by Nora Roberts
“Mmm-hmm. The pâté is quite passable. Would you like some?”
“No, thanks. Just go ahead.” She checked off her list and reached for her wine without looking at him. The restaurant was quiet and elegant, but it didn’t matter. If they’d been in a loud crowded bar on the Strip, she’d still have gone on with her notes. “Right after the morning show, we go to a radio spot. Then we’ll have brunch with a reporter from the Times. You’ve already had an article in the Trib. I’ve got a clipping for you. You’d want to mention your other two books, but concentrate on the new one. It wouldn’t hurt to bring up some of the major cities we’ll hit. Denver, Dallas, Chicago, New York. Then there’s the autographing, a spot on the evening news and dinner with two book reps. The next day—”
“One day at a time,” he said easily. “I’ll be less likely to snarl at you.”
“All right.” She closed her notebook and sipped at her wine again. “After all, it’s my job to see to the details, yours to sign books and be charming.”
He touched his glass to hers. “Then neither of us should have a problem. Being charming is my life.”
Was he laughing at himself, she wondered, or at her? “From what I’ve seen, you excel at it.”
“A gift, cara.” Those dark, deep-set eyes were amused and exciting. “Unlike a skill that’s developed and trained.”
So, he was laughing at both of them, she realized. It would be both difficult and wise not to like him for it.
When her steak was served, Juliet glanced at it. Carlo, however, studied his veal as though it were a fine old painting. No, Juliet realized after a moment, he studied it as though it were a young, beautiful woman.
“Appearances,” he told her, “in food, as in people, are essential.” He was smiling at her when he cut into the veal. “And, as in people, they can be deceiving.”
Juliet watched him sample the first bite, slowly, his eyes halfclosed. She felt an odd chill at the base of her spine. He’d sample a woman the same way, she was certain. Slowly.
“Pleasant,” he said after a moment. “No more, no less.”
She couldn’t prevent the quick smirk as she cut into her steak. “Yours is better of course.”
He moved his shoulders. A statement of arrogance. “Of course. Like comparing a pretty young girl with a beautiful woman.” When she glanced up he was holding out his fork. Over it, his eyes studied her. “Taste,” he invited and the simple word made her blood shiver. “Nothing should ever go untasted, Juliet.”
She shrugged, letting him feed her the tiny bite of veal. It was spicy, just bordering on rich and hot on her tongue. “It’s good.”
“Good, sì. Nothing Franconi prepares is ever merely good. Good, I’d pour into the garbage, feed to the dogs in the alley.” She laughed, delighting him. “If something isn’t special, then it’s ordinary.”
“True enough.” Without realizing it, she slipped out of her shoes. “But then, I suppose I’ve always looked at food as a basic necessity.”
“Necessity?” Carlo shook his head. Though he’d heard such sentiment before, he still considered it a sacrilege. “Oh, madonna, you have much to learn. When one knows how to eat, how to appreciate, it’s second only to making love. Scents, textures, tastes. To eat only to fill your stomach? Barbaric.”
“Sorry.” Juliet took another bite of steak. It was tender and cooked well. But it was only a piece of meat. She’d never have considered it sensual or romantic, but simply filling. “Is that why you became a cook? Because you think food’s sexy?”
He winced. “Chef, cara mia.”
She grinned, showing him for the first time a streak of humor and mischief. “What’s the difference?”
“What’s the difference between a plow horse and a thorough-bred? Plaster and porcelain?”
Enjoying herself, she touched her tongue to the rim of her glass. “Some might say dollar signs.”
“No, no, no, my love. Money is only a result, not a cause. A cook makes hamburgers in a greasy kitchen that smells of onions behind a counter where people squeeze plastic bottles of ketchup. A chef creates…” He gestured, a circle of a hand. “An experience.”
She lifted her glass and swept her lashes down, but she didn’t hide the smile. “I see.”
Though he could be offended by a look when he chose, and be ruthless with the offender, Carlo liked her style. “You’re amused. But you haven’t tasted Franconi.” He waited until her eyes, both wry and wary, lifted to him. “Yet.”
He had a talent for turning the simplest statement into something erotic, she observed. It would be a challenge to skirt around him without giving way. “But you haven’t told me why you became a chef.”
“I can’t paint or sculpt. I haven’t the patience or the talent to compose sonnets. There are other ways to create, to embrace art.”
She saw, with surprise mixed with respect, that he was quite serious. “But paintings, sculpture and poetry remain centuries after they’ve been created. If you make a soufflé, it’s here, then it’s gone.”
“Then the challenge is to make it again, and again. Art needn’t be put behind glass or bronzed, Juliet, merely appreciated. I have a friend…” He thought of Summer Lyndon—no, Summer Cocharan now. “She makes pastries like an angel. When you eat one, you’re a king.”
“Then is cooking magic or art?”
“Both. Like love. And I think you, Juliet Trent, eat much too little.”
She met his look as he’d hoped she would. “I don’t believe in overindulgence, Mr. Franconi. It leads to carelessness.”
“To indulgence then.” He lifted his glass. The smile was back, charming and dangerous. “Carefully.”
* * *
Anything and everything could go wrong. You had to expect it, anticipate it and avoid it. Juliet knew just how much could be botched in a twenty-minute, live interview at 7:30 A.M. on a Monday. You hoped for the best and made do with the not too bad. Even she didn’t expect perfection on the first day of a tour.
It wasn’t easy to explain why she was annoyed when she got it.
The morning spot went beautifully. There was no other way to describe it, Juliet decided as she watched Liz Marks talk and laugh with Carlo after the camera stopped taping. If a shrewd operator could be called a natural, Carlo was indeed a natural. During the interview, he’d subtly and completely dominated the show while charmingly blinding his host to it. Twice he’d made the ten-year veteran of morning talk shows giggle like a girl. Once, once, Juliet remembered with astonishment, she’d seen the woman blush.
Yeah. She shifted the strap of her heavy briefcase on her arm. Franconi was a natural. It was bound to make her job easier. She yawned and cursed him.
Juliet always slept well in hotel rooms. Always. Except for last night. She might’ve been able to convince someone else that too much coffee and first-day jitters had kept her awake. But she knew better. She could drink a pot of coffee at ten and fall asleep on command at eleven. Her system was very disciplined. Except for last night.
She’d nearly dreamed of him. If she hadn’t shaken herself awake at 2:00 A.M., she would have dreamed of him. That was no way to begin a very important, very long author tour. She told herself now if she had to choose between some silly fantasies and honest fatigue, she’d take the fatigue.
Stifling another yawn, Juliet checked her watch. Liz had her arm tucked through Carlo’s and looked as though she’d keep it there unless someone pried her loose. With a sigh, Juliet decided she’d have to be the crowbar.
“Ms. Marks, it was a wonderful show.” As she crossed over, Juliet deliberately held out her hand. With obvious reluctance, Liz disengaged herself from Carlo and accepted it.
“Thank you, Miss…”
“Trent,” Juliet supplied without a waver.
“Juliet is my publicist,” Carlo told Liz, though the two women had been introduced less than an hour earlier. “She guards my schedule.”
“Yes, and I’m afraid I’ll have to rush Mr.
Franconi along. He has a radio spot in a half-hour.”
“If you must.” Juliet was easily dismissed as Liz turned back to Carlo. “You have a delightful way of starting the morning. A pity you won’t be in town longer.”
“A pity,” Carlo agreed and kissed Liz’s fingers. Like an old movie, Juliet thought impatiently. All they needed were violins.
“Thank you again, Ms. Marks.” Juliet used her most diplomatic smile as she took Carlo’s arm and began to lead him out of the studio. After all, she’d very likely need Liz Marks again. “We’re in a bit of a hurry,” she muttered as they worked their way back to the reception area. The taping was over and she had other fish to fry. “This radio show’s one of the top-rated in the city. Since it leans heavily on top forties and classic rock, its audience, at this time of day, falls mainly in the eighteen to thirty-five range. Excellent buying power. That gives us a nice mix with the audience from this morning’s show which is generally in the twenty-five to fifty, primarily female category.”
Listening with all apparent respect, Carlo reached the waiting limo first and opened the door himself. “You consider this important?”
“Of course.” Because she was distracted by what she thought was a foolish question, Juliet climbed into the limo ahead of him. “We’ve a solid schedule in L.A.” And she didn’t see the point in mentioning there were some cities on the tour where they wouldn’t be quite so busy. “A morning talk show with a good reputation, a popular radio show, two print interviews, two quick spots on the evening news and the Simpson Show.” She said the last with a hint of relish. The Simpson Show offset what she was doing to the budget with limos.
“So you’re pleased.”
“Yes, of course.” Digging into her briefcase, she took out her folder to recheck the name of her contact at the radio station.
“Then why do you look so annoyed?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You get a line right…here,” he said as he ran a fingertip between her eyebrows. At the touch, Juliet jerked back before she could stop herself. Carlo only cocked his head, watching her. “You may smile and speak in a quiet, polite voice, but that line gives you away.”
“I was very pleased with the taping,” she said again.
“But?”
All right, she thought, he was asking for it. “Perhaps it annoys me to see a woman making a fool of herself.” Juliet stuffed the folder back into her briefcase. “Liz Marks is married, you know.”
“Wedding rings are things I try to be immediately aware of,” he said with a shrug. “Your instructions were to be charming, weren’t they?”
“Perhaps charm has a different meaning in Italy.”
“As I said, you must come to Rome.”
“I suppose you enjoy having women drooling all over you.”
He smiled at her, easy, attractive, innocent. “But of course.”
A gurgle of laughter bubbled in her throat but she swallowed it. She wouldn’t be charmed. “You’ll have to deal with some men on this tour as well.”
“I promise not to kiss Simpson’s fingers.”
This time the laughter escaped. For a moment, she relaxed with it, let it come. Carlo saw, too briefly, the youth and energy beneath the discipline. He’d like to have kept her like that longer—laughing, at ease with him, and with herself. It would be a challenge, he mused, to find the right sequence of buttons to push to bring laughter to her eyes more often. He liked challenges—particularly when there was a woman connected to them.
“Juliet.” Her name flowed off his tongue in a way only the European male had mastered. “You mustn’t worry. Your tidily married Liz only enjoyed a mild flirtation with a man she’ll more than than likely never see again. Harmless. Perhaps because of it, she’ll find more romance with her husband tonight.”
Juliet eyed him a moment in her straight-on, no-nonsense manner. “You think quite of lot of yourself, don’t you?”
He grinned, not sure if he was relieved or if he regretted the fact that he’d never met anyone like her before. “No more than is warranted, cara. Anyone who has character leaves a mark on another. Would you like to leave the world without making a ripple?”
No. No, that was one thing she was determined not to do. She sat back determined to hold her own. “I suppose some of us insist on leaving more ripples than others.”
He nodded. “I don’t like to do anything in a small way.”
“Be careful, Mr. Franconi, or you’ll begin to believe your own image.”
The limo had stopped, but before Juliet could scoot toward the door, Carlo had her hand. When she looked at him this time, she didn’t see the affable, amorous Italian chef, but a man of power. A man, she realized, who was well aware of how far it could take him.
She didn’t move, but wondered how many other women had seen the steel beneath the silk.
“I don’t need imagery, Juliet.” His voice was soft, charming, beautiful. She heard the razor-blade cut beneath it. “Franconi is Franconi. Take me for what you see, or go to the devil.”
Smoothly, he climbed from the limo ahead of her, turned and took her hand, drawing her out with him. It was a move that was polite, respectful, even ordinary. It was a move, Juliet realized, that expressed their positions. Man to woman. The moment she stood on the curb, she removed her hand.
* * *
With two shows and a business brunch under their belts, Juliet left Carlo in the bookstore, already swamped with women crowded in line for a glimpse at and a few words with Carlo Franconi. They’d handled the reporter and photographer already, and a man like Franconi wouldn’t need her help with a crowd of women. Armed with change and her credit card, she went to find a pay phone.
For the first forty-five minutes, she spoke with her assistant in New York, filling her pad with times, dates and names while L.A. traffic whisked by outside the phone booth. As a bead of sweat trickled down her back, she wondered if she’d chosen the hottest corner in the city.
Denver still didn’t look as promising as she’d hoped, but Dallas… Juliet caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she wrote. Dallas was going to be fabulous. She might need to double her daily dose of vitamins to get through that twenty-four-hour stretch, but it would be fabulous.
After breaking her connection with New York, Juliet dialed her first contact in San Francisco. Ten minutes later, she was clenching her teeth. No, her contact at the department store couldn’t help coming down with a virus. She was sorry, genuinely sorry he was ill. But did he have to get sick without leaving someone behind with a couple of working brain cells?
The young girl with the squeaky voice knew about the cooking demonstration. Yes, she knew all about it and wasn’t it going to be fun? Extension cords? Oh my, she really didn’t know a thing about that. Maybe she could ask someone in maintenance. A table—chairs? Well golly, she supposed she could get something, if it was really necessary.
Juliet was reaching in her bag for her purse-size container of aspirin before it was over. The way it looked now, she’d have to get to the department store at least two hours before the demonstration to make sure everything was taken care of. That meant juggling the schedule.
After completing her calls, Juliet left the corner phone booth, aspirin in hand, and headed back to the bookstore, hoping they could give her a glass of water and a quiet corner.
No one noticed her. If she’d just crawled in from the desert on her belly, no one would have noticed her. The small, rather elegant bookstore was choked with laughter. No bookseller stood behind the counter. There was a magnet in the left-hand corner of the room. Its name was Franconi.
It wasn’t just women this time, Juliet noticed with interest. There were men sprinkled in the crowd. Some of them might have been dragged along by their wives, but they were having a time of it now. It looked like a cocktail party, minus the cigarette smoke and empty glasses.
She couldn’t even see him, Juliet realized as she worked her way tow
ard the back of the store. He was surrounded, enveloped. Jingling the aspirin in her hand, she was glad she could find a little corner by herself. Perhaps he got all the glory, she mused. But she wouldn’t trade places with him.
Glancing at her watch, she noted he had another hour and wondered whether he could dwindle the crowd down in the amount of time. She wished vaguely for a stool, dropped the aspirin in the pocket of her skirt and began to browse.
“Fabulous, isn’t he?” Juliet heard someone murmur on the other side of a book rack.
“God, yes. I’m so glad you talked me into coming.”
“What’re friends for?”
“I thought I’d be bored to death. I feel like a kid at a rock concert. He’s got such…”
“Style,” the other voice supplied. “If a man like that ever walked into my life, he wouldn’t walk out again.”
Curious, Juliet walked around the stacks. She wasn’t sure what she expected—young housewives, college students. What she saw were two attractive women in their thirties, both dressed in sleek professional suits.
“I’ve got to get back to the office.” One woman checked a trim little Rolex watch. “I’ve got a meeting at three.”
“I’ve got to get back to the courthouse.”
Both women tucked their autographed books into leather briefcases.
“How come none of the men I date can kiss my hand without making it seem like a staged move in a one-act play?”
“Style. It all has to do with style.”
With this observation, or complaint, the two women disappeared into the crowd.
At three-fifteen, he was still signing, but the crowd had thinned enough that Juliet could see him. Style, she was forced to agree, he had. No one who came up to his table, book in hand, was given a quick signature, practiced smile and brush-off. He talked to them. Enjoyed them, Juliet corrected, whether it was a grandmother who smelled of lavender or a young woman with a toddler on her hip. How did he know the right thing to say to each one of them, she wondered, that made them leave the table with a laugh or a smile or a sigh?