Nailed Down: The Complete Series

by Bliss, Chelle

  She watched me as I kissed her hand, not taking my attention from her gaze, savoring the warm feel of her skin and the still sweet smell that lingered there. Sammy looked me over, head tilting as though I were a kid who’d only understand her if she spoke in short, slow sentences. “You keep your ideas, Johnny Carelli. They’re the closest you’ll get to having me naked again. That much, I promise you.”

  Sammy slapped my hand from the doorknob and was out of my office before I could respond. She left me with nothing but the sweet smell of her skin, and a laugh caught in my throat that stayed there all afternoon.

  4

  Sammy

  I knew better than to drink so much wine. Especially in front of strangers. It made me a bit too friendly. A lot too forgetful.

  “Another glass, Samantha?” Mrs. Garcia was already refilling my glass before I could refuse.

  “Oh no. Thank you, though.”

  “I insist. You have a driver, yes? Your man Johnny says you take a driver because you both like to drink red on Friday nights. Here, have another.” The beautiful Spanish woman poured an entire glass full, and I tried to keep my eyes from bulging.

  “Oddio,” I whispered, trying to keep the glass from spilling when the woman pushed it in front of me. “Thank you.”

  “Is that four or five?” Johnny asked, leaning over the back of my chair to speak next to my ear. I suppressed a shiver. Something I doubted he missed, and I ignored the pleased laugh he released when I waved him away. “What?” he asked.

  “Mind your business.”

  “Men are so nosy, aren’t they?” Mrs. Garcia said, sitting back down across the table next to her husband. “This one is always asking me where I’ve gone, what I do when he’s at the office.” She pushed her husband away when he wrapped a large arm around her shoulder, his attention on her face as she spoke. Three hours with this couple and already I could tell they were still smitten after ten years of marriage. “I tell him always, I’m busy. I have children and charities, I take classes, and care for my mamá. You worry about yourself, I tell him. And he’s always ‘But, mi amor, how did you spend your day? Did you miss me?’ Always ‘Did you miss me?’ Ah!”

  “It’s because I do miss you, amado.” Mr. Garcia was a middle-aged man nearing fifty with salt-and-pepper hair and small lines around his eyes. This was his first marriage, the couple had informed us, and he had met his wife, who was several years younger than him, at her Costa Rican hometown library in San José where she had worked as the head librarian. He’d visited every day for a week while he vacationed there, trying to get her to agree to a date.

  “Well, I think it’s sweet,” I told Mrs. Garcia, smiling when she blushed at the attention her husband gave her.

  She called the man off again, hiding a grin behind the long drink she took from her wine. She patted his hand when he squeezed her shoulder, then seemed to notice the way Johnny and I watched the couple. “Johnny,” the woman started. “Tell us, how did you meet Samantha. Was it love at first sight?”

  “Yes. You must tell us, por favor,” Mr. Garcia said, pulling his attention away from his wife, now seeming interested in his guests. He and Johnny had spent an hour discussing the new security business Johnny wanted to start, going over projections and business plans, but the more wine Mr. Garcia drank, the more he seemed bored of business discussions. The Garcias were already affectionate. Wine only added to that.

  Johnny slipped his arm along the back of my chair, and I did my best not to flinch away from his attention. It was a weird sensation, being this close to him, trying to separate all the years of reminding myself what a horrible person he was, of all the terrible things he’d said and done to me, and the sweet boy he’d once been. The man he was now was different from both, and I didn’t know what to think. I only knew I’d made him a promise. I’d play this part, and he’d help me with the center and keep my uncle out of the loop.

  It would test my acting skills.

  “That’s a long story,” I tried, holding the wineglass as a distraction.

  “Not very long,” Johnny said, squeezing my shoulder. “Our families have known each other for years. We fell in love when we were kids, and then…I broke her heart.” When I jerked a gaze at him with the glass still in my hand, he pulled it away with his attention on my face as though he were worried I’d throw my wine in his face. “I blew it,” he told the Garcias, still watching me. “And by the grace of God, Sammy decided to give me a second chance. She’s letting me make up for all the terrible things I did to her when I was a stupid kid.”

  I couldn’t speak. In the back of my mind, I knew this was all make-believe. Johnny Carelli had no intention of making anything up to me. His guilt still weighed on him; I understood that. But this? Pretending that he’d loved me? Making me believe that he wanted another chance? That was a show, and he was damn convincing with his performance.

  Across the table, I could make out the small exchanges the married couple had with each other, but I couldn’t stop watching Johnny’s expression. How his eyes, shining and slightly bloodshot from the wine, sparkled in the candlelight flickering all over the table, made his handsome face seem unreal.

  “Besala.” I heard, blinking when the laughter picked up and Johnny looked away from me.

  “What?” he asked Mr. Garcia.

  “Kiss her.” He motioned between the two of us. “Amigo, a woman that lovely looks at you the way your corazón just did when you say such a thing, you must kiss her.”

  “I don’t…” I started, blinking back the fog brought on by the small moment and the numbing look Johnny gave me.

  “Well, if you insist,” Johnny said, turning toward me. He held my face, whispering low against my mouth. “I’ll owe you, Sammy. Just play along.”

  He moved in slowly, angling my head, hovering over my mouth. With my eyes open, I could only watch as he descended as though he expected me to push him away. When I didn’t, Johnny dropped one soft kiss on my mouth with enough pressure that our lips barely touched before the weight of his fingers tightened. This time, the kiss lasted longer, was a deeper tease with mouth and tongue stroking, playing, touching together, his control so certain, possessive, until I forgot who and where I was. Who he was and why we were together in this place, performing such a desperate act for these strangers.

  Johnny’s low rumble of pleasure moved up his throat—half moan, half growl—and he angled away from me, still holding my head in his hands, pressing one last small kiss on my mouth before he opened his eyes to look at me again.

  “There,” he said, his voice a gravel road of sound. “Was that so terrible?”

  “Not…not so bad.”

  And, I hated to admit, it wasn’t.

  * * *

  I tried to tell myself the wine caused all the fuzzy-headed thoughts. It was responsible for the giggling I’d shared with Mrs. Garcia when she conveyed how she almost got pregnant again just watching Johnny kiss me at her dining room table. I told myself, as his driver sped through the city toward my apartment, that I hadn’t enjoyed the kiss more than I had all those secret, sweet kisses Johnny had stolen from me as a kid.

  It was just the wine.

  But one thought kept creeping into my subconscious as the Manhattan streets flew past us and Johnny kept talking about Mr. Garcia’s excitement over the prospect of this new business.

  Johnny Carelli was a better kisser than he had been ten years ago.

  “Of course, we’ve all had a little bit of wine…”

  “We all did,” I offered, not paying attention when Johnny went silent. Not until I felt the pressure of his hand against mine on the armrest. I turned, looking down to see how close Johnny sat to me in the car, then stared back up at him. “Date’s over.”

  He nodded but didn’t move his hand.

  “And my apartment is three blocks away.”

  Again, he nodded. But this time, he leaned forward, reaching a hand toward me.

  I stopped him, grabbing his wris
t. “We aren’t acting anymore, Johnny.”

  He paused half a second longer than it took to smile, then any traces of cool left his features. “Who says I was acting?”

  This was Johnny Carelli being his best authentic self. I’d seen it before, years ago and then again the day of his father’s funeral. When he meant something, when the truth came from him, it was all there in his eyes. Just then, he wanted me to know he wasn’t playing a part.

  My heart thundered, overtaken by the sensation of blood pumping in my veins as irritation coursed through me. Was he playing me? Using the Garcias and this dinner as a way to get me back somehow? Did he think I could ever forget what he did or the damage he left behind? Or who he was outside of the legitimate businesses he ran?

  “I was,” I told him, moving against the door. “My Lord, Johnny, what are you thinking?” I watched him, unsurprised when his expression didn’t change. He was so stubborn, always had been. “Is this the game you’re playing? You want to manipulate me to, what? Win me back? Get me on my back again?”

  “No, Sammy. Why would you think that?” He sat up and his expression hardened. “How can you think that?”

  “Because you have no honor.”

  His mouth dropped open, and Johnny flinched. I hadn’t planned to say the words. They slipped out before I’d given them any real consideration, but the slip was enough. They were the truth. He’d taken more than I’d offered, and he’d never looked back. Johnny would never understand, could never understand, what a mess he left behind when he broke my heart.

  “I’m not…” He nodded once, and his shoulders drooping as though something weighing a ton had just been dropped on his back. The car pulled to the curb and then stopped, and before I had a chance to register that we were outside my building, Johnny was out of the car and slipping around to my side to open the door for me.

  I stepped out of the car, letting him take my elbow to help me into my building, and we didn’t speak as we went inside. I nodded to the night guard as we waited at the elevators. Johnny tightened his features, his mouth drawn down and a severe line forming between his eyebrows. He kept his distance, standing across from me, hands behind his back as though he didn’t want me to think he would try to make a move.

  But that hard expression did more than make him look severe and irritated. It worked a knot in my stomach. One that grew thicker and heavier as the elevator doors opened and Johnny ushered me inside. He wouldn’t ask to come into my apartment. He hadn’t asked to come inside when he’d picked me up. And that knot was my own good upbringing weighing me down, telling me that I’d managed to hurt his feelings by speaking the truth.

  Damn it.

  I shouldn’t feel bad about this.

  But I did.

  He leaned against one side of the car, looking up at the numbers as they grew higher and higher. The hard set of his features not relaxing.

  I couldn’t take the silence another second longer. “You…weren’t all bad,” I tried, watching him from the corner of my eye, trying to keep from smiling when I spotted him glancing down at me. “You got May Phan the pregnancy test that summer when your cousin Dario thought he knocked her up.”

  Johnny suppressed a snort. “Lot of good it did him.”

  “Because the baby wasn’t his?”

  “Even May didn’t know whose baby that was.” He moved closer, slipping both hands into his pockets. “It was nothing,” he tried, looking away from me.

  “You look out for your family. That…that takes honor.”

  “No, Sammy,” he said, standing in front of me. “That’s loyalty.” Johnny stared at the floor as though he couldn’t make himself look at me directly when he admitted the truth. “You weren’t wrong. I had no honor. What I did to you…”

  “Johnny…”

  “I mean it.” He leaned a hand on the wall next to my head, and I caught the faint hint of his cologne, the smell bringing forward a thousand memories I’d tried to suppress for years. “I am sorry. I mean it. I’m sorrier than I can say.”

  One look at his face and I thought he might mean it. There wasn’t any humor in his expression. No smirk or twitching laughter on his mouth that made me think he was pretending. Johnny meant it. And if he meant this, he must have meant that kiss from earlier.

  My heartbeat doubled for a different reason, and I decided to change the subject. I was grateful when the elevator slowed, opening on my floor.

  “You really weren’t as bad as I say,” I said, walking out of the car and down my hall, tugging my bag open to grab my keys.

  “No?” he asked, keeping step with me.

  “No. I guess I’d say there were three things that made me go a little stupid over you,” I admitted, stopping at my door. I put the key into the dead bolt and turned to face him, but I didn’t unlatch the locks.

  “Well, now you have to tell me, bella.”

  I quirked my mouth, pretending to debate his request before I sighed, as though his demand were ridiculous. “Fine, if you have to know, it was your laugh.”

  “My laugh?”

  “Yes. It’s a good laugh. Belly deep. I like an honest laugh when you’re not afraid to let the world know you think something’s funny. When you don’t care who knows you love to laugh. That’s the kind of laugh you have, Johnny.”

  “Huh,” he said, leaning on an elbow against the wall to look down at me. “I’ve been paid a compliment or two before by women, but none of them have ever mentioned my laugh.”

  “That’s because they were trying to flatter you.” I straightened, putting distance between us. “I’m not.”

  “No?”

  “Why would I? We have a business arrangement. Nothing more.”

  I expected him to frown, maybe grow sullen and irritated again, but Johnny didn’t stop smiling, moving in closer and taking my hand. “We can see each other for other things aside from these dinners with the Garcias.”

  “Or we can stick to the arrangement.”

  “Or…”

  “No ‘ors,’ Carelli.” I stepped back, turning the knob, but Johnny stopped me, grabbing my hand to kiss my knuckles.

  “You’re gonna let me take you out on a date. A real one, not part of our ‘negotiation.’”

  “No,” I said and pulled my hand free. “Never.”

  I stepped inside, taking my keys out of the lock. I nearly had my door shut when Johnny stopped me, throwing out a quick, “You didn’t tell me what the other two reasons you fell for me were.”

  I paused, nodding as I realized he was right. “I guess I didn’t.”

  “It’s okay. You can on our next date.”

  “No…not dates—”

  “Night, Sammy,” Johnny said, interrupting me. Then he headed down the hallway whistling, sounding way too smug.

  5

  Sammy

  Antonia didn’t mind letting us use the empty space she rented out just a few blocks from the center while Johnny got the renovations underway. It wasn’t a bad situation, really, since the place had a small kitchen and several bathrooms on the same floor. Johnny had even had his workers bring over our pianos and sound system and set up a small office space for Indra and me to share. The only problem with that was that anything remotely curious that happened caught the attention of my nosy kids, who could see everything we did perfectly through the makeshift walls that separated the classrooms and conference room from the reception area.

  Which was why I tried to cut off the flower delivery the second the guy came through the door. It didn’t work since the bouquet he carried was large, with at least two dozen white roses and sweet peas, mixed with several other of my favorite flowers.

  “Miss Nicola?” the delivery guy asked, holding out the bouquet to me and handing over the vase.

  “That’s me,” I said, tucking the flowers low at my side, hoping the little witnesses to my left wouldn’t pay attention. “Thanks,” I told the guy, offering him a tip before he hurried back through the door.

  �
��Oh, those are nice,” Indra said, taking the bouquet from me before I could chuck them into the garbage. “And there’s a card…” She pulled the small white piece of cardstock from the envelope and read what was written. Her expression moved from curious to pleased in under a second. “Well, well, well…looks like you’ve been holding out on me.”

  “Have not,” I said, ignoring the question in her tone as I moved back to my desk and powered on my laptop. We had a new art class starting that afternoon, and I needed to double-check the instructor’s supply list. But Indra was almost as bad as our kids. A fact that was illustrated as she pushed away from her own desk, facing opposite mine, and wheeled her chair back until she landed right next to me.

  “You kissed him?” she asked, pinching the card between her fingers.

  “Hush,” I said, grabbing the card from her before she got truly obnoxious.

  Nothing is as sweet as the memory of your kiss. Thank you for an unforgettable night.

  —JC

  I had to admit it. The man hadn’t lost his touch.

  “Hey, Miss S, you got a boyfriend now?” I heard, and I turned to see a small group of my kids sticking their heads out of the music lesson. All of them interested in the flowers and the attention I paid to the card that came with them.

  “Yes,” I told them, standing to pick up the flowers and move them from the spot front and center of the receptionist’s desk where Indra had placed them. “Jesus is my boyfriend, and he’ll be very upset that you’re not practicing your scales. Shoo!”

  Laughing, they disappeared, and I forgot about the flowers and Johnny’s card for the half second Indra took to turn her chair and lean it back against my mini file cabinet.

  “What?” I asked her when she sat there silently, watching me.

  “What do you mean, ‘What?’ I mean, what kind of friend are you anyway? You go on a date with some rich, purportedly hot Italian big shot, and then you get those ridiculous things—” she pointed her thumb over her shoulder toward the flowers “—and you get sent something as sweet as that.” She thumped the card in my hand before I dropped it. “I’m going to need details.”