“What? Oh, my goodness! This is wonderful!” Teresa shrieked and charged over to envelop Marie in a hard hug. “I’m so happy to meet you! Oh, wow, this is so great. My big brother getting married!” She let go of Marie long enough to throw her arms around Gianni’s neck again.
Guilt pinged around inside him like a steel ball in an old-fashioned pinball machine. The feeling only intensified when Teresa whispered in his ear, “This makes me so happy, Gianni. I want you to love and be loved, as I am. I want that for all of my family.”
He gave her an extra hard squeeze to compensate for the fact that he now felt like a complete bastard for lying to his little sister. And knowing that today was just the beginning of the charade only made him feel worse. But he was already in it and there was no way out but through it. With that thought in mind, he said, “I’m glad.”
Still grinning, Teresa let go of him, then turned back to Marie and linked arms with her. “This is so wonderful, what a happy surprise!” As she drew Marie away from Gianni and headed down the dock toward the hotel, he heard his sister say, “I know we will be great friends, Marie! And now, I want to hear everything. You must tell me how you met and where and oh, we must talk about wedding plans and...”
Marie threw one frantic glance over her shoulder at Gianni, but there was nothing he could do to save her. Once his sister got a head of steam under her, there was simply no stopping her. It was either go along with her or get run over.
Besides, this was good, he told himself. Marie had been thrown into the deep end and she would find a way to swim. The women were getting farther and farther away when Gianni and Rico finally began to walk, too.
“Your sister worries about you and Paulo and your father,” Rico mused, his gaze fixed on his wife in the distance. “She thinks you’re all alone too much.”
Gianni snorted. “We’re only alone when we want to be.”
Rico chuckled along with him. “That’s how I used to be, too, so I understand. But she doesn’t. Teresa believes that alone equates with lonely. She doesn’t like to think about her family being lonely.”
Lonely. Gianni had never considered himself lonely and he knew Paulo didn’t think of himself as lonely, either. They lived their own lives on their own terms. They had women when they wanted them and time to themselves otherwise. Hell, Gianni had always avoided having the same woman around him for more than a couple of days at a stretch. In his experience, that kind of closeness infected a woman’s mind with dreamy, hazy thoughts of picket fences and dogs and kids. Nothing he had ever been interested in.
And yet, he was forced to admit, the last few days with Marie hadn’t bothered him at all. In fact, he’d enjoyed their time together. He frowned to himself at the realization that he wasn’t tired of her yet. Wasn’t annoyed by her conversation. And he hadn’t even slept with her.
Yet.
“I guarantee you by the time we get back to the hotel,” Rico was saying, “Teresa will have learned everything there is to know about you and Marie.”
Well, there was a sobering thought. Gianni frowned after the two women. Behind him on the boat, the launch pilot was unloading their luggage and setting it onto the dock for the hotel employees to transport.
“Before we catch up to our women,” Rico said, drawing to a stop and waiting for Gianni to do the same, “I wanted to talk to you.”
Dappled shade fell around them and the ever-present trade winds blew past, carrying the scent of the flowers and the sea with it. Gianni looked at his brother-in-law and waited.
“The jewelry show,” Rico said slowly, his eyes narrowed and his jaw tight. “I want your word that the Corettis won’t be...working this week.”
Gianni laughed shortly. He couldn’t blame Rico for being cautious. Years ago, Gianni himself had stolen a gold, antique Aztec dagger from Rico’s collection. Strangely enough, it had been that very dagger that had brought about the epiphany that had changed Gianni’s life.
It was understandable that Rico still had his doubts when even Gianni wondered from time to time if he’d be able to stay on the straight-and-narrow path he had chosen.
“You have my word, Rico,” he said. “And I’m speaking for Papa and Paulo as well. You’re family now and the Corettis respect family.”
Rico nodded. “Good. I don’t want any trouble here this week. The top designers in the world have been planning this gathering for nearly a year and I want it to go off without a hitch.”
“I’m with you on that,” he said. Then he reminded Rico, “Remember I told you that I’m here to do a job for Interpol. To keep an eye on the crowds and look for anything suspicious.”
Rico turned and started walking along the dock, with Gianni falling into step beside him. “My security team is the best in the world.”
“They’re good,” Gianni agreed amiably. “I’m better.”
Scowling, Rico admitted, “Probably.” He shifted his gaze to his wife and Marie walking far ahead of them. “So, engaged. How did that happen?”
Gianni thought about that for a moment. He could lie as he’d meant to. But as his gaze locked on the auburn-haired woman who was, as always, flitting at the edges of his mind, he told the absolute truth.
“She swept me off my feet.”
* * *
“It was sort of a whirlwind.” Marie took a sip of her coffee and mentally kicked herself for agreeing to this whole thing. She was sitting here lying to a really nice woman and she was feeling worse about it by the moment.
Teresa Coretti King was friendly, welcoming and so excited for her brother’s “engagement” it made Marie feel even worse than she had thought she would. But she was in it now and there was no getting out. To tell the truth now would be to admit to lying in the first place. And to tell the truth would be to admit to blackmailing Gianni and threatening their father and she was fairly sure Teresa’s warm welcome would go out the window at that point. So she kept quiet. Kept smiling, and kept regretting.
She shifted a look around the owners’ penthouse suite at the Tesoro Castle, Rico’s luxury hotel. The room was incredibly spacious and unlike Gianni’s sterile man-cave, this place was filled with bright, primary colors. Sunshine-yellow couches faced each other across a low-slung glass coffee table. There were sapphire-blue and ruby-red throw pillows on the couches and matching chairs. Bamboo floors shone in the sunlight streaming through the open glass windows and a wind scented by tropical flowers flowed in the French doors.
The view was incredible, trees and sandy beaches and wild shrubbery studded with the flowers that seemed to be a part of this incredible place. And then there was the ocean, a deep, beautiful blue that stretched on for miles, while sailboats skimmed the surface.
They’d been on the island for all of an hour and they’d already had a fantastic lunch in the hotel dining room, then come up here, where presumably Teresa could really get to know Marie. And that worried Marie again. The more she talked to the woman the more lies she had to tell and the more questions Teresa asked—it was just a vicious, ugly circle.
“I’m so happy for you two,” Teresa said and Marie turned her gaze back to the woman sitting opposite her on one of the two couches. Teresa shifted her two-month-old son, Matteo, in her arms and added, “It’s all very romantic, isn’t it, Rico?”
Rico scooped Matteo out of his wife’s arms and said wryly, “It’s fast anyway.”
Marie glanced at Gianni and saw him shift uncomfortably in his chair. Good. She was glad he was having a hard time with this, too.
“I don’t remember you taking a lot of time when it came to my sister,” Gianni murmured and Rico nodded as if acknowledging the statement.
“True,” he said.
“Pay no attention to my husband,” Teresa said with a mock scowl for Rico. “He thinks now that he’s married me, there’s no need for romance.”
She took a breath, sighed it out and said, “All right yes, you are romantic. And indulgent.” As an aside, she looked at Marie and said, “We have this lovely house on a hill just beyond the hotel. But Rico was a bachelor when he had it built and now that we’re starting a family...” She paused to look at her son. “I wanted the house to be more child-friendly. Rico’s cousin, Sean King, lives on the island, too, with his wife, Melinda, and he’s brought contractors in to work with the locals on redoing almost everything. Which is why we’re living here at the hotel for now.”
“She doesn’t care about your remodeling issues,” Gianni assured his sister.
“Of course she does,” Teresa argued. “All women love to redecorate.”
“You should send your team to your brother’s house when they’re finished here,” Marie said. “He could use the help.”
“Now you’re a decorator as well.” Gianni’s lips twitched. “A Renaissance woman.”
“It doesn’t take a decorator to know the only comfortable chairs in your house are on the terrace,” she countered.
He scowled at her and Teresa laughed with delight. “This is so much fun, Gianni. Watching a woman get the best of you for a change.”
Gianni quirked an eyebrow at her. “My house is perfectly serviceable.”
“Ah, yes, what all homes should be,” Teresa mused with a smile for Marie.
“Our home was serviceable, too,” Rico pointed out.
“Exactly!”
They were perfect together, Marie thought and wondered what that was like. How it must feel to know that there was one person in the world who loved you more than anything. Who looked at you as Rico was looking at Teresa now.
“I know! You must get married here on the island,” Teresa declared.
Startled at the abrupt change of subject as much as by the subject itself, Marie looked from Teresa to Gianni and back again as the woman continued in a rush.
“Oh! We could do the wedding this week! Papa and Paulo will be here so it would be perfect.” Reaching out, she grabbed up a tablet and pen off the coffee table and started making notes to herself.
Rico shrugged. “Teresa has paper and pen all over the hotel—if a new recipe occurs to her, she wants to be able to write it down instantly.”
Confused now, Marie looked at Gianni. “My sister decided that instead of becoming a thief, she would become a chef. Naturally, she is wonderful with food.”
Teresa looked at him for a long minute, then shifted her gaze to Marie. “You know about the Coretti family then?”
“Yes,” Marie told her and felt good having something honest to say. “I know about the master jewel thieves.”
Teresa winced, but Gianni chuckled. “Did you think I wouldn’t tell her?”
“Of course not,” Teresa said, “But I’m glad you did. Starting out a marriage with a lie can lead to all kinds of trouble, I know.”
“It’s over, Teresa,” Rico murmured gently. “In the past, where it stays.”
“I know.” She smiled at him, then looked back to Marie. “But I’m pleased that you know. It’s so hard to maintain a lie for long.”
“Oh, I agree.” Marie shrunk into the couch a little.
“Now, back to the wedding,” Teresa said and kept sketching out ideas as she spoke again. “Marie, Rico will fly your family in for the ceremony and you and Gianni could stay here on your honeymoon and it would be no problem for us to handle everything, would it, Rico?”
“Teresa,” her husband said.
“We do wonderful weddings on Tesoro,” Teresa assured Marie. “There is a fabulous little dress shop in the village and I know she would have something you will love—or we could go into St. Thomas for a day of shopping! Wouldn’t that be fun? And I will make your wedding cake myself. I would trust no one else with such an important task.”
Marie couldn’t think of a thing to say and even if she’d been able to, she wasn’t sure she would have had a chance to say it. Teresa was running full throttle and there didn’t seem to be a way to stop her. Panic began to claw at the base of Marie’s throat. This is not happening....
“Teresa,” her husband said softly, amusement in his voice.
“Come on,” Teresa argued, “it’s perfect and you know it. What better place than Tesoro for a wedding? It’s beautiful, everything’s in bloom...”
“Basta,” Gianni said, his voice cutting through his sister’s monologue. “Enough, Teresa. We’re not getting married this week.”
Marie sighed in relief. Good. She had been half-afraid Gianni wouldn’t speak up, instead leaving it to her to quash Teresa’s plans.
A hotel maid came into the room, carrying a baby bottle. Smiling, she handed it to Teresa, then left again as quietly as she’d come in.
“Give him to me, Rico, and I’ll feed him,” Teresa said.
“Please,” Gianni said, “if she’s busy with her son perhaps she’ll leave her brother alone.”
“I can do both,” Teresa assured him as she took her son into her arms and smiled down at the tiny boy.
Marie watched with the tiniest twinge of envy. It was ridiculous, really, to wish for a baby when she almost never went on a date and hadn’t even—she cut off that thought fast. Not the time or the place. Instead she looked at the baby, short, chubby arms waving in the air as he waited to be fed. Black hair dusted the infant’s head and his eyes were a bright blue just like his father’s.
The Kings were a beautiful family and Marie felt more like an outsider every moment. Gianni was lying to them, too, but he actually belonged there. He was Teresa’s family. Marie was only a temporary blip on the Coretti family radar. Once she had the Contessa and had returned to New York, these people would forget all about her.
Gianni would go back to his life—a different woman every week. Teresa would still be hoping her brothers would find love and settle down. And that tiny boy Marie watched so closely right now would grow up and never even know she had been here.
As for Marie, she’d be back in New York City. She wasn’t naive enough to believe that the board of the Wainwright would reinstate her, so she’d be home and unemployed. She couldn’t go back to the police force—being head of security had pretty much ruined her for that. So she’d be scrambling for a job and looking back on a week of designer clothes, tropical islands and sterile white gazillionaire bachelor pads like a hazy dream.
“Explain to me why you don’t want to get married this week,” Teresa demanded of her brother, kissing her son’s forehead before frowning at Gianni. “Your engagement was a whirlwind, as Marie said. Why not your wedding as well?”
“I’m working this week, remember?” Gianni told her with a slow shake of his head. “I’m here for Interpol. And I’m here to see my nephew christened. Isn’t that enough for one week?”
It sounded reasonable to Marie.
“I suppose.” Disappointment tinged Teresa’s voice. “But—”
“No more, Teresa,” Gianni told her. “You have a husband and a son now. Bother them.”
Rico laughed and when his wife looked at him, insulted, he continued to grin then leaned down and kissed her mouth in a firm, brief caress. “He has you there, my love. Now leave him alone.”
Shaking her head, Teresa looked to Marie and said, “I wish you luck with my brother. He is a...testa dura. Hard-head.”
“Very nice,” Gianni said and toasted her with his glass of scotch. When the glass was empty, he set it down, reached out and grasped Marie’s hand and, holding it, asked, “How many people are attending the jewelry show?”
Rico looked at him thoughtfully. “There are a few dozen designers and jewelers attending, along with some press and a few carefully screened guests.”
“Screened?” Marie asked.
Gianni squeezed her hand. “To weed out possible thieves.”
“Ah, of course.”
“A jewelry show of this magnitude will likely draw the attention of every thief in the world—no matter if they have the skills to pull it off or not.” He glanced knowingly at Marie as he said it and she took a quick breath.
He was talking about Jean Luc. Was there a possibility the man might actually show up here? Her heartbeat jumped in sudden anticipation. It came from being a cop, she supposed. But the thought of actually catching Jean Luc and forcing him to hand over the Contessa was so stirring, it was hard to sit still.
Then it occurred to her that if Jean Luc did show up on the island, she would pretty much have to hide because he would recognize her. And if he saw her with Gianni Coretti, he would definitely be suspicious enough to bolt before they could learn anything from him.
“Is there someone in particular I should warn my security about?” Rico asked, apparently picking up on Gianni’s subtle message to Marie.
“Jean Luc Baptiste,” Gianni said and Teresa’s head snapped up to look at her brother.
“Jean Luc?” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “He wouldn’t dare try anything on Tesoro. He’s not good enough.”
Silently amused, Marie hid a smile. Teresa might not be in the family business, but clearly she still had the sensibilities of a master thief. She was insulted at the very idea of Jean Luc attempting to steal anything from her husband.
“Jean Luc doesn’t have the skills,” Gianni said, agreeing with his sister. “But he has more than enough ego to make up for that lack. He’s so sure of himself and so cocky, it may be enough to convince him he can do it.”
“Who is this man?”
Gianni looked at Rico. “He’s an arrogant, less-than-skilled thief with delusions of grandeur. He thinks he’s much better than he actually is.”
The Fiancée Caper Page 9