Wicked & Willing: Bad Girls (17 page)

“Because…you’re crazy about me?”

Hell, he’d already gone farther with Venus than he’d ever gone with any woman—asking her to move in. Having gone this far, he figured he might as well jump in feet first. Leaning across the bar, with his elbows on the
wood, he tugged her other hand in his and pulled her closer. “Because I’m in love with you, Venus.”

She yanked her hands back. “Get
out!
You are
so
not in love with me.”

Not quite the reaction he’d hoped for the first time he told a woman he loved her. He grinned. Maybe that was why he’d fallen in love with her in the first place. “No lie, babe. It’s love.”

“You can’t love me.”

He didn’t know who she was trying to convince, but it sure wasn’t going to be him. “I do.”

“We’re too different.”

“No, we’re not. We’re the same.”

She flung the rag down and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “No, we’re not the same. A guy can be a total dog and still be a wealthy, respected businessman. A woman makes a few…dozen…mistakes, and she’s a bad girl for life.”

He snickered. God, she was just priceless.

Troy saw that they’d drawn the attention of the other people in the place, including two couples who’d walked in behind him. But he didn’t give a damn. “Venus, we’re a hell of a lot alike in every way that really matters. Besides, honey, you are not nearly as bad as you like to pretend.”

Her spine stiffened at the tossed gauntlet. “I seduced my dentist when I was nineteen.”

Okay. One-upmanship. He could handle that. “I slept with the mother of one of my college buddies when I was nineteen.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I did it to get out of paying for a crown.”

“I did it to get laid.”

She glared, then thought about it. “I flashed the boy’s
soccer team from the top of the bleachers when I was a freshman.”

“Did they win the game?”

She rolled her eyes.

“I had the entire senior cheerleading squad at each other’s throats before soccer season even started because I’d been dating four of them at the same time,” Troy admitted.

She harrumphed. “I started sneaking out with guys before I’d even hit puberty.”

He chuckled. “I think we already discussed this. I didn’t have to sneak
out
, because I was too busy sneaking females
in
.”

An elderly woman, sitting in a booth nearby with two middle-aged ladies, tittered. “Sounds like you two are made for each other.”

Troy gave her a quick smile of thanks. “I agree.”

Venus still didn’t look convinced. “So we were both rotten little sex fiends. That’s not all.” She began to tick off her fingers, cataloguing her badness. “I refuse to pay parking tickets. My picture’s on a wanted poster at the library because I return books so late. And,” she continued, dramatically slapping her hand on the surface of the bar, “I quite often have more than ten items at the express checkout at the grocery store.”

“I hate it when people do that,” the old lady muttered.

Troy took her hand again. “I love you.”

“You can’t.”

“I
do
.”

She lowered her eyes, until her lashes brushed the curves of her lovely cheeks. When she looked up again, her green eyes were suspiciously bright. “I took money from Leo to come to Atlanta, never even stopping to
think I might be hurting a wonderful old man who’d never done a thing to me.”

He understood. Finally, he understood. Not answering, Troy walked around the bar, pushing through a swinging half door designed to keep customers away. Venus watched him, wide-eyed, backing up until she was blocked by a huge silver vat of beer.

“You didn’t keep the money, did you.” It wasn’t a question. He knew without asking what her answer would be.

She shook her head slowly. “I sent it to my foster mother. How did you know?”

He brushed a long tendril of red hair off her brow, gently tucking it behind her ear. Lightly caressing her earlobe, he then ran his fingers across her jaw, down her neck, until his hand rested on her strong, stubborn shoulder. “Because I know you, Venus Messina. You’re honorable. You’re honest.” He leaned closer, inhaling to breathe in the sweetness of her cinnamon-tinged perfume. “And you’re too damn good for me.”

She tried to shake her head in denial, but he caught her chin and held her still. “You’re too good for me,” he repeated. “I don’t deserve you. But the truth is, I’m a selfish enough bastard to want you anyway.”

Not giving her another chance to throw up any more ridiculous obstacles, he pulled her close and pressed a sweet, gentle kiss on her lips. She softened in his arms, returning his kiss, then pulled back.

“We’re still opposites,” she whispered, stubborn to the last. Studying him from head to toe, she rolled her eyes. “Look at us.” She pointed down to her tight-as-sin jeans and sexy-as-hell T-shirt. “I’m a walking advertisement for a thrift shop. And there you are in your designer shirt
and pants that probably cost more than I paid for my couch.”

“I can take off the shirt,” he said, reaching for the top button, letting her see the mischievous look in his eye.

She glanced at the bar crowd. “Oh, yeah, right.”

“You think I won’t?”

“Maybe you want me to think you will,” she taunted.

He slipped the button free. She kept watching, silently egging him on, never moving her gaze away from him as he slowly unfastened every single button. He tugged the shirt free of his waistband and shrugged it off his shoulders, dropping it to the floor. He knew every person in the place was watching them, him, standing shirtless behind the bar, but he didn’t care. Venus, with her hot, devouring eyes, was all he cared about.

“You didn’t think I’d do it.”

A wicked smile widened her beautiful lips. She tapped his chest with the tip of her index finger, until he was the one backing up. “Oh, I knew you’d do it, Troy. Why else do you think I suggested it?”

He turned the tables on her, picking her up by the waist and turning around to deposit her on top of the bar. Then he stepped easily between her long, jean-clad legs and tugged her closer, until her parted thighs rested on his hips. He ignored the flurry of whispers and a definite sigh or two from the women seated in the place. “Tell me you love me.”

She continued to stare at him, both amusement and sensual awareness in her eyes.

He pulled her closer, feeling the warm dampness of her jeans against his stomach. Sliding his hands up under the bottom of her shirt, he caressed her waist, then reached around to stroke the delicate bones of her spine. Leaning forward, he pressed a hot, moist kiss in the hol
low of her throat. “I won’t stop until you tell me,” he threatened.

She dropped her head back and moaned. “I won’t tell you if you stop.”

“I’d tell him absolutely
anything
,” a woman’s voice said in a loud whisper.

They both began to laugh and finally Venus took pity. Her brilliant emerald eyes glittered with happiness as she dropped her arms over his shoulders and met his unflinching stare.

“I love you, Troy.” She leaned down to kiss him, parting her lips to let him sample the sweetness of her mouth. She sighed as their kiss ended, and whispered, “Now, take me home.”

“To Atlanta?”

She shook her head. “No way can I make it to Atlanta today. We’ll go tomorrow. But when my uncle gets back, you can take me to my apartment before I rip off the rest of your clothes and get us both arrested.”

T
HAT EVENING
in her apartment, after three solid hours of the most incredible lovemaking of her life, Venus asked Troy to fill her in on what had been happening in Atlanta. “Max sounds okay. Is he going to be able to keep Leo in line?”

Troy grabbed another egg roll from the mountain of carry-out spread all over the coffee table in her living room. “Yeah. Max has got enough on Leo to force him out of the company and he could press criminal charges if he wanted to. But I still can’t help wondering what Leo’s been up to with this P.I. in Baltimore.”

Feeling a little silly about it, Venus admitted her earlier suspicion. “If I had anything worth stealing, I might have wondered if he was responsible for the mail thefts.”

“Wait a second,” Troy said, casting a quick glance toward the door, where they’d dropped their clothes, her purse, and the package she’d brought home from Flanagan’s. “You said that box was delivered to you at the bar last week, right? And your uncle Joe was worried about some shady character hanging around?”

It sounded crazy. “It was just a bunch of paperwork from my foster mother. You don’t think…”

He glanced again toward the door. Finally, curious herself, Venus got up and brought the shoe-box-size package to the table. She tore off the brown paper, then removed the lid. A note rested inside. “From Maureen,” she said as she scanned it. “She said most of her paperwork was taken in the robbery when I was in high school. But DCF sent these things to me at her place after my eighteenth birthday. I’d already come to Baltimore. She told me she had it ages ago, but I completely forgot.”

Troy looked at the pile of papers, and a small red leather-bound book. “A diary?”

Venus recognized the book. “My mother’s. I didn’t know what had happened to it. I guess the state kept everything for me until I was of legal age, since no other family came forward.”

“Maybe you should read it later,” he said, a look of intense concern on his face.

Knowing she might regret it, she reached for the diary, anyway. She trusted Troy more than she’d ever trusted anyone in her life. And if reading her mother’s words was going to be painful for her, she could think of no one better to be right beside her, holding her hand, than the man she loved.

An open envelope containing some legal-looking papers was stuck to the book. As she retrieved it, the papers fell out, fluttering to the floor beside Troy. Focused on the
diary, she barely paid attention as he reached for them to put them back.

Just as she opened the faded, aged cover of the diary, she heard Troy make a strange confused sound. She barely had time to register what was taped on the inside cover of the diary—a strip of photos, like those taken at photography booths in the mall—when she heard him say, “Oh, my God.”

“What’s the matter, Troy?”

His eyes were wide with shock. “Honey, Venus…”

“What is it?”

“I was trying to fold them to put them back,” he explained, as if he feared she’d think he was snooping.

She glanced at the legal document in his hand. “What is it?”

He handed it to her. But before she even glanced at it, she felt a strange tingling of something in her spine. Recognition. Culmination. Understanding. Because in that brief glimpse at the photo strip in her mother’s diary, she’d seen a face she’d never expected to see.

Letting the document fall to her lap, she opened the book again and looked at the photographs. Her mother’s smiling face was easily recognizable…as was the face of the laughing man, mugging it up for the camera beside Trina.

Max Longotti Jr.

She knew it was him. She’d seen enough pictures of the handsome young man at Max’s place the week before to instantly know the thick dark hair, the green eyes, the dimple in his left cheek.

Tears spilled out of her eyes.

Troy shoved the table out of the way, ignoring the cartons of food tumbling onto the floor. He pulled her into
his arms. “It’s all right, Venus. It’s okay,” he murmured as he stroked her back.

“It’s Max Jr.” She felt numb and almost couldn’t grasp the words she spoke. “In the photos. With my mother. It’s him.”

“I know.” Troy kissed her brow. “The paper was a registered document showing your name was legally changed to Venus when you were two years old.” He held her tighter. “From Violet.”

She closed her eyes, letting it sink in, accepting the truth. Trina really had met and loved Max Longotti Jr. Even without reading the diary, she understood what had happened. Their whirlwind love affair. Trina’s inability to contact the mysterious “Matt” after he’d gone off to California. Her birth. His death. Years of not knowing. Finally Trina losing hope and changing Venus’s first name, but not having the heart to go that final step and change the last one.

She understood just about everything. “Leo…”

“I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch,” Troy muttered.

“He’s known for a long time, I suspect.”

Troy nodded. “Probably for years. I imagine he kept it from everyone, not wanting you found. Then I came along. He started worrying Max would sell the company and he’d lose everything he’d worked so hard to steal.”

She thought about the robbery at her foster mother’s place more than a decade ago and wondered if it would be possible for someone to be so deceitful and duplicitous for so long.

Yeah. Unfortunately, when it came to Leo Gallagher, she believed it was possible.

“Leo was standing right there last week when you said your foster mother had some documents she was going
to mail you,” Troy said. “He probably panicked and came up here, trying to intercept the package.”

“You think his P.I. was the guy who spooked Joe at Flanagan’s?” When Troy nodded, she continued speculating. “And the DNA test…he probably did have someone lined up to falsify it. To make it turn out exactly the way he wanted it.” She lowered her voice, shaking her head in disgust. “He would have used me, or bribed me. Either way, he never intended to let me find out the truth.”

Troy cupped her face and brushed a few tears off her cheek. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “A little numb. A little shocked.” She bit her lip, thinking of all the lost time. “A lot sad.”

He obviously understood, not finding it strange that the truth would seem so incredibly tragic to her. Then again, Troy truly cared for Max, too. So maybe his first thought, like hers, had been for all the years they’d wasted. Those years had made Venus stronger, helped mold her into the woman she’d become. But they’d been awfully lonely for Max Longotti.

“Troy, will you take me home tomorrow?”