Bedroom Eyes (16 page)

He didn’t see a thing.

Leo followed his eye, though. “You can’t go out there.” His hand slowed on the soup spoon.

“No, but you can. The chef-welcoming-the-honored-guest routine, and all that.” Leo’s spoon stopped.

Tony pointed downward. “Hey, better keep that moving or you’ll have artichoke paste and you’ll have that to lay at my door, too.”

Leo flashed an eye toward the soup, then lowered the heat. With a semblance of a grin, he said, “You owe me more than one spoiled pot of soup. This thing—does it have to stay on the table for the entire meal?”

Tony nodded.

Leo chewed his lip. “Only because you didn’t squeal on me when I broke Mrs. Calamusa’s window am I doing this for you.”

Tony grabbed his cousin and kissed him on both cheeks. Into his ear he said, “Don’t use a vase. He’ll suspect a switch.”

Leo frowned.

But Tony knew Leo loved a good puzzle.

Leo handed his spoon to Tony, then quickly crossed to a cupboard, pulled out a small white item, and returned to check his soup. “It breaks my heart to leave such a tacky object on my beautiful table, but for you I’ll do it,” he said, flashing a view of the small ceramic container stuffed with packets of artificial sweetener.

“It just so happens the lady ordered iced tea. Another crime that breaks my heart. At least Hinson, no matter his faults, appreciates fine wine with a great dinner.”

Covering the packets with his hammy hand, he flipped the container over, displaying a recessed bottom. “Will this do, cuz?

“You are fucking brilliant, Leo,” Tony said, and with a grin, Velcroed the tiny bug into place, grateful for the designer who’d covered it in a white mylar. Even if someone casually turned the container over, the transmitter might escape notice.

Leo stuffed a few more packets of Equal into the ceramic box and barked at an assistant to deliver it and a dish of lemon slices to the lady’s side of the table.

Then he grabbed the soup spoon back from Tony and said, “Next time you come to visit, do it because you love me for who I am.”

Tony clapped him on the shoulder. For the benefit of the bald-headed guy who’d reappeared, he said loudly, “So I just wanted to tell you myself the happy news. A free man no more.”

Leo managed a smile. “I’ll dance at your wedding.”

“Dance? Hell, you’ll be in the kitchen!” Tony shot him a thumbs-up, grinned at the watchdog, and strolled out the door.

Just outside the door, he paused and said to the short guy who’d followed him out, “You oughta check your lock. Sloppy security you guys got here.”

Then he walked quickly through the alleyway, anxious to get to his car before Primo’s guests of honor got to their escarole escargots.

Chapter 13

The minute the doors of Primo’s closed behind her, Penelope regretted her foolish, ridiculous, incredibly immature decision to torment Olano by playing up to David.

Surely what she’d done was far worse than her ego being out of balance!

When David had phoned to ask her to have dinner Monday evening, he’d been so charming, and she’d still been so miffed at Tony, that she’d not only accepted, but she’d left work during the day and purchased a new dress.

Not just a new dress.

A new look.

When she’d told the sales lady at Macy’s she needed a special night-out-on-the-town dress, the woman had sized up Penelope’s navy suit and selected a deep rose silk sheath with delicate cap sleeves, a dress Penelope would have picked for herself.

Thinking of Brenda in 39B, Penelope had asked the woman to pick an exact opposite style, which was how she came to be standing beside David in a slinky black dress with a low-cut neck camouflaged only by ruffles that danced with every breath she took.

She shivered and rubbed her bare arms.

“Cold?” David asked, taking her by the elbow and leading her across the otherwise empty restaurant to an alcove near the back.

“I’m fine.” She smiled at him, her normal serious smile, and this time she left off the fake flutter of her lashes. If Tony couldn’t see, what was the point? “But David, there’s no one else here.”

He stopped in front of a curtained alcove, pulled out the table so she could slip into the semicircular booth. “No, there’s not.” He looked quite pleased with himself.

Penelope knew she looked shocked. “You didn’t pay them to close for the night, did you?” Such a waste of money bothered her.

“Darling Penelope,” he said, but lightly, “I’ll do whatever it takes to impress you.”

“Well, I am stunned.”

He sat down beside her. Not too close, she noted with relief. It was beginning to sink in that she’d been completely wrong about David’s interest in her. He sure didn’t look as if he wanted to spend this evening discussing business.

A waiter approached the table.

“Good evening and welcome to Primo’s.” He nodded deferentially to David and sketched a bow toward Penelope. She smiled back. Penelope made a point of being nice to waiters and waitresses.

A second waiter appeared, his arms full of a tissue-wrapped bundle. He handed the bundle to the first waiter, then disappeared.

“Ah, the flowers.”

The waiter held forth a dozen red roses for David’s inspection. He nodded, accepted them, and in turn presented them to Penelope.

She stared at the baby soft petals of the twelve perfect flowers, twelve perfect flowers the color of blood. “Thank you,” she managed, wishing he hadn’t made such an extravagant gesture.

The waiter whisked them into a vase he settled on the table. One petal dropped free and floated to the white tablecloth. David frowned and the waiter pinched it off the table.

Penelope felt like she should show more appreciation. Here he was making such a fuss over her. Summoning more enthusiasm than she felt, she said, “They are beautiful, David. I’m overwhelmed.”

He lay an arm along the booth, his fingertips just reaching the edge of her bare shoulder. “Good,” he said lazily. “Now let’s unwind from the day, shall we?” To the waiter, he said, “Bring us a bottle of the 1989 Chateau du France Bordeaux.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And I’d like an iced tea,” Penelope said, knowing full well she was committing a fine dining faux pas. But she needed her wits about her. It didn’t take half her IQ to tell her David wasn’t planning to discuss law and politics tonight.

“Very good, ma’am.”

But David did launch into a business monologue, regaling her with a story of his verbal jousting in court that morning. The familiar language set Penelope at ease and she began to relax, began to forget her dress had a slit that opened her thigh to the wind and a neckline that exposed more cleavage than her mother’s old waitress uniform.

She shared a story of a victory she’d won in a Tax Court ruling. David listened intently. She sipped her iced tea, noticing that the waiter poured the wine for two.

She started to ask for sweetener for her tea, but David had launched into a story about the legal recruiting firm that had brought her to New Orleans.

She hadn’t realized he was familiar with that agency, but he said something in passing that indicated he knew that was how she’d gotten her job at her firm. She listened as he described a job in New York the recruiter had once tried to get him to take, relaxing despite herself.

Then, as if the waiter had read her mind, packets of sweetener and slices of lemon appeared. Penelope fixed her tea to her taste and smiled at David. Perhaps this dinner wouldn’t be so bad after all.

The two of them were having a jolly good time, Tony thought, sucking on a peppermint and scowling. He didn’t understand how they could enjoy themselves when all they talked about was law, law, law, but then his little sister always got excited when she told him about law school.

Stretched out in his rackety car listening to the recording equipment he had stashed in his trunk and wired through to a special speaker in his dash, Tony worked the mint around in his mouth, figuring he should be glad Hinson was only talking shop.

Squeek, though, had led him to believe otherwise. Hinson had been ordered to marry and settle down. And Hinson, Tony knew, did what he was told. The runt from the wrong side of the tracks had worked too long and too hard to achieve his version of the good life to risk losing out.

The part of the puzzle Tony didn’t understand, though, was why he’d picked Penelope. Having a tax lawyer in the family would come in handy, but that alone wasn’t reason enough to single her out. Because she was from out of town? Because—

“Holy Toledo!” Tony sat up so fast he hit his head on the roof of his car. He grabbed his phone and punched in a number.

The waiter removed the crème brûlée dishes. Penelope sighed in appreciation and spoke without thinking. “I’d love to meet the chef. This meal was magnificent!”

“It’s as good as done,” David said, smiling indulgently. Closing the gap between them, he slid his arm around her shoulders. “Happy?”

Penelope tried not to think about the clear view David had down the neckline of her dress. She thought instead of how if it weren’t for Tony Olano she wouldn’t be sitting here half-naked. She merely nodded in answer to David’s question.

“Glad you moved to New Orleans?”

“Oh, yes.” Penelope folded her hands in her lap. “It requires some adjustment, but I like living here.”

“Good.” David lay his free hand over hers. His palm was cool. He pried her fingers apart, capturing one hand and bringing it to his lips.

Penelope watched him kiss her hand, almost as if she were watching him kiss another woman. When Tony had merely brushed her cheek, she’d gone hot all over, but now she felt nothing other than a strong desire to escape before the situation grew awkward.

He gazed into her eyes. “Penelope—”

“Perhaps I could go to the kitchen to see the chef.”

He tightened his grasp on her hand. “Forget about the chef,” he said, not in a mean way, but Penelope heard the annoyance.

“Penelope, I’d like—”

Snatching her hand free, she held a finger against her upper lip. “I think I’m going to sneeze.” She wrinkled her nose and willed a sneeze to appear. It was a trick she’d used many times in school when she’d been caught daydreaming by teachers and hadn’t known an answer. Rather than admit to it, she’d manufactured the time she needed to return to the reality around her, to figure out the question and come up with the answer.

David produced a beautifully pressed linen handkerchief.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, and made a fuss of patting her nose.

A slight twitch appeared in David’s right cheek just below his eye. “Penelope”—he accepted the handkerchief she’d folded neatly, then lay a square velvet jewelry box on the table—“I’m trying to ask you to be my wife.”

“You’re what?”

The twitching intensified. “I don’t think it should come as any surprise. We’re perfectly suited for one another. You’re intelligent, talented, successful.” He lifted one shoulder. “We’re two peas in a pod.”

Penelope blinked. What happened to beautiful, sexy, charming? She was sick of being intelligent, talented, and successful. A murderous feeling rose up within her. She wanted to be wanted for the woman she was, no matter how deeply hidden that woman was, even from her own knowledge.

He popped open the box. Penelope’s mouth dropped when she saw the marquise-cut diamond, a gem almost as big as a jawbreaker.

“Like it?”

“It’s amazing.”

He lifted it from the box and slipped it on her finger.

Her hand almost drooped from the weight. She immediately began to wiggle it off.

“Thank you, David, but I can’t—”

“Don’t say no.” He smiled, which had the effect of spreading the twitch in his cheek. “Perhaps I sprang it on you too soon. Think it over.”

“But I don’t—”

He held a finger to her lips.
“No
is not a word I like to hear,” he said softly.

She swallowed. He obviously wasn’t open to discussion, but there was no way she could marry David. Boy, had she messed up. The huge stone winked at her in the light, mocking her.

He slipped it back in place and squeezed her hand. “You could get used to being Mrs. Hinson,” he said, tracing a finger in slow circles from the ring, over the back of her hand, and onto her wrist.

Penelope knew a bribe when she saw one.

Gently but firmly she said, “I can’t wear this ring.”

“I insist.”

“Take the goddamn ring!” Tony heard the tension in Hinson’s voice. He knew the man was too smart to get too rough with Penelope at this point, but all the same, Tony wanted her out of there. And soon. She could flush it down the toilet when she got home, or pawn it and say she lost it, or mail it back UPS.

It was probably cubic zirconia, anyway. Hinson liked flash, but he liked to spend his money on his own appetites.

Which he’d certainly done this evening. Dinner had gone on and on and on, the extended event driving Tony nuts. He’d munched on the Chee
•
tos he’d brought to hold him over, his mouth watering as Penelope exclaimed over one dish after another. Leo had done himself proud.

He hoped Hinson would hustle her out rather than fulfill her request to meet the chef. Except for the extra pounds and inches, he and his cousin could have been identical twins. It would be just like Penelope to comment on that resemblance in front of Hinson, and that wasn’t something Tony wanted in the forefront of Hinson’s mind.

He licked the salty orange crumbs from his fingers and asked Saint Christopher for a bit of help.

A few minutes later, after no further discussion of the ring or the proposal, the two of them emerged from the restaurant. They walked side by side, but at least the creep didn’t have his arm around her. Penelope held a bunch of roses in her arms that would have cost a cop a month’s salary. Hinson held open the door of the car that had sat in a no-parking zone the entire time, got in, and drove away.

No ticket on his car, Tony couldn’t help but note.

Penelope closed the door of her apartment and leaned against it, grateful David hadn’t insisted on coming upstairs.