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The feline woman was still two dozen feet away when she called out the name of her prey. “Carlo!”
Lucy couldn’t help it, she stepped closer to him. Her hip brushed his groin, and she all at once recalled her plan for the evening. Not sticking close to Carlo. Not fostering dreams that couldn’t be.
Remember? She was a single, sophisticated woman at a party. A single, sophisticated woman who should be looking for other single sophisticates, but of the masculine variety. Clearing her throat, she ignored the approaching woman and started edging away from Carlo’s body. “I think I’ll go—”
“Stay,” he said against her ear. It felt more like a kiss than a command and she froze, making it easy for him to hook two fingers into the waistline at the back of her dress. She felt his knuckles press against her naked skin.
“Carlo—”
“I’ll give you a raise if you’ll just play along.”
There wasn’t any more time to protest. The brunette appeared before them on a waft of Chanel No. 5. “Mr. Milano,” she said in a scolding voice. “This is beyond fashionably late.”
Then the woman moved in for the kill—uh, greeting—and Lucy tried to edge away again. Carlo’s fingers curled tighter on her dress, though, plastering her as snugly against him as a “Hi, My Name Is” sticker.
The action forced the other woman to settle for an air kiss in the vicinity of his chin. Then she gave Lucy a cursory glance. “I’m Claudia Cox,” she said, holding out her hand even as her gaze returned to Carlo. “So… Who’s your little friend?”
Lucy gritted her teeth and gave a little handshake as Carlo answered. “This is Lucy Sutton. She’s just back in town from Phoenix.”
Claudia flicked another glance in her direction. “Really? I thought you were seeing Tamara.”
His hand slipped out of Lucy’s dress to slide around her waist and then press possessively against her hip bone. She tried to look as if her knees were melting—for Claudia’s benefit—without standing as if her knees were really melting—for Carlo’s.
“I’m with Lucy now.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and her scalp prickled from crown to nape.
“Lucky Lucy,” Claudia commented, wearing a thin smile.
Lucy thought it was time to chime in and prove to them all she still had a voice. “That’s just what I say to myself every time I hear this man say my name. It’s nice to meet you, Claudia.” Then she entwined her fingers with those of Carlo’s that were wrapped at her hip and tried to subtly peel them off before her dress started to smolder.
His touch made her just that hot.
Carlo allowed their joined hands to fall to her side, but stroked hers with a caressing thumb when Claudia’s gaze dropped to their fingers.
“We need to set up a meeting,” the other woman told Carlo, her voice a bit sharp, “since it doesn’t look as if you’re prepared to talk business tonight.”
Behind her, Lucy felt Carlo straighten. His thumb stopped its distracting movement. “What’s up, Claudia?”
The other woman looked at Lucy. “Do you mind…?”
“Oh, no,” she said, taking the hint. “I’ll just go over to the bar and leave you two alone—”
“Sweetheart, you know I don’t like you out of my sight.” Carlo’s fingers squeezed hers. Tight.
Lucy swallowed her wince. “Isn’t he cute?” she said to Claudia, then looked up at her date. “Darling, I won’t go far.”
“Baby, I don’t think so.” His hand gave hers another warning squeeze. “Stay with me.”
Baby? That’s what she was supposed to be proving she wasn’t tonight. And she knew he was a boy big enough to handle leopard lady and whatever the heck she wanted to discuss in private.
Lucy beamed Carlo a sickly smile. “Handsome, Claudia wants to talk about business, and you know how little me gets so sleepy when talk turns to numbers and such.”
Of course, that was uncomfortably close to the truth. And uncomfortably terrible for someone who’d graduated with honors and an accounting degree to admit.
Claudia shook her head, apparently impatient with them both. “It’s not about numbers. I only wanted to let you know that I’ve okayed a parents group from a local high school to help out with the security.”
“Street Beat security?” He sent Lucy a glance, then went on to explain, “Claudia’s the festival promoter.”
“For the past five years,” the older woman added before turning her attention to Carlo again. “The parents are going to use their pay as a fund-raiser for their kids’ senior prom. The fairgrounds did something similar last summer. It will be good PR for us.”
He frowned. “But parents? I don’t know, Claudia. I’ll want to talk to the fair security people, and even if they think it went well, I’m not sure—”
“Oh, you should at least consider it,” Lucy interjected. “I was part of a community group that raised money in Phoenix last year during the hot air balloon festival weekend. We helped out with security and parking. It worked out great for everyone concerned.”
“Yeah?” Carlo lifted an eyebrow.
Even Claudia was looking at Lucy with more interest. “Yes,” she confirmed. “We had kids involved, too, because they’re always looking for ways to beef up their college applications with community service. If they were over sixteen and accompanied by a parent, they were welcome, too.”
“Carlo,” Claudia said, looking less leopardlike and more thoughtful. “That sounds even better to me. I think it could increase future ticket sales if more teenagers are exposed to the festival.”
“I see your point, but—”
“It’s not supplanting your security plans,” Claudia insisted. “It’s supporting them. The volunteers can do simple things like move barriers and keep order in the food lines.”
Carlo switched his gaze to Lucy. “How much do you know about how it worked in Phoenix?”
She shrugged. “It was my baby. I pulled the volunteers together, I worked with the regular balloonfest security people, I spent the weekend slathered in sunscreen and passing out water bottles. It’s like Claudia said, we were essentially gofers for the professional security team and we made good money for a local women’s shelter.”
“Sounds like you made it a success.”
“It didn’t take a brain trust, just attention to detail and an ability to organize people. I can give you the phone number of a guy in Phoenix—”
“Don’t bother,” he said. “Any calls that need to be made you can do yourself. This endeavor in San Diego will be your baby, too.”
She stared at him. “My baby?”
“Your project. You work for McMillan & Milano.”
“Well, yes.” And apparently in his rush to deflect predator Claudia’s interest he hadn’t concerned himself about what the other woman might think about his mixing business with pleasure inside his own office.
“So I’m putting you in charge of the high school volunteers at the Street Beat festival.”
“I work for McMillan & Milano answering your phone and bringing you your mail,” she protested.
Carlo waved it away. “Because you agreed to help out with that job as a favor, not because it’s the position you’re suited for. You’re the one with experience managing a volunteer activity like this. And even though you say it doesn’t take a brain trust, I happen to know you have a sharp mind, as well as a college degree your parents are very proud of. So, I’ve decided. It’s your project, Lucy.”
It’s my project. Just something else to potentially screw up in the next three weeks because, lucky for her, the music event was scheduled at the end of her time with Carlo’s company. Was it now that she told him? Was it now she admitted that in the years since graduation she’d yet to find a position she was suited for? Surely, like the Suttons, he’d see it as a major flaw in her character that not one of her accounting jobs had floated her boat. Unlike her forge-straight-ahead family, she’d yet to find her path to success. She opened her mouth.
Claudia beat her to the punch. “Carlo…” The other woman’s lips moved into a moue of distress and she lowered her voice as if she considered Lucy deaf, as well as dumb. “Do you really think your little phone answerer is the right person for the job?”
Little.
Little phone answerer.
Lucy’s spine snapped straight as she heard in those words and that voice echoes of other words, other voices.
Little Lucy.
Lucy Goosey.
Lucy won’t do it right this time, either.
Carlo lifted one dark brow. “Lucy?”
She swallowed. No way could she back down now, not in front of Claudia of the leopard dress and superior attitude, not in front of Carlo, who would likely pass along her balking to her sister and brothers, not in front of herself who had so many things to prove.
And now add one more.
“Don’t worry, Claudia,” she said. “His little phone answerer will be just fine.”
Oh, how she wished she’d stuck to her plan and unstuck herself from Carlo. It was too late, though. There was nothing else to do but accept, and then succeed at this Street Beat assignment. She pushed away her panic at the thought, even though in the past three years she hadn’t truly felt successful at much besides finding another job after leaving the previous one behind.
Somehow, Lucy had gotten away from him. The longer Carlo didn’t see her among the crowd at the Street Beat party, the more anxious he was to get his hands on her—uh, correct that. The more anxious he was to get a bead on where she was. Hands off, Milano. It was the cop inside him talking again, and his good sense, too. Hands off.
Shoving them inside his pockets, he scanned the room, his gaze searching the people either standing in small groups or gyrating to the rock music on the small dance floor. Where the hell was she?
Keeping an eye on her was his obligation, wasn’t it? Because he’d invited her tonight, because he was her boss, and most of all, because he’d known her and her family since Lucy still had training wheels on her bicycle.
Before adulthood had given her hips and smooth, curvy legs and that seductive smile that had him heading toward her for the intercept. Blame it on his cop intuition again.
Then Carlo’s gaze narrowed and a skitter of irritation shot up his spine. No wonder he was on edge. Take a look at her dance partner! Long shaggy hair, pierced eyebrow, motorcycle boots. He picked up his pace.
Consequently, he was nearby when a wild spin took her into his territory. Carlo caught her in his arms.
Her face flushed, she looked up at him. “Oh.”
His hands slid from her shoulders to her hips. He’d held that sweet curve of hers before—and had had trouble keeping his mind focused on Claudia and business.
He squeezed. There was the smallest give to her flesh and his fingers sank into it as he took a deep breath of her tempting, female scent. “You ran away from me,” he said.
“Ran away? Carlo, I didn’t know you cared,” she teased. Her lashes dropped, and she gave him another one of those flirtatious, womanly glances.
Just like that, his male instincts overrode his inner cop talk, causing his palms to slide up her curves to her waist as he drew her nearer. “Lucy…”
Lucy!
His hands dropped. This was Lucy, and she was here as his family friend, his temporary employee, as someone he should be looking after, not looking to touch.
She used her new freedom to sketch him a wave before twirling back onto the dance floor and into the proximity of the grinning possible felon, who then grabbed her by the hand. Irritation spiking again, Carlo elbowed the man standing beside him.
“Excuse me. Do you know that guy over there?”
“Huh?”
“The one with the red lightning bolt crawling up his skinny right arm.” The dude was dressed in leather pants, of all things, and a muscle shirt that clung to his scrawny chest.
“That’s Wrench.”
Good God. He was named after a tool. “Wrench who?”
“Just Wrench. He’s the lead singer of Silver Bucket.”
Silver Bucket. Before she’d disappeared on him, he’d listened to Lucy discuss with Claudia the musical lineup for the Street Beat festival. That had gotten the older woman’s attention away from Carlo and he’d been glad. After a few minutes it was clear Lucy knew her music, impressing Claudia and amusing Carlo.
Until now. She’d professed a deep love for the music of Silver Bucket and here she was boogeying down with Silver Bucket’s lead singer. Wrench.
For God’s sake, that wasn’t funny.
Frowning, he settled back on his heels to watch what happened next. The protective stance and attitude was just what he needed, he decided, to put away those dangerous and recurring moments he’d spent seeing Lucy as a woman.
Of course, she wasn’t a little girl any longer, either. No one seeing her in that dress—two hankies, no matter how she denied it—could see her as anything less than an attractive, desirable, adult female.
The lead singer had noticed, that’s for sure.
“Wrench,” Carlo muttered.
Though loud enough, apparently, for the man standing next to him to hear. He cocked a brow in Carlo’s direction. “You do know Silver Bucket, right?”
“Uh…” Great, he was going to be forced to admit that he was a fuddy-duddy.
The other man took pity on him. “They’re the ones known for their shock-and-awe pyrotechnics show during their signature song, ‘Mosh Pit.’ It always works the crowd into a frenzy.”
Shock-and-awe pyrotechnics. “Mosh Pit.”
Frenzy.
Tension grabbed the back of Carlo’s neck and he took his eyes off Lucy to seek out Claudia. There wasn’t going to be any pyrotechnics, mosh pits or, for that matter, frenzies at the upcoming festival. Not when he was head of security.
With a glimpse of Claudia near the bar and thwarting possible future catastrophe at the forefront of his mind, he cast a last glance at Lucy and then set his jaw and left her unguarded. Surely she wouldn’t go far.
Ten minutes later, Claudia’s promises had appeased his uneasiness. Five minutes later, it was back again. Lucy was nowhere to be found. And neither was Wrench.
Her voice echoed in his head. “I just adore that band.”
Carlo’s mind abandoned common sense and leaped to a worst-case scenario. If she eloped with Wrench, her family would never forgive him. He would never forgive himself.
Lucy was like a…a…almost like a sister to him.
Sister. Right.
