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Reckless. If she knew what was good for her, she’d completely forget the definition of that word. Whenever her family pushed a little hard, she tended to rebel in very dramatic ways—in ways that made even her outrageous friend Jena look good. Her dad pushed her, she slept with Ian Kilborn.
Oh, boy.
That was so not why she was here. She’d come to try to shrug off unwanted emotions via a dinner session with her family. She didn’t want Ian any more than he wanted her.
Oh, yeah? Try telling that to her hormones.
She heard a long, wistful sigh and realized it was her own.
Oh, great. Grimacing and sighing. She was turning into a regular hopeless wonder.
Pulling her jacket closed against the late January chill, she stepped up the winding walkway to the door, briefly knocked, then let herself in. She told herself she knocked because she didn’t want to find one or the other of her parents flagrante delicto. When she was twenty-one, she’d come home early from a party Jena had thrown. Marie shuddered at the memory of her parents going at it like randy teenagers on the foyer couch. Her mother often reminded her that it had only happened once and wasn’t likely to happen again. But Marie wasn’t taking any chances.
She peeked around the door then called out. Her mother’s voice immediately responded from the kitchen, telling her to come in.
Marie shrugged out of her jacket, then hung it up in the closet. The sweet scent of basil filled the hall, leading her back to the kitchen. She couldn’t remember a time when the house hadn’t smelled like one spice or another mixed with the pungent scent of tomato. And when her mother made bread…
She gave a mental groan as she pushed open the swinging door and moved into the airy, terra-cotta-tiled kitchen with its hanging copper pots and pans, pots of fresh herbs, strings of garlic and a table large enough to hold the entire Bertelli family, including her brothers’ wives.
“You didn’t wear the dress.”
Marie made a face. How was it her mother could tell what she was wearing without even looking? “I didn’t feel like wearing a dress.”
Francesca Bertelli was well into her fifties but the image she portrayed was that of a much younger woman, despite the strands of silver in her thick red hair. Marie rounded the cooking island to where her mother was cleaning Spanish onions in the sink and kissed her cheek. “And you consider jeans and a sweatshirt proper attire?”
“For dinner at my parents?” She smiled. “Yes.”
Her mother made her trademark sound of disapproval deep in her throat, even though her blue eyes shone with love and amusement.
“Where’s Dad?”
Francesca motioned with the knife. “In his office. He’ll be out in a minute.”
Marie reached for a piece of mozzarella, then instead took a piece of cut celery on the counter.
“Eat the cheese. You’re too skinny.”
A familiar refrain. And a refrain that Marie had long since grown used to ignoring.
She automatically went to the cupboard to the right and reached for the plates.
“What are you doing?” her mother asked.
“Setting the table.”
“It’s set.”
Marie squinted, wondering if her mother had inhaled too many onion fumes as she stared at the clear kitchen table.
“We’re eating in the dining room tonight.”
Marie’s hands froze where she still touched the plates. The dining room had been the one room in the house that should have been fully capitalized. THE DINING ROOM. The only room off-limits to her and her brothers when they were younger, and a room that was used only on holidays. She slowly withdrew her hands and closed the cupboard door. Sure, while Valentine’s Day might be around the corner, the minor observance didn’t rate on THE DINING ROOM scale.
“Mama…” she said in warning.
The last thing she needed was another unsuitable suitor to ruin a perfectly good dinner. She sighed and leaned against the counter. She’d assumed that since she’d been so late in accepting the dinner invitation that she wouldn’t have to face another one of her mother’s matchmaking attempts tonight.
She rubbed her throbbing temple. Knowing her mother, she’d probably made the trip across town to sabotage her daughter’s refrigerator.
“Get the wine from over there on the counter and open it so it can air.”
Marie turned and stared at the three bottles. She glanced back at her mother. “How many?”
“All of them.”
Uh-oh. Her mother had given up on the one-by-one approach and was going to fill the table with possible grooms from hell.
She groaned, leaving the bottles right where they were. “You know, I’m suddenly not very hungry,” she said, giving her mother a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m going to go home.” She swiped one of the mozzarella sticks. “Tell Papa I said hi, won’t you?”
She made a beeline for the kitchen door and the hall beyond, hoping to duck out of the house before the guests of honor arrived.
She swung open the door and, for the second time that day, ran straight into the hard, broad chest of Ian Kilborn.
IAN’S PHYSICAL RESPONSE to having Marie flush up against him for the second time that day was swift and unforgiving.
“We, um, have to stop bumping into each other this way,” he said, surprised that his voice was low and gravelly.
Marie stared at him as if he’d grown another head. Well, he hadn’t actually grown one, but one was growing just beneath the material of his slacks.
She leapt back and he quickly closed his suit jacket to cover any telltale bulges.
Only both he and Marie knew the truth.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” Marie’s father said from where he stood behind Ian. “Hello, baby girl.”
Marie’s gaze shifted and so did the look in them as she skirted around him and gave her father a loud kiss on the cheek. “Hi, Papa. I just got here.” She cleared her throat as Frank Bertelli Sr. hugged her in his meaty arms, then released her. “Unfortunately I, um, can’t stay though.”
“Shame,” Ian said.
Frankie and Marie both stared at him.
Okay, so maybe he could have been a little subtler. But the truth was that he didn’t exactly intend for Marie to find out how really small the world was until some point down the road. Like maybe never.
“What’s this nonsense? Of course you’re going to stay,” Frankie said, easily wrapping his arm around his daughter’s shoulders, and then Ian’s, and maneuvering them both through the kitchen door. “Your mama made your favorite.”
Marie made a move Ian admired and wished he could emulate as she ducked right out of her father’s grasp. “I know, I know. But the truth is I’m not feeling very well right now.”
Ian eyed her. Sure, her color was high and her eyes overly bright. But he’d bet dollars to doughnuts that her physical state had nothing to do with any sort of illness. Rather her reaction was more likely due to the stimulus behind his own uncomfortable response: feeling her against him.
Frankie finally released him and Ian moved off to the side of the room, watching as Marie’s mother swooped down on her, making a ceremony out of laying her hand against her forehead and cheeks checking for a temperature. Ian hid his smile and shoved his hands in his pockets. Oh, Marie’s temperature had risen all right. But a fever wasn’t to blame.
Ian knew what it was like to be the baby of the family. Much fussing and cooing and clucking had gone on in his house while growing up.
He also knew what it felt like to want something he knew he shouldn’t have.
He moved the back of his collar away from his neck, finding his skin more than a little hot. To think, he’d gone thirteen years without letting the Bertellis in on how he really felt about their daughter. Now, after an accidental meeting or two he was a hairbreadth away from giving it all away.
Damn, she was beautiful. Even in her old sweatshirt and jeans, Marie Bertelli made him want to…well, get her out of that sweatshirt and jeans.
“I’m fine, Mama,” Marie said, swatting Francesca’s hands away from her face. “Just a little tired, that’s all.”
“You wouldn’t be tired if you were staying in the house. Late nights, parties, dates with ax murderers. Lord only knows what’s behind your not getting enough sleep.”
“I get plenty of sleep.” Ian watched her walk to the counter and pick up a bottle of red wine. “I’ve just been feeling a little stressed lately.”
Ian watched her face blanch, as if she’d just said something she hadn’t meant to. She popped the cork on the bottle of wine, then poured a healthy portion into a water glass.
“Stressed. Stressed. Of course you’re stressed. Having to worry about keeping a house all by yourself.” Her mother took the water glass, then poured the wine into a goblet without missing a beat.
Marie rolled her eyes and stared at Ian. He grinned. “It’s an apartment, Mama, and… Oh, never mind.” She swiped the wineglass and took a deep gulp from it. When she finished, her lips were a provocative shade of red, contrasting against the pinkness of her tongue as it flicked out to lick the corner of her mouth.
She narrowed her gaze on him. “What is he doing here anyway?”
Ian raised his brows. It had been awhile since someone had talked about him in the third person while he was still in the room.
And this particular room had just grown very, very quiet.
For a big man, Frankie Sr. could pull off uncomfortable remarkably well. And given Francesca’s avoidance maneuvers as she returned to preparing dinner, Ian got the impression that she knew exactly what was going on.
The only person who didn’t know was Marie.
And Ian knew she wasn’t going to be very happy about it.
Frank cleared his throat. “Marie, I want to tell you the real reason I wanted you here tonight.”
Ian stared at the older Italian. Frank had told him that he’d wanted to meet briefly. Hell, dinner hadn’t even been mentioned, much less Marie’s possible presence.
Not that it mattered, Ian reminded himself. Frank had no idea about Ian’s past with his daughter.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Marie said dryly.
Ian glanced at her. Could he have been wrong? Did she already know?
“Marie,” Frank said again. “I’ve hired Ian on to act as my attorney.”
Where Marie’s face had been filled with color only a moment before, it was now paper white. She blinked several times as if trying to absorb the words, to make sense out of them.
Obviously she hadn’t known—not only about her father hiring Ian on, but about the trouble he was in.
Oh, boy.
And if things weren’t complicated enough, Ian was afraid that if he and Marie were forced to be in the same room for any extended period of time, he was going to sleep with her.
Again.
Well, okay. Maybe that part wasn’t so bad….
3
THE FOLLOWING MORNING Marie paced the waiting room outside Ian’s office, hearing an odd sort of ticking in her head. Either somewhere in the high-tech offices of McCreary, Lopez and Daniels, Attorneys, there was a loud timepiece, or her own internal clock was counting off the seconds. And, no, it wasn’t her biological clock. She didn’t believe in such things. She had no real craving for children. At least not yet, anyway. Besides, at twenty-six, her biological time clock, if she did have one, hadn’t even kicked on yet.
Had it?
Marie stopped in front of the receptionist’s desk. “Is there a clock around here somewhere?”
The young blonde wearing slim black headphones blinked at her. “It’s just after ten.”
Marie stared at her.
“More precisely, two minutes after ten,” the receptionist said, glancing at her watch.
Marie rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I meant.” She waved her hand and resumed pacing. “Oh, never mind.”
Okay, so last night the last person she expected to run into at her parents’ was Ian Kilborn. That alone would be enough to knock someone a little off-kilter. But she’d also run into him earlier that day and felt some peculiar yearnings she had thought she had locked up tight. As a result, her hormones had shifted into overdrive, reminding her that it had been a good long while since she’d played footsy with anyone between the sheets.
Then to find out that her father had Ian and his firm on retainer…
Tick tock, tick tock.
Marie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to halt the internal countdown, afraid of what would happen when the hand counted down to one.
Her mother…well, her mother had basically played her mother throughout dinner, telling Ian that the antipasto wasn’t dinner when he reached for a second helping, sharing stories about Frankie Jr.’s exploits, and generally urging the conversation in every direction except in the one Marie wanted it to go.
Oh, sure, she’d casually tried to bring the conversation back around to Ian, his presence and his being her father’s attorney. At least every two minutes. And every time she did she got three deadpan expressions and absolutely no words. At least until her mother came up with some other strange little tidbit to derail Marie’s intentions.
Of course, it didn’t help matters that she and Ian were essentially professional rivals and that her father’s choosing to turn to him over her rankled something terrible. She felt something well beyond disappointment that her father couldn’t see her as anything more than his daughter.
Marie made a low sound of frustration, earning her the receptionist’s attention…again.
Marie stared back at her. “How long did you say Mr. Kilborn would be?”
The young woman looked down at her console then pushed a button, speaking so quietly Marie couldn’t make out her words.
Great. She was probably calling security.
“Marie.”
Ian said her name like she was a long-lost friend just dropping in for a visit. A good friend. A friend he might be interested in being a little more…friendly with.
