An Offer He Can't Refuse Page 17

  Johnny shrugged. “I had things to do.” The fact was, he’d been in no hurry to make contact. While he loved his family, he’d always felt outside the little genetic circle of Phineas, his mother, and half-brother Michael.

  But after that uncharacteristic, out-of-body episode in his bed with Téa this afternoon, he figured he’d benefit from spending some time with his nearest living male relative. It would remind him of exactly who he was. Smooth, cool Johnny who would never be fixated on the past. Smooth, cool Johnny who would never leave his bed partner flat.

  He tipped his beer bottle toward Cal. “This is Cal Kazarsky. Cal, meet my low-life little brother.”

  They shook hands. “Cool shirt,” Cal commented to Michael.

  His brother glanced down at his chest and smiled. The slogan of the day read: DON’T WORRY, IT ONLY SEEMS KINKY THE FIRST TIME. “I had to sneak it past Felicity. As much as I love the woman, she has no appreciation for my T-shirt humor.”

  “How is the new Mrs. Magee?” Johnny asked. His brother had married just a few months before.

  “See for yourself.” Michael picked up a remote control and thumbed it on. The television mounted overhead blazed to life, displaying the GetTV home shopping channel logo across the bottom and an irrepressible Felicity Charm Magee center screen.

  Cal scooted his barstool closer. “Hey, I recognize that woman. I’ve always liked her.”

  Michael shook his head in sympathy. “Everybody does. But she belongs to me.”

  Cal was already engrossed in the details of the product Felicity was selling. Michael glanced at the screen, then Cal, then finally Johnny. “Should we wrestle his wallet from him until she goes off air? She could cost him a bundle.”

  Johnny shrugged. “He can afford a bundle. He works for the syndicate.”

  “Still pulling in the dough, huh?”

  “You know me.” Yes, it had been a good idea to come here, he decided, tilting back his head to take another swallow of beer. Already he was feeling more like himself. Johnny Magee, successful professional gambler. Johnny Magee, who was successful because he was the kind of man who operated in a completely objective and unemotional manner.

  That was the true secret to success at gambling. Once you made decisions based on anything but logic, you were already a loser. Pure detachment was the best mind-set with which to play—at gambling and at life.

  “Yeah, I know you,” Michael said, leaning on the counter behind him and crossing his arms over his chest again. “And you look like hell, Johnny. What’s going on?”

  Unwilling to let his brother’s pronouncement ruin his happier mood, Johnny examined the label on his bottle of beer, running his finger around the edges. “Is it my fault you have no appreciation for good tailoring and shirts that don’t come complete with their own raunchy worldview?”

  “Oh, you still appear to have walked off page seventy-eight of this month’s GQ, and Felicity goes ga-ga over those kind of looks so I might have to deck you, but that’s not what I’m talking about. There’s something in your eyes.”

  “It’s the desert, it’s dry—”

  “It’s serious bullshit you’re trying to sell me, brother.”

  “Half-brother.” Johnny didn’t know what made him say it. No, that was bullshit too. He was warning Michael off, telling him he was getting too close. Johnny Magee, slick, cool Johnny Magee, liked his conversations, just like his relationships, shallow.

  “The Heisman isn’t going to work on me this time, Johnny.”

  The expression startled a laugh out of him. He hadn’t thought of it in years, the reference to the stiff-armed position of the Heisman Memorial college football trophy that was Magee family code for keeping someone at bay. “How is Phineas, by the way?”

  “Dad’s a little busy.”

  “Oh?” Johnny inspected the beer label again.

  “Yeah, he’s spending a lot of time tying Mom to chairs in order to keep her from flying down here and saving your ass.”

  He jerked up his head to stare at his brother. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  “You think she hasn’t figured out why you all of a sudden picked up your tent and hauled it down to Palm Springs? She’s been terrified of your father’s mob connections for years.”

  “We don’t know that there are mob connections, damn it.” Or mob criminal activity, either. The Mafia and his father’s murder had rarely been spoken of in the same breath within the Magee household, but it had always been there, just something else setting Johnny apart from the rest of the family.

  But he had to face the possibility that there was a real connection, now that neighbor Phillip believed it could be true. It was why Johnny had changed his mind on Friday night about taking Téa to bed. He’d figured she’d never forgive him or herself for making love with the son of the man who’d killed her father. But now he’d blown that scruple all to hell, hadn’t he?

  Worse, he hadn’t done something as civilized as make love to her. He’d lost his mind then lost himself inside her body.

  And gave her nothing back.

  Michael stepped closer, his gaze on Johnny’s face. “Are you trying to tell me this relocation isn’t about the Carusos?”

  Johnny hesitated. Bluffing was second nature, but lies never came easy.

  “He told me we moved here for you,” Cal tossed into the conversation, his gaze still glued to the TV screen. “To be nearer to you and your new wife.”

  This time it was Michael who laughed. “You’re too good at this, Johnny. But it won’t work with me. You need to save your fish stories for the part of the world that isn’t related to you.”

  “I came to your wedding,” Johnny protested. Damn it, that “you’re too good at this” remark didn’t sit well with him. First, it had come out of anchorwoman LaDonna’s mouth and now Michael’s. It was as if they thought he was only skin-deep.

  For God’s sake, he only wanted to live that way.

  “But you’ve been little more than a ghost to Mom and the rest of the Magees for at least the past decade.”

  Actually, for the last sixteen years, Johnny thought. When he’d returned home following his father’s murder he’d been numb. Not numb enough that he hadn’t noticed his family’s worried looks or their attempts to draw him back in. But getting close had meant getting personal, and he hadn’t wanted such intimate attachments anymore. Not with people, not to his own emotions.

  He sighed. “Listen, Michael. I’ll call Mom…soon. I’ll reassure her that—”

  “Oh, that you’re not looking into your father’s death? For God’s sake! The Carusos are dangerous. You’re the one who told me that a few months back. You know what happened to Felicity’s cousin.”

  “The woman doing the interior design of Johnny’s new house is named Caruso,” Cal piped up again. “Téa Caruso.”

  Michael groaned. “Johnny—”

  “She’s pretty hot,” Cal added, “Not that I’m interested in her. But I think your brother might be.”

  Michael groaned again, louder. “Johnny, no. You can’t be thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking. I know about those Caruso girls. Felicity went to school with them. If your idea of a righteous vendetta against that family is screwing one of th—”

  “I’m not screwing Téa!” Well, shit, the truth was, he had. “I don’t screw women.” Not usually, anyway, which was what made the afternoon’s episode with the contessa so unconscionable. Mr. Slick, Mr. Cool Johnny Magee didn’t have relationships on the heart-to-heart level, that was certain, but he did a damn thorough job on the body-to-body level. He prided himself on that. That was who he was.

  Michael stood over him, shaking his head. “These people are killers, Johnny.”

  “You don’t think I know that?”

  “You break the daughter’s heart and you might get more than your leg broken in return.”

  “I’m not breaking anyone’s heart.” But hell, he’d done something to Téa. The contessa had stared up
into that mirror, aghast, and declared herself a “mess.” What kind of asshole let a woman leave his bed with a comment like that? Especially when she’d looked as erotic and enticing as hell to him. Just the memory made him sweat.

  “Damn,” Cal said. He’d pulled out his phone and was looking down at it in consternation. “I want to buy that bracelet Felicity is selling for…for someone I know.”

  “There’s no cell service in Half Palm,” Michael told Cal. “Consider yourself lucky. I know I do. It’s how I met my wife.”

  Johnny polished off his beer, then stood up. “Come on, Cal, I’ll take you back to civilization and you can make your call from there.” He had things to do in Palm Springs as well, he decided, suddenly certain of his next move. It was time to even the score with a Caruso, all right.

  With Téa Caruso.

  It would be a start on reclaiming his identity that had been on unwelcome hiatus since his thirty-third birthday, the date those nightmares and flashbacks had begun. Mr. Slick, Mr. Cool Johnny Magee knew how to make a woman happy in the sack. He had to prove to himself that while he might be losing his mind, he hadn’t lost that.

  Twenty

  “Girl Talk”

  Bobby Troup

  Feeling of Jazz (1955)

  Téa studied the rows of hair styling products for sale at the front of the Kona Kai Spa’s beauty salon. Tight Control, Helmet Control, Iron Control, all of them sounded like something she could use…and not just on her hair. Frowning, she combed her fingers through the heavy mass and wondered why the pricey straightening process couldn’t seem to keep her waves tamed these days.

  “Well, well, well,” an amused voice—Eve’s—said. “This isn’t my sister, Téa Caruso, is it, playing hooky on a Tuesday, at eleven o’clock in the morning?”

  “I had an hair emergency,” Téa answered. Not to mention she was looking for any excuse to keep herself away from Johnny’s house today. Forever.

  “It looks fine to me.” Eve was dressed in something Donna Karan probably dreamed up, her hair in an effortless fall of blonde, her makeup nearly invisible.

  “It needs to be straight,” Téa insisted, pulling on the ends as she looked back at the pumps and aerosols. “Perfectly straight.”

  “It is perfectly straight.”

  “It doesn’t stay that way,” Téa grumbled, then she lowered her voice and told the truth, because if anyone might have some good advice for a woman on the morning-after, it would be Eve. “It doesn’t stay that way in bed.”

  “In bed?” Her sister sounded puzzled.

  Téa whispered this time. “In bed with a man.”

  Eve didn’t say anything more, but Téa felt her stunned stare all the same.

  She turned to frown at her sister. “Is it so hard to believe that a man would want to…to…you know, with me?”

  Eve blinked. “No, no, it’s not that. Not that at all.” She put out a hand and touched Téa’s arm. “It’s that I haven’t thought you wanted to…to…you know, in quite some time.”

  Because Téa had decided it was safer to be like their mother—single, celibate, successful. She still did. It was how to keep her secrets locked tight and her heart locked whole inside her chest. No sense in risking falling in love and wanting to marry because no respectable man would want to wed the Mafia association that would walk down the aisle with her. “It was a mistake, obviously.”

  “Obviously, why?”

  For starters, because she’d gone there that morning with the express purpose of doing business and nothing more. “He manages to get to me somehow. I don’t like it.”

  “Meaning he turns you on in a way that all those great-nephews and grandsons in your dating past never managed to.”

  “He probably thinks I’m easy,” Téa muttered, remembering how she’d looked in the mirrored ceiling. Her dress in disarray, her hair a wild mass, her underwear ringing one leg. She’d felt easy. He’d grabbed onto her in an obvious need for comfort and then she’d let that slide into a delirious roller-coaster ride of afternoon delight.

  Eve laughed the throaty laugh of a woman who’d loved and left a thousand men…and left them wanting more. “We’re not fifteen any longer. Forget all that guilt the nuns fed us. Real women experience lust.”

  Experiencing lust wasn’t the problem. Acting on it might be. Téa distrusted the sensation that it was her body taking over and leaving her control and common sense behind. “Anyway, the sex wasn’t that good.” Not that sex ever was.

  Eve raised an eyebrow. “Then you weren’t doing…you know, with Johnny Magee?”

  Téa half-turned back toward the hair products. “What does the who have to do with anything?”

  “He looks like he’d be good in bed, that’s all. There’s a certain…twinkle in his eyes.”

  “He is good in bed. It wasn’t him.” She didn’t know about the twinkle, but she knew he was long and golden and hard. His mouth set her on fire. When his tongue pressed inside her mouth she melted, just like that, her body ready for him. It had never been like that for her, never. The excitement of the lead-up had been more than she’d ever expected or experienced.

  But when it came to satisfaction, she’d always been better off on her own, without a witness.

  Eve sighed. “Téa, Téa, Téa—”

  “I don’t know what to do now, okay?” She swung around to face her sister. If she wasn’t envious of Eve’s beauty, she would give just about anything for an ounce of Eve’s sexual sangfroid. “How am I supposed to look him in the eye and do my job when the last time he saw me I was—” Flushed and wet and sprawled across the bed. She shivered thinking about it.

  Eve gave her a little smile. “I’ll tell you exactly what you should do about it. Listen to Big Sister Eve and I’ll clear it all up.”

  Téa rolled her eyes. “Big Sister Eve is younger than me by four months,” she pointed out dryly.

  “But decades older when it comes to men. So here’s my advice—”

  A speeding body whipped through the salon doors. “That’s it!” Joey slid to a halt in front of them, the gauzy skirt of her pale green dress whipping around her knees. “I’m buying a gun and I’m going to learn how to use it.”

  “Shh!” Téa said, glancing around to make sure no one had overheard. “Do you think that’s the kind of thing someone with the Caruso last name should go about screaming at the top of her lungs?”

  “I don’t care,” Joey said, sparks snapping in her dark eyes. “If I’m going to be called a kettle, I might as well be black.”

  “Shh,” Téa said again, though she doubted anyone could decipher her little sister’s last statement. “Keep your voice down.”

  Joey flapped her arms, impatient, as always, with any kind of restraint. “You have no idea what just happened to me.”

  A man strolled past the salon doors, that silver-haired boxer type that Téa had seen the week before in the gym. He glanced at the three of them, and gave a little nod. Though he moved on, the attention made her wary.

  “Let’s get smoothies from the juice bar and sit out by one of the pools,” she said, grabbing each sister by the arm. “We can find someplace private to finish our conversation.”

  Three skinny berry coolers later, they found a place in the partial shade of a large umbrella. Some spa guests were enjoying the warm sunshine as well—a European couple in matching thong bottoms and suntan oil, a recovering plastic surgery patient in face bandages and oversized sunglasses, a woman drying her wet pedicure while waiting for her next beauty treatment. Téa breathed in the air perfumed by flowers and grass and felt herself relax.

  Joey was more docile too, thank God, though she was quieted by the brain freeze she’d experienced with her first hit of icy drink. The girl didn’t have a cautious bone in her body, Téa thought, and she was paying for it now. Her eyes scrunched shut, Joey collapsed into a lounge chair, her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. “What were you guys talking about when I showed up?”

  Eve l
ifted her flawless profile to the sky. “Téa’s had you know with Johnny Magee.”

  “Eve.”

  One of Joey’s eyes popped open. “No kidding. I thought you’d sworn off—wait a minute, why are we calling it ‘you know’?”

  “You know,” Eve said, smiling.

  Joey nodded. “Oh yeah, because Téa’s a prude.”

  “I’m not a prude.”

  “Of course you are,” Eve replied. “That’s why my advice is that you should you know with Johnny some more. Many times.”

  Joey nodded in agreement again. “Oh, yeah, I think he has great prude-eradication potential. You might even be tardy a time or two after you-knowing your brains out. Would make the rest of us mortals feel a little better about our punctuality habits.”

  Téa stared at her sisters. “Your advice is that I go right back into the situation that made me feel awkward in the first place?” Then she crossed her arms over her chest, hoping she wasn’t sounding as shrill as she was beginning to feel. “And just why, exactly, do the two of you think you know so much about Johnny and his ability to…to…you know?”

  Joey had the answer to that one. “Because any person with eyes can see he’s a bad boy, Téa, and a bad boy is exactly what you need.”

  “An elegant bad boy,” Eve added, “which is the only kind that can possibly meet your high standards.”

  And get beneath her defenses.

  But she couldn’t let him.

  “Plus,” Joey added, “There’s the way he looks at you. Like you’re a lollipop and he’s one big tongue.”

  “Eww—” Téa started, then broke off. “Really?”

  But honest to God, that’s the way Johnny made her feel—sweet, and oh-so-lickable. But her feelings weren’t a good reason to get further involved. Anyway, he might not want to, considering the small fact that he hadn’t been himself before waking up and finding her holding his hand in his bed. He was likely regretting what happened as much as she.

  Joey slid a glance at Eve. “Let’s tell her we’ll put all her bras in the freezer again if she doesn’t agree to you know with him.”