Marriage by Mistake

that fancy lunch..."
    "Gourmet food is notoriously unsatisfying. Come on. I'll take you to a place where they know how to fill you up."
    ~~~
    A neon sign in an upstairs window of the North End building announced this was 'Josefina's.'
    Dean led Kelly through a street-level door and up a narrow staircase. Wonderful smells drifted down to meet them, garlic and tomato and basil. At the top of the staircase stood a large woman in a white apron. Her eyes widened when she saw Dean.
    " Signore !" She opened her arms. "We have not seen you for ages. You eat somewhere else, you bad boy?"
    "No, no, Josefina. I haven't eaten a thing since I last saw you, not one bite."
    " Pagliaccio . A liar on top of everything else."
    "It's the God's honest truth. "
    Josefina gave Dean a mock box on the ears, something Kelly was amazed to see him put up with, much less appear to enjoy. The older woman blinked when she noticed Kelly bringing up the rear.
    "Oh-h-h." Her expression turned astonished. "Look what we have here."
    "Kelly," Dean supplied.
    "Kel-ly." Josefina took hold of Kelly by the shoulders and beamed. "My, but this is— Don't you worry, signore . We take good care of your girl. We give her the extra-special treatment. We put out all the gos."
    "Pull out all the stops, I think she means," Dean confided to Kelly.
    "I'm sure anything you do would be great, Josefina. It smells wonderful in here." Kelly smiled, liking the woman immediately.
    Josefina's beam managed to pick up wattage and she let loose a stream of happy-sounding Italian. "Come, come," she said at last. "I give you a place to sit. Sit, sit, sit."
    The upstairs room looked to have been originally the living room of an apartment. One wall had been torn down to add the living room of the next apartment over. The lighting was dim and the décor simple.
    Josefina led them to a table by the window, intimate, candlelit, and with a view of the village-like North end. The way Dean took his seat told Kelly this was a usual spot.
    She picked up her linen napkin and raised her brows. "Something tells me this isn't where you take investors for power lunches."
    "No." Dean smiled faintly as he rearranged the placement of candle and flower vase. "I come here alone."
    Kelly's ironic smile faded. She'd assumed this was a trysting spot, a place to bring the odd lover. Instead, he'd brought her to his private haunt.
    She tried to think up something flip to say in response, but couldn't. Dean was letting her into his real life, deeply into it.
    Their eyes met over the checked linen tablecloth. Kelly felt her heart beat fast and hard. "Well," she said at last, her voice no more than a whisper. "You aren't alone tonight."
    "No." Dean's faint smile faded. "I'm not."
    ~~~
    The day Dean had chosen for his enjoyment was quickly drawing to an end. He'd strolled through the time aimlessly, basking in Kelly's emotions. He'd let her joy and her affection wash over him like so much rare elixir. Deliberately, he'd refrained from questioning the endurance of such emotions. What did endurance matter when he was only counting on a single day? For the span of one day their emotions weren't going to change.
    But the day was nearly over. The dial on the dashboard of his Lexus read 11:53 when he pulled the car into its spot in the garage. It took a few minutes to gather Kelly's purchases from the trunk, a few more to walk up to the house. Dean figured it had to be past midnight by the time they got to the hallway outside Kelly's bedroom door.
    His day was officially over.
    It was time to return to reality. Reality was the temporary nature of emotions. Reality was that passion and all its by-products didn't last. Reality was the huge mistake it would be to rely on mere feelings.
    But reality was awfully hard to come by when Kelly turned at her bedroom door, when her tremulous smile made his insides clench.
    "I want to tell you," she whispered huskily. "I had a really nice day."
    I liked you. You were good for me. As good as I was for you. Drawing in a deep breath, Dean tried to still her fantasy voice in his head. "Yes," he said gruffly. "It was a nice day." And just one day, he struggled to remind himself. He had to get away from fantasy, back to reality.
    Kelly's smile crooked. "And now it's over."
    Yes, it was over. All over. That had been the deal Dean had promised himself on the swan boat. But as his groin stirred traitorously, a voice whispered slyly in his head. It's not quite over yet .
    Kelly's