The Firefighter and the Virgin Princess by Jemma Harte Page B

he started seeing her again. "What
happened? You broke up with your new boyfriend already? Now you're
lonely, bored?"
    She turned red. "Sherri told you about him,
huh? Eh, that was nothin'. I was on the rebound. Maybe...I don't
know...maybe I was trying to make you jealous."
    Joe leaned against the rail. "You should
take some time to be alone, Donna. You don't have to be hooked up
with some guy, all the time. Go out and do things for yourself.
Learn who you are and what you really want out of life before you
get into another relationship."
    Her thickly clumped eyelashes blinked hard,
but she couldn't squeeze out the tears that she evidently wanted.
"I know what I want. I'm twenty-seven. I wanna have babies, Joe. I
wanna get married and go to Cabo for a honeymoon and —"
    "Twenty-seven is young, Donna. You've got
years ahead of you."
    "My friends are all getting married and
having kids," she exclaimed, sullen. "It's what you and me were
supposed to do."
    Yeah, nobody likes to be alone, he mused.
Except Lily. She was so afraid of living and falling in love that
she pushed him away and stayed in her lonely world. She thought he
couldn't understand her life and she didn't want to give him the
chance to try. But since when did Joe Rossini need some woman's
permission to do what he wanted?
    "Joe? Are you even listening to me?"
    He bounced on his heels to get some feeling
back in his icy feet and blew out a misty breath. "Sure, I'm
listening. You wanna get married and have kids. But I can't help
you with that."
    "Why not, Joe? We're meant to be together, I
know it. Everyone knows it. No one can believe we broke up."
    "Thing is, Donna, it's not always about
going with what's easy or what other people think you should do.
It's about what's in your heart, what feels right for you. Then
everything else falls into place."
    She pouted. Oh, he remembered that
expression. Yeah, she hadn't changed.
    "I don't even want kids right now," he
added, as gently as he could. "Maybe in a few years, but not yet. I
don't know about that, and I ain't gonna pretend." He'd been
thinking about the young fireman who died in Buffalo. It wasn't the
first, or the last time, that one of the brotherhood left behind
little kids and a grieving widow. "I used to wanna be just like my
brother, Mike, but as time goes by I see how his life is. And it
ain't all roses. Sure it looks great from the outside...a lot of
things look real pretty from the outside...but maybe marriage and
kids ain't everything it's cracked up to be. Even if it is, I wanna
find that out for myself, make that decision for me. I gotta be
sure. Not because some girl thinks it's time I settled down."
    " Some girl ?" Her hands went to her
hips, and she tapped her foot. Another gesture he remembered. "I
thought I was more than that to you, at least."
    Joe laughed softly. "Hey, I'm sorry, Donna.
I can't say it with fancy words. You know how I am. Whatcha see is
whatcha get. I'm just a regular Joe. All the designer silk ties and
cologne ain't gonna change that, and you should know."
    Her scowl deepened. "Is there someone
else?"
    "What?" He scratched the back of his
neck.
    "You're different, Joe. I
can tell. Sherri says you disappear sometimes and don't even answer
your brother's texts for hours. Whatever you say, you're not the
same Regular Joe."
    Again he looked away over the gray water, to
where thin spikes of sharp winter sun hit the glass of skyscrapers
in the distance. Maybe he had changed a little. He'd been thinking
a lot about his life and what he really wanted lately, more so than
usual.
    Unfortunately, she didn't want him.
    "There ain't nobody, Donna." It wasn't
exactly a lie, was it? Lily didn't want to be his anybody, just his
fuck buddy.
    "Then let's go out for a beer. It doesn't
have to be serious. It's just a beer."
    "We both know you want more than a beer,
Donna. You gotta go out and find something new for yourself. Take
it from me, there's a big world out there with a lot of men