An Offer He Can't Refuse Read online

  “Your hair looks wonderful,” she gushed in synthetically warm tones. “A new style?”

  Now it was Téa’s turn to stare. “I’ve worn my hair like this for months. Mom calls it my Malibu Barbie look, remember?” And without her daughter-discount at the spa, she couldn’t afford the Japanese straightening process that flattened out her waves, not to mention the delicate bronze highlights that had been woven into her half-yard of dark hair.

  Joey jumped in, gesturing. “New dress, then. Nice.”

  The same tailored sheath her youngest sister had disparaged as “a cross between a nurse’s uniform and a nun’s habit” the last time she wore it in her company.

  The compliments only underlined Téa’s growing concern and she sighed. Clearly there was no point in putting this off.

  “All right, what’s this all about?” she asked. “Your phone message said you wanted a ‘sit-down.’” A sit-down was their code for a not-to-be-missed meeting. She tensed as her sisters exchanged another speaking look. “And you said—”

  “Family business,” Eve interjected. “It’s family business.”

  Téa slumped back against her chair. Well. Foreboding substantiated. Sham smiles explained. Family business was a code phrase too. For their paternal family. She took a breath then folded her arms over her chest. “You know I don’t get involved in family business.”

  Joey rolled her eyes again. “You haven’t spoken to Nonno or any of the rest in years. But the time’s come for you to stop blaming him for…for whatever happened to Dad.”

  “It’s not—” Téa swallowed her comeback. The reason she distanced herself wasn’t something she could explain to her sisters without talking about other things she’d always protected them from. “Look, if this is about the invitation, it already arrived. I’m sure it was sent in error, but in any case I’m counting on you to make my excuses for me.”

  “Well, this is about that invitation,” Eve said, then hesitated, sliding another glance Joey’s way. “But you should also know that Grandpa is preparing to step down—retiring from all the family businesses. He’s announcing it shortly after his birthday party.”

  “Preparing to step down?” Téa’s heart skipped. Their father’s disappearance sixteen years before had set off a small war on the urban streets of California—it was described in graphic detail at www.mafiatales.com. It had taken their grandfather’s iron fist to rein in the criminal chaos that had erupted then and he’d remained in complete control since.

  Then Joey released her own shocking dart. “And Nonno has just one birthday wish—he wants you at the party. He said to tell you he won’t take no for an answer.”

  Now Téa’s heart seized. To get it beating again she had to cough, the sound so harsh it caused the waiter, arriving with their meals, to tear his gaze off Eve a moment. But by the time the man had set down their plates and moved away again, Téa managed to form actual words.

  “Why?” She tried not to let panic color her voice, but what could be their grandfather’s motive for trying to reel her back after all these years? “Even if he really is retiring—which I find hard to believe—why does he need me at his birthday bash when he has you two? You’re the party girl, Eve. And Joey, you work for him.”

  Eve shrugged one slender shoulder. “Because you’re the oldest grandchild.”

  The oldest grandchild. The oldest child of his only child, the latter presumed dead, the former who pretended the family was dead to her. If Cosimo was truly planning to pass on the family leadership to someone else, was this his way of demonstrating the prodigal granddaughter was still under his protection?

  But he had no reason to believe she needed protecting. He didn’t know her secret. No one did.

  “You know I won’t come,” she said aloud.

  Joey scowled. “Téa—”

  “I won’t.” She picked up her fork and toyed with her salad, assuming a calm she didn’t feel. “For one thing, there’ll be too many of them. A party like that means people from the families all over California. The second cousins will fly in from New Jersey. The others from New York. Not to mention that sleazy Miami group.”

  Just the idea of seeing the large web of mobsters, of looking into faces that might suspect what she’d kept hidden all these years, made the skin along her spine shiver and sweat at the same time.

  “The guest list’s at three hundred,” Joey admitted. “So far.”

  Shaking her head, Téa stared down at the mix of greens on her plate. Great, just great. Even if she kept well clear of it, an event as big as that, for someone as powerful as their grandfather, would be news. The story would make the California society pieces like Eve wrote as well as the Mob-watch columns in the Eastern papers. Remaking the Caruso name, let alone living it down, would only prove that much more difficult.

  Her head jerked up and she held her sisters’ gazes. “I don’t care that he’s retiring. You two will make him understand I’m not coming. He won’t miss me. I haven’t done more than glimpse him from afar in years, except for today, when—”

  The sudden guilt on their faces explained that odd little “coincidence.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Tea said, slowly. “You told him where we were meeting.” Meaning his appearance at the restaurant had been pure emotional blackmail—which shouldn’t surprise her, given the other type he was so expert at.

  Still, her right hand strangled her fork, while the other, in her lap, curled into a defensive fist. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t fair! She’d made a bargain—she was never quite sure if it was with God or with her guilty conscience—that went like this: She would stay away from trouble, and God—or her guilty conscience—would let her get away with her crime.

  “Come on, Téa,” Eve urged. “We could be a family again. That’s all we want. That’s all Grandpa wants. Remember that after Daddy…left, he was like a father to us. Do it for that. Do it for him because he loves you and wants you near again.”

  Or he wanted what she’d kept hidden all these years.

  Joey scooted her chair closer. “Hey, do it for Eve and me.” She sent Téa a grin that made her look ten years old instead of twenty-six. “We swore a blood oath to Nonno that we’d get you to agree.”

  Téa stared at their two entreating faces. Oh, but they were good, her sisters. We swore a blood oath. Joey counted on changing Téa’s mind by counting on her big-sister sense of loyalty.

  Do it for him because he loves you and wants you near again. Eve would know that in her secret heart of hearts Téa longed for the impossible—to be able to trust some man enough to get close to him.

  But it wasn’t need or duty that was building inside her now. It was a growing mix of anger and dismay that no longer fit into any of the compartments she’d built to contain the past. She tried tamping it down, but still it oozed around the edges to fill her again.

  Forgetting the goody-goody image she worked so hard to maintain, she slammed down her fork and leaned forward to grip the table edge with both hands, temper heating her skin. “Listen to me—”

  The ring of her cell phone interrupted. Glaring at her purse, she dared it to chirp at her again. It did. Frustration shooting higher, she pushed through the disorganized mess inside her purse, determined to get rid of the caller and get back to compelling her sisters to convince their grandfather that she couldn’t be manipulated. That she was through with the past and she was through with that part of the family. For good.

  She jerked the phone to her ear. “Yes?” she snapped out, sending Eve and Joey a narrow-eyed look, letting them know she was going to get off and get back to the matter at hand, no matter what, no matter—

  “Ah.” A raspy male tone vibrated against her ear. “We speak at last.”

  —who. Oh God. Who it had to be, with that low purr of a voice, was unmistakable.

  “Johnny Magee?” she asked, hoping, hoping she was wrong.

  “Yes. Have I called at a bad time? Your assistant put me through.”r />
  She flushed hotter. “No, no. It’s not a bad time at all.” Of course it was a bad time. She needed Eve and Joey on her side, but confessing she’d been about to berate her sisters over salads wasn’t the image she wanted to project to her most important prospective client. She forced in a calming breath. “I was, uh, preoccupied with some furniture catalogs that came in today.”

  Across the table, Joey snorted.

  Tea sent her a dirty look and hoped he’d mistaken the sound for the burp of a water cooler. “Can I help you with something, Mr. Magee? Answer a question about my bid?”

  “Johnny,” he said. “Call me Johnny.”

  The vibrations of his deep voice quivered like a caress across her skin. Whoa. Her assistant was right, Téa thought, the man should narrate erotic bedtime stories. She could imagine it now, something sizzling yet romantic in that get-naked-for-me voice.

  Firelight flickered over the gypsy girl’s bare skin, warming her shoulders, her collarbone, the full mounds of flesh below that ached for his touch. Ached for—

  “Johnny.” She said the name aloud and only then remembered that’s who she was talking to. Her face burned again. “Yes. Right. Johnny. What can I do for you?”

  “Meet me.”

  “Meet you?” Her business instincts perking, she sat straighter in her chair. “Certainly I’ll meet you.”

  She’d have to wear exactly the right outfit—her IBM-blue suit, she decided. Two days before their appointment, she’d book a fruit-acid facial, then have her nails done the next. Going to her purse, she dug through it again for her PDA. “How about the end of the week, or—”

  “Meet me today. Later this afternoon.”

  “This afternoon?” In the wrinkly linen dress? And she was pretty sure there was a chip in the polish on her right big toe. Yes, she was wearing closed-toe shoes, but still—

  “I know it’s short notice, but I’ve already arranged for a private flight from Las Vegas to Palm Springs and I want to make my decision about a designer as soon as possible.”

  Did that mean he wanted to make his decision today? Today, when she was wearing her worst lingerie, the scratchy bra and the panties that—good God, what did her underclothing matter? She had bigger worries.

  Today, today, Johnny Magee wanted to meet with her. Today when everything had gone wrong. Today when it was imperative she make certain Eve and Joey understood she wouldn’t involve herself with the Carusos or their ilk ever again.

  “Of course, if it’s impossible…” he started.

  “No!” Nothing was impossible when it came to winning this job—it was the only thing more important than winning over her sisters. “What time did you have in mind?”

  As they finalized the details, Téa found her anxiety easing and her hope rising. Maybe it was due to Johnny Magee’s beguiling, bedtime voice. Maybe it was because her bargain seemed to be working out after all. Sure, the day had had its unpleasant moments, and she’d have to leave things unfinished with her sisters, but if she bagged this design job, then what had started out wrong might end up very, very right.

  “Now,” he finally said. “What can I bring you by way of apology?”

  Leaning against the back of her chair, she discovered she was smiling. “Apology?”

  “For the trouble I’m certain to cause you.”

  “You won’t cause me any trouble,” she scoffed.

  “You might be surprised,” he warned.

  But she didn’t take him seriously. Not when the worst trouble a design job had ever thrown her way was finding a fountain in the shape of a mammoth-sized sea urchin. She knew real trouble. She’d seen it, smelled it, been a part of it. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Then you sound like my kind of woman. Still, is there something special you’d like from Las Vegas as thanks for the last-minute meeting?”

  “I wouldn’t know what to ask for,” she answered. “I’ve never been to Las Vegas.”

  “Never?” He sounded shocked.

  “Never. My father cautioned me against gambling and gamblers a long time ago.”

  There was a little pause. Then he laughed. It was low and intimate and the warm sound of it only added to Téa’s certainty. Things were finally turning around for her. Not just for today, not just for her career. But for her life.

  Four

  “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head”

  Dean Martin

  Return to Me (1956-61)

  Whistling the cheery opening of a TVLand Andy Griffith episode, Téa reached Johnny Magee’s newly purchased property on El Deseo Drive. Its street frontage, two city blocks long, was screened by a twelve-foot-high wall of concrete block, the fencing material of choice in a climate that brutalized wood. He needed to contract with a landscaper as well, she noted. The intricate pattern created by the grainy, modular pieces was designed not only for beauty but for a practical flow of air, a purpose thwarted by the volunteer Mexican palms growing in profusion behind the wall. Their spiny fans thrust through the openings in the block as if to keep prying eyes out and dirty secrets in.

  Secrets.

  Her pursed lips sounded a sour note as the word crawled down her back. She couldn’t help but think of her grandfather again. Or rather, she thought of that engraved invitation he’d sent. When she’d swung by the office to pick up the Magee portfolio, it had seemed to hiss at her from its place in her inbox.

  To drown out the memory, she took up whistling again, louder, and pressed her foot to the gas. Nothing was going to ruin this meeting, she promised herself. Checking her watch, she was pleased to see she was still early, as planned. That would give her a few minutes alone to polish the collected, capable first impression she intended to make on Johnny Magee.

  She turned into the driveway, following it past a tangle of overgrown vegetation and around a curve. Her foot shifted to the brake, slowing the Volvo as the drive dead-ended in front of a six-car garage. Other vehicles had beat her to the circular parking area, a gleaming Jag, a nondescript sedan, and a taxi-yellow moving van, its back gate lifted and ramp folded down. It appeared half-full of furniture.

  So much for a few minutes alone.

  Disappointed, yet curious all the same, she parked her car alongside the moving van then stepped around to its yawning opening to take a peek inside.

  From the dim interior came a feminine voice. “Téa?”

  She hid her guilty start by reaching for her sunglasses and sliding them down to squint toward the sound of her name. “Yes?”

  “Téa Caruso, what on earth are you doing here?” From out of the shadows, a woman strolled down the ramp of the truck as if it were a fashion runway, placing one strappy sandal in front of the other, heel-to-toe, heel-to-toe. “You’re the last person I expected to see here.”

  Téa pushed her sunglasses back and forced herself not to fidget. Lois Olmstead, she of the frosted-blonde hair, delicate features, and wrinkle-free wardrobe of a model for St. John resort wear, never ceased to make Téa feel rumpled and blowsy.

  It wasn’t the other woman’s fault, but one look from her and it was seventh grade all over again, the year Téa had gone from smug and chubby Mafia princess to a missing felon’s fat daughter. In all the years since, no low-carb diet, no hair-straightening process, no figure-diminishing foundation garment, or moustache-removal technique had made over the misery of that year when her father’s vanishing act coincided with the acute self-consciousness and peer-awareness of preteenhood.

  She sucked her navel toward her spine. “Hello, Lois. I didn’t expect to see you here either.”

  And then it hit her, the reason the other woman was at the house. She was Téa’s competition for the design job. No. The moving van must mean Lois was already the winner.

  Warmth crawling up her neck, Téa began backwalking toward her car. Seventh grade had also taught her the importance of hiding her feelings—including humiliation. “I was just, uh…” Her thighs made contact with the heated metal of the Volvo’s rear bumper.


  “You were just what?” Lois asked, coming closer. The skin of her forehead was an alabaster that didn’t wrinkle when she frowned.

  “I must have misunderstood.” Téa pretended a casual shrug, replaying the earlier phone conversation in her head. “I thought I had a meeting.”

  “With Johnny Magee?” Lois’s eyes widened in disbelief.

  Téa shrugged again, trying to slough off the blow. It had always been a long shot, she knew that. As a matter of fact, from the first she’d wondered if he’d contacted her by mistake. If she hadn’t done her senior project on modern design, she wouldn’t have dared preparing the bid. “But I see the job is yours.”

  “The design job?”

  Téa clutched her car keys tighter and trudged toward the driver’s side. “Good to see you, Lois.”

  “I’m not here for the design job,” Lois said. She glanced over her shoulder as two beefy young men came toward the van carrying a portrait-sized mirror between them. “That’s it, then. Twenty mirrors. We’re done.”

  She looked back at Téa. “I did the staging.”

  The home-staging, Téa deduced. It was a growing trend—paying to have homes professionally de-cluttered or empty homes filled with furniture while they were on the market. “I didn’t know you were into that now.”

  “The money’s good. We take out tacky and bring in good taste, not to mention mirrors and more mirrors. The trick is to make prospective buyers see themselves in every room.”

  And apparently Johnny Magee had seen something that made him want to purchase this place. Téa’s mood-meter took a return swing toward optimism. If the other woman wasn’t here for the design job, then she hadn’t missed out on winning it herself, at least not yet. She stepped back toward the rear of the Volvo. “I’m sure you’re a big success, Lois.”

  “As a matter of fact, I just prepared a house for selling that you designed in the Movie Colony,” the other woman replied. “Now there was a challenge.”

  Téa’s fingers reached down to press against the wrinkles in her dress. “Oh?”