to come over and ask me what the trouble was.” He smiled, his eyes distant as though remembering happier times. “He and I could smell out classic cars at a hundred paces. I was sure he’d be out like a shot.”
“Seems an elaborate ploy,” she said with a frown. “Why risk ruining your rented suit for that?”
A blankness deadened his eyes and he stared at her somberly for a while. “The stakes were high,” he said eventually. “Worth a little subterfuge, a little waiting and some good honest dust.”
Tina went cold. “Like I said, he’s not in.” Her tone was curt, her voluptuous mouth set in decidedly stubborn lines.
He looked upward, scanning the windows and frowning when he came to the small barred one. Tina held her breath. “I don’t believe you. Let me in, Tina,” he ordered.
Incredulous that he’d even consider asking, she said coldly, “Not on your life.”
He leaned against the porch, elegant, cool and totally implacable. And his body language told her in no uncertain terms that he’d keep attempting to reach his declared goal and wouldn’t let up. His arms were folded across the big chest, his legs were slightly spread, and his jaw stuck out ominously. She leaned against the opposite side, but for support, not display.
Languidly his hand reached out, and Tina’s mesmerized eyes followed its progress to her throat. She swallowed, the flicker of his eyes telling her that he’d seen her fear. Then the tips of his fingers met her hot skin and she felt them slide over the slippery surface down to her collarbone.
“Nervous about something?” he murmured, lifting his fingers from her skin and holding out their sweat-dampened tips for her to explain.
“Hot. From running. You’ve got a long stride.”
“I’ve got a long checklist to get through.”
“Meaning?” she asked nervously.
The black velvet eyes glimmered. “I came to talk to your grandfather. Since he’s not around, it seems I must make do with you, instead,” he said in a lazy predatory drawl. “Alternatively, I could ask a few questions in town.”
“What questions?” she asked, brazening it out.
“Anything there is to know about you, for a start. Since you’re a school counselor, I imagine those students over there know a few things about you they’d be willing to divulge.”
“Don’t involve them!” she said quickly, hating to beg.
“Let me in and I won’t need to.”
She was silent. Her pulse throbbed heavily in her temples, and she put her fingers there for relief so she could think straight. It was the uncertainty she couldn’t stand. There were three possibilities: either he knew about Adriana, or he suspected something, or he knew nothing at all. But if she invited him in to talk sense into him, he’d see enough evidence to give the game away after a few minutes.
“You can’t come up,” she said firmly. “People will talk.”
“Plan C, then.” With a casual shrug, he strolled over to his car. Tina waited, holding her breath. A bluff. He’d get in the car and drive away…
He began talking to Lisa. She fumed as Lisa and Giovanni laughed together, his sun-shot blond head bent low over hers. Recognizing that look of admiration Lisa was giving him, Tina winced. If she didn’t move soon, he’d dispense with the preliminaries and ask a few direct incriminating questions.
Angrily she stomped across the lot to where Giovanni was holding court.
“Oh, yes, known her for years,” he was saying. The students stared at Tina in awe as she came closer, and he smiled at her in a sickeningly winsome way. “We’ve been talking over old times,” he said in a husky reminiscing tone of voice. “You know the kind of thing. The high school prom, the homecoming dance, old films, clambakes.”
Tina eyed him cynically. “Time you went home, Gio. Byee!”
“It was at a clambake,” he remarked idly to his rapt audience, ignoring her completely, “that Tina poured a half-gallon tub of melted chocolate ice cream—”
“Please!” she protested indignantly.
“—into the school bully’s gas tank,” he finished.
Four pairs of astonished eyes turned on Tina’s flushed face.
“You’ll give them ideas, Gio,” she muttered.
“I could,” he said worryingly. “Shall we continue our chat indoors, Teen? I’m ready if you are,” he added with an encouraging lift of his eyebrow.
She screwed her mouth up tightly at his misuse of her name. “I’m heading for the beach in a while.” Somehow she dug up a smile for the students’ benefit. “Aren’t you all off to the beach, too?” she suggested to them hopefully.
Giovanni grinned amiably at the fascinated group. “Or you guys could take a moment to sit in the car, try it for size. Feel free.”
There was a chorus of enthusiastic agreement, so he obligingly opened the Lamborghini’s passenger-side door. Watching the excited faces, hearing him answering the eager queries, she grudgingly admired the way he had won the interest of the students. He’d done something for them; now it would be their turn to do something for him. Like answering his questions, she thought with apprehension.
And their eyes met, his triumph plain to see. Tina felt trapped, wanting to run away but unable to. It seemed that whatever she did, he’d find out that she’d kept a secret from him all these years. One so important that by rights she should have told him.
“I won’t be long, darling,” he said warmly to Tina. At her gasp, he gave a theatrical groan and a sheepish grin, releasing appealing laughter lines around his dark eyes. “I’ve let the cat out of the bag!” he exclaimed. “I suppose they don’t even know we were once close friends—”
“Stop it, Gio!” Tina interrupted desperately.
“Aw, shucks! Mustn’t tease my best girl, must I?” He grinned, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her fondly into his hip. He looked down at her as if they were lovers reunited.
Tina wanted to hit him. Aw, shucks and best girl indeed! She caught the look in Giovanni’s eye and was furious to see that he was vastly amused by the way he’d put her on the defensive. Time she got Giovanni somewhere he couldn’t bring her name into disrepute! Already his hipbone was burning into hers with more heat than friends ought to generate between them.
“Not if you want to reach thirty, you mustn’t,” Tina agreed lightly, without a clue in the world as to how to get rid of him safely. But at least she could lose their audience while she did it. So she swallowed her pride and her fear, flashed him a big friendly smile and tucked her arm in his. “I might see you guys at the beach,” she said to the students. “If I’m carrying a tub of ice cream, it’s because I’m going to take my revenge on a bully—”
“I hope you’re not planning on pouring it into my gas tank,” he said with a low laugh, squeezing her waist with his big crushing hand and making her gasp.
