Transgressions by Carolyn Faulkner (the reading list txt) 📕

She felt the car stop and heard Maury open the door for them, but it was Enzo who lifted her in his arms and carried her through the door of his cabin. That term had always been used very loosely. It was a property that her family had owned when she was very young—before Enzo had become a part of their lives. When they had owned it, it had been a pretty bare bones cabin—a summer retreat on a small, private lake where there were very few other family camps. They'd made a few changes—adding indoor plumbing, for one, since her mother had refused to use an outhouse after the first time she discovered she was sharing it with a raccoon. But they hadn't done much else, because, at that time in their lives, they didn't have the money, and by the time they did, they weren't spending much time there, so it wouldn't have been worth the investment.

Her father had given him the property when he had made Enzo his second in command, and the young man had spent nearly all of his leisure time fixing it up. He'd turned it from a three-season camp to an actual home, moving in there, rather than retaining the tiny, sparse apartment he'd had forever because the rent was cheap, and he spent most of his time at the Cerones, anyway. He'd been in construction before he'd worked for the don, so he could do all of the work himself and enjoyed it as a way of relaxing. He raised the roof and added four bedrooms upstairs, expanding what had laughingly been called the kitchen, which had consisted of a sink, a trailer sized fridge and a Coleman stove when Ally's family had owned it, into one that any chef would be envious of. He'd also built out the bottom floor until the place was a veritable showroom, with a wraparound deck that extended down to an elaborate dock, extensive landscaping and even a mock widow's walk cupola on the roof. He had taken what had been a dilapidated old garage that had become her father's tool shed and made it into a small guest cottage not far from the main house.

Ally hadn't been there in years—not since he'd finished the job entirely and had thrown a bit of a housewarming party for his friends. And right now, she wasn't in any kind of condition to admire what he'd done with the place. All she wanted was a cold shower—for various reasons—and her own bed.

"Do you need to use the phone?" Enzo asked politely.

Ally frowned. She had a cell. Why would she need his phone?

She asked him that very question, and that chin hit his chest again. She was beginning not to like that look on him at all. "So you can speak to whoever it is you need to, to make sure that everyone on your end knows that our little agreement is to be strictly adhered to."

"Oh. Yes." She blushed—which seemed to be becoming a habit around him—that she hadn't thought to do that herself. "May I use your office?" It would afford her at least some privacy from prying ears. She wasn't any too interested in him hearing her eat crow when she spoke to her lieutenant.

"Be my guest." He opened the door and flicked on the light, then closed it politely behind her, saying, "Be sure to let Frankie know that you won't be available this evening. You're going to be in a meeting with me."

Ally wanted to argue with him about his high handedness, but Frank had already picked up and she was thrown off balance by his demand, curious enough about it to tell her right hand man exactly what he'd wanted her to. When she came out, something luscious smelling assailed her nose. It smelled a lot like her mother's spaghetti sauce recipe and launched her back to childhood, when her mother would spend all day with a pot of it simmering on the back burner for dinner that evening, although everyone agreed it was always better the next day. It was pretty stupendous the first day, too.

She noticed that he had set two napkins, silverware and wine glasses at the snack bar on the other side of the huge kitchen island, in front of two beautiful mahogany counter height chairs. He dished out what he probably considered to be a moderate amount of pasta, then applied a generous ladle of gravy that was full of what she knew would be both sweet and hot Italian sausages, pepperoni, and hamburger, along with tons of onion, garlic and peppers.

A basket of garlic bread appeared as if by magic, fresh shaved Parmesan cheese, as well as a bowl of baby carrots cooked with garlic and ginger that he knew were her favorites.

"Wow, thank you for putting all of this together." Ally wasn't at all sure she could eat anything, but it all looked scrumptious.

She watched him surreptitiously as he moved about the kitchen with complete confidence, just like he moved through the rest of his life. He didn't look like the typical Italian man—in fact, he was pretty much the complete opposite, with a relatively fair complexion that she remembered tanned beautifully in the summer and bright, piercing blue eyes. He was tall and bulkily muscular, although not muscle bound, with broad shoulders and a slim waist, and a butt to die for. She knew—and blushed at the remembrance—that he had very little body hair, especially in comparison to the rest of the men she knew, and only a sprinkling of darker blond hair on his chest.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, holding both plates in the air as if he expected she was going to tell him she had become allergic to spaghetti, as most of the few women he'd dated lately seemed to be because it was high in carbs.

"No, sorry. When I get