The woman standing before him stared, and he stared back, cataloging every detail of her face to keep from falling into the flashback. He took in the smooth skin of her wide forehead, the exotic tilt of her eyes, the lock of hair that wiggled across one olive-toned cheek to catch in the corner of her full mouth. She hooked it away with her pinky and he counted out its three-second float to the join the rest of the wavy, vital mass.
God, she was gorgeous.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
No. His hands were icy and his breathing shallow and he realized that somewhere between his father’s former house and here, ghosts had clambered aboard his back. Jesus. Jesus. Upon his arrival today at the El Deseo property, though he’d avoided entering the house itself, he’d made a quick tour of the grounds. He’d felt nothing there.
Now, though, now it was as if damp, dead breath was crawling down his neck.
He twitched his shoulders and focused on the contessa again. It wasn’t a hardship. She looked so warm and so filled with energy in her wrinkled dress and with her mussed, wild hair that he had to dig his fingers into the jamb instead of digging them into the lush curves of her figure to remind himself he was still of this world.
He was almost grateful when his cock stirred. The response was inconvenient, but at least he knew that one part of him was alive, well, and apparently quite willing to function.
“Are you okay?” she asked again.
“Go out for a drink with me,” he heard himself say.
She gave him a it’s-a-full-moon-and-you-just-grew-fangs look. “What?”
“Go out for a drink with me.” Okay, so he was as surprised as she was by his abrupt request, but right now he didn’t want to be alone and he did want to be with her.
So he cleared his throat, forced his arms to drop to his sides, and tried to appear as slick and easy as he’d felt for all the years of his adult life until this last one. “We can talk.”
“But I…”
He could tell she was searching for an excuse, but he wouldn’t let her discomfort or his own guilt deter him this time. After this little episode in her doorway, it was clear once again that he had things to do. Demons to exorcise. “But what?” he pressed.
Her hands fluttered around her hips, in a gesture as uncertain as her obvious mood. “I…I’d need to change.”
Letting out a silent breath, he took a step inside, crowding her backward. “No problem. I’ll wait.”
She went along with it. Redesigning the house must be that much of a prize, he figured, because his strange behavior during the past few minutes must have made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t. She disappeared down a hallway and he heard a door close, lock.
Good for you, Contessa. Keep your guard up.
Minutes ticked by, and the ghosts riding his shoulders disappeared. His own guard relaxed. Remembering why he’d forced himself into her place to begin with, he ambled around Téa’s living room, looking for more clues to her and her father’s family. The only photo she displayed, however, was of three females. The oldest in it had to be Téa’s mother, while beside her stood a twenty-something blonde, and then beside her was another brunette with an engaging grin.
He was still studying the picture when he heard Téa come into the room behind him. “Beautiful women,” he offered as he turned, expecting to see another one.
But this…this lady, well, it wasn’t that she wasn’t beautiful. It was that she wasn’t…well, she was Téa, but she wasn’t the same wet and curvy contessa who’d barefooted it home.
He stared. She wore a neck-high, knee-length navy blue suit that would put even a born-again accountant to sleep. Matching pumps with medium heels were locked about her ankles with sturdy straps. Her natural plum lip color was muted to something barely there, and the lips themselves were as tightly clasped as her fingers.
Most changed of all was her hair. The glorious tumble that had rippled with life after her dunking in the pond was now tamed into strands as straight as a Young Republican. She’d clipped them behind her head in a no-nonsense, no-fun style.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
No. But he resisted the urge to tell her that truth, because no matter what, it was time to go forward. Getting close to her, and through her, close to her family, was his plan, after all. By buying the house and making contact with the designer, he’d anted-in. The game was already under way.
It didn’t change a thing that he had the sudden, disturbing idea that Téa Caruso might have even more secrets than he.
Six
“Quiet Village”
Martin Denny
Exotica (1957)
By some stroke of luck, Téa had a second chance to make a good first impression and this time she wasn’t going to blow it. As she walked with Johnny through the dusk to her car—it seemed more businesslike for her to chauffeur the potential client than the other way around—she glanced over at him. He was awfully quiet.
“Would you prefer to go back to your house for our meeting?” she asked.
His steps faltered, his sudden stillness reminding her of that odd moment in her doorway a few minutes before. Then he shook his head. “I’d rather save that for daylight.”
When chances were slimmer that she’d end up in an open body of water and make a further fool of herself, Téa finished for him, stifling a sigh. The man must have serious doubts about her now. He had to be wondering just what kind of woman he’d approached for the design job.
But by the time they finished their drinks he would know, she promised herself. He’d see her as a cool, consummate professional, because she’d make sure she acted like one.
Inside the confines of her car, however, doubts washed over her again. She drew in a breath, but that only drew in him, his heat, his scent, the maleness that was so…so other to her. Of course, that was only natural, right? Though she’d grown out of her adolescent puppy-love for beautiful boy jocks, in her line of work she didn’t often deal with straight men. If roped into a meeting by his wife, a male client would make it brief. He wanted to be assured of only two things: one, that the designer wouldn’t go over budget, and two, that she wouldn’t undersize the couches and the chairs.
“Téa?”
She started, realizing they were still in her driveway. “I’m sorry,” she said, with a hasty turn of the key, “I was lost in my own thoughts.”
“Not second thoughts, I hope. It occurs to me I might have interrupted plans you already had for the evening.”
“Oh, no.” She reversed the car then put it in forward gear for the short drive to Stellar, the restaurant/bar she’d decided upon. “This is fine.”
“No date with a boyfriend?”
“No.” Not that she’d share it with him, but dates and boyfriends were rare in her life, again, to some degree, because of the very few eligible men she met in the design business. Of course, her clients could never resist fixing her up. But that pool of potentials was filled by sons, grandsons, and great-nephews whose prevailing characteristic was their inability to say “no” to the female relatives in their lives.
It might sound like a wonderful quality until you understood that it also meant they were the kind of men who trusted older women to make so many of their decisions for them. They tended to wear Arnold Palmer golf sweaters in Easter egg colors and flip-on sunshades over their glasses. They drove Lincoln Continentals with back seats roomy enough for Aunt Elizabeth’s or Nana Mae’s entire bridge foursome. They knew the early-bird specials on every menu in town.
They were nothing like Johnny Magee.
He shifted in his seat, redoubling her awareness of him. She sucked in another breath of his scented male warmth. No, they were nothing at all like Johnny Magee.
He watched the gypsy girl with impassive, sea-colored eyes. Then his masculine hand reached toward her flesh, flesh that was trembling despite the warmth of the fire. Fingertips curled over the edge of her filmy peasant blouse and drew it down, down, down—
> That hard male hand shot out to cover hers on the wheel, and jerked left. “Watch out.”
She braked, just as a car pulled from a space in Stellar’s congested lot and nearly into them if not for Johnny’s quick reflexes. “Thanks,” she croaked out, her face burning as red-hot as her fantasies. Somehow she’d dreamed all the way to Stellar and almost steered into a fender bender in the process.
She glanced over her shoulder, now even more embarrassed. “I don’t know what I was thinking of…I meant to stop at the parking valet.”
“No problem,” he said. “Take the open spot right here.”
His hand slipped away from hers but both the sensation of his touch and her self-consciousness lingered as they walked toward the restaurant. He held the door open for her and she brushed by him, raising a prickly set of goose bumps beneath the all-business fabric of her blue suit.
To remind herself that this was business, she took the lead at the reservations station, explaining to the inquiring hostess that they were just going into the lounge for a drink. It came as no surprise, though, that while she conducted this short transaction he went ahead and scored the last table in the expansive, but now standing-room-only bar. He was the type who would. With his arms stretched over the back of the cushions behind him, he appeared calm and relaxed as he watched her approach the far corner where he was waiting.
His gaze made her jittery again. As she threaded her way toward him, she couldn’t help but wonder what he saw when he looked at her.
A responsible-looking woman, she hoped he was musing. Competent, qualified. Detail-oriented.
And that’s what he’d continue to see, Téa told herself. Marching forward, she squared her shoulders and set her spine as straight as a debits column. He wouldn’t shake her all-business demeanor again.
Still four tables away, he smiled at her. A lazy smile.
What’s she wearing beneath that boring little suit? she thought she heard him say in her head.
His gaze flicked down to her legs.
And she’s added to her armor with stockings now. What could she be trying so hard to hide?
Téa’s stride hitched. She considered running back to her car. But then a white-shirted cocktail server strode up to the table. With her view of Johnny blocked, she shook her head, jarring loose the silly notion that she’d heard what he’d been thinking. That he’d been thinking anything the least bit personal about her.
This was business.
With that firmly in mind, she reached the chair across the table from him just as the waiter hurried off. “Pinot Grigio okay?” Johnny asked, his expression showing nothing more than friendly politeness. “The place is so crowded I was afraid he’d never make it back if I said I needed more time.”
“Pinot Grigio’s fine.” She settled into her seat, then took a breath, paused.
His head tilted, blond hair brushing his collar. “Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing at all.” Téa refused to be derailed by anything this time, so she hurried into the speech that she’d prepared. “I’d like to spend a few minutes acquainting you with my firm and my goals for your project. Then we can move on to your questions. Is that all right?”
He shrugged. “I have your firm’s brochure. I don’t think we need to go over that information again.”
“Oh. Well.” She hid her disappointment at losing the opportunity to speak aloud the impressive phrases she’d stockpiled. “Fresh outlook on mid-century modern,” (never professionally designed in that style). “Exclusive attention from the design team,” (she was the design team). “The firm’s calendar adjusted to work with yours,” (there was no job on her schedule as prestigious as this one). “I guess we can just go ahead with your questions, then.”
There was another pause while the waiter delivered their drinks. Johnny took a swallow of his rum and Coke, then cocked an eyebrow her way. “Where were we again?”
Her wine was crisp and cold and if she wasn’t careful, it would go right to her head. “I’m ready to answer any questions you might have about the project.”
He waved a hand. “I trust your judgment on that. I have few worries as long as you don’t go wildly over budget and don’t—”
“Undersize the couches and the chairs,” she finished for him.
He laughed. “Exactly. So you read minds?”
No! “No.” She took another sip from her glass. “It’s a common concern.”
“What I would like to talk about—” He broke off as a commotion heightened the already loud level of noise in the bar. “Is that Melissa Banyon?”
Téa glanced over her shoulder and couldn’t miss the chestnut-haired sultry sex-kitten who’d won an Academy Award for best supporting actress the previous spring. She stood at the entrance of the bar in an electric blue dress and a pair of matching stiletto sandals.
“With her just-as-famous French fiancé, Raphael Fremont, in tow,” she said. “They’re newly engaged, and they won’t be the last celebrities you spot in Palm Springs.”
Johnny’s eyes were all for mega-star Melissa. Great tits, fake as forty-four dollar bills, but great to look at all the same.
“What?” Téa said, staring at him. “What did you say?”
Johnny’s gaze returned to her face and he frowned. “I didn’t say anything.” He raised his glass to his mouth. “Though I was about to ask about you.”
“Me?” On the other side of the bar the noise rose again and she ignored it as best she could. “You said you’d looked over my firm’s brochure.”
“I don’t want to know more about your firm, I want to know more about you.”
There was a smile in his eyes, a friendly enough smile, but all Téa’s internal alarms started ringing. Every instinct told her to keep it all-business, all-the-time between them because even at that he could still knock her silly with his all-star good looks and his let-me-take-you-down-to-silk-sheets voice. “I don’t think…I don’t want…”
“Hey, no need to be so nervous. I’m not with the IRS.”
She tried to smile. “I haven’t done anything illegal.” Recently.
“I only thought we might work better together if we knew each more…personally.” He laughed. “Now you look as if I’m asking for your social security and Swiss bank account numbers. Téa, I assure you my intentions aren’t as sinister as that.”
Of course not. He didn’t know sinister like she did.
And then it hit her. Hard.
The birthday party. Her grandfather’s impending retirement. Meeting Johnny had pushed them both from her mind. But by the end of the month they’d be big news, and stories of the Carusos’ shady activities were going to be hitting the papers again, big-time. She knew Johnny Magee wasn’t the type of man who would miss the connection. What she didn’t know was if he was the type of man who would overlook it, no matter how strictly law-abiding she was these days.
In the spirit of honesty and full disclosure, she thought with a sigh, she supposed she was obligated to get personal after all, and explain to him she was a mob boss’s daughter.
How many clients would the association cost her as the media publicized the mob angle? How many more if she allowed herself to be lured back into the bosom of the family?
“Johnny, I…” I might be kissing this job good-bye. “I—”
A flurry of sapphire silk and Shalimar swirled near, then dropped onto the cushioned bench opposite Téa and right beside—almost right onto the lap of—Johnny. “Hello, my loves,” the actress Melissa Banyon trilled, in her little-girl-lost voice. “Have you been waiting for me long?”
Téa glanced over at Johnny, but he was looking in the general direction of the actress’s breasts again. “I, um, don’t believe we’ve actually met,” she said.
“We’ll fix that right up.” She grabbed Téa’s wineglass and gulped the contents down. “I’m Missy, and you are the most interesting in the room.”
Since she was beaming all her A-list power at Johnny while
she said this, Téa figured the comment didn’t include her. But then the actress aimed her famous violet eyes her way. “Don’t you just want to eat him up?”
Téa glanced over her shoulder to where Missy’s Frenchman was smoldering from a spot at the bar across the room. “I thought he was wonderful in The Foreign Legion. I saw it twice.”
“No, no, no.” Missy Banyon gave a flamboyant wave of a hand heavy with rings. “Not him. He’s nothing. He’s an im-bay-ceel.”
Her French accent was atrocious.
“He’s your fiancé,” Téa thought she should add.
“And so, so stupid.” She turned to Johnny and arched her back so her breasts poked out like super-sized cupcakes. “Don’t you think?”
He yanked his gaze off those silicone works of art to take in the angry-looking man at the bar. “I think this is where I keep my mouth shut.”
Missy didn’t seem to mind carrying on the conversation alone. Still chattering away, she clapped her hands together to send the waiter scurrying for more drinks. No one, besides Raphael, of course, seemed the least bit perturbed or surprised that the actress had joined their table.
It was a Palm Springs tradition, this fond indulgence of the Hollywood set that cruised so freely about town. Their presence was, after all, what had put the place on the map, and those who made their living off the rich and famous—which was all of them to some degree or another—regarded celebrities with the same affection as highly paid nannies for charming, yet overpampered children.
Looking at the impossibly lovely Missy Banyon, Téa tried hard to feel accordingly. But it was one thing to let a Hollywood couple be given the best table in the room and quite another to confront one of People magazine’s Most Beautiful People across your own. Dropping her gaze to her empty glass, Téa tugged on her sleeves, dusted off nonexistent lint, and hoped she appeared as invisible as she felt. As the awkward teenager inside of her started to awaken again, her hand wandered toward the star-shaped bowl of saturated fat nibbles in the center of the table.
An Offer He Can't Refuse Page 5