Chapter 7
In the dim living room, on a chair adjacent to the couch, Lucas watched Emmaline stir in her sleep. The sun had set a couple of hours before, and the only light he’d switched on was in the kitchen. Its low glow allowed him to make out his butler’s form beneath the light blanket.
After swallowing some pain relievers along with a carbonated stomach-calmer mixed with an electrolyte replacement beverage, a combination Stella claimed to have learned from a party-hearty girlfriend in college—“guaranteed to work on hangovers, menstrual cramps, and pre-finals tension headaches”—Emmaline had dropped into sleep. Once his sister and her fiancé had left, Lucas had considered moving the butler to her bed, but she’d looked so zonked that he’d decided against disturbing her rest.
He’d watched over her instead.
It was the oddest thing. Usually too restless during his off-hours to be without television, music, or conversation in the background, he’d let the sound of the ocean fill the room as he took his fill of Emmaline Rossi in sleep. She was astonishingly beautiful, which was not a new revelation to him, of course. Not to her, either, and she seemed unimpressed by the perfect arrangement of her features.
He liked that about her.
He liked everything about her.
Thinking back to their conversation in his office that morning, he remembered her confessing her heart’s desire didn’t reach beyond wanting to care for someone. Oh, so not a free spirit, he thought again, though he guessed she’d still insist on it. With a frown, he remembered how quick she’d been to pack her bags. He’d almost lost her…why? Why was she so damn skittish?
A mystery, he thought. A mystery to solve.
A mystery that included why she held such a fascination for him.
She stirred again, her legs restless beneath the light fabric. With her hands, she pushed at the blanket until her lower limbs were exposed, skin bared from the feet he’d freed from her sandals to the hem of her dress, now pushed high on her thighs. Like the rest of her, they were beautiful, too, and his cock roused.
Shifting in his chair to get more comfortable, he saw her lashes lift. She glanced around, clearly unsure where she was. Then her gaze landed on him.
Her hand pushed her hair from her face, and she moved to half-sit on the cushions. “I…”
“How are you feeling?”
She seemed to take an internal assessment.
“Good?” Her expression continued to show confusion. And vulnerability.
Lucas suddenly wanted to take her into his arms and promise her all the strength and certainty she’d ever need. Shit, he thought, struggling to rein in the impulse. Had it gone that deep so fast? It wasn’t like him to be rash, but from their first chance meeting she’d inspired the impulsive in him.
He pulled in a breath and remained in place, reminding himself of her wariness. “Your head’s feeling better?”
She put her fingertips to her temple. “It’s fine,” she said, sounding surprised.
“Good. You recovered a hell of a lot faster than I did when I had that flu.”
“It was just a headache,” she said. “Maybe I had too much sun when I was weeding the herb garden this afternoon.”
Lucas had seen her do that before. On her knees in the dirt, her hands in the soil, looking like some kind of Italian goddess coaxing life into seeds and leaves. His cock shoved against his zipper, and he sucked in another deliberate breath, trying to set aside the image.
Emmaline on her knees…
She cleared her throat. “You recently had the flu?”
He twitched, coming out of his reverie. “Yes.” He studied her face, deciding she did indeed appear to be without pain. So then, he thought, the time had come to talk about the night in the hotel.
With the truth finally explained and acknowledged, they’d be able to put that initial encounter behind them. He cleared his throat and reached to turn on the floor lamp beside his chair.
They both blinked at the new brightness in the room. “I’d been running on empty the final few days of my business trip to Brussels,” he said.
She swung her legs off the couch and sat up, prim and proper, on the cushions, her bare knees pressed tightly together. Her fingers fussed with the hem of her dress, pulling it lower. “And…”
“I caught a bug there, or maybe on the hellishly long plane ride back to the States.” He hesitated. “Something certainly infected me in the missing luggage line.” Lust for you.
She glanced down at her lap, then back up at him. “When…we met.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t seem sick.”
He smiled a little. “Got a little jolt of adrenaline when I caught a glimpse of the face of the woman standing in front me. It managed to mask the worst of the symptoms for a while.”
She licked her lips. “I’m sorry you were ill.” His butler, so polite.
“No sorrier than me, who ran out on you in that hotel room.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I should have spoken to you or left a note, maybe a message with the front desk, something. But I’d mistakenly taken sleeping pills instead of pain meds at the airport, and when you slipped into the bathroom…I thought I was going to topple to the floor like a redwood any second.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “You really were ill.”
“And not thinking clearly.”
She nodded sagely. “You were under the influence, then.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
Even in the low light, he could see she blushed. “That was why…”
Could she be thinking he’d followed her into the taxi because his immune system was on the verge of failing?
“The ‘why’ was all you, Emmaline,” he said, frowning. “Or more precisely, you and me together. That chemistry we have.”
“Okay.”
But she sounded unconvinced. He stood up, strode to the couch, sat down beside her. “What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?”
Eyes downcast, she hesitated.
He took her chin in his hands and turned her face toward him. “Emmaline Rossi. What story did you tell yourself about that night beyond the one where you believed I somehow managed to forget you?”
She pressed her lips together then opened them again. “I thought…”
“Yes?” He stared into her eyes.
“I thought you’d lost interest,” she said quickly.
“What?”
Her skin went hot beneath his hand. “I thought I did something wrong or not good enough or…”
“What?”
“Kissing…or whatever. I thought maybe I was bad at it. He said so.”
Her face crumpled, and he saw tears spring to her eyes. His narrowed. “What did this ‘he’ exactly say?”
“He always told me I was too cold or too shy or too dry, so he had a hard time enjoying himself.”
Shit. Fuck. Damn. How had Lucas screwed this up so badly? He wanted to punch this anonymous “he” in the dick and then punch himself in the face. “Sweetheart,” he murmured, reaching for her. “Don’t cry.”
But Emmaline avoided his arms to pop to her feet. She paced a few steps away, paced back, then halted in front of him, her body vibrating with tension. “It wasn’t me? I didn’t somehow turn you off that night?”
“Emmaline…no. You were heat and sweet and anything a man could ask for in my arms.” As for being too dry, well, his fingers had briefly touched her panties in the cab and felt the wetness seeping through them. She’d been drenched.
“Damn him.” Her fingers curling into fists, she paced again. All signs of her tears disappeared as her temper began to heat the air. “And damn me for letting that stuff he said get under my skin like that. And letting it still be there after all this time.”
“Emmaline—”
“I thought I had it figured out, all the little ways he undermined me and shook my confidence.”
“This ‘he’…?”
She slashed out a hand. “Never mind. Forget him.”
“I don’t think we should, Emmaline.” Clearly the bastard had left a wound that needed lancing.
On the move again, she marched past Lucas’s knees, then turned and marched back. As she passed, with a quick movement he reached out and caught her around her waist, hauling her into his lap.
“Mr. Curry!” She squirmed.
Mr. Curry. The woman was going to kill him. “About this other man—”
“I don’t want to talk about him,” she said, her tone furious.
Suddenly Lucas didn’t want to talk about him, either. Or to talk at all. Emmaline was in his arms, her hot little ass grinding against his cock as she tried to rise. Lust burned like a shot of whiskey in his blood.
“I’m just so mad,” she said, her face flushing. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”
Lucas gave his common sense a second to win the battle against his hunger for her. But when it failed to even make an appearance, he tightened his hold on the heated body in his arms.
“I know what to do,” he said, his groin going heavy as he thought of tasting her again. Touching her. “I think we need to find a way to put that other man and our first unfinished encounter entirely from your mind.”
His low, suggestive tone must have made its way through her haze of temper, because suddenly she stilled, then turned her head to look at him. “Mr. Curry?” she whispered.
With her weight in his lap and her beautiful face just inches away, it was like that night in the back of the cab. Their chemistry bubbling and spitting, her eager willingness and his dizzying sense of good fortune making the back seat of that pine-scented taxi paradise.
“What do you think?” he murmured. Sliding his fingers into the back of her hair, Lucas brought Emmaline into position for his kiss. Her warm breath panted across his mouth, her breath hitched in anticipation. He caressed her scalp, making her wait as he gazed into the dark depths of her eyes, wanting her on fire for what would happen next. “What do you think, Emmaline?”
A heartbeat of silence passed. Two.
“Mr. Curry,” she finally whispered, the words just puffs of sound. “Please.”
The word he’d been waiting for. Fingers twisting in her hair, he brought her the last crucial distance. Then he took her lips. She made a low sound in her throat which he rewarded by plunging his tongue into her mouth. Her body quivered against his, and then she curled her arms around his neck and opened wider, a clear invitation for the surge-and-retreat rhythm of the decadent, drugging kiss that went on and on and on.
Heat gathered between their bodies, and he ran his hand under her hair to feel the bare warmth of her neck. “Too hot, baby?” he murmured against her mouth.
Instead of letting her answer, he urged her to reposition over his lap, until her knees straddled his thighs, their mouths still connected. He groaned as she settled onto him, the damp fabric covering her pussy making friends with the denim over his pole-hard cock. Instinctively, he lifted up into that sweet valley of her body and then let his lips wander toward her small ear.
“Not cold at all,” he murmured, and felt her shiver.
Finding her mouth again, he initiated another deep, carnal kiss, the kind that was a sex act in and of itself, especially when Emmaline was riding his cock and her fingers were kneading the hair at the back of his head like a kitten. Lucas’s heart pounded against his ribs as he reached for the hem of her dress, gathered high on her thighs, and pushed it toward her waist until he uncovered her panties and could slide his hands beneath the elastic.
His palms cupped her soft, full cheeks and she gasped, shuddered, moaned.
He kneaded the curves and kissed her ear, her throat, moved his lips upward so he could nip her chin. Her tiny shudders only served to turn him on more.
“You won’t be shy, will you, baby?” he asked, sliding one hand from her panties.
She blinked at him, her eyes doe-wide and arousal-dazed, her expression evidence she was as wrecked as he. “Shy?”
He nudged at the vee-neck of her dress. “I want to see these, sweetheart. I want to see your breasts. Taste them.” She would never doubt her desirability again. “I’m a little desperate, as a matter of fact.”
“Mr. Curry,” she chided, as if he was putting her on.
“Mr. Curry is very desperate,” he assured her. “Can you show them to me?”
She hesitated, then looked to the side, her front teeth worrying her bottom lip, the temperature of the damp heat on top of his cock rising.
He traced a finger from the notch at her throat toward her cleavage and he saw the point of her nipples pressing hard against the fabric. “Mr. Curry’s waiting, Emmaline.” His voice sounded low, rough. A little stern.
She quivered, then her hands trembled as they moved to the front of her dress. Her breath soughed in and out quickly as she fumbled there, then she withdrew a pin and the material gapped, giving him a glimpse of a lace bra.
As she closed the pin and tossed it onto the side table, she glanced at him from beneath her lashes. What a flirt. In response, he squeezed the ass cheek still in his palm and used his other hand to tweak one stiff nipple.
Emmaline moaned, then with a hand at each shoulder, she pushed down the bodice of her dress. His breath heaved in, hard, as he saw her breasts covered in nude-colored lace, so sheer the dark pink crests were revealed clearly through the mesh.
Then she reached behind her to unclasp the bra, tossing it to the side without looking away from his face.
“Good,” he said, trying to sound under reasonable control, and not like all his oxygen had backed up in his lungs. He hefted the weight of one globe in his palm and rubbed his thumb over its erect tip. “Not too shy at all, Emmaline.”
Dipping his head, he took her nipple into his mouth, hearing her cry out as he tongued the stiff jut of flesh. He opened wide to take in more of her, and she bowed, feeding him her sweet round flesh, her hips grinding down on his throbbing dick. Switching to her other breast, he lavished it with rougher attention—heavy sucks, a stinging bite—until she swayed over him, moaning.
He glanced up and lashed at the nipple with his tongue. “What do you need, Emmaline?”
For answer, she brought the first breast to his mouth.
“Oh, yeah, not shy at all,” he praised before drawing it in deep.
When both crests were rosy and wet, he lifted his head. “Let’s get you naked, pretty girl,” he said, then helped her wiggle the dress and panties down her legs.
When a fragrant, smooth-skinned Emmaline was completely bared for him, he lifted her to sit on his lap again, this time her back to his front. Her head lolled on his shoulder, and he watched her breasts tremble with every one of her quick breaths. Using his knees, he spread hers wide.
Emmaline gasped, her eyes fluttering closed as a shudder worked down her body. Murmuring nonsense to her, Lucas took a moment to worship the feminine flesh exposed to him, from her peaked nipples to the seam between her thighs, which provided the merest hint of the tender, wet secrets within.
His head took one slow spin, drunk on what she allowed to be revealed to him. Then his big hand wandered down over her chest to press against her lower belly. She tensed, and he found her mouth with his, kissing her, spearing her wet heat, taking in her little noises even as the weight of his hand restricted the tiny rolling motions of her hips.
God. Good God, Emmaline.
He slowed the kiss, ending it with soothing ones, gentle and close-mouthed. She tucked her face against his neck while he held one of her hands in his as his other palm slid lower, lower, until his fingertips teased the tender groove.
Now it was his turn to shudder.
“Oh, baby,” he said, lifting his hand to show her the wet evidence she’d left there. “Look, sweet girl, not dry. Not dry at all.”
Her fascinated gaze watched as he sucked the moisture from his digits.
“Yes, girl,” he whispered, his rough voice making every syllable sound dirty even to his own ears. “You’re gushing with honey.”
“Mr. Curry.” Little shivers wracked her body.
He should feel guilty as sin for not insisting she use his first name, but hell, right now it was such a turn-on she didn’t that he found he couldn’t protest.
“Please,” Emmaline said, wiggling as he drew his damp fingertips down the center of her torso.
“Please, sir,” he corrected. Yes, he was going to hell.
“Please, sir,” she echoed, a dimple fluttering in her cheek.
The minx. She was on to his game.
“Hold still now,” he whispered against her hot cheek. “It’s time I take care of where you ache.”
He went slowly, though, gently and thoroughly exploring the folds as copious slippery liquid covered his fingers and dripped onto his palm. Her soft flesh burned for him, and she pushed her face harder into his throat and moaned.
“Shh,” he said, kissing her forehead. “Just relax and let me play with you.”
He nudged her clit with the pad of his thumb and she stiffened, then thrashed so that he had to hold her down with his free arm across her midsection, her swollen breast squeezed in his hand.
“Now don’t go anywhere, baby, not when we’re getting to the best part.”
She moaned again, and he praised her—so soft, baby. Hot. Open wider for Mr. Curry. Don’t hide anything from your sir.
In his hold, she trembled and quivered, and he didn’t let up on teasing that pulsing bead at the top of her sex. His hand was slick with her juices, and he had to force himself not to taste again, because the crisis was fast approaching.
She thrashed again in his hold, lifting into his touch, and he held her breast tighter and pressed his forearm against her belly.
“Now, Emmaline,” he said, scolding her. “Be good. No more naughty moving like that. Let Mr. Curry finish you off.”
His words had their own effect. Heat flashed over her skin, and he followed that signal and slid two stiffened fingers into the scalding cove of her sex. She shuddered, strained, and he didn’t let up the thick intrusion, but stroked this thumb firmly, demandingly, across her clit.
She made a strangled sound, then she was clenching on his fingers, her muscles a rhythmic vice. Her mouth turned up to his, and he slid his tongue between her lips, tasting, feeling, savoring the bliss he gave her as she rode out the orgasm.
Her body loosened its hold on his fingers, but he stayed inside her as she quieted, tremors turning to quivers turning to one long, shuddering sigh. When she hid her face against his neck, Lucas felt the dampness on her cheeks.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he said, alarmed. Gently he pulled free his hand and then turned her on his lap so he could see her face. She tried keeping it averted.
“Emmaline. Baby.” He tucked his fingers beneath her chin so that her damp-lashed eyes met his. “Did I hurt you?”
A tear rolled down her cheek. “No.” She brushed at the moisture. “I…it’s just a first time. I was surprised.”
He gaped. “You’ve never climaxed?”
“Not from a man’s touch.” She let one shoulder rise, then fall. “I thought he was right. I thought I might be f-frigid.”
He cursed under his breath.
“Until that night, with you, I was sure of it.”
The night he’d fucked things up by walking out on her.
“Oh, Emmaline.” He gathered her closer and buried his face in her hair, staggered by her admission and even more by how he’d unwittingly contributed to her self-doubt. Tenderness welled inside him, more intimate than the act they’d just shared. His heart ached more than his cock.
“What…” He heard her swallow. “What should we do now?”
With a hand that shook a little, he brushed her hair back from her forehead and kissed her there. “I’m going to help you dress, and then I’ll round up some dinner for us.”
“But…”
At the risk of making her think he didn’t want her again, he had to slow things down. Think. Because some sea change had just come over him, something new and big and…necessary.
He helped her to her feet, and she swayed, a little off balance. Rising, he caught her. “I’ve got you, Emmaline. Don’t worry.”
She leaned forward, resting her head against his chest. “What are we doing, Lucas?”
Lucas. The two syllables twisted his heart.
“It’s probably a little too late for that question, baby.” Because what he was doing was falling in love with a woman. With Emmaline, his beautiful, wary, still-wounded butler.
Hell.
The discomfort that might have followed the interlude on the couch failed to materialize. Emmaline was spared that when Lucas’s phone rang as she’d slipped back into her dress, calling him away on an emergency business trip. Instead of wringing her hands, she’d put them to good use and packed for him as he called his troops and came up with a game plan to handle the problem.
That had been three days before, and she was going about her work as usual. Without her vital and distracting boss on the premises, she felt a new lightness of being—though she suspected some of that was relief. For the first time she had real proof that she was a normal woman who could truly respond to a man’s touch…all the way to orgasm.
To tell the truth, that fact made her a little giddy.
Giddy enough that when she ran into the valet guy, Roland Finch, and he asked her out to dinner, she agreed. A normal woman did normal things like date.
Because as she stepped into his car, drawn up outside Lucas’s front door, she acknowledged that they both considered it so. Self-confessed clothes horse Roland—though he told her he rather liked the term “clothes hound”—wore white jeans and a summer-weight oatmeal-colored jacket over a pale green button-down shirt. When he lifted his sunglasses, something in the vicinity of her belly fluttered a little. His eyes were that same light-jade shade, a startling contrast to his light mocha skin.
When he smiled, that same something fluttered again, and she had to admire the handsome planes of his face, shown to every advantage by the way his shoulder-length dark braids were pulled away from it and gathered at the back of his neck.
“You look beautiful,” he said, his gaze running over the turquoise sundress she wore with turquoise drop earrings and a matching bracelet.
She beamed with pleasure and climbed into the passenger seat, filled with expectation.
A normal woman doing a normal thing like dating.
He’d chosen an intimate bistro a block off the Pacific Coast Highway.
As they settled into their seats with a bottle of pinot grigio and an appetizer of bacon-wrapped shrimp, she glanced about. “I like the casual, cabin-y look,” she said, and after a pleasing sip from her glass made a mental note to put the place down in her recommendation book.
“Yes,” Roland agreed. “The décor of Malibu’s restaurants get in a beach rut. Too many glass buoys and fishing nets.”
That led them into a discussion of the area’s eateries, and she learned that Roland wasn’t just the “valet guy,” but that he actually owned the business that provided the service for restaurants and special events.
“I can sneak you into the next big celebrity wedding,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.
“I might have had to hit you up for help with a reservation to Cucina Verde—that new farm-to-table place?—but I kept calling and was able to take advantage of a cancellation.”
Roland sat back as the server arrived with their salads of burnt carrot, avocado, feta cheese, and roasted pumpkin seeds.
“I could have helped you,” he said, as he picked up his fork, “because we do have the parking contract there. I’ve been stopping by pretty often to get my staff up to speed and to work out any snags. The place has been hopping.”
He gave her more scoop about the less-busy hours and the reputed best items on the menu. She stored this knowledge away, knowing it would come in handy.
“And the pizza oven!” Roland said. “It comes straight from Naples.”
“There are traditional Italian dishes on the menu as well?”
He nodded, then grinned. “Actually, when I met some of the owners—they are part of a group called Palma—for a second I thought I might be talking to real life members of a crime family. Dark-haired, slick-looking guys in suits so expensive that even I wouldn’t dare challenge my credit card and attempt to buy one.”
She smiled at that and found herself unable to suppress her next comment. “You know, it’s not impossible that they are associated with a crime family.”
“Okay, I know your last name is Rossi, Emmaline, but you’re not going convince me that the Cosa Nostra made it all the way to California.”
“Prohibition was the law of the land in all of the United States,” she said.
Roland’s eyes widened—such pretty eyes, she thought—and he cast her a speculative glance. “So you are going to try to convince me?”
She laughed. Maybe five years’ time had given her the ability to do that when thinking about her father and his friends’ way of life. . “It’s a matter of history, Roland. Crime families came west to bootleg because there was a demand for liquor, despite the Eighteenth Amendment. Somebody had to smuggle the stuff up from Mexico or drag it off the boats landing on the beaches from Canada.”
“Did you write a report on this or something in school?”
“Or something.” The truth was, after her mother died she’d been left alone a lot. Which gave her time to think about things she heard, to contemplate remarks other kids let drop, to wonder if what seemed, at first, like something from a movie or TV show could possibly be true.
“You are so interesting,” Roland said now, as the server returned with their entrees, both of them having chosen herb-crusted flank steak with truffle-oil mashed potatoes and flash-seared green beans. “Tell me more about the California Mafia,” he urged when they were left alone again.
“I don’t know all that much,” she said, cutting a piece of steak. “But they did start out as bootleggers and expanded into other illegal activities—like gambling and money laundering.”
She stopped there, a chill washing over her. Though she had no proof, that last was what she’d been sure her father was doing with his cash-heavy businesses. Using them to funnel ill-gotten gains from Enzo’s family’s enterprises into the system to avoid detection.
“Better take that bite about to fall off your fork,” Roland advised. “Your meal’s going to get cold.”
With a start, Emmaline realized she’d wandered off into a mind field that held memories as potentially disastrous to her as explosives in a real mine field.
“You seem to know your California history.” Roland watched her over his wine glass.
“I was born in Palm Springs,” she confessed.
Roland goggled. “No one is born in Palm Springs. Palm Springs is where people go to die. Bob Hope. Betty Ford. My great-grandpa.”
“I don’t think either of the first two actually died within the city limits,” Emmaline said.
Roland grunted. “So what’s your handicap?”
“Pardon?” Emmaline said. “I’m not very athletic, but as to an actual disability—”
“Golf handicap,” he clarified.
“I don’t play,” she answered, amused. “It’s not a resident requirement, you know.”
Looking disappointed, he pierced a green bean with his fork. “But you learned to drive in a golf cart?”
Her lips twitched. “That actually is true. What about you…do you golf?”
He shook his head. “West Philadelphia born and raised. I got into a little trouble in high school, and my mom sent me to live with my auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.”
Emmaline struggled not to laugh. “Interesting. That sounds just like the Fresh Prince.”
“Oh, yeah.” Her date snapped his fingers. “I always get that mixed up. Me and Will Smith.”
“So where did you grow up?”
“In the Valley.” He sent her another of his good-natured grins. “It’s the porn capital of the US. So it was either go into that business or park cars.”
Scooping up some mashed potatoes, she studied his handsome features and bewitching eyes and thought he’d be a very popular skin-flick star. The little low-belly flutter returned, but it felt like the kind of flutter she got when looking at very chic and ridiculously expensive resort wear. It was beautiful and appealing but she knew someone else would wear it better.
On a suppressed sigh, she returned her attention to her meal and they chatted companionably about the food, Malibu, and what it was like to work in the service of others.
“Tell me about his guy you’re butlering for,” Roland said.
“Let’s see…” How to describe Lucas without giving away how he enthralled her?
“Wait,” Roland said. “Let me guess. Does he have three lovely young women that work for him as well—two brunettes and a blonde?”
She stared at him, perplexed.
“They fight crime? He directs them via speakerphone.”
Her lips twitched. “You’re thinking of Charlie’s Angels. I’m thinking you need to watch a little less late-night television.”
As they continued to converse, Roland proved there couldn’t be a more delightful dinner companion. He kept her entertained through dessert and on the drive home. And when he pulled into the drive of the house where she lived, he turned off the car and just looked at her. The sky was pale orange with purple streaks, the last of the sunset acting as a wild and crazy color stylist.
Roland cleared his throat. “You take my breath away, Emmaline.”
She glanced down and said lightly, “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“We could turn some heads together.”
Her gaze shot up. “Roland…”
He held up a hand. “It sounds like a line. But that’s not what I’m about. I’m looking for something special with a special someone.”
“Um…”
“I’m thirty years old, I own a business, I have thirty-five full-time employees and twice that on my part-time staff roster. People will vouch for me.”
I’m twenty-six, she wanted to answer. And I’ve been living under an assumed identity for more than five years. It’s possible people could get hurt if I’m found out.
She didn’t know if that last were true. Maybe Enzo wouldn’t want to avenge his ego. But the fact was, she wasn’t a normal woman who could do a normal thing like dating. It would like lying to a man—it would actually be lying to a man—if she didn’t confess that she wasn’t Emmaline Rossi but instead Coco D’Angelo, runaway daughter of a second-tier Mob boss in the Palm Springs branch of the California Mafia.
No, she wasn’t a normal woman at all.
Maybe he read that depressing thought on her face. Before she could utter any words, he gave her a smile. “This was a great evening together. Shall we leave it at that for now?”
At her grateful nod, he climbed out of the car and hurried around to help her from her own seat. They strolled together toward the front door, and she breathed in the balmy night air, edged with salt and chill, a Malibu signature cocktail.
Roland slanted her a glance. “You landed in a pretty good place,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “Even if your employer isn’t the enigmatic Charlie.”
Emmaline released a little laugh and looked into Roland’s remarkable eyes. His gaze shifted to her mouth, and she knew he was thinking of kissing her. What a normal man would do to a normal woman at the end of an enjoyable date.
Suddenly, Emmaline thought she wanted the experience. It wouldn’t have to mean anything. Roland wouldn’t begrudge her a pleasant kiss even if she wasn’t in any place to start a relationship with him.
What would it be like to feel his mouth on hers? Might it overlay that memory of Lucas and her the other night, their lips aligned, her body responding with such ardent desire?
She should want that. Supplanting the memories of her boss and what they’d done together was smart. Safe. Now that she thought about it, a really fabulous idea.
“Emmaline,” Roland murmured, and cupped the back of her head with a gentle hand. He bent toward her.
Dampening her lower lip with her tongue, she lifted her face toward him.
Then the front door swung open. She and Roland both started and whirled around, like guilty teens being discovered by Dad.
Lucas stood in the doorway, a hand on each jamb, his expression that blank one she found so impossible to read.
“Emmaline,” he said, his tone neutral. Then he held out a hand to her date. “Lucas Curry.”
“Roland Finch. Good to meet you.”
Emmaline took their distraction to slip over the threshold. When the two men’s palms parted she smiled at Roland and gave him a little wave. “Thanks, again. Good night.”
He glanced at her boss, then back at her. “Now I’m thinking there’s just one angel at work,” he said, and saluted her before trotting toward his car.
The door swung shut in his wake. Heat prickled like goosebumps over Emmaline’s skin, and her scalp felt like it was on fire. She sidled toward her quarters without looking at Lucas’s face. All the awkwardness she’d had three days to avoid came rushing in, filling the four walls with a crackling tension. Her heartbeat seemed to bounce off every hard surface.
“Emmaline?” he said, from his place by the door.
“Y-yes?” Her throat had closed to the width of a straw, making it difficult to suck in air. If he asked her to bed with him now, what would she do?
Agree, of course. Talk about giddy. At the idea of being with him, her stomach flopped around and her brain spun like a little girl’s who’d been offered a pony ride. There was nothing normal about her intense reaction to him, but normal seemed highly overrated at the moment. Her hand rising to her throat, she felt her pulse thrumming there and turned to look at the man whom she’d miserably missed for three long days.
Pretending she hadn’t was just one big fib.
His steady gaze made her feel as if he saw past her clothes and skin. Her stomach lurched, because she still had all her desperate secrets.
She swallowed. “Yes, Lucas?” Her chest ached, her breath trapped there.
“We’ll talk in the morning,” he said, turning toward the staircase.