Brandi jumped.
“Sorry!” he called. “Don’t worry. I can find the broom.”
“That is one gorgeous man,” Tiffany murmured as he rummaged around in the closet. “What a wonderful accent. He’s Italian?”
Brandi needed to nip this blossoming mutual admiration in the bud. “Yes, and he’s a jewel thief.”
“How romantic!”
Of course, Tiffany would think that. “No, Mother, it’s not romantic. He’s a criminal, and there’s a chance—a very good chance—he’ll go to prison for the next twenty years.”
“He doesn’t look like any criminal I’ve ever seen. He’s rich. That suit is Armani.”
They heard the tinkling sound as he swept up the glass and tossed it in the trash.
“Even better, he knows his way around the kitchen,” Tiffany added.
Something about Tiffany brought out the worst in Brandi. She always seemed to need her mother’s shallow character confirmed, and she couldn’t resist saying, “He’s a count, too.”
“Yummy!” Tiffany drawled the word with a Southern accent thick as caramel sauce.
“He’s yummy because he’s got a title?”
“No, he’s yummy because he’s sexy and rich and handsome. The title is just like whipped cream on chocolate zinfandel mousse. What a husband he would be!”
“Husband!” Brandi turned on her mother. “Why did you say that?”
Tiffany widened her lovely blue eyes. “That’s the way I think, darling.”
“So did his grandfather!” What was it with these people? Nonno and Tiffany didn’t even know each other. Years separated them. They lived miles apart. Yet they had the same one-track minds! “I don’t want a husband. I tried that, and you know how well it worked out.”
“Roberto definitely doesn’t match any of the requirements on your list,” Tiffany agreed.
Brandi flinched. Alan had met all her requirements. . . . Was Tiffany being sarcastic? No, impossible. Sarcasm required a subtlety Tiffany didn’t possess.
Besides, Tiffany wasn’t looking at her. She was looking at Roberto. “There is nothing the least sensible about him, hm?”
Brandi made the mistake of glancing in the kitchen as he stretched up to get down some paper napkins, and her mouth dried. Husband? She didn’t want to think about him like that. As if he were a man who was available and attainable. Because she’d already sampled him, she knew that he wanted her, and if she started thinking about forever she would make such a fool of herself—and there’d been far too much of that lately. “Conjugal prison visits are so much fun.”
“Darling, you know he won’t go to jail,” Tiffany said with inborn wisdom. “Wealthy people never do.”
Brandi wished she could come up with a pithy retort, but she didn’t know the details of his case. Her first week at work, and she’d logged about an hour at the office working on the case. This morning she’d called Glenn’s office, but Mrs. Pelikan had picked up the phone.
She’d sounded brisk and instructive. On Mr. McGrath’s instruction, we’ve restructured the team. You now report directly to me, and your job, Miss Michaels, is to keep tabs on Mr. Bartolini. Don’t let him out of your sight.
Do you believe he intends to leave the country?
Don’t let him out of your sight, Mrs. Pelikan had repeated. She didn’t have to explain herself to Brandi, and she didn’t.
Brandi glanced at Roberto. Don’t let him out of your sight. Too bad the instructions made her happy. “Mother, a husband at risk for a criminal record is definitely not on my list.”
Tiffany glanced at Roberto as he filled up the glasses. “Was he your stupid thing?”
Her mother had an instinct about men and women that couldn’t be denied.
“He’s been remanded into my custody.” A serviceable half-truth. “That’s why I stayed at his grandfather’s last night, and we’ve been arguing about where we’re going to spend tonight. I want to stay here.” Then realization dawned. They couldn’t stay here. There was a bed and a couch with a slashed cushion, and she’d planned to give Roberto the bed because he wouldn’t fit on the short couch—well, neither would she, but she figured she’d just put up with the discomfort to have her own way.
Now that Tiffany had arrived, her plan was not viable.
“So.” With a charming smile, Roberto handed the ladies their glasses. “We go to my hotel.”
“I’ll sleep here,” Tiffany said, “but can I trust you two alone?”
“Mother, you can’t stay in the apartment!” Brandi still smelled the soap the landlord had used to clean the carpet, and the paint that covered the graffiti was a slightly different shade. She had never loved this place; it had been a temporary and convenient location to rest her head until she married Alan.
Now everything about it gave her the willies. No way would she leave her mother in an apartment that had been vandalized. If anything happened to Tiffany, she would never forgive herself. And she would be . . . so isolated.
My God. She shifted uncomfortably. She imagined a tragic end for her mother and all she could think about was herself. She was going to hell for sure.
Yet she desperately wanted to avoid Roberto’s luxurious, memory-laden suite.
“Of course Tiffany will go with us to the hotel,” Roberto said.
“That’s a horrible idea!” Brandi said. Having her mother stay there in the suite where she and Roberto had made love? On every piece of furniture, on the floor, against the wall, in each bathroom? That was just . . . icky.
“There’s plenty of space, two bedrooms and two baths—”
“Two bedrooms?” Brandi didn’t want to contradict him—Tiffany didn’t need to know she’d been in his suite—but in his fifty-eighth-story suite, there had been only one huge bedroom.
“Two bedrooms,” Roberto confirmed. “I already called the hotel and told them I needed to move to a more family-appropriate suite. Newby is packing for me now. We’re on the fourth floor, Brandi, in deference to your fear of heights.”
“I don’t have a fear of heights.” How had he known? “They just make me a little . . . uncomfortable.”
“Me, too. Thank you, Roberto, for letting us stay with you.” Tiffany touched his arm. “That’s so sweet.”
“It’s not sweet,” Brandi said. “It’s a bad idea.”
“Do you have a better one?” Roberto asked.
She didn’t. Of course she didn’t.
So the other two ignored her.
“I just unpacked and I haven’t spread out at all,” Tiffany said. “Brandi, do you want me to pack for you?”
They were conspiring against her. “I can do it,” Brandi snapped.
“Make sure you bring all your”—he waved his hand in circles over his body—“fancy dresses. I have many invitations. Many important people want to meet the notorious Italian jewel thief, and it would honor me to have you on my arm.”
“The only”—Brandi imitated his gesture—“fancy dress I have is old and black, so I imagine we’re not going to accept your invitations.”
“No!” Tiffany bounced in her seat. “We wear the same size, and I brought dresses with me!”
Incredulous, Brandi turned on her mother. “Dresses? You brought dresses?”
“Charles invited me to a party while I’m here.” Tiffany watched her own hands as she smoothed them across her legs. “I can’t go in some crummy old gown.”
“That’s nice of Uncle Charles, but you only need one dress!”
“Darling, when I left Nashville I didn’t know which dress I’d want!”
Brandi worried that her mother had begun to make sense to her. She worried that her life had veered out of control and she would never get it back. And as Tiffany and Roberto rose together and headed toward her bedroom, chatting about their social schedule, Brandi worried that her lover and her mother had far too much in common.
After all, if they combined their forces, there was no telling what magnificent folly Brandi
might find herself driven to commit.
But no matter what else happened, she was not going to go to any dinners or parties with Roberto. He knew too many shady men. He had too many shady connections.
She was going to put her foot down, and tell Roberto they were staying safely hidden in the hotel suite until she delivered him to trial.
19
When Tiffany opened the bedroom door and Brandi stepped out, Roberto caught his breath in instant and painful masculine awareness.
In makeup done by a professional and a red dress that shouted Take me, Brandi was the epitome of allure.
But in cosmetics applied by the loving hands of her mother and clad in a blue velvet gown cut in the medieval style, she looked sexy, classy, vulnerable, and as if she needed only his embrace to be complete—although perhaps his libidinous imagination had produced that last bit.
He could no more resist taking her hand between his and kissing it than he could resist the sweep of events that carried him along. “Cara, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Brandi’s blue eyes glittered with the same cold frost as the sapphires in her ears. Snatching her hand away, she stalked away from him. She wore gold wedge heels that made her legs look a mile long from thigh to toe, and a gold belt that sat low on her waist and clanged softly while she challenged him with the sway of her hips. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
He lifted his eyebrows at Tiffany, who shrugged and mouthed, She’s sulking.
Well. He supposed Brandi had the right—for a while. She’d lost the battle to stay in tonight. If he could, he would have indulged her, but he had no choice. His course had been set before he met her. He was seeking the truth about his past, and this operation was his way to find it.
She stood with the door of the coat closet open, staring into its depths with a frown. “Where’s my coat?”
Ah. The tricky part.
With a nod at him, Tiffany picked the thickly quilted winter-white velvet coat off the chair and hurried after her. “Here, darling, wear this.”
“What is it?” Brandi frowned as she examined the warmest Gucci he’d been able to find.
“It’s mine,” Tiffany said. “I knew it was cold up here, so I bought it before I caught the plane.”
Brandi’s frown grew thunderous. “But you can’t afford this!”
“It’s all right, darling,” Tiffany said airily. “I got it on clearance from bluefly.com.”
“Mother, you can’t afford this coat whether it’s on clearance or not. And it’s white! How impractical can you be?”
Tiffany glanced at him as if apologizing for her daughter’s bad manners. “But it’s pretty, isn’t it?”
“You can’t afford this dress, or the other dresses, and you can’t declare bankruptcy again.” Brandi was truly distressed. “You have to cut up those credit cards!”
When had the roles of mother and daughter been reversed? Roberto thought their relationship had been askew for a very long time.
But in this instance, he’d bought the coat—he was tired of seeing Brandi shiver in the black London Fog—and he wouldn’t allow Tiffany to suffer for his actions. Before Brandi could scold anymore, he said, “Brandi, thank your mother for her generosity in allowing you to borrow such a gorgeous garment.”
Brandi turned on him in a heavy swish of skirts and a wave of indignation. But when she caught sight of his grim reproof, she stopped. She thought. Her innate good manners took over. “Thank you, Tiffany.” She stroked the velvet. “It’s fabulous, and I’ll take good care of it.”
“I know you will, darling. It gives me such pleasure to know you’re going out. It’s been far too long since you’ve had a good time.” Tiffany beamed.
She was a kind and lovely woman, and why she wasn’t decorating the arm of a rich man, Roberto didn’t understand.
As Roberto helped Brandi into the coat, Brandi asked, “Mother, what are you going to do tonight?”
“Nothing. Watch a little TV. Read a little. I started a good book on the plane.” Tiffany yawned and patted her mouth. “I’m a little tired from traveling. Maybe I’ll just go to bed. How late will you be?”
“Don’t wait up.” Roberto bundled up in his own coat and scarf. “We’ve got three parties tonight.”
“Three.” Brandi pulled on her gloves and kissed her mother on the cheek. “I can’t wait.”
He flicked his finger against her cheek. “Sarcastic little witch.”
They went out the door arguing.
Tiffany went to the window and observed as Roberto handed Brandi into the limo. She waited until they drove away, and she waited a little longer.
Then she returned to the bathroom, to the makeup spread out on the counters and the stylish emerald-green dress hanging behind the door.
By the time the car arrived to pick her up, she looked almost as good as her daughter. In fact—she inspected herself and the excited glow that lit her from within—maybe better, because she was happy, as she hadn’t been for a long, long time.
The lights of Chicago cast alternating stripes of color and shadow in the back of the limo, but whatever the illumination, Brandi was beautiful—and offended. She looked away from Roberto and out the window, her proud chin tilted up, her neck a tempting length.
But she couldn’t ignore him all night. He wouldn’t allow it. Unerringly, he found her gloved hand. “Allow me to tell you what we will do tonight.”
She swiveled to face him, her blond beauty cool and indifferent. “Since I have no choice, I really don’t care.”
“Indulge me.” Peeling off her glove, he kissed her fingers. “First we’ll go to dinner at Howard Patterson’s. He’s well-known for bringing in the finest chefs from around the world, and tonight he promises French provincial cuisine.”
“Good idea. Feed me first. That’ll improve my temperament.”
“So true, although I think champagne also improves your temperament. Anyone’s temperament, for that matter.” He pressed his lips to her open palm.
She inclined her head. “How gracious of you.”
She had the sharp bite of an asp and the brilliant wit of a dilettante, and the combination made him dodge and laugh, for he knew that she hid another guise behind the mask of sophistication. She was a passionate hedonist and a tender woman who had become a lawyer to set the world to rights.
God knew she was working hard enough to try to fix him. And while there had been a lot of women in Roberto’s life, none of them had ever tried to save his sinful soul.
“After we eat and improve our temperaments, we’re going to a party given by Mossimo.” Roberto caressed the pad beneath her thumb.
“BYOG?” She pretended to be indifferent, but her heartbeat increased with each stroke.
“BYOG?” Roberto frowned. Seldom did his English fail him. “What is that?”
“Bring your own gun.”
“Ah.” He chuckled. “Yes, I’m sure there’ll be enough firepower to start a small war. However, I will be unarmed.”
Her hand convulsed in his. “I don’t know that that comforts me.”
“Trust me. I’ll protect you.”
“I know that. I was more worried that you’d do something stupid.”
She was insulting, yet beneath her disparagement lurked an unthinking confidence that he would secure her safety, and that made him puff up like a strutting peacock. “I suppose it is forbidden to kiss your lips and ruin your glorious lipstick?”
“I’m wearing the lipstick that will remain on earth when all the glaciers have melted.”
He leaned toward her.
And ran into her free hand. “However, there is another reason why kissing me is forbidden.” She spaced her words for maximum impact. “I don’t want you to.”
“Champagne,” he murmured, knowing how very much it would annoy her. “Much champagne.”
She lifted her glossy, perfect lips in a delicate snarl. “Tell me the rest of the plan—w
e’re going to Mossimo’s?”
“Ah. Yes. I have to make an appearance, but I promise it won’t be for long.”
“I can’t wait.”
If Mossimo were smart, he’d stop worrying about Roberto and start worrying about Brandi. Roberto suspected she could take him down with a few well-chosen words. “I’ve saved the best news for last.”
“I’ll bet.” Sarcasm, but she didn’t take her hand out of his.
“Every year, Mrs. John C. Tobias gives a benefit ball for the symphony and a contingent of musicians plays for the dancing. It’s a night made for grace and beauty. It’s a night made for you, my Brandi, and I can’t wait to take you in my arms to lead you onto the dance floor.”
If his graceful sentiment impressed her, she hid it behind an impassive frost.
“Then, after we’ve waltzed together, you’ll get your way.”
“Get my way?”
“We’ll return to the suite and stay there,” he said in spurious innocence.
She stared at him in outrage—an outrage that slowly dissolved into mirth. Leaning back against the leather seat, she laughed loud and long.
He watched her, loving that she could laugh at herself without restraint.
“And tomorrow we’ll do things your way again?” she asked.
“That’s fair. At night you get your way. In the day, I get mine.”
“You really are a case, Roberto.”
“A case of what?” he asked cautiously.
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” She took her hand away from him. “We’re here.”
The limo inched up to the portico of the New England-style home, and the doorman ushered them inside. They greeted Howard and Joni Patterson, who insisted that Roberto appraise Howard’s newest acquisition, a two-carat diamond tie clip created in the 1920s.
Roberto told them the jewel was worth only thirty-six thousand, but the setting put the value much higher. Howard was ecstatic, and in a little more than two hours Roberto and Brandi ate, charmed half of Chicago society, and excused themselves to go to the rival party.
“I have to go,” Roberto told Joni Patterson. “To ignore a chance to dance with Brandi would be a crime against nature.”
Dangerous Ladies Page 17
