Her eyes were mirror images of my own hunger. I stole my tongue into her mouth. Ravenous for her. Just as I was about to make quick work of her clothes, my phone rang.
I cursed and she sighed, but it was the ringer I had for work people.
I grabbed it from the coffee table and when I saw the number, I turned the phone so Julia could see.
She sounded as puzzled as I felt. “Mitzy Sturm?”
I put her on speaker and answered. “Ms. Sturm, how can I help you?”
I heard two matching scoffs at my greeting. “I thought we’d gotten past formalities, Rocco.” I smiled at her cantankerous tone. “We wanted to hear how you’re getting on since that asshole Phil managed to get you fired.”
I took a deep breath and looked over at Julia, who sucked her teeth at the mention of Sturm’s CFO. “I’m all right. Getting ready to go back to New York and start looking for work.”
One of them clicked her tongue and I could almost see the thunderous expressions on their faces. “We were hoping you’d still be in town.”
I shrugged at Julia, who was looking confused. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, Muffy and I let Duke buy us out. We’re no longer part of Sturm’s.” I knew they’d considered leaving if the IPO was approved.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said honestly.
I heard her sigh. “It was time. We wanted to move on, spend the rest of the time we had before retirement building something. The Sturm family’s legacy has to be more than the stores. We kept the foundation, and that’s where you hopefully come in.”
I had no clue where this was going. “Ma’am?”
This time they both laughed. “That just rolled off your tongue. I guess this town is finally rubbing off on you.”
Julia and I both grinned at that, but were brought back to the conversation by Muffy’s no-nonsense tone. “Let me cut to the chase. We need a finance guy to help us run this foundation. We have an endowment from our grandfather of almost two hundred and fifty million dollars. And we’re not interested in running day-to-day operations. We want to focus on the vision, the big picture.”
I sat down as Julia barely contained a yelp.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Rocco, you’re the kind of guy we need. We need someone with values that he can stick to. No matter what. So what do you say? Do you want to exchange that Mets hat for a cowboy one?”
I took Julia’s hand in mine, as I leaned in to give them an answer.
Epilogue
Six Months Later
Julia
“Looks like Pulga finally’s going to need to learn how to share your attention,” I said jokingly, as I walked back into the house after seeing off the last of the Exiles. They’d been over for a housewarming of our new place. I looked down at Rocco, who was trying to build a Magna-Tile castle with Blue while Pulga did her best to trample the structure.
I shook my head, watching Blue trying to protect her blocks from Pulga’s wrath.
Sofia smiled at them. “She’s a menace. Whoever heard of a cat with a leash?” She laughed as Rocco looked up from his spot on the carpet.
“Hey, she likes going on walks.”
We both rolled our eyes at him. Sofia and Blue had come over too, since they were now official Gotham Exiles. They’d been in Dallas for almost a month and we’d started a tradition of having them over for dinner on Sunday nights.
The last six months had been wild and full of changes, but Rocco had managed to balance it all and had finally delivered on his promise to his sister. As I sat there enjoying the sight of my man, looking at peace and happy, my heart filled with love and pride for him—for us and the life we’d built here.
Rocco had taken the job as CFO for the Sturm Foundation just weeks after that call from the twins, and he loved his job. He’d gone back and forth to New York to help Sofia make the transition and finally, after many logistical pieces coming together, she and Blue arrived in Dallas and moved into my old apartment. Like me, Sofia was in love with a place that had more bathrooms than people. Their parents hadn’t made the transition easy, but with a lot of intervention from Coach and even some help from me, we’d managed to