Going Too Far. Tori Carrington

anyone know they had power over you, to the irrational adult fear of rejection that was crazy but very real just the same.

      There had only been a brief two-year stretch when she’d been banished to the back of his mind and then only for geographical reasons. Chicago was a long way from Albuquerque, and further still from L.A. Yet that hadn’t stopped him from having the occasional white-hot dream about her, or catching a glimpse of a woman and thinking it might be her even though she was at least thirteen hundred miles away.

      Sex, pure and simple. That’s what he’d told himself then, and that’s what he continued to tell himself now. There was something exciting and unforgettable about forbidden desire. About wanting something you knew you shouldn’t and going after it anyway. She’d been thirteen and the youngest daughter of a family renowned for getting physical with the guys chasing after her if they didn’t take the first verbal hint. But that hadn’t stopped him from thoroughly kissing her—and wanting to go much further. But five years later at her brother’s college graduation party, he’d done just that in her parents’ pantry of all places.

      Then there was his own Irish-Catholic family and their twisted ideas on procreation and how it should only be done with another Irish-Catholic.

      Ian leaned back in his chair and grinned, thinking about how very small the world was. And as he glanced at some papers on his desk, he knew he had a very good reason to think that way.

      He’d been careful about his attraction to Marie and had been spared not only the scrutiny of his own family, but the verbal and, thus, the physical reminders that little Marie Bertelli was off-limits to everyone except whoever her family approved of. Which was nobody in the neighborhood where they both lived. And, he suspected, nobody in the world—especially since he’d heard the story of what went down nearly three years ago with the groom from Italy.

      It was shortly after Marie’s taking off for L.A. that he’d accepted a job offer from a college friend in Chicago.

      A high-profile case sat on the corner of his desk. Ian eyed the file, glanced at his watch, then at his calendar.

      Ah, a very small world, indeed.

      And Marie was about to find out just how small.

      AT LEAST SHE WASN’T wearing the blue poofy dress.

      Marie considered the very sad state of her life as she got out of her Mustang in the sweeping driveway of her parents’ house. The two-story white stucco looked like it could have been at home in the Mediterranean or the southwest and stood a testament to large family life. This was where Marie had grown up. And the place she still called home even if she couldn’t live there anymore.

      It wasn’t difficult to figure out what she was doing here. She’d gone straight home to her apartment after calling it a day to find the refrigerator she’d bought secondhand on the fritz and what she had planned to make for dinner not fit for a bad date. Her mother had called just as she’d discovered that and waved insalata malfitana in her front of her hungry face, reminding her that not only had she not had dinner but that farsumagru o briolone was her favorite, not Frankie Jr.’s.

      Okay, so she was weak. The way she figured it, she was entitled to be a little soft just this once. Her day had gotten better after bumping into Ian, but only marginally. She needed a little bit of her mother’s fussing and worrying if just to remind her that someone did care.

      Her gaze slid down the block where the Kilborn house still stood, even though the Kilborns didn’t live there anymore. A Mexican-American family lived there now. But that didn’t stop Marie from remembering how she used to sit on the front porch and mentally will Ian to drive by in whatever shiny new sports car he had at the time.

      Ever since seeing him that morning, the craving that had pretty much defined her adolescence had anchored itself in her stomach, making her feel needy and hot and just a tad reckless.

      Reckless. If she knew what was good for her, she’d completely forget the definition of that word. Whenever her family pushed a little hard, she tended to rebel in very dramatic ways—in ways that made even her outrageous friend Jena look good. Her dad pushed her, she slept with Ian Kilborn.

      Oh, boy.

      That was so not why she was here. She’d come to try to shrug off unwanted emotions via a dinner session with her family. She didn’t want Ian any more than he wanted her.

      Oh, yeah? Try telling that to her hormones.

      She heard a long, wistful sigh and realized it was her own.

      Oh, great. Grimacing and sighing. She was turning into a regular hopeless wonder.

      Pulling her jacket closed against the late January chill, she stepped up the winding walkway to the door, briefly knocked, then let herself in. She told herself she knocked because she didn’t want to find one or the other of her parents flagrante delicto. When she was twenty-one, she’d come home early from a party Jena had thrown. Marie shuddered at the memory of her parents going at it like randy teenagers on the foyer couch. Her mother often reminded her that it had only happened once and wasn’t likely to happen again. But Marie wasn’t taking any chances.

      She peeked around the door then called out. Her mother’s voice immediately responded from the kitchen, telling her to come in.

      Marie shrugged out of her jacket, then hung it up in the closet. The sweet scent of basil filled the hall, leading her back to the kitchen. She couldn’t remember a time when the house hadn’t smelled like one spice or another mixed with the pungent scent of tomato. And when her mother made bread…

      She gave a mental groan as she pushed open the swinging door and moved into the airy, terra-cotta-tiled kitchen with its hanging copper pots and pans, pots of fresh herbs, strings of garlic and a table large enough to hold the entire Bertelli family, including her brothers’ wives.

      “You didn’t wear the dress.”

      Marie made a face. How was it her mother could tell what she was wearing without even looking? “I didn’t feel like wearing a dress.”

      Francesca Bertelli was well into her fifties but the image she portrayed was that of a much younger woman, despite the strands of silver in her thick red hair. Marie rounded the cooking island to where her mother was cleaning Spanish onions in the sink and kissed her cheek. “And you consider jeans and a sweatshirt proper attire?”

      “For dinner at my parents?” She smiled. “Yes.”

      Her mother made her trademark sound of disapproval deep in her throat, even though her blue eyes shone with love and amusement.

      “Where’s Dad?”

      Francesca motioned with the knife. “In his office. He’ll be out in a minute.”

      Marie reached for a piece of mozzarella, then instead took a piece of cut celery on the counter.

      “Eat the cheese. You’re too skinny.”

      A familiar refrain. And a refrain that Marie had long since grown used to ignoring.

      She automatically went to the cupboard to the right and reached for the plates.

      “What are you doing?” her mother asked.

      “Setting the table.”

      “It’s set.”

      Marie squinted, wondering if her mother had inhaled too many onion fumes as she stared at the clear kitchen table.

      “We’re eating in the dining room tonight.”

      Marie’s hands froze where she still touched the plates. The dining room had been the one room in the house that should have been fully capitalized. THE DINING ROOM. The only room off-limits to her and her brothers when they were younger, and a room that was used only on holidays. She slowly withdrew her hands and closed the cupboard door. Sure, while Valentine’s Day might be around the corner, the minor observance didn’t rate on THE DINING ROOM scale.

      “Mama…” she