by Joyce Wright
“Because I want to.”
“That tells me nothing.”
“Go out with me and I’ll tell you more.”
“Go where?”
“My place.”
No-holds-barred brown eyes met wary blue eyes. He made no effort to conceal his desire for her. His eyes were naked and she wondered what he would look like when his body was an exposed as his expression.
“Your place?”
“You said you don’t want to go anywhere in public. So we’ll go out to dinner somewhere and then we’ll go back to my place and get to know each other better. If you want me to take you home, I will. If you want to stay the night . . . I’ll make it a night you won’t regret. What do you say?”
“I don’t know. Let me think about it.”
“What’s to think about?” he asked reasonably. “You either do or you don’t. Attraction isn’t something you think about.”
“Okay.”
“Saturday night? I’ll pick you up at six?”
“Okay. Remember, I’m a jeans and boots girl.”
“Do you own a dress?”
“Yes, I own a dress, I own several, but it’s January, and it’s cold. Why? I can’t go out in jeans?”
Mantoro leaned back against the car seat. “A woman who looks like you do can wear anything she wants.”
“Is there a dress code?”
“No,” he said. “I just want to see your legs.”
He was smiling, waiting for her to react, implicitly acknowledging that he had spoken the truth and daring her to challenge him for a compliment that was based on more than her physical appeal. She could defend herself against his lust, it was what she expected from him. But if he undermined her with an interest in something deeper, in her mind, or her thoughts, she would have no armor against him, or against her own growing yearning to know him as something other than the man who defeated her father in a boxing match.
She spent the next morning writing the article from the interview with Mantoro. It was hard going because, no matter how objective she tried to be, her writing was interrupted by subjective intrusions: the intoxicating eyes that drank to her over the rim of his wine glass; the full-lipped smile that dared her to acknowledge his desire; the touch of his hand that, even through the barrier of winter gloves, conveyed heat. Was she infatuated with him, she asked herself angrily, or had it just been so long since she’d been in a relationship that she was falling for the blatant sexual attractions of a man who had trophy women at his beck and call. Bed and call, she thought ironically. How many women . . .
And was she jealous of those women, she wondered? How could she be jealous of women who had loved and been loved by a man she claimed to despise, a man who was an enemy in her family’s eyes, who was the cause of her father’s fall from boxing’s heights?
It wasn’t working. She shut down her computer and put on her boots before heading to the library. She earned a small income by tutoring undergraduates in English; the money helped pay the rent and honed her teaching skills. Her writing was another sideline to earn money; Carli’s goal was academia, to teach American literature as a professor. She wondered what Mick Mantoro would have thought of that. American literature; the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, the melodrama of Harriet Beecher Stowe, as well as women like Louisa May Alcott, women who unwittingly built the foundation for the feminism that would catch fire a century later. Her father, who had never read any of the writers she admired, was proud of her ambition. Having a professor in the family, he had told her, would have made her mother proud.
Tutoring struggling students in a subject she loved was frustrating. As she rode the subway back to her apartment, she let her mind wander. Mick Mantoro had known financial struggles as a student, but he’d managed to turn his talents and his degree into an empire. He did what he wanted to do, he bought what he wanted to buy, he didn’t worry about paying the rent or his father’s lost acclaim or what he was going to do to achieve his goals. He’d achieved them. He was rich, famous, a champion not only of boxing but in the business world.
By the time Mantoro came to pick her up on Saturday night, she’d worked herself into a dizzying whirl of thoughts. Why had she agreed to go out with Mantoro when she knew the destination was ultimately his home? Would seeing his opulent lifestyle close up and personal make her resent him more for all that he had? Could she stand firm against his allure?
She was prepared for him coming to the door; she was standing on the porch, waiting. He was early, but she’d expected that as well. “You look frozen,” he said. “Why did you wait outside? Because you didn’t want anyone to see me?” he answered his own question.
Thinking about him had made her weary. “It’s not quite that simple.”
“This might surprise you, but I can handle complicated thoughts.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Dinner first?”
“I’m starving.”
“Good. What are you hungry for?”
You, she wanted to say. I’m hungry for you, and I don’t want to be.
“Anything. I’m easy to please.”
“I doubt that. When in doubt, Italian.”
The restaurant he chose was a small one with only ten tables in the dining area and a tantalizing scent of tomato sauce, garlic, and seasonings that met them at the door. Here again, the staff knew Mantoro by name, but their greetings were friendly and discreet, with no attempt to call attention to their famous guest and his date. As soon as they were seated, and they had removed their coats, a waitress came out with a basket of thick-crusted bread. The wine wasn’t a five-digit vintage, but it was tasty. Mantoro raised his glass. “To an evening with a beautiful young woman.”
Carli raised her glass. “To an evening with a handsome older man.”
“Give me a chance,” he said, his voice playful, his gaze pinioning her with its intensity, “and I’ll show you the benefits of those years of experience.”
She looked down at the menu. “I’m going to order something with lots of garlic; you may rethink that overnight invitation.”
“I’m Italian, remember? Garlic is perfume to us. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Hanover is a pretty unrevealing name. English? German?”
“Yes,” she replied. It was true, at least her mother’s half of it. “But we like garlic too. What about your Irish side?”
“My mother is many things, but an enthusiastic cook she is not. My father did the cooking.”
She’d read that his mother was widowed; his father had died five years ago from a heart attack. At least he’d had both of his parents into adulthood.
Was she glad that her mother had died before Carlos Jimenez lost his title? No. There was no championship that was worth her mother’s life.
Mick Mantoro hadn’t been responsible for her mother’s death. Trying to hold him accountable for the hard times her father had experienced was irrational.
‘What are you thinking about?”
“My dad,” she said before she had time to filter her answer.
“You’re close to him?”
“Yes. I think I’ll have the shrimp scampi.”
He had noticed the abrupt change in topic, but made no comment. After their orders were taken, he took her hand in his. She tried to pull her hand away but his grip was firm. “You don’t want your father to know about us,” he deduced.
That was certainly true. “No, I don’t.”
“That doesn’t give us much of a future.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
His touch, the clasp of her hand in his, the warmth of his skin against hers, told them both what she didn’t want to admit in words. Mantoro released her hand; his face wore a winner’s smile.
Chapter Five
She’d never been inside a mansion before, at least not one that wasn’t the museum residence of a long-dead famous person. Mick Mantoro lived on an estate in a wooded area. There was a security gate
barring entrance; when the car—not the Mustang this time, but a smoky blue SUV that rode like a cloud on wheels—approached, the gates opened.
“It knows?”
“Henry does. Henry opened the gates.”
“Where is Henry? And who is Henry?”
“Henry is a butler, a bouncer, and a buddy all in one. Everyone needs a Henry.”
The house was huge. As they walked up the circular stone steps that curved around a wide, columned porch that looked something designed for another century, when people had servants and schedules that required them to do nothing but sip cold drinks and remain at leisure, Carli tried to find something disparaging to say about the architecture, but the design was impressive. “Do you keep a harem here?” she asked as Mantoro opened the door and let her enter first. It’s an awfully big house?”
He took her coat and hung it in the foyer closet. “No harem. I just need to find a woman young enough to fill all these rooms with children.” He burst into laughter at her expression. “Got you.”
“You certainly did. How many rooms are there?”
“Plenty. But only one master bedroom.”
“Do I get to meet Henry?”
“Henry is discreet and done for the night. So is the rest of the staff. Here’s the den.”
She was surprised that the den wasn’t heavily masculine in style. The carpeting was plush, a warm, pale, orange sherbet hue that balanced the maple furniture and mocha-colored drapes. She kept walking until she came to the bookshelves on the opposite wall. “Real books,” she noted, pulling out a biography of Ernest Hemingway.
“Impresses the grad students.”
“I’m not a Hemingway fan.”
“Why not? He’s a neat, clean writer, doesn’t waste words. I hope I box like he writes.”
“He was an insecure, overbearing egotist.”
“True, but irrelevant. He was a great writer.”
“Five wives?”
“Read him, don’t marry him. Are you going to come and sit on the couch or are you going to evaluate my library?”
Something, half flirtation, half trepidation, kept her standing in front of the bookshelves instead of settling into the amber-cushioned couch which looked as if it were more comfortable than the beds that most people slept in. The furniture was spacious enough to suit Mantoro’s physical size, but not heavily dosed with testosterone ambience. A woman could have done the decorating; she wondered if one had.
“Carli?”
“Hmmm? Don’t you like any female authors---“
“I have every book Willa Cather wrote.”
“She didn’t write many.”
“Carli, I didn’t invite you here to start a book group.”
“Why did you invite me here?”
“To get to know each other better.”
“And sex.”
“Promise? Okay, bad joke. Are you nervous?”
“Should I be?”
“If, after I retire, I go back to get my master’s, will I answer every question with a question? Come sit down. I won’t attack you.”
She sat down near him, but with space between them, sinking into the cozy, comfortable cushions with a feeling of surrender. Mantoro was wearing black trousers and a maroon and black sweater. Maroon looked good on him, and she guessed that he knew it. Mantoro had every reason to be on good terms with his mirror.
“You could sit a little closer,” he invited.
“I could sit on your lap, too, but I don’t think so.”
He smiled. The lighting in the room was warm, inviting an atmosphere of secrets shared in privacy. “So what do you need to know?”
“What are you willing to tell me?” she returned, her chin tilted up so that she could meet his gaze.
“I’m willing to tell you that you’re the most intriguing woman I’ve ever met.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, champ, that won’t fly. I’ve seen the woman you’ve been with. A-list, C-cup.”
“You have no idea what effect you create, do you?”
The next thing she knew, his mouth was upon hers, seeking more from her lips than any kiss could possibly have expected except that she was answering him with kisses as demanding as his own. She wrapped her arms around him, feeling the hard walls of unyielding muscle, and when he pressed her back against the couch cushions, she didn’t resist.
Mick Paused. “What if I’m in love with you?” He asked, his voice slightly muffled.
She wondered if that was why she had pursued him, first through the ruse of the interview, and then by not denying him when he sought her company. Was there a primitive hunger for someone strong and masterful whose power she could match with her femininity and her brain? Was that why her mother had fallen in love with Carlos Jimenez? The polarity of their bodies finding evenness in their ardor?
Don’t think, Carli, she told herself, her hands lost in the luxuriant thick locks of his dark hair. Don’t think about it. Don’t think that these hands that are touching you, making you want to weep with delight, are the same hands that knocked your father into defeat. Don’t think.
“Carli,” he said her name with prayerful reverence that was markedly at odds with the reaction of his body.
“What if I’m in love with you, Carli?”
“Then we have a problem.”
Chapter Six
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
At some point during the night, he’d awakened and carried her to his bedroom. She awoke when dark night still cloaked the sky outside the windows. The room was unfamiliar, the bed unknown, but the recumbent form curved against her body was warm and welcome, and she held him close, still holding fast to her vow not to think. But she knew, even as she fell back asleep, that the reckoning was coming.
It came when she awoke to find him looking down at her, his head resting on one hand, the fingers of the other hand trailing sensual, exploratory lines upon her back.
“I don’t know. I thought—I’ve spent so much of my life wanting to hate you for defeating my father.”
“So what is this? Revenge?”
She kissed his chin. He’d taken punches on that chin, but not many. “No”
“I need an answer.” He was smiling now. “Say it.”
“I love you,” she whispered into the taut cavern of his collarbone.
“I didn’t hear you.”
“I love you.”
“And what do people in love do?”
She shrugged.
“What’s wrong with this generation? People in love get married, Carli,” he told her in a playfully scolding tone.
That smile. That wonderful, knowing, playful, full-lipped smile. She raised herself up to kiss him. “Okay.”
It wasn’t an easy conversation, telling her father about Mick. His forehead was furrowed as he listened to her. They were sitting at the kitchen table. Mick was outside in the car; he had driven her to her father’s; he said he’d wait outside; she wasn’t taking the subway for this, but he wasn’t going to sucker punch her father, either. “I’ll come in and meet him as your father,” Mick said, kissing her before he gave her a small push toward the SUV’s door. “But first, you have to tell him about us.”
“Why didn’t you just say something?” Carlos asked. “I never expected you to carry a grudge. It was a fair fight.”
“You never wanted to talk about it.”
“I lost. Why would I want to talk about it? But I don’t live it every day. You shouldn’t have, baby.”
“I know. I guess that, after Mom died, it was easier to hate him than to miss her.”
Her father shook his head. “You were too young to feel that way. I should have seen it. But what did I know about nine-year-old girls? We missed her, that’s all I knew. I still miss her—“
They both looked up as the doorbell pealed. “I’m not ready for Aunt Rosa’s questions,” Carli said as they both rose to answer the door.
“She always calls before she visits.”
&nbs
p; It was Mick, standing on the porch, ready to ring again until he saw the door open. “I was worried,” he explained.
“Whaddiya think I was gonna do, spank my daughter for falling in love? Come in, Mantoro, I guess you and I have some talking to do.”
After his wife died, Carlos had learned to cook, to clean, to keep a house, and to make very good coffee. He poured a cup for Mick and pointed him to a chair at the table.
“I told Carli, I didn’t hate you for beating me. I stayed in the ring too long. Don’t you do that.”
“I have to fight Guerrara.”
Carlos nodded. “I know you do. But I don’t want my girl going through what my wife went through when she was alive. All I had was my boxing. You have more than that. Fight him and retire. Go out on top.”
Mick studied the man in front of him. Carlos in his sweatshirt and sweatpants, in need of a shave, his hair needing combing, was the opposite of the smooth-shaven, well-dressed younger man.
“I envied you,” he said.
“Me?”