Are the news reports wrong, then?” Her gaze strayed to his shoulder. It didn’t look injured. Indeed, nothing about the man’s rock-hard physique appeared compromised…or compromising, for that matter.
“You know the media.” He shrugged.
Atlanta might have believed that news of Angelo’s professional demise was vastly overblown if he hadn’t grimaced after making the casual movement.
“They’re ruthless when they scent blood,” he was saying.
Thinking of Zeke, she replied, “They’re even more ruthless when they’ve got sources happy to help draw it.”
Her image was being put through the shredder, and, while she wasn’t all that sad to see some of the false layers she’d once agreed to peel away, she certainly didn’t want them replaced with more lies and half-truths. Unfortunately, that was exactly what Zeke was feeding the hungry hordes these days, and they were eating it up, ravenous for more.
I made you. I’ll ruin you.
Zeke’s parting words. Foolishly, she hadn’t believed he’d do it. She knew better now. He was doing a bang-up job of making good on his promise.
Angelo was apparently far less naïve than she. “The world is full of people eager to sell you out. You have to be careful who you trust.”
“At this point, I trust no one.” Surprised to have told him that, She asked, “Who do you trust?”
“My twin,” he replied without hesitation. “Alex has always had my back.”
“You have a twin?” Good heavens, there were two men on the planet as good-looking as this one? She’d worked with A-list actors, bona fide heartthrobs, who couldn’t match Angelo’s rugged male perfection. “Are you identical?”
“Not quite. I’m better looking.”
“No doubt you’re more modest, too,” she replied dryly.
“Sure.” Angelo wasn’t put off. In fact, he pulled the sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and winked as he boasted, “I’m also better with women.”
God help her. The man was every bit as sexy as she recalled from their brief meeting in a nightclub a few years back. He also was every bit as cocksure. She was used to being around oversized egos, her own included. Angelo, at least, tempered his with humor. He was harmless, she decided, especially here in a public place.
Which was what gave her the nerve to lean closer and say, “So, Don Juan, if I’m going to be on your team, perhaps you should explain the game we’re playing.”
“Distraction.”
“Is that the name or the object?”
“Both.”
“I’m intrigued. Tell me more.”
He glanced at the chunky Rolex strapped to his wrist. “Here’s the thing—I have an hour and forty minutes to kill before my flight departs. I could get my own table, order a drink and sip it alone while I wait. Or I could stay here with you and enjoy what is bound to be some fascinating conversation.”
A lifetime ago, Atlanta had thought herself interesting, but it had been a very long time since a man had said so. “What makes you so sure the conversation would be fascinating?”
“You’re a fascinating woman. What else would it be?”
Come-on or not, his reply caused her breath to catch. Clearly, being a pariah among the people she’d considered her friends had taken its toll on her self-esteem.
“I like your answer,” she told him.
“Enough to let me buy you a drink?”
“Enough that the drink’s on me.”
Angelo waved over a server and they ordered their beverages—an imported beer for him and a glass of unsweetened iced tea for her. As the waitress left he was frowning.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Not wrong. I guess I thought you’d order something…else.”
“Such as champagne perhaps? And not just any champagne but Piper-Heidsieck by the magnum?”
“Or Dom. I read once that you bathed in it.”
“I read that, too.”
“It’s not true?”
She shook her head. “Afraid not.”
“I’m disappointed. I was going to ask you what it felt like having all of those bubbles bursting against your bare skin.”
His smile, set as it was on a mouth that would have been at home on Michelangelo’s David, dazzled. Atlanta camouflaged her involuntary shiver by shifting in her seat. There was no camouflaging the gooseflesh that pricked her arms. She hoped he wouldn’t notice it.
“My publicist made that one up. It enjoyed a lot of buzz for a while, and I even picked up an endorsement deal for another brand of champagne. The truth is, I prefer showers to baths of any sort and I don’t drink.”
“At all?” he asked.
“Rarely these days.” She preferred to keep a clear head.
“Neither do I.”
“You just ordered a beer,” she reminded him.
The corners of Angelo’s mouth turned down as if in consideration and he gazed out the window where a jumbo jet was lumbering toward a runway. “Special circumstances.”
“You don’t like flying,” she guessed. It was a phobia Atlanta understood perfectly. She still experienced a burst of anxiety each time a plane she was on prepared for takeoff.
But Angelo was shaking his head. “Nah. Flying doesn’t bother me. I do it all the time. But talking to a gorgeous woman? It leaves me tongue-tied.” Again, the dazzling smile made an appearance.
“I don’t know. You’ve managed fine so far without any fortification,” she pointed out, well aware that she could do with a little of the false courage found in a cocktail right about now herself.
Apropos of nothing, he asked, “When’s your flight?”
“Two forty-something.”
“Around the same time as mine, which means I’ve still got an hour and a half left with the potential to humiliate myself. I don’t want to take any chances.”
“I’m sure if we keep the conversation light and neutral, you’ll be just fine.”
And she would be just fine, too. So, that was precisely what they did.
It was with regret that Angelo glanced at his watch a little over an hour later. He would have to leave soon. It wasn’t only the thought of what lay ahead in Italy that disturbed him.
