The Bachelor Takes a Bride

Ten days to be precise. And not a single one of those days passed without her thinking about him at least once. After the first week, she considered stopping by Valentino’s—just to see if he was working—but she’d ignored the impulse.

Because if he was working—what then?

It was her inability to answer that question that kept her away from his family’s restaurant. But it didn’t stop her from thinking about him.

On Tuesday night, just a couple hours before closing, he walked into O’Reilly’s.

She was wiping down the bar when she looked up and saw him come through the door.

Even from across the room, she felt the hum of something between them—or maybe, nearing the end of a double shift, she was just overtired.

He nodded to her as he took a seat farther down the bar.

“Hey, Jordyn,” Bobby Galley called out, snagging her attention. “What’s your number?”

For the first six months that she’d worked at the bar, every night that Bobby came in, he would ask for her number. And every night, she would refuse.

The familiar banter grew tiresome after a while, until one night, when he asked for her number, she said, “One hundred and forty-six.” He’d blinked, wary of this unexpected response, and she’d told him it was the number of times he’d asked her out and she’d turned him down. Not that she’d actually counted, but her recital of the random number sounded credible.

After that, it had become something of a game. Although he hadn’t stopped asking, he had given up hope that she would ever answer him with her actual phone number.

She took a moment to consider the request. “Thirty-eight,” she finally told him.

“I know that’s not your age,” he said. “I’m hoping...maybe...it’s your bra size?”

She shook her head. “Wrong again—it’s the number of months that I’ve been serving you from behind this bar.”

“Which only proves that we both need a change of scenery,” Bobby said. “Let me take you away from here.”

“If by ‘away’ you mean ‘Hawaii’—keep talking, Bobby. If you meant something else, then I’ve got other customers to serve,” she said, and moved toward Marco.

“What can I get for you?”

“A draft beer.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific than that,” she said, indicating the array of faucets bearing the labels of a dozen different brands.

“I’ll try a Smithwick’s,” he decided.

She picked up a pint glass and angled it beneath the tap.

* * *

As he waited for his beer, Marco glanced around, noting that despite the lateness of the hour, about half a dozen tables were filled and there were few empty stools around the bar. He suspected that the popularity of the seating in that area had more to do with the pretty woman working the taps than the two small screens showing sports highlights, especially when the Bar Down—a popular choice for die-hard sports fans—wasn’t too far down the road.

“How were your wings the other night?”

“They were great—thanks.”

“How are the wings here?”

“You checking out the competition?”

He shook his head. “I’m sure there’s some crossover between our customers, but I wouldn’t consider O’Reilly’s and Valentino’s to be in competition.”

“Our sweet-and-spicy honey barbecue are my favorite,” she said, setting a menu beside him. “But the dry-rub salt and black pepper are popular, too.”

“If I order the honey barbecue, will you share them with me?”

“No.” She smiled. “But thanks.”

“You’re good at that.”

She selected a clean glass and began pouring a Harp for another customer. “What am I good at?”

“The brush-off.”

“I work in a bar.” She lifted a shoulder. “It’s a necessary job skill.”

“So I shouldn’t take it personally?”

“I didn’t say that.” But the words were softened by another smile that made his heart do a slow roll inside his chest as she carried the draft to the end of the bar.

“Did you want those wings?” she asked when she returned.

“Do they come with your phone number?”

“No.”

“Not even the first digit?”

“No.”

“The last digit?”

One side of her mouth quirked at the corner. “No.”

“So the only thing I get if I order the wings is the pleasure of sitting here and making conversation with you for a little while longer?”

“That’s not true,” she denied. “You also get the wings.”

He smiled. “Sold.”

“Honey barbecue?”

“Sure,” he agreed.

She keyed his order into the computer that linked to the kitchen. “Anything else?”

“Not right now.”

She nodded and moved away to check on her other patrons, exchanging a few words here and there, smiling or laughing on occasion.

“What brings you in to O’Reilly’s?” she asked.

“I was looking for you.”

“Well, now you’ve found me.”

His smile was quick. “Can I keep you?”

“You wouldn’t want to,” she told him. “I’m very high maintenance.”

“In my experience, most high-maintenance women don’t realize they’re high maintenance.”

“See—I’m challenging your perceptions already.”

“About more than you probably realize,” he acknowledged.

“How did you find out where I worked?”

“You don’t believe it’s a coincidence that I decided to stop in here for a beer?”

“No.”

He grinned at the blunt response. “My sister, Renata, told me I’d probably find you here.”

“Renata and Craig,” she realized. “He’s the firefighter who plays third base for the Brew Crew.”

He nodded.

“Small world.”

“And strange that our paths never crossed until recently.”

“Or maybe not so strange considering that we probably work similarly unusual hours,” she countered.

The blonde waitress who was taking care of the tables sidled up to the bar. “I need two pints of Guinness, a glass of white and a G&T, extra lime.”

“Excuse me,” Jordyn said to Marco, and busied herself filling the order.

“It’s hard to have a conversation when you keep moving away or we keep getting interrupted,” he commented when the waitress had gone.

“I’m working,” she reminded him.

“I know,” he acknowledged. “And if you give me your number, I’ll gladly relinquish this stool to another customer.”

“I can’t do that.”

“I won’t tell Bobby,” he promised.

“I’m not worried about Bobby.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

“I’m not worried. It’s just that...” Her explanation trailed off and she shook her head. “I don’t know.”

He feigned surprise. “You don’t know your number?”

The hint of another smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I don’t want you to know my number.”

“Why not?”

“Because then you’ll call and ask me to go out with you, and I’ll either feel really bad for saying no or I’ll say yes and afterward wish that I’d said no.”

“There is a third option,” he told her. “You could say yes, have a fabulous time, fall head over heels in love with me, and want to spend the rest of your life as my wife and the mother of my babies.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because I work fifty hours a week serving beer to mostly male customers in a pub. Trust me, there isn’t a pickup line I haven’t heard.”

“That’s probably true,” he acknowledged. “But I would hope you’d learned to distinguish between the guys who just want a quick roll between the sheets and the ones who are sincerely interested in getting to know you better.”

“And then I’d recognize you as one of the sincere ones?” she asked doubtfully.

“You would,” he confirmed.

“I’m flattered by your interest,” she told him. “But I’m not going to go out with you.”

“You don’t believe I’m sincere,” he realized.

“Even if you are, I’m not looking to fall head over heels in love, get married and have babies.”

“My grandmother says that love often sneaks up when we least expect it.”

“I’m sure she’s a wise woman,” Jordyn said. “But she doesn’t know me.”

“Not yet.”

She huffed out a breath. “You’re relentless—I’ll give you that.”

“Persistent,” he decided.

“I really don’t date customers.”

“Is that your boss’s rule or a personal philosophy?”

“A personal philosophy,” she admitted. “Although the statement would be equally true without the ‘customers’ part.”

“You don’t date?”

“Aside from one recent and ill-advised setup, no,” she confirmed.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s more hassle than it’s worth.”

“Maybe you just haven’t been dating the right guy,” he suggested.

She looked away, but not quickly enough that he could miss the pain that moved in those beautiful green eyes.

She nodded to a man seated at the end of the bar and poured him another beer. She delivered his glass, taking a few minutes to chat and smile as they exchanged beverage for money, then took a few more orders before she returned.

She picked up the plate of wings from the pass-through window and delivered them to Marco, along with a refill of his beer.

“So what’s with you and Bobby?” he asked.

“Nothing. He’s just a regular customer.”

“And the number you gave him?”

“It’s a game we play,” she admitted. “Random numbers that he tries to guess the significance of.”

“Since you’ve made your phone number off-limits, what number would you give me?”

She held his gaze for a minute, considering. “Three,” she decided.

“Three,” he echoed, as he selected a wing from his plate. “Is that the number of dates we’ll have before you let me see you naked?”

She rolled her eyes, but the color that rose in her cheeks suggested she wasn’t as unaffected by the idea as she was pretending to be. “The number of times you’ll come in here to hit on me before deciding to turn your attention in another direction.”

“That response shortchanges both of us,” he told her. “You, because you’re worth a lot more effort than that. And me, because it suggests I’m fickle and/or shallow.”

She lifted a shoulder—a dismissive half shrug. “I guess time will tell.”

* * *

Of course, Marco wasn’t the type to turn down a challenge.

He went back to O’Reilly’s on Wednesday and again on Thursday, but he stayed away over the weekend. His absence was for both strategic and practical reasons. Strategically, he wanted her to have some time to think about him and, hopefully, to look forward to seeing him again. Practically, he had his own responsibilities at Valentino’s and he knew that the pub would be too busy for them to talk.

Monday night, he left his family’s restaurant after the dinner rush, arriving at the pub just before nine o’clock. Jordyn looked up when he walked in, and her eyes met his from across the room. When she smiled, he knew that she was happy to see him—even if she wasn’t willing to admit it aloud.

“Smithwick’s?” she asked as he settled onto a stool at the bar.

“Sure.”

He watched her pour his beer, admiring the dark green vest with the O’Reilly’s logo above her left breast worn over a simple white T-shirt tucked into slim-fitting jeans. He wasn’t sure if it was a uniform, but it was her standard attire for working behind the bar.

“If you want food tonight, you should let me get your order in before the Brew Crew shows up.”

He’d forgotten that the baseball team played on Monday nights, after which the players would head to O’Reilly’s for food and drinks.

“It gets pretty busy then?” he guessed.

“It gets crazy,” she admitted.

Half an hour later, he saw that she wasn’t kidding.

There were two waitresses working the floor tonight, and they pushed together several tables to accommodate the group that arrived. It wasn’t just the ballplayers—some of the men had their wives or girlfriends with them, and a few had even brought their kids. The ones who were single flirted with the waitresses—or stopped by the bar to order their drinks directly from Jordyn and flirt with her instead.

Since it was a little crowded around the bar, he took his beer and joined his sister and brother-in-law at their table, listening to their recap of the game—an exciting, come-from-behind victory over the Badge(r)s, a team primarily made up of local law enforcement.

For the better part of two hours, they ate and drank and chatted. Pitchers of beer were emptied, platters of finger foods devoured. He was pleased to see Renata out with her husband, enjoying a break while their mother watched over her granddaughters. When they finally left, he made his way back to the bar.

Jordyn was shelving a tray of clean glasses when he returned to the stool he’d vacated earlier.

“I thought you left when Craig and Renata did.”

“No, but I did switch from beer to coffee about an hour ago,” he said, putting his empty mug on the bar.

She picked up the carafe from the heating element and refilled his cup. “Four.”

“The fourth time I’ve stopped in here to see you,” he noted.

“It is that,” she agreed. “It’s also one of the digits of my phone number.”

He grinned. “Progress.”

“I guess that’s a matter of interpretation.”

“Which digit?” he wondered. “The first? The last?”

She shook her head. “One of the five in between.”

“It’s a start,” he said.

And possibly, Jordyn realized as she moved away, a mistake.

What was she doing? Why had she given him the number? Was she actually flirting with him? Encouraging his attention?

Apparently she was. Even more surprising was that she actually looked forward to seeing him. He didn’t come into the bar every night—and she didn’t work every night. But every night that she did, she found herself wondering if he would walk through the doors, and just the possibility caused butterflies to flutter around in her tummy.

Saturday afternoon—twelve days and four more visits to the pub later—she’d given Marco five random numbers of the seven that comprised her phone number.

“After two more nights, I’ll have your complete phone number,” he noted, keying the eight into the memo pad on his smartphone.

“If you can figure out the order of the digits,” she agreed.

“You’re having fun toying with me, aren’t you?”

“I told you I wasn’t going to go out with you,” she reminded him. “But if you can figure out my telephone number from the random single digits I’ve been giving you, I might change my mind.”

“That’s probably the most encouraging thing you’ve ever said to me,” he told her.

She shrugged, uneasy with the truth of his statement, because she knew that she shouldn’t be encouraging him at all. No good could come of continuing to play this game with him, and yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

“As for figuring out your number, it won’t be too hard,” he told her. “From seven digits, assuming no duplicate numbers, there are five thousand and forty possibilities.”

She narrowed her gaze. “Did you just pull that number out of thin air?”

He shook his head. “No, it’s a simple matter of permutations and combinations—”

She held up a hand. “I always hated math.”

“Then you’ll have to trust that my calculations are accurate.”

“If they are, that’s a lot of dialing,” she warned.

“As you pointed out a few weeks back—I’m persistent.”

“That was your word,” she reminded him. “I said relentless.”

“I can be—when I want something badly enough.”

And for some reason, he’d decided that he wanted her, and she was finally beginning to accept that she wanted him, too. Or at least wanted to satisfy the yearning that stirred inside her whenever he was near.

“You might want to consider,” he continued, “that you’ve finally met your match.”

Shivers of excited anticipation danced along her spine as she acknowledged his words might possibly be true.

Chapter Four

Twenty years earlier, the Northbrook area had been considered one of the more “undesirable” parts of Charisma, but over the past decade, concentrated efforts to renew the neighborhood had been enormously successful. The storefronts that had long been dormant and boarded up now housed an appealing assortment of offices, shops and cafés, so that almost everything they wanted or needed was now within walking distance of the neighborhood residents.

“What do you think?” Marco asked his grandparents, his deliberately casual tone in contradiction to the nerves that were tangled up inside him.

They’d said very little as they toured the empty space that had previously housed Mykonos. The Mediterranean restaurant had done a brisk business serving quality food until the owner’s wife was arrested for selling other services in the upstairs apartment six months earlier. Since then, the restaurant space had been vacant.

Salvatore Valentino looked around the kitchen—barely recognizable as such since the ovens, fryers, sinks and refrigerators had been taken out and sold by the landlord.

“It’s better than what we started with on Queen Street,” he acknowledged. “But it needs a lot of work to turn it into something worthy of the Valentino name.”

“But you can see the potential,” Caterina said, her tone slightly more encouraging.

“I’d like to make an offer on the property,” Marco told them.

“So make an offer,” his grandfather said.

Caterina elbowed her husband sharply in the ribs and muttered some unflattering words about her spouse in Italian. Then she reverted back to English to say, “Our grandson is asking for our approval.”

“Our grandson should know we trust him to do what is right for the business.”

“I appreciate that,” he told them. “But I want to make sure you’re aware of the risks.”

“Such as the fact that sixty percent of new businesses fail within the first three years?” Salvatore asked.

“That statistic is exaggerated,” Caterina said.

“How do you know?” her husband challenged.

She lifted her chin. “I watch CNN.”

“Statistics aside,” Marco interjected, eager to diffuse the argument he sensed was brewing, “we should have an advantage in that we’re not opening a new restaurant—we’re expanding an established business to a second location.”

“What’s your timeline?”

“At this point, it’s a guess—but I’m hoping no more than four to six months, if we enlist the family to do most of the renovations.”

“With you working regular hours at Valentino’s and overtime here?” Caterina guessed.

“I’m going to pull everyone in for this project,” he assured her. “Including Nonno.”

His grandfather’s face brightened perceptibly; his grandmother’s gaze narrowed. “His heart—”

Marco touched a hand to her arm, silently reassuring her that he understood her concerns. But he also understood that it was important for his grandfather to keep busy and feel useful. “We’ll keep a close eye on him,” he promised.

“Mi tratta come se fossi un bambino,” Salvatore grumbled.

“A toddler has more sense than you do sometimes,” his wife shot back.

Then she turned to Marco. “What are you smiling about?”

“Just thinking how lucky I am to have both of you in my life.”

“Don’t you forget it,” Caterina said.

At the same time, Salvatore said, “Suck-up.”

His grandmother moved to the window, looking at the boutiques and shops across the street. “It’s a more upscale neighborhood than downtown.”

“It is,” he confirmed. “Which translates into the local residents having deeper pockets and eating out more often.”

“Will you change the prices?” Salvatore asked worriedly.

“Not on our traditional pasta dishes,” Marco promised. “But we’ll offer some higher-priced special entrées and a higher-end wine selection. Nonna and Rafe will create the menu, if I can convince him to run the kitchen here.”

“You should hire Lana as a hostess.”

Marco frowned. “Who?”

“Elena Luchetta’s granddaughter.”

“We’ve got a lot of work to do before we can start thinking about hiring anyone,” he said with more patience than he felt.

“But she’d be perfect,” Nonna insisted.

“Because she’s Italian?”

“Sì. And single.”

He sighed. “You’ve got to stop dangling all of your friends’ granddaughters under my nose like they’re bait.”

“I will when you finally snap one of them up,” she said unapologetically.

“There’s no need for the boy to rush into marriage,” Salvatore defended.

“I want great-grandbabies,” Caterina said.

“You have six,” Marco reminded her.

“No thanks to you,” she retorted.

“What are your plans for the upper level?” Salvatore asked.

Marco turned to him, grateful for the abrupt change of topic. “There are two bedrooms, a bathroom, small living area and kitchenette.”

“Private entrance?”

He nodded.

“Could generate some rental income,” his grandfather noted.

Marco had considered that possibility. “Or we could renovate it to offer private event rooms.”

“We already do that.”

He shook his head. “We host group events—bridal and baby showers, engagement and birthday parties. I was thinking of promoting the space for more intimate gatherings and private celebrations.”

“Intimate and private sounds like what got this place shut down,” Salvatore warned.

Marco choked on a laugh. “I was thinking of something like dinner for two—to celebrate wedding anniversaries or set the stage for marriage proposals.”

Caterina sniffed. “What do you know about proposals?”

“I know that if and when I finally meet the right woman, it would be nice to have a romantic—and private—setting in which to pop the question.”

“Or to celebrate a sixty-fifth anniversary,” Salvatore said, lifting his wife’s hand to brush his lips over the back of it.

“If we make it to sixty-five years,” she told him, a teasing glint in her eyes, “I don’t want a private dinner. I want a big party—una grande festa.”

“And I want whatever you want,” her husband assured her.

“Now who’s the suck-up?” Marco said.

His grandfather just grinned.

“So we’re going to put in an offer?”

“If you’re really sure you want to do this,” Caterina said.

“We’ve been planning it for two years,” he reminded her.

“I know. I just wish...”

“What do you wish?” he prompted gently.

“That you didn’t have so much time to devote to this endeavor.”

“I don’t understand,” he admitted. “Are you saying that you don’t want to expand?”

“No—I’m saying that you need equilibrio in your life. Not just work, work, work all the time. You need romanticismo.”

“Right now, I need to get in touch with the real estate agent,” he said.

“And we need to get over to the restaurant,” Salvatore reminded his wife.

Caterina nodded. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

He bent down to kiss both of her cheeks, gave his grandfather a quick hug, then walked them to the door.

Looking around the empty, dusty room, there was no denying that it needed a lot of work, but most of it was cosmetic. The wide storefront windows definitely needed a good cleaning, but he could already envision the gold-leaf lettering that would announce Valentino’s II.

It was also easy to picture the concrete pad between the door and the sidewalk as a summer patio, with wrought iron tables and chairs, and he made a mental note to look into whatever permits would be required.

Then she stepped into view, and everything else was forgotten.

* * *

Jordyn loved living in Northbrook. Almost everything that she wanted or needed was within walking distance, including Sweet Serenity Boutique & Spa, which is where she was heading for a mani/pedi appointment with her sisters. She enjoyed the monthly ritual they shared, not just for the pampering of her body but the time that it afforded them together.