a little extra to the latest assignment by asking me to rough you up for five large, I thought, what the hell?"
"Fremont?" Tea stepped forward.
Johnny shoved her behind him again. "Raphael Fremont? Why would he give you five thousand dollars to beat me up?"
"Because he's an overpaid, petty little prick who's obsessed with that big-jugged bimbo of his. He wanted me to mess with your face so she wouldn't think it's so pretty. He pays me to get the goods on every guy she ogles, which is why I could afford to start my kids in braces to begin with. But then Dr. Perfect Smile says it's gonna take two phases. Two phases!"
The root canal that was Johnny's head started pounding harder than the P.I.'s fists. "Get up and get the hell out of here," he said wearily. 'Tell Fremont that you did your job."
The older man didn't move. "Not until she takes the gun off me," he said, nodding toward Tea.
Johnny swung around so he could look at her with his one good eye. God, with that fierce expression on her face, he could believe she'd been a biter. "Let him go, Contessa."
She slowly took her hand out of her purse and lowered it to her side. "My mother's going to kick the bimbo and her boyfriend out of the spa tonight," she muttered, then raised her voice to a vicious threat. "And I don't want to see you around town ever again."
The P.I. didn't bother with further conversation. He scrambled up and limped toward his car, parked about half a block from Johnny's Jag. He must have followed them here, but Johnny had been so preoccupied with Tea that he hadn't noticed. As the sedan took off down the street, he sank onto the curb beneath the streetlight.
Tea hurried to sit beside him. "Let's go into Mom's and clean you up."
"Later." Never. He turned his head, tilting it to stare her down with his good eye. She looked as shaky as he felt. "Next time I tell you to run, you damn well better do it. Capisci?"
She didn't seem to notice his use of Italian as she brushed his hair off his forehead. Wincing, she examined his swelling face. "You must be hurting."
"You should've seen the other guy," he said dully.
"Where'd you learn to be so tenacious? He just kept whaling on you while you were holding him against the wall."
"Water polo and basketball in high school, rugby in college."
"You're a hero."
He laughed, and it hurt his lip, just as it should. "Keep on believing that for as long as you can, sweetheart."
"Well, at least now we know who's been following us, and why."
Johnny grunted.
"But frankly, I don't think Raphael got much of a private investigator for his money. At first, I thought he might be the same man who recently checked into the spa, but I've never seen him before. You, however, spotted the guy following us a while back. And then, he didn't know your real name from the name of someone who lived in your house ages ago."
"You caught that, did you?" He'd known she would. Hadn't he thought earlier this evening that she was too smart for his own good?
"Mm-hmm. He called you both Johnny Magee and Giovanni Martelli."
"Johnny Magee or Gianni Martelli." He wished he was the kind of man who could continue scamming her. Without the P.I.'s intrusion, he didn't know how long he would have been able to ignore the outside pressures and live in the highly-sexed and highly pleasurable present with her, but now it was definitely over, baby, over. He was Gianni Martelli as well as Johnny Magee, and the latter had been raised to treat well the ones who trusted him.
He remembered her fingers curling around his in the tiki room tonight.
Tea trusted him.
She had, anyway.
Run, Tea, run, he whispered to himself. Get away before this ends ugly.
"Johnny Magee or Gianni Martelli," she repeated, her voice puzzled. "I don't understand."
He looked at her again and could see the wheels turning in that bright and beautiful head of hers, but he knew she couldn't possibly see this coming.
"That's who I am. The name on my original birth certificate, anyway. Gianni Martelli. Giovanni was my father."
Chapter Thirty-One
"Frankie and Johnny" Lena Home More Than You Know (1946)
Tea stared at the stranger she'd been sleeping with. Minutes ago, she'd thought someone was out to hurt her to get the Loanshark book, but this - this was so much worse. "Giovanni Martelli is