The Care and Feeding of Unmarried Men (22 page)

“Wow. Okay. Right. Whoo.” She was babbling again, just as she'd done in Cosimo's car, and she
never
babbled. Jemima marrying. Jemima marrying Mack Chandler. There was a juicy item for her “Party Girl” column, but that wasn't at the top of her mind. “This means you're really free. You could go. Tomorrow. Tonight. This afternoon. Now…”

“Yeah, I could.” Nash shoved his phone in his pocket, then shoved both of his hands through his hair. “I could get back to business.”

“You were only staying here until Jemima was safe.”

“Uh-huh.”

And it was time for them to part. Past time.

“Or you could stay until after Téa and Johnny's wedding,” she heard herself say. A flush rushed over her skin. Had she just asked him to stay? Oh, God. She'd just asked him to stay. She never, ever asked a man to stay. There had to be some reason why she would break another rule. “I…uh…I could use a date. It could be fun.”

Nash stilled, and Eve wished back her words. They had to be on account of that sickness she was suffering from. Would he buy that as an excuse?

But then a grin slowly dawned over his face. “Well, well, well. There's an offer that's hard to refuse.”

She held her breath.

“You want more fun, huh? When you put it like that, I sure can't leave a lady like you in the lurch.”

N
ash had told himself that staying longer in Palm Springs was for what Eve had said—fun. Indulging longer in his affair with her was his reward for playing unnecessary bodyguard to Jemima—and for not punching a wall after hearing the details of Eve's beating, like he'd wanted to. But the wedding he'd agreed to attend with her was still a couple of days away, so tonight he'd said yes to escorting her to that masquerade party she'd once mentioned too.

It had sounded like more fun.

Except it was really torture, and he'd only been in the ballroom of the Desert Stars resort for a mere twenty minutes.

It had started back at the Kona Kai. He'd thought himself oh-so-clever by wearing all black accented by a white collar he'd folded from a handkerchief—The
Preacher going as a preacher. Then Eve had turned his every brain cell to jelly by traipsing out of her door in that scandalous schoolgirl uniform, complete with kneesocks and sneakers.

They'd been halfway to the parking lot before he'd been able to think. Halfway to the party before he'd been able to speak. “Tell me you're wearing panties,” he finally ground out.

“Of course.” Her small smile was naughtier than his prurient thoughts. “Little white cotton ones.”

Making those little white cotton panties an image he couldn't get out of his head.

Torture, pure torture.

So, arms folded over his chest and teeth clenched, he sat at an empty table, watching Eve circulate about the party with a tiny tape recorder in her hand when all he wanted to do was take her somewhere private, flip up that saucy skirt, and—

A tall body dropped into the chair next to Nash's. Johnny Magee, dressed like a riverboat gambler in a white ruffly shirt and shiny jacket. On another guy it would have looked too pretty, because Johnny Magee, with his golden hair and toothpaste smile,
was
pretty, but he carried it off with an air of cool that made clear he was all guy.

“Glad you could join us, Cargill,” he said, putting out his hand to deliver a firm shake. “Sorry Téa and I weren't here when you arrived. The photographer captured us for some photos.”

“Yeah. He got Eve and me, too.” The pictures were supposed to be developed and delivered to the tables before the party ended, and Nash figured he'd snag one for future days when he wanted to remember the
party girl who had once tried so hard to wrap him around her pinky finger.

His gaze found her again in the crowd of two hundred or so costumed guests. Another flashbulb popped, blazing her already-bright hair. As if he could ever forget her.

Johnny's gaze followed his. “Quite a woman, our Eve.” Then he looked at Nash, obvious speculation in his eyes. “Don't you think?”

“Yeah. Sure. A lot of fun,” Nash replied, then hastily diverted the conversation. Magee had already shown his propensity for awkward questions. “And you're marrying into the Caruso family in a few days.”

Johnny turned his head, and Nash saw him looking toward a nearby table where Téa stood talking, wearing a pink bunny outfit, complete with fluffy tail pinned to her own very excellent one. “Yeah.” How he managed to look both suave and besotted at the same time, Nash didn't know, but he did feel sorry for the guy. Besotted had to hurt. “She's the best gamble I ever made.”

“Gamble?”

Johnny turned back to Nash. “Long story. Old history. Upshot: happy ending.”

Nash appreciated men of few words, but he couldn't help being curious about Cosimo Caruso and the California Mafia. Despite what Nash's VP of Finance had imparted to Nash on his first morning at the Kona Kai, Nash might have been able to dismiss the organized crime connection if he hadn't met the boss of bosses in the flesh. Eve's silver-haired grandfather radiated more potentially lethal power than a high-octane hemi-engine. “You don't have any qualms about marrying into…uh…”

“The mob?” Johnny shrugged. “We keep our distance from that side of the family. When I look at Téa, her mother, her sisters, I tell myself I'm marrying into a mob of gorgeous women.”

Which made Nash look the superbeauty's way once more.

“Eve said you'll be her date at the wedding.” Johnny sounded speculative again.

Nash shrugged. “Should be fun.”

“Fun?” the other man echoed, and the way he studied Nash's face reminded Nash that Johnny Magee was a professional gambler. He probably read volumes into the slightest tic.

But Nash could be as stony as they come. “Fun.”

That's all it was between him and Eve.

Johnny ran a hand over his hair. “Maybe I should warn you—” Whatever he'd been about to impart was lost as something over Nash's shoulder caught his attention. He frowned. “Oh, damn. Damn, damn,
damn.
”

Nash turned to see little sister Joey Caruso come striding into the party, heading their way. Along with a mulish expression, she wore a skimpy, glittery costume that made her look like an Italian Tinkerbell. Then Nash's attention shifted to what—who—he figured Johnny was swearing about. Eve had said only Téa knew what had happened to Eve ten years before, but it seemed that circle had widened to Johnny as well as Nash. Because walking a pace or two behind Joey, but definitely tagging along with her, was Nino Farelle.

The man was dressed in pinstripes, like the gangster he was. As Nash watched the dark, slick-haired figure stride into the room, his muscles clenched and his stomach tightened into a knot of fire. On each hand, his fingers slowly contracted toward his palm.

This was the man who had hurt Eve. Blackened her eyes. Split her lip.

A high whine buzzed in Nash's ears as his anger gathered force.

Nino and Joey were still a few tables away when the mobster bent down and murmured something to the small woman, then peeled off toward the bar. Nash followed him with his gaze, never looking away until Joey reached the table. She yanked out the chair beside Johnny's and threw herself into it, squishing the sheer wings that were somehow attached to her shoulders.

Johnny cleared his throat, then leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Hey, there.” He hesitated. “What's up with your, uh, date?”

“Don't ask.” She tucked her dark hair behind her ears and rolled her eyes. “I'm sorry, but we're stuck with him for the evening.”

Not if Nash had anything to do about it. As much as he wished to control the Mr. Hyde inside himself, he wouldn't—just w
ould not
—sit here with that man, knowing—

“What's the thundercloud on your face all about?” Suddenly his favorite schoolgirl plopped into his lap and put her arms around his neck.

Without thinking, he relaxed one of his fists so he could palm the small of Eve's back. But his gaze shot back to Nino, still in line at the bar. The anger burned in his belly. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

She grabbed his chin and turned his face toward hers. “It's nothing
you
need to worry about.”

“Eve—”

“Nash.” She jumped to her feet and pulled him up by the hand. “Come dance with me.”

There must have been steel in her superbeauty body,
because she yanked him away from the table, then pushed him onto the polished hardwood floor, where a few couples were moving together. She draped herself over his stiff body, her arms once again around his neck. He found his own already at her back.

“For God's sake, Eve,” he muttered. “I told you I have two left feet.” The band was playing an old Styx ballad, but his simmering mood wasn't sailing away with the tune.

She pressed her body harder against his. “I have two right ones. Together we make a couple.”

His hands tightened on her warm waist.
Together we make a couple.
He shook his head to get the words out of his mind and glanced over again to monitor the man who'd just reached the white-coated bartender. “I have something I need to do besides dance.”

“I picked up on that from across the room,” she said. “And you're wrong.”

“You were watching me?”

“More like feeling you.” Her valentine mouth curved into a smile. “You glower with power.”

He didn't laugh at her rhyme as she'd meant him to. “Eve—”

“I don't need your help.”

She didn't need him, is what she meant.

“I took care of it years ago.”

She could take care of herself.

And for some reason, those messages made the flames of anger inside of him flare higher. “Can't you let me—”

Her cool fingers moved over his mouth. “No, Nash. I can't let you. You don't want to hurt anyone again. You'd hate that.”

His gaze shifted from her face to Nino, who was
weaving through the crowd with drinks in his hands. The hands that had dared to touch, to
injure,
Nash's Eve.

His Eve.

A wild thought knifed through his hot mood, stunning him.

“We're supposed to be having fun, remember?” Her fingers moved to tangle in the hair at the back of his neck.

Nash clenched his back teeth. That's right, that's right. Fun. She was a selfish, hedonistic party girl. One who was good with men. All men. How she made him feel, how she felt to him, that was just part and parcel of the superbeauty power she had over any poor dope with an XY chromosome combination.

He stared down at her, trying to see her as nothing more than that mouth, those breasts, that blonde hair, those legs. No one who needed his protection. No one to get worked up over.

“I can't let you do what you're thinking of for me, and then despise yourself afterward,” she said, all earnestness and sincere eyes. Her fingers caressed his nape. “I just can't let you, Nash.”

Proving that she, Eve Caruso—not a puppet with the body and face of a goddess but a complex, warm, crazy-making woman—was concerned about him. Cared about him.

Wanted to safeguard
him
.

As no woman ever had.

That wild thought rushed into his consciousness again, smothering his anger.

Oh, God, no.

Would he despise himself afterward if he beat the crap out of Nino Farelle? It was hard to know, Nash
decided, when everything else in his mind was being trampled by that one reckless thought that he couldn't ignore. That one terrible, tragic thought.

He was in love with her.

Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. I am so, so screwed.

He was in love with Eve Caruso.

And that wasn't any kind of fun at all.

 

Nino Farelle made it through the next couple of hours without confrontation or punishment for two reasons. One, he didn't spend any time at the Magee-Caruso table, and two, Nash was so knocked on his ass by the revelation of his feelings for Eve that
he
spent most of his time in his chair, staring off into space or staring at her.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

She must have extracted some kind of promise from him on the dance floor, because though she checked back every so often, she left him mostly alone to work the room with that tape recorder of hers. There were “Party Girl” column inches to fill, he supposed, and her job required that she chat and smile and circulate.

She was so damn good at being sparkling, he acknowledged, and he watched her as if he'd been thirsting for sparkle his entire life. Nash closed his eyes and held his head in his hand.
Christ, how had this happened?

And what was he going to do about it?

Then, suddenly, it was as if the bubbles had gone from the room. Nash's eyes snapped open, and he sat up straighter in his chair. He couldn't see Eve anywhere. At his last glimpse of her, she'd been talking to a skinny dude dressed in a toga—one of those
Napoleon-sized men she'd hung with at that first Palm Springs party he'd attended.

Nash shoved his chair back from the table. Téa looked up, mid-conversation with her soon-to-be groom.

“Do you see Eve?” he asked, still searching the crowd.

She scanned the room as well. “No.”

Joey bounced over. “Something wrong?”

“Eve,” was all he said.

Her fairy wings quivered, and she frowned. “Haven't seen her recently. I was just in the women's lounge and she wasn't there.”

Nino was nowhere in sight either.

And Nash had a very, very bad feeling. He'd never put much store in intuition or hunches before, but he couldn't ignore the clamoring voice inside of him.

Go find her. Go find her
now.

With that angry fire kindling back to life inside of him, he circled the dance floor, passed through the bar line, crisscrossed between the tables. No sign of Eve. She must have left the ballroom.

At a trot now, he exited through a carpeted hallway and double glass doors to the wide sidewalk adjacent to the parking area. Small groups were congregated out here too, but none of the costumed people were dressed like a Catholic schoolgirl in trouble.

Because she
was
in trouble, damn it. When he found her he was really going to spank her this time. Even if she liked it.

“Looking for someone?”

Nash swung toward the male voice.

Nino. Nino Fucking Farelle, all alone, leaning against a pillar and sucking on a cancer stick, smoke
rising around him like evil. Nash's hands fisted, and the flames in his belly shot high.

But Eve wasn't in Nino's clutches, Nash reminded himself quickly, and kicking the shit out of the guy would only waste time.
Find Eve. Find Eve first.

Shoving his fists in his pockets, Nash advanced on the other man. “I'm looking for my date.”

“
Your
date?” Nino took a drag on his cigarette. “She just left with somebody else.”

“Yes?” Nash's voice could cut glass, and that bad feeling he'd had in the ballroom quadrupled. “Who?”