Dangerous Ladies (27 page)

She glanced at him.

Roberto stood absolutely still, his laser gaze fixed on Alan. He might have been waiting for her cue.

But she could handle Alan. She turned back to him, to the short, petty, unhappy man she could now gladly walk away from. “You don’t understand how I could do something so stupid? Like what? Pawn your ring? Spend the money on a day at the spa, a great dress, and some tall fuck-me shoes?” Her clear voice was carrying across the dance floor.

Wearing avid expressions, people pressed forward.

She continued: “Move into my apartment, start work, and get over you in less than a week? My God, Alan, when you got her pregnant”—she nodded at Fawn—“you didn’t even have the guts to tell me not to come to Chicago. I uprooted my life for you, but you had to fly to Las Vegas and get drunk before you dared pick up the phone and admit what a weasel you are. I’m smarter than you, and unlike you, I’m not a coward, so don’t you
dare
insinuate anything different.”

In a clear, hard, carrying voice, Alan said, “No, Brandi. If you’re over me so easily, it’s obvious I did the right thing by marrying someone else. I don’t understand how can you dance around the floor of an elegant ballroom draped across that man’s arms like some kind of cheap whore.”

D
ressed in her best black suit with her most dynamic red blouse, her most sensibly hemmed skirt and her highest stiletto heels, Brandi marched down the corridor toward Uncle Charles’s thirty-ninth-story office.

Behind her, Roberto sauntered like a man out for a summer stroll.

Uncle Charles’s secretary’s workplace was twice as big as Brandi’s cubicle, and the double doors leading into his private sanctuary were polished black walnut and without a word declared his importance.

Right now, Brandi didn’t give a damn about his importance.

She tossed her mother’s warm Gucci coat on a chair. Planting her fists on his secretary’s desk, she leaned over and said, “Tell Mr. McGrath that Brandi Michaels is here to see him.”

The secretary, a petite young woman with a face carved out of ice and a nameplate that said, MELISSA BECKIN, was not impressed. “Mr. McGrath is very busy right now, but I’ll be glad to pass him a message when it’s convenient for him.”

Brandi recognized the heat as Roberto walked up behind her. She knew he smiled at Melissa, because that ice melted so quickly she feared a flood. And she hated it when he said, “Brandi and I both
need to see Mr. McGrath. Is there any chance you could get us in right now?”

“Who should I say is asking?” Melissa fluttered like a bird wounded by the arrow of love.

“Roberto Bartolini.” His Italian accent deepened. “Count Roberto Bartolini.”

Brandi had never heard him use his title, and she’d liked that. It seemed to indicate some modicum of humility. But obviously he didn’t know the meaning of humility. Or of constraint. Or of the basics of good manners. Last night had proved that beyond all doubt.

“Let me speak to him.” Melissa shoved her chair back a little too hard and almost toppled backward. “Oops! Sorry. So silly of me.” She stood and sidled toward the door. “I’ll just check and see if . . . Hang on a minute . . . don’t go anywhere. . . .”

“I’ll be right here waiting . . . for you,” Roberto assured her.

She fumbled for the doorknob, turned it, and slid inside without ever taking her eyes off Roberto.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Brandi swung on Roberto. “Why did you do that? You ruined her coordination!” Like Brandi really cared. “Were you trying to prove a point?”

“You wound me, Brandi.” For a man who had danced half the night, he looked remarkably fresh. “You seemed hell-bent on speaking to Charles, so I got you in to see him.”

“Thank you very much, but don’t do me any more favors! I can’t afford them.”

“As you wish.” With his hand on his chest, he made a little bow.

Continental. Suave. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know. He was all of those things, and if Brandi weren’t careful, she’d be roadkill beneath his wheels, because she found him just as irresistible as did poor Melissa.

But she’d learned her lesson, and irresistible wasn’t nearly enough for her. She wanted respect, damn it, and she was going to get it if she had to wring it out of Roberto’s thick neck with her bare hands.

Melissa opened the door and smiled at Roberto. “Mr. McGrath will see you now.”

“Thank you.” He strode toward her, his long legs eating up the space between them.

Brandi watched, sure of his intentions, biding her time.

“
Signorina,
you have been so helpful.” He took Melissa’s hand and bowed over it.

Melissa fluttered like a bird enthralled by a snake.

By Roberto, the snake.

Brandi moved closer to the door.

He lifted Melissa’s fingers to his lips.
“Grazie molto.”

While he was gazing into Melissa’s eyes, Brandi slipped past him and into Uncle Charles’s office.

Roberto whipped around.

Melissa whipped around.

The two of them stared, appalled, as she smiled and shut the door in their faces. She flipped the lock and turned to face Uncle Charles.

The old guy was dwarfed by his huge leather chair and broad wooden desk. “I’m so glad to see you. Come and give me a kiss on the cheek.” He cocked his head, his eyes bright like some inquisitive, baldheaded bird. “How is your mother this morning? As beautiful as ever?”

“I don’t know. She wasn’t up when we left.” In fact, Tiffany had been only a lump in the bed next to Brandi both last night when Brandi came in and this morning before she left, and she hadn’t stirred to even offer her daughter a good-bye kiss. Brandi didn’t really blame her—she could probably tell Brandi was furious by the way she moved, and Tiffany never looked for confrontation.

“Ah.” Uncle Charles smiled. “Then what are you here about?”

“I am here about that man.” She pointed through the door at Roberto. “Do you know what he did?”

Uncle Charles leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “You’ve got ten minutes to tell me.” He sounded brisk, no longer kindly Uncle Charles but the busy head of a large law firm.

“Last night he took me to three different parties and he treated me like arm candy.” She stalked toward the desk. “He showed me off to the businessmen of Chicago as his ‘lawyer.’” She created quotation marks with her fingers. “He took me to a party with his low-life Italian gangster friends and their mistresses, patted me on the fanny, and told me to go talk to the other ladies because he had business.”

“What did you do about it?”

“Do about it? First I said no. Mossimo Fossera waited for him to . . . I don’t know . . . discipline me, I guess, but he instead started talking in Italian. Fast.”

Uncle Charles looked down. If he was trying to hide his smile, he wasn’t doing a good job.

“So I went and conversed with the ladies! Who, by the way, were barely coherent in any language except hair spray and contraceptives.” She leaned on the desk, hands flat, and silently demanded Uncle Charles look at her. When he did, she told him her greatest fear. “Listen, Uncle Charles, Mossimo Fossera wants him to steal something, and I’m pretty sure Mossimo is threatening Roberto’s grandfather. What are we going to do?”

“Do? We’re not going to do anything. If Roberto Bartolini decides to do a job for Mossimo Fossera, we can do nothing.” When Brandi would have interrupted, Uncle Charles held up one hand. “Please remember who we are. We’re not policemen, not FBI agents, not superheroes. We’re lawyers, and our job starts and finishes in the courts.”

“However, apparently I am a babysitter who’s going to be held responsible by Judge Knight if Roberto does steal something.”

Uncle Charles nodded. “Yes, if Judge Knight deems that any misconduct of Bartolini’s could be laid at your door, he could create problems for us in the future. Make sure you stick with Bartolini so Knight has no reason to doubt your vigilance.”

“But I’m losing my reputation as a reliable lawyer before I even start work!”

“Miss Michaels, if you believe that, you underestimate the prestige of this firm.”

Miss Michaels.
Okay, so she’d annoyed him. “I’m sorry, but do you know what it’s like fighting your whole life to be taken seriously and having that undermined in an evening?”

“No.” Uncle Charles stood up, came around the desk, and took her arm. “But I assure you, you’ll find the gossip around the office among the other young ladies most envious.” He led her toward the entrance. “Now, Brandi, you go ahead and dress up for Bartolini; I know he enjoys seeing a pretty girl as much as I do. Anyway, I always thought you worked too hard. When this is over and you’re buried in dusty law books, you’ll look back and wonder what you were complaining about.” He unlocked the door. He opened it. “If you’re worried about not having the right clothes—”

“That’s not it!”

“—ask Melissa where we keep corporate accounts, and you can charge whatever you need on McGrath and Lindoberth.” He patted her cheek. “That will be fun, won’t it?” He ushered her out and shut the door while she stared at him in disbelief.

“Dress up for Bartolini?” she said to the solid oak. “Because he enjoys seeing a pretty girl?”

Dear God, Uncle Charles was a dinosaur. An insulting, patronizing, chauvinistic old dinosaur.

“Are you done?” Roberto asked.

Slowly she turned to face him.

He looked as charming as ever, but she detected smug satisfaction in his expression.

Jackass.
“I sure am,” she drawled sarcastically. “Make sure you stick close. I’d hate to lose you in the crowd.”

She stalked past the glaring Melissa, out the door, and down the hall. She punched the button for the elevator.

Roberto walked up beside her, their coats thrown across his arm, elegant in the latest of his endless Armani suits. He wore a white
shirt, a red tie, perfectly shined black shoes . . . yet his hair was tousled and untidy, as if he’d spent the night making love.

Not with her, though. Not with her.

Damned if she was going to give in to their attraction just to get the same kind of satisfaction she could get from any appliance that took D-sized batteries. Not after that talk with Uncle Charles. Especially not after last night.

“What did he say that made you so angry?” Roberto asked.

“I was angry when I got here.”

“Yes, but you were angry at me. Now you’re angry at both of us.”

“He made it good and clear what my function is in this firm. He wants me to charge evening gowns on him so I can look good for—” She choked rather than finish the sentence.

“Me. Hm. Yes. I can see that would be irritating.” The elevator opened, and Roberto held the door while she stepped in.

“Like you care.”

“Of course I care.”

“No, you don’t, or you wouldn’t make me go to these parties!” She punched the button for the ground floor.

“I’m not
making
you go to the parties. I’m going, and you’re going with me.” He took her hand as the elevator doors closed. “Last night I loved holding you in my arms for our first dance.”

“Yeah, I loved it, too—right up until the time Alan and his bimbo bride saw us.”

“What did you expect me to do?” Roberto’s mouth tightened. “Allow him to show you such disrespect?”

“I didn’t expect you to punch him in the face!”

“He called you a whore.”

Yeah, he had. She hadn’t enjoyed it, but she was the kind of woman who thought it was better to shrug off that kind of humiliating public display rather than compound it by making a scene. “You broke his nose.”

“Perhaps next time he sees a lady he’ll think twice before insulting
her.” No matter what she said, Roberto wasn’t backing off. His brown eyes were flat and cold, his features rocky with disdain.

But retribution fostered retribution, and Alan had shot her a glare that promised trouble. “I saw flashes from the crowd. Someone took photos of us.”

“It happens.”

The elevator began its descent.

“Maybe to you, but I’m not a glamorous Italian count, and you’ve been remanded into my custody, and I’m supposed to keep you out of trouble, and if Alan presses charges—”

“Sh.”
Roberto gestured her to silence.

“What do you mean,
sh
? I’m just saying . . .” Then she realized why he was listening. The elevator sounded . . . funny. Like something was slipping.

And they were going . . . too fast. “Roberto?” She clutched at him. Thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-one . . . the floors went whooshing past. The elevator was almost . . . they were plunging to the ground.

“Roberto flung himself at the control panel, swearing, pulling emergency buttons.

And as abruptly as the drop started, it stopped.

Brandi fell hard.