An Offer He Can't Refuse (37 page)

She refused to think anyone guessed she possessed the Loanshark book. The watcher was Cosimo sending her a message, she insisted to herself, staring at the straw-colored liquid in her glass. He was sending a signal just as clear as the one that had come with the apricot roses. He wanted her back in the family fold.

Footsteps sounded behind her, paused. Not Johnny, she would feel him in the air, but this presence set the hair rising on her arms in an entirely different way. She didn't look up, even when olive-skinned fingers gripped the back of the chair beside hers. Coarse black hairs curled between scarred knuckles.

"I've been looking for you. I have a message."

She hadn't spoken to him in years, yet she recognized his voice. "Is that right, Nino?" Nino Farelle. She glanced up. He was in his thirties now, but he was still as darkly handsome as he'd been when Eve had fancied herself in love with him eight years ago. Before he'd given her the black eye and the split lip.

Téa met his gaze. "I couldn't have been that hard to find since you've been following me all over town for more than a week." At least now she knew who the watcher was, and that her instincts had been right. Nino worked for her grandfather.

His expression didn't flicker. "Sorry, sweet cheeks. But it hasn't been me on your tail until about thirty minutes back."

Sweet cheeks. Téa tried hard not to let that old nickname he used get under her skin. Eight years before, she'd tried to tolerate him for Eve's sake, though his snide "sweet cheeks" had only made her feel more fat and undesirable. "Nino, I

know you, or some other of Cosimo's minions, have been watching me for days."

His face flushed ruddy. "I'm no minion anymore. I've moved up in the ranks. Way up. And nobody's been clocking you, sweet cheeks. Your grandfather ordered the kid gloves…" his voice took on a threatening tone, "until today."

"Oh wow, Nino. Now I'm scared." But she was. If it was true and her grandfather had been keeping his distance, then who had been stalking her and Johnny?

Johnny
. She took a quick glance around. She didn't want him, or anyone else for that matter, to see her with a man as nasty as Nino Farelle. It was the kind of association that wouldn't do her business any good and it only served to remind her of all the things she wished to forget. "What is it you want, Nino? Spit it out quick."

He smiled, and that felt threatening too, even as he slid his hands in the pockets of his ash-colored slacks. "I knew I could get you to come around. Told Cosimo I have a special touch with you girls."

"I know all about your 'special touch,' Nino," she said, her stomach starting to churn. "So you better stick to the message and then get going."

His eyes narrowed. Apparently he hadn't known she was aware of the beating he'd given Eve and how it was her sister's promise not to tell Cosimo that kept Nino away from her… and him, most likely, alive. "Your grandfather wants to see you at his party,
va bene
? He's feeling his age and wants to have all his family around him on his special night."

Out of Nino's mouth, this argument had even less chance of plucking her heartstrings than when it came from her sisters. "Maybe I'll send something from Hallmark, but I won't be coming to the party."

Nino took her refusal less well than they had. He glow-ered at her. "Your grandfather says it won't be a celebration unless—"

"Come on. He doesn't need me to help blow out the birthday candles. I'm not buying it, Nino."

"
Merda
! Fine. It's more. It's to show unity within the family at this time of change."

She'd known sentiment wasn't driving Cosimo. Still… "He's done just fine without me all these years. I'm confident he'll continue to do fine without me the next few months."

Nino's dark brows drew together in frustration. "He's expecting me to bring back your word you'll come."

'Then you're going to disappoint him, because I'm not offering it."

He set his jaw. "Sweet cheeks—"

"And don't call me that either, or maybe I'll have something to say to Cosimo after all."

"Say you'll go to the party." His hands were balled into fists inside his pockets.

"Over my dead body."

"Don't be so flip," he retorted. "There's unrest in the families. Your grandfather doesn't want to see you hurt. It's another reason he wants you close."

Though that thought had her heart pounding, she couldn't let a bully like Nino think he'd gotten to her. She tried to sneer. "So he's willing to scare me into it? Tell him that won't work either."

He stared her down for a long minute, then shook his head in disgust. "I'm out of here."

Not soon enough for her. "Nobody's stopping you."

But Nino was already turning back, a predator's smile on his dark-angel face. She should have known he wouldn't let her have the last word. "By the way, sweet cheeks, tell your sister Eve I'll be keeping my eye on her, too."

Téa held her hand over her stomach as he walked off, then she downed half her glass of wine in one quick gulp. God, Nino gave her the creeps. But he was gone. Thank goodness he was gone. And any minute Johnny would be here.

Johnny, her temporary sex buddy. The appearance of Nino made it even more obvious there was nothing else it could ever be between them. At some point, involvement with the progeny of a notorious crime family and all that it entailed would turn too intrusive or just plain too ugly for Johnny to deal with.

No man ever stayed.

Even before her confrontation with Nino she'd known this. That's why, aware the end had to be rushing upon them, she'd suggested meeting Johnny at the spa today instead of somewhere more private. Privacy equaled intimacy and it was smarter for her to keep their relationship less personal than that. It was also why she'd made up her mind not to go to bed with him that night… for the first time in more than a week. She shouldn't be getting quite so cozy with a temporary sex buddy.

Because the sex… oh, the sex
was
personal. And intimate. She continued to insist on the darkness and knew he thought she was being unnecessarily prudish. But in the dark she managed to hold her responses back. In the dark she felt some measure of protection from him. Some measure of control. A voice broke into her thoughts.

"Well, if it isn't the little Puritan."

Great. Another unwelcome visitor.

Téa reluctantly raised her head. Melissa Banyon stood in front of her, decked out in one of the spa's white robes and a ridiculous pair of marabou-trimmed sandals. A stretchy white turban covered her hair. Beside her, Raphael Fremont projected more of that brooding sensuality that had so captivated Téa in his starring role in
The Foreign Legion
. But with his dusty uniform replaced by a satiny robe that matched his fiancee's, his smoldering stare seemed something between overdone and overwrought.

Téa let out an inward groan. Her mother hadn't mentioned that Melissa Banyon and pouting boyfriend were in residence, but then her mother never did mention the names in her registration book. Complete discretion was one of the prime attractions the Kona Kai offered. Guests, particularly celebrity guests, were able to be as private as they liked, and most would gnaw off their right arms before striking up conversation with near strangers—

"Where's your handsome friend?"

—unless they had a gorgeous, sexy provocation like Johnny Magee.

Fiance Raphael shot Melissa Banyon a sharp look and his smolder jumped several more degrees. Téa stifled another groan. All she didn't need was dealing with this couple's troubles too.

"Téa's friend is right here." Johnny emerged from the French doors leading to the bar, carrying a glass of wine in one hand and a martini in the other.

She swiveled to watch him cross the patio. In a blue silk shirt, open at the neck, tan slacks, and distressed-leather loafers, he looked like Palm Springs had been made for him. His sleeves were rolled up, and as he set the glasses on the table beside her, the waning rays of sunlight glinted off the golden hair at his wrists.

He bent to catch her mouth with his. "Contessa," he murmured against it, "I missed you."

That one kiss had her forgetting everything. He stretched toward the potted gardenia and picked a perfect bloom, then leaned close again to tuck the flower behind Téa's ear. Tingles burst from curve to lobe and goose bumps sprinted down her neck.

A "distraction" wasn't supposed to make her forget! A

"distraction" wasn't supposed to make her feel so desired and so…
enjoyed
, she thought with a sense of panic. This was just another reason why she had to cool things between them—starting tonight.

And Melissa Banyon appeared ready to help, Téa could see, as the other woman fiddled with the lapels of her robe so that the inner curves of her sili-cones were exposed. "So good to see you again," she said to Johnny in her annoying, little-girl voice. "Would you mind if we joined you?"

Raphael looked from his fiancee to Johnny, and though Téa would have sworn the desert air couldn't get any drier, it crackled. Then the actor's eyes flicked to Téa's face, and lingered there.

"
Oui
," he said slowly, his body shifting in her direction. "I see. Yes. It could be fun to join with you."

Téa couldn't believe what she'd just heard. Or she couldn't believe the double meaning she was reading into what she'd just heard. Was the actor really suggesting a menage-a-quatre?

Johnny's hand stroked the top of her hair. She looked up.

One of his eyebrows rose and she caught a hint of that wicked dimple in his cheek.
It's up to you, Contessa
.

Heat rushed up her face and she stared into her glass of wine. "We—" Her voice squeaked, and she had to clear her mind and then her throat before starting again. "We'd rather be alone, if you don't mind."

She didn't look back up until she heard Melissa and Raphael move off and Johnny's chair legs scrape against the patio. Through her lashes, she tried to gauge his expression.

"I see you peeking at me," he said, grinning. "I'm disappointed in you, Téa. I thought for a minute you were going to agree."

"I was not even tempted."

"Liar," Johnny said softly.

She laughed. Amazing. Even after her chat with Nino, even after an almost-foursome with a famous Hollywood couple, she was laughing. Johnny made it so frighteningly easy to feel happy. "If I said I was tempted, then I'd have to admit you're not keeping me satisfied, now, wouldn't I?"

His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. "Is that the way it is?" He found her bare skin beneath the hem of her straight skirt and cupped his hand along her inner thigh. "Go in the bathroom, take off your panties, and I'll satisfy you right here, right now."

The lightning that had been in the air a few minutes earlier flashed over Téa's skin.
Talk about being tempted
…

But no, no! She was supposed to be pulling back from him. Starting tonight. Starting now.

Remember Nino and the Loanshark book and how quickly happiness could die. Remember why she hadn't wanted to meet in private with him. She couldn't afford to get too intimate.

Taking a breath, she opened her mouth to make clear they were having this drink together, and that was it. "Johnny—"

"Téa." Rachele rushed through the French doors and onto the patio. 'Téa, I hoped I'd find you here."

Maybe they would have been better off in private after all, Téa thought in resignation. Then she looked into her assistant's face and jumped to her feet, alarmed by the girl's expression. "What is it, Rach? What's the matter?'

"I've just run away from home." Rachele burst into tears, her thick mascara causing black tracks to course down her cheeks.

At that, wouldn't most men have made themselves scarce? Téa had expected that Johnny would and been glad of it. She'd been in desperate need of a reason to keep her panties on and their relationship less personal.

But as she put an arm around Rachele and tried to understand her choked-out explanation about an argument with her father, Johnny had a word with a roving cocktail waitress. Within minutes, Téa's mother was on the scene with a steam-ing mug of tea and keys to one of the private suites on the spa property.

He was still around half an hour later when Eve and Joey arrived in the cottage. By this time Rachele's face was clean and she was wrapped in a spa robe and propped in the corner of one couch. Johnny had appointed himself mini-bartender and hailed the newcomers with mixed drinks and fifteen-dollar bags of mixed nuts.

Téa's sisters accepted with polite smiles for him and raised eyebrows for Téa. She could only shrug.

They all waved off Bianca, who murmured she had a previous engagement she couldn't break but who kissed Rachele's forehead and assured her she could stay as long as she liked.

Once the door had shut behind her, the rest of the group turned their gaze on the young woman. Gone was Rachele's usual cheeky confidence. Instead, she looked sad and lost and about twelve years old.

Téa remembered exactly how that felt—and suspected Rachele had always been hiding a fragile heart behind her goth-girl mask.

Johnny handed her an icy glass of what looked to be ginger ale. "Would you like me to call Cal for you?" he asked.

Rachele's head jerked up. "No. I don't want him to see me like this."

"He cares about you. If you're hurting, he'd want to be here."

"No," she repeated.

Téa understood the need to protect her vulnerability from the man in her life and sat down beside her. "We'll take care of Rachele."

Joey and Eve took their places in matching easy chairs. "That's right," they said together.

Perhaps he saw it as a challenge to his manliness, because despite those assertions he
still
stuck around. After a time and a few more mini-bar beverages, the other three seemed to forget he was in the room.

Téa didn't forget, because he'd moved a straight chair behind her spot on the sofa and was amusing himself by playing with her hair. The gentle swish of his fingers made it nearly impossible to concentrate on the conversation between her sisters and Rachele. It was nothing kind of talk, actually, because Rachele seemed to want it that way.