Marco flashed her a look, shook the blanket open and draped it over Emily.
“Now,” he said briskly, “where are we taking you?”
Emily looked at him. He was almost as wet as she was. Drops of rain glittered in his dark hair and on his thick, spiky lashes. His shirt clung to his wide shoulders and broad chest, betraying the shadow of hard, delineated muscle.
She thought about offering to share the blanket with him.
A rush of heat, similar to what she’d experienced when she’d swallowed the mouthful of brandy, went through her.
“Good.”
She blinked, looked up, met his gaze.
“You have some color in your face. Now, tell me where you live.”
“The E-E-East Village.”
“Where in the East Village?”
She hesitated. Marco Santini had, thus far, not given her any reason to doubt that his intentions were honorable, but a false address was only wise. She thought fast, went down a mental list of buildings and streets not too far from hers and came up with one.
“Twenty-two Pascal Street.”
Did his eyes narrow just a little? No. Why would they?
“Charles? We want twenty-two Pascal. You do know how to get there, don’t you?”
The driver coughed. “Absolutely, Mr. Santini.”
“Excellent. We’ll take Ms. Simmons home first.”
The Impeccable Blonde raised impeccably groomed eyebrows. “Marco, really…”
“Ms. Simmons first,” Marco repeated. “And then twenty-two Pascal. Do you have that, Charles?”
“I do, sir,” the driver said, and the big Mercedes moved into the night.
******
The Impeccable Blonde lived in an Impeccable Building on Park Avenue.
Charles pulled to the curb, stepped out, opened her door. Marco got out, too; The Impeccable Blonde stepped onto the curb, waited until he joined her and then looped her arm through his. She looked over her shoulder, flashed Emily an icy smile. Then she leaned into Marco as if he were a tree and she were a vine.
“I’ll be only a minute,” Marco said, but after that little display, Emily doubted it.
Not that what he did was any of her business.
Besides, there was a subway station only a couple of blocks away and the rain had tapered to a drizzle.
She looked at her shoes, lying on the floor. At the blanket, wrapped around her. She was still wearing her rescuer’s jacket but the blanket would be enough…
“Mr. Santini would never forgive me, Miss.”
She blinked, looked up, met Charles’s steady eyes in the mirror.
“Would you really try to stop me?”
“I’m trying to do that right now, Miss, by talking you out of leaving.”
“Just that?”
Charles smiled. “Mr. Santini is a man of honor. He wouldn’t approve of anything more. You don’t have to worry about—”
The door opened. “What doesn’t she have to worry about?” Marco said as he got into the car.
“About getting to twenty-two Pascal,” Charles said smoothly. “I know precisely where it is.”
“Indeed. So do I. And we both know that it isn’t where the lady lives.”
Emily stared at him. “Why would you say that?”
“Because it is a landmark building that has just undergone extensive renovations. It took the builder five hard years to gain the city’s approval.”
She sank back in the seat. “Oh.”
“Oh, indeed. Now, prego, where do you really live?
She told him and ten minutes later they reached her slightly decrepit building. Emily shrugged off the blanket and stepped onto the sidewalk before either Marco or his driver had moved.
“Well,” she said briskly, “thank you for—”
Marco held out her shoes. “You forgot these.”
“Oh.” She reached for them but he shook his head as he got out of the car.
“I’ll carry them for you.”
“No. I mean, you don’t have to.”
“A gentleman always escorts a lady to her door.”
Was he making fun of her? She couldn’t tell, not from his voice or from his expression.
“Really, that isn’t—”
“And I can collect my jacket at the same time.”
“Your jacket. Sorry. I forgot—”
“No, keep it on. You can give it to me after we get to your apartment.”
“Really, Mr. Santini—”
“It’s Marco.” His hand closed on her elbow. “What floor?”
“The fourth. And it’s a walk-up.”
“I expected nothing less,” he said dryly. “Keys.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your keys I am assuming the front door is locked.”
It was, and how could she balk now after he’d driven her all the way home? Emily dug the keys from her purse and handed them over.
The stairs were narrow; they climbed them single file, he in back of her. At the fourth floor landing, she swung toward him.
“Thank you for everything.”
“You’re welcome. Which door is yours?”
“Mr. Santini—”
“Marco.”
“Marco. It isn’t necessary to—” She took a breath. “That one.” He moved past her, unlocked her door, then took her hand, pressed the keys into it and folded her fingers over them. She looked at her hand, then at him. A wash of pale pink rose in her face. “I’m not going to ask you in.”
He laughed softly. “I didn’t think you would.”
“Good. Fine. Because—”
“Because you think, now he will demand recompense.”
Emily blushed. “No. I just—”
“Yet, you must admit, you do owe me something.”
She stiffened.
“It was very kind of you to bring me home but if you think that entitles you to—”
“It does,” he said solemnly.
“No. It does not. I am not about to—”
“What were you doing on that street corner?”
“Huh?”
“That is the cost of my assistance. I want to know what happened to you tonight.”
Emily stared at him. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Well…” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “I was fired.”
“You were fired?”
“Uh-huh.”
“From what?”
She could hear the bewilderment in his voice, see it in his eyes. Who could blame him? It sounded unreal; if their positions had been reversed, she wouldn’t have believed the story either.
“From a bar. The Tune-In Café. It’s a couple of blocks from where you found me.”
His eyebrows rose. “Are you saying that you are a bartender?”
“A bar…?” She laughed. It was, he noticed a very nice laugh. It went with her eyes—light blue, he could see now, in the faint glow of light in the hall. “No,” she said, “I play piano.”
“Ah. A pianist.”
“Pianists play at Carnegie Hall. Piano players play at places like the Tune-In.”
She was smiling. He smiled back. His tigress had a nice way about her. She was very pretty, too. Not the type of pretty he generally saw. Her face was bare of makeup. Her hair was the color of gold. The heat of the car had dried it and it fell down her back in a drift of soft curls.
He wanted to reach out and touch one of them. See if it would wrap around his finger. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d touched a woman’s hair that had not been sprayed, shellacked or cemented into place.
“And what did you do to deserve being fired?”
She hesitated. “You wouldn’t understand.”
He folded his arms over his chest. It was either that or succumb to the desire to play with one of those curls, and he suspected that would not be a good idea.
“Try me.”
Her voice took on a defensive edge. “A guy ask
ed me to play a tune. I refused.”
“Was it something you didn’t know?”
“I knew it, all right. It was that old Sinatra thing. “New York, New York.”
“But aren’t requests part of a pianist’s—scusi—a piano player’s job?”
Why had she let the conversation get this far? Talking about what she’d done only emphasized the stupidity of it.
“Yes.”
“So, your boss told you to get out because you wouldn’t play the tune?”
“Not exactly. See, the guy who’d asked me to play that song was drunk.”
His face seemed to darken. “Did he do something to you? Did he touch you?”
“No,” she said quickly, “nothing like that. He was just drunk. And he had an open bottle of beer in his hand. He pointed it at me.”
“And?”
“And…” She ran the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip. “It’s too embarrassing.”
Marco put his finger lightly under her chin, lifted her face until their eyes met.
“Tell me.”
“The beer spilled. Over me.”
Marco said something in Italian. Italian was one of the four languages Emily could speak and what he’d said wasn’t very nice but it was well-deserved. She thought of telling him that, but why prolong this conversation?
“So I grabbed the bottle from him.” She paused. “There was still beer left in it.”
“And?” he said again.
She gave a little shrug. “And I shoved it upside down into the top of his pants and all the beer poured out and—”
Marco snorted.
“Don’t laugh at me! It isn’t funny! If I hadn’t done such a—such a dumb, impetuous thing—”
Laughter rumbled from his chest
“I wish I had been there to see it!”
She blinked. “You do?”
“Trust me, Emily. The world is filled with fools who could use a good dousing in beer.”
His smile, his laughter were impossible to resist. Emily laughed, too.
“My boss was horrified.”
“What is the name of this place again? I’ll pay him a visit. He should not have fired you. He should have stood by you.”
“No. Please, never mind. He’d only give you a hard time.”
She looked so serious, it made him want to smile, but what he most wanted was to give in to temptation and take one of those curls between his fingers.
“I am not afraid of hard times, Emily.” To hell with it. He not only smiled, he reached out and caught hold of a curl. It felt like silk. “And you are very brave.”
She smiled. “Not without a tube of lipstick in my hand.”
“I mean it. You put a drunken fool in his place, stood up to a stranger, withstood a monsoon…” His gaze fell to her lips, rose to her eyes. “And you risked everything by accepting his offer of a ride home. A tigress, indeed.”
Silly, she knew that his praise should send a rush of warmth through her.
“Thank you.”
“It is the truth.” He drew the curl to its full length; let it wind itself back around his finger. “What happens now? Will it be difficult to find another job?”
“Oh, no, not at all,” Emily said airily. How could she ruin her rescuer’s view of her as a tigress by admitting the truth? “I have a wonderful agent. He won’t have any difficulty getting me something even better.”
“Good. Because if you were to have a problem, I would be happy to help.” He smiled. “I’m afraid I could not offer you employment playing the piano but I have contacts…”
“Thanks, but I’m fine.”
His smile tilted. “Yes,” he said. “You most certainly are.”
Suddenly, the air seemed thick. Words had more than one meaning. Emily could hear her pulse beating in her ears as Marco slid his hands to her shoulders.
Then he let go of her and she took a step back.
“Well,” she said, “good night.”
“Good night.”
“Thank you again. For everything.”
“It was my pleasure.”
“But I spoiled your evening.”
“On the contrary. You were a charming note in an otherwise very long and dull night.”
“Yes, but your friend—Miss Simmons…”
He shrugged.
“It’s unfortunate you were subjected to that. What you saw…” Another lift of those wide shoulders. “Our—situation had run its natural course. Such things always come to an end.”
He said it almost casually. Emily wasn’t surprised. Her brothers were all happily married now but she remembered their bachelor days. She and her sisters used to joke that you needed a calculator to keep track of the women who floated in and out of their lives, and she certainly felt no sympathy for Jessalyn Simmons. Still, his easy dismissal of the relationship was somehow troubling.
“I only wish I had not frightened you.”
“You didn’t. I mean, not deliberately. Stopping for me, giving me your jacket… oh, your jacket! I almost forgot—”
She began to take it off. He reached for it, grasped the lapels and brought them together.
“Keep it.”
“No. I couldn’t. Really, I—”
“Keep it,” he said his voice suddenly low and rough.
She looked up, met his gaze. The world seemed to drop away.
“Keep the jacket,” he said, and he bent his head and kissed her.
It was the softest of kisses. Just the gentle brush of his lips over hers. For an endless moment, Emily did nothing. Then she sighed and her lips softened and parted under the delicious feel of his.
He felt his body take fire.
In a heartbeat, she was in his arms, rising on her toes as she strained toward him. He groaned, took the kiss deeper, heard her moan as her hands rose, clutched his arms, his shoulders.
Now, he thought, with a ferocity that drove out everything else. All he had to do was whisper to her, follow her inside the dark apartment. She would lose herself in his kisses, in his caresses. He would undress her, see that lovely body the rain had so temptingly hinted at...
Cristo!
What in hell was he thinking? She was brave but she was also naïve. He had asked for her trust; she had given it. Was this how he would repay her?
Marco tore his mouth from hers. He drew her hands to her sides and waited until, at last, her lashes lifted and her eyes, blurred and the color of the sea, met his.
“Forgive me,” he said gruffly, and then he was gone.
CHAPTER FOUR
According to the lighted numbers on his bedside radio, it was 3:58 in the morning.
Marco was still wide awake.
He’d tossed and turned and all he’d succeeded in doing was making a Gordian knot of the bed linens. When the numbers on the face of the clock radio hit four, he mouthed an oath and gave it up.
His triplex penthouse was silent. Charles’s rooms were in the staff wing on the lower level; the housekeeper wouldn’t be in until seven. Good. He really wasn’t in the mood to attempt civil conversation right now.
He rose from the bed, pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and then went down the curved wood-and-glass staircase and along the hall to the kitchen. The espresso machine was at the ready; he made a quick cup of dark, strong coffee, opened the French doors that led to the terrace and stepped outside.
It was only September but surprisingly cold, the wind moaning as it whipped through the Wollemi pines and Sicilian olive trees that formed a small forest in one curving arm of the terrace.
He’d been far too busy to involve himself directly in the furnishing of the condo itself or of the terrace. He’d instructed his designer to use lots of glass and pale woods; she had worked on the plans for weeks and then presented computerized photos for Marco’s approval. He’d gone through them quickly, saying things like “Good” and “Fine” and “Very nice” until he came to the plans for the terrace.
The d
esigner showed an arrangement of comfortable furniture along its two levels; a cooking center on the main level, which Marco had rightly suspected he would never find time to use, and a handsome reflecting pool. There were plantings of shrubs, flowers and succulents.
And, for the first time, Marco had asked for something specific.
He said he wanted trees.
Real trees, not the botanical hybrids that a man of his height would dwarf.
His designer as well as the landscape architect had warned him that it would be difficult to find trees that could endure the wind. There were days the air was perfectly still, of course, but when you were up this high, exposed to the elements, a stiff wind could strip away the leaves that trees needed to survive.
Marco had remained unmoved. He wanted trees—and he got them. Olive trees from Sicily. Woolemi pines from Australia. Tough trees that would not succumb to the worst the world might toss at them.
According to a woman he’d dated a couple of years ago, the trees were subconscious representations of his own survival.
Marco took a mouthful of coffee.
“These trees are you,” she’d told him. “They’re tough. Strong. They can take a beating from life; they’re impervious to what happens once you climb this high.”
He’d scoffed at such foolishness.
“Psychological game playing,” he’d told her. “I simply like trees.”
“Exactly. And the reason you like them is because they remind you of yourself.”
He’d laughed and said that he was nothing like the trees.
“Yes,” she’d said, “you are—but there’s one big difference. The trees know that despite their tough exteriors, they require care. TLC.”
“What?”
“TLC. Tender loving care.”
“I know what the letters mean,” he’d replied, “and it’s pure nonsense. These trees don’t ‘know’ anything. And what they require are only life’s basics. That’s one of the reasons I chose them.”
He could still remember the way she’d looked at him.
“Living things need more than that to flourish. Even these trees. Even you.”
Marco sipped at the coffee.
He’d ended the foolish conversation by taking her back to bed but their affair had not lasted very long after that.
“I want more,” she’d told him, and they’d both known she hadn’t meant more jewelry or clothes or other gifts, just as they’d both known that he didn’t have more to give.
Emily: Sex and Sensibility Page 4
