The Offer She Couldn't Refuse

by Marie Ferrarella

  “I—” Jared opened his mouth, then sucked in air as Demi suddenly shoved him backward out the opened door.

  The door didn’t remain open for long. Or unlocked. It wouldn’t give when he tried it.

  She’d won the first round, he thought with grudging admiration. But there were nine more to go before the championship bout was over. And the decision, he had no doubt, would go to him.

  3

  “Looks like you’ve got trouble, Demi.” Lena’s smile was slow and appreciative as she leaned in closer to Demi in the booth. The napkin in her hands remained unfolded as her eyes indicated the entrance. “Tall, Dark and Handsome is back.”

  Something had told Demi yesterday that she hadn’t seen the last of him. Steeling herself, she turned in her seat toward the front of the restaurant. Jared was just walking in. Cradled in the crook of his arm was the lushest bouquet of roses she’d ever seen. Pink, like a baby’s cheek.

  For just the tiniest second, Demi could feel herself slipping as she looked at the flowers. The next moment, she’d completely banished the feeling. She knew what Panetta was up to. A three-year-old would have known what he was up to.

  Of all the hokey, absurd, elementary stunts—

  Demi sighed, irritated. She pushed the stack of freshly laundered and newly folded dark green napkins to one side of the table.

  “More like Tall, Dark and Annoying.”

  The expression on Lena’s face told Demi she didn’t quite see it that way. Lena clearly seemed to have forgotten that she was engaged. “Gotta like a man who doesn’t give up.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Lena had been right about one thing—this felt like trouble. And Demi didn’t particularly want a witness who had all but announced her affiliation to the other side. Demi nodded to the left.

  “Table seven looks like they’re ready to order, Lena,” she said pointedly. Reluctantly, Lena rose and made her way to the table.

  Having dispensed Lena, Demi strode toward the interloper, loaded for bear. She meant to send him and his damn roses on their way as quickly as possible. She didn’t need problems today. She had a banquet to think of.

  Jared wasn’t really up on his Greek mythology, but an artist’s rendition he’d once seen stuck in his mind. The owner of Aphrodite looked like a petite version of Artemis, goddess of the hunt, as she purposefully walked toward him. Artemis, ready to slay the poacher for daring to tread on sacred land.

  Jared smiled to himself. He supposed he was getting a bit carried away, but surrounded by all this atmosphere, it was difficult not to. He’d been with Winfield for seven years now, working his way up and helping Jack Winfield expand his holdings. Winfield, Inc., owned a number of restaurants in the county—fifteen at last count. All different, all with their own unique style and cuisine, yet Jared couldn’t remember any of them ever having this kind of effect. on him.

  Once inside the small restaurant, it was as if he were transported beyond the confines of a growing city in Southern California. Beyond and back through time. Across the ages to a time when things were a hell of a lot simpler. And settled far more easily.

  He reminded himself that it was the difficulty that kept things from getting dull for him. It was the challenge that kept his interest from wandering.

  Right now he found his interest very narrowly focused. He liked his work. And it certainly didn’t hurt that the woman who was his assignment this time around was exotically attractive and sparked his imagination.

  As Demi reached him, Jared held out the bouquet to her.

  Her eyes squarely on his, Demi deliberately pushed the flowers to one side. She wasn’t going to be won over by a profusion of colorful vegetation. Damn it, she wasn’t going to be won over at all, especially not by some pretty boy who thought he could toss a few well-worded compliments her way and have her eagerly signing on the dotted line.

  Her heart-shaped face clouded. “Just what part of no are you having difficulty understanding, Mr. Panetta?”

  He was about to remind her that they were supposed to be on a first-name basis, but never got the chance. She started poking him in the chest with a very sharp index finger, emphasizing each word she uttered.

  “I said I wasn’t interested in selling the restaurant under any circumstances and a few fat-cheeked little roses aren’t going to make me change my mind.”

  He caught her hand easily in his. Her eyes widened in surprise. They were enormous, he thought. And beautiful. “I wouldn’t insult your intelligence by trying to bribe you with roses.” His voice was as calm as hers was filled with emotion.

  Incensed, Demi yanked her hand free. “No?” She struggled to keep her voice low. She didn’t care what he thought of her, but there were customers to consider. Past lunch, there were only a few patrons in the restaurant, and only one table of people whom she didn’t know by sight. Still, there was no sense in sounding as if she were some ill-tempered shrew. Even if she felt like one right now. “Then just how would you insult my intelligence?”

  “Not at all,” he assured her with understated feeling. As if she hadn’t already just dismissed them, Jared presented the roses to her. “These are to apologize.”

  Refusing to accept them, Demi crossed her arms before her.

  “For what? Not that you don’t have a lot to apologize for,” she allowed, “but I prefer my apologies to be specific.”

  She had a way with words, he thought. Winfield could use someone like her. If he survived first contact.

  “For upsetting you.”

  He was the soul of sincerity. Had she been someone else, she might have been tempted to believe him. But Demi had been born suspicious.

  “Believe me when I say that wasn’t my intention,” he continued.

  “I wouldn’t believe you if you told me the sky was blue.” Still ignoring the roses, she looked at him contemptuously. “I know exactly what your intention was, just as I know exactly what your intention is now, Mr. Panetta.”

  “Jared,” he corrected without missing a beat. “And just what do you think my intention is?”

  Demi rolled her eyes. She had no idea why she was even bothering to talk to him. She certainly had better things to do.

  “To pretend that you’re an amicable guy so that I’ll get to like you and let you somehow talk me into selling something that’s been in the family for almost sixty years.”

  He’d known five minutes into their first meeting that it wasn’t going to be anywhere near that easy. He smiled now at the simplistic scenario.

  “Give me a little credit for having more brains than that, Demi. I know a woman of principle when I see her.”

  And she was that, which made the game that much more interesting, he mused. He wasn’t trying to do anything underhanded. He was trying to win her over, not hoodwink her. If he used what was readily available to him, such as his charm, well, he couldn’t be faulted for that any more than an accountant could be faulted for using his brains in completing his work. He was just using the talents he had at hand.

  He was trying to snow her, she thought. Twisting around her own words to get what he wanted. Fat chance.

  “Well, take a good look at this ‘woman of principle’ because you won’t be seeing her for long.” Hooking her arm through his, she abruptly escorted him back to the front entrance. “Thank you for visiting, Mr. Panetta. You’ll understand when I say, ‘Please don’t stay in touch.’”

  He stopped moving so suddenly, he threw her off balance. The quick, soft encounter as her body brushed against his was not lost on him. Neither was the sharp, almost electrical charge that accompanied it.

  “I also wanted to pay for the dessert I had,” he added.

  Wasn’t she ever going to be rid of him? “You had only half.”

  He nodded his agreement. “Which is another reason I’m back. I’d like to have the other half.”

  The lights were on, but there was obviously no one home. She almost felt sorry for him. But not quite. “We threw i
t away.”

  Unhindered by her hold, Jared stepped into the dining room again. “Then I’ll just have to order another piece.” He looked at her over his shoulder. “The taste of that one bite haunted me all night.” Perhaps “haunted” was a little strong, but sampling the delicacy had stirred a craving within him for more.

  Just as, he supposed suddenly, kissing Demetria Tripopulous might very well stir a craving for more. She had the kind of mouth that made a man stop in his tracks and begin to fantasize. Jared wondered if her lips ever stopped moving long enough for anyone to kiss her. He doubted it. Still, he would have liked to be the one to try. Just to see if he was right.

  He heard hands being clapped together, accompanied by a low squeal of delight. “Oh, look who is back. Mr. Panetta.”

  The next moment, Demi’s mother was joining them. Her eyes immediately alighted on the bouquet he was still holding. “And you brought Demetria flowers.”

  Like a miner trying to tunnel his way out of a cavein, Jared gravitated to the light in the woman’s eyes.

  “I’m afraid she doesn’t want them,” he said with just the right touch of sadness. Then, turning, he presented the bouquet to Antoinette with a courtly inclination of his dark head. “Roses always look better in the arms of a lovely lady.”

  Oh, he was good, Demi thought. Almost too good. And that was very, very bad. One look told her that her mother had sunk into the pool of his oily words like a piece of paper weighed down by a rock.

  “Oh, Mr. Panetta.” Her mother blushed like a schoolgirl.

  Jared shook his head in response. “Call me Jared, please.”

  Before she was through, she intended to call him son, and have him refer to her as Mother Tripopulous. Antoinette gave him a dazzling smile.

  “Well, ‘Jared-Please,’ make yourself at home.” With her free hand, she gestured toward a nearby booth.

  Demi stared, dumbfounded. Her mother was flirting with the snake.

  The snake smiled at her, satisfaction evident in his eyes, as he slid into the booth.

  “Thank you.” Turning, his eyes and his attention were all for her mother, but Demi would have sworn that she was the target of that studied, guileless look. “I came back for the baklava.”

  To Demi’s further horror, her mother seemed to think nothing of sitting down in the booth and joining this troublemaker. She was taking to him as if he were a long-lost nephew, brought by the angels to her doorstep.

  Didn’t her mother know the difference between angels and devils?

  “They always do,” Antoinette confided with pride. “They did even before Demetria played around with the recipe. But now, it is our most popular item. Somehow she has found a way to make the perfect even more so.”

  Demi struggled to bank down the flood of color she felt rising to her cheeks as Jared’s unabashed look slowly worked over her. She felt as if her clothes had suddenly vanished.

  “Yes, she certainly has,” he agreed with a smile that was nothing short of seductive.

  “I don’t have time for this,” Demi retorted, turning on her heel. Maybe if she ignored him, he’d go away. At least she would be spared having to be in the same room with him. “The Forakis christening party is coming at four and there’s still a lot of work to do in the kitchen.”

  “Send Lena out with two pieces of baklava,” Antoinette called after her daughter.

  Then she turned to study the young man sitting opposite her. She looked at him pointedly. “So, Jared, it is not that I do not appreciate roses, even secondhand ones, but you are going to need more than that if you intend to secure my daughter’s attention.”

  He began to say something, but she waved it away. It was probably some half-truth at the very least. Young people never fared well when they were confronted.

  “She needs a firm hand, my Demetria. Not to tame her, mind you, but to join with hers. Partners.” She brought her hands together and laced them to illustrate her point. Her eyes searched his face and she liked what she saw. “She does not respect a man she can rule or intimidate. Like her father, may he rest in peace,” she said, crossing herself to underscore her words, “she likes a partner who can outshout her on occasion.”

  A bittersweet, nostalgic smile crossed her face. It made her beautiful. The resemblance between mother and daughter was immediate.

  “I am telling you this in case you are here for more than just a taste of the baklava.” She winked at him broadly, her hand covering his in the way of a coconspirator.

  He was getting in a bit deeper than he’d intended. Jared debated how to play the cards he was holding. If he pretended to be interested in Demi, he knew that her mother would instantly be on his side. That kind of asset wasn’t something to shrug off lightly. He felt confident he could convince the older woman that it was a smart move to sell the restaurant to Winfield. This was an old-fashioned family and the opinion of a parent, no matter what was said to the contrary, was still something to be reckoned with.

  But using opportunities that came his way was one thing; being completely underhanded was another. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—do that. The trick here was being able to walk the fine line without losing his balance.

  His silent debate was cut short by a resounding crash coming from the kitchen. It was immediately followed by a high-pitched scream.

  “Excuse me. I will be right back,” Antoinette promised him.

  Moving with the ease of a young girl, she slid out of the booth and hurried to the kitchen to see what was wrong. She was still clutching the roses.

  It never occurred to Jared to hang back and wait for secondhand information. He was behind her by the time she pushed open the swinging door.

  Pieces of shattered plates, like a jagged circle of sharks, surrounded the young woman he saw in the middle of the kitchen. She looked almost hysterical as she choked back a sob.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she repeated over and over. As if the words could make the pieces come together again, making the plates whole. She was holding tightly on to her hand. Blood was oozing through the spaces between her fingers.

  Demi stepped over the baklava that lay like fallen soldiers on the freshly scrubbed floor, casualties of circumstances beyond their control. Quickly she examined Eleanor’s hand.

  “Hold your arm up,” she ordered, cupping Eleanor’s elbow and pushing it toward the ceiling. “It’ll help stop the bleeding.” She looked around for her cousin as her mother began to soothe the waitress. Eleanor was shaking like a leaf. “George, get the first-aid kit for me from the back.”

  Jared saw George’s expression at the same time that Demi did. Closer, Jared moved quickly enough to catch the cook before he passed out. His face was drained of all color.

  Half dragging the younger man, Jared got him to a chair. “Sit down and put your head between your knees,” he ordered. He looked up toward Demi. “Where’s the kit?”

  “In the office. In the back.” Belatedly she realized he was going there. “I don’t want you in my office,” she called after him.

  “I promise I won’t take anything,” he tossed over his shoulder. Was she always so suspicious, or was it just him? Obviously his charm was falling short of its mark, he thought. He had no idea why that amused him. It shouldn’t. It did.

  The office took him aback for a second. Organized to what some thought a fault, Jared shuddered at the chaos that greeted him.

  She ran the restaurant from here? It was a wonder that anything was ever accomplished if this paperlittered alcove was any indication of how she operated. It was the kind of mess that made him want to close the door and just walk away.

  But that wasn’t going to locate the first-aid kit for him. Moving things gingerly around, Jared began to search the desk. Since the office was small, there weren’t that many places to look.

  He found the first-aid kit on his third try, in the bottom drawer of a desk that had seen better times. Perhaps better decades.

  “Got it,” he called as he hur
ried out of the room. He flipped open the box and began rummaging through the contents.

  “Took you long enough,” Demi muttered.

  Her arm wrapped around Eleanor in mute support, Demi held out her hand toward Jared expectantly. Her hand remained empty. Surprised, she looked behind her. Jared had the blue box opened on the counter and was taking things out.

  Armed with what he needed, he approached the young woman. “Here, let me see that,” he coaxed gently, as gently as if he were speaking to Theresa, his five-year-old. Obediently, the woman extended her hand. “What’s your name?” he asked as he swabbed the jagged cut with peroxide.

  Her eyes followed his every move. “Eleanor,” she whispered.

  “That’s a very nice name, Eleanor,” he said softly. He tossed the bloodied cotton ball into the garbage. “I’m Jared.”

  “Thank you.” Eleanor hiccuped as she tried to get her sobs under control. “I’m so sorry, Demi. I didn’t mean to drop it. I was trying not to sneeze,” she explained timidly.

  “Of course you didn’t mean to drop it,” Demi said. Why was Eleanor reacting this way? Was the woman afraid of her? Had she really turned into some kind of ogre without realizing it?

  “I’ll pay for it,” she promised.

  Demi didn’t care for the look Jared slanted her. It said the very things she was thinking. “Don’t even think about it.”

  The first Band-Aid he’d applied to Eleanor’s wound was already beginning to turn red. “There’s so much blood,” Eleanor whispered.

  “It usually looks a lot worse than it is,” he assured her. Tearing off the wrapper from a couple more butterfly Band-Aids, he applied them one by one to the zigzag wound. “You shouldn’t have tried to pick up the pieces with your hand.”

  Eleanor bit her lower lip. “I didn’t think.”

  “Natural mistake.” One more Band-Aid and he was done. He gently slipped his hand from the woman’s. “I think you might need stitches. It’s too close to call. Best to have it looked at by a doctor.”