An Offer He Cant Refuse - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,79

couldn't fathom what it would be. His posture was stiff and he was staring at her mouth as if... as if...

No. She wasn't going to read anything into his sudden appearance or his odd tension. They'd had their "one dance" and that's all there was to it.

That's all he'd said he wanted.

Movement down the street caught her eye and her head jerked right. Damn. The Escalade was back, cruising slower this time. She had to get out of here before she pulled the Loanshark book out of her purse and confessed all to the next mobster who showed up on her doorstep.

"I have to go, Johnny." Okay, so she sounded like a kid with a bathroom issue, but that wasn't so far from the feeling of anxiety building inside her.

His hand took hold of her elbow. "Then we'll go together." Already he was guiding her toward his silver Jag, parked on the street just a few feet away.

"What?" Frowning, she looked up at him. "Why?"

His expression was as indecipherable as before. "I'm the client, aren't I?"

Before she could even think of a way out of the situation, he had her in the passenger seat and was pulling away from the curb. As she gave him the requested directions, she tried to figure out why she felt hustled. And she tried to figure out why he wanted to accompany her to a swap meet, of all places. Johnny Magee wasn't a swap meet kind of guy, not in those European-cut slacks and that collarless shirt.

Sliding a glance his way, she caught him sliding one at her. Their gazes caught. A hot flush washed from her hairline to her toenails.

I want you again. I want you drunk on what I can do to your body.

She swallowed hard and clenched her thighs together. It sounded like Johnny's voice, it looked like that's what his gaze was saying, but it couldn't be. He'd wanted that one time. He'd said so. And she'd promised herself to be content with that. Plenty of women survived one-night stands.

They didn't feel the need the day after, and the day after that, to be in their lover's arms again, his hot palms cupping her bare behind, his hard chest beneath her lips and tongue. She squirmed against the leather seat.

"Did you always want to be an interior designer?" he asked abruptly, his gaze shifting back to the windshield.

Tea blinked. "What?"

"An interior designer. How did you hit upon that as a career?"

Well, that just went to show how inexperienced she was in the ways of men and mornings-after. Or, more accurately, days-after. He wanted to talk about her work. She flounced against the seat, annoyed with herself. It drove a woman to think about starting to date again. Even if it meant more grandsons and great-nephews, at least she might gain a modicum of expertise on this whole man-woman thing.

But the grandsons and great-nephews wouldn't be Johnny and it would be a waste of time, anyway. Her mob past meant she wouldn't be getting serious with anyone.

"Tea?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she muttered.

He shot her another unreadable look.

She pretended not to notice. It was a waste of time trying to interpret it.

"Tea?"

"My job, I know, I know." With a silent sigh, she leaned her head against the backrest and thought back. "Before I even knew anything about a career in the design business, I was driving my sisters nuts by rearranging our bedroom."

"You shared?"

"Always. My mom's idea, I think, as a way for the three of us to feel, no, to know we were sisters. Equal sisters. When Eve came to live with us, my mother accepted her with her whole heart and she wanted to make sure that none of us ever forgot that."

"Special woman, your mother."

"I see that now, of course. But the truth is, I don't remember a time without Eve, so whatever difficulties there were at the beginning - if there were any - I don't know." Because though her mother was special, she was private, too. They all kept their pain and their secrets well hidden, every single one of Salvatore Caruso's women.

"So you were shoving beds and dressers around the room from the tender age of - ?"

"About nine, I'd say. And also sewing curtains and bedcovers whenever a new whim struck."

"You sew?"

She shot him a baffled look. "It's not a disease."

He was shaking his head. "You don't strike me as the sewing type. Women who sew are... I don't think I've ever met a woman