An Offer He Can't Refuse (8 page)

"Quiet Village"

Martin Denny

Exotica
(1957)

By some stroke of luck, Téa had a second chance to make a
good first impression and this time she wasn't going to blow it. As she walked with Johnny through the dusk to her car—it seemed more businesslike for her to chauffeur the potential client than the other way around—she glanced over at him. He was awfully quiet.

"Would you prefer to go back to your house for our meeting?" she asked.

His steps faltered, his sudden stillness reminding her of that odd moment in her doorway a few minutes before. Then he shook his head. "I'd rather save that for daylight."

When chances were slimmer that she'd end up in an open body of water and make a further fool of herself, Téa finished for him, stifling a sigh. The man must have serious doubts about her now. He had to be wondering just what kind of woman he'd approached for the design job.

But by the time they finished their drinks he would know, she promised herself. He'd see her as a cool, consummate professional, because she'd make sure she acted like one.

Inside the confines of her car, however, doubts washed over her again. She drew in a breath, but that only drew in
him
, his heat, his scent, the maleness that was so… so other to her. Of course, that was only natural, right? Though she'd grown out of her adolescent puppy-love for beautiful boy jocks, in her line of work she didn't often deal with straight men. If roped into a meeting by his wife, a male client would make it brief. He wanted to be assured of only two things: one, that the designer wouldn't go over budget, and two, that she wouldn't undersize the couches and the chairs.

"Téa?"

She started, realizing they were still in her driveway. "I'm sorry," she said, with a hasty turn of the key, "I was lost in my own thoughts."

"Not second thoughts, I hope. It occurs to me I might have interrupted plans you already had for the evening."

"Oh, no." She reversed the car then put it in forward gear for the short drive to Stellar, the restaurant/bar she'd decided upon. "This is fine."

"No date with a boyfriend?"

"No." Not that she'd share it with him, but dates and boyfriends were rare in her life, again, to some degree, because of the very few eligible men she met in the design business. Of course, her clients could never resist fixing her up. But that pool of potentials was filled by sons, grandsons, and great-nephews whose prevailing characteristic was their inability to say "no" to the female relatives in their lives.

It might sound like a wonderful quality until you understood that it also meant they were the kind of men who trusted older women to make so many of their decisions for them. They tended to wear Arnold Palmer golf sweaters in

Easter egg colors and flip-on sunshades over their glasses. They drove Lincoln Continentals with back seats roomy enough for Aunt Elizabeth's or Nana Mae's entire bridge foursome. They knew the early-bird specials on every menu in town.

They were nothing like Johnny Magee.

He shifted in his seat, redoubling her awareness of him. She sucked in another breath of his scented male warmth. No, they were nothing at all like Johnny Magee.

He watched the gypsy girl with impassive, sea-colored eyes. Then his masculine hand reached toward her flesh, flesh that was trembling despite the warmth of the fire. Fingertips curled over the edge of her filmy peasant blouse and drew it down, down, down
—

That hard male hand shot out to cover hers on the wheel, and jerked left. "Watch out."

She braked, just as a car pulled from a space in Stellar's congested lot and nearly into them if not for Johnny's quick reflexes. "Thanks," she croaked out, her face burning as red-hot as her fantasies. Somehow she'd dreamed all the way to Stellar and almost steered into a fender bender in the process.

She glanced over her shoulder, now even more embarrassed. "I don't know what I was thinking of… I meant to stop at the parking valet."

"No problem," he said. "Take the open spot right here."

His hand slipped away from hers but both the sensation of his touch and her self-consciousness lingered as they walked toward the restaurant. He held the door open for her and she brushed by him, raising a prickly set of goose bumps beneath the all-business fabric of her blue suit.

To remind herself that this
was
business, she took the lead at the reservations station, explaining to the inquiring hostess that they were just going into the lounge for a drink. It came as no surprise, though, that while she conducted this short transaction he went ahead and scored the last table in the expansive, but now standing-room-only bar. He was the type who would. With his arms stretched over the back of the cushions behind him, he appeared calm and relaxed as he watched her approach the far corner where he was waiting.

His gaze made her jittery again. As she threaded her way toward him, she couldn't help but wonder what he saw when he looked at her.

A responsible-looking woman, she hoped he was musing. Competent, qualified. Detail-oriented.

And that's what he'd continue to see, Téa told herself. Marching forward, she squared her shoulders and set her spine as straight as a debits column. He wouldn't shake her all-business demeanor again.

Still four tables away, he smiled at her. A lazy smile.

What's she wearing beneath that boring little suit
? she thought she heard him say in her head.

His gaze flicked down to her legs.

And she's added to her armor with stockings now. What could she be trying so hard to hide?

Téa's stride hitched. She considered running back to her car. But then a white-shirted cocktail server strode up to the table. With her view of Johnny blocked, she shook her head, jarring loose the silly notion that she'd heard what he'd been thinking. That he'd been thinking anything the least bit personal about her.

This was business.

With that firmly in mind, she reached the chair across the table from him just as the waiter hurried off. "Pinot Grigio okay?" Johnny asked, his expression showing nothing more than friendly politeness. "The place is so crowded I was afraid he'd never make it back if I said I needed more time."

"Pinot Grigio's fine." She settled into her seat, then took a breath, paused.

His head tilted, blond hair brushing his collar. "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing at all." Téa refused to be derailed by anything this time, so she hurried into the speech that she'd prepared. "I'd like to spend a few minutes acquainting you with my firm and my goals for your project. Then we can move on to your questions. Is that all right?"

He shrugged. "I have your firm's brochure. I don't think we need to go over that information again."

"Oh. Well." She hid her disappointment at losing the opportunity to speak aloud the impressive phrases she'd stockpiled. "
Fresh outlook on mid-century modern
," (never professionally designed in that style). "
Exclusive attention from the design team
," (she
was
the design team). "
The firm's calendar adjusted to work with yours
," (there was no job on her schedule as prestigious as this one). "I guess we can just go ahead with your questions, then."

There was another pause while the waiter delivered their drinks. Johnny took a swallow of his rum and Coke, then cocked an eyebrow her way. "Where were we again?"

Her wine was crisp and cold and if she wasn't careful, it would go right to her head. "I'm ready to answer any questions you might have about the project."

He waved a hand. "I trust your judgment on that. I have few worries as long as you don't go wildly over budget and don't—"

"Undersize the couches and the chairs," she finished for him.

He laughed. "Exactly. So you read minds?"

No! "No." She took another sip from her glass. "It's a common concern."

"What I would like to talk about—" He broke off as a commotion heightened the already loud level of noise in the bar. "Is that Melissa Banyon?"

Tea"a glanced over her shoulder and couldn't miss the chestnut-haired sultry sex-kitten who'd won an Academy Award for best supporting actress the previous spring. She stood at the entrance of the bar in an electric blue dress and a pair of matching stiletto sandals.

"With her just-as-famous French fiance, Raphael Fremont, in tow," she said. "They're newly engaged, and they won't be the last celebrities you spot in Palm Springs."

Johnny's eyes were all for mega-star Melissa.
Great tits, fake as forty-four dollar bills, but great to look at all the same
.

"What?" Téa said, staring at him. "What did you say?"

Johnny's gaze returned to her face and he frowned. "I didn't say anything." He raised his glass to his mouth. "Though I was about to ask about you."

"Me?" On the other side of the bar the noise rose again and she ignored it as best she could. "You said you'd looked over my firm's brochure."

"I don't want to know more about your firm, I want to know more about
you''

There was a smile in his eyes, a friendly enough smile, but all Téa's internal alarms started ringing. Every instinct told her to keep it all-business, all-the-time between them because even at that he could still knock her silly with his all-star good looks and his let-me-take-you-down-to-silk-sheets voice. "I don't think… I don't want…"

"Hey, no need to be so nervous. I'm not with the IRS."

She tried to smile. "I haven't done anything illegal." Recently.

"I only thought we might work better together if we knew each more… personally." He laughed. "Now you look as if I'm asking for your social security and Swiss bank account numbers. Téa, I assure you my intentions aren't as sinister as that."

Of course not. He didn't know sinister like she did.

And then it hit her. Hard.

The birthday party. Her grandfather's impending retirement. Meeting Johnny had pushed them both from her mind. But by the end of the month they'd be big news, and stories of the Carusos' shady activities were going to be hitting the papers again, big-time. She knew Johnny Magee wasn't the type of man who would miss the connection. What she didn't know was if he was the type of man who would overlook it, no matter how strictly law-abiding she was these days.

In the spirit of honesty and full disclosure, she thought with a sigh, she supposed she was obligated to get personal after all, and explain to him she was a mob boss's daughter.

How many clients would the association cost her as the media publicized the mob angle? How many more if she allowed herself to be lured back into the bosom of the family?

"Johnny,
I…" I might be kissing this job good-bye
. "I—"

A flurry of sapphire silk and Shalimar swirled near, then dropped onto the cushioned bench opposite Téa and right beside—almost right onto the lap of—Johnny. "Hello, my loves," the actress Melissa Banyon trilled, in her little-girl-lost voice. "Have you been waiting for me long?"

Téa glanced over at Johnny, but he was looking in the general direction of the actress's breasts again. "I, um, don't believe we've actually met," she said.