“Baby, I don’t think so.” His hand gave hers another warning squeeze. “Stay with me.”
Baby? That’s what she was supposed to be proving she wasn’t tonight. And she knew he was a boy big enough to handle leopard lady and whatever the heck she wanted to discuss in private.
Lucy beamed Carlo a sickly smile. “Handsome, Claudia wants to talk about business, and you know how little me gets so sleepy when talk turns to numbers and such.”
Of course, that was uncomfortably close to the truth. And uncomfortably terrible for someone who’d graduated with honors and an accounting degree to admit.
Claudia shook her head, apparently impatient with them both. “It’s not about numbers. I only wanted to let you know that I’ve okayed a parents group from a local high school to help out with the security.”
“Street Beat security?” He sent Lucy a glance, then went on to explain, “Claudia’s the festival promoter.”
“For the past five years,” the older woman added before turning her attention to Carlo again. “The parents are going to use their pay as a fund-raiser for their kids’ senior prom. The fairgrounds did something similar last summer. It will be good PR for us.”
He frowned. “But parents? I don’t know, Claudia. I’ll want to talk to the fair security people, and even if they think it went well, I’m not sure—”
“Oh, you should at least consider it,” Lucy interjected. “I was part of a community group that raised money in Phoenix last year during the hot air balloon festival weekend. We helped out with security and parking. It worked out great for everyone concerned.”
“Yeah?” Carlo lifted an eyebrow.
Even Claudia was looking at Lucy with more interest. “Yes,” she confirmed. “We had kids involved, too, because they’re always looking for ways to beef up their college applications with community service. If they were over sixteen and accompanied by a parent, they were welcome, too.”
“Carlo,” Claudia said, looking less leopardlike and more thoughtful. “That sounds even better to me. I think it could increase future ticket sales if more teenagers are exposed to the festival.”
“I see your point, but—”
“It’s not supplanting your security plans,” Claudia insisted. “It’s supporting them. The volunteers can do simple things like move barriers and keep order in the food lines.”
Carlo switched his gaze to Lucy. “How much do you know about how it worked in Phoenix?”
She shrugged. “It was my baby. I pulled the volunteers together, I worked with the regular balloonfest security people, I spent the weekend slathered in sunscreen and passing out water bottles. It’s like Claudia said, we were essentially gofers for the professional security team and we made good money for a local women’s shelter.”
“Sounds like you made it a success.”
“It didn’t take a brain trust, just attention to detail and an ability to organize people. I can give you the phone number of a guy in Phoenix—”
“Don’t bother,” he said. “Any calls that need to be made you can do yourself. This endeavor in San Diego will be your baby, too.”
She stared at him. “My baby?”
“Your project. You work for McMillan & Milano.”
“Well, yes.” And apparently in his rush to deflect predator Claudia’s interest he hadn’t concerned himself about what the other woman might think about his mixing business with pleasure inside his own office.
“So I’m putting you in charge of the high school volunteers at the Street Beat festival.”
“I work for McMillan & Milano answering your phone and bringing you your mail,” she protested.
Carlo waved it away. “Because you agreed to help out with that job as a favor, not because it’s the position you’re suited for. You’re the one with experience managing a volunteer activity like this. And even though you say it doesn’t take a brain trust, I happen to know you have a sharp mind, as well as a college degree your parents are very proud of. So, I’ve decided. It’s your project, Lucy.”
It’s my project. Just something else to potentially screw up in the next three weeks because, lucky for her, the music event was scheduled at the end of her time with Carlo’s company. Was it now that she told him? Was it now she admitted that in the years since graduation she’d yet to find a position she was suited for? Surely, like the Suttons, he’d see it as a major flaw in her character that not one of her accounting jobs had floated her boat. Unlike her forge-straight-ahead family, she’d yet to find her path to success. She opened her mouth.
Claudia beat her to the punch. “Carlo…” The other woman’s lips moved into a moue of distress and she lowered her voice as if she considered Lucy deaf, as well as dumb. “Do you really think your little phone answerer is the right person for the job?”
Little.
Little phone answerer.
Lucy’s spine snapped straight as she heard in those words and that voice echoes of other words, other voices.
Little Lucy.
Lucy Goosey.
Lucy won’t do it right this time, either.
Carlo lifted one dark brow. “Lucy?”
She swallowed. No way could she back down now, not in front of Claudia of the leopard dress and superior attitude, not in front of Carlo, who would likely pass along her balking to her sister and brothers, not in front of herself who had so many things to prove.
And now add one more.
“Don’t worry, Claudia,” she said. “His little phone answerer will be just fine.”
Oh, how she wished she’d stuck to her plan and unstuck herself from Carlo. It was too late, though. There was nothing else to do but accept, and then succeed at this Street Beat assignment. She pushed away her panic at the thought, even though in the past three years she hadn’t truly felt successful at much besides finding another job after leaving the previous one behind.
* * *
Somehow, Lucy had gotten away from him. The longer Carlo didn’t see her among the crowd at the Street Beat party, the more anxious he was to get his hands on her—uh, correct that. The more anxious he was to get a bead on where she was. Hands off, Milano. It was the cop inside him talking again, and his good sense, too. Hands off.
Shoving them inside his pockets, he scanned the room, his gaze searching the people either standing in small groups or gyrating to the rock music on the small dance floor. Where the hell was she?
Keeping an eye on her was his obligation, wasn’t it? Because he’d invited her tonight, because he was her boss, and most of all, because he’d known her and her family since Lucy still had training wheels on her bicycle.
Before adulthood had given her hips and smooth, curvy legs and that seductive smile that had him heading toward her for the intercept. Blame it on his cop intuition again.
Then Carlo’s gaze narrowed and a skitter of irritation shot up his spine. No wonder he was on edge. Take a look at her dance partner! Long shaggy hair, pierced eyebrow, motorcycle boots. He picked up his pace.
Consequently, he was nearby when a wild spin took her into his territory. Carlo caught her in his arms.
Her face flushed, she looked up at him. “Oh.”
His hands slid from her shoulders to her hips. He’d held that sweet curve of hers before—and had had trouble keeping his mind focused on Claudia and business.
He squeezed. There was the smallest give to her flesh and his fingers sank into it as he took a deep breath of her tempting, female scent. “You ran away from me,” he said.
“Ran away? Carlo, I didn’t know you cared,” she teased. Her lashes dropped, and she gave him another one of those flirtatious, womanly glances.
Just like that, his male instincts overrode his inner cop talk, causing his palms to slide up her curves to her waist as he drew her nearer. “Lucy…”
Lucy!
His hands dropped. This was Lucy, and she was here as his family friend, his temporary employee, as someone he should be looking after, not looking to touc
h.
She used her new freedom to sketch him a wave before twirling back onto the dance floor and into the proximity of the grinning possible felon, who then grabbed her by the hand. Irritation spiking again, Carlo elbowed the man standing beside him.
“Excuse me. Do you know that guy over there?”
“Huh?”
“The one with the red lightning bolt crawling up his skinny right arm.” The dude was dressed in leather pants, of all things, and a muscle shirt that clung to his scrawny chest.
“That’s Wrench.”
Good God. He was named after a tool. “Wrench who?”
“Just Wrench. He’s the lead singer of Silver Bucket.”
Silver Bucket. Before she’d disappeared on him, he’d listened to Lucy discuss with Claudia the musical lineup for the Street Beat festival. That had gotten the older woman’s attention away from Carlo and he’d been glad. After a few minutes it was clear Lucy knew her music, impressing Claudia and amusing Carlo.
Until now. She’d professed a deep love for the music of Silver Bucket and here she was boogeying down with Silver Bucket’s lead singer. Wrench.
For God’s sake, that wasn’t funny.
Frowning, he settled back on his heels to watch what happened next. The protective stance and attitude was just what he needed, he decided, to put away those dangerous and recurring moments he’d spent seeing Lucy as a woman.
Of course, she wasn’t a little girl any longer, either. No one seeing her in that dress—two hankies, no matter how she denied it—could see her as anything less than an attractive, desirable, adult female.
The lead singer had noticed, that’s for sure.
“Wrench,” Carlo muttered.
Though loud enough, apparently, for the man standing next to him to hear. He cocked a brow in Carlo’s direction. “You do know Silver Bucket, right?”
“Uh…” Great, he was going to be forced to admit that he was a fuddy-duddy.
The other man took pity on him. “They’re the ones known for their shock-and-awe pyrotechnics show during their signature song, ‘Mosh Pit.’ It always works the crowd into a frenzy.”
Shock-and-awe pyrotechnics. “Mosh Pit.”
Frenzy.
Tension grabbed the back of Carlo’s neck and he took his eyes off Lucy to seek out Claudia. There wasn’t going to be any pyrotechnics, mosh pits or, for that matter, frenzies at the upcoming festival. Not when he was head of security.
With a glimpse of Claudia near the bar and thwarting possible future catastrophe at the forefront of his mind, he cast a last glance at Lucy and then set his jaw and left her unguarded. Surely she wouldn’t go far.
Ten minutes later, Claudia’s promises had appeased his uneasiness. Five minutes later, it was back again. Lucy was nowhere to be found. And neither was Wrench.
Her voice echoed in his head. “I just adore that band.”
Carlo’s mind abandoned common sense and leaped to a worst-case scenario. If she eloped with Wrench, her family would never forgive him. He would never forgive himself.
Lucy was like a…a…almost like a sister to him.
Sister. Right.
Pulse pumping, he strode toward the dessert buffet and the exit doors just beyond. A guy like Wrench would have a limo, wouldn’t he? Maybe he and Lucy were in it right now, speeding toward Vegas, and the tool was popping champagne and eyeing her spectacular legs as she stretched out on black leather. Hell.
“Wearing a face like that, you could scare people.”
At the sound of Lucy’s voice, Carlo spun. Damn it! Preoccupied by the vision in his mind, he’d hurried right past her. She stood on the far side of the dessert tables, half-hidden by a fountain bubbling waterfalls of white chocolate.
“There you are,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “Were you looking for me?”
It took concentration, but he managed to relax his shoulders. He hadn’t lived in this world for thirty-four years without learning a thing or two. Telling Lucy he’d been looking out for her might give a rise to her hackles.
“It’s getting late,” he said instead. “I was after some dessert before I rounded you up in order to leave.” To put truth to his words, he grabbed a plate and started scooping up random items.
She waited for him to finish, then together they wandered out onto a small terrace. It was almost empty of people, but a few small waist-high tables were set up under portable heaters.
He took a breath of the fresh air, then looked over at her. “Having fun?”
She held a white-chocolate-covered strawberry to her parted lips. “Mmm.” Nodding, she took a bite out of the juicy thing.
He should look away.
He couldn’t look away.
Damn, but there went his common sense again, evaporating under the radiant warmth of the patio heaters—not to mention the radiant warmth that was his libido catching fire.
A drip of pink-tinged juice oozed at the corner of her mouth and she tongued it off. Carlo cleared his throat, tore his gaze away, then couldn’t stop it from jerking back.
“There,” he muttered, gesturing at her with his fork.
Her eyebrows came together. “There? There where? There what?” She whipped her head around in confusion.
“There on your mouth.” Carlo was forced to step closer. “Some of that white chocolate.” A dab perched on the rosy pillow of her bottom lip.
Her tongue’s next search-and-destroy mission completely missed the spot.
He couldn’t stand to watch her send it out again and he couldn’t look at the creamy dot for one more second. “Let me,” he said impatiently. The edge of his thumb touched down.
And seemed to stick to her bottom lip as if the sugary stuff was superglue.
Her gaze jolted to his. Her breath burned his hand.
Time froze.
Carlo remembered he was a family friend. A former cop who could smell trouble from two blocks away. A man who thought of himself as Mr. Keep-It-Light.
But his blood was hot and heavy, chugging slowly through his veins. Lucy’s big blues were looking at him as if she sensed the same thing he did. Attraction in the air. Just like that moment two years ago, a moment he’d thought he’d banished from his memory forever.
Because this was attraction he had no business feeling, not for someone so young, so fresh, so flat-out deserving of all the happily-ever-afters a man like him could never promise. That a man like him didn’t want to promise because he couldn’t take a chance on all the painful ways ever-after could end instead.
Still, as he stroked his thumb free of her mouth, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking he was freeing it for something else….
He leaned closer.
Lucy shifted left, her eyes widening. “Oh! Thanks.” She used a little square of napkin to scrub his touch away. “I’m not usually so…so…”
Cowardly? Carlo thought. No, no. He meant smart. Smarter, for sure, than him, because a second ago he’d been close to overriding his brain. His gray matter knew it was crazy to play around with Lucy, even though parts farther south were still registering the fact they considered the idea had some merit.
“So what’s with you and Claudia, anyway?” Lucy asked with a shiny smile.
He groaned. “Nothing, and that’s just the way I like it.”
She nodded. “I figured as much when I was pressed into playing your latest girlfriend.”
He looked over his shoulder. “Keep it down, okay? Claudia gets wind it was a ruse and I’m toast.”
“Why don’t you just tell her you’re not interested?”
“Does she strike you as a woman who takes no for an answer? I think the challenge would only cause her to slow long enough to sharpen her claws for the final takedown.”
Lucy laughed. “Okay, I clued in on the she-cat resemblance myself, but I have to say that by the time I finished talking to her about Street Beat, I found myself actually liking her.”
“She’s a hell of a businesswoman, but
just not the woman I want in my bed.”
At that last phrase, the smile on Lucy’s face slid away. Her eyes went wide once more.
And again, the hands of his watch seemed to stop.
His comment begged the question—and all of a sudden it was sizzling in the air between them as if she’d spoken it aloud—who was the woman he wanted in his bed?
Lucy.
No matter how wrong the idea was, no matter how many reasons why not, it was suddenly there.
Lucy.
Damn that stinkin’, inconvenient, completely unasked-for sexual chemistry.
Yet despite his condemnation he found himself leaning toward her again. Leaning toward her luscious berry lips.
Halfway there, she blinked, as if sensing danger. Her arm jerked up and she held her fork between them like a weapon. “You…” She swallowed hard, her fluster showing in her new flush. “You have something on your dessert plate I didn’t get. That…that pie thing.”
“Uh-huh.” He didn’t give that…that pie thing a glance. He was still preoccupied with the idea of Lucy in his bed—or at the very least of Lucy’s kiss against his mouth.
No.
Lucy was a little sister to him…except she wasn’t. Lucy was just a kid…except she wasn’t anymore. Lucy didn’t want him to kiss her…except she was swaying toward him, and her gaze was fixed on his mouth as if she were willing it to come closer to hers.
He found himself moving nearer.
Was he really this weak? Apparently he was. Or the attraction was just that strong.
He couldn’t look away from her berry lips and the wet tip of her tongue, which darted out to touch the top one. Now was the last chance to dredge up his common sense, to gather his brain cells together, to do something other than give in.
However, the whiz-bang-pow between them had a mind and will of its own and he found himself unable to alter the course. She swallowed again. “What, uh, what would it take for me to get a bite?”
His laugh was low. “I’m sure we can think of something.”
She didn’t move as he took the fork out of her unresisting hand and set it on the table. And she didn’t blink as he drew her against him. She didn’t make a sound as he finally succumbed to temptation and lowered his mouth to taste hers.
Bachelor Boss Page 4