CHAPTER SEVEN
Juliet was an expert on budgeting time. It was her business every bit as much as promotion. So, if she could budget time, she could just as easily overbudget it when the circumstances warranted. If she did her job well enough, hustled fast enough, she could create a schedule so tight that there could be no time for talk that didn’t directly deal with business. She counted on Houston to cooperate.
Juliet had worked with Big Bill Bowers before. He was a brash, warmhearted braggart who handled special events for Books, Etc., one of the biggest chains in the country. Big Bill had Texas sewed up and wasn’t ashamed to say so. He was partial to long, exaggerated stories, ornate boots and cold beer.
Juliet liked him because he was sharp and tough and invariably made her job easier. On this trip, she blessed him because he was also long-winded and gregarious. He wouldn’t give her or Carlo many private moments.
From the minute they arrived at Houston International, the six-foot-five, two-hundred-and-sixty-pound Texan made it his business to entertain. There was a crowd of people waiting at the end of the breezeway, some already packed together and chatting, but there was no overlooking Big Bill. You only had to look for a Brahma bull in a Stetson.
“Well now, there’s little Juliet. Pretty as ever.”
Juliet found herself caught in a good-natured, rib-cracking bear hug. “Bill.” She tested her lungs gingerly as she drew away. “It’s always good to be back in Houston. You look great.”
“Just clean living, honey.” He let out a boom of a laugh that turned heads. Juliet found her mood lifting automatically.
“Carlo Franconi, Bill Bowers. Be nice to him,” she added with a grin. “He’s not only big, he’s the man who’ll promote your books for the largest chain in the state.”
“Then I’ll be very nice.” Carlo offered his hand and met an enormous, meaty paw.
“Glad you could make it.” The same meaty hand gave Carlo a friendly pat on the back that could have felled a good-sized sapling. Juliet gave Carlo points for not taking a nosedive.
“It’s good to be here” was all he said.
“Never been to Italy myself, but I’m partial to Eye-talian cooking. The wife makes a hell of a pot of spaghetti. Let me take that for you.” Before Carlo could object, Bill had hefted his big leather case. Juliet couldn’t prevent the smirk when Carlo glanced down at the case as though it were a small child boarding a school bus for the first time.
“Car’s outside. We’ll just pick up your bags and get going. Airports and hospitals, can’t stand ’em.” Bill started toward the terminal in his big, yard-long strides. “Hotel’s all ready for you; I checked this morning.”
Juliet managed to keep up though she still wore three-inch heels. “I knew I could depend on you, Bill. How’s Betty?”
“Mean as ever,” he said proudly of his wife. “With the kids up and gone, she’s only got me to order around.”
“But you’re still crazy about her.”
“A man gets used to mean after a while.” He grinned, showing one prominent gold tooth. “No need to go by the hotel straight off. We’ll show Carlo here what Houston’s all about.” As he walked he swung Carlo’s case at his side.
“I’d like that.” Diplomatically, Carlo moved closer to his side. “I could take that case…”
“No need for that. What you got in here, boy? Weighs like a steer.”
“Tools,” Juliet put in with an innocent smile. “Carlo’s very temperamental.”
“Man can’t be too temperamental about his tools,” Bill said with a nod. He tipped his hat at a young woman with a short skirt and lots of leg. “I’ve still got the same hammer my old man gave me when I was eight.”
“I’m just as sentimental about my spatulas,” Carlo murmured. But he hadn’t, Juliet noted, missed the legs, either.
“You got a right.” A look passed between the two men that was essential male and pleased. Juliet decided it had more to do with long smooth thighs than tools. “Now, I figured you two must’ve had your fill of fancy restaurants and creamed chicken by now. Having a little barbecue over at my place. You can take off your shoes, let down your hair and eat real food.”
Juliet had been to one of Bill’s little barbecues before. It meant grilling a whole steer along with several chickens and the better part of a pig, then washing it all down with a couple hundred gallons of beer. It also meant she wouldn’t see her hotel room for a good five hours. “Sounds great. Carlo, you haven’t lived until you’ve tasted one of Bill’s steaks grilled over mesquite.”
Carlo slipped a hand over her elbow. “Then we should live first.” The tone made her turn her head and meet the look. “Before we attend to business.”
“That’s the ticket.” Bill stopped in front of the conveyor belt. “Just point ’em out and we’ll haul ’em in.”
* * *
They lived, mingling at Bill’s little barbecue with another hundred guests. Music came from a seven-piece band that never seemed to tire. Laughter and splashing rose up from a pool separated from the patio by a spread of red flowering bushes that smelled of spice and heat. Above all was the scent of grilled meat, sauce and smoke. Juliet ate twice as much as she would normally have considered because her host filled her plate then kept an eagle eye on her.
It should have pleased her that Carlo was surrounded by a dozen or so Texas ladies in bathing suits and sundresses who had suddenly developed an avid interest in cooking. But, she thought nastily, most of them wouldn’t know a stove from a can opener.
It should have pleased her that she had several men dancing attendance on her. She was barely able to keep the names and faces separate as she watched Carlo laugh with a six-foot brunette in two minuscule ribbons of cloth.
The music was loud, the air heavy and warm. Giving into necessity, Juliet had dug a pair of pleated shorts and a crop top out of her bag and changed. It occurred to her that it was the first time since the start of the tour that she’d been able to sit out in the sun, soak up rays and not have a pad and pencil in her hand.
Though the blonde beside her with the gleaming biceps was in danger of becoming both a bore and a nuisance, she willed herself to enjoy the moment.
It was the first time Carlo had seen her in anything other than her very proper suits. He’d already concluded, by the way she walked, that her legs were longer than one might think from her height. He hadn’t been wrong. They seemed to start at her waist and continued down, smooth, slim and New York pale. The statuesque brunette beside him might not have existed for all the attention he paid her.
It wasn’t like him to focus on a woman yards away when there was one right beside him. Carlo knew it, but not what to do about it. The woman beside him smelled of heat and musk—heavy and seductive. It made him think that Juliet’s scent was lighter, but held just as much punch.
She had no trouble relaxing with other men. Carlo tipped back a beer as he watched her fold those long legs under her and laugh with the two men sitting on either side of her. She didn’t stiffen when the young, muscle-bound hunk on her left put his hand on her shoulder and leaned closer.
It wasn’t like him to be jealous. As emotional as he was, Carlo had never experienced that particular sensation. He’d also felt that a woman had just as much right to flirt and experiment as he did. He found that particular rule didn’t apply to Juliet. If she let that slick-skinned, weight-lifting buffone put his hand on her again…
He didn’t have time to finish the thought. Juliet laughed again, set aside her plate and rose. Carlo couldn’t hear whatever she’d said to the man beside her, but she strolled into the sprawling ranch house. Moments later, the burnished, bare-chested man rose and followed her.
“Maledetto!”
“What?” The brunette stopped in the middle of what she’d thought was an intimate conversation.
Carlo barely spared her a glance. “Scusi.” Muttering, he strode off in the direction Juliet had taken. There was murder in his eye.
Fed up with fending off the attentions of Big Bill’s hotshot young neighbor, Juliet slipped into the house through the kitchen. Her mood might have been foul, but she congratulated herself on keeping her head. She hadn’t taken a chunk out of the free-handed, self-appointed Adonis. She hadn’t snarled out loud even once in Carlo’s direction.
Attending to business always helped steady her temper. With a check of her watch, Juliet decided she could get one collect call through to her assistant at home. She’d no more than picked up the receiver from the kitchen wall phone than she was lifted off her feet.
“Ain’t much to you. But it sure is a pleasure to look at what there is.”
She barely suppressed the urge to come back with her elbow. “Tim.” She managed to keep her voice pleasant while she thought how unfortunate it was that most of his muscle was from the neck up. “You’re going to have to put me down so I can make my call.”
“It’s a party, sweetheart.” Shifting her around with a flex of muscle, he set her on the counter. “No need to go calling anybody when you’ve got me around.”
“You know what I think?” Juliet gauged that she could give him a quick kick below the belt, but tapped his shoulder instead. After all, he was Bill’s neighbor. “I think you should get back out to the party before all the ladies miss you.”
“Got a better idea.” He leaned forward, boxing her in with a hand on each side. His teeth gleamed in the style of the best toothpaste ads. “Why don’t you and I go have a little party of our own? I imagine you New York ladies know how to have fun.”
If she hadn’t considered him such a jerk, she’d have been insulted for women in general and New York in particular. Patiently, Juliet considered the source. “We New York ladies,” she said calmly, “know how to say no. Now back off, Tim.”
“Come on, Juliet.” He hooked a finger in the neck of her top. “I’ve got a nice big water bed down the street.”
She put a hand on his wrist. Neighbor or not, she was going to belt him. “Why don’t you go take a dive.”
He only grinned as his hand slid up her leg. “Just what I had in mind.”
“Excuse me.” Carlo’s voice was soft as a snake from the doorway. “If you don’t find something else to do with your hands quickly, you might lose the use of them.”
“Carlo.” Her voice was sharp, but not with relief. She wasn’t in the mood for a knight-in-armor rescue.
“The lady and I’re having a private conversation.” Tim flexed his pectorals. “Take off.”
With his thumbs hooked in his pockets, Carlo strolled over. Juliet noted he looked as furious as he had over the canned basil. In that mood, there was no telling what he’d do. She swore, let out a breath and tried to avoid a scene. “Why don’t we all go outside?”
“Excellent.” Carlo held out a hand to help her down. Before she could reach for it, Tim blocked her way.
“You go outside, buddy. Juliet and I haven’t finished talking.”
Carlo inclined his head then shifted his gaze to Juliet. “Have you finished talking?”
“Yes.” She’d have slid off the counter, but that would have put her on top of Tim’s shoulders. Frustrated, she sat where she was.
“Apparently Juliet is finished.” Carlo’s smile was all amiability, but his eyes were flat and cold. “You seem to be blocking her way.”
“I told you to take off.” Big and annoyed, he grabbed Carlo by the lapels.
“Cut it out, both of you.” With a vivid picture of Carlo bleeding from the nose and mouth, Juliet grabbed a cookie jar shaped like a ten-gallon hat. Before she could use it, Tim grunted and bent over from the waist. As he gasped, clutching his stomach, Juliet only stared.
“You can put that down now,” Carlo said mildly. “It’s time we left.” When she didn’t move, he took the jar himself, set it aside, then lifted her from the counter. “You’ll excuse us,” he said pleasantly to the groaning Tim, then led Juliet outside.
“What did you do?”
“What was necessary.”
Juliet looked back toward the kitchen door. If she hadn’t seen it for herself… “You hit him.”
“Not very hard.” Carlo nodded to a group of sunbathers. “All his muscle is in his chest and his brain.”
“But—” She looked down at Carlo’s hands. They were lean-fingered and elegant with the flash of a diamond on the pinky. Not hands one associated with self-defense. “He was awfully big.”
Carlo lifted a brow as he took his sunglasses back out of his pocket. “Big isn’t always an advantage. The neighborhood where I grew up was an education. Are you ready to leave?”
No, his voice wasn’t pleasant, she realized. It was cold. Ice cold. Instinctively hers mirrored it. “I suppose I should thank you.”
“Unless of course you enjoyed being pawed. Perhaps Tim was just acting on the signals you were sending out.”
Juliet stopped in her tracks. “What signals?”
“The ones women send out when they want to be pursued.”
Thinking she could bring her temper to order, she gave herself a moment. It didn’t work. “He might have been bigger than you,” she said between her teeth. “But I think you’re just as much of an ass. You’re very much alike.”
The lenses of his glasses were smoky, but she saw his eyes narrow. “You compare what’s between us with what happened in there?”
“I’m saying some men don’t take no for an answer graciously. You might have a smoother style, Carlo, but you’re after the same thing, whether it’s a roll in the hay or a cruise on a water bed.”
He dropped his hand from her arm, then very deliberately tucked both in his pockets. “If I’ve mistaken your feelings, Juliet, I apologize. I’m not a man who finds it necessary or pleasurable to pressure a woman. Do you wish to leave or stay?”
She felt a great deal of pressure—in her throat, behind her eyes. She couldn’t afford the luxury of giving into it. “I’d like to get to the hotel. I still have some work to do tonight.”
“Fine.” He left her there to find their host.
* * *
Three hours later, Juliet admitted working was impossible. She’d tried all the tricks she knew to relax. A half hour in a hot tub, quiet music on the radio while she watched the sun set from her hotel window. When relaxing failed, she went over the Houston schedule twice. They’d be running from 7:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., almost nonstop. Their flight to Chicago took off at 6:00.
There’d be no time to discuss, think or worry about anything that had happened within the last twenty-four hours. That’s what she wanted. Yet when she tried to work on the two-day Chicago stand, she couldn’t. All she could do was think about the man a few steps across the hall.
She hadn’t realized he could be so cold. He was always so full of warmth, of life. True, he was often infuriating, but he infuriated with verve. Now, he’d left her in a vacuum.
No. Tossing her notebook aside, Juliet dropped her chin in her hand. No, she’d put herself there. Maybe she could have stood it if she’d been right. She’d been dead wrong. She hadn’t sent any signals to the idiot Tim, and Carlo’s opinion on that still made her steam, but… But she hadn’t even thanked him for helping her when, whether she liked to admit it or not, she’d needed help. It didn’t sit well with her to be in debt.
With a shrug, she rose from the table and began to pace the room. It might be better all around if they finished off the tour with him cold and distant. There’d certainly be fewer personal problems that way because there’d be nothing personal between them. There’d be no edge to their relationship because they wouldn’t have a relationship. Logically, this little incident was probably the best thing that could have happened. It hardly mattered if she’d been right or wrong as long as the result was workable.
She took a glimpse around the small, tidy, impersonal room where she’d spend little more than eight hours, most of it asleep.
No, she couldn’t stand it.
Giving in, Juliet stuck her room key in the pocket of her robe.
* * *
Women had made him furious before. Carlo counted on it to keep life from becoming too tame. Women had frustrated him before. Without frustrations, how could you fully appreciate success?
But hurt. That was something no woman had ever done to him before. He’d never considered the possibility. Frustration, fury, passion, laughter, shouting. No man who’d known so many women—mother, sisters, lovers—expected a relationship without them. Pain was a different matter.
Pain was an intimate emotion. More personal than passion, more elemental than anger. When it went deep, it found places inside you that should have been left alone.
It had never mattered to him to be considered a rogue, a rake, a playboy—whatever term was being used for a man who appreciated women. Affairs came and went, as affairs were supposed to. They lasted no longer than the passion that conceived them. He was a careful man, a caring man. A lover became a friend as desire waned. There might be spats and hard words during the storm of an affair, but he’d never ended one that way.
It occurred to him that he’d had more spats, more hard words with Juliet than with any other woman. Yet they’d never been lovers. Nor would they be. After pouring a glass of wine, he sat back in a deep chair and closed his eyes. He wanted no woman who compared him with a muscle-bound idiot, who confused passion for lust. He wanted no woman who compared the beauty of lovemaking to—what was it?—a cruise on a water bed. Dio!
He wanted no woman who could make him ache so—in the middle of the night, in the middle of the day. He wanted no woman who could bring him pain with a few harsh words.
God, he wanted Juliet.
He heard the knock on the door and frowned. By the time he’d set his glass aside and stood, it came again.
If Juliet hadn’t been so nervous, she might have thought of something witty to say about the short black robe Carlo wore with two pink flamingos twining up one side. As it was, she stood in her own robe and bare feet with her fingers linked together.
“I’m sorry,” she said when he opened the door.
He stepped back. “Come in, Juliet.”
“I had to apologize.” She let out a deep breath as she walked into the room. “I was awful to you this afternoon, and you’d helped me out of a very tricky situation with a minimum of fuss. I was angry when you insinuated that I’d led that—that idiot on in some way. I had a right to be.” She folded her arms under her chest and paced the room. “It was an uncalled for remark, and insulting. Even if by the remotest possibility it had been true, you had no right to talk. After all, you were basking in your own harem.”
“Harem?” Carlo poured another glass of wine and offered it.
“With that amazon of a brunette leading the pack.” She sipped, gestured with the glass and sipped again. “Everywhere we go, you’ve got half a dozen women nipping at your ankles, but do I say a word?”
“Well, you—”
“And once, just once, I have a problem with some creep with an overactive libido, and you assume I asked for it. I thought that kind of double standard was outdated even in Italy.”
Had he ever known a woman who could change his moods so quickly? Thinking it over, and finding it to his taste, Carlo studied his wine. “Juliet, did you come here to apologize, or demand that I do so?”
She scowled at him. “I don’t know why I came, but obviously it was a mistake.”
“Wait.” He held up a hand before she could storm out again. “Perhaps it would be wise if I simply accepted the apology you came in with.”
Juliet sent him a killing look. “You can take the apology I came in with and—”
“And offer you one of my own,” he finished. “Then we’ll be even.”
“I didn’t encourage him,” she murmured. And pouted. He’d never seen that sulky, utterly feminine look on her face before. It did several interesting things to his system.
“And I’m not looking for the same thing he was.” He came to her then, close enough to touch. “But very much more.”
“Maybe I know that,” she whispered, but took a step away. “Maybe I’d like to believe it. I don’t understand affairs, Carlo.” With a little laugh, she dragged her hand through her hair and turned away. “I should; my father had plenty of them. Discreet,” she added with a lingering taste of bitterness. “My mother could always turn a blind eye as long as they were discreet.”
He understood such things, had seen them among both friends and relatives, so he understood the scars and disillusionments that could be left. “Juliet, you’re not your mother.”
“No.” She turned back, head up. “No, I’ve worked long and hard to be certain I’m not. She’s a lovely, intelligent woman who gave up her career, her self-esteem, her independence to be no more than a glorified housekeeper because my father wanted it. He didn’t want a wife of his to work. A wife of his,” she repeated. “What a phrase. Her job was to take care of him. That meant having dinner on the table at six o’clock every night, and his shirts folded in his drawer. He—damn, he’s a good father, attentive, considerate. He simply doesn’t believe a man should shout at a woman or a girl. As a husband, he’d never forget a birthday, an anniversary. He’s always seen to it that she was provided for in the best material fashion, but he dictated my mother’s lifestyle. While he was about it, he enjoyed a very discreet string of women.”
“Why does your mother stay his wife?”
“I asked her that a few years ago, before I moved away to New York. She loves him.” Juliet stared into her wine. “That’s reason enough for her.”
“Would you rather she’d have left him?”
“I’d rather she’d have been what she could be. What she might’ve been.”
“The choice was hers, Juliet. Just as your life is yours.”
“I don’t want to ever be bound to anyone, anyone who could humiliate me that way.” She lifted her head again. “I won’t put myself in my mother’s position. Not for anyone.”
“Do you see all relationships as being so imbalanced?”
With a shrug, she drank again. “I suppose I haven’t seen so many of them.”
For a moment he was silent. Carlo understood fidelity, the need for it, and the lack of it. “Perhaps we have something in common. I don’t remember my father well, I saw him little. He, too, was unfaithful to my mother.”
She looked over at him, but he didn’t see any surprise in her face. It was as though she expected such things. “But he committed his adultery with the sea. For months he’d be gone, while she raised us, worked, waited. When he’d come home, she’d welcome him. Then he’d go again, unable to resist. When he died, she mourned. She loved him, and made her choice.”
“It’s not fair, is it?”
“No. Did you think love was?”
“It’s not something I want.”
He remembered once another woman, a friend, telling him the same thing when she was in turmoil. “We all want love, Juliet.”
“No.” She shook her head with the confidence born of desperation. “No, affection, respect, admiration, but not love. It steals something from you.”
He looked at her as she stood in the path of the lamplight. “Perhaps it does,” he murmured. “But until we love, we can’t be sure we needed what was lost.”
“Maybe it’s easier for you to say that, to think that. You’ve had many lovers.”
It should have amused him. Instead, it seemed to accent a void he hadn’t been aware of. “Yes. But I’ve never been in love. I have a friend—” again he thought of Summer “—once she told me love was a merry-go-round. Maybe she knew best.”
Juliet pressed her lips together. “And an affair?”
Something in her voice had him looking over. For the second time he went to her, but slowly. “Perhaps it’s just one ride on the carousel.”
Because her fingers weren’t steady, Juliet set down the glass. “We understand each other.”
“In some ways.”
“Carlo—” She hesitated, then admitted the decision had already been made before she crossed the hall. “Carlo, I’ve never taken much time for carousels, but I do want you.”
How should he handle her? Odd, he’d never had to think things through so carefully before. With some women, he’d have been flamboyant, sweeping her up, carrying her off. With another he might have been impulsive, tumbling with her to the carpet. But nothing he’d ever done seemed as important as the first time with Juliet.
Words for a woman had always come easily to him. The right phrase, the right tone had always come as naturally as breathing. He could think of nothing. Even a murmur might spoil the simplicity of what she’d said to him and how she’d said it. So he didn’t speak.
He kissed her where they stood, not with the raging passion he knew she could draw from him, not with the hesitation she sometimes made him feel. He kissed her with the truth and the knowledge that longtime lovers often experience. They came to each other with separate needs, separate attitudes, but with this, they locked out the past. Tonight was for the new, and for renewing.
She’d expected the words, the flash and style that seemed so much a part of him. Perhaps she’d even expected something of triumph. Again, he gave her the different and the fresh with no more than the touch of mouth to mouth.
The thought came to her, then was discounted, that he was no more certain of his ground than she. Then he held out his hand. Juliet put hers in it. Together they walked to the bedroom.
If he’d set the scene for a night of romance, Carlo would’ve added flowers with a touch of spice, music with the throb of passion. He’d have given her the warmth of candlelight and the fun of champagne. Tonight, with Juliet, there was only silence and moonlight. The maid had turned down the bed and left the drapes wide. White light filtered through shadows and onto white sheets.
Standing by the bed, he kissed her palms, one by one. They were cool and carried a hint of her scent. At her wrist her pulse throbbed. Slowly, watching her, he loosened the tie of her robe. With his eyes still on hers, he brought his hands to her shoulders and slipped the material aside. It fell silently to pool at her feet.
He didn’t touch her, nor did he yet look at anything but her face. Through nerves, through needs, something like comfort began to move through her. Her lips curved, just slightly, as she reached for the tie of his robe and drew the knot. With her hands light and sure on his shoulders, she pushed the silk aside.
They were both vulnerable, to their needs, to each other. The light was thin and white and washed with shadows. No other illumination was needed this first time that they looked at each other.
He was lean but not thin. She was slender but soft. Her skin seemed only more pale when he touched her. Her hand seemed only more delicate when she touched him.
They came together slowly. There was no need to rush.
The mattress gave, the sheets rustled. Quietly. Side by side they lay, giving themselves time—all the time needed to discover what pleasures could come from the taste of mouth to mouth, the touch of flesh to flesh.
Should she have known it would be like this? So easy. Inevitable. Her skin was warm, so warm wherever he brushed it. His lips demanded, they took, but with such patience. He loved her gently, slowly, as though it were her first time. As she drifted deeper, Juliet thought dimly that perhaps it was.
Innocence. He felt it from her, not physical, but emotional. Somehow, incredibly, he discovered it was the same for himself. No matter how many had come before, for either of them, they came to each other now in innocence.
Her hands didn’t hesitate as they moved over him, but stroked as though she were blind and could only gain her own picture through other senses. He smelled of a shower, water and soap, but he tasted richer, of wine. Then he spoke for the first time, only her name. It was to her more moving, more poetic than any endearment.
Her body moved with his, in rhythm, keeping pace. She seemed to know, somehow, where he would touch her just before she felt his fingers trace, his palms press. Then his lips began a long, luxurious journey she hoped would never end.
She was so small. Why had he never noticed before how small she was? It was easy to forget her strength, her control, her stamina. He could give her tenderness and wait for the passion.
The line of her neck was slender and so white in the moonlight. Her scent was trapped there, at her throat. Intensified. Arousing. He could linger there while blood heated. His and hers.
He slid his tongue over the subtle curve of her breast to find the peak. When he drew it into his mouth, she moaned his name, giving them both a long, slow nudge to the edge.
But there was more to taste, more to touch. Passion, when heated, makes a mockery of control. Sounds slipped into the room—a catch of breath, a sigh, a moan—all pleasure. Their scents began to mix together—a lover’s fragrance. In the moonlight, they were one form. The sheets were hot, twisted. When with tongue and fingertips he drove her over the first peak, Juliet gripped the tousled sheets as her body arched and shuddered with a torrent of sensations.
While she was still weak, still gasping, he slipped into her.
His head was spinning—a deliciously foreign sensation to him. He wanted to bury himself in her, but he wanted to see her. Her eyes were shut; her lips just parted as the breath hurried in and out. She moved with him, slowly, then faster, still faster until her fingers dug into his shoulders.
On a cry of pleasure, her eyes flew open. Looking into them, he saw the dark, astonished excitement he’d wanted to give her.
At last, giving in to the rushing need of his own body, he closed his mouth over hers and let himself go.