An Offer He Can't Refuse (28 page)

Sighing, Eve shook her head. "It's to be expected."

Joey's eyes went round. "It's to be '
expected"
! It's to be
rejected
. We put up with enough hassles after Dad disappeared."

Enough hassles was an understatement, that was certain. They'd been followed, questioned, and followed some more. For three little princesses bewildered by their missing king, it had been cruel.

Téa's stomach clenched, remembering how quickly she'd gone from feeling beautiful in her father's eyes to seeing herself as the FBI must have—as a self-important lump of pre-adolescence. Just like that, an all-too-familiar sense of chaos began closing in on her. This was what happened, she reminded herself, when she let her mob ties pull tight. Taking deep breaths of the warm, perfumed air, she resisted the frightening sense of disorder, focusing only on the beautiful surroundings.

Wouldn't it be nice to stay poolside at the spa forever? Wouldn't it be nice to be enclosed in a jewel box of emerald grass and turquoise water for all time? No wonder her mother was so content here.

But this wasn't her safe place. There wasn't one, she knew that.

Her cell phone rang, and with her mind preoccupied, she reached for it, flipped it open, and brought it to her ear without looking at the caller's ID. "Hello?"

"I was hoping I would see you today," Johnny said.

Flushed and wet and sprawled across the bed.

But those were her thoughts, in her voice, that she heard this time in her head. "I… I've been working on the designs for your house at my office."

Joey let out another of her unladylike snorts.

"I tried calling you last night," he said. "And this morning."

"Oh. Well." She'd turned off her home phone last night and only powered on her cell phone an hour ago. "Sorry."

"I think that's my line." He paused. "We need to talk."

Oh, God. Talk? Why did they have to talk? What possessed the man to want to rehash something that had made her look—and
sound
—so disheveled and disordered? She didn't need to hear him say it was a mistake, she knew that already.

"Téa?"

"What?"

He sighed. "You wouldn't be hiding from me, would you?"

"Of course not."

"Because you sure as hell surprised me with what you are hiding beneath those librarian dresses and Iron Maiden br—"

"
Johnny
." He was doing it again, making her all flushed and damp and disturbed. "Does this phone call have a point?"

He sighed again. "The point I want to make involves a person-to-person visit. When will you be by again?"

Téa hesitated. "Maybe… maybe not for some time. I've been thinking of giving Rachele, my assistant, a bit more responsibility. She'll be the one you'll be seeing at the house."

On the lounge chair opposite, Joey was flapping her elbows and clucking like a silent
polio
. Téa pretended not to notice.

"Well. Hmm. That might be a problem. I have something of yours here."

She froze. Something of hers? What? Had she left a piece of clothing behind? But no, while her bra had been pushed up and her panties pushed down, her dress half-opened like a wicked, impassioned woman's, she'd been able to stumble to his front door with everything intact. She'd even remembered to scoop up her shoes.

"It's a little black bag."

Téa squeezed the phone so tight she heard the plastic snap. The makeup bag. The Loanshark book. Oh God. Oh God. He'd made her so muddled she'd run out of his house and left the Loanshark book behind.

She'd been on the hunt for it when he'd opened his eyes and then she'd been lost.

And lost all sense. And sense of self-preservation.

"I need to get that," she said quickly, her voice hoarse. "As soon as it's convenient."

"How about six o'clock tonight?" he suggested, his voice as soft as hers had been rough. "I've found something else you might like to see too."

And though he sounded like the devil again, Téa didn't flinch. She'd put her feet on the road to hell a long, long time ago.

"The Girl from Ipanema"

Stan Getz/Joao Gilberto

Getz/Gilberto
(1963)

Dusk was overtaking day as Téa climbed the steps toward
the deck surrounding Johnny Magee's pool. At the sound of splashing, she hesitated, then forced herself forward. That he was swimming—with or without swim trunks—didn't matter. The Loanshark book mattered. She was going to get it and get out.

But it wasn't Johnny frolicking in the pool. Téa stared at the two twined figures outlined by the greenish glow of the pool light. "Rachele? Cal?"

The pair broke apart. "Oh, hi, boss," Rachele said. She swiped her bangs from her eyes. "You remember Cal."

The man sketched a wave.

"Of course I remember Cal," Téa said. "I didn't realize the two of you were, uh, spending time together." A niggle of uneasiness twisted in her belly as she wondered if Rachele's father had a clue either. But the younger woman was swishing through the water toward Téa, wearing a black bikini and such a wide smile that she didn't have the heart to mention it.

"We're playing lookout for Johnny," Rachele said. Instead of toying with one of her many piercings, her fingers reached up to touch a plumeria blossom poked in her wet purple hair. "He asked us to send you in the right direction."

"I know my way into the house."

Rachele's smile widened. "He's not in the house. You're supposed to follow the path to the guest bungalows and then cross through the golf course. You'll see where to go from there. He has a surprise for you."

The uneasiness in Téa's stomach coiled tighter. "I'm only here to retrieve something I left behind. Maybe you could go get it from him for me."

"He wants you."

"No, he doesn't!" Téa cleared her throat. "I mean, there's no reason for me to disturb him."

"He's waiting for you," Rachele said, then ended the conversation by executing a porpoise dive to the bottom of the pool. In the next instant, Cal was jerked beneath the surface of the water. The couple became a tangle of limbs and young love.

Obviously dismissed and oddly depressed, Téa sighed and headed off as directed. Leaving behind the desert setting of the main house, she walked beyond the guest bungalows and through the golf course toward the green overgrown that might have been planned as a lush desert oasis but was now an untamed jungle of palms, bushes, and vines. Though neglected, it obviously still received its fair share of the life-giving underground water table that had brought green and golf to the desert.

Rachele's "you'll see where to go" became obvious as Téa spied a burning tiki torch at the far edge of Johnny's Hole 3. The oily scent of the burning citronella beckoned her onto a narrow path cut through the morass of plant life. She followed stepping stones buried in the damp soil and came across another tiki torch, and then another, and then the path opened onto a lone, three-sided structure surrounded by vines and palms and more tiki torches. A nearby pile of plywood sheets explained the absence of a fourth wall.

Inside the one-room building, illuminated by a camping lantern, was Johnny, lounging on a wicker love seat with his feet propped on a matching wide wicker ottoman. He spread his arms to indicate the 20 x 20 enclosure. "Look what I found," he said.

That tiki room they'd heard about at the tennis party, of course. Now that she'd found Johnny, she should just demand her makeup bag and be on her way, but despite her lingering embarrassment, curiosity compelled her to walk inside. She set down her briefcase, then slowly spun to take it all in. The linoleum floor was a natural moss green and the interior walls were covered by simple bamboo screening material accented by fishing nets dotted with blown-glass floats. Here and there hung large framed travel posters for Hawaii and Polynesia. Vintage posters, she recognized right away, and probably worth a bundle.

Besides the love seat and the ottoman, there was an awe-inspiring set of furniture—bar and bar stools—that appeared to be hand-carved. Koa wood, Téa guessed, depicting a squat figure with the bent knees and ET-sized head that was typically tiki. The same little glowering gargoyle was cut into the face of the bar and he also appeared to be holding up the polished seats of the round stools.

Téa drew closer, squinting to get a better look at the pieces in the dim lantern light. Were they ugly or beautiful? "I can't decide if I' in horrified or fascinated," she said.

'Take a look below his waistline and let me know," Johnny replied, rising from the love seat.

Téa glanced over at him, distracted by the movement. In bare feet, putty colored cotton trousers, and a half-buttoned white linen shirt, he looked calm and casual.

Her pulse jumped and she jerked her gaze away from him and back to the tiki man. Below his waist, Johnny had said. She lowered her eyes. "Huuh." The startled sound escaped her lips as she stared at the carvings.

"So what do you think?" Johnny asked from close behind her.

Téa swallowed. "I can't imagine what Tiki-Man is looking so grim about." Because Tiki-Man was hung. In intricately carved detail, he was well-hung.

Johnny laughed, then reached past her for two cocktail glasses sitting beside a glass pitcher on top of the bar. His hands stalled as in the distance there was an exuberant male whoop, followed by a flurry of giggles and running feet.

"You can't catch me!" Téa heard Rachele shriek in laughing excitement.

"Just you wait," Cal shouted back.

Johnny cocked his head, a grin tugging at his lips. "Sounds like we're all on the hunt tonight."

Téa froze. The hunt? What did he mean by that?

He picked up both drinks and nudged one into her hand, then tapped the rim of his glass against hers. "To—?"

Apprehension broke out like goose bumps all over her skin as she stared into the fruity scented liquid. "I shouldn't stay for a drink." The hunt, he'd said. Had he really said
the hunt
?

A chill ran over her again. When it came right down to it, she was alone in the dark night with a virtual stranger. A stranger she'd had sex with, but still, a man she didn't know at all well. It was a dangerous situation. And she'd vowed at twelve to stay away from those for the rest of her life.