He gave her a look. “Are grandmothers allowed to be this sarcastic? Aren’t you supposed to be doting with baked goods?”
She pointed toward the kitchen. “I’ve got pancetta from Ottomanelli’s sizzling in the pan. You don’t think that’s doting?”
Nonna had a point. He’d take the salty Italian bacon over a cup of hot tea any day.
“So if you haven’t bagged her, what’s the story with this Sims girl?”
“Bagged her, Nonna? Really? But it’s like I said…I gave her a parking ticket a couple years ago. We had words. Sparks, I guess,” he said, feeling awkward.
And I bought her flowers.
Nonna cackled.
“She didn’t pay the ticket,” Luc muttered. “Presented it to me on the same day she dropped the bomb about this damn America’s Hero story.”
“I hope you cuffed her. Can’t be letting a criminal like that roam the streets.”
Luc closed his eyes. “How is it possible that you gave birth to the former Police Commissioner of New York City?”
“Posh. You think your father hasn’t waved away a few parking tickets back when I had a car for a hot minute in eighty-four?”
Luc leaned forward. “Has he?”
Nonna ignored him, getting up to baby her pancetta. “This girl bothers you.”
Hell yes she bothers me.
Luc took another sip of beer. “Mostly she worries me. She has a lot of power over my life; she can portray me however she wants, to God knows how many people. I should be trying to get on her good side.”
“Oh passerotto. You’ve looked in the mirror. You don’t have to try to get on any woman’s good side, you just give a little wink.”
“So I’m your favorite then?” Luc gave her his best smile.
“Depends. You going to do my yoga with me later?”
“God. No. Never.”
“Then Elena’s still my favorite. We’re doing hot yoga next week.”
“Sounds…awful,” Luc said, standing and going toward the cheese that she put purposefully on the counter for him to grate.
They worked in companionable silence for several minutes before Nonna spoke again. “You know, if you want to get on the good side of this girl without shagging her silly—”
“Try to be appropriate. Just try.”
“She needs the Moretti treatment,” Nonna pressed on.
“Another euphemism for sex?”
“Better.”
Better than sex?
“Invite her to family dinner. Show her that the hero thing runs in the genes.”
Luc pauses in grating the cheese. “You want me to invite Ava Sims to Sunday dinner.”
Nonna patted his cheek. “How bad could it be?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Once again, Mihail had been banished. Only this time, it wasn’t for any official NYPD media ban.
This time it was about common decency. Because even the pushiest of reporters didn’t bring a camera to a family dinner.
Especially when the family wasn’t yours.
When Luc had suggested she accompany him to the weekly Moretti Sunday dinner, Ava thought he’d been joking.
They couldn’t seem to go five minutes in the same building without fighting, and now he wanted her to meet his parents? His siblings?
It was a disaster waiting to happen.
Tonight there would be none of Sawyer Lopez’s easy charm to help ease the tension, and no cop business to distract them from whatever animosity always seemed to be simmering beneath the surface.
Still, there’d been no way to say no.
Every journalistic instinct told her that the only thing the public would love more than a cop with a hero complex was a cop who ate Sunday dinner with his cop family.
And of course there was the not-so-minor fact that he’d bought her flowers.
Which they hadn’t talked about.
Ava had said thank you, of course, in an awkward, I’m not sure what’s going on here kind of way.
And Luc had said you’re welcome. Equally awkward. And if something important had passed between them in that second, it was gone before she could identify it.