Dangerous Ladies (20 page)

Head rush. She’d gotten up too fast. Gotten up too fast . . . and seen Roberto. Both could cause a head rush.

Only Roberto made her feel as if it would never stop.

Both men looked up, bemused, at her entrance.

“You all right?” Roberto placed the dripping spoon down on the red Formica counter and took a step toward her.

No. She didn’t want him to touch her. She’d pitch over onto her face for sure. “I’m good.” She looked him over. “Nice apron.”

“My grandmother’s.” He winked at her and went back to stirring the concoction. Puffs of steam rose from the pot carrying the aromas of garlic, onion, olive oil, and basil.

“Ah. She’s awake, our little sleeping beauty.” Nonno waltzed over to her, smiling, mellow . . . slightly tipsy. Tickling her cheek with his ruined fingers, he said, “We’re fixing dinner for you,
cara.
”

“Thank you, Nonno.” She smiled at the old man and thought,
Roberto cooks?
“It smells great.”

“It’s an old family sauce recipe. We put it on our homemade polenta, and the angels sing with joy.” Roberto kissed his fingers.

She wanted to snatch the kiss out of the air, but she’d made enough of a fool of herself today. Instead she looked around the narrow, old-fashioned kitchen. The table in the middle of the kitchen was set with a red-and-white-checked tablecloth, three plates with silverware, and a large salad in a wooden bowl. Three places were set. . . .

A sleep-drugged memory surfaced, vague and uncertain. “Is someone else here?”

“Someone else?” Nonno lifted his brows, but innocence sat ill on his wrinkled face.

“While I was sleeping, I thought I heard men talking.”

“We were talking.” Roberto gestured between him and his grandfather.
“We haven’t seen each other for months. We had much to catch up on.”

“Okay. I guess that was it.” Although it seemed she’d heard different voices . . . it must have been a dream. She pushed the hair out of her face. “What time is it?”

“Seven o’clock. You slept four hours.”

“Oh, no.” She groped in her pocket. “I didn’t call McGrath and Lindoberth and report in.”

“I did it. Your phone’s by your place setting.” Roberto indicated the cell on the table. “Do you like mushrooms? Because we worship mushrooms, and if you don’t like them, you’re going to have to have bottled marinara.”

“Love mushrooms,” Brandi said automatically. “Who did you talk to?”

Roberto smiled a rather crisp smile. “I spoke to Glenn and cleared up a few of his misapprehensions about who’s in charge in the monkey cage.”

“Oh, no.” She groped toward her chair and sat down. Glenn wouldn’t forgive her for that.

“I assure you,
cara
, this was a fight about what I expect from him. It had nothing to do with you.” Roberto comprehended too much.

“He won’t care.” She cradled her head in her hands. “He’ll take it out on his subordinates.”

“But you won’t be seeing him.”

“What do you mean?” She lifted her head.

“I won’t spend my days sitting in your offices, no matter how luxurious they are.” He tasted the sauce, then offered the spoon to Nonno. “More parsley?”

“And a little more salt,” Nonno said.

To her, Roberto said, “We are chained together by Judge Knight’s ruling, are we not? All the time? Day and night, night and day?”

Somehow the details of Judge Knight’s actions had previously escaped her. She’d been too exhausted, suffered too many shocks today to figure out all the ramifications, but now her brain was working.
Sluggishly, but it was coming up to speed. “I
have
to be in the office. I just started work.”

“I have work, too,” he said. “I’m the head of a large corporation.”

“You’re a jewel thief!”

“It’s a sideline.”

“Damn it!” She slapped the table. The dishes danced. “Who are you really?”

“Exactly who you think I am,” he shot back.

“I doubt if you could be that wicked.” Her voice rose.

“I’m fixing the polenta right now.” Nonno poured olive oil into a skillet and lit the burner.

“Where are we going to sleep?” she asked. “Huh?”

“I’m going to sleep at my hotel.” Roberto had the gall to sound calm.

“I don’t want to sleep at your hotel. I have to go to my apartment. I just moved in. I have things I need to do.” Things she needed to put away—again—after the break-in this weekend. A break-in that wouldn’t have happened if she’d been home instead of lolling around in indolent luxury making love to Roberto.

“All right. You sleep at your apartment and I’ll sleep at my hotel.”

“You’ll run and I’ll be holding the bag!”

“I already gave you my word that I would do nothing to harm your career.” Now Roberto had the gall to sound insulted.

“Little Brandi, bring me the plates,” Nonno said.

She stacked them and put them on the counter. “I can’t believe we’re going to have to sleep together. What was Judge Knight thinking?”

The two men exchanged glances.

She pointed her finger at them. “Not like that. I am not sleeping with Roberto. Never again.”

“Aha!” Nonno cuffed Roberto on the side of the head. “What were you doing? Brandi’s a nice girl.”

Shit.
She couldn’t even blame her exhaustion for her slip; she’d had a four-hour nap.

But she could blame it on her proximity to Roberto. He obviously blew the circuits in her brain or she wouldn’t make those kinds of mistakes.

“She is a nice girl, and she’ll be nicer when we feed her.” Roberto looked meaningfully at Nonno. “Trust me. I know this.”

“She has a temperament like Nonna, then.” Nonno nodded wisely. “Dear Brandi, would you serve the salad?”

She narrowed her eyes and would have railed at them, but the smell of frying polenta mixed with the scent of the sauce and she was suddenly ravenous. She shook the glass jar filled with oil and vinegar and poured the dressing on the greens, then tossed them with the plastic salad tongs. Nonno put the plates on the table and seated himself on the end. Roberto removed the apron and seated himself on one side. She sat on the other side.

Nonno extended his hands to them both.

She placed her hand in his, then stared at Roberto’s broad palm extended across the table.

She didn’t want to touch him. It was as simple as that. Hearing his warm, slightly accented voice was bad enough, but when she touched him, she forgot the trouble he’d made for her, his dubious honesty, and his unsavory profession, and remembered, in the hidden recesses of her body, how he felt beside her, inside her, on top of her. Touching him made her
want
, a want she didn’t know if she could resist.

Roberto was no man for a woman with her feet planted firmly on the ground and her eyes on the goal. For a woman like her.

But the men were waiting for her to close the prayer circle, so reluctantly she placed her hand in Roberto’s.

There. That wasn’t so bad. She could deal. . . .

Nonno said the traditional Catholic blessing, and ended with, “Dear Lord, we implore your support with our ventures. Amen.”

Both Nonno and Roberto squeezed her hand.

“Amen,” Brandi murmured, surprised at the addition.

Taking her first bite, she barely restrained a moan of joy. This
wasn’t food; this was ambrosia. She took another bite, looked up, and realized the men were watching her. “It’s good,” she said.

They grinned, exchanged high fives, and settled down to eat.

Brandi had finished her first slice of polenta when Roberto announced, “I also spoke with your sister.”

Brandi put down her fork. “You spoke to Kim?”

“She called and I answered your phone.”

“Why didn’t you come and get me?”

“You were sound asleep. Don’t worry; we had a good talk.”

“I’ll bet.” Today was one disaster after another. “What did you tell her?”

“That I would care for you.”

“Oh, no.” Brandi could imagine how Kim had responded to
that
.

Kim was not the kind of woman who trusted a man to do what he promised.

Come to think of it, neither was Brandi.

“She wants you to call her.” He caught Brandi’s hand when she would have risen. “Show some respect for our cooking. You can call her after dinner.”

“I am not grumpy when I’m hungry,” she said in irritation.

“No, dear.” Nonno sounded absolutely placid. Looking up, he caught Brandi glaring at him in outrage. “I’m sorry! For a minute you sounded just like my wife.”

Roberto bent his head to try and hide his grin.

He wasn’t trying hard enough.

“I think you two should spend the night here,” Nonno suggested.

She wanted some time alone to try to figure out how her life plan had gone so awry. So she smiled and patted his hand. “Thank you, Nonno, but I don’t have any clothes. I don’t have a toothbrush. And after my meals today, I really need a toothbrush.”

“I still have drawers of Mariabella’s clothes up in her bedroom. Mariabella’s my daughter. She’s Roberto’s mother. She wouldn’t mind at all if you stayed.” Nonno smiled coaxingly. “I’ll make the bed and Roberto will go down to the corner for a toothbrush.”

Brandi was delighted to see Roberto look truly pained. “Oh, man. Nonno, it’s cold out there!”

“Wimp.” With a single word Nonno dismissed his grandson.

“You’ve got a driver!” Brandi said.

“I’m not calling Newby to drive me a block.” Roberto finished his meal.

She smiled. This would teach him to make her walk all over Chicago in this weather. “Revenge is sweet.”

“So you’ll stay,” Nonno said.

She really didn’t want to. But her bed in her apartment was a new mattress paid for by the apartment manager. She wanted to go home—but not back to that place. She didn’t want to smell the new paint and know the hateful message hidden beneath it, and see the couch with the cushions gone, and feel the damp carpet and hope the cleaners got every horrible thing out. Even with Roberto in the house, she would remember.

As she hesitated, Nonno sighed hugely. “I’m a lonely old man. So lonely. I would enjoy the company. Of course, you young people probably don’t want to hang around with a feeble old man like me. . . .”

“Nonno, you’re pulling my chain,” she said.

“Why, yes.” His eyes twinkled. “Yes, I am. Thank you for noticing.”

She couldn’t resist him. “I’d be delighted to stay.”

Looking resigned, Roberto stood up and went to get his coat.

“Just for tonight!” she said.

“Of course, little Brandi.” Nonno patted her hand. “Roberto, while you’re at the store, pick up some eggs for the morning.”

“Yes, Nonno.” Roberto pulled on his leather gloves. “Anything else?”

“Milk,” Nonno said. “And maybe some Bisquick.”

“Yes, Nonno.” He took a dark knit hat and pulled it over his ears. He should have looked nerdy.

Instead he looked boyish and sexy, and Brandi wanted to wrap his
scarf around his neck, give him a kiss, and tell him to hurry. So she said, “About the toothbrush—soft bristles, compact head.”

He looked at her. Just looked at her. He didn’t smile, but his eyes were fond, as if seeing her sit with his grandfather satisfied something within him. “Soft bristles, compact head,” he repeated, and headed for the door.

It opened and shut, leaving the two at the table smiling at each other.

“He’s a nice boy. But he’s spoiled.” Nonno nodded wisely.

“He sure is.”
Spoiled and breathtaking.
When he gazed at her like that, she forgot all his crimes and remembered only his charms.

“It’s girls like you who spoil him. It’s not good for you two to spend the night alone together.” Nonno shook his head. “Things happen.”

Things happen?
They sure did, especially around Roberto.

“I know. I know. You young people are always sleeping with each other back and forth and you think old guys like me are out-of-date, but I’m telling you, my own daughter learned the hard way that men are louses who take their pleasure without a thought to the consequences!” Nonno’s voice rose and his dark eyes sparkled with fury. “I had to send Mariabella to Italy to have her baby.”

“Roberto?” Brandi had thought he was the son of a count.

“Yes, Roberto. He was born on the wrong side of the blankets. Then she married the count and he made all things right.”

“Oh.” She was confused and irritated. She needed to know more about Roberto. “But the count is his father?”

“In every way,” Nonno assured her. “You stay here and drink a little more wine. I’ll make up the beds.”

“Actually, Nonno, do you have a computer I can use?” she asked impulsively.

“Of course. Roberto bought me a brand-new computer for my birthday. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Roberto walked down the dark street, his head bent against the wind, as cold and uncomfortable as Brandi obviously hoped. The porch lights provided spots of light; the stars were far away and brittle-looking in the blackness of space.

Yet he smiled—she’d been so wickedly thrilled at the idea of sending him out into the cold.

She was not a woman with whom a man trifled. She was intelligent, she was quick-witted, she was passionate—and so, of course, she was vindictive. The last trait was not a permanent part of her character, but when a woman had offered a riches of femininity such as she had offered to her fool of a fiancé and had them rejected, she would seek revenge on the whole gender.

Roberto understood. He only hoped she understood that, when the time was right, he would take her to his bed again.

Come to think of it . . . he hoped she didn’t. She was a strong-willed woman, and if she realized his intentions, her resistance would strengthen. He liked leading her on, giving her support in her new job while kindling the fires of her body. When their current situation was resolved, he would sate himself—and her.