The Offer She Couldn't Refuse

by Marie Ferrarella

  Antoinette took the correction as an admission. “So you are waiting for him.”

  Leave it to her mother to make a giant leap where none was called for. She was almost too weary to be annoyed.

  “No, I’m not. I’m just afraid he’ll show up.” And she was. After last night, she really didn’t want to see Jared again for at least a few years. Maybe a century.

  Antoinette wasn’t buying. “You can lie to yourself, but do not try to lie to me. I am your mother. I can see things.”

  Damn it, why didn’t everyone just leave her alone? She put her mother at the top of the list, then reminded herself that there wouldn’t be a list if it wasn’t for that swaggering corporate hit man.

  “Lately, everyone is suffering from vision problems.” Placing menus on the hostess table with a loud thwack, Demi walked away. She needed to do more cooking. “There is nothing to see.”

  Antoinette was quick to pick up on the slip. “Everyone? Who is everyone?” She glanced around the modestly filled restaurant, her eyes skimming suspiciously over Theo and his friend. “Someone has seen something and you are not telling me?”

  Demi stopped walking. She hung her head, knowing she was going to lose no matter which way she turned. “No, Ma, no one has seen anything. I just meant—”

  Facing the front, Antoinette saw the door opening. The satisfied look was immediate. “He’s here. Your patience has been rewarded. Oh, and look, he has brought his daughter.”

  Demi turned, her heart sinking even as her anticipation quickened.

  Terrific, she thought darkly. He brought reinforcements. Just what she needed.

  6

  She watched them enter, the tall, dark-haired pain-in-her-side and the delicate little blond-haired girl with him. They looked as if they belonged in a Father’s Day greeting card commercial.

  Frustrated, Demi bit her lip. Panetta was playing dirty and he knew it. He knew there was no way she could throw him out or even tell him to leave, not when he had his daughter with him. She wouldn’t do that, not to him but to the little girl.

  The manipulative rat.

  “Go wait on him,” Demi told her mother. Suddenly acting incredibly busy, Demi began to move away from the hostess desk.

  She was going to get started on tonight’s desserts, Demi decided impulsively. Maybe even tomorrow’s. Never mind that it was George’s job and she had other things to do. She needed to get flour on her cheeks and her fingers so sticky with honey, she’d forget all about who was sitting out front. And if she got lucky, by the time she was finished, Jared would be gone.

  She wasn’t feeling very lucky.

  Antoinette caught her daughter by the wrist before Demi had the chance to make good her escape.

  “Me?” Astonishment highlighted the jovial, round face. “I have not waited on a table for ten years.”

  Demi tugged lightly, expecting her mother to release her. She didn’t.

  “It’s like bicycle riding.” She tugged a little harder, but her wrist remained held fast. Her mother seemed determined to keep her there. “You never forget,” Demi assured her through clenched teeth.

  “I never rode on a bicycle,” Antoinette reminded her daughter. Then she silently indicated the duo coming toward them. “Do I have to embarrass you by pushing you toward him?” she asked in a raspy whisper.

  This time, the tug was quick and hard. And successful. Freed, Demi rubbed her wrist. “You’ve already done both, Ma. You’re way ahead of the game.”

  Her mother took a step to the side, not to move out of the way but to conveniently block off her avenue of retreat.

  Panetta wasn’t the only one into manipulation.

  Bracing herself, Demi picked up the top two menus just as Jared and his daughter reached the desk.

  Demi didn’t even look at Jared. It was safer that way. She wasn’t sure just what he’d see in her eyes if she did look at him. Probably too much.

  She could get through this, Demi told herself, if she just concentrated on the little girl and nothing else. Her smile was warm when she looked down at her. Jared’s daughter looked a little like Addie, one of Guy’s twins, except a lot more delicate. Like a china doll that had come to life.

  “Welcome to Aphrodite,” Demi said with a formal little bow. She was amused when Theresa returned it. “Is this your first time here?”

  Pleased at being addressed like a grown-up, Theresa nodded solemnly. “Yes, it is.”

  “Well, then, we’ll all be on our best behavior for you.” Demi shot Jared a quick, warning look. “Won’t we?”

  She was putting him on notice, Jared thought, as if he were the one who was given to fits of temper. How could one woman be so damn annoying and yet so damn appealing all at the same time?

  It wasn’t a question about to be answered anytime soon.

  Taking that into account, he was grateful to Demi for not bringing what she considered their differences into the arena while his daughter was with him. In a way, if he were being honest with himself, he supposed he’d been counting on that. If she tabled their differences and treated him civilly because of Theresa, out of necessity Demi would have to get comfortable with him. It stood to reason that if she pretended to be civil, eventually she would be, and the pretense would become the reality. After that, could appealing to her common sense be far behind?

  Jared had learned a long time ago to leave little to chance. Everything was calculated toward making the inevitable negotiations between them run that much smoother. And the negotiations were inevitable as far as he was concerned. Under no circumstances did he intend to take no for an answer from her. To that end, he intended to turn up at the restaurant day in, day out, friendly as all hell while he integrated himself into the fabric of the lives of both the people who worked here and those who frequented the restaurant.

  Into her life.

  Jared intended to keep showing up until he was considered one of the regulars himself.

  Until she trusted him.

  It was part of his standard game plan. The more familiar the opposition became with him, the more likely they were going to feel that what he was saying was in their best interest.

  Which, in this case, Jared firmly believed it was. Why would a woman want to be stuck working from morning until night, continually wrestling with accounts and tallies that refused to jibe, when she could just as easily be out enjoying herself? Living life instead of letting it pass her by.

  He was all too familiar with the work ethic that drove her. It was that kind of overpowering ethic, that kind of drive that had killed his father.

  And hers, if what he’d read in the file Winfield’s investigator had put together on her was accurate. Granted that Nick Tripopulous had retired first, turning the business over to her, but he’d died of a heart attack not that long afterward. His body, worn-out by years of exhaustive work, had refused to rally even when he slowed down. It had been too late.

  It wasn’t the kind of fate he figured that Demi would willingly want for herself if she had an alternative. He and Jack Winfield were offering her one. In the amount of time it took to sign the papers and transfer the funds, she could be a very wealthy woman.

  It was for damn sure that she wouldn’t become wealthy stuck in this day-to-day rut she was in now. To Jared, the choice was simple.

  All Demi had to do was stop being stubborn and take it.

  She wasn’t Barbara Stanwyck, for heaven’s sake, trying to fight off the greedy cattle baron and keep him from seizing her land and the water rights to the valley. And he wasn’t the cattle baron’s henchman. The sooner she stopped acting that way, the faster this deal would go through.

  And the sooner he could move on to the next project and stop fantasizing about what could have been last night if they hadn’t been interrupted. Thinking along those lines wasn’t going to do either one of them any good.

  So why couldn’t he stop?

  “Will this table do?” Demi stopped beside a table that was in the cente
r of the restaurant. The one she’d offered Jared when he had walked in the first time.

  Rather than look up at her father for confirmation, Theresa nibbled on her lower lip, appearing to think the question over herself. An independent, Demi thought, getting a kick out of the child. An independent just like she had been when she was Theresa’s age.

  “Or would you rather sit over here?” Demi pointed to the next-to-the-last booth against the wall.

  Theresa turned and saw Theo and Alex for the first time. Her small mouth formed a perfectly round circle. “Oh.” And then she beamed as she looked up at Demi. “The chest game.”

  “Chess, honey,” Jared corrected.

  Theresa took the correction in stride. “That’s right, chess.”

  But Demi didn’t take in stride the fact that Theresa knew about the chess game. She looked at Jared sharply. “You told her about the game?”

  What had he done, coached his daughter about the restaurant he was trying to take over? Was he actually using his own daughter as a pawn to try to lull Demi into a complacent state? Didn’t this man have any sort of a conscience or scruples at all?

  One look at Demi’s face told him what she was thinking. He wanted to deny it, but there was no way he could get into that now. With Demi involved, it would escalate into angry words in a matter of minutes, and he wasn’t about to subject Theresa to any more ugliness if he could possibly help it. She’d already been through enough in her young life.

  “It came up in the conversation,” he said mildly. “She was talking about games. I told her about this one.” He rested his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Theresa loves games.”

  Her suspicions were not put to rest, despite the affection in his voice as he said his daughter’s name. “Is that true?” Demi’s eyes held Theresa’s. “Do you like games, Theresa?”

  “I love games.” The passion in Theresa’s voice was not the kind that could be rehearsed. Not unless she was this generation’s answer to Shirley Temple. “All kinds of games.”

  Demi nodded, purposely avoiding looking at Jared. “Well, then, I guess we’ll let you peek in on this one.”

  Very deliberately she took Theresa’s hand in hers. Leaving Jared to follow if he chose, she took the little girl over to her grandfather’s table.

  Though he heard them approach, Theo didn’t look up. It was all part of the mystique. He liked to appear as if he was so engrossed in the strategies of the game before him that he was oblivious to everything else that was going on around him.

  Demi knew better. Nothing went on around him that Theo didn’t notice.

  “Are we bothering them?” Theresa asked her in a small whisper.

  Demi grinned, won over without a single shot. Panetta didn’t deserve a little girl as sweet as this.

  “Don’t worry, an earthquake wouldn’t bother them,” she assured Theresa.

  At that, Theo did raise his eyes from the board. His perpetual opponent had already turned around in his seat to get a better look at the pint-size audience they’d attracted.

  “And who is this you have brought?” Theo asked.

  Theresa raised her small chin proudly as she put out her hand to the old man. “My name is Theresa Panetta. How do you do?”

  Amused and tickled, Theo took the offered hand. It was swallowed up completely within his large paw.

  “I do very well, Theresa Panetta. I am Theo.” He pointed to himself with the tip of his pipe, then indicated the man sitting opposite him. “This sorrylooking man who is pretending he understands the game we are playing is Alex.”

  Affronted, Alex protested heatedly. “I do understand.” He nodded a silent greeting to Theresa.

  Theo dismissed him with a wave of the same pipe. “Do not listen to him. That is only his pride talking, not his knowledge. He has no knowledge.” He snorted when Alex began to bluster. It was a familiar game for all concerned, as familiar as the one on the table. Theo looked at Theresa confidently. “In thirty minutes, I could teach you how to play better than he does.”

  Next to being with her father, Theresa liked nothing better than learning a new game. Her eyes danced with excitement. “Would you really teach me? Would you teach me now?”

  Demi watched Theo’s reaction with interest. The little girl had managed to capture Theo in the palm of her hand with no effort at all.

  Jared placed a subduing hand on Theresa’s shoulder, moving her back from the table. “Theresa, don’t bother them now, honey. These men are busy with their game.”

  But Theo waved away Jared’s words. He nodded at his friend of over fifty years. “He is busy, trying to think. As you can see, it is taking all his energy. Me, I am just busy trying not to fall asleep.” He moved the half-empty drink in front of him to the next spot, then moved himself as well. Relocated, he patted the newly vacated space beside him. “Come. You want to learn? I teach you.”

  Alex scowled at Theo. “But we are in the middle of playing.”

  The protest had no effect. Theo was already looking forward to having an eager pupil. “With you, I can teach and play at the same time.”

  Theresa looked up at Jared hopefully.

  This was going better than he could possibly have foreseen. Jared nodded. “If it’s really all right with them, it’s all right with me.”

  Theresa clapped her hands together gleefully, securing three sets of hearts for her trophy case. Jared doubted that a day went by when he didn’t fall in love with her all over again, just the way he had the first time he laid eyes on her. It made his heart glad to know that there were others who appreciated the little girl just as much as he did.

  “Fine. It is settled. I teach you chess.” Theo glanced toward Jared, who was still standing there. He waved him off. “You can go about your business.” The dark eyes alighted on Demi before he focused his attention on the little girl sitting beside him. His meaning was clear. “Now, first,” he began, “I will tell you the names of the pieces.…”

  Demi knew when she’d been dismissed. There was nothing left to do but take Jared back to his table. This could take quite a while. Once Theo got started teaching the fine points of the game, there was no stopping him.

  “She has lovely manners,” Demi commented. She placed the menus on the table, then looked at Jared. “Who taught her?”

  He should have known this would happen. With Theresa out of the way, the boxing gloves had come on. “I did. Is that so hard to believe?”

  Demi saw no reason to waste her breath being polite. “Yes.”

  She didn’t mean that, he thought. It was something she felt she had to say, to redraw the lines that had been blurred. But he didn’t want to give her the chance to etch them in again. “I thought maybe after last night, we were on a slightly better footing.”

  “Think again.” Then, though she knew she was making an error, she had to ask, “Is that how you operate when you find yourself not getting what you want? You seduce the opponent?”

  He laughed shortly. He saw that she took offense and he quickly let her in on the joke.

  “The last half-dozen people I’ve dealt with were all men.” The smile softened as he let his eyes drift over her. The quick, urgent surge was one he didn’t welcome or feel prepared to meet It took him prisoner anyway. “And you’re not my opponent.”

  “No? We’re on opposite sides of this. What does that make us?” She wished he wouldn’t look at her that way—as if she were a desirable woman. She couldn’t keep her mind on thinking of him as morally reprehensible if he looked at her like that.

  He watched her mouth move, and thought of last night. Desire came of its own accord, bringing luggage. “Offhand, I’d say attracted to each other.”

  Because she was sinking, Demi began to think of the long process involved in making baklava. It was the only thing that saved her. “Offhand or on, I’d say that you’d say anything to get what you wanted.”

  “No,” Jared answered. He could see she didn’t believe him. “That’s a blanket
‘no,’” he elaborated. “I do not say whatever is expedient, not in my professional life—”

  “And in your private life?” she pressed, although she knew that this couldn’t be considered private. Whatever he did was all centered around his job, no matter what he said to the contrary. But for now, because it stimulated her, she played the game.

  “I don’t really have a private life,” he told her honestly. “You just met what there is of it.” He gestured toward the last booth and his daughter.

  And he expected her to swallow that? A man who looked the way he did, with a face that was the kind women dreamed about? She almost laughed in it.

  “And you’re a practicing monk?”

  He didn’t know whether to be flattered by her tone or annoyed. Since he was here on business, he chose middle ground. He also, for reasons of simplicity he supposed, chose to be honest with her.

  “I’m not practicing, Demi.” He slowly ran his fingers along the stem of the water glass the busboy had brought to the table. “I’ve got it pretty much down pat by now. The nature of my work doesn’t leave much time for a private life. Whatever time I do have, I spend with Theresa. Dating is something I just don’t make room for in my life.”

  Demi realized that she was staring at the way he was stroking the glass. Staring and reacting. Why else would she suddenly feel as if the heat had been turned on in the room?

  She was becoming her own worst enemy in this.

  “And why is that?” she asked with effort.

  He surprised himself by telling her. It wasn’t something he generally talked about. “Ever hear the old saying about once burnt, twice wary? I was burnt once, Demi. Third-degree.”

  She tried not to let the pain she heard in his voice affect her. But she could feel herself being drawn in despite herself. She’d always been a sucker for a hard-luck story, she thought. Even if the hard luck belonged to a manipulative snake.

  “Theresa’s mother?”

  He nodded. He’d gotten over her a long time ago, but not over the pain she’d left in her wake. The scars were there to remind him. “It’s not an experience that makes me want to contemplate grabbing another red-hot handle again anytime soon.…”