by Jo Leigh
Grr…men. So untrusting.
But if Nick was frustrating her with his aloofness at the club by night, he was absolutely killing her by day. He’d come by several times in the past few days, popping into the bakery for a muffin and a coffee. Every time he was all cute and sweet and sexy. So different from the dark, brooding guy at the club that she’d have thought they were two different people.
She honestly didn’t know which man appealed to her more. Probably whichever one she happened to be with at the time. Funny…he knew her as two different women. And while his name was Nick either way, she knew him as two different men, too.
Both of them were messing with her head. She’d been making all kinds of stupid mistakes at the bakery today-like using peppermint extract instead of almond in a batch of cookies.
Giving up in the kitchen since she had several hours before the restaurant orders had to be delivered, she decided to do some paperwork before closing. It was well after lunch, she was working alone but could hear the bell if anyone came in.
But even that didn’t go well. She’d added up a column on a deposit slip four times and still hadn’t gotten it right. She was tempted to call Bridget to ask her cousin to straighten out her books. But judging by the conversation they’d had earlier in the day, Bridget had finally worked up the nerve to ask her shaggy-haired used car salesman out. And Izzie didn’t want to do anything to distract her.
Izzie just wished she had a distraction. Because she couldn’t get Nick out of her head. He’d invaded her life. No, both her lives. When he stared at her across the club and devoured her with his eyes at night while physically spurning her, she felt ready to howl in fury.
Showing up here by day-the handsome guy next door who wanted to lick the cream out of her cannoli-and her having to refuse him? It was pure hell.
She wanted Nick the bodyguard at night. Not Nick the sexy guy up the block by day.
She wanted sex. Not romance.
Wanted temporary. Not ever after.
Wanted to do him. Not date him.
It was simply a matter of wills to determine which of them got what they wanted first. God, she hoped it was her.
“Izzie?”
Startled, Izzie yelped and spun toward the front of the shop, seeing a customer at the counter. So much for thinking she’d hear the bell-she’d been deafened by her own thoughts.
Recognizing the woman, a weary smile curled her lips. Lilith was a regular, who could supposedly read the future. A bit out there, but a good customer, and a nice one. “I’m sorry.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “My head was in the clouds.”
“If the clouds all smell like this bakery, that’s not a bad place to be.”
Maybe for the customers. But after practically living in this place for two months, Izzie was over the nauseatingly sweet smells that invaded her nostrils from morning till night. “Believe me, it’s not so great going home from work with hair scented like anisette and clothes that reek of ginger.”
“On the positive side, they say the scent of licorice is great for dieters because it controls your appetite.”
Didn’t seem to her that the sexy, short-haired brunette had anything to worry about in that regard. Frankly, neither did Izzie. She’d long since lost her taste for sweets…no more cookie-induced panty girdles for her. “Twizzlers can keep it. I try to ignore the smells unless someone burns something.”
“Oh, come on, no one at Natale’s ever burns anything.”
Quickly washing her hands, Izzie had barely dried them before Lilith pointed with impatience at the lone cannoli remaining in the front display case.
When Lilith told her she’d be eating in, rather than taking the cannoli to go, Izzie asked, “Got a reading?”
While she didn’t entirely believe in that stuff, Izzie knew a lot of regulars swore by Lilith’s spiritual readings. Though she’d never considered it before, Izzie half-wondered if the other woman could help her figure out the quagmire that was her life. Especially the Nick part of that quagmire.
“Nah, I’m taking a break from the medium world right now.”
“Just my luck. For the first time in my life I think I’d actually pay to have someone tell me who the heck I’m going to be next week.”
Izzie the baker? Izzie the stripper? Izzie the New Yorker? Izzie the Chicagoan? Izzie the horny?
That was the one she really wanted an answer to. Was she ever going to get laid again, and oh, please, please, please, would it actually be Nick Santori who did the laying?
She didn’t ask Lilith any of those things, though the medium promised she’d try to help her as soon as she was “back in business”-whatever that meant. But that might be too late. She might already have done something stupid-like having sex with Nick the bouncer as the Crimson Rose. Which would be fabulous but would make him hate her if he found out the truth.
Or something more stupid, like going out on a date with Nick, the guy up the block, which would have her parents planning their wedding. Then she’d hate herself.
Ordering a cappuccino to go with her treat, the mysterious brunette made herself at home at a front table, firing up a laptop. After making the frothy cappuccino, Izzie carried it over. “Doing some surfing?”
“I’m going to try. The most I’ve ever used the Web for is updating my Web site and answering e-mail.”
“Don’t forget shopping. Or maybe you’re going to start haunting chat rooms?”
“No, I’m doing research.”
Leaving the woman to it, Izzie went back to work. Concentrating on cleaning out the display cabinet, she was surprised to hear the bell jangle as another late-day customer came in. This one she didn’t recognize-and she definitely would have, if she’d seen her before. The leggy brunette was dressed entirely in sleek, black leather and she looked like a predatory cat. The sexy little motorcycle parked outside the door suggested the woman was a risk-taker and a rule-breaker.
Izzie liked her on sight.
“Hey, Izzie,” Lilith called, “what do you know about computers?”
Offering the new customer a quick smile, she answered, “Well, I don’t know how to find any naked pictures of Heath Ledger, and I haven’t figured out how to send a death ray to spammers, but I do the Web site for the bakery.” It was a basic one, but Izzie was pretty proud of it.
“I hear ya. So you know how to enlarge pictures? Other than ones of naked movie stars?”
Izzie grinned. “Yeah, give me a sec.” She looked at the newcomer. “What can I get you?”
“Espresso and a cannoli.”
“Sorry, Lilith took the last.”
Settling for just the espresso, the woman paid her and waited for her drink. After making it, Izzie went over to Lilith to see what help she could offer.
It wasn’t much. It turned out the medium needed to enlarge a grainy newspaper picture in order to see a ring on some guy’s finger. And Izzie just didn’t have the know-how to do it.
The newcomer in black leather, however, did. Joining them, she asked a few questions, then bent over Lilith’s computer and went to work. Watching her type, her fingers flying on the keys, Izzie figured she was experienced at this. But when the woman acknowledged that she was hacking into the newspaper Web site to try to find the original photo, she suspected there was a lot more than simple ballsiness to the woman.
She was mysterious. Maybe even a little dangerous.
They both seemed that way, really. Lilith with her supposed psychic abilities. This woman with her risky, who-gives-a-damn attitude. So unlike little Izzie of the bakery.
Maybe, however, not too unlike the Crimson Rose. She wondered what these two would think if they knew she wasn’t quite the sweet, simple bakery worker she appeared to be.
“Who is this guy, anyway?” the stranger asked. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to figure out if that ring is a wedding band and he’s the asshole you’ve been dating for the las
t three months.”
“Ew.”
“So he’s not your lover.”
“Say that again and I’ll dump the dregs on you. He’s a jerk I’m investigating.”
“A jerk?” The stranger snorted. “What makes him different from every other man on this planet?”
“Good question,” Izzie muttered, though her heart wasn’t really in it. Nick had always been one incredibly good guy. The fact that he wouldn’t have sex with her as a stripper didn’t mean he was a jerk.
Even though he was.
She wandered away from the other two, cleaning off the empty tables in preparation for closing. As she worked, she kept up with the other women’s conversation, trying to stay out of it, but unable to when she heard who Lilith was currently dating. Hearing that the sexy medium had hooked up with Mac Mancuso, a nice boy-next-door type turned Chicago cop, she had to put her two cents in. Mainly because their situations-whether Lilith would believe it or not-were very similar.
“Mac’s not a jerk. He grew up just a few blocks from here. Our families know each other. I’d think any woman would love to catch a good, honest cop like him.”
The stranger in black immediately stopped typing. “You’re sleeping with a cop.” Somehow, Izzie suspected the woman was allergic to anyone official-especially the police.
“I’m sleeping with him, not married to him,” Lilith insisted. “Trust me when I say that my definition of right and wrong varies from his by huge degrees.”
Huh. Sounding more and more like Izzie’s situation. She almost wished she and Lilith were alone so they could talk.
“Keep working and your next ten espressos are on me,” Lilith told the other woman.
“I won’t be around that long, but thanks for the offer.”
“Add her to my tab,” Lilith told Izzie. “Any time she stops in, coffee’s on me.” Glancing at the stranger, she asked, “What’s your name?”
“Seline.”
Amused since Lilith’s tab currently took up two pages in her accounts book, Izzie asked, “Does that mean you’re actually going to pay it someday?”
Lilith shrugged in unconcern, watching as Seline kept working. When she finally struck pay dirt and got Lilith the information she wanted, they both seemed triumphant.
Izzie only wished her problems with Nick could be solved with an Internet search. Unfortunately, if she searched for the stuff she wanted to do with Nick Santori on the Internet, she’d probably get inundated with spam from sites like bigpenises.com from now till eternity.
Finishing up her cappuccino and shutting down her computer, Lilith thanked Seline for helping her out, then turned to Izzie. “Thanks for the sugar boost and the wi-fi.”
“Anytime.” Unable to help it, Izzie called out, “Lilith, don’t be so quick to write off a great guy like Mac. Maybe you and he can find a way to make it work, even if you think there’s no way it ever could.”
And maybe she was a sucker who should still be reading fairy tales. But hey, it didn’t hurt to dream, did it? Even if she was dreaming on behalf of someone else.
Once Lilith was gone, the other woman, Seline, approached the counter. Even her walk was feline-sultry-and Izzie wondered if she’d ever danced before.
“Here,” Seline said. She put a one-hundred-dollar bill on the counter. “For her tab. I sense that she needs the money more than I do. And I don’t have to be psychic to figure that out.”
Stunned, Izzie murmured, “Thanks.” She opened her mouth to say more-to offer the money back-but the mysterious woman in black had already turned toward the door, her coffee in hand. She walked out into the bright sunshine without another word, got onto her sleek motorcycle and roared away down the street.
BRIDGET DONAHUE had always known she would never be wildly sexy and self-confident like her cousin Izzie. But there were times when she allowed herself to think that, maybe, since they were related, Bridget had a tiny bit of Izzie-power trapped deep inside her. So ever since she was a kid, she’d played a game. WWID, aka What Would Izzie Do? And then she’d try to do that.
Asking Dean Willis to go out with her one day at lunchtime had definitely been a WWID moment. And Bridget still couldn’t believe she’d gone through with it. But if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t now be sitting at a coffee shop, looking across the table at his handsome face. Make that staring at his face.
Staring. Izzie wouldn’t stare. Bridget ducked her head down, focused on her cup of Earl Grey tea. Not the double shot espresso she probably needed-because of her “I don’t drink coffee” fib-but okay…mainly because of the company.
“You ready for a refill?” Dean asked.
Bridget shook her head. “I’m fine, thanks.”
They weren’t at her uncle’s bakery, but at a big chain place not far from her apartment. Bridget had chosen the spot, which seemed safe, neutral and impersonal. Not the kind of place that said she thought they were on a date. Not the kind of place where a date would be absolutely out of the question.
God, she sucked at this. Izzie would have met him at a hotel bar.
Small steps, she reminded herself. Asking a man out was a first for her. It wasn’t that she’d never dated-or that she was completely inexperienced. But if Izzie was on the top rung when it came to dealing with men, Bridget was still pulling the ladder out of the cellar.
They sat in an alcove by the front window. Bridget had her chair pushed back from the table, to accommodate the length of his legs beneath it. He looked crowded-bunched up in the small chair and the small corner-but he hadn’t complained.
“You must be tired of hearing me rattle on about my landlord problems,” she said as the conversation lagged. “I haven’t seemed to shut up.”
He shook his head. “You’re easy to talk to.”
“You haven’t been doing much talking…just listening.”
“You’re easy to listen to,” he replied with a small smile.
Nice answer. And it was mutual, because he was also very easy-easy to like. But she still didn’t feel like she knew anything about him. “So how do you like working for Marty? You’ve sold more cars in the month you’ve been there than any other salesman has sold in the past three.”
He shrugged. “It’s not hard when you have good products to sell.” Lowering his gaze, he reached for his cup. “I guess you’d know that since you’ve worked for Marty longer than I have.”
Sighing, Bridget shook her head. “Not much longer.”
“Really?”
“I started just a couple of months before you did so I don’t know much of anything, either.”
He frowned. “But you keep the books, surely you know how things are going. I bet the place is raking in the bucks, huh?”
Grunting in annoyance, she admitted, “I have no idea. I see just enough to keep the books balanced and not much else.”
Dean stopped stirring his tea and lifted his eyes to hers. Leaning forward over the table, he asked, “You don’t know anything about what’s going on at Honest Marty’s Used Cars?”
“I know Marty’s a bit of a con artist,” she said tartly. “Honesty is just one of his…embellishments.”
She suspected her boss also embellished some other things-like stuff he told the IRS. But she didn’t have proof and was not about to say such a thing to anyone else.
He persisted. “But you must make the deposits, pay the invoices, keep an eye on the accounts receivable.”
“I take what he gives me and do what I can.” Shrugging, she added, “Honestly, I don’t know much of anything about the business, it’s all I can do to keep the checkbook balanced.”
He held her stare, his blue eyes looking searchingly into her face, as if he was trying to find the answer to some question. She couldn’t imagine what. She had no idea why he was so interested in the financial dealings of their employer.
Then she thought of something. It could be a matter o
f job security. Dean was personable and a good salesman, but he didn’t exactly dress like someone who had a lot of money. The sports coats he wore to work usually didn’t fit well across his broad shoulders, and his pants were sometimes a little shabby.
Dean hadn’t said a lot about what he’d done before coming to Honest Marty’s. For all she knew, he’d been put out of work by poor management at his last job. That would certainly be enough to make anybody ask questions, especially somebody who lived paycheck to paycheck, as she suspected he did.
Not wanting to embarrass him, she carefully tried to set his mind at ease. “Look, I don’t know specifics, but I know the dealership’s doing well. I see the number of cars coming onto the lot and the number leaving it. You don’t have to worry.”
He frowned, as if not understanding what she meant. Some impulse made Bridget reach across the table and put her hand on his. She almost pulled her hand back right away, surprised to feel a warm tingle where skin met skin. But, swallowing for courage, she left it there. Like Izzie would.
If this was a date, he’d interpret her touch as a signal that she wanted more. If it was not a date, he’d interpret it as concerned friendship. Bridget considered it a little of both. “Your job is secure.”
He was staring at their hands, still touching. “My job?”
He sounded-distracted. As if he was as affected by their touch as she was, which gave her a little thrill. “Marty would be a fool to let you go. You’re the best salesman he’s got.”
He said nothing at first, he just slowly twined his fingers in hers, rubbing at the fleshy pad of her palm with the tip of his thumb. Her pulse raced and she wondered if he could feel it throbbing right there below her skin.
She somehow managed to concentrate on getting a positive message across, ignoring the tingling in her fingers and the flip-flopping of her heart. “It’s okay, I know what it’s like to worry about making ends meet, but please don’t worry about the company. I’m sure you’re not going to lose your job.”
He looked up at her, his jaw dropping. “Lose my…”
“I thought that’s why you were curious.”