Still, his mind was on pretty Ms. Lucy Shillerton. He’d caught the fact that her ring finger was completely bare and had no sign of a ring ever being on it.
So there was a strong possibility that she was available.
Just then a tone rung from the speakers of his vehicle.
“You have a call from…Lucas,” the disembodied female voice stated through his speaker.
“Answer,” Antonio directed. He was still deep in thought, but he could take a call from his cousin and business associate.
“Hey, man. You okay?” Lucas Romero’s voice pierced the speakerphone.
“Just a little distracted right now. I’m on the road.”
“I see,” Lucas hesitated at first. “Listen, I just wanted to check on the latest with our granddad. Any news? He’s still not going through with the crazy wedding, is he?”
“Not if I can help it,” Antonio answered coldly.
“Did you speak to the people at the agency to get them to stop it?”
“Not quite. I got…a bit distracted. But I gave her an ultimatum.”
“Her?” Lucas sounded surprised. “Ultimatum?”
“Yes, it’s a young woman who has apparently taken over from her late aunt who owned this agency. They grant wishes to couples to put on interesting wedding ceremonies.”
“But you told them they can’t go through with it, right?”
“I gave her till next Friday to break it to him gently ... or else.”
“Or else what?” Lucas paused. “What a minute. Is she cute?”
“Lucas.” Antonio’s tone was sharper than he had intended but he was so not going there. Usually, he would entertain his playboy cousin’s juvenile sense of humor but he wasn’t in the mood for it now.
So why had his crotch jumped when Lucas pried as to whether Lucy was cute? Just thinking about Lucy made Antonio hard like a cucumber in its prime. Because she was hot as hell. He’d never seen anyone so stunning, so naturally beautiful. And then there was that sweet perfume she was wearing. What was it called? Angel? Yes, she certainly was an angel. How fitting.
Damn! Why did Lucy have to be so good looking in every way? That would only serve to complicate matters. Antonio was a man who usually focused on a mission and got it done. Period. But Lucy Shillerton was proving to be a distraction already and he hadn’t even known her long.
Still, he had to shift his focus back on track to his grandfather. The old man meant the world to him and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let some broad in her forties take his grandfather to the cleaners and leave him cold.
Antonio has had his own share of gold diggers in the past. Every society woman he’d ever met wanted to date him or would take “selfies” on their smartphones if they were with him. Subsequently, they would post to their Instagram accounts or Facebook pages with captions of “me and my boo” or something childish like that. Or “out with my baby on a date.” Those women would often give the impression that something serious was going on between them when he was only there at a party or event and even though they may know each other, there was nothing going on between them. The only way he’d found out was through his cousin Lucas who happened to be a social networking fanatic and would happily flirt with women online, exchanging hot poses of themselves.
Mind you, Lucas happened to go into one of the women’s online albums and saw a picture of Antonio there and promptly alerted him. That was another reason why Antonio wasn’t a huge fan of some social media sites. In fact, he tried to stay off the Internet most times unless he truly had to be "connected." Business was crazy enough with him. He’d left all that online work to his associates or the assistants who worked in his organization.
“Now that I have you on the phone,” Antonio continued, “how is that deal going with the community center?”
“Oh, that?” Lucas changed his tone. “Well, we still have a ways to go before we can get the green light. Something about zoning issues in the area. Everything is on schedule otherwise, so we'll make the deadline.”
“Right. Keep me abreast if anything changes.”
“Will do, cuz, but I am sure we are fine.”
“And did you get any more information on this Shelly character?”
“Oh, right. The lovely lady who will be our forty-six-year-old step-grandmother.”
Antonio was thirty-three years old so he cringed at the thought of having a grandmother thirteen years older than he was. “Lucas. Enough of that!”
“Sorry, cuz. Yeah, she’s coming up all clean so far.”
“Well, no information doesn’t mean she’s in the clear yet. I want to know what forty-six-year-old would want to marry a seventy-six-year-old man. End of story.”