Dangerous Ladies (23 page)

“Tiffany!” Obviously appalled, Brandi came to the door. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Sh.” Roberto went to her and put his finger on her lips. “This is your mother. She has the right to know where you spend your nights and with whom.”
And
, his gaze warned her,
we do have something to hide.
“Tiffany, we spent the night at my grandfather’s.”

“At your grandfather’s? Really? That’s all right, then.” Tiffany brightened. “Sometimes women do stupid things after a bad breakup, like get involved again right away, and I would hate to think you’re Brandi’s stupid thing.”

If Tiffany had glanced at Brandi right then, she would have seen the truth. Brandi’s pale cheeks and stricken eyes betrayed her, and he stepped between the two women. “I don’t think Brandi could ever be stupid. Your daughter is a very skilled lawyer,” he said, giving Brandi a moment to collect herself.

“I know. Isn’t she wonderful?” Tiffany glowed with pride. “Do you know she said her first word at six months?
Cat.
She didn’t say it right, of course, just
cka,
but she knew what it meant. My mother actually worried about her. Said that bright girls didn’t stand a chance in this world, but Brandi proved her wrong. Proved everyone wrong!”

Brandi interrupted the intriguing glimpse into her past. “Let’s sit down.” She stepped around him and gestured him toward the chair.

Roberto seated himself, but he wasn’t about to let the conversation drop. “Brandi has had a lot to prove to a lot of people, then?”

“Oh, yes.” Tiffany tucked her arm through Brandi’s. “As soon as
she could walk she could dance, so she was wonderful at gymnastics and ballet. My husband only saw that; he never noticed that she got straight As in school, so when she graduated magna cum laude with a prelaw degree, he had to sit up and take notice!”

“Come on, Mother, let’s sit on my new sofa. I think the color works well in here, don’t you?”

Distracted, Tiffany sank down beside her daughter. “It does, but, darling, do you realize one cushion is slashed?”

Brandi had slept with him, but she didn’t want him to really know her. She didn’t want him to hear about her past. Because he was a jewel thief? Or because she wore masks she never discarded and kept secrets she wanted no one to know?

“Yes, I’ve taken care of the problem with the cushion.” Brandi bit her lip as if she were accountable for something, although Roberto couldn’t imagine what. “How did you get here, Mother?”

“I took a cab.”

“From Nashville?” Brandi’s sarcasm startled him.

“From the airport! The cabdriver was so pleasant, he pointed out the sights of Chicago, and he only charged me half the price on the meter. Wasn’t that sweet?”

Roberto didn’t doubt for a minute that Tiffany could charm a surly cabbie into digging into his own pocket to pay her fee.

“But . . . what about your job at the real estate office?”

“I quit my job.”

“Mother . . .” Brandi sounded weary, as if she’d heard this too many times before.

“That disgusting man tried to sleep with me.” Tiffany’s heart-shaped mouth trembled. “I was being nice to his clients, and he seemed to think that meant I wanted to get in his pants.”

“All right, Mother. All right.” Brandi awkwardly patted her mother’s arm. “I know it happens. Look at you. How could it not?”

“I don’t ask for it!”

“I never said you did!”

“Your father said—”

“Oh, my father is a big fat jerk.”

The exchange told Roberto far more about the family dynamics than a mere explanation could. Rising, he asked, “I’d like a drink of water. Would anybody like something?” When Brandi would have also stood, he said, “Let me do it. You want to catch up with your mother’s news.”

As he walked into her tiny kitchen, Brandi braced herself. She could almost have predicted what her mother would say and the tone of her voice.

“Darling, about Alan . . .” Her mother, who was never at a loss, seemed unsure what condolence to offer.

And obscurely, that made Brandi feel guilty. “I’m sorry; I should have called you when it happened, but—”

“You didn’t want to talk about it. I understand.”

Did she? When Tiffany had been dumped by Brandi’s father, she’d talked about it endlessly with her friends, with her mother, with any stranger who would listen. Brandi had hated having everyone know their business, having everyone pity them, then watching their friends drift away because they didn’t want to hear about it and know that at any time it could happen to them.

But that didn’t excuse Brandi’s neglect. She would have felt better if Tiffany were yelling.

Roberto dropped a glass on the floor and it shattered with a sharp, sudden sound.

Brandi jumped.

“Sorry!” he called. “Don’t worry. I can find the broom.”

“
That
is one gorgeous man,” Tiffany murmured as he rummaged around in the closet. “What a wonderful accent. He’s Italian?”

Brandi needed to nip this blossoming mutual admiration in the bud. “Yes, and he’s a jewel thief.”

“How romantic!”

Of course, Tiffany would think that. “No, Mother, it’s not romantic. He’s a criminal, and there’s a chance—a very good chance—he’ll go to prison for the next twenty years.”

“He doesn’t look like any criminal I’ve ever seen. He’s rich. That suit is Armani.”

They heard the tinkling sound as he swept up the glass and tossed it in the trash.

“Even better, he knows his way around the kitchen,” Tiffany added.

Something about Tiffany brought out the worst in Brandi. She always seemed to need her mother’s shallow character confirmed, and she couldn’t resist saying, “He’s a count, too.”

“Yummy!” Tiffany drawled the word with a Southern accent thick as caramel sauce.

“He’s yummy because he’s got a title?”

“No, he’s yummy because he’s sexy and rich and handsome. The title is just like whipped cream on chocolate zinfandel mousse. What a husband he would be!”

“Husband!” Brandi turned on her mother. “Why did you say that?”

Tiffany widened her lovely blue eyes. “That’s the way I think, darling.”

“So did his grandfather!” What was it with these people? Nonno and Tiffany didn’t even know each other. Years separated them. They lived miles apart. Yet they had the same one-track minds! “I don’t want a husband. I tried that, and you know how well it worked out.”

“Roberto definitely doesn’t match any of the requirements on your list,” Tiffany agreed.

Brandi flinched. Alan had met all her requirements. . . . Was Tiffany being sarcastic? No, impossible. Sarcasm required a subtlety Tiffany didn’t possess.

Besides, Tiffany wasn’t looking at her. She was looking at Roberto. “There is nothing the least sensible about him, hm?”

Brandi made the mistake of glancing in the kitchen as he stretched up to get down some paper napkins, and her mouth dried. Husband? She didn’t want to think about him like that. As if he were a
man who was available and attainable. Because she’d already sampled him, she knew that he wanted her, and if she started thinking about forever she would make such a fool of herself—and there’d been far too much of that lately. “Conjugal prison visits are
so
much fun.”

“Darling, you know he won’t go to jail,” Tiffany said with inborn wisdom. “Wealthy people never do.”

Brandi wished she could come up with a pithy retort, but she didn’t know the details of his case. Her first week at work, and she’d logged about an hour at the office working on the case. This morning she’d called Glenn’s office, but Mrs. Pelikan had picked up the phone.

She’d sounded brisk and instructive.
On Mr. McGrath’s instruction, we’ve restructured the team. You now report directly to me, and your job, Miss Michaels, is to keep tabs on Mr. Bartolini. Don’t let him out of your sight.

Don’t let him out of your sight,
Mrs. Pelikan had repeated. She didn’t have to explain herself to Brandi, and she didn’t.

Brandi glanced at Roberto.
Don’t let him out of your sight.
Too bad the instructions made her happy. “Mother, a husband at risk for a criminal record is definitely not on my list.”

Tiffany glanced at Roberto as he filled up the glasses. “
Was
he your stupid thing?”

Her mother had an instinct about men and women that couldn’t be denied.

“He’s been remanded into my custody.” A serviceable half-truth. “That’s why I stayed at his grandfather’s last night, and we’ve been arguing about where we’re going to spend tonight. I want to stay here.” Then realization dawned. They couldn’t stay here. There was a bed and a couch with a slashed cushion, and she’d planned to give Roberto the bed because he wouldn’t fit on the short couch—well, neither would she, but she figured she’d just put up with the discomfort to have her own way.

Now that Tiffany had arrived, her plan was not viable.

“So.” With a charming smile, Roberto handed the ladies their glasses. “We go to my hotel.”

“I’ll sleep here,” Tiffany said, “but can I trust you two alone?”

“Mother, you can’t stay in the apartment!” Brandi still smelled the soap the landlord had used to clean the carpet, and the paint that covered the graffiti was a slightly different shade. She had never loved this place; it had been a temporary and convenient location to rest her head until she married Alan.

Now everything about it gave her the willies. No way would she leave her mother in an apartment that had been vandalized. If anything happened to Tiffany, she would never forgive herself. And she would be . . . so isolated.

My God.
She shifted uncomfortably. She imagined a tragic end for her mother and all she could think about was herself. She was going to hell for sure.

Yet she desperately wanted to avoid Roberto’s luxurious, memory-laden suite.

“Of course Tiffany will go with us to the hotel,” Roberto said.

“That’s a horrible idea!” Brandi said. Having her mother stay there in the suite where she and Roberto had made love? On every piece of furniture, on the floor, against the wall, in each bathroom? That was just . . . icky.

“There’s plenty of space, two bedrooms and two baths—”

“Two bedrooms?” Brandi didn’t want to contradict him—Tiffany didn’t need to know she’d been in his suite—but in his fifty-eighth-story suite, there had been only one huge bedroom.

“Two bedrooms,” Roberto confirmed. “I already called the hotel and told them I needed to move to a more family-appropriate suite. Newby is packing for me now. We’re on the fourth floor, Brandi, in deference to your fear of heights.”

“I don’t have a fear of heights.” How had he known? “They just make me a little . . . uncomfortable.”

“Me, too. Thank you, Roberto, for letting us stay with you.” Tiffany touched his arm. “That’s so sweet.”

“It’s not sweet,” Brandi said. “It’s a bad idea.”

“Do you have a better one?” Roberto asked.

She didn’t. Of course she didn’t.

So the other two ignored her.

“I just unpacked and I haven’t spread out at all,” Tiffany said. “Brandi, do you want me to pack for you?”

They were conspiring against her. “I can do it,” Brandi snapped.

“Make sure you bring all your”—he waved his hand in circles over his body—“fancy dresses. I have many invitations. Many important people want to meet the notorious Italian jewel thief, and it would honor me to have you on my arm.”

“The only”—Brandi imitated his gesture—“fancy dress I have is old and black, so I imagine we’re not going to accept your invitations.”

“No!” Tiffany bounced in her seat. “We wear the same size, and I brought dresses with me!”

Incredulous, Brandi turned on her mother. “Dresses? You brought dresses?”

“Charles invited me to a party while I’m here.” Tiffany watched her own hands as she smoothed them across her legs. “I can’t go in some crummy old gown.”

“That’s nice of Uncle Charles, but you only need one dress!”

“Darling, when I left Nashville I didn’t know which dress I’d want!”

Brandi worried that her mother had begun to make sense to her. She worried that her life had veered out of control and she would never get it back. And as Tiffany and Roberto rose together and headed toward her bedroom, chatting about their social schedule, Brandi worried that her lover and her mother had far too much in common.

After all, if they combined their forces, there was no telling what magnificent folly Brandi might find herself driven to commit.

But no matter what else happened, she was not going to go to any
dinners or parties with Roberto. He knew too many shady men. He had too many shady connections.

She was going to put her foot down, and tell Roberto they were staying safely hidden in the hotel suite until she delivered him to trial.