An Offer He Cant Refuse - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,92

slacks. "I knew I could get you to come around. Told Cosimo I have a special touch with you girls."

"I know all about your 'special touch,' Nino," she said, her stomach starting to churn. "So you better stick to the message and then get going."

His eyes narrowed. Apparently he hadn't known she was aware of the beating he'd given Eve and how it was her sister's promise not to tell Cosimo that kept Nino away from her... and him, most likely, alive. "Your grandfather wants to see you at his party, va bene? He's feeling his age and wants to have all his family around him on his special night."

Out of Nino's mouth, this argument had even less chance of plucking her heartstrings than when it came from her sisters. "Maybe I'll send something from Hallmark, but I won't be coming to the party."

Nino took her refusal less well than they had. He glow-ered at her. "Your grandfather says it won't be a celebration unless - "

"Come on. He doesn't need me to help blow out the birthday candles. I'm not buying it, Nino."

"Merda! Fine. It's more. It's to show unity within the family at this time of change."

She'd known sentiment wasn't driving Cosimo. Still... "He's done just fine without me all these years. I'm confident he'll continue to do fine without me the next few months."

Nino's dark brows drew together in frustration. "He's expecting me to bring back your word you'll come."

'Then you're going to disappoint him, because I'm not offering it."

He set his jaw. "Sweet cheeks - "

"And don't call me that either, or maybe I'll have something to say to Cosimo after all."

"Say you'll go to the party." His hands were balled into fists inside his pockets.

"Over my dead body."

"Don't be so flip," he retorted. "There's unrest in the families. Your grandfather doesn't want to see you hurt. It's another reason he wants you close."

Though that thought had her heart pounding, she couldn't let a bully like Nino think he'd gotten to her. She tried to sneer. "So he's willing to scare me into it? Tell him that won't work either."

He stared her down for a long minute, then shook his head in disgust. "I'm out of here."

Not soon enough for her. "Nobody's stopping you."

But Nino was already turning back, a predator's smile on his dark-angel face. She should have known he wouldn't let her have the last word. "By the way, sweet cheeks, tell your sister Eve I'll be keeping my eye on her, too."

Tea held her hand over her stomach as he walked off, then she downed half her glass of wine in one quick gulp. God, Nino gave her the creeps. But he was gone. Thank goodness he was gone. And any minute Johnny would be here.

Johnny, her temporary sex buddy. The appearance of Nino made it even more obvious there was nothing else it could ever be between them. At some point, involvement with the progeny of a notorious crime family and all that it entailed would turn too intrusive or just plain too ugly for Johnny to deal with.

No man ever stayed.

Even before her confrontation with Nino she'd known this. That's why, aware the end had to be rushing upon them, she'd suggested meeting Johnny at the spa today instead of somewhere more private. Privacy equaled intimacy and it was smarter for her to keep their relationship less personal than that. It was also why she'd made up her mind not to go to bed with him that night... for the first time in more than a week. She shouldn't be getting quite so cozy with a temporary sex buddy.

Because the sex... oh, the sex was personal. And intimate. She continued to insist on the darkness and knew he thought she was being unnecessarily prudish. But in the dark she managed to hold her responses back. In the dark she felt some measure of protection from him. Some measure of control. A voice broke into her thoughts.

"Well, if it isn't the little Puritan."

Great. Another unwelcome visitor.

Tea reluctantly raised her head. Melissa Banyon stood in front of her, decked out in one of the spa's white robes and a ridiculous pair of marabou-trimmed sandals. A stretchy white turban covered her hair. Beside her, Raphael Fremont projected more of that brooding sensuality that had so captivated Tea in his starring role in The Foreign Legion. But with his dusty uniform replaced by a satiny robe that matched his fiancee's, his smoldering stare seemed something