Hot & Bothered (15 page)

A
JAZZ QUARTET PLAYED
softly at the end of the hotel ballroom where John and Victoria stood, but the woman draped in diamonds had no problem making herself heard as she leaned forward to peer at Victoria's naked hand. “Why aren't you wearing an engagement ring, dear?”

As soon as he realized Victoria's response wasn't likely to progress beyond a blank stare, John slipped his arm around her waist. “She didn't want one, ma'am,” he said. “We plan on going the wedding band route.” He stroked his thumb up and down Victoria's side as he flashed the woman his most charming, just-between-you-and-me smile. “Tori wants simple, but me, I'd like to see her in something with a lot of flash—something that any idiot can see from a football field away means she's taken. I'm trying to talk her into one of those three-diamond numbers.”

The woman stared at him in fascination and for all that John was accustomed to getting what he wanted by charming the pants off women, her intense interest gave him an actual moment of discomfort.

Then she blinked. “An excellent choice.” Pulling her gaze away from him, she leveled a look at Victoria. “You'd be wise to listen to him, dear. One can never go wrong with diamonds.” With a final speculative glance
at John, she excused herself and set off after a passing waiter circulating through the crowd with champagne.

Silence fell between John and Victoria, filled only by the music and lighthearted chatter of the guests gathered to celebrate their engagement. Pasting on a smile, he tipped up Tori's chin with a gentle fingertip and gazed into her eyes. He was conscious of appearing the besotted groom-to-be to the casual observer, but his voice was anything but smitten when he murmured, “You're going to have to do a whole lot better than this if you expect anyone to actually believe we're getting married.”

To his surprise, she nodded. “I know. I'm sorry. She caught me off guard, and I'm not much of an improviser, I'm afraid.” A garbled laugh escaped her. “Oh, hell, who am I fooling? I'm not any kind of actor at all—let alone a natural like you and Esme.”

His smile grew genuine at the thought of his daughter. God, that kid. Spending time with her this past week had been a lot like recon missions used to be back in his Corps days—the rush of adrenaline, the didn't-make-a-lick-of-sense combination of terror and happiness at thrusting himself in the face of danger. Each time he'd walked away from one of his sessions with her, he'd been so jazzed he'd barely known up from down. And if
that
wasn't uncharacteristic he didn't know what was. Once or twice he'd even questioned all his reservations about trying to be a real dad. But who knew? Where was it written that he'd turn out to be a chip off the old block? Hell, maybe he wouldn't be the complete bust at parenting he'd always assumed he'd be. Esme seemed to enjoy his company well enough.

Of course that could be nothing more than like calling to like. Because he was discovering that his daughter was
similar to him in a lot of ways. And it did something to him that he couldn't deny. Every time he spied one of his own qualities in the little girl—even those not-so-brag-worthy ones like his flair for the clandestine or his way of manipulating a situation for his own benefit—it elicited just one more thrills-n-chills mix of panic and pride. Right this moment, though, all he could feel was the pride and he grinned at Victoria. “She's something, isn't she?”

A return smile curved her lips and the tense set of her shoulders relaxed. “Yes, she is. I'm glad you've been spending some time with her.”

“So am I. She's a pistol. It's hard to believe the kid's only five, because she's sure as hell an operator.” He laughed. “I wonder if she'd be interested in a career in the Marines? Or, hey, I could always use her at Semper Fi. If I start her off now, in fact, she'll probably be running the joint by the time she turns ten.”

Victoria threw back her head and laughed, and it was a deep, infectious, genuine belly laugh that struck John like a karate chop to the solar plexus. He stilled, staring down at her.

This was the second time tonight she'd managed to knock the breath right out of his chest. The first had been when he'd seen her sweep down the open staircase of the Hamilton mansion before the party began. Her hair was swept up in one of those styles that seemed to challenge the laws of physics. The whole heavy mass appeared mere seconds away from tumbling down around her shoulders, yet somehow it defied gravity and stayed in place. She looked both classy and sexy in the floor-length bronze gown that skimmed her figure and bared her smooth shoulders and creamy cleavage.

It was the dichotomy between her cool classiness and
hot sexuality that had been driving him crazy ever since he'd found himself sucked back into her orbit—despite his fierce determination to resist. He didn't know how to reconcile the bright-eyed woman he'd once watched eat lobster with her bare hands and laugh as butter dripped down her sun-kissed chest with the elegant society princess she appeared to be now.

But for tonight, for this brief evening out of time, he didn't feel like worrying it to death. “Hoo-yah,” he breathed. “Excuse me while I roll my tongue back into my head.” He shook his head with self-deprecating humor. “You know, in certain circles I actually have something of a reputation as a silver-tongued devil.” Then, shrugging aside the ineptitude he seemed to display only with her, he reached out to finger a loose tendril of hair near her temple. “Did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight? You do, you know. You're an absolute knockout.”

Flashing him a demure smile, she touched the back of her hair with the same feminine gesture he'd seen Esme use. “Thank you. You did mention that, but it's always lovely to hear again. You look very handsome yourself.” She gave him a thorough once-over. “That's no rented tux,” she finally stated and raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Don't tell me black tie is one of the things you tossed into your bag on that trip you mentioned taking up to Denver?”

“All right, I won't tell you.” He treated her to his finest smile—the one his friend Cooper dubbed the Miglionni Special. But when the slender brow remained elevated, he dropped the attempt to charm. Hell, it wasn't as if it had ever worked on her, anyhow, except when he wasn't consciously trying. “You want full disclosure? I needed to check in at the office to sign the payroll checks and see
how a couple of cases were going, so I made another trip up there on Friday.”

“Pretty soon you'll have more stuff down here than you do in your own place.” She gave him a cool-eyed look. “And interesting how you always manage to avoid mentioning these little trips until well after the fact—or perhaps more to the point, until I pin you down about them. You're not a real forthcoming guy when it comes to divulging personal information, are you, Rock—”

“
Here's
the happy couple!”

Made edgy by the direction the conversation was heading, John was pleased by the interruption…until he saw who it was. Great. Miles Wentworth.
Just
the guy he wanted to see at his engagement party. He didn't care that the engagement wasn't real—he still could have gone all night without running into this joker. Especially when he felt Victoria stiffen beside him.

He eyed Miles from the top of the man's gleaming blond hair to his impeccably polished dress shoes and gave him a curt nod. “Wentworth.”

Wentworth mispronounced Miglionni twice before waving a grandly dismissive hand. He promptly staggered in the wake of the motion and had to catch himself. “Whatever. Tricky business, those ethnic names.” Turning to Victoria, he flashed a loose smile and reached for her hand. “You look ravishing, darling. Dump this bum and marry me instead.” Although his diction was precise, he lurched slightly when he bent to press his lips against Tori's knuckles and John's eyes narrowed, much too familiar with the signs of inebriation to ever mistake them for anything but what they were.

It was Victoria, however, who said in a low, cool voice,
“You're drunk.” She extracted her fingers from the other man's grasp.

Frowning, Wentworth straightened. “Of course I'm drunk. You would be, too, if you'd been promised—” Snapping his mouth shut, he smoothed his hand over his hair.

Rocket went on red alert, but again Victoria beat him to the punch. “If you'd been promised what, Miles?” she demanded, her moss-green eyes going frigid. “Did Father promise you something?”

“Certainly not.” A look of cunning crossed his face, but it vanished in almost the same instant, to be replaced by a mournful puppy-dog expression. “I'm simply bereft that the woman I adore is marrying a man clearly not good enough for her.”

John was getting tired of the bum/wrong-side-of-the-tracks references. But even as he contemplated showing the stupid fuck exactly how uncivilized a guy trained in all manner of covert warfare could get, Victoria raised her chin and met Wentworth's gaze with her frostiest
You're the-Peon-and-I'm-the-Queen
look.

“As opposed to someone like you, you mean? Please. You seem to forget I've experienced your brand of ‘undying' love.” Arching the same cynical brow she'd used on Rocket earlier, she demanded, “So what did Father promise you this time to court my favor?”

Rocket stared at her.
This
time?

“It didn't have a damn thing to do with you,” Wentworth snapped. Clearly recalling his agenda, however, he quickly replaced both the combative tone and sour look with silky inflections and an adoring gaze. “Seeing you again is a separate issue entirely. It simply brings back a host of feelings both wonderful and…painfully embarrassing.”

She nodded as if understanding implicitly. “Of course it does. It's been more than a decade, but I have no trouble at
all
believing you're awash in unrequited love.” In spite of her coolly mocking tone, however, a flash of pain crossed her face.

Responding to it, John reached out for her, warming when she promptly slipped her arm through his and hugged it to her side. He treated the other man to a smile that was all teeth and territoriality as he absorbed the warm, plush textures of her breast against his biceps. But his smile softened when he looked down into Tori's face and without another glance in Wentworth's direction he said, “Hey, excuse us, won't you, mate? I believe they're playing our song.” He turned her away.

“If this is such a world-class love match,” Miles raised his voice to demand stiffly of their backs, “why isn't she wearing your ring?”

Victoria whipped back. “Because we're still arguing which band to get, the plain one I'm leaning toward or the three-stone one Rocket wants for me. Pass that along, will you? I'm growing a bit weary of answering the question, and as we so recently discovered, you're very prompt at dishing the latest dirt.”

Tickled to death with the way she'd snapped up and utilized his earlier fabrication, John threw back his head and laughed. Giving her a squeeze, he ushered her onto the postage-stamp-size dance floor and turned her into his arms. “That's my
girl!
”

Victoria, however, felt a great deal less amused. Her satisfaction at having the lie roll like honey off her tongue faded and, feeling faintly heartsick, she merely rested her head against John's solid chest.

As if he somehow understood her feelings, he tipped
his chin down to peer at her. “So who the hell is that clown to you, anyway?”

“Her first love.”

She jerked her head up to see that Miles had followed them onto the dance floor, where he stood practically on top of them, looking unbearably smug. Complete and utter rage tore a vicious swath through the shock that had momentarily frozen her in place, and damned if she'd allow his slant on their prior relationship to go unchallenged, she transferred her attention back to Rocket. “What he means, John, is that he pretended for a short while to care about me in order to secure my father's influence.”

She raked Miles with a contemptuous look. “You were my first infatuation, Slick. My love I saved for someone who actually wanted more from me than my usefulness on his climb up the corporate ladder. Valuing me somewhere along the lines of an expendable pawn wasn't the way to steal my heart.”

“Your feelings for me were deeper than infatuation and you know it! I realize I treated you badly, and I've regretted it ever since. But you loved me.” Raking her with his gaze, he raised an ash-blond eyebrow. “Otherwise you never would have given me your virginity.”

“A very big mistake as it turned out.”
But how perfectly lovely of you to bring it up.
John's arm had tightened around her at Miles's revelation and, glancing back up at him, she shrugged as if she weren't mortified right down to her tensely curled toes that her sexual history was being aired on a hotel dance floor. “I was seventeen,” she explained, “and it took me a while to comprehend he was playing a game. By the end of the summer, however, I'd learned enough to understand the only result Miles
desired from his big seduction was to gain an internship in one of my father's companies.”

“That's not true,” Miles protested. “I was crazy about you.”