An Offer He Can't Refuse (7 page)

"What'll I Do"

Julie London

Lonely Girl (1956)

Johnny followed the designer home. He didn't have much
choice, not after promising himself that today he'd make progress on his plan. Once he'd pulled her from the water, she'd hightailed it for her car, leaving behind her briefcase and a portfolio. He wanted to return them to her.

He couldn't let her get away.

It was because of that hunch he'd had about her from the beginning, he told himself, as he watched her steer onto a narrow lane and then park in the driveway of a small patio home. She was a key to the puzzle of his father's death, he knew it. He pulled alongside the curb across the street as she climbed out of her car, her shoes in hand.

Not that her wet, barefoot contessa look wasn't… compelling all on its own. He'd only made a brief observation of Téa Caruso dry, but he figured she couldn't be more attractive than she was right now, her damp dark hair rippling in wild waves down her back, her clothes plastered against her hourglass body to flaunt a small waist that flared into an eat-your-heart-out-J.Lo ass.

He let her get inside, counted to lucky number seven, then strolled to her front door. She answered on the first knock.

And couldn't hide her surprise. She pushed at her unruly hair with her hands, then swiped her forefingers beneath the bottom lashes of her sloe eyes. "I—well—I… What are you doing here?"

Lifting his excuse, her belongings, he smiled. "I thought you might want these."

"Oh." Their fingers brushed during the transfer and a rush of color washed up her neck. 'Thank you."

She set the items down then looked at him, making it obvious she expected—hoped—he'd leave. Instead, he lingered in the doorway, still smiling. An awkward silence descended. As heartless as it was of him, he let it grow.

Her naked toes curled against the tiled entry. "I suppose I should have stayed long enough to reschedule," she finally offered.

He nodded. "We need to do that."

Silence drew out again, and again he did nothing to prevent it. The Texas Hold 'Em table had made him expert at the Buddha-like wait, but he suspected she'd had no such special training.

He was right. Ten seconds later she capitulated to his unspoken pressure. Her spine lost a little of its starch and she shuffled back, her toes still curled inward. "Would you like to come in?"

More than he wanted her to know. So he hid his satisfaction behind his poker face and crossed over the threshold. Even if she wasn't aware of it, she was an opponent of sorts, and he made it his business to study the particular "tells" of the people he played against. Invariably, through dress, body language, environment, or all three, other players gave the essence of themselves away.

Knowing more about Téa might give him an advantage he could possibly use at some time later in the game.

Yet in the five steps it took him to reach the living room, he saw that Téa Caruso's surroundings surrendered very little that looked useful. The neutrality of the pale gray walls and darker gray upholstered furniture was only broken by a collection of hand-painted Italian pottery lined like brightly uniformed
soldati
along the mantelpiece. The overall lack of color and embellishment surprised him, given the contessa's own exotic, dark-haired and dreamy-eyed looks. It was a cool, controlled sort of room, and the mystery of the contradiction between it and the woman drew his gaze back her way.

She shuffled. "Please sit down," she said, plucking at the skirt of her damp dress, as if trying to ease its plastic-wrap fit. "Would you like something to drink?"

"I don't want to put you to any trouble." Really, he didn't. However, after months of near-sleepless nights his needs were stronger than his scruples.

"It's no trouble. Iced tea? Coffee?"

But that polite yet halfhearted try at hospitality dealt him a painful, guilty pinch anyway. Damn, he thought with an inward grimace. Was this what he had come to? It was never his way to force his company on unwilling women.

"No, thanks. Nothing." He shoved one hand in his pocket, feeling for his keys. There was no pressing reason for him to push her so fast, so soon. It probably wasn't even smart. "On second thought, I won't hold you up any longer."

"Oh." She blinked those dreamy dark eyes. "All right."

And if she considered him crazy for traipsing in then traipsing right back out, she didn't comment upon it further as she followed him back to her tiny foyer. He paused in the open front doorway, his gaze on his car, parked at the curb of the home across the street. "We'll talk—"

Sunlight glinted against the brass numbers nailed on the side of that house. The address. 10909.

In a blink it altered, blazing across his brain like the numbers on a digital watch. 1:09:09.

The world altered too.

Darkness.

Night.

The sharp snap of gunfire.

Pop.

Pop. Pop.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

The past grabbed for him with its powerful claws.

Resisting with everything he had, Johnny gulped a breath, then spun around. He gripped the doorjamb to anchor himself in present reality before the tires could squeal in his head, before his heart could start jackhammering at his chest wall, before his senses were flooded by the stain and the smell of fresh blood.

The woman standing before him stared, and he stared back, cataloging every detail of her face to keep from falling into the flashback. He took in the smooth skin of her wide forehead, the exotic tilt of her eyes, the lock of hair that wiggled across one olive-toned cheek to catch in the corner of her full mouth. She hooked it away with her pinky and he counted out its three-second float to the join the rest of the wavy, vital mass.

God, she was gorgeous.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

No
. His hands were icy and his breathing shallow and he realized that somewhere between his father's former house and here, ghosts had clambered aboard his back. Jesus.
Jesus
. Upon his arrival today at the El Deseo property, though he'd avoided entering the house itself, he'd made a quick tour of the grounds. He'd felt nothing there.

Now, though, now it was as if damp, dead breath was crawling down his neck.

He twitched his shoulders and focused on the contessa again. It wasn't a hardship. She looked so warm and so filled with energy in her wrinkled dress and with her mussed, wild hair that he had to dig his fingers into the jamb instead of digging them into the lush curves of her figure to remind himself he was still of this world.

He was almost grateful when his cock stirred. The response was inconvenient, but at least he knew that one part of him was alive, well, and apparently quite willing to function.

"Are you okay?" she asked again.

"Go out for a drink with me," he heard himself say.

She gave him a it's-a-full-moon-and-you-just-grew-fangs look. "What?"

"Go out for a drink with me." Okay, so he was as surprised as she was by his abrupt request, but right now he didn't want to be alone and he did want to be with her.

So he cleared his throat, forced his arms to drop to his sides, and tried to appear as slick and easy as he'd felt for all the years of his adult life until this last one. "We can talk."

"But I…"

He could tell she was searching for an excuse, but he wouldn't let her discomfort or his own guilt deter him this time. After this little episode in her doorway, it was clear once again that he had things to do. Demons to exorcise. "But what?" he pressed.

Her hands fluttered around her hips, in a gesture as uncertain as her obvious mood. "I… I'd need to change."

Letting out a silent breath, he took a step inside, crowding her backward. "No problem. I'll wait."

She went along with it. Redesigning the house must be that much of a prize, he figured, because his strange behavior during the past few minutes must have made it perfectly clear that he wasn't. She disappeared down a hallway and he heard a door close, lock.

Good for you, Contessa. Keep your guard up.

Minutes ticked by, and the ghosts riding his shoulders disappeared. His own guard relaxed. Remembering why he'd forced himself into her place to begin with, he ambled around Téa's living room, looking for more clues to her and her father's family. The only photo she displayed, however, was of three females. The oldest in it had to be Téa's mother, while beside her stood a twenty-something blonde, and then beside her was another brunette with an engaging grin.

He was still studying the picture when he heard Téa come into the room behind him. "Beautiful women," he offered as he turned, expecting to see another one.

But this… this
lady
, well, it wasn't that she wasn't beautiful. It was that she wasn't… well, she was Téa, but she wasn't the same wet and curvy contessa who'd barefooted it home.

He stared. She wore a neck-high, knee-length navy blue suit that would put even a born-again accountant to sleep. Matching pumps with medium heels were locked about her ankles with sturdy straps. Her natural plum lip color was muted to something barely there, and the lips themselves were as tightly clasped as her fingers.

Most changed of all was her hair. The glorious tumble that had rippled with life after her dunking in the pond was now tamed into strands as straight as a Young Republican. She'd clipped them behind her head in a no-nonsense, no-fun style.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

No
. But he resisted the urge to tell her that truth, because no matter what, it
was
time to go forward. Getting close to her, and through her, close to her family, was his plan, after all. By buying the house and making contact with the designer, he'd anted-in. The game was already under way.

It didn't change a thing that he had the sudden, disturbing idea that Téa Caruso might have even more secrets than he.