An Offer He Cant Refuse - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,108
me."
Unwilling to miss the show, not even for the migraine that might ensue, Rachele sent a last message to Cal - bfn, bye for now - and hurried in Johnny's wake.
Chapter Thirty-Two
"I've Got You Under My Skin" Perry Como Como Swings (1959)
Cal peered through the open bedroom doorway as Johnny worked at his bow tie. "Why do you have curtains on the bedroom ceiling?"
Johnny glanced over at the other man, surprised and amused to see him in dark slacks and a white dinner jacket. The ubiquitous black high-tops didn't look that out of place with them either. "I think Tea called them draperies. Since I was grinding my teeth at the time, I can't be sure."
Cal seemed to accept the explanation. "They frisked me at the gate when I came back from the newsstand. A couple of goons with dark shades and metal detectors."
"Security. They'll be checking everyone." He looked at his assistant again. "You didn't have to come tonight."
"Both of us could still boogie out of here and go for pizza."
Johnny shook his head and straightened his black bow tie, then shrugged into his own white jacket. "I have things to do here." He was scheduled to give reporters a tour of the new interior of the house and he was planning on being all-out poetic in praise of the job done by the design firm Inner Life and its owner, Tea Caruso.
He owed her that.
And she'd been happy to tell him so, the day after he'd revealed he was Giovanni's son. Frankly, he'd been shocked as hell to find her on his doorstep that morning, and then he could only admire her for cornering him so neatly.
The man who'd betrayed her trust couldn't say no to her - not about hosting the party, not about covering those memorable mirrors with the ridiculous drapes - even as he couldn't come up with any good excuse for the betrayal in the first place.
All the rationales he'd dredged up for himself during the past few weeks had never rung true, not even to himself. There wasn't one legitimate reason that he'd gone so far as to take Tea into his bed. He was probably as pissed at himself as she was.
Angry at him or no, the amount of work Tea had accomplished in the last week and a half astonished him, from the gleaming turquoise-blue tiled floor in the living room to the lush yet simple red velvet armchairs in the office. She'd been at the house eighteen hours a day, rushing here and there in a flurry of flushed cheeks and wild hair that sent his imagination spinning toward sex.
Of course, she'd always sent his imagination spinning toward sex. Maybe that was why he'd B.S.'d his way into an affair with her in the first place. Thinking only with his little head.
Damn his own weakness. Badass gambler and all-around ultracool bachelor Johnny Magee knew that operating from detachment and logic was the only way to win. It didn't make sense that he'd forgotten that.
But he remembered now. So he was going to keep his dis-tance from her tonight. He'd play the hand she'd dealt him - taking care of the reporters and ensuring the good publicity she wanted - but he'd stay at the periphery of the party and away from her.
"You gonna talk to that grandfather of Tea's?" Cal asked. "That Cosmo?"
Johnny adjusted the cuffs of his white shirt and fastened the top button of his jacket. "Cosimo. And no, I think I'll leave the old man in peace on his eightieth birthday."
Johnny's fact-finding mission into his father's life and death was as over as his relationship with Tea. Short of demanding a confession from a Mafia don regarding a crime without a statute of limitations, there wasn't anything else he could do. In any case, his questions had always been about what crimes his father had committed rather than those committed against him.
He'd wanted to believe his father wasn't a killer. Without definite proof to the contrary, he still could if he wanted to.
And that's just what he'd do, Johnny decided, letting out a long breath. Tomorrow, next week, very soon, he'd shake the sand of this desert paradise off his shoes and go someplace else. He might wake up in a cold sweat at 1:09:09 for the rest of his lousy life, but when he woke up he'd tell himself his father was innocent. Damn it, he knew he was.