I'm No Angel (5 page)

She leaned back slightly and gave him the evil eye. “Excuse me, but we don't know each other well enough for you to touch me where you're touching me.”

A grin sparkled in his eyes. The dimple at the side of his mouth deepened, as his fingers began to slide again, but not up to her waist. Oh, no, lascivious Tom Donovan's fingers slithered down to her thighs.

That
was the first really big mistake he'd made since he'd chosen to follow her.

His fingers stilled. His eyes narrowed, and she knew he'd found the one thing she didn't want anyone to find.

Again his hand began to move, to explore, gliding up and down, over and around the not-so-little lump on her right thigh. His eyes narrowed even more as his gaze held hers and locked. “That wouldn't be what I think it is, would it?”

Angel grinned slowly. Wickedly. At last, she again had the upper hand. “If you think it's a slim but extremely sharp stainless steel stiletto that could carve out a man's Adam's apple in the blink of an eye, you've guessed right.”

One of Tom's dark, bedeviled eyebrows rose. “I never would have expected a sweet thing like you to carry a stiletto.”

“That, Mr. Donovan, just goes to show that you really don't know as much about me as you think you do.”

Strong masculine fingers continued to whisper over her thigh, over her knife. “Do you have a permit to carry a concealed weapon?”

Angel nodded, drawing a perfectly manicured fingernail across his warm, taut throat. “And, my dearest darling Tom, I know how to use it.”

“You wouldn't be planning to use it on me, would you?”

“All depends.”

“On what?”

“How fast you can get your hands off my thighs.”

In spite of her threat, there was laughter in his eyes. “You've got nice thighs. I'm not too sure I want to move my hands. But, gentleman that I am—even though you're thinking I don't have a gentlemanly bone in my body—I'll remove them.”

“Thank you.”

He slid his fingers and palms back to her derriere, causing deliciously lovely tingles to scatter through her insides, in spite of her attempts not to feel anything, and rested them there. “You know, Angel, you not only have nice thighs, but you've got a nice butt, too. I noticed that when you sashayed into the club tonight.”

She'd had her fingers in his overly long but irresistible-to-the-touch hair but suddenly, instinctively, and ever so gracefully, one hand shot down to her skirt, through the slit at the front of her right leg, and she wrapped her fingers tightly around the hilt of her knife. “If you prize that bit of manhood between your legs, I strongly sugest you put your hands back where they belong.”

He winked. “As you wish.” Once again Tom caught her waist, then did another little spin with her in his arms. “For now.”

The man was insufferable. On top of that, he wanted to be in charge of what was going on between them just as much as she wanted to be in charge. That probably didn't bode well for either of them.

She should walk away. She should put an end to the dance they were sharing—both mentally, physically, and emotionally. But between Tom's overabundance of testosterone and her sudden desire to have sex with a stranger—she couldn't leave.

Not yet.

She still needed some answers from the Piano Man.

“So, Mr. Donovan—”

“Tom. Mr. Donovan was my dad.”

“All right, Tom. Why were you following me?”

“I like sleek red Jaguars.” His lips were close to hers as he spoke. His brown-eyed gaze held her transfixed. His voice was as deep and melodic as the music he'd played and his hair felt like threads of silk winding lightly around her fingers.

Stay calm, she reminded herself. Stay in control.

“I also like women with honey-blond hair and long, slender necks,” he continued, “and the second I saw you at Holt Hudson's place, I knew I wanted to get to know you.”

Mention of Holt's name was like a splash of cold water on her libido. “You were at Holt's?”

“I was on my way to his place when I saw you pulling out,” he answered, as if that shouldn't have been any surprise.

“Do you visit him often?”

Angel felt the muscles tense in Tom's neck. “I haven't been inside Palazzo Paradiso in twenty-six years.”

“I see.”

His brow rose. “Do you?”

She shrugged. “All right, maybe I don't. Holt Hudson doesn't allow just anyone into his home or even onto the grounds. So why don't you tell me how you know Mr. Hudson?”

“I'm his godson.”

That was an answer she never would have expected. “I didn't know he had a godson.”

“Are you privy to his personal life?”

“No, but I wasn't aware anyone else was, either.”

“If you must know, I'm not privy to anything in Holt's life. Like I said, I haven't seen him in twenty-six years and I thought it was high time I paid him a visit. After all, he
is
the one who killed my dad.”

Angel ceased to move. But no sooner had she stopped swaying with the music than Tom had her dancing again, as if his admission shouldn't have come as any shock.

“Your father was
that
Mr. Donovan?” Angel asked. “The cat burglar?”

Tom's eyes narrowed. “So I've been told.”

How easily it would be to turn the conversation toward his dad, to the reason or reasons why Tom didn't believe his father was a cat burglar, but right now she had to concentrate on his feelings about Holt Hudson. She needed to find out what he was up to. If his motive for wanting to see Holt, who was about to come out of seclusion after twenty-six years, could foul up her plans for the gala, she had to keep him from seeing the billionaire.

She toyed with the hair drifting over the collar of his leather jacket. “I can't imagine what it must
be like to lose a parent in such a horrid way,” she said, knowing it was tough enough watching Alzheimer's kill her mom a little more each day.

“Not many people can.”

“But…” She sighed lightly, her eyes filling with concern. “I'd think seeing Holt Hudson would be the last thing you'd want to do.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I imagine you despise him. God knows when I despise someone, I make a point of keeping my distance.”

“I've kept my distance for twenty-six years.”

“So why see him now?”

“Because until a few months ago I didn't know he existed.” He twirled her around, then tugged her against his chest.

Angel drew in a deep breath as her breasts pressed against his pecs, as their hearts beat hard and fast, in time with each other.

“I blocked the first four years of my life out of my mind,” Tom continued, his dark brown eyes turning black and intense. “I couldn't remember my dad, my home, the kids I'd played with, or the night my dad was shot. And now all of a sudden bits and pieces of long-forgotten memories keep flashing through my mind, like my dad's blood and his pain and his tears, and they're all so clear, so real, that they could have happened yesterday.”

Angel could see the muscles tighten in Tom's jaws, felt the tension in his back. “I need answers, Angel. Answers only Holt can give me, beginning with the reason why he put six bullets into my
dad when they were supposedly the best of friends.”

“Because your father broke into Holt's home.” The words flew out of Angel's mouth without forethought. She should have kept silent, but Tom's dad had been a thief. And if what she'd read about the break-in was true, if the gossip she'd heard could be believed, Chase Donovan had been on the verge of attacking Holt's wife when he was shot. That thought alone made her believe Tom's dad had deserved everything he'd gotten.

“Read the newspaper accounts of what happened,” Angel said, trying to sound like the voice of reason. “Get the police report and you'll know exactly what took place. Your dad opened a safe that was supposed to be impossible to crack and took a statue that was and still is worth a king's ransom. And—”

“And that justifies killing a man who was unarmed?”

“Your dad was attacking Holt's wife.”

“I don't believe it. I
won't
believe it.” Tom swirled her in his arms, holding her tight. Close. His breath was warm against her mouth as he spoke. “Something else happened that night. Something Holt Hudson has kept secret all these years, and I'm going to find out what.”

“You plan to harass him?”

“I plan to talk to him. I don't care how I make that happen.”

Angel wove her fingers into his hair. Her narrowed eyes were filled with an impassioned warn
ing when she looked him straight in the eye. “Leave him alone.”

“Why?”

“Because he's a good man who doesn't deserve to be badgered. He's decent and honorable and he's lived with a lot of pain and heartache the last twenty or so years.”

“And my father spent three days bleeding to death from six goddamned bullet holes.”

“Did you ever stop to think that if your dad hadn't hightailed it out of Holt's place after he was shot, if he'd gone to the hospital or even called the police—which an innocent person would have done—he might not have bled to death?”

“Of course I've thought about it. I've also wondered why the hell we ended up in the Everglades, stuck in a miserably hot car in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat or drink.” Tom's fingers bore into her back. “I want to know why my dad had to die slowly and painfully, with no one to care for him but his four-year-old son who was scared out of his mind.”

Slowly Tom eased his grip, his touch light as he held her close, but his eyes were red with fury and grief, and they held on to hers as if looking for compassion and understanding.

“I'm sorry,” Angel said softly.

Tom plowed a hand through his hair. For a moment she thought he was going to walk away, go someplace where he could brood by himself. Instead, he caressed her cheek gently, then curled his warm, callused fingers around the back of her
neck. “I may never get all the answers I want, but I'm sure Holt could clear up a few of the things I need to know. Is that too much to ask? To want?”

“
I
don't think it's too much,” she answered honestly. “But Holt obviously doesn't feel that way. And no matter how much you want him to tell you all he knows, I don't think you'll ever get him to open up.”

“You're wrong, Angel. I will see him. I will talk to him—if it's the last thing I do.”

Angel shook her head in frustration. The man was too damn stubborn for his own good—or hers. And if he harassed Holt in any way, she had the sickening feeling the plans for her gala would meet a tragic death.

“Look, Angel,” Tom said, taking her hand and tugging her from the dance floor to a place close to the entry, “this evening wasn't supposed to be about Holt or my dad or what happened twenty-six years ago. It was supposed to be about you and me.”

Angel laughed lightly. Nervously. As much as she might have liked this evening to have been about her and Tom, she knew the gala—and Holt—came first.

“At this stage of the game, there is no you and me, but”—she smiled—“if you'd like to change that scenario, promise to leave Holt Hudson alone.”

“That's a promise I won't make.”

“Then I'll have to keep an eye on you. Make sure you don't do anything that would annoy the hell out of Mr. Hudson.”

One of Tom's damnably sexy eyebrows tilted. “Does that mean you're going to follow me wherever I go?”

“Oh, I'll be following you, Mr. Donovan, but I won't be as blatant about it as you were when you followed me tonight. And if I'm not following you, rest assured someone else will be.” It was all a bluff, of course. She worked alone. But Tom Donovan didn't need to know that.

“You sound as if you don't trust me,” Tom said, all sweetness and innocence, a phony, playful grin plain as day on his face.

“You've given me a lot of reasons not to.” Angel moved in close to Tom and tilted her head so she could glare at him eye to eye. “I have a lot of connections in this town. On top of that, I'm one hell of a knife thrower. And let me tell you something, Mr. Donovan.” She poked a finger into his chest. “If you do anything, and I mean
anything,
to hurt Holt Hudson or to upset him, I'll get even.”

“What? You plan to cut off my balls?”

Angel's gaze darted to the zipper on the black slacks that fit Tom snugly. Nicely. Slowly her smiling eyes drifted back to his face. “If I have to.”

Tom laughed. “You'll have to get your hands on them first. And let me tell you this, sweetheart.” He tugged her against his rock solid body and whispered close to her lips. “If, or should I say when that happens, using your sweet little stiletto on me will be the last thing on your mind.”

I
t was half past midnight when Tom climbed down the steps leading into the living quarters on
Adagio,
the sleek yacht moored in his estate's private dock. The scent of his grandfather's always brewing coffee drew him through the cozy living room to the galley, where he found a plate of Pop's freshly made peanut butter cookies. They'd been Grandma's favorite, at least that's what Pop had told him. She'd died before Tom was born, but Pop talked about her every day, as if she were still by his side.

Tom tossed his leather jacket over a small table cluttered with fishing magazines, pinched off a piece of a chewy, sugar-dusted cookie, and popped it into his mouth before filling the sink with hot water and dish soap, to clean up Pop's mess.

He plunged his hands into the suds and a memory slammed into him. A memory that was so damn vivid, so damn real.

It was hot. The humidity thick and heavy. He
could hardly breathe as he sat inside Pop's rattle-trap pickup and struggled to see over the dash. He heard the crunch of gravel beneath the wheels as the old man he'd met just a couple of days before drove down the narrow winding road and stopped in front of the cabin that stood on stilts.

“This is your new home,” the man had said. “And by the way, why don't you call me Pop? That's what your dad called me, and I kind of like the sound of that better than Grandpa.”

Tom had slid out of the truck and hid behind the open door until Pop was able to coax him toward the house with the promise of a peanut butter cookie and a big glass of milk. He remembered his stomach growling. Remembered being hungry, because he'd pushed away the food the cops and the psychologists and all the other people who'd questioned him and poked and prodded him had shoved in front of his face.

He remembered hearing the strange noises coming from the swamp. The mosquitoes. And he remembered being scared, until Pop slipped his big hand around Tom's little one and led him toward the cabin. They'd walked up the stairs together, Tom tripping over the laces of his untied tennis shoes as he tried to keep up with the man who was still a stranger to him.

Finally Pop pushed open a squeaky screen door and they stepped into a big old kitchen with glass doors that led out to a porch overlooking sawgrass and water. It wasn't the ocean he'd seen through the glass doors at home, but Pop had told him he needed to forget his other house. Needed to forget everything about the past and move on.

There wouldn't be any more fancy clothes or expensive dinners in restaurants. There'd be gator tail to eat. Fish that they'd catch right outside the back door. And cookies.

Tom remembered the first whiff of Pop's peanut butter cookies. Remembered dipping one in a big glass of cold milk and nibbling on the edges as he looked out the window at the mysterious place he would now call home.

He also remembered the piles of dishes, and Pop patting him on top of his head. “You're a big boy now,” he'd said, leading Tom toward the sink and showing him how the dishes were supposed to be washed. “Time you start earning your keep.”

Tom laughed at the memory. Hell, he'd never done a dish in his entire four years of life, and suddenly he was faced with a week's worth. Pop still hated to clean the kitchen and Tom still made sure the dishes got done. It was the least he could do for the grandfather who'd taken him in, raised him, and loved him after the pampered life he'd always known came to a screeching halt.

Through the window over the sink Tom could see the tall palms that framed Mere Belle, the oceanfront chateau where he'd lived until Pop became his guardian; the home he'd completely forgotten, like so many other things, until a couple of months ago when he'd inherited a fortune from the grandparents he'd never known, and Pop was forced to tell him about the past.

There was still so much he didn't know, a lot he couldn't remember, but bit by bit the memories were returning.

He scrubbed brown coffee stains out of a
SEE YA LATER ALLIGATOR
mug, one of the few they hadn't been able to get rid of when he and Pop sold their gator farm in the Glades and moved to Palm Beach. He thought about hiring a housekeeper to help out in the three-story chateau. Someone who wouldn't mind coming out to the yacht to clean up after Pop so Tom would have more time to refurbish the Gilded Age mansion and landscape the rest of the estate.

But Tom knew his eighty-seven-year-old white-haired grandfather would pitch a fit if Tom paid someone good money to do the dishes. Hell, Pop had pitched a fit about leaving the Glades and living in a house
and
a town that was far too fancy for him.

There were times when Tom was sure the man was more trouble than he was worth. But when Pop said he'd leave the Glades if Tom got him a fishing boat to live on, Tom hustled down to Miami to find just the right boat, one with doors wide enough for a walker or a wheelchair for that day when Pop set aside his pride and accepted the fact that arthritis was crippling him and he needed more than a cane to help him get around.

He'd found a barely used eighty-foot Dalla Pietá in Miami and named her
Adagio,
then personally stripped the master bedroom of all the fancy furnishings and fitted it with the bed Pop had slept in with his wife. He'd hung his grandmother's mirror on the wall over the dressing table where she'd brushed her long silver hair, and placed the knickknack shelves Pop had lovingly built in pretty much the same places where
they'd hung in the cabin. After that he'd carefully placed all of the Hummel figurines she'd collected for over forty years.

It might not be the cabin in the Glades, but Tom had transformed every room and now the so-called fishing boat wreaked of home. Still, Pop put up a stink over Tom paying an arm and a leg for the big and much too fancy yacht. Hell, if they weren't arguing over Pop's fishing boat they'd argue about something else. It seemed to be a way of life for them, but damn if he didn't love the old man.

After wiping the last cookie sheet, Tom poured himself a cup of Pop's thick as sludge coffee and let his thoughts drift back to another sparring match, one with not-so-sweet-and-innocent Angel Devlin, the lady with the extremely sharp stainless steel stiletto strapped to her thigh and a tongue that was just as sharp. She intrigued him. So did her curves, and he'd done his best to run his fingers over every silk-covered speck of her heavenly body. He would have touched the specks that weren't covered with silk, too, if her protests hadn't been so pointed.

There wasn't one doubt in his mind that Angel hoped she'd never set eyes on him again, but Tom had no intention of ending what had begun tonight. Angel Devlin didn't know it, but she was going to get him into Holt Hudson's mansion, and at some point in time, before or after that event—and the sooner the better—he was going to get her into his bed.

Taking a swallow of the bitter black coffee laced with chicory, he headed out to the sun deck,
where Pop sat until one or two most every morning. Tom could smell the cherry tobacco from Pop's pipe and heard the soft creak of the wooden rocker Pop had crafted for his wife fifty-plus years ago.

The light breeze rustled through Tom's hair when he stepped outside. His footsteps could barely be heard over the lap of salt water against the hull, but Pop seemed to sense that he was there.

Rocking gently as he stared out at the starry sky, Pop took the pipe he'd been puffing on out of his mouth. “Did you talk to Holt?” he asked, setting his pipe in the green alligator-shaped ashtray Tom had made him in second grade.

Tom walked across the deck and leaned on the railing, facing the water instead of his grandfather. “I saw Holt, but we didn't talk.”

“Did you get inside his mansion?”

“I got as far as a second story window.”

“Couldn't do it, huh?”

“Nope,” Tom said, shaking his head as he remembered standing on the window ledge and the dread that had engulfed him when he'd thought about the cramped prison cell he'd be stuck in if he was caught. He remembered the way his gut had clenched when he saw Holt and the way he'd wanted to twist his hands around the neck of his father's killer.

He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, glad he hadn't gone through with that damn foolish plan. Glad he now had another means of getting to Holt—the lovely Miss Devlin.

Turning, Tom watched his grandfather strike a
match and hold the flame over the bowl of the old meerschaum pipe so he could once again puff on it. “You giving up on your plan to confront Holt?” Pop asked, looking at Tom as he shook the burning match to put out the fire.

“I gave up on the plan to break into his home.” Tom grinned. “Now I've got another plan in the works.”

The rocker stopped its creaking. “I don't like the sound of that.”

“Don't worry, Pop. I know what I'm doing.”

Pop shook his head slowly, a sure sign that he was annoyed with Tom for pursuing Holt. He wanted Tom to forget the past. But Tom was on a mission, and he wasn't about to let anyone or anything get in his way.

“Did you catch any fish today?” Tom asked, changing the conversation.

“Nope. Ended up calling Jeb's place in the Glades and ordering fresh gator tail since you can't get it anywhere in
this
town. He's sending it FedEx so tomorrow night I plan to have me a feast.” Pop puffed easily on his pipe, and smoke swirled in front of his face. “You want to join me?”

“I might have a date.”

Pop grinned. “Met someone, huh?”

“Met someone and already had a fight with her.” It was more than Pop needed to know, but he'd never kept anything from his grandfather.

Pop's grin disappeared. “That's not a good way to start a relationship.”

“It's not going to be a relationship,” Tom said adamantly. “She knows Holt and I figure she can get me in to see him.”

“I see,” Pop said, disappointment ringing in his words. “You're going to use her.”

“I've got more important things than a romantic relationship to think about now.”

“You know,” Pop said, his pipe gripped between his teeth as he pushed his arthritic body out of the rocker, grabbed his cane, and maneuvered slowly toward Tom, “your dad used to use people. In fact, he tried using your mom when he first met her.”

It wasn't often that Pop opened up about Chase or Amélie, and Tom was anxious for his grandfather to tell him more about the father he'd barely known and the mom he hadn't known at all. “Did he?”

“Sure as hell did.” Pop wrapped his gnarled fingers around the railing to help support his frail, bent body, and stared across the water. “He figured if he wined her and dined her and made her think he was in love with her, he could get into her parents' safe and steal a diamond and emerald necklace, a family heirloom that was worth a quarter of a mil.”

“Did he get it?” Tom asked, standing beside his grandfather, inhaling the scents of cherry tobacco and salty air.

“Didn't take long before your dad figured out he liked the lady more than the thought of putting his fingers on her parents' jewels. In the end he married your mom and she was given the necklace on their wedding day.” Pop took the ever-present pipe from his mouth and gazed at his grandson. “I guess you could say he had his cake and got to eat it, too.”

“What happened to the necklace?”

“It's in my safe-deposit box. Before your mom's parents—your grandparents—died, I promised them I'd give you the necklace when you marry.”

Not that that was ever going to happen, Tom thought. He preferred bachelorhood, coming and going as he pleased, and not being cooped up. But now that he had Pop talking, he wanted to know more. “Is there anything else you're keeping from me?”

“Nope, that's about it. You've got the big fancy mansion your French grandparents bought your mom and dad for a wedding present. You now own their apartment in Paris, the one in Monte Carlo, and their villa in Milan.”

“And every penny they amassed when they were alive,” Tom said bitterly. “Would have been nice if I'd known they existed. Would have been nice if they'd offered me the pleasure of their company just once or even sent a postcard. That would have been worth a hell of a lot more than all their wealth.”

“They didn't want any reminders of their daughter,” Pop said, as if that were a good excuse.

“More likely they didn't want to be reminded of the man she married.”

“They didn't like the fact that your mother abandoned her chances to be a concert pianist, just to be with your father. They didn't like the fact that Chase dragged your mother from one European city to the next, or that she introduced him to her wealthy friends, only to have him steal their jewels and other priceless objects.”

“There's no proof he did any of those things.”

“No, there's no proof. But your other grandparents knew it was true just as I knew it was true. And they hated what he was.”

“You hated what he was, too.”

Pop stuck his pipe back between his teeth, turned slowly and made his way back to the rocker. Lowering his feeble body carefully, he made himself comfortable in the chair.

Pop's gaze found Tom's, and through the swirl of smoke Tom saw the redness in the old man's eyes. “Your father told me he'd gone straight. He told me after your mother died that all he wanted to do was spend time with you, give you the same kind of love your mother would have given you had she lived.”

Pop took the pipe out of his mouth and sighed sadly. “He said he'd never again get himself in a dangerous situation—in other words, break into someone's home for the sole purpose of stealing. But he lied to me. I can't forgive him for that. And yes”—he nodded—“I hate what he was.”

“Isn't that a bit like the pot calling the kettle black?”