Dangerous Ladies (21 page)

His fists clenched in his pockets.

Yet waiting was proving more difficult than he anticipated. Seeing her asleep on his
nonno
’s couch, sweet and defenseless, had touched a tender chord within him and a fierce chord within him. He didn’t understand this
need
to possess a woman with whom he’d indulged himself only a day ago.

Yet he would control that need. After all, Nonno was right: Roberto had always been the sober, responsible one in the family, and—

Behind him, someone coughed. Coughed as if he didn’t want to, but couldn’t hold it back.

Roberto’s steps didn’t slow. Nothing about him indicated that he’d heard. Instead he waited until he reached the darkest spot on the street and slid into the shadows beside the garbage cans.

The guy following him bumbled along, coughing up a lung.

The guy was really sick.

When Roberto knocked him off his feet he was careful not to kill him.

The boy struggled, punching wildly.

Roberto sat on his chest, pressing him into the icy concrete. “What are you doing? Why are you following me?”

The guy wheezed. “Not.”

“Yes, you are. You and that other guy. What did you do, divide up the duties?”

“Had to.” The kid started coughing again.

Roberto would have bet the FBI had put a tail on him, but the FBI didn’t put their agents into the field with pneumonia. “You’re with the Fosseras.”

“Not!” The guy struggled frantically.

Roberto leaned close. “Bullshit.”
Per Diana!
He wanted to put his hands around the guy’s throat and interrogate him, but the kid was literally gasping for breath. Roberto would be lucky if he didn’t die while he sat on him. Standing, he fumbled for his phone. “I’m going to call you an ambulance.”

“No!” The guy stumbled to his feet and stood swaying. Then he took off down the street, weaving as he ran.

Shaking his head, Roberto watched him go. He was no threat. He would be lucky to live through the night.

Who the hell would send this loser to trail Roberto? Not Mossimo. Not the FBI.

So who?

B
randi sat at Nonno’s tiny desk in his bedroom and stared in disbelief at the photo of a distinguished-looking Roberto on the nineteen-inch computer screen.

She flipped away from the business news and to another page.

Looking proud and happy, he stood back and allowed Nina Johnsten to take her bows, and he showed so much pride she might have been a supermodel instead of a woman about ninety years old and half his height.

Brandi shoved her hair off her forehead and went looking for the dirt.

“Wow.” Brandi stared at the photo of Roberto with the tall, golden-skinned, dark-haired Asian woman. They were the most beautiful couple she’d ever seen . . . except for the picture of Roberto with English heiress Brownie Burbank. They were also the most beautiful couple she’d ever seen. And Roberto with German opera singer Leah Camberg. He had a way of making every woman more beautiful than she could be by herself.

Brandi looked down at her wrinkled suit. Except probably for her. Somehow she thought that, after today, she was the worse for wear.

But as much as she wanted to, she didn’t dare linger over the photos of his various lovers. Nonno was making her bed, then coming back for her, and she needed to find out at what turn Roberto’s life had gone wrong.

She found the stats in the most recent articles.

Brandi erased the browser’s history, turned off the computer, and sat loose-fisted in the ergonomic desk chair. If anything, her investigation had confused her more.

Roberto had never before been accused of a crime. He was rich, he was respected, he was a businessman, he was a lover. . . . Had he hidden his hobby from the press until the moment when he took one chance too many? Was this an aberration in character? Or was Mrs. Vandermere nothing but a disgruntled former lover?

Nonno tapped on the door. “All right, little Brandi, your room is ready.”

At once she was on her feet and moving toward Nonno. She couldn’t think of this right now. She now knew what the world knew about Roberto, and she was more confused than ever.

Nonno led her down the hall and opened the door to Mariabella’s bedroom. “Here you are. The heat is on, but it’s a little chilly still.” He waved at the maple dresser. “Mariabella’s pajamas are in there. She left a robe in the closet. Don’t be shy; use what you need. Mariabella is a sweet girl. She’d want to share.”

“Thank you, Nonno.”

“The bath’s at the end of the hall. You can spend as much time in there as you want—Mariabella always did. Hours and hours.” He cackled as if he were telling an old family joke.

Driven by impulse, Brandi kissed his cheek.

He patted hers. “I’ve enjoyed having a beautiful young woman visit, even if she is with my rascal of a grandson.”

Downstairs, the door opened and closed.

“He’s returned at last.” Nonno headed back down the stairs. “I’ll get your toothbrush.”

“Thank you, Nonno.” Brandi stepped inside the bedroom and felt as if she’d stepped back into the seventies. The carpet was lavender. The wallpaper and the bedspread were sprinkled with lavender
flowers. A yellowing poster of Genesis featuring a young Phil Collins with hair that was a little longer but still thin was pinned on the ceiling. The heat register creaked and rumbled. Despite the chill, the room welcomed her with the generous warmth of a daughter of Nonno’s, a mother of Roberto’s. Brandi didn’t hesitate to search the drawers for sleepwear. She found pajamas first and grimaced. Not surprisingly, Mariabella was shorter than Brandi—shorter by at least six inches. Of course, Nonno wouldn’t think of that, and Brandi wouldn’t hurt him by mentioning it. Instead she dug deeper to find a flannel nightgown. She pulled it over her head. It hit her at midshin.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Her arms stuck out. Her ankles stuck out. She looked like a gangly giraffe, and she felt sort of like Alice in Wonderland falling down the rabbit hole. All her perceptions were twisting, stretching, shrinking, and she didn’t know which way was up.

She took out her PDA and opened it to her master list of qualities required in a man. She read them through.
Honest, dependable, goal-oriented, sober
. . .

Roberto was none of those.

It didn’t matter. Or rather it shouldn’t matter, because she didn’t have Roberto. Shouldn’t want to have him.

But . . . her stylus hovered over ERASE ALL.

Her cell phone rang. It was Kim, and with relief, Brandi put away her PDA and answered the phone.

“What are you up to?” Her half sister’s voice blared in Brandi’s ear. “Your mother keeps calling trying to pry information out of me. I’m pretending I know nothing—and you know how good I am at acting. Lucky for me, I can’t figure out what you
are
doing. When I called earlier, that guy answered the phone.”

“Did you think it was Alan?” Brandi buttoned the flowered nightgown.

“No, I did not think it was Alan. He didn’t sound like a wimp who got spooked talking to a lesbian, so I knew it was the new guy.
The new guy! The one you were supposed to leave after one night. Then after the weekend. What’s going on?” Kim’s voice got louder and louder. “Are you
crazy
?”

“I’m not crazy.” Brandi moved to the window and squinted up at the night sky, trying to see the moon or the stars . . . or God. She had a few words she’d like to say to God. “But someone out there has it in for me.”

“Whiner.”

“Bitch,” Brandi answered absently. “My apartment was vandalized.”

“What? When?” One thing Brandi could always depend on—Kim responded fiercely to a threat to her younger sister.

“Last night. Then I went to my first day of work and my Italian lover was the defendant in my first case.”

“The guy on the phone?”

“The very one.” Brandi took the pins out of her hair. “Then the judge remanded him into my custody. Now I’m at his grandfather’s, where I’ll spend the night, and we’re arguing about where we’re going to spend the rest of the nights until the court case is over.”

“He wants to spend them all in your bed, huh?”

“Nooo.” Brandi got her brush out of her purse.

“C’mon! He’d have to be blind and an idiot not to be interested!” Kim sounded absolutely incredulous.

“Alan was neither blind nor an idiot, and he wasn’t interested.” Brandi brushed hard enough to pull her hair out by the roots.

“No, he was a self-absorbed son of a bitch who wanted all the guys to envy him for the babe he was dating, but hated that you were taller than him, smarter than him, and infinitely more interesting.”

“Hey, thanks!” Kim was a gruff woman not given to compliments, and Brandi treasured this one.

“He was an abuser,” Kim said flatly.

“He never hit me!” Brandi tossed the brush aside.

“He didn’t have to. He made you feel bad about yourself. Now you’ve got another one who got what he wanted from you and is ready to toss you aside.”

Brandi thought about the way Roberto looked at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. “Not . . . exactly.”

“Aha!” Kim sounded triumphant. “I knew it. I knew you were kidding me. The guy who answered the phone has the voice of a lover.”

Amused, Brandi asked, “What, my dear lesbian sister, do you know about the voice of a man who is a lover?”

“You’re not the only one who had an adventure this weekend.” Beneath Kim’s prim tone, Brandi heard suppressed excitement.

“Wait a minute. Wait. Wait. Wait.” Brandi wanted to get this straight. “Are you saying you’ve found someone?”

“It’s not impossible!”

“It is when someone’s as picky as you are,” Brandi retorted.

Kim laughed, a deep, satisfied laugh. “Yeah, well, she’s special.”

“What’s her name?”

“We were talking about you.”

“What’s her name?”

“So this guy is interested in you?”

“I’ll tell you when you tell me her name.” Brandi grinned into the resulting silence. Kim could be stubborn. But not as stubborn as Brandi.

“Her name is Sarah.”

“The vice principal you thought hated you?”

“I answered your question; now you answer mine.” But Kim was laughing.

She sounded so happy, Brandi’s heart warmed. Heck, if not for Kim, the events of the past fourteen years would have prostrated Brandi, but Kim faced the prejudices against lesbians and their father’s scathing complaints to become a successful coach, and with an example like that before her, Brandi had to achieve her goals. She owed Kim a lot. “What was the question?”

“You going to be okay?” Kim asked gruffly.

“Sure. What else can happen?”

“Well . . .”

At that single word, Brandi’s antennae quivered with suspicion. “What? Kim, what?”

“I just want you to know . . . I might have said too much to your mother.”

“What?”
Oh, no.
“What do you mean, too much?”

“She was questioning me. She confused me. I didn’t know what to say, so she started guessing stuff and—Hey, I gotta go. The pool tournament is tonight and it’s my turn.”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me! Kim! Don’t you dare!” But the connection was dead. “Shit!” Now she had to call Tiffany. “Shit.” But this time she was considerably less heated.

She should have called sooner. She knew it. There was no use blaming Kim because she’d tried to cover for Brandi and failed. It was just that this had gotten so complicated, much more than a simple jilting, and Tiffany would be so distressed—distressed because Brandi had been hurt, and more distressed that Brandi hadn’t run to her mother for comfort.