Her stomach folded onto itself like origami. Her palms went damp and her voice sounded unnaturally high in her ears. “What, uh -” She stopped to lick her lips. “What do you have there?”
He held it up. A pen, with a garish orange cap. It was one of those tacky things that revealed a naked woman when you positioned it right. It advertised some “ranch” that Roxy suspected was actually a brothel in Nevada.
“This is my brother-in-law Erik’s,” Emerson said. “He calls it his lucky pen. He’s had it since he was fifteen years old. Carries it everywhere and rarely lets it out of his sight.”
“Oh.” The whites of her eyes were drying out, due to the innocent look she was working so hard to perfect. “You’ll have to give it back to him then.”
“I will.” With a small shake of his head, he slipped it into his pocket. Then he scooped the rest of the loose items into her purse.
She managed to make her legs move so that she could reach for the handbag, though chills tumbled down her spine. “I’ll take that.”
Emerson stood as he handed it over. He frowned. “Roxy? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Not a thing. But…” She swallowed hard.
“But?” he prompted. He tilted her chin to study her face.
“I have a sudden headache,” she said, putting her hand to her forehead. It was true. Her temples were pounding and nausea was threatening. That stupid pen. “Could we reschedule? I think right now I’d just like to go to bed.”
It was supposed to have been with him. She remembered she’d thought that unless they spent some intimate time together, they’d marry as strangers.
But maybe that was better than him learning any of her secrets.
Then He Kissed Me
8
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Jack found the front door of the Baci farmhouse ajar and he widened the opening to peer inside. The foyer was empty and there was no one on the stairs leading up to the second floor. “Stevie?” he called out.
A thump and a muffled voice responded, and he followed the sounds across the threshold to a deep closet built under the staircase. Boxes and boots littered the floor outside of it. The interior was stuffed with more itemsapparently this was catch-all storage - but it was the vision of a shapely rear end in worn jeans that caught his attention.
On hands and knees, Stevie was burrowing at the rear of the shadowy space. She glanced over her shoulder at him.
“Don’t bother moving on my account,” he said, even as she backed up. “The view from here is spectacular.”
Her disgruntled expression as she rose to her feet only made him laugh. It seemed the easiest way to unsettle her was to issue a compliment. And her unsteadiness only seemed fair since just looking at her could rock the floor under his feet.
“You’re beautiful when you’re embarrassed.” His gaze took in the flush on her cheeks. It had darkened the natural rose of her mouth, and as he watched, she moistened her lower lip with her tongue. “Do that again,” he whispered.
She ignored the comment. “What are you doing here?”
He answered as simply as possible. “They told me in the winery’s offices that this is where I could find you.”
Her hand waved in a vague gesture. “I had Christmas decorations I still needed to put away.”
He looked around at the scattered items that had obviously been pulled from the closet and then at something glinting in her hand. One step, and he held her wrist in the circle of his fingers.
She resisted his hold, of course.
“You’re so prickly,” he murmured, looking down at the old-fashioned key she held. “I’m not going to steal your treasure.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She yanked free of him, shoved the key she held in her pocket, then turned to toss an old umbrella back in the closet.
“The Bennett-Baci silver. I remember Seth talking about it at the poker party.”
“Who would believe in such a thing?” she scoffed, using her foot to propel a crate of tattered LPs.
Jack hefted the wooden box into his arms and placed it into the storage area beside a half-dozen ancient tennis rackets, their heads bound in wooden vices. “Though I doubt you’ll find anything of value in here.”
“Yeah,” Stevie said, her voice a little sullen. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Grinning, he turned to face her. “Ah-ha! So you admit to being a covert romantic.”
Her cheeks flushed again. “I had to stash that Christmas wreath somewhere. While I was here, I thought I’d look around for something that key would fit.”
“Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me,” Jack said. “It only makes you more interesting, though. You’re so no-nonsense on the outside, but inside…”
She narrowed her eyes. “What? Sappy? Sentimental?”
“Sweet,” he said, stepping close enough to trail the backs of his fingers from her temple to her chin. “I’ve tasted you, and inside, Stephania, you are so, so sweet.”
Tension had her skin thrumming beneath his touch. But she held her ground, her chocolate eyes not looking away from his. “What’s this all about, Jack? Why are you here?”
He let his arm drop. “I thought we should get our stories straight. We’re engaged people now. If anyone’s going to buy that, we have to know something about each other.”
With a shove, she managed to close the closet door. “Like what? You want to know my favorite television show? The name of my first pet?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Things like that. What you were good at in school. Your favorite books. The boy you dreamed about.”
“I don’t have that kind of time, Jack.”
The problem was, he had all kinds of time. He was here until the wedding, and while he was enjoying the work at the vineyard, the physical activity allowed his mind to wander. It kept wandering Stevie’s way.
He glanced around. “You grew up in this house, right?”
“Sure.”
“Show me your room, then. I’ll bet I can learn a lot about you from seeing that.”
With a shrug, she led him toward the staircase. Her foot on the bottom step, she paused. “Are you going to share your secrets, too?”
He smiled at her. “You can find all those in the archives of The Global Enquirer - they’re posted on the Internet. And do you know there’s a magazine titled Royalty? I heard they devoted a centerfold spread to me once.”
“I don’t keep up with the tabloids,” she said, turning.
As she mounted the steps, he followed close behind. “The latest stories say my father’s finally disowned me.” His tone was light. “That I’m broke and in desperate need of cash, which is why my supposed friendship with the Atlanta embezzler is suspect.”
He couldn’t read her expression as she glanced at him over her shoulder. “Remind me to keep an eye on my piggy bank, then.”
There was actually one in the room, positioned on a windowsill. Ceramic, fat, and painted like a pirate. Really, if Jack had been a criminal, he would have stolen it, because it was silly and charming and made him grin. Stevie patted its thrusting snout as she turned to gaze out the glass. “My sister Giuliana and I shared this room. We had a standing bet about who could guess the day the first cabernet grapes turned from green to purple.”
Jack joined her at the window. It overlooked countless rows of vines spreading in all directions. “And you always won.”
Her eyes turned to him. “You’re right. How did you know?”
“You pay attention and that would pay off.” He thought of how she’d read the situation at the Platts’ dinner party and he was grateful for it. “Someone’s mood. Another’s reaction. I suppose it would work for the grapes, too.”
A sly smile dug a tiny dimple at the corner of her mouth. “Our old vineyard manager was much better at paying attention than I. He gave me the date, I gave him cookies … th
at Allie had baked.”
Jack laughed. “You’re tricky.”
“With two sisters, I had to be.”
They both turned toward the vista again. He glanced at her face, glanced back. “Interesting that you’re the only one who doesn’t work at Tanti Baci.”
Her body stiffened. “I … That’s true.”
“Yet you’re doing it now.”
“It’s been in our family for a hundred years. I suppose I don’t like the idea of our generation being the one to lose it.” She made a face. “Uh-oh. That does make me sound sentimental.”
“No. Maybe. But it also explains something to me. Liam told me the wedding sideline is easing the winery’s cash-flow problems. Now I understand better why you’re willing to handle Roxy and Emerson’s wedding.”
Her personal pride wasn’t the only thing at stake. It was Tanti Baci, and Stevie was stepping up to keep it in the family. Some might call it sentimental, but he wouldn’t fault her for that.
She studied his face. “What would you hate to lose, Jack? Is there something you care so much about you’d do just about anything to keep it?”
“Good God,” he answered, stepping back. “No.”
“No?”
“Mon ange, everyone will tell you my life has been an endless exercise in carelessness.”
“I told you I don’t keep up with the tabloids, Jack.” But then she turned toward the room’s interior and gestured with a slender hand. “Guess which half is mine?”
Appreciating the change in subject, he surveyed the space in front of him. One side of it was painted a cool, orderly green. The single bed made with tight hospital corners. The books on the shelf above the small desk looked serious. A lacrosse stick was propped in a corner.
He pivoted.
The other half of the room had walls of a delicate shell pink. The ruffled bedspread and matching pillow sham were cream, edged with more pink embroidery. Volumes of girly fiction titles were jammed in the bookshelf.
On one corner of the desk sat a paperweight shaped like a glass slipper.
Jack glanced at Stevie and the little smile turning up the corners of her mouth. “Pink,” he decided.
Her eyes rolled, even as her smile turned more delighted. “You’re delusional. That’s Giuliana’s half. So much for my inner sweet side, huh? That must mean you’re not as smart as you thought.”
“No, mon ange,” he said, grinning at her. “It only means you’re more repressed than I thought.”
“Oh, please.” Her smile hadn’t faded. “I’m not going to take that bait.”
He pretended offense instead of showing his disappointment. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Right. You weren’t just hoping that I’d feel all insulted and then throw myself at you in order to prove I have needs that I refuse to bury.”
“Kind of worked that way for me before.” Now who was smug? “Remember? After that meeting in your office?”
“I remember.”
She looked deliciously awkward and adorably annoyed. Not that he’d take his life in his hands and tell her. Fact was, he liked her tough exterior. It was her hidden streak of romanticism that would make a man love her.
He froze. Love her? Where the hell had that come from?
“Jack…” She put her hand on his left arm.
The touch seared his skin through his shirt. He looked over; their eyes met. It was like that first night in the limo; it was like every time since. Sexual chemistry bubbled. He felt himself relax.
This, he understood.
“Well?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.
She made a frustrated sound in her throat. Obviously whatever she’d had to say had been lost in the heat of their sexual connection. Fire raced down the left side of his body and then rose up the right. His shaft began to harden.
Stevie looked like she could spit nails even as her face flushed.
Laughing softly, he cupped her cheek in his palm. It burned under his hand. “Stop fighting so hard. Won’t do a bit of good.”
Another frustrated noise. Her body hummed beneath his touch. “Doesn’t this bother you?” she asked.
“Why should it?”
“Because I - because we don’t want it.”
His thumb tickled her lips, brushing back and forth against their soft surface. “Not everything can be controlled,” he answered. “That bothers some people - Roxy despises the feeling.”
“But you?” When she said the words, her mouth moved against the pad of his thumb. The sensation shuddered down his spine.
“I admit under almost every circumstance I don’t find the sensation pleasant, either. But I can accept and appreciate it, I guess you’d say, when it leads to something pleasurable.” He leaned closer. “I keep telling you we could have fun with it.”
She didn’t back away. “And if I agreed to that … ?”
His mouth answered her. The kiss blazed, the taste of her the only thing he needed to be set on fire. “Think how entertaining it could be, mon ange,” he whispered as he moved his lips toward her ear. “It’s not something we should pass by.”
This was why he’d really come to visit her today, he admitted to himself. To taste her again, and while he was here, it didn’t hurt to share the personal philosophy he’d developed over the last decade. Don’t get too serious about anything or anyone. Take your amusement when and where you can.
A cell phone warbled. She broke the embrace, her gaze on him as her hand crept to her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. “It’s a reminder. I have a meeting with your sister and Emerson’s mother in the wine caves.”
He pretended that breathing was coming easy to him, despite that scorching kiss.
Her finger flicked off the alarm. “You’re welcome to attend.”
A meeting in shadowy, confining caves. “No, thanks. I’ll catch up with you later and we’ll … continue our discussion.”
“Jack,” she cautioned, that tough-girl glint in her eye. “I haven’t said I’ll go to bed with you.”
He smiled. But you will.
******
Stevie made a phone call on the way to meeting Jack’s sister and Senator Platt. With the cool winter air on her face and the crunch of gravel beneath the soles of her boots, she felt more grounded. All she needed now was to clear her head of this carnal confusion.
“Allie?” She frowned as she heard her sister’s voice. “I thought I called Man.” Her finger must have hit the wrong speed-dial number.
“Talk to me anyway,” her sister implored. “I’m bored but Penn has a fit when I start hopping around trying to find something to do. Whatever you were going to discuss with Man is fine by me.”
Stevie hesitated, torn between talking to the first person she reached and talking about it with Allie, who had never met Jack. But she had to figure out how far she was willing to take her involvement with her “fiancé.”
“It’s about a man,” she admitted. “A … uh … beautiful man.” Oh, Lord, it was going to have to come out, though, wasn’t it? “Jack Parini, the brother of Emerson’s fiancée. I’m sort of engaged to him.”
“You’re engaged to him?” There was a garbled noise in the background, then Allie’s voice again, complete with laughing undertone. “Penn overheard and he wants to know if you asked him yourself.”
“I left that to you,” she said, because Allie had proposed to her husband. Twice.
A shocked silence came over the line. “You’re not kidding?”
“No.” She quickly outlined the situation, though she didn’t go into detail about the exact circumstances in the Platt butler’s pantry. “He’s, uh … quite, um, physically appealing. And the feeling is, uh, mutual, I guess.”
“Oh my God! Stevie, queen of the understatement, is talking about a mutual physical appeal.” Clearly she was sharing this news with Penn, too.
Stevie groaned. “Alessandra -”
“Penn wants to know if that’s how this Jack guy refers to it. Because
he says ‘mutual physical appeal’ sounds a little limp and -”
“Nothing about Jack is limp.”
Allie crowed. “Not limp, Penn, she swears the man’s not limp!”
“I should never have called you,” Stevie groused, shaking her head. “That’s right, I didn’t call you. I was phoning Man.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. But I can only watch so much TV and -”
“He wants me to go to bed with him.”
“Well, of course he does,” said Allie, obviously unimpressed. “You have a mutual physical appeal, you’ve assured me he’s not limp, and -”
“I’m tempted.”
“Of course you are. You said he was handsome?”
“Very handsome.” And so sexy, when he whispered hot promises in her ear.
“And after the way Emerson treated you,” Allie continued, “it must be lovely for a man to make you feel desirable again.”
Was that all there was to it? Stevie stopped walking to mull this over. Was it so mundane as that? Emerson had banged up her ego and Jack was like one of those do-it-yourself dent-pulling tools that snapped a car body back into place?
Hmm.
After considering a moment longer, she decided the image pleased her. It was simple, straightforward, and only affected the exterior - nothing deeper.
“It can’t hurt at all,” she murmured, starting to walk again. “It’ll be a way to get back into shape.”
“Huh?” Allie said, sounding puzzled. “Wait a minute, I said it was nice to feel desired. I didn’t say you had to jump into anything -”
“Why not?” Stevie asked, lengthening her stride. What was lovely was feeling like herself again. Decisive. Resilient. No-nonsense. “We’re both adults. We have needs. It doesn’t have to be, to mean, anything more than that.”
“Of course not, speaking in a purely philosophical and hypothetical sense, I agree. But, um … this is you, and, well, though I know you pride yourself on -” She broke off. Sighed. “You realize you’re talking about sex like a man?”
Stevie smiled, happier than she’d been in days, weeks, months. “Exactly.”
Then He Kissed Me Page 10