was starved for attention,” Evie said, but the more she dwelt on it, the more she felt like she’d missed out. “I went to public school, so I was with tons of other kids my age, and I started gymnastics pretty young, so I knew girls through there… but it’s not the same when you’re in a structured setting like that. There are still expectations and rules, and when it came to the girls on my gymnastics team, we were all friends, but not so close because of the competitive aspect. We all propped each other up, but there was almost a comparison waiting to be drawn, and it kept us kind of… distant.”

Never had she realized how much she’d missed out on. Seeing the bond Antonio shared with his brothers broke her heart. She stuffed her hands into her pockets and did her best not to think about it, but now that the memories were stirred up, it was hard to escape.

Lonely days spent in a quiet house, doing homework to pass the time. Curling up with a book. Watching television mindlessly. In the programming she watched, all the kids her age were always together, having fun, and making bonds that would last a lifetime.

Real life wasn’t like that. Evie wasn’t in touch with any of her friends from high school, let alone elementary school. After she’d withdrawn from gymnastics, most of the girls she’d trained with had fallen out of touch with her. Every now and then someone liked one of her status updates on Facebook, or sent her a little message telling her how much they loved her art, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t friendship on the level that the DeRose brothers shared.

Evie had closed herself off not only to leadership, but to others. Getting too close meant risking letting someone down, and she’d spent her whole life running in fear from it. All the guys she’d dated and then dumped, all the places she’d been and the things she’d done….

All of it had been done out of fear.

She ducked her head, feeling the tears come out of nowhere to sting at the corners of her eyes. She was sure she was over it, and yet here she was, crying.

“Hey,” Antonio said softly, “it’s okay. Listen. We’ve got some time to burn. Why don’t we leave Thorn Tattoo for right now and do something else for a little while? I’ve got something that’ll take your mind off it, okay?”

Evie looked up at him, blinking away her tears. There was no way she was going to cry in front of Antonio. She respected him too much. “Like what?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said.

“I swear to god, Antonio, if you take me to another leadership workshop….”

He laughed. The sound was so rare to hear that she cherished it.

She may have blown her chances at friendship during childhood, but with Antonio, she was on the cusp of finding something special. Something that threatened to destroy her if it ever were to crumble.

But her gut feeling was that it was right, and Evie always trusted her gut. She bowed her head and smiled. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Of all the decadent places a man like Antonio could afford to take her, and all the exotic locales he no doubt knew intimately, Evie wasn’t expecting for him to pull up outside a fifties style soft serve ice cream parlor. Coneheads was a blast from the past, and she almost couldn’t believe it when Antonio pulled into the parking lot and geared into park.

“Are you serious?” Evie asked.

“Should I not be?” Antonio pushed his lips to the side. “I don’t remember you being vegan. That’s not an issue, right?”

“No. Just.” She gestured at the shop. “It’s an ice cream place.”

“Do you not like ice cream?”

She covered her face with her hand and shook her head. He was missing the point. “It’s not that. You’re Antonio DeRose, serial entrepreneur. I figured that you wouldn’t… you know.”

“Wouldn’t what?” he teased.

The man was impossible. Evie’s heart fluttered even as her spine tingled with frustration. “Want to go to a place like this. Ice cream is sweet, but I didn’t think it was your style.”

“Wait until I order mine with sprinkles,” he joked.

Evie groaned. “Let’s just go get something, okay? I’m so done with this. You’re something else.”

“I’m a lot more than I appear to be,” Antonio told her, tone dipping into soft seriousness. Evie’s hand hesitated on the way to the door handle. “I think we both are. You just see it a little better now.”

Memories of the kiss flooded her mind. It had been an attempt to convince him to forget bringing her on as head artist, but it had grown into so much more than that. Her body still remembered how Antonio’s had felt, and her lips still remembered the rough insistence of his lips and how he’d dominated her mouth. In that moment, Evie wanted nothing more than to lean over and kiss him all over again.

Antonio was letting down his walls. He was letting her in. There were few men who’d ever exposed their souls to her like that, and it was beautiful, and delicate, and perfect.

Evie’s heart beat for him.

“So, what’s your poison?” Antonio asked, breaking the tension. He eased open his car door. “I imagine you like chocolate and vanilla swirl.”

“That, but dipped in that hard chocolate shell,” she said, snapping out of her thoughts. Evie followed him out the door. She already felt better. “It always made my heart race as a kid to see them dunk it into the melted chocolate. I was always sure the ice cream was going to fall into the chocolate.”

“Did it ever?” Antonio asked. They made their way toward the door.

“No.” Evie smiled. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “But it always scared me.”