An Offer He Can't Refuse (9 page)

"We'll fix that right up." She grabbed Téa's wineglass and gulped the contents down. "I'm Missy, and
you
are the most interesting in the room."

Since she was beaming all her A-list power at Johnny while she said this, Téa figured the comment didn't include her. But then the actress aimed her famous violet eyes her way. "Don't you just want to eat him up?"

Téa glanced over her shoulder to where Missy's Frenchman was smoldering from a spot at the bar across the room. "I thought he was wonderful in
The Foreign Legion
. I saw it twice."

"No, no, no." Missy Banyon gave a flamboyant wave of a hand heavy with rings. "Not
him
. He's nothing. He's an im-bay-ceel."

Her French accent was atrocious.

"He's your fiance," Téa thought she should add.

"And so, so stupid." She turned to Johnny and arched her back so her breasts poked out like super-sized cupcakes. "Don't you think?"

He yanked his gaze off those silicone works of art to take in the angry-looking man at the bar. "I think this is where I keep my mouth shut."

Missy didn't seem to mind carrying on the conversation alone. Still chattering away, she clapped her hands together to send the waiter scurrying for more drinks. No one, besides Raphael, of course, seemed the least bit perturbed or surprised that the actress had joined their table.

It was a Palm Springs tradition, this fond indulgence of the Hollywood set that cruised so freely about town. Their presence was, after all, what had put the place on the map, and those who made their living off the rich and famous—which was all of them to some degree or another—regarded celebrities with the same affection as highly paid nannies for charming, yet overpampered children.

Looking at the impossibly lovely Missy Banyon, Téa tried hard to feel accordingly. But it was one thing to let a Hollywood couple be given the best table in the room and quite another to confront one of
People
magazine's Most Beautiful People across your own. Dropping her gaze to her empty glass, Téa tugged on her sleeves, dusted off nonexistent lint, and hoped she appeared as invisible as she felt. As the awkward teenager inside of her started to awaken again, her hand wandered toward the star-shaped bowl of saturated fat nibbles in the center of the table.

Which was whisked out of her reach as the drinks were delivered. In record time, Missy drank down two Cosmopolitans, then used a napkin to pat her overpuffed lips. "If you must know," she said, as if they'd been pressing her for details all along, "Raphael and I are having a terrible argument."

A surfer could ride the waves of animosity rolling from the vicinity of the bar. "You don't say?" Téa responded. "I couldn't tell. It must be all those acting lessons the two of you took together during your courtship."

Missy frowned, Téa's wry tone going right over her head. 'Those were PR lies made up by our publicists for the press. During our so-called courtship, I was filming
Neon Nights
in Tokyo. And
that's
what our argument is about." She rounded on Johnny, nearly poking her cupcakes against the lapels of his jacket. "Did your first kiss involve tongue, or not?"

The question must have amused him, because his smile dug a dimple deep in his left cheek. It was one of those masculine, completely uncherubic dimples that made a woman want to cross her legs.

Well, at least it made Téa cross her legs. Missy Banyon moved in for the kill, getting close-up close to Johnny. "Tongue… or no tongue?" she breathed.

"Definitely no tongue. I was eight years old and it was the last day of second grade when I screwed up my nerve to lay one on my teacher, Miss Skerrit."

The elementary school reference seemed to lower some of Missy Banyon's heat. She backed off a few inches and then turned to skewer Téa. "You, on the other hand, were seventeen. It involved tongue and you didn't like it."

"Sixteen," Téa corrected, startled. "And if Smelly Kelly O'Hara had cornered you at the parish's Friday night teen dance, you wouldn't like it either."

"I don't know about that," the other woman said, directing her attention back to Johnny. "It's what Raphael's so mad about. He thinks that because I liked my first French kiss, that I'm not pure enough to be a Frenchman's wife. Now, I ask you, does that make any sense?"

Johnny had backed as far into the corner as he could and Missy followed. Over the woman's loose curls he sent a white-of-his-eyes look toward Téa.

Oh, it must be hell to be a handsome man, she thought without sympathy. And she very much doubted that a man like Johnny Magee needed any kind of help in the female department. But then she sighed and pushed herself into the conversation anyway. "I thought your argument was about
Neon Nights
."

It was good enough to send the actress pivoting toward her again. "It was. It was about my co-star from the movie, who, I mentioned to Raphael, happened to have his first kiss and his first lover at the same age as me."

"Soul-kiss mates," Téa murmured.

"Exactly." Missy beamed a smile that would have made a paparazzo's mortgage payment. "Now he's offended by my sexual history
and
my co-star's."

Téa shrugged. "Sorry."

Missy's eyes narrowed. "Maybe you could go over there and keep Raphael company, you know? You'd have to take off that ugly jacket, but I'm guessing you have at least a C-cup underneath there. Or on second thought, leave it on. He thinks he likes the Puritan type."

"No," she and Johnny said together.

Missy aimed her pout at Téa. 'Then at least tell me how old you were when you first had sex."

"What?"

"Never mind." Shaking her head, the other woman picked up her next drink. "It was some time between sixteen and menopause, right?"

"Menopause?" Surely the jacket didn't age her
that
much. "I was—" she broke off, darting a glance at Johnny.

That dangerous dimple was showing again. "Me? Seventeen. She was nineteen and her name was Dawn. Afterward I wrote a rock song for electric guitar in her honor, 'Oh Miss Dawn, You're the Bomb.'"

"I… " Téa lifted both palms in defeat. "Can't top that. I won't even try."

Missy gazed upon her with pity. "That's because you waited until some sensible, dispassionate age like twenty-two, twenty-three maybe. Way past the age of consent and composing rock songs."

Téa had been twenty-four and coming off a diet and exercise program that had resulted in a fifty-pound weight loss. The man, an accountant for a small chain of tile stores, had sent her a one-layer box of See's Candies afterward. The chocolate had been better than the sex. To be honest, both had seemed pretty skimpy.

"Well, I'm going to show Raphael what I think of his disapproval," Missy declared, sliding closer to Johnny.

Jesus Christ, Melissa Banyon has her hand on my
—

"Johnny?" Over the male voice sounding in her head, Téa called out his name. His attention snapped from the actress to her.

"Yes?" His eyes widened again. "Did you… uh, did you say you had to get home?"

Téa swallowed. So that's what he was really thinking. He wanted her to leave him alone with the actress. It wasn't a surprise. She shouldn't be disappointed, and she wasn't, because the beautiful boy jocks always ended up with the thinnest, prettiest girl in the room.

"Right," she said, rising. "I'll be on my way."

Jesus H. Christ, Melissa Banyon has unfastened my
—

"But I'm afraid I'm not feeling well, Johnny." Téa found herself plopping back onto her seat. She didn't know where this stubbornness had come from, but there it was. "I think you'll have to drive me home."

'Take a cab," Missy answered for him, sliding closer on the bench seat and wiggling in such a way that her dress drew south another crucial three inches. Johnny's gaze followed the descent.

She's seriously wacked, but the woman bought herself a great pair of tits, justfrickin' great.

Téa told herself to leave Mr. Frickin' Great with the woman who was dazzling him. After all,
his
personal life was none of
her
business either. But then, glancing back, she could see the storm cloud that was Raphael getting ready to thunder.

She'd do it for him, she decided, with sudden loyalty. For him, Raphael.

Tonight, she'd refuse to disappear from the bar or into the woodwork in the Invisible Girl moves she'd perfected during her long, awkward adolescence. She'd refuse to leave without Johnny and thus save this stranger's impending marriage.

The Foreign Legion
had really been her favorite movie last year.

Reaching across the table, she wrapped her fingers around Missy Banyon's bony wrist—the free one. Téa didn't want to think about where the other had disappeared to. "I'm sorry, but Johnny and I came in together, and we'll be leaving together too."

The famous actress didn't even blink. "We want our own private party, sweetie, so run along."

Tightening her grip, Téa pulled Missy Banyon to meet her halfway across the table. At the other woman's ear she whispered, in a tone that was a legacy of a life around the mob. "If I run out of here alone,
sweetie
, I run right to my grandfather, Cosimo Caruso,
hai capito?"

It worked like the charm that it was. Téa figured the actress had visited Palm Springs often enough to know the significance of the name. Missy jumped away from their table, bumping against some others to finally land in the safety of the seething, sexy Raphael's arms.

Téa gave Johnny a moment to right whatever the actress had wronged, then slanted a look in his direction. She wasn't going to apologize. If he didn't want to do business with her after blowing his chance to make it with Melissa Banyon, then so be it. A woman had to draw the line somewhere, though granted, it was a strange kind of boundary for someone who had once hand-stenciled life-sized clowns on the walls of a circus-themed kitchen.

"Shall we call it a night?" she asked.

"We can call it whatever you want," he replied, standing. "I owe you, Ms. Caruso, big-time."

She stared up at him. "You mean… you didn't…"

"I what?" He blinked, then looked annoyed. "You thought… I wouldn't!"

His response kept her quiet all the way back to her house. His response and a strange little giddiness bubbling through her bloodstream. Because of her part in saving Raphael Fremont's engagement for another night, she decided. There certainly wasn't any other reason to feel giddy that she could think of.

She braked to let Johnny out by his car. He paused, fingers on the door handle, then turned to Téa. "What did you say to her?"

"Her?"

"What did you say to Melissa Banyon to get her to, uh, loosen her hold on me?"

Téa opened her mouth to give him the truth. She'd intended to tell him of the Caruso connection earlier in the evening, anyway. But that was before she'd shared—thanks to the actress—some other intimate details about her life. Surely those were enough for him to know about her.

It was then that the odd giddiness prodded some mischief to life inside of her. "I told her you were lousy in bed."

His mouth opened. Closed.

"You're welcome," she said before he could speak, even as she wondered, appalled, who this woman was who was talking, and what Johnny would think of her professionalism now.

"You're so certain I'm thankful?" he asked, slowly settling back against his seat. Suddenly he didn't sound the least bit businesslike either. There was amusement and something else, something deeper, in his voice.

She gave a tiny shrug. "What if I told you I
can
read your mind?"

'Then I'd dare you to prove it." He folded his arms over his chest. "What am I thinking right this moment?"

"How much the tabloids would pay for an 'I'm Melissa Banyon's Boy Toy' exclusive?"

"Not even close."

She pretended to mull it over. "It was a surprising, yet pleasant evening and you'll call me in the morning?"

"Nothing nearly that mundane."

"You hope to find a pizza joint between here and home."

"Now you're just guessing."

She made a face at him, knowing he wouldn't see it clearly in the dim shine of the streetlight half a block away. "What then?"

His hand reached out, and that's when it happened. That's when she lost all hope that tonight he'd see her as a cool, consummate professional. Because surely he had to sense the way that giddiness had turned to mischief had turned to flirtation and now had turned to… to awareness. Sexual awareness of him. It was a sizzling, sparkling kind of heat that overtook her body, making her pulse thrum and her heart pound. She didn't move, she couldn't move, as he touched her cheek.

The pads of his four fingers trailed along her skin until the tip of his ring finger caught in the corner of her mouth. Her pulse jittered, her skin burned, and beneath her business suit her body went all-woman.

"You want to know what I'm really thinking?"

"Yes." His hand didn't move as she whispered the word. She tasted the salty flavor of his skin.

"I'm wondering how someone who had her first kiss from Smelly Kelly O'Hara could judge a man like me lousy in bed."

Because I'm not
, she heard him continue in her head. She figured it was more like wishful thinking than real mind reading, however, because then that inner voice added,
though it seems like a sure bet that sooner or later I'll end up proving it to you
.

He opened the door and climbed out of the car, then paused. "And I'm wondering," he said, looking at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes, "if what's happening here is going to hamper the game or sweeten the pot."