Remaking the Caruso name, let alone living it down, would only prove that much more difficult.
Her head jerked up and she held her sisters' gazes. "I don't care that he's retiring. You two will make him understand I'm not coming. He won't miss me. I haven't done more than glimpse him from afar in years, except for today, when - "
The sudden guilt on their faces explained that odd little "coincidence."
"I can't believe this," Tea said, slowly. "You told him where we were meeting." Meaning his appearance at the restaurant had been pure emotional blackmail - which shouldn't surprise her, given the other type he was so expert at.
Still, her right hand strangled her fork, while the other, in her lap, curled into a defensive fist. This wasn't right. This wasn't fair! She'd made a bargain - she was never quite sure if it was with God or with her guilty conscience - that went like this: She would stay away from trouble, and God - or her guilty conscience - would let her get away with her crime.
"Come on, Tea," Eve urged. "We could be a family again. That's all we want. That's all Grandpa wants. Remember that after Daddy... left, he was like a father to us. Do it for that. Do it for him because he loves you and wants you near again."
Or he wanted what she'd kept hidden all these years.
Joey scooted her chair closer. "Hey, do it for Eve and me." She sent Tea a grin that made her look ten years old instead of twenty-six. "We swore a blood oath to Nonno that we'd get you to agree."
Tea stared at their two entreating faces. Oh, but they were good, her sisters. We swore a blood oath. Joey counted on changing Tea's mind by counting on her big-sister sense of loyalty.
Do it for him because he loves you and wants you near again. Eve would know that in her secret heart of hearts Tea longed for the impossible - to be able to trust some man enough to get close to him.
But it wasn't need or duty that was building inside her now. It was a growing mix of anger and dismay that no longer fit into any of the compartments she'd built to contain the past. She tried tamping it down, but still it oozed around the edges to fill her again.
Forgetting the goody-goody image she worked so hard to maintain, she slammed down her fork and leaned forward to grip the table edge with both hands, temper heating her skin. "Listen to me - "
The ring of her cell phone interrupted. Glaring at her purse, she dared it to chirp at her again. It did. Frustration shooting higher, she pushed through the disorganized mess inside her purse, determined to get rid of the caller and get back to compelling her sisters to convince their grandfather that she couldn't be manipulated. That she was through with the past and she was through with that part of the family. For good.
She jerked the phone to her ear. "Yes?" she snapped out, sending Eve and Joey a narrow-eyed look, letting them know she was going to get off and get back to the matter at hand, no matter what, no matter -
"Ah." A raspy male tone vibrated against her ear. "We speak at last."
- who. Oh God. Who it had to be, with that low purr of a voice, was unmistakable.
"Johnny Magee?" she asked, hoping, hoping she was wrong.
"Yes. Have I called at a bad time? Your assistant put me through."
She flushed hotter. "No, no. It's not a bad time at all." Of course it was a bad time. She needed Eve and Joey on her side, but confessing she'd been about to berate her sisters over salads wasn't the image she wanted to project to her most important prospective client. She forced in a calming breath. "I was, uh, preoccupied with some furniture catalogs that came in today."
Across the table, Joey snorted.
Tea sent her a dirty look and hoped he'd mistaken the sound for the burp of a water cooler. "Can I help you with something, Mr. Magee? Answer a question about my bid?"
"Johnny," he said. "Call me Johnny."
The vibrations of his deep voice quivered like a caress across her skin. Whoa. Her assistant was right, Tea thought, the man should narrate erotic bedtime stories. She could imagine it now, something sizzling yet romantic in that get-naked-for-me voice.
Firelight flickered over the gypsy girl's bare skin,