He took his hand from her hair, lightly gripped the front of her jacket and urged her closer.
I lied, he almost whispered. I love you and am paying hell for it.
Slowly, he bent toward her until his head rested against her chest and he could feel her fingers weaving through his hair. “If I had it in me to love anybody, it’d be you, Josephine.”
“No consolation prize necessary.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t mention it.” She disentangled herself. “I need to step away from this for a bit, okay? I promised Charlotte a gabfest, so I’m going to see if she’s free for a night out.”
“I’m going with you.”
“Girls’ night means no men allowed. I need normalcy, Zaf, for a little while.”
“You’re skipping out on me knowing your next-door neighbor’s in heat?”
“Aggie’s not in heat.”
“She eye-fucked me.”
“She eye-fucks everyone. Don’t be so sensitive.” She frowned a little. “Are you thinking about getting some of my neighbor’s sugar?”
“No, I’m not. Aggie’s a beautiful woman. The thing is, you’re also a beautiful woman and we have this deal going. I intend to hold up my end of it.”
“Letting you be the man to keep me company through the lonely nights… That’s for show, though.”
“It doesn’t all have to be.” He would go out tonight, but not for a shallow hookup. Since he didn’t intend to give up the room he’d been renting for the past few months, he would collect some items to keep on site in her house.
Living with Joey, loving her, yet not being with her would be a challenge and retribution.
“Go out with your friend, clear your head.” Then come back to me.
Zaf shut the thought down. He watched her go then hunkered down to strategize an in-person visit with Gian DiGorgio. Trespassing on Joey’s property was a personal attack, and Zaf would confront that bastard personally. As he was mapping out a contacts web, she popped into the doorway.
“Meeting Lottie on the Strip,” she said, but he hardly heard her.
The strapless silk dress was body paint with a side zip, and her hair had been teased into some style that could probably best be called aftersex. The leather walking stick and superskinny high heels gave her an edgy, hard rock “look, don’t touch” vibe.
“Christ, Joey…”
“What’s the matter?” she asked softly. “You look as if you don’t want to let me go.”
But he had to. Archangel was his destiny, who he was meant to be, and she didn’t deserve the danger that came with him. “Call me if you need me.”
“Oh. Then…” She hesitated, and he wished she wouldn’t give him ample time to lose his wits, walk over and kiss the hell out of her. “Good night.”
When she left, stress threatened to fetter him. A few days ago he wouldn’t have thought twice about reaching for a cigarette. But he wanted the taste of her kiss.
Settling for a substitute, he unrolled her half-empty packet of jelly beans. Tomorrow he’d replace them. All he had to do was get through tonight.
*
“As your maid of honor,” Joey proclaimed, shot glass in hand as the Hyde Bellagio ruckus pulsed in her ears, “my first order of rabble-rousing is to host a wicked bridal shower that will scandalize Tem.”
Across their fountain-view table, Charlotte threw her head back and laughed. The sequins on her tank top shimmered but were hilariously lackluster compared to the vibrant brilliance of the diamond decorating her hand. The woman was wearing 1.5 million dollars of sparkling fire on her finger. “That party’s going to get me disowned.”
“Only if done right.”
“I’m glad you decided to be in the wedding,” her friend said after swallowing down the single-malt whiskey. She signaled for another, which their VIP host delivered promptly in a fresh glass with a linen napkin. “Are you having a second?”
“This is my second,” Joey said, giggling. Charlotte was on her fourth and had what Joey estimated to be forty grand worth of whiskey in her system. From über-pricey liquor to complimentary bottle service for their table, they were enjoying the Blue experience. Charlotte’s parents weren’t only elite, they were supremely generous tippers. As such, the city’s most glamorous venues adored them. “It’ll have to be my last of the night. I drove here, in your father’s novelty car.”
“The Ferrari. Martha might feel slighted about that. She wanted to borrow it when he first acquired it, and his answer was a resounding Marshall Blue no.”
“Maybe he didn’t want his baby girl to be spoiled.”
Charlotte and Joey both fell silent then laughed at the irony in that. Charlotte’s much younger sister had not even a year ago been splashed across tabloids for her hard-partying exploits. Something remarkable had happened to Martha, though. She’d fallen in love. Now she was blazing up the corporate ladder within the Slayers’ franchise, adopting a teenager, modeling an adorable baby bump, and—as of two weeks ago in an intimate beach ceremony—married to Joaquin Ryder, a champion prizefighter.
While Charlotte had only tossed around the idea of eloping, Martha and her man had gotten it done.
It was amazing to reflect on how drastically each of the Blue sisters’ lives had blossomed this past year. The love bug had kissed them all, and Joey, who was as close as family but still on the outside, watched it unfold. While they could open their hearts to men who loved them, she couldn’t take the risk. Clearly, she was immune to the love bug.
Oh, and the man she did love once hadn’t loved her at all. It was the story of her life and she didn’t appreciate it all that much.
“Sure you don’t want more whiskey?” Charlotte checked. “You’re staring into your empty glass. My driver won’t mind dropping you at your place and we’ll have the Ferrari sent over.”
A first-class Hummer limo drop-off would be a tad much. Her neighborhood had already been subjected to too many unusual occurrences today.
“No, thanks, though it’d be lovely. Save it for next girls’ night.”
“All right. And since this is girls’ night and our opportunity to catch up on each other’s lives—” Charlotte set down her glass and suddenly there was no trace of her liquor buzz “—please tell me what’s going on. I’m worried.”
“What’s going on, hmm? A lot, actually.” A shift of her eyebrows and Charlotte took the hint to send off the host and server lingering nearby. “Gian DiGorgio, or one of his people, was in my house—uninvited, obviously—while I was at Desert Luck this morning.”
“Gian DiGorgio,” she repeated as the name and the meaning behind it registered. “He broke into your house? Wh-what…”
“I took too close of a look at him last summer. It was my duty to report what I found. The FBI, IRS, the Nevada Gaming Commission—they had to be made aware. I’ll never regret that I did the right thing.”
“You started digging because you were concerned about who I was getting mixed up with. Nate and I, our relationship, set this in motion?”
“None of this is your fault. I’m glad it was discovered. DiGorgio and Nate’s dad were fixing football games, for crying out loud. Ordering bounties, paying off players, the illegal gambling itself? Come on, that’s serious.”
“Gian should be in prison. Nate and his brother will never get past what he’s done. And to think he’s a free man after all of that?”
“He’s a free man because he has more money and influence than you or even his godsons realize.”
“So you do the right thing, act with integrity, and you’re saddled with the fallout?”
“It happens, Lottie. I’ve seen this in my world. It’s not pleasant, but the screwed-up reality is money defies everything.”
“This is insane.”
“Agreed. I assume I can kiss goodbye the hope of being invited to the Titanium Club in his casino,” she quipped, because if she didn’t joke she’d break apart.
“Joey, he’s
a sociopathic bastard and he won’t get away with scaring you. Let me call my folks—”
“Put it down,” Joey interrupted when Charlotte went for her phone. “Don’t involve Marshall and Tem. This is the exact brand of drama they want to dodge.”
“But you need someone to protect you.”
“I have someone.” Zaf didn’t love her—had never loved her—but he was making real efforts to ensure her safety. She was adult enough to accept their circumstances for what they were. “The blind date from the library. He’s also my wedding date, FYI.”
“Is this one of your sarcastic jokes?”
“No.”
“In the gallery you said he’s the guy who shot you, then you said, ‘Oh, it’s complicated’ and shooed me out of there. Now he’s your date to my wedding?”
“And he’s living with me. And I’m crazy attracted to him.”
“And you must be joking. This cannot be an actual, serious conversation.”
Joey sighed, but not out of frustration. Charlotte and Aggie and every other friend who’d crept into Joey’s life after she’d moved to Las Vegas to begin again as a civilian—they had innocence about them that she envied. They didn’t have an intimate relationship with society’s underbelly, didn’t know what it was to use deception, manipulation and sometimes violence as tools to seek a greater good.
She didn’t speak about the horrors she saw or the devastation she experienced. It was why Charlotte—her closest friend—didn’t know Joey had loved Zafir Ahmadi before he’d unintentionally shot her in an attempt to rescue her.
“Zaf was in black ops,” Joey began carefully. “He and I hooked up during a case in Mexico seven years ago. We were hot and heavy for two years. I loved him. I began and ended with the man.”
“He shot you, Joey.”
“This is difficult to talk about, okay, Lottie? I need you to listen. Please.” Charlotte looked ready to protest, but nodded and Joey continued. “Our unit was working a narcotics bust in Arizona five years ago. We were in a parking garage and it was so friggin’ hot, so hard to breathe. Something felt off the entire time, and then it came out that Zaf had a deal going with the suspects. In exchange for some information of personal interest to him, he’d facilitate their drug deal and help them make a smooth escape. To know that the man I loved had turned dirty? It was gut-wrenching.”
Charlotte sat, not blinking, her fist pressed to her heart, her head shaking slowly.
“It was a cover, though. I hadn’t been made aware and I panicked. Someone grabbed me, was going to kill me. Zaf was trying to free me, but I didn’t trust him. I couldn’t trust him.
“He signaled to me that he’d fire his weapon, but when he was on the trigger I started kicking…and I was hit. The bullet went in through my abdomen, did some unpleasant things to my hip, and I’ve been angry for a long time.”
“You thought he did it deliberately?”
“At first,” she admitted. “It seemed implausible that it was a close-range mistake. He’s a phenomenal sharpshooter. And he’s a brainiac, though not as bookish as your hot Joe College.”
Charlotte’s smile was sad. “Joey, this is heartbreaking.”
“It’s not meant to be. It’s only the truth. I wanted the rage. I wanted to hate Zaf. But there were investigations and he’d fired for the right reasons. I wouldn’t be here now if he hadn’t. The trust between us was lost and as a result errors were made.”
“When did you find out about the cover?”
“Today. Until today I thought he was an agent who lost his way but tried to be a hero in the end. The Bureau’s seen it before.”
“Now he’s back. Why?”
“He found out Gian DiGorgio has been keeping an eye on me and he wants to put an end to it. This way he can be my bodyguard without alerting everyone around me, particularly your parents, that I need a bodyguard. We’re handling this, so that’s why you can’t involve more people. Don’t mention this to Marshall and Tem.”
“What about Nate?”
“Not him, either. Besides, he’s got plenty of complications with the whole Santino and Bindi thing.” Nate’s brother was apparently heart-and-soul in love with their father’s much younger ex-fiancée—and tabloids were still enjoying the irony of it all.
“I can’t lie to my fiancé.”
A lie-free relationship? Joey thought such a thing was as real as a unicorn or a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. “I can respect that. Should Nate ask you specifically if his godfather is stalking me, you have my blessing to tell him what you know.”
“So this man…Zaf…he’s living with you and watching your back?”
“We’ve agreed that he’ll pretend to be my boyfriend until the DiGorgio problem has been solved.”
“You said you’re still attracted to him. How long before you start wanting pretend to become the real thing?”
“It’s not like that, Lottie.”
“You loved him once.”
“Yeah, but as I also learned today, he didn’t love me. He can’t love, he claims. And I won’t push.”
“Jo,” Charlotte said on a sigh, “this is by far the saddest girls’ night out ever.”
“Yeah,” Joey murmured, and pointed outside, “and here’s the rain for further emphasis.” It seemed to complement the mood of the day, but having grown up on a ranch and surrounded by flowers, she appreciated rain. It’d been too long since she let herself get caught in it.
Charlotte picked up her phone. “Weather alert. Thunderstorm. Maybe now this heat and humidity will let up. Hope everyone’s slowing their speed and watching out for downed power lines.” They left the table for a view of lightning branching above the glittering city. “Would you think less of me if I left? I know it’s early as heck, but I just want to put my arms around Nate and wait this storm out.”
“That sounds disgustingly romantic.” Joey gave her a one-armed hug. “Get out of here. Go be in love.”
After Charlotte’s driver collected her from the Bellagio, Joey set a course for home. The girls’ night gabfest had ended early, but it was for the better. She still had plenty of time to pour her stress into a cake-baking session. Thank God, too, because she had plenty of stress. Talking about Zaf had left her on an emotional spin cycle.
I’m crazy attracted to him.
Had that been a lie? Was it only attraction?
Attraction hadn’t compelled her to open her body to him on a crowded street. It didn’t torment her with hunger for his touch and thirst for his taste. It didn’t influence her to resent every day they’d been apart. It sure as hell didn’t tempt her to forgive their mistakes and forget that no, he hadn’t loved her.
Damn it, she needed it to be about attraction. About sex, really.
Turning onto her street, Joey found it completely dark under the bawling sky.
Power outage.
Did her heart rate kick up in fear that wasn’t totally irrational? Yes. Did it give way to calmness the second she saw Zaf’s truck in the driveway? Yes—and that disturbed her.
She’d never before minded being alone. Now that he was here, in her life and in her house on the darkest night of the summer, she was genuinely afraid to be without him.
“Not a good sign, chica,” she warned herself, parking next to the truck and hurrying through the assaulting rain as quickly as her cane and stilettos would allow.
Muggy heat welcomed her home. The security system had a backup battery and she was relieved to find it still functioning unaffected. The same couldn’t be said for the air conditioner. Was that worse than not being able to make a cake or having to remove her makeup without the aid of her electric magnifying mirror?
“Zaf,” she called out, feeling around the dark for a route to the kitchen drawer that held the candles. “A little light would’ve been awesome.”
His voice came from the hall and a tiny golden glow preceded him. The light vanished then reappeared with a faint snick.
“Are you using a lighte
r?” she asked, then continued on to the kitchen.
“Correct. But not for cigarettes.”
“You didn’t smoke tonight?”
“Uh-uh. I ate the rest of your jelly beans.” He paused and she couldn’t tell where he was now. The guy had the stealth of a jungle predator. “I got a candle going in the bathroom. I was planning on lighting as many as I could find so you wouldn’t stumble around in the dark.”
“Oh. Thanks. Lottie and I cut girls’ night short on account of the thunderstorm. The candles are in here.”
“Where’s here?”
“Kitchen.”
She gathered tealights, votives and tapers. Providing the flame, he helped her place the candles in holders throughout the main rooms, and they separated to carry one to their respective bedrooms.
Dios, the house was hot. Before she got to her room, she put the holder on a hall table, lifted her hair off her neck and changed directions.
Backtracking, she wound up in front of the bathroom’s open doorway and listened to the rush of water filling the tub.
Zaf opened the door wider. Candle flames flickered, offering leaping shadows across the walls. “Need something, Jo?”
Very much. “No. Are you gonna take a bath?”
“A dip. It’s a hot night.”
Stuck on pause, Joey watched him unfasten his belt. She stood there, her hand in her hair, her skin sweltering inside a dress that was squeezing her tighter by the nanosecond.
“Hey, Joey, do you need something?” he asked again, yanking the belt free. The leather serpent hit the floor near his bare feet.
“No,” she said again. She didn’t need to continue to stand here; she wanted to.
“Uh… I’m about to get in that tub and I won’t be doing it with my clothes on.”
She couldn’t move—couldn’t manage to tell him to make her move. It was as if her mind refused to object to her body’s decision to stay.
But Zaf didn’t comment further. He turned, gracing her with a full frontal view as he stripped off the shirt.
Muscles constricted under tanned skin, taking hold of her complete attention. She dropped her hair and clutched her cane too fiercely, taking blatant inventory of the cut of his hip bones, the pattern of hair that arched up his abs and stretched across his chest.
One More Night with You Page 10
