An Offer He Can't Refuse

by Christie Ridgway

  “Really.”

  “Do you think I should go?”

  “I think you should do what you want. What will make you happy.”

  “But what if something goes wrong? What if I fail? What if I end up losing…” She wanted to say you but didn’t have the guts.

  “I’m a gambler by profession, Rachele. I make my living by calculating odds. Nothing’s one hundred percent fail safe. You know that.”

  They were words that could have set her free. Should have set her free. Her father’s love and his assumed loneliness had tied her to Palm Springs. But now that she’d seen his true indifference to her, she should be taking chances and making tracks from the place in order to make her own life.

  But without any kind of tether she worried she might float away and never find her way back. Could she count on Cal or Téa and her family to be the anchor she seemed to need in order to fly free?

  Her shoe wobbled on a loose stone. She wavered, then felt the ledge beneath her feet crumble. With a little shriek, she lost her balance. Cal caught her against his chest as rocks tumbled to the ground around his high-tops.

  He felt solid and warm and she hung onto him. With her mother gone from this world and her father gone from her life, she probably clung too hard. Cal stiffened in her arms and she flushed, embarrassed by her neediness. She loosened her hold and struggled to get free of his clasp.

  He swung her outward so that she landed safely away from the now-broken ledge. “Oh, God,” he said, turning his back on her to look down at the destruction. “Oh, God.”

  Rachele frowned. “It’s all right. Johnny has to have the lagoon repaired if he wants to keep it, Téa said. I didn’t break it or anything.”

  When Cal didn’t move, she put her hand on his arm.

  He jumped, then spun toward her. “Let’s get out of here, Rachele.” His hands grasped her shoulders and he pushed her backward.

  “What’s the matter?” His shoulders were broad and she had to lean around him to assess the damage to the lagoon.

  It didn’t look any worse than it did on the far end, where other rocks had fallen as well. She squinted, something odd catching her eye.

  “Oh, God,” she said, echoing Cal.

  Thirty-four

  “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone”

  Doris Day

  Lullaby of Broadway (1951)

  Joey threw herself into a seat at the table where Téa was sitting alone. “Why are you looking so gloomy? The food’s great, the party’s rocking, no one’s died.”

  Téa shook her head. “Not yet.” She couldn’t shake the feeling that something might still go wrong.

  Eve sank into the chair on the other side of Téa’s, looking like an untouchable blonde statue in silver sequins. “Worrywart,” she declared. “I talked to a couple of the journalists. They were impressed with the house tour. The L.A. Times reporter is going to contact the editor of the Homes section. Johnny must have done a hell of a sell job for you.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he did,” Téa said. “He’s got great lines.”

  Joey glanced around. “Where is your B.F.? He should have had you out on the dance floor by now.”

  “B.F.?” She laughed. “He’s not my boyfriend.” Not only hadn’t she shared with her sisters that he was Giovanni Martelli’s son, she hadn’t told them her brief fling with the man was over.

  Eve frowned. “What did you do now, Téa?”

  Joey was looking at her with the same disapproval in her eyes.

  Téa avoided their gazes by transferring hers to the dance floor. “Look, there’s Mom dancing with Beppe. Maybe she can talk him into calling Rachele. The poor kid seems lost since she moved out of his house.”

  “You can’t keep turning your back on the men in your life,” Joey said. “You didn’t even wish Nonno a happy birthday.”

  Téa held onto her temper. “I found a new venue for his birthday party, didn’t I?”

  “Where, despite all your fears, the guests include the eminently respectable, such as several politicians, the police chief, heads of three local hospitals—”

  “Not to mention the dozen or so too-slick types who complained about the security check at the gate. Apparently they can’t really get down and party without carrying a piece.”

  Joey waved a hand. “You make too much of all that.”

  Téa bit back her reply. By never revealing the secrets of the Loanshark book, she’d protected her sisters from the gritty reality of their father’s life. They could still think it was all just rumors and innuendo, and there was no sense in tarnishing the crowns of Salvatore’s youngest princesses now.

  But they didn’t let the argument go. “We want to be a family again,” Eve insisted.

  “And you’re the one who’s making that difficult,” Joey added. “Can’t you just forget about the past so we can get on with the rest of our lives?”

  Heat rose like tiny hairs on the edges of her skin. She’d tried so hard to be good, she’d tried so hard to make up for what she’d done, that she’d let her sisters and everyone else pass judgment on her without a defense or demur. But the anger was breaking free of its bonds now. It expanded, filling her up, and she rose from the table as it rose like lava inside a volcano.

  “Don’t think you know what I should do,” she spit out, shaking with emotion. Her voice was too loud, but she didn’t care. “Don’t presume to tell me how I should live my life.”

  They were staring at her as if they could see steam pouring from the top of her head. “You don’t know me,” she told them, almost shouting. The words shook too, made heavy with molten emotion. “You’ve never known me.”

  Then she spun away from them.

  And found herself against Johnny’s chest.

  His hands closed over her upper arms. “Just the woman I wanted to dance with,” he murmured, then took a step back that brought them to the edge of the dance floor.

  She was rigid under his touch. “I don’t want to dance. I don’t want to be near you.”

  “You don’t want to cause a scene either, Contessa,” he said, bringing his mouth against her ear. “But people are looking and I somehow doubt you want to undo all that positive publicity you brought to yourself and your design firm tonight.”

  “I thought you told me not to be a good girl anymore.”

  “Ah, but you have to pick your moments. Save the fight you want to have with your sisters for another time.”

  Téa couldn’t stop her limbs from trembling, even as she glanced around and noticed the curious glances directed her way. Tears of frustration stung at the corners of her eyes. “I’ve tried to do the right thing,” she said fiercely. “I’ve tried to make up for what I did.”

  Johnny pressed his hand to her head, urging it against his shoulder. “Deep breaths, Contessa. Long, deep breaths.”

  All the deep breaths in the world weren’t going to fix this. Her sisters would never understand her unless she betrayed her father. The only person who did understand her, the one she was in love with, had betrayed her.

  Her head jerked up to stare at the man who held her in his arms.

  Oh, God. Oh, God. She’d done the unthinkable. The stupid. The thing she’d feared from the beginning. She’d gone ahead and fallen in love.

  She was in love with Johnny.

  Her heart stuttered. Her knees went soft as air caught in her lungs and found no way out.

  He just looked at her with that noncommittal expression on his handsome, varsity-captain-of-heartache face.

  She opened her mouth to gasp in oxygen and then another wave of anger and despair washed over her, tumbling her heart and her stomach in its wake. He’d made her vulnerable. And weak. Oh, God.

  “How I hate what you’ve done to me,” she whispered. “How I hate you.”

  His eyes closed. “No, Téa. Please. We’ve got to find a way around all this—our fathers, my mistakes.”

  There was no way around the fact that by making her fal
l in love with him he’d won. And she’d lost.

  Control. Pride. Power.

  Stepping back, she moved out of his embrace. But he grabbed her hands and held them so she couldn’t get away. “Contessa, please. I—”

  Then Cal was on the dance floor, grabbing Johnny’s arm and breaking his hold on her. The lanky man muttered something near the older man’s ear.

  Then, without looking back, Johnny hurried away from her.

  She stared after his retreating form, glad to be rid of him. Glad. With any luck, she’d never see him again.

  But no, she wasn’t glad, she thought, those frustrated tears pricking her eyes once more.

  Because he wasn’t the one who got to walk away! His didn’t get to be the last words! Maybe that was how to turn this evening into a true triumph. She’d take back her heart and her life by making clear how totally she despised him.

  Her gaze on the direction he’d taken, she followed.

  Téa found Johnny near the lagoon, standing by a section of collapsed retaining wall. Cal was at his side with a flashlight, while Rachele stood a ways off, one hand over her mouth, the other playing with her eyebrow ring. Her head jerked toward Téa.

  “Boss!” she called out, darting a glance toward the men. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

  Johnny and Cal spun toward her, and then Johnny sprinted to her side and took hold of her arm. “Contessa, go back to the party,” he ordered.

  “What?”

  His mouth was set in a grim line. “Go back to the party.”

  “Why?”

  He was breathing fast and rough, as if that sprint had been miles instead of a few yards. “Because…” His free hand wiped down his face. “Because, I need you to do as I ask. Please.”

  “Right.” She wrenched her arm from his and stomped toward the lagoon and the broken wall.

  The other three converged on her, blocking her view. “You don’t want to see this,” Rachele said, her voice pleading.

  Something cold tiptoed down the back of Téa’s naked spine. She’d never liked this part of Johnny’s estate, but now it and Rachele’s desperate voice were out-and-out spooking her. “What is it?”

  Cal looked at Johnny. He rubbed his hand over his face again, then gave a weary nod. The other man handed her something he held, then trained the flashlight on the object.

  It was a wallet. The black leather was moldy around the edges of the trifolds, and it felt chilled and damp beneath her fingers. “You found a man’s wallet.”

  “It’s your father’s,” Rachele whispered.

  Téa’s grip tightened for a minute, then she watched herself unfold the edges. The plastic sleeves inside were a little moldy too, but she recognized what they held as she flipped through them with her fingernail. A California driver’s license. Expired American Express and Visa. ATM card from Palm Springs Savings. A snapshot of Téa’s mother in a wedding dress and veil, looking young and achingly optimistic.

  Then the last photo. Téa almost smiled. The three little princesses, at ages four, six, and six, wearing white velvet dresses and gathered around a Christmas tree. She ran her fingertip over the plastic covering the picture. Her father must have taken it, she was sure, because each daughter wore identical expressions of smugness and joy. I know I’m your favorite, the three little faces seemed to say.

  Her father had been so good at making them believe in fairy tales.

  She looked up at the trio gathered around her. “So you found my father’s wallet.”

  “There’s more.” Johnny took a breath. “We think we found your father’s…”

  “What?” Knowledge was buzzing around her like an annoying fly, but she batted it away. “What else did you find? His keys? His handkerchief? A pair of sunglasses that he dropped into the water on some long-ago visit here?”

  It had to be one of those things, right? Something innocuous. Innocent. Though she hadn’t thought her father and Giovanni Martelli had a social relationship, there must have been one, or else his belongings wouldn’t have shown up at Giovanni Martelli’s house.

  “Téa…” Johnny’s voice drifted off again, and he squeezed the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

  She stared at him. Were those tears in his eyes? Her heart jolted, but she quickly seized back control. She wouldn’t go soft. She hated him.

  By some sort of tacit agreement, Rachele and Cal each took one of her arms and drew her away from the lagoon. Johnny followed, and they didn’t stop moving until they’d put the trellises she’d ordered between them and the murky water. Rachele took a seat on a smooth boulder and tugged Téa down beside her.

  Johnny crouched in front of her. For a second, she had the wild thought he was getting ready to propose.

  “Téa, there’s no easy way to say this.” His voice was hoarse. “We think…we think we found your father’s remains.”

  Her father’s remains?

  My father’s remains.

  Of course my father’s remains, she thought, as her brain seemed to pull away from her body. When she’d seen the wallet, when they’d said they’d found something else as well, she’d known it had to be that. Her father’s remains. She hadn’t wanted to believe it.

  “Are you sure? You’re certain it’s him?” She looked at the faces around her.

  It was Cal that nodded. Calvin, “The Calculator,” wouldn’t make that kind of mistake.

  Her father’s remains.

  Her father was dead.

  Odd, how strange it sounded when she’d been certain she’d accepted it so long ago.

  Johnny glanced up. “Cal, go back to the lagoon and make sure nobody else stumbles upon…what you did.”

  “Will do. Rachele and I saw some young guys with champagne bottles looking to hold a private bash and we think we sent them on their way, but I’ll keep an eye out.”

  Rachele rubbed her palms up and down Téa’s chilled arms. “Are you breathing, boss? You gotta keep breathing.”

  “My father’s dead. My father’s really dead.”

  “Oh, baby.” Johnny gathered her hands in his, then bent his head over them. Téa had the weirdest feeling that he was praying. “I’m sorry.”

  She stared at his thick shiny hair, the thick shiny hair of the man she love—no, hated. He looked up, and this time she was certain there were tears in his eyes.

  “I’m so sorry my father killed yours.”

  Thirty-five

  “You’re Breaking My Heart”

  Vic Damone

  Angela Mia (1959)

  Johnny was sorry that his father had killed hers. Téa just blinked at him. He thought finding the remains here, at Giovanni Martelli’s former house, was proof positive that his father was a murderer.

  “I didn’t want to believe it,” he said. His fingers dropped hers and he shot to his feet and rubbed both hands over his face. “I’m such a fucking fool. Everything that I did, every time I was with you, every time I touched you, teased you, took you to bed, I told myself it wasn’t so bad because I’d find out that my father had nothing to do with the death of yours.”

  Rachele clutched Téa’s arm. “What’s he talking about?”

  Téa closed her eyes, her emotions reeling. “He’s Giovanni’s son. Rachele, meet Gianni Martelli, aka Johnny Magee.”

  Rachele rose to her feet and sidestepped to stand between Téa and Johnny. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  “He seduced me under false pretenses.” Why pretty it up?

  “Shit,” Johnny muttered. “I think I’m going to be sick.” He ran into the nearby tangle of vegetation.

  Rachele stared after him. “This is seriously cracked.”

  “This is a serious mess.” Téa put her face in her hands. “We’re going to have to call someone, the police or—”

  “Let me take care of that,” Rachele said. “You stay here and keep breathing and I’ll go get…I’ll figure out who and I’ll tell them what they need to know.”

  Téa couldn’
t muster the energy to do anything else. She watched Rachele hurry off, her thoughts refusing to coalesce into anything meaningful. Instead, her mind replayed snippets of earlier conversations.

  Can’t you just forget about the past so we can get on with the rest of our lives?

  We’ve got to find a way around all this.

  I’m so sorry my father killed yours.

  In the distance, faraway strains of a song caught her attention. The band. That’s right, she thought dully, there was a party tonight. They were celebrating while her father’s remains were being uncovered.

  Then, closer, came other, more violent noises.

  Pop.

  Pop. Pop.

  Téa’s body jerked straight.

  Another pop, followed by the wild whoop of a young man.

  A final phrase echoed in her mind. Rachele and I saw some young guys with champagne bottles looking to hold a private bash…

  Still uneasy though, Téa came to her feet. “Johnny?” She took a step in the direction she’d last seen him take. “Johnny? Where are you?”

  When silence was her only response, she took a few more unsteady steps, her heartbeat stumbling as well. “Johnny! Johnny!”

  He materialized like a ghost between the trunks of two palm trees. His face was moonlight pale and his eyes looked flat. Lifeless.

  She hugged her body so that she wouldn’t go to him. “Are you hurt?”

  He moved, and immediately stumbled too, his momentum taking him forward until he found the boulder she’d been sitting on. He put out his hands, feeling for it as if he were blind, then sank down onto it.

  “Johnny, what’s the matter?”

  “It’s all the blood,” he muttered.

  Now she ran to him, patting him to find his injuries. “What blood? Where are you hurt?”

  He caught her hands. “Contessa,” he murmured. “This is real. You’re real.”

  “Of course I’m real.” His fingers were icy on hers. “I’m real and I’m right here. Are you hurt?”

  Squeezing her hands, he shook his head. “Not hurt.” His chest rose in a long, deliberate breath. “Talk. Talk to me.”