Page 52 of Ruthless Touch
Although I have a sense I know the answer to my question, I ask it anyway. “What happened in high school to change things around?”
She smiles, but this time it’s a wicked grin. “They caught up to me so I wasn’t taller than them anymore.”
“How tall are you?” I ask, guessing she’s got to be nearly six foot.
“Six-one. And before you ask, no, I never played basketball.”
The defensiveness in her voice tells me she still feels insecure about being that tall in a world full of women who are usually half a foot shorter than her. She doesn’t have to be uncomfortable around me, though. At six-four, I still have three inches on her.
“I wasn’t going to ask that. I like how tall you are. I tower over most women, but not you. Three inches is nothing. I don’t have to slump when I’m with you. I like that.”
Her expression lights up. Her ex, that toady of Marcello’s, stands about five ten, I bet. It was nothing for me to look down on him, so I guess he doesn’t even reach six foot. She probably intimidated him because of her height.
“Most men don’t like really tall women like me. Or the ones who do have some kind of weird fetish. I met this guy once who—”
She stops talking and looks away. “You probably don’t want to hear about that. Sorry.”
But I gently take her chin between my fingers and pull her face back toward me. “Nonsense. I want to hear everything. What did he do?”
“He asked me out, and I thought we were going to go out on a date, but instead, all he wanted me to do was pose for his sculptures. No dinner. Nothing. Just me standing still for hours while he chiseled away. Let’s say that didn’t go on for more than one night.”
I kiss her on the forehead and smile against her warm skin. “At least he didn’t just want you for sex. That’s something, right?”
Aria sighs. “There’s something called a happy medium, Gideon. A woman doesn’t want to be just an object to a man. Not a sex object or an art project.”
Something in the way she says that tells me she’s including me in the group of men she’s met who don’t seem to have a happy medium. She wouldn’t be wrong. I went from not touching her for weeks to professing my love for her, but it wasn’t as fast as it seemed. I just didn’t tell her all the times I was feeling something in those weeks.
“So now it’s your turn. Tell me about you. Like why you’re not happily married with children?”
With a chuckle, I say, “I guess we’re jumping in the deep end to start. I’m not married because I’ve been committed to my job more than I wanted to be to a woman. As for kids, I’d like them someday. I just don’t think now is the time, but someday.”
Aria scans my face for a long moment, practically glaring at me, before she says, “I’m guessing you’re just assuming I want kids.”
It hadn’t occurred to me she would want them or not. I hadn’t gotten that far with my fantasy about our future life together, but since she said that like kids are the last thing she could ever want, I’m curious.
“No. Do you, though? I’m not talking about double digit numbers. But do you like children?”
As if someone turned a light on inside her, she smiles broadly and nods. “I love children! I don’t know if I want double digit numbers, but I think a few would be wonderful. At least a boy and a girl to have one of each.”
“I think that’s what my parents said until they had my brother and me. Then I think they decided they needed to try until they had a girl. Thankfully, it happened on the first try and my sister Autumn came along. I can’t imagine having a long line of brothers behind me until they finally got a daughter.”
“I hope that’s not what my parents did, or they were sadly disappointed because all they got were my four sisters and me. Not a boy to be found in the bunch. My father was definitely outnumbered by females in my house growing up.”
It takes me a second, but I realize I know nothing about Aria’s family. “Four sisters? Where are they? Do your parents live here on the coast?”
She smiles like my assumption is the silliest thing she’s ever heard. “No. You don’t think I’m Italian, do you?”
I had wondered about the lack of any accent, but I never put much thought into why that was. “Yeah, I thought so. You do live here. You look like many Italian women do. I guess I just naturally assumed you were originally from here.”
Shaking her head, she says, “No, I’m from upstate New York. My father runs an antique business, so he comes to Italy often. My parents bought a house here, and I came over after I graduated from high school. It was only supposed to be a gap year, but it turned into six. My sisters all live back in the States. All of them are married with kids. I’m the only one who my mother says doesn’t seem to want to settle down.”
Now that she’s told me where she’s from, I can’t help but ask how she ended up with that asshole Franco. I don’t know if I actually want to know the details, but I sense there’s a story there.
“So did you meet your ex when you came over here right after high school?” I ask, refusing to use his name.
“Franco? No. I met him last year. Let’s just say that my time here in Italy hasn’t been all positive. I got into some tight situations, and I found myself with him one night. That turned into eight months, until you came along.”
I want to know what that means—tight situations—but I don’t ask. That can be for another time. I’m just happy to hear she wasn’t with him for long.