“Catch him? He’s a mobster out to get me.”
“And you called me. I’m not about to let the bastard get away with what he’s done. My mission was to get you to a safe place and let the cops catch him. Besides, Salvatore Vito isn’t exactly the trustworthy type. No telling if he’d actually leave you alone even if he did a pinky swear on it.”
“Now you’re teasing me.” She stated the obvious and felt the sting, along with a flutter. The smile automatically took its place on her face.Down girl. This man was too damn attractive for fair play.
He stared at her as if she were the answer to a puzzling question before saying what he had on his mysterious mind.
“But it could work out. We could work with the police to set a trap. We’ll head back to LA first thing in the morning. O-five hundred, to be exact.”
The plane descended and she glanced out the window to see the lit-up city of what she presumed to be Boston against the dark sky. They’d lost three damn hours.
“Where are we going now?”
“My place. Like I said.”
“I imagined you lived in the suburbs. Some place sedate and quiet.”
“Some placeaverage?” He smirked.
She refused to blush. She never blushed. She gave him a smile. As usual, he didn’t react, at least not that she could see. They Ubered from Logan airport to the winding, gritty innards of Boston.
As the small car threaded its way through a narrow street, passing old men sitting on the sidewalks in lawn chairs as people of all kinds walked around, she felt the old-worldish charm.
“Where the hell do you live?
“North End. Used to be all Italian. Mob central. Now it’s more a mix of young professionals and poor college students. Depending.”
The car stopped in front of a five-story brick building built practically on top of the street with a deep well cut into it for the doorway. Joe tossed a twenty-dollar bill at the driver and opened the door, taking her hand to pull her out his door with him.
On the narrow sidewalk, she said, “You know they get paid electronically, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “I like to tip in cash.”
He led her to the deeply set door and unlocked it with a big old key. The door, substantial like him, opened easily, unlike him. The narrow hallway was small, stark, and dim with only wall sconces lighting the interior. Holding onto her hand still, as if she were a toddler—or a kidnap victim—he pulled her with him up the wood stairs to the right. She held onto the polished industrial metal handrail and looked up as they climbed.
“No elevator? What floor do you live on?”
“Fifth. There’s an elevator, but it’s currently out of operation. And it’s slow.” He looked at her over his shoulder as if to assess her progress and she smiled. She took every opportunity to smile and be pleasant, hoping to pry the stiff rod from his spine and hoping the stiffness would lodge elsewhere. She would love to see him relaxed and unguarded and himself. She longed to be let into his world, to see him fully, to be his friend. Why, she couldn’t say. Other than the obvious. But he was so difficult she didn’t know why she continued to bother. Maybe because she was essentially his captive. More likely it was because she was captivated by the promise of passionate depths to this enigmatic man.
Finally, they reached the top floor and he opened the door to their left, inviting her with an outstretched arm to precede him inside. He let go of her hand and the immediate sense of desertion assailed her, as if the switch to a powerful heat source had been shut off and she hadn’t realized how cold it was. Turning away from him lest he read her melodramatic mind, she stepped inside Average Joe Temple’s apartment.
The idea of staying with him at his neat compact apartment sent a new warming tingle through her. Neat because it was so spare there wasn’t enough there for anything to be out of place. A couple of books. One photo of him in uniform, presumably with his family, where he looked even younger than he did now. She picked it up and wondered if they let people join the service at twelve.Boyishly charmingdidn’t even begin to describe the face smiling back at her, full-on, with a force she wanted to experience in person. A lot.
It suddenly became her purpose over the next few hours while they were at his place to see that smile aimed at her at its full lethal wattage. Her gut fluttered in that familiar way, but with an extra twist. The twist had to be from fear. Not because she was in danger from some mobster, although it probably should have been that, but because he, Joe Temple—who she decided to mentally dub Joe-Stirred-Not-Shaken, more for his unperturbable demeanor than for him being Bond-like—was no lady-killer. Or at least not on purpose. She sensed he probably had no patience for trite flirtations, could care less for admiring glances from beautiful women, and most of all had no patience for hero worship.
She’d seen the look in his eyes when she let hers slip. They’d gone cold and her gut went tight the way it did when she knew she’d made a wrong move. She was used to strategy in relationships, used to the chess game of negotiating egos and personalities. After all, she had lived, worked, and breathed Hollywood and the film and television industries ever since she could remember and probably before that.
He came up behind her and removed the small framed photo from her hand, setting it back on the lamp table.
“Do you want anything to eat, drink before we go to bed?”
The catch and tumble low in her gut at his words were completely unwarranted. She knew the words didn’t mean anything to him, but she let her teasing smile play on her face anyway because it was who she was and he would have to deal with her. She had the upper hand in this relationship, didn’t she? She was the client.
He smirked, then rolled his eyes, but she could tell it was more good-natured and less irritated. One point in her favor, but his smirk wasn’t even close to that full-wattage smile she craved.
“I must be all amped up from being chased by gunmen or something, but sleep is the last thing on my mind. You have any wine in this joint?”
“This joint? What are you, playing the role of a woman being chased by a mobster—from the twenties?”