Red Carpet Romeo

by Jenny Gardiner

  Valentina had a sneaking suspicion she was going to live to regret this. So much for her good deed for the day, she thought as she threw back the bitter liquid, squinting her eyes against the strong taste.

  “Waitress!” Gisele called, ordering up another shot, priming Valentina to spill her guts.

  Oh well, Valentina thought with a grimace. Here’s to being a fool.

  Chapter Ten

  “You have to understand,” Valentina said, her tongue tripping over itself just the teeniest bit. After all, she’d just finished her second shot and she was so not used to drinking tequila. “I’d made such a fool of myself. It was mortifying. And then he cut me off just like that.” She tried to snap but her fingers didn’t coordinate precisely enough, so it made more of a wispy sound.

  “But that was so long ago,” Gisele said. “You were just a kid. And he was a college student. If you ask me, he did the right thing. I mean seriously, it would be sort of creepy if he’d hit on you when you were that young.”

  “But, but, but—”

  “I know it was embarrassing. Hey, who hasn’t had some humiliating experience with a friend of their big brother’s? Mine was with this guy Jeff who was vice president of the student body at their boarding school when Parker was president. Jeff came home to spend Christmas with us. It was the last year my mother was alive—I’ll never forget it. It was the best Christmas ever, until I told Jeff that I loved him and he laughed at me. He laughed at me! After I confessed my deepest, darkest feelings to him.”

  “I’m sorry you lost your mamma,” Valentina said, frowning. “That must have been horrible.”

  “Unimaginable,” Gisele said, her eyes getting a far-off look in them. “Something you never really get over.”

  Valentina placed her hand atop Gisele’s. “I wish there was something I could do—”

  Gisele held her hands up. “It’s been a while. I’ve had time to adjust. But it did make me treasure each day I have. Which is why I make sure to love my brother with all my heart, cherish those around me, and act like a completely giddy newbie idiot when I get to attend a royal wedding.” She grinned.

  “And your father?” Valentina was almost afraid to ask since she’d dragged them down so much by broaching the subject of her mother as it was.

  Gisele rolled her eyes and shook her head. “My father left my mother years ago,” she said. “And when he left her, he left us. He was the bon vivant, the life of the party. He was very flirtatious, and it turns out that he was even more than that—he’d been having affairs all over the place behind my mother’s back. Eventually he decided he’d rather be with some woman half his age than with mom and us, and he left.” She frowned. “The irony of that is they eventually had children, so here he is a shitty father all over again to a new set of kids. I’d almost pity them if I didn’t resent them so much. But of course I can’t resent them, because it’s not their fault. And really, should I resent them because they get my father and we don’t? Because it’s not as if he was a worthwhile one anyhow. But since he’s the only blood relative left for us, well, I guess it would have been a nice option. But really, we consider him dead, he’s that far out of our lives at this point.”

  “Well, I can certainly relate to not having a father, but not because he was a bad one, but rather because we lost him too young,” Valentina said. “I miss him all the time. But he was a marvelous father. He left very large shoes to fill. Luckily with so many of us combined we’ve been able to take up the slack, at least in the running of Romeo Wines. But it’s never the same.”

  “Parker does an amazing job trying to be a mother and father to me,” Gisele said. “Of course it’s impossible for him to be either, and I try to encourage him to take the pressure off himself, but Parker’s good at placing high expectations on his own shoulders. But I’m sure with our experience, having had our father betray us as he did, it would be near impossible for him to ever make such a grandiose commitment with a woman. He’d be afraid that at some point his feelings would die, and he’d never want the burden of guilt for having given up.”

  “Who says you give up?” Valentina flagged the waitress for two more shots. “The idea is you make a commitment and stick to it. It’s not optional. It’s forever.”

  The waitress placed the shots in front of them and they threw them back, their eyes watering.

  “Well, well, well,” a voice came from behind Valentina. “Day-drinking, are we?”

  Valentina turned to see one of her brothers hovering over her. She jumped up. “Tomasso! What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t even coming to the wedding! And now you’re here days early. What gives?”

  He shrugged. “I had a lead on a job in the States, but it turns out they don’t need me for a few weeks. I could have hung out in New York, but who wants to be alone for Christmas when I could be back for Mamma’s cooking instead?” He rubbed his belly for emphasis.

  “Lucky me then, as now I can share in this joyous occasion with one of my favorite brothers.”

  “One of? That doesn’t give me too much confidence considering there are six of us.”

  “You know I can’t decide something like that. I love you each for your own special attributes.” She gave him a hug. “Oh, and I’d love for you to meet my new friend, Gisele.”

  Gisele rose on wobbly legs to shake his hand, nearly tipping over. Tomasso caught her just in time and righted her.

  “My savior!” she said with a giggle, grabbing the back of the chair for support.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know about you, but my sister isn’t one to get visibly drunk at, hmmm—” He looked at his watch. “At two in the afternoon. You must be a particularly bad influence on her.”

  Gisele held up her hands defensively. “No! You’ve got it all wrong. We just shared a few friendly shots of tequila. A social lubricant of sorts.”

  He arched his brow. “You needed to be lubricated?” he said to his sister with a laugh.

  “No. I needed to be inebriated.” She slapped her leg and laughed out loud. “That was a great joke! Get it?”

  “I’m afraid I need to get you two ladies back to the palace before you find yourselves in trouble.”

  He held up his hand to attract the waitress’s attention and asked for the check.

  “But we’re having so much fun.” Gisele thrust out her bottom lip in a faux pout. “And we were just getting to the good part.”

  “There was a good part to this?”

  “It was the part where Valentina realizes that Parker’s a good guy.”

  He tipped his head toward his sister. “Do tell, sis.”

  Valentina held her finger up to her lips and shushed Gisele. The last thing she needed was her brother knowing anything about her humiliation at the hands of Parker the Big Fat Jerk Hornsby. Even if he did look so damned hot last night in that suit of his. Especially because of that.

  Gisele squinted her eyes, scrunched up her nose and grimaced, apologizing for opening up that can of worms.

  “Disregard that line of conversation,” she said. “It’s my secret.” She pretended to lock her lips and throw away an invisible key. “Our secret, that is.”

  “On second thought, perhaps I should buy you two another round so I can be in on the top-secret conversation. I’m sure it’s something I could use against Valentina down the road.”

  “Oh, look!” Valentina said. “It’s Jerome. Come to save me just in the nick of time.”

  “Probably just as well,” Tomasso said. “I think you two are going to need to sleep it off a bit before the reception at Adrian’s this evening.”

  Valentina knit her brows. Crap, there was a big party at Adrian’s tonight. Which meant two things: she was now going to be hungover by party time, and she was going to have to partake in the hair of the dog so as to avoid that very thing.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gisele returned to the palace apartment in a surprisingly dru
nk state for it only being near three in the afternoon.

  “Seriously, G?” Parker said when he caught the sour stench of liquor as she belched while greeting him. “I thought the plan was to lie low. Play it cool. Definitely not get completely pissed—with, I might add, the woman who would most love to see me splattered over a highway—and stagger home in the middle of the afternoon like you were the town drunk!”

  “I resemble that,” Gisele said, laughing.

  “Seriously, Gisele. I am shocked that you went out and got trashed like this. It’s so not like you. What is going on?”

  “I was just trying to help,” she said as she plunked herself down on the soft leather sofa. “I didn’t want my brother to have to suffer in silence.”

  Parker pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please don’t tell me you brought me up in conversation.”

  She shook her head. “Of course not. Well, not exactly.”

  “Not exactly? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, like, I didn’t tell Valentina that you think she’s beautiful or anything like that.”

  “Who says I think she is anyhow?” he said, feeling a vein throbbing in his temple. “And even if I did, who authorized you to discuss it with her?”

  “See, I knew you think she’s gorgeous!”

  “I never said any such thing!”

  “But you thought it.”

  “And how might you know that, O omniscient one? Were you peering into your crystal ball or something?”

  She shook her head. “I could just tell by the way you looked at her. Like you needed to tuck your tongue back into your mouth or something. Figuratively of course.”

  Parker began to pace the living room floor. “Please tell me you didn’t say that to her.”

  “Of course not! I wouldn’t betray your confidence!”

  “I haven’t even confided anything in you for you to betray!”

  “Yes, but we women know these things.”

  “Oho. That’s rich,” he said. “Now you’re the all-knowing female who can peer into the minds of men? I swear to you, Gisele, if you’ve made things worse between me and that woman, I am going to frog-march you onto the next flight home.”

  Which sounded fine and good except that he heard a loud snort and looked down to see that his sister had fallen fast asleep on the leather couch, a trail of drool leaking from the corner of her mouth onto the kid-soft leather furniture. She never even heard his hollow threat.

  Parker heaved a sigh and reached for a cashmere throw draped across the couch and tucked it around Gisele so she’d be more comfortable.

  Ugh. He couldn’t wait to deal with his sister’s new best friend tonight, not knowing what she’d revealed to the woman today. No doubt Valentina was preparing for the palace guards to lead him off to the guillotine for whatever it was he didn’t even say to begin with.

  ~*~

  The palace had arranged for buses to transport guests to Prince Adrian and Princess Emma’s country home outside the city.

  Gisele, looking a little green around the gills, parked herself next to Valentina on the bus, leaving Parker to chat up Valentina’s brother Tomasso. Clearly his warning to his sister to steer clear of Valentina had fallen on deaf ears.

  “So, Tomasso,” Parker said, shaking his head. “Long time no see. I hear you intervened this afternoon with our two sisters who were in the tank. I suppose thanks are in order for having precluded all sorts of embarrassing behavior from Gisele had she been left to her own devices.”

  “Are you kidding? I was more worried about Valentina. She’d have been up on the bar doing belly shots if I hadn’t gotten them the hell out of there.”

  Crap. The idea of licking shots off the flat, sexy belly of a mostly naked Valentina Romeo made Parker’s pants instantly grow tighter. How did he continually find himself in these awkward situations and not of his own accord? At least it was dark in the bus; by the time they arrived, hopefully his uninvited erection would have calmed down.

  “She does that often then?” Parker said with more than a hint of wishful thinking in his voice.

  Tomasso cocked an eyebrow. “Uh, she better not. But with her, the sky’s the limit if she gets in a carousing mood. Valentina does love to be the life of the party.”

  Parker was tempted to challenge her brother on that allegation; so far all he’d seen was her unpleasant side, and it was hard for him to imagine her being the vivacious bon vivant. It was hard to say though. As a young teenager, Valentina was a lot of fun, at least when it came to things like playing sports. But looking at her now, the idea of any sort of athletic pursuit with her inevitably led down the path of his needing to get his mind out of the gutter.

  He sure hoped Valentina was as hungover as his sister was because at least then she’d likely not have the energy to castigate him for breathing the wrong way or daring to look at her at the party tonight. With any luck, the place was big enough for the two of them to avoid each other altogether.

  The bus pulled past a guardhouse flanked by tall brick walls that were draped with holly and pine roping entwined with white lights. It continued along a tree-lined driveway for nearly a mile until they came upon Adrian’s home. As future king of Monaforte, Adrian would be entitled to a palatial country home naturally. But wow, was this place ever a huge. Parker had been told the two-story Georgian-style brick home contained sixteen rooms. A quick glance at the roofline revealed eight chimneys. At least you could stay warm in a place like this.

  The guests deboarded the bus and followed the slate walkway to the oversized front double doors hung with two enormous Christmas wreaths. A butler opened the door to allow the guests in, and others quickly took guests’ coats and directed everyone to drinks and appetizers being passed. Parker spotted Luca and made a beeline to him while grabbing a glass of wine from a passing tray.

  “Parker!” Luca said. “Enjoying yourself, I trust?”

  Parker held up his glass. “Even more now,” he said, hoping that came across as a joke even though deep down he was sort of serious. This day was making him want to drink to forget. “What a spread your brother’s got going here.”

  “It’s spectacular, isn’t it? The firstborn has all the luck.”

  Parker shrugged. “Yeah, not too shabby. I’d settle for it. Although minus his responsibilities.”

  They both laughed.

  “I’ll drink to that. So, things go well with Valentina last night?” Luca said, arching an eyebrow in curiosity.

  “Um, I suppose.” Parker cocked his own brow, wondering what Luca meant by that comment. This was getting weird: he’d never been in a dueling eyebrow conversation before.

  “I just thought maybe you and she might, well, enjoy each other’s company a bit.” Luca raised his other brow.

  What the fuck?

  Parker decided to furrow his instead. “The thing is, Luca, it’s just that, well, you see, um—”

  “Well, look who it is!” Gisele ran up to Luca and gave him a big hug. So much for royal protocol.

  “Little G! What’s up, my honorary little sister?” Luca said, obviously unconcerned with her breach in diplomatic behavior and giving her a huge squeeze back. “So glad your brother brought you along. Tell me what you’ve done since you’ve been here.”

  Parker threw her a dirty look, as in ix-nay on the equila-tay inge-bay.

  “Ohmigod, Valentina and I had such a great day. She took me all around the city, and we saw the famous landmarks, and then we went to this great pub for lunch, and I made her drink truth serum—”

  “Truth serum?”

  “That’s what my sorority sisters called it when we did shots of tequila. I find tequila has unique properties to make the consumer say and do really remarkable things. Kind of encourages you to let your hair down.”

  Luca nodded his head slowly. “You don’t say...” He looked at Parker, suppressing a laugh. “And did you find my cousin let her hair down at all?”

  “Well... she
was starting to, but then Tomasso showed up and put an end to that—”

  “And then my little sister took a much-needed nap upon her return to the palace.” Parker winked at Luca as he placed his hands on Gisele’s shoulders, trying to steer her away.

  “Oh, and speak of the hungover devil,” Luca said, reaching for Valentina’s hand and pulling her toward their conversation. “I understand you and Gisele got a chance to paint the town red today.”

  Valentina rubbed her temples. “I’m not sure if there was any painting going on. More like swilling.”

  “Swilling?” her cousin said.

  “It sounded like such a good idea at the time,” Valentina said. “But now I’m afraid the only way I’m going to last through this party is with the hair of the dog.”

  “In which case,” Luca said, reaching for a passing tray of champagne and pulling off two flutes, one for Valentina and one for Gisele, “bottoms up, ladies.”

  He and Parker exchanged glances and grinned. Finally things were picking up for Parker, starting with Luca’s evil retribution on his cousin. He was going to enjoy watching her suffer for the rest of the evening. And she’d be lucky if he didn’t go find some pots and pans from the kitchen and bang them right up against her ears just for the sheer enjoyment of it. If she wanted to play mean, he could too.

  Only thing was, why did it feel unkind to even think that way?

  Chapter Twelve

  Valentina felt like a herd of elephants had stampeded overtop her head. She was not a drinker really. Of course she drank wine—that went without saying for a Romeo. Her family of vintners was all about wine. But tequila? She could have counted on one hand how many times she’d even had it served to her in a drink in her whole life, and never in shots.

  What was she thinking, throwing that stuff back like it was mother’s milk? Just because it was clear didn’t mean it was harmless. Nail polish remover was clear too, but she wouldn’t suck that down her gullet. She needed to remember that mantra next time. But there would not be a next time—she was so not going to indulge in tequila shots ever again. She made a mental note to avoid Mexican holidays just in case the temptation lurked.