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“Does that mean you want me to take you home?”
She nodded. Then, tipping her head to one side, she asked, “Mad?”
“Disappointed, but it’s just as well. I don’t think either of us is ready for what our raging hormones have in store.”
Not ready in the least, she knew. But that didn’t stop her from dreaming about it when, later that evening, she fell asleep in her bed all alone.
From his prone position on the mattress, Angelo stared up at the bedroom ceiling. As his gaze idly traced the shadows thrown from the bedside lamp, he recounted the evening.
That wasn’t something he did normally, even when the evening in question ended on a far more satisfactory note. Yet he didn’t feel frustrated exactly, sexually or otherwise. Like a damned moth, he just felt drawn and more curious than ever about the woman most of the world thought they knew.
He flipped to his side, recalling the way Atlanta had looked when he’d left her on her doorstep. He’d waited, and, yes, he’d hoped that she would invite him inside. Whether for a nightcap or something more, he hadn’t cared. he’d only known that he hadn’t wanted the evening to end. But she hadn’t invited him in. Instead, she’d smiled and bade him goodnight.
With a handshake!
Left with little choice, he’d taken her hand, pumped it delicately and released it so quickly it might as well have been a poisonous snake. Patience, he’d reminded himself. He was pretty certain she was a woman who’d had some bad breaks when it came to physical intimacy. Just when he’d convinced himself of that and had turned toward his car, she’d grabbed his arm and spun him back around.
The kiss that had followed hadn’t been chaste. It had been downright greedy. He’d felt teeth nip at his lower lip and fingernails bite into the flesh of his arms. It hadn’t ended slowly or on a sigh. No, she’d broken it off cleanly, her breathing labored afterward.
He’d considered a pithy comeback. Hell, he’d considered hauling her back into his arms and having a second go at it. Only her expression had stopped him. It had been neither smug nor frightened. Rather, she’d looked uncertain, confused.
For him, sex had never been complicated, partly because he was smart enough to know women often viewed the act differently. They tried to inject emotions into the mix, which could cause problems if a guy let things progress too far. Mindful of his parents and the disaster they had made of not only their marriage but of their children’s lives, he’d been careful not to let that happen.
So, why was he feeling every bit as confused and uncertain as Atlanta had looked? He turned out the lamp and gave his pillow a couple of punches. It was going to be a long night.
Angelo had no firm plans for the following day, which was just as well. He woke in pain not long after the sun rose.
“Damned shoulder,” he muttered, although it wasn’t his only source of discomfort. “Damned woman.”
He swung his legs over the side of the mattress and scraped the hand of his good arm over his jaw, eyeing the pills on the nightstand as he did so. In the end, he decided to do what he had for the past year of his career: play through the pain.
By mid-afternoon, with nothing more to occupy his time than Italian television programs and a couple of old Sports Illustrated magazines he’d brought with him, he was surly and sick of his own company, so he got in the car and headed out for a drive. He didn’t plan his destination, at least not consciously, but he wound up at Atlanta’s villa. This time, however, when he knocked at the door it was a dark-haired woman who answered. Given the wicker basket of linens on the floor at her feet, he figured she was there to do the cleaning.
“Hi…I mean, ciao. I was looking for Atlanta Jackson. I take it she’s not here.”
“No.” But the woman’s expression brightened. Her tone held a little awe when she said, “You are Angelo Casali.”
Finally, someone recognized him. He grinned in return. “Yes, I am.”
“It is such a pleasure to meet you.”
“Thanks.”
Her obvious excitement. The wide-eyed adoration. He lapped both up. He was just about to ask her if she wanted his autograph when she added, “I know your family well. I attended school with Isabella. I had a crush on Valentino.”
Angelo’s smile faltered. She knew his family, but apparently she’d never heard of his multimillion-dollar baseball career, which was fading as fast as the season. How ironic that the New York Angel’s only claim to fame here was as Luca Casali’s son.
The young woman was saying, “I met Alessandro while he was in Monta Correnti. He was at Rosa one evening when my husband and I dined there.” She tipped her head to one side and studied Angelo. “You both have the look of your father. You have his eyes.”
Angelo backed up a step. He cared for neither the comparison she was making nor the connection it defined. “I have to be going.”
“Do you wish to leave a message for Miss Jackson?”
“No. I’ll…” He shook his head and said a second time, “No.”
The woman was still standing in the open doorway staring after him when he climbed into the car. He revved its engine to life, shifted into gear and hit the gas. The tires spat gravel and gave a little squeal as he sped away. He didn’t care. He had to get out of there. Just as Atlanta had the day before at the coffee shop, Angelo found himself running from the past.
It was the present that caused him to slow down before he hit the first bend in the road, which was a good thing considering the sharp turns up ahead. Another fifty feet and the road became as curvy as the woman walking along the side of it.
Atlanta.
She was more strolling than walking, given the leisurely pace of her long-legged stride. She looked more relaxed than he’d ever seen her. Fresh air and the Italian countryside agreed with her. She held a bouquet of wildflowers in one hand. Her signature blonde hair was partly obscured beneath a cap that, upon closer inspection, he realized was emblazoned with the logo of a rival ball club. Even so, the sight of her made him smile. Some of his tension ebbed away, only to be replaced with a different sort of restlessness when she spotted him and waved. He pulled the car over and got out, leaning against the hood while he waited for her to reach him.
When she did he asked, “Getting in a little exercise?”
“That wasn’t my primary objective, but yes.”
He was glad to hear she didn’t feel the need to walk off last night’s carbohydrate indulgence. The woman who just the day before had been racked with guilt over a couple of cannoli was making progress.
“Are you heading back?” he asked.
She glanced at her wristwatch. “Not quite yet. My landlady, Franca, is there. She insists on changing the sheets every day, though I’ve told her I’m not that picky. I left because I didn’t want to be underfoot.”
“Interested in some company?”
She fussed with the ponytail that spilled out the back of the hat. “I wouldn’t mind it.”
Initially, Atlanta had gone for a walk to clear her head. The day was perfect for it, so sunny and warm. But how was a woman supposed to keep her head clear when the man responsible for clouding it up was now asking to join her?
She could tell him no. She’d turned Angelo down more than once, and for things more consequential than a stroll down a country road. Despite the bruises he claimed his ego had endured, it hadn’t stopped him from coming back or from being a friend, even if it was clear he had more than friendship on his mind.
Still, the friendship was an unexpected gift. She’d never had a male friend before. For that matter, with the exception of Sara, Atlanta had precious few female ones. Hollywood wasn’t the sort of town where one could cultivate deep bonds of any sort easily. Too many people had an agenda or an angle to work. Very little was ever as it seemed on the surface, a fact Atlanta knew all too well.
“I want to thank you,” she said.
His brows shot up. “For what?”
“For being a friend.”
He stuffed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “That’s just what a guy wants to hear.”
“Sorry, it’s just that I don’t have many friends and I really need one right now.”
“I know.” His tone was serious when he said, “Same goes for me.”
“Oh.” She smiled, pleased.
“Just to be clear, though. I still want to sleep with you.”
She stopped walking and faced him. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Hide behind macho come-on lines.”
She expected him to deny it. Instead, he replied, “For the same reason that you fall back on your plastic Hollywood smile.”
She sobered.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I can tell the difference between a real Atlanta Jackson smile and the ones you manufacture for the masses.”
“Touché.” She plucked at the petals of one of the flowers in her bouquet.
“How about we make a deal?”
“I’m listening.”
“How about if we’re real with one another?”
“Flaws and all?” she wanted to know.
“Why not? What’s to lose? The way I see it, everyone thinks they’ve got us figured out based on all of the media hype. We both know they’re wrong.”
“So, you’re not an arrogant athlete with more testosterone than intelligence?”
“No more than you are a self-absorbed starlet who uses and discards men by the dozen.” At her startled expression, he said, “That was the quote I read on an Internet site the other day.”
Her eyelids flickered. “God, we’re a pair.”
“Only if you believe the tabloids,” he said. “So, deal?”
“Deal.”
They started walking again. A few minutes later, Angelo bent to pick a flower similar to the ones in her bouquet. He handed it to her.
“Thanks.”
“They’re pretty.”
“I thought so. I’m going to look them up online later, find out what they are.”
“Is that how you’re filling your time these days, trolling the Internet?”
“Yes, and, before you say anything, I’m loving it. I haven’t had a real vacation, and by real I mean a do-nothing sort of vacation, in years. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had one,” she said wryly.
All of her downtime away from a movie set was spent promoting a project, a product or herself. That was Zeke’s idea. Two birds with one stone and all that. Even the supposedly romantic getaways the pair of them had taken over the years had included jaunts to public places where the paparazzi were sure to spot them. Indeed, Atlanta sometimes wondered if Zeke wasn’t responsible for some of the anonymous tips to the tabloids that had divulged their locations and left her ducking for cover.
“Neither have I, and for good reason,” Angelo was saying. “Two days with little to do and I’m going stir crazy.”
“How can you be bored here?” She spread her arms wide.
“I’m not bored, I just feel…trapped.”
She turned, not sure she’d heard him correctly. His frown told her that she had.
“I know about feeling trapped,” she said quietly.
He was still frowning, but something in his expression had changed, softened in a way she couldn’t quite define. “I think you do.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“A friend to a friend?”
“That’s right.”
Though the way he was looking at her suggested more than friendly feelings.
“Then, yes.” His gaze grew intense as he studied her. Would he bare his soul and divulge some of his secrets? Would he kiss her? He did neither. Instead, he snatched the ball cap off her head. “You can set a match to this. God! The team manages to win one stinking World Series and suddenly everyone becomes a fan.”
She knew it was his intent to lighten the situation, so she allowed her laughter to ring out in the late afternoon. Another time, perhaps she wouldn’t let him off the hook so easily.
“Which team should I root for?”
“The best one out there.”
“Yours?”
“The Rogues.” Afterward, his expression darkened again, leaving her to wonder if it was mere clarification he sought with his answer or outright distance.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ATLANTA lost track of the time as they walked, but the lengthening shadows of the trees, as well as the indelicate protests of her empty stomach, told her it was getting close to dinner. Regardless, Franca would be done changing the linens by now.
They headed back to her villa, stopping when they reached his car. Though he probably found the gesture foolish, she handed him the flowers that she’d collected. They were drooping a little now.
“If you put them in water they should perk back up,” she said, not at all confident that would be the case.
“Thanks.”
He looked as ridiculous holding them as she would have looked outfitted in a catcher’s pads squatting behind home plate. He’d probably toss them out the window before he hit the first curve. Men weren’t sentimental.
Angelo surprised her by snapping the stem on one bloom. After tugging off her hat for the second time that day, he tucked the flower behind her ear.
“My Italian can use a lot of work, as you well know, but I’m aware of one word that applies in this case. Bella.”
Beautiful. She’d been called that before, in several different languages both on-screen and off. This time the compliment curled around her and she luxuriated in its embrace.
“Thank you.”
