An Offer He Can't Refuse Page 28

  Angry at him or no, the amount of work Téa had accomplished in the last week and a half astonished him, from the gleaming turquoise-blue tiled floor in the living room to the lush yet simple red velvet armchairs in the office. She’d been at the house eighteen hours a day, rushing here and there in a flurry of flushed cheeks and wild hair that sent his imagination spinning toward sex.

  Of course, she’d always sent his imagination spinning toward sex. Maybe that was why he’d B.S.’d his way into an affair with her in the first place. Thinking only with his little head.

  Damn his own weakness. Badass gambler and all-around ultracool bachelor Johnny Magee knew that operating from detachment and logic was the only way to win. It didn’t make sense that he’d forgotten that.

  But he remembered now. So he was going to keep his distance from her tonight. He’d play the hand she’d dealt him—taking care of the reporters and ensuring the good publicity she wanted—but he’d stay at the periphery of the party and away from her.

  “You gonna talk to that grandfather of Téa’s?” Cal asked. “That Cosmo?”

  Johnny adjusted the cuffs of his white shirt and fastened the top button of his jacket. “Cosimo. And no, I think I’ll leave the old man in peace on his eightieth birthday.”

  Johnny’s fact-finding mission into his father’s life and death was as over as his relationship with Téa. Short of demanding a confession from a Mafia don regarding a crime without a statute of limitations, there wasn’t anything else he could do. In any case, his questions had always been about what crimes his father had committed rather than those committed against him.

  He’d wanted to believe his father wasn’t a killer. Without definite proof to the contrary, he still could if he wanted to.

  And that’s just what he’d do, Johnny decided, letting out a long breath. Tomorrow, next week, very soon, he’d shake the sand of this desert paradise off his shoes and go someplace else. He might wake up in a cold sweat at 1:09:09 for the rest of his lousy life, but when he woke up he’d tell himself his father was innocent. Damn it, he knew he was.

  “Let’s go check out Party Central,” Johnny said to Cal. “Make sure that the last details are done.”

  Dusk was settling into night as they made their way to the long, wide fairway of the golf course’s first hole. Three tents were set up there, one for drinks, one for dinner, and one for dessert. A large catering staff bustled about each. “Forty-five minutes until the first of the guests arrive,” a dark-suited man called out to the bartenders in the first tent. “Get that glassware polished.”

  Johnny and Cal came to a stop between the second and third tents, where a large wooden dance floor had been laid out. Fairy lights were strung from a central pole in the dance surface then looped to a lower framework that ran around its edges, creating a “roof” that twinkled like stars. A nine-piece band was already setting up music stands and opening instrument cases.

  “Oh, there’s Rachele,” Cal said, in that besotted tone he usually saved for his latest iMac laptop.

  She was emerging from the third tent, a clipboard in hand. A slinky green dress, resembling the satin lingerie of some silent-era Hollywood star, petaled around her knees like a mermaid’s tail.

  Johnny gave her an admiring once-over as she approached them. He elbowed his favorite tech-head. “Who’s this beautiful dame deigning to talk to us, Cal?”

  The younger man shot him a puzzled glance. “It’s Rachele. I just pointed her out to you.”

  Johnny shook his head, even as Rachele dimpled in a smile. “Thank you, sir,” she said, and twirled for the two men. “Do you notice the emerald streaks I put in my hair to match my dress?”

  “Excellent choice,” Johnny answered, noticing the effect was a much softer look, now that the rest of her hair was a more normal-looking—perhaps natural?—chocolate-brown. Her makeup was more subtle tonight as well. “And I like the little jewel dangling from the eyebrow ring too.” Because Rachele wouldn’t be Rachele without her little fashion quirks.

  “Téa gave it to me,” she replied. “A thank you for all the overtime I’m going to be charging her for—which consequently means will be billed to you.” She looked so pleased with that remark, that Johnny wondered if the contessa had spilled his duplicity to her assistant.

  He shrugged away the guilt, even as he wondered for the hundredth time what impulse had pushed him past good judgment and into a flaming affair that he’d known could only end in ashes. “Does she need any further help from Cal or…me?”

  Rachele glanced over her shoulder. “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

  Johnny followed the direction of her gaze. From the same tent that Rachele had recently emerged, another woman strolled into the night.

  She was taller than Téa. Wearing a painted-on-her-body, full-length, sleeveless dress that scooped over spectacular breasts, hugged a narrow waist, licked over curvy hips and thighs to end in a frothy swirl from knees to ankles. A red dress. Cherry red. Flame red. Brand-him-through-his-flesh red.

  This woman spotted them, hesitated, then started forward again, graceful in pin-sharp high heels. Her neck looked incredibly long and graceful too, with her dark hair piled on top of her head. One long, wavy lock was freed at the front to flirt with the outer arc of her eyebrow and the outer curve of her red, pouty lips.

  She wore rubies in her ears, and from a gold chain around her neck hung a ruby-encrusted heart. Now that she was close enough for him to see her jewelry, he also recognized her one-of-a-kind, exotic face.

  Jesus Christ. It was Téa.

  Looking taller thanks to heels and hairdo. Looking more voluptuous than ever, thanks to the second-skin dress. Looking more like the damnedest mistake he’d ever made in his life when she flicked a cool glance at him from her sloe eyes.

  “Cal,” she said, with a little nod. “Johnny.”

  He nodded back. God knows where his tongue had disappeared to.

  Rachele helped out. “They wanted to know if you need any assistance,” she said.

  “Like I could taste-test the food,” Cal offered.

  Téa laughed. “If you’re hungry, go help yourself, Cal. You too, Rach.”

  That left Johnny alone with the contessa. “You look beautiful,” he said, managing to reclaim his powers of speech as the younger couple walked off.

  “Always so charming,” she murmured. “Thank you.”

  The response set his back teeth to grinding again. Her “always so charming” held the definite ring of “always so insincere.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said in a wry tone. “I’ll be on my way then.”

  “Wait.” She put out her hand, stopping just short of touching him. “I do need to talk with you.” Her expression said she wished like hell she didn’t.

  He crossed his arms over his chest. While he’d given her good reason to hate him, it was starting to tick him off that she’d taken him up on it. Okay, it wasn’t rational, but Téa in flame-red was burning rational right out of him.

  “So shoot,” he said, then grimaced. “Bad choice of words. I don’t want to give you any ideas.”

  The nostrils of her slender patrician nose flared and her eyes narrowed.

  Now he should feel bad for needling her. But he didn’t. Not when the way her body fit into that cinnamon-hot dress was making his palms itch. That he could look but couldn’t touch was irritating him much more than his comment could possibly irritate her.

  She inhaled a breath. “I want to discuss my grandfather,” she said. “Are you…are you thinking of talking to Cosimo tonight?”

  Though Cal had asked the exact same question, Johnny didn’t feel like answering so directly this time around. “Why shouldn’t I? There’s no secrets between you and me anymore.”

  The ruby heart of her necklace rested in the shallow depression at the base of her throat. He watched it tremble with the racing beat of her pulse. “There are other secrets,” she said, looking away. “I haven’t told anyone about the co
nnection this house has to Giovanni Martelli.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Ah. Of course you haven’t,” he said slowly, realizing what a spot that would have put her in. “Some of the guests might have balked at attending a party where the enemy once resided, dead or not.”

  Her spine straightened and she lifted her chin. “Right.”

  “Screwing your whole little ploy for publicity.”

  “Right again.”

  “What about Cosimo, though? Doesn’t he remember?”

  “He hasn’t said.”

  Johnny studied her face. “Meaning you still haven’t spoken with him, have you?”

  The flush that crawled up her perfect neck was a paler shade of red than her dress. “That’s none of your business.”

  He ignored that fact. “I know you Téa. You’re still feeling guilty, and you shouldn’t. What you did as a little girl—”

  “Shh!” She gave an abrupt shake of her head, then took a hasty look around. Her fingers bit into his forearm and she backed up so that they stood alone on the dance floor, under the canopy of sparkling lights. “No one else knows about that either. No one.”

  “In any case, it has nothing to do with who you are and what you have become, Téa. It’s not logical for you to let the past affect you like this.”

  She stared at him. “And I should listen to you?”

  “Why not? I—”

  “Why not?” She seemed to grow another inch taller and her spectacular breasts almost popped out of her dress as she took a quick, angry breath. “I know you too, Johnny.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “‘It’s not logical to let the past affect you like this,’” she quoted back to him, every word as harsh as a slap.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and struggled to retain his usual savoir faire. “And your point would be?”

  “Why the hell did you come to Palm Springs, Johnny? Because of the past. Why the hell did you come on to me, Johnny? Because of the past.”

  No. That wasn’t why he’d come on to Téa. He’d come on to her because…he didn’t have a sensible explanation for it, that was the trouble. “We’re not talking about me.”

  “Well, maybe we should, now that you’re no longer trying to hide from me behind a different name.”

  The musicians were warming up their instruments, their individual notes clashing to create a discordant soundtrack to their conversation. The noises bored like drill bits into his skull. “You’re the one trying to hide. Don’t think I can’t see what all those boring tailored suits were about, Téa.”

  She whirled as if she were going to run from him. He might drop dead before she got five feet. The siren’s dress didn’t stop with the mind-blowing front. The back plunged too, cutting so deep that her spine was left naked to the dimples of her ass.

  The tension in his body went from half-angry to near-full alert. Fine. Okay. He’d admit it. He’d gotten involved with her because her face and her body were so fucking beautiful that he couldn’t think straight around her.

  It had always been lust, pure and simple.

  Then she whirled back. Her eyes were hot, her cheeks were flushed, her breaths were ragged. “You’re starting to make me mad and I’m not going to let you get away with it.”

  “Oh, I’m paying already, baby. I’ve been paying since you left my bed empty of anything but your memory.”

  She looked as if she didn’t believe him. “I’m sure you’ll find another woman to fill it fast enough. But first you’re going to admit something to me.”

  The drummer behind him spit out a riff that ended with a cymbal crash. “Admit what?”

  “That I’m not the only one ashamed of my past and my family.”

  The drumming riff. The crash of cymbals.

  “I’m not ashamed of anything.” Except that I hurt you.

  “Afraid then. You’re as afraid as me.”

  “I’m not afra—”

  “I know you, Johnny. I told you that. I know you, too. You’re just like me, worried that inside of you is some darkness, some shadow that our fathers left behind like a fingerprint.”

  “No.” The drummer was hitting the cymbals again. Crash after crash. Bam. Bam. Bam.

  “Yes. Maybe it’s not logical. But it’s true. And until you admit it to yourself, then the doubts are going to keep you from having a real, honest relationship with another person. You’ll be too afraid to let anyone in because that might mean letting something else—that darkness—out.”

  Bam. Bam. Bam.

  Then, the metallic sounds still echoing in his head, she turned from him. She didn’t run away, she walked, graceful and certain.

  But certainly wrong.

  Certainly wrong.

  But he’d been wrong too, he realized, his gaze unable to move off her. So wrong, he thought, as he watched her leave him in that flame-red dress.

  He’d thought lust had driven him to take her to bed. And he’d thought he could scratch the itch he had for her and then somehow go on with his life.

  But she’d scratched back. Scratched him, and then found her way beneath his cool, slick surface, and from there, beneath his skin.

  She’d made it all the way to his heart.

  Damn the woman, damn the woman, damn the woman.

  In his head, the curses crashed like cymbals.

  Now he knew exactly why he’d gone against his conscience, his common sense, and his Magee Main Street morality. As fucking ironic as the truth was, he now knew exactly what had led him to betray Téa.

  It was because he’d fallen in love with her.

  Thirty-three

  “Bella Notte”

  Peggy Lee

  Songs from Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp (1955)

  Rachele sat with Cal at a table out of the reach of the party lights. The band was playing a golden oldie that had the dance floor filled. The guest list had been something over three hundred and she’d be astonished to find out there was a single no-show. Drinks continued to flow, but dinner had been served—prime rib, lobster, and a selection of pasta dishes that even she couldn’t have improved upon. All that was left was to light the birthday candles and consume the four tiers of layer cake.

  “Which one is Téa’s grandfather?” Cal asked. “I was hoping to meet a real live Mafia man.”

  “You’ve already met some real live Mafia men tonight,” Rachele replied. “Remember Dom, Nick, and Brandon? They were the ones in the first tent shoving unopened champagne bottles under their coats when the bartender wasn’t looking.”

  “They were Mafia? The ones yammering about their own private party later? They looked like your average young dudes.”

  Rachele shrugged. “Rumors are they’re part of the Caruso crew.”

  “So you’re not going to introduce me to the grandfather?”

  She gazed around the party grounds, trying to spot Cosimo. “He’s over there, with the police chief and the lady in the blue sequined dress.”

  “The white-haired woman with the shocked look on her face? Must be some conversation.”

  “Around here we call that woman’s expression ‘Palm Springs Surprise.’ It’s not the conversation, but the bill and the latest procedure from her plastic surgeon that has her all wide-eyed like that.”

  Cal grinned. “Hey, you’re funny.”

  But she didn’t feel so funny when she spotted her father in the crowd. Her heart clenched as she watched him move alone through the party, a champagne glass held awkwardly in his meaty hand. He wore his one dark suit and she knew for a fact that his white dress shirt wasn’t pressed. Without her around, she doubted his socks matched.

  He was getting closer, but she couldn’t face any unpleasantness tonight.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” Rachele said, jumping to her feet. She grabbed Cal’s hand. “I want to be alone with you.”

  “You want to be away from your father,” Cal said, after they were well clear of the celebration.

&n
bsp; “I stayed with him too long as it was,” Rachele said. All that time telling herself he loved her, when all that time he hadn’t wanted love and hadn’t wanted to give love back. What a fool she’d been.

  “Let’s think of something else,” she said, tugging Cal down another path. “Let’s think about the future. You can help me pick a career. What do you think I should do? Radio DJ? Chef? Or should I fall back on my childhood dream of becoming a professional in-line skater?”

  They’d reached the man-made lagoon that Téa had partially shielded with trellises to hide the crumbling retaining walls. Filled with nervous energy, Rachele jumped on top of the rock ledge and wavered to keep her balance. Cal grabbed her hand to steady her.

  “Téa fell backward into the water here the first time Johnny and I met her,” Cal said, squeezing her fingers. “You don’t want to fall in her footsteps.”

  She smiled down at him. “Now you’re funny.” Then she sighed. “But to tell the truth, I’m actually thinking of following in her footsteps.”

  “How so?”

  Twin moons reflected in Cal’s glasses. Rachele hesitated. With her father’s true colors now revealed, she hated the idea of losing the only other man in her life. She drew in a breath, let it out. “I’ve been thinking about going to design school in L.A.”

  The moonglow in Cal’s lenses made it impossible to read his expression. “That’s what Téa did?”

  “Yeah.” She started walking atop the ledge of the lagoon, and Cal walked beside her, his feet on solid ground.

  “It would be hard to leave Palm Springs,” Rachele continued, “and…everyone here.” The valley had cupped her in its warm hands all her life.

  “It’s not far,” Cal pointed out.

  “A world away, if I lived on my own. Right now, though I’m out of my father’s house, I’m practically living with Téa’s mom, and she and her sisters are around all the time.”

  “They’d still be there for you when you need them.” Cal walked a few more steps alongside her. “I’ll still be there when you need me.”

  Rachele’s heart bobbed down, then back up. “Really?” she whispered.