An Offer He Cant Refuse - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,18

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?" Tea 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 Tea'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. Tea, 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 Tea 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?"

Tea 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.

"We'll fix that right up." She grabbed Tea'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, Tea 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?"

Tea 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," Tea 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