Mr Destiny (16 page)

It was one of Kate's flaws he intended to correct as soon as they were married. There would be no more “off the rack” for
a woman carrying the Wellington name.

His surprise intruder turned around to face him.

She was breathtakingly beautiful. Classy. Chic. Nothing cheap-looking about her. Her services last night hadn't been cheap,
either.

Harold slammed the door behind him.

Stupid twit.

She's picked the wrong man to antagonize.

“Why, Harry,” she said, mischief dancing in her dark blue eyes. “You don't look happy to see me. And that certainly wasn't
your reaction last night.”

Harry?

Harold gulped.

Okay. She knew his name. She'd probably followed him back to the hotel. Probably slipped one of the desk clerks a few bills
for his name, too. That's all. No need to panic yet.

“Of course, I doubt they call you Harry back at your prestigious law firm in New York City, do they? I'm sure Harold is a
more appropriate name for the sole heir to the impressive Wellington dynasty your rich daddy started.”

Harold paled. “I don't know what you're trying to pull showing up here,” he said through clenched teeth. “But you have two
seconds to leave before I call the police.”

Her smile was lethal.

She glanced at the phone sitting beside the king-size bed. Tossing her long, dark hair back over one shoulder, she said, “Go
ahead and call, Harry. Tell the cops your story. Tell them how the prostitute you happily handed three G's last night, has
shown back up to bother poor little you when you aren't feeling quite so frisky.”

Harold took a menacing step in her direction.

She stepped forward herself, not one bit intimidated.

“Don't fuck with me,” he warned.

She laughed. “That's
not
what you said last night.”

She clicked opened the fancy clasp on her purse and pulled out a DVD disc. “Only one copy of many,” she assured him. She even
had the nerve to reach out and pat him sweetly on the cheek. “Poor Harry,” she said with a sigh. “I really do hate to do this
to you. But I've been trolling for a big fish like you for a long, long time.”

“Oh, I bet you have, you…”

“Carla,” she said, cutting him off before he could insult her. “My real name is Carla Matthews. So very happy to see you again.”

She stuck her hand out.

Harold ignored it, glaring at her.

“We both know what's on this disc, Harry,” she said, waving it under his nose. “You tell me. Do
you
think your uptown reputation could survive the world knowing you like to be spanked thoroughly for being a bad, bad boy?”

“Cut to the chase,” Harold hissed. “How much do you want?”

She tossed the disc on the bed, walked over to the wet bar, and poured herself a glass of bourbon. She swirled the amber liquid
around in the tumbler before she took a long sip. After licking her lips slowly and seductively, she smiled, and said, “It's
not
how much
I want, Harry. It's
what
I want.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched uncontrollably. “Keep talking.”

“I want respectability.”

Harold threw his head back and laughed. “As if money could buy a whore respectability.”

She smiled. “Sure it can, Harry. Money can buy even a whore respectability. If she marries the right man.”

His laugh was low and mean. “What self-respecting man would ever marry a whore?”

“Why you, Harry,” she said, lifting her glass in a toast. “Unless you want the pictures on that disc to show up on the Internet.”

Tony had to hand it to his family. Not one of them had mentioned another word about Kate all evening. Nor had anyone dared
to bring up the subject of the prediction. Not even after Uncle Vinny took Nonna home.

At last, Nonna's prediction was history.

Sadly, so was Kate.

He finished sweeping the main dining area, then glanced at his parents. They had their heads together at the cash register.
Papa counting money, Mama going over the night's receipts.

He'd let Tina off the hook by offering to stay behind and help close up. After all, it was Friday night. His cousin had a
hot date. As usual, he didn't.

Besides, he had another reason for hanging around until the restaurant closed. Since their little trip to the city morgue,
Joey Caborelli had been working at the restaurant on the weekends. The best way to keep any surly teen out of trouble was
to put him to work.

The kid hadn't let him down.

Joey had worked hard, and he did what he was told.

Tony knew the boy would never admit it, but he could tell by the pride he took in his work that Joey secretly liked having
some responsibility. He'd taken more pride in his appearance, too. He'd dropped the rapper punk look in favor of jeans that
fit and brand-name T-shirts like the Old Navy T-shirt he was wearing tonight. His dark hair was short now—and clean.

“What happened to your date?” Joey wanted to know when Tony walked back into the kitchen to put the broom and dust pan away.

“What date?”

“The blonde. She was hot.”

“She went back to Manhattan where she belongs,” Tony said, but he couldn't quite keep the disappointment out of his voice.

“Mama Gina said you were going to marry her.”

“Yeah, well Mama Gina said you were doing a good job cleaning up back here, too,” Tony grumbled, “but you missed a spot.”

He picked up a wet dish towel and threw it at the kid.

Joey caught it easily but ran the towel carefully back over the kitchen counter one more time, just in case.

“If you get your lazy butt in gear and finish up in here, I'll give you a ride home,” Tony said.

Joey frowned at him for a second. “Hey, you don't have to babysit me. I'm staying out of trouble.”

Tony shrugged. “Suit yourself. If you don't want to drive the GTO, fine by me.”

Joey's mouth dropped open. “Are you serious? You'd really let me drive the GTO?”

“Why wouldn't I?” Tony teased. “If you drive as slow as you work, there won't be any danger of your running into anything.”

Joey mumbled something under his breath, but he kicked into high gear when he started loading the dishwasher.

Tony's thoughts, however, wandered right back to Kate.

He'd driven to the restaurant instead of walking, just in case Kate needed a way back to the city.

She nixed that option in a hurry.

Doing them both a favor, Tony decided, when he thought about it. Still, there was the question about the ring that had kept
haunting him all evening.

Stop being such a masochist, dammit!

Tony grabbed a bag of trash and headed through the back door to the alley and the garbage cans.

Fully disgusted with himself, he couldn't believe he was still trying to find some evidence that Kate's engagement to Harold
wasn't solid. That was exactly what he'd been doing since the first day he met her—refusing fully to accept she was engaged
to someone else. He'd been hanging on her every word, studying her body language, even getting suspicious again tonight because
she'd forgotten to put her ring back on after her shower.

Idiot.

He'd even been lying to himself, reasoning that it was only a cop's instinct always to question everything and everybody.
But hell, who was he kidding? Being a cop had nothing to do with why he wanted to find some loophole in her relationship with
her big, important corporate attorney.

He'd wanted Kate for himself from the second he laid eyes on her.

Too damn bad.

She's going to marry Harold, and that's final.

But talk about the irony?

For the last twenty years he'd been telling anyone who would listen that his grandmother's predictions were ridiculous. It
was only fair, he supposed, that a whopper of a sucker punch had knocked him silly when his own prediction didn't come true.

“Hey!” Joey called out from the back doorway. “Who's dragging their feet now? I've been through in the kitchen for the last
five minutes.”

Tony jammed the lid down on the trash can and headed back inside. When he made it back into the main dining area of the restaurant,
Joey was already waiting by the front door. His mother was waiting patiently by the door, too—ready to lock up for the night.

He stopped and kissed his mother on the cheek.

The look in her eyes said she wanted to say more, but Tony knew she wouldn't. Despite her ability to change her mind in an
instant, his mother had said, “I give you my word,” about never bringing the subject up again. That was sacred. A person's
word was
not
something the Petrocelli family took lightly.

“You boys stay out of trouble,” was all she said when they headed out the door.

Tony tossed his hand back over his head and closed the door behind them. But he stood by the door until he heard his mother
turn the dead-bolt lock—signaling everything was locked up tight for the night. When he headed across the street to the GTO,
Joey sprinted in front of him, then turned around, walking backward with his hands in his pockets.

Tony looked at him. “Is there something on your mind?”

“You're really not going to marry that blonde?”

“No. She's going to marry someone else.”

“That blows.”

Tell me about it.

“You're not even going to see her again?”

“No. I promised if she'd come to the restaurant tonight, I'd never bother her again.”

“That was a dumb-ass thing to do.”

“Hey,” Tony said. “Be careful who you're calling a dumb-ass.”

“Well, it was a dumb-ass thing to do,” Joey said.

They reached the GTO and Tony walked around to the passenger side. Joey caught the keys when he tossed them over the top of
the car.

Yeah, King of the Dumb Asses, that's me all right.

Joey had nailed it perfectly first try.

Tony opened the passenger-side door and slid onto the seat, in a worse mood than he'd been in before.

“Seat belt first. Always,” Tony lectured.

Joey buckled his seat belt, then turned on the ignition. He looked up and down the street cautiously and pulled slowly away
from the curb.

At least he was on vacation for the next week, Tony reminded himself. He'd leave town first thing in the morning, which wouldn't
be a moment too soon. His being gone would allow plenty of time for everyone in the family to talk about the whole Mama-praying-and-Kate-not-being-his-future-bride
episode without him being present. By the time he got back, the entire ordeal would have had time to blow over—becoming only
a distant memory for the family.

For him, it would be a different story.

He could only hope Kate would become a distant memory for him someday.

Thank God for vacations.

He thought briefly about where Kate and Harold would do their vacationing once they were married. The answer he came up with
was the equivalent of jabbing a hot poker deep into an open wound.

Manhattan corporate attorneys went to the Hamptons.

Cops from Queens headed to the Catskills.

And this cop wouldn't have it any other way.

He'd bought the lakefront cabin a couple of years earlier. Stolen it actually, because it was in such bad need of repair.
Hunter Mountain was a great place to hang out in the summer, and it was right in the middle of ski heaven in the winter. Plus,
it was only about a two-hour drive from the metropolitan New York area.

He had gotten the cabin into great shape, but there was still plenty of work left to do around the place to keep him busy.
Tackling the repairs on the dock, for instance. That chore had been on his to-do list much longer than he'd intended. Repairing
the dock should be more than enough to keep his mind off Kate.

Hell, yeah!

Just thinking about heading up to the cabin put him in a better mood. A total change in scenery—that's what he needed. Fresh
mountain air. Plenty of physical labor to wear his feeling-sorry-for-himself ass out before he became an official member of
the Piss & Moan Club.

He'd be a brand-new man when he got back.

No doubt about it.

“I was thinking,” Joey said, as he pulled to a stop at the red light. “Maybe you should call her. You know, just in case the
blonde's changed her mind about marrying that other guy.”

“Would you shut up about the blonde, already?”

“I can tell you really like her. You've been looking kinda sick ever since she left the restaurant tonight.”

“You're going to look kinda sick if you don't drop the subject,” Tony warned. He motioned Joey forward when the light turned
green. “Now shut up and drive.”

Joey looked both ways again, then eased forward slowly.

“What happened to that ‘to achieve the impossible you have to attempt the ridiculous’ crap you were telling me about when
I told you what I really want to do is be a movie director? Was that just crap? Or do you really believe anything is possible
if you put your mind to it?”

Tony looked over at him. “You're really starting to piss me off, Joey.”