Dangerous Ladies (9 page)

But while he admired the diamond, it was cold and hard . . . unlike his magnificent creature. He wanted the woman in scarlet.

He had given Charles and his guests fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes of being suave, continental, mysterious, everything they wanted and expected.

Now he excused himself and walked down the hall after the mystery wrapped in scarlet silk. He glanced into one doorway after another until he saw her, gleaming like a ruby in the dim setting of McGrath’s library. She stood by the fireplace. She gazed into the flames, a faint smile on her lips, and in profile he could see the different facets of her beauty. In the firelight, her pale skin glowed like burnished gold. She’d taken off her shoes, yet she was still tall, the
kind of woman with whom he could dance—among other things—and still look in her face. Her hand clasped the mantel, and her upraised arm proved she took her health seriously, lifting weights to sculpt her bare shoulders. The silk gown caressed her body, outlining the lift of her breasts and her bottom.

His eyes had not misled him. She was, indeed, a magnificent creature.

Turning her head, she observed him with such amusement it was clear she had known he stood there, and posed for him. And she wore only a thong beneath that silky gown—or if he were lucky, nothing at all. One-carat sapphires at her ears, yet her eyes contained a warmer blue flash than any cold stone.

“Glorious,” he said.

“Thank you.” She knew what he meant and acknowledged it without false humility.

Stepping into the room, he shut the door behind him. “I think you want to talk to me.”

She glanced down at the floor as if she sought the right words. Then she straightened her shoulders, turned fully to face him, and lifted her chin.

She looked, suddenly, less like the dream he’d been seeking all his life and more like a professional. A professor, or more likely a lawyer.

Or FBI?

Yes, of course. An agent from the FBI.

Abruptly his pleasure in the encounter cooled. Tucking his hand into his jacket pocket, he waited.

“For tonight, I would like to sleep with you,” she said.

Roberto’s hand clenched into a fist inside his pocket, and the flare of excitement lit again. Not FBI. Not unless they’d significantly changed their tactics.

“I have my reasons. I don’t expect you to inquire about them. But I need . . . a night . . . a man . . . I need
you
. I’ve never done this before, so you don’t need to worry about wearing a number or being a
notch on my belt. You don’t have to worry that I intend any kind of entrapment. My purpose is solely for my own pleasure. And yours, of course, I hope.” She waited for a response with a stillness that betrayed fierce emotions tumbling beneath the surface.

Not FBI.

A groupie?

Possible.

The first spy placed by the Fosseras?

A theory worthy of note.

Or perhaps she was a gift from fate to offset the ruin of his good name.

She grew discomfited by his silence. Looking down, she searched out her shoes and donned them one at a time. “But before I continue, perhaps I should ask whether you’re interested.”

“Interested?” There wasn’t a straight man in Chicago who wouldn’t give his right arm to stand where Roberto was standing now. The crackle of the flames and the faint sound of her breathing broke the silence in the library. He strolled toward her, and when she lifted her head and shook the golden strands of hair away from her face, he smiled with all his charm. Lifting his hand, he let it hover an inch away from her chin. “May I?”

He had thought she would relax toward him. Instead, like a spinster schoolteacher allowing a liberty, she gave a stiff nod.

Ah.
Not experienced. Not a groupie.

She smelled good, like a flower that bloomed in the night. Like a woman with secrets. Slowly he slid his fingers under her chin toward her right ear, taking pleasure in that first, all-important contact with her skin. The texture was as velvety as it looked, and warm with the heat of the fire and the heat of her need. He touched her earring, a gorgeous sapphire, then caressed her lobe, tucking her hair back. Like a cat, she turned her cheek into his hand.

A sensuous creature who liked to be stroked.

She watched him from the most amazing cornflower-blue eyes, her expression solemn, as if he were her teacher and she an earnest
student. She had a way about her that nourished his ego—an ego his mother regularly told him needed no feeding.

Leaning over, he kissed her lightly, a brief brush of the lips. He wanted the slightest taste, an exchange of breath, to see if they were compatible . . . and with that, he wanted more. He pressed his finger on her full lower lip. “Are you worried that your lipstick will smear?”

“The makeup artist promised that when all the rest of me has turned to dust, the lipstick and the mascara will be left.”

He grinned. She was funny.

But she didn’t grin back. She was stating a fact. She pressed her hand to his chest—a touch firm with determination. “I would like a kiss. A real kiss. I want to know if it will be as good as I think, or if good sex is a myth fostered by movies and fed by loneliness.”

A deliberate challenge? Perhaps. And perhaps she was ingenuous. Certainly love had cheated her somehow.

He still grinned as he leaned toward her again and gave her what she wanted. Lips parted, tongues meeting, sliding . . . for the first time in years, a mere kiss took the world away. He closed his eyes to better savor the taste of her—champagne first, then as he explored, her own flavor. Sweet brown sugar melted on uncertain yearning. Cool cream poured over warm desire.

She was like a grand cru wine from the vineyards of Bordeaux—expensive and worth every sip.

He forgot deliberation. He forgot restraint. He pulled her close, crushing the delicate material of her dress, craving the slide of silk against her bare skin. His other hand slid beneath the nape of her neck to hold her in place. He bent her back, holding her weight against him, and experienced her through his mouth, through his body, through the scent of her and her hold on his lapel.

A primitive part of him clawed to be free, to shove her skirt up, to push her down on the floor, to take her quickly, with all the need thrumming in his veins.

Some remnant of the gentleman he had once been made him
release her, steady her with a hand on her elbow, and ask huskily, “Does that answer your question?”

She stood looking at him, blue eyes wide, fingers pressed to her lips. “Not a myth,” she whispered.

“No.” He wanted to laugh, but the effort of freeing her had strained something chivalrous inside him and he didn’t dare push the issue. “No, good sex is not an illusion, but what’s between us isn’t good sex. It’s more like a force of nature . . . or a trick fate has played on us both.”

“Funny. I thought . . .
fate
. . . I thought that when I saw you.”

“We are agreed. This is fate.” How pleased his grandfather would be to know that Roberto proved himself half Contini after all! Wild. Reckless. Incorrigible. “So we’ll spend the night together. You don’t have to tell me why. I don’t have to pretend to love you. And in the morning we’ll part, never to see each other again.” He’d never been rash before. Why now?

Ah, yes.
Because his life had tilted sideways and everything he had known, everything he had been, had been knocked askew.

“All right. It’s a deal.” She extended her hand to shake his.

When he took it, he realized she trembled. He hoped not from nerves; he hoped from suppressed desire. Lifting her hand to his lips, he pressed a lingering kiss on the palm, then closed her fingers on it.

“But I don’t want to be seen leaving together.” For a woman who had been thoroughly kissed, she showed a practical streak.

For that matter, so did he. “I have to stay longer. To do less would be ungrateful to Mr. McGrath. So I’ll call my driver. He’ll pick you up when you step out the door. I’ll tell the concierge at my hotel that you’re coming.” He handed her his passkey.

She looked down at the card in her hand. “Aren’t you worried I’ll steal something?”

With all the people who were watching him? “That is the last thing I’m worried about.”

“Somehow I can’t imagine that you’re a trusting soul.”

And she was a discerning soul. “Tonight I will trust you with myself.”

She inclined her head, not because she believed him, but because she accepted his right to prevaricate. She strolled toward the door, each motion of her body beneath the scarlet gown an enticement. “Don’t change your clothes,” he said.

She turned back in surprise. “But I bought the most gorgeous negligee.”

Suspicion—some would call it good sense—rose in him again. “For me?”

“Yes. Well . . .” She shrugged. “For the man I found tonight. Luckily, it
is
you. The negligee is a cream silk with lace inserts here and—”

“I want to remove your gown,” he whispered huskily. At his own instructions, desire hit him hard and low. The thought of seeking out the zipper of that enticing dress, sliding it down, seeing what was beneath it . . . He took a step toward her.

She saw his craving and chuckled, low and warm. “Remember, Roberto, you must stay at the party for another hour.”

He did have to. He was in Chicago for one reason. No woman, however attractive, could change that.

“At midnight, you can turn into a pumpkin.” Again she strolled toward the door.

He remembered what he didn’t yet know, and called, “What’s your name?”

She leaned against the door frame, her body a beckoning silhouette, and smiled. “Brandi. I’m Brandi.”

“Brandi?”

“Yes?”

“You go to my head.”

Gwynne and a weary-looking man in a rumpled suit had engaged Uncle Charles in conversation. Gwynne’s husband. Gwynne leaned
against him, holding his hand, secure now that he was there, and Brandi worked her way across the floor toward them.

Gwynne and Stan turned away as Brandi approached. Gwynne tried to stop, but Stan tugged her toward the buffet table, and she gave Brandi a helpless wave and followed.

Brandi had Roberto on her mind, so when Gwynne looked back with pity in her eyes, Brandi didn’t know what to think. Pity? For the woman about to spend the night with Roberto Bartolini? With a dismissive shrug, Brandi said, “Uncle Charles, I’m going to take my leave. I know I was going to stay, but the move . . . I have so much to do before Monday. . . .” She tried to arrange her expression to weariness, and not show the guests, and certainly not Uncle Charles, that she’d just experienced the kiss of a lifetime. When she thought of it, of Roberto, she wanted to put her hand over heart to feel it race and know, at last, that she was alive.

To her surprise, Uncle Charles didn’t object. “I’ll walk you to the foyer.”

She was so relieved, she didn’t notice the somber cast to his eyes. She got her things from the checkroom, and as he helped her into her coat, he said, “I was just talking to Stan Durant. You know he works at University Hospital.”

“Yes.” She buttoned her coat and wished Roberto were departing with her. Of course, they couldn’t leave together, but it felt odd going to an assignation by herself.

“Stan says there are rumors flying around the hospital that your fiancé . . . that Alan . . .”

Uncle Charles had succeeded in capturing Brandi’s attention.

“. . . married some female in a Las Vegas wedding.”

Busted!
Busted, and now Uncle Charles was going to figure out why she was leaving, too. She probably had guilt written all over her face. “I . . . I didn’t want to tell you. . . .”

“Dear, dear girl.” He straightened her collar. “You were so brave to come here tonight when your heart is breaking.”

“Breaking. Yes.” Maybe guilt looked like suffering. Certainly she
didn’t feel as if her heart were breaking. More like she couldn’t wait to make love with Roberto Bartolini.

“I’ll let you go without another word”—Uncle Charles took her hand—“but promise you’ll come to me if I can do anything to mend your grief.”

“If I think of something, you’ll be the first to know.” Or not. Uncle Charles would never find out how she mended her grief; on that she was determined.

“Let me bring my car around for you.”

“No!” She swallowed. “I mean, I’ve made arrangements for a car. But thank you; you’ve been very kind.”

He held her in place and looked into her eyes. “Promise you won’t be like your mother and let one bad apple spoil the whole crop. That lovely woman should have remarried years ago, and she won’t take a chance and trust another man.”

He was comparing her situation to her mother’s. It was inevitable, she supposed, but how she hated it! “I won’t. Good night, Uncle Charles.” She kissed his papery cheek and picked up her bag.