you?” She heard herself say the words and winced, knowing they sounded almost as though she were flirting. She hadn’t meant to do that.
The way his mouth twisted in a half grin let her know he’d heard it that way, too. “I suppose I could be convinced,” he said softly.
She gazed into his dark eyes and somehow couldn’t look anywhere else. The sound of the rain, the momentary isolation, the way they were pressed so closely, all blended together to weave an enchantment around them. He was going to kiss her. She could see it in his eyes. And if she didn’t watch out, she was going to end up kissing him back.
“No,” she murmured, trying to dredge up the strength to resist.
“Yes,” he countered, lowering his lips to hers.
“No,” she said again, shaking her head.
“Why not?” he asked, so close to her.
“The baby…”
“The baby’s asleep. He can’t see a thing.”
“This is all wrong.” Looking up, she searched his eyes. “We’re not even supposed to be on this date.”
“This isn’t a date,” he said, his own eyes deep and smoky with something nameless that set her pulse pounding. “It’s an encounter. A moment in time.” He dropped a quick kiss on her lips. “A bit of magic. You’ll forget all about it by morning.”
“I don’t think so,” she said with a sigh. “You really shouldn’t…”
“But I want to,” he said huskily. “And you taste so good.”
And then he took her mouth with his and kissed her like she’d never been kissed before.
IN THE harsh and revealing sunlight of morning, it all looked a bit fantastical. Cari buried her face in her pillow and wished she’d done a better job pulling together the drapes on her tall windows before she’d gone to sleep. She wasn’t ready to face reality yet. Did last night really happen? Impossible.
The phone rang, but she let the answering machine take it. Her heart thumped as she waited for the voice she knew was coming.
“Cari?”
Yes. It was Max. His deep baritone sent chills all through her system. She drew in a shuddering breath.
“Go away,” she whispered into the empty air.
“Cari? Surely you are there. I wouldn’t bother you so early, but I need a bit of advice. If you could pick up…”
She knew she shouldn’t pick up. In her sleepy, morning state, she imagined herself standing at a fork in the road. Her life could go one way or the other, depending on what she did in the next few moments.
She knew what she should do. She should mark the whole experience from the night before as lessons learned and move on. She had to ignore him. Go back to real life and not fool around with fairy-tale princes who came breezing in from Italy with a knowing smile and a boatload of hunkiness. She shouldn’t pick up. She knew better. She wasn’t going to do it.
“Cari? Please?”
She writhed beneath her covers. Don’t do it, Cari!
“Cari, it’s about the baby.”
The baby? Well, if it was about the baby…
“Cari?”
With a sigh she reached out and picked up.
“Hello,” she said somewhat mournfully.
“Buongiorno,” he responded.
There was a long pause while neither of them said anything. Cari wondered if he was as hesitant about this as she was. After all, last night it had been assumed they would probably never see each other again. Hadn’t it?
He’d kissed her and she’d swooned. Yes, there was no way to deny it. She’d gone all gaga on him. Luckily a cab had come cruising up before she’d made a complete fool out of herself, and they’d piled in and raced back to the Longhorn Lounge where they’d found Tito waiting anxiously. The two dates they should have been with were long gone, of course. That was only natural. Tito then left for the hotel with the baby while Max headed for the police station to make a stolen car report. And Cari had slipped into her own car and turned toward home, still tingling. Still swooning. Still out of her mind!
But pretty darn sure she would never see or hear from him again. After all, their little—what had he called it? Their encounter? Whatever it was, it had been illegitimate in the first place. Time to wipe it out of her life and her mind.
Only, here he was on the telephone.
“How did you find my number?” she asked at last.
“I have people on my staff who can find these things for me.”
“Oh.”
She supposed he meant Tito. Or were there others? Hmm. She wasn’t sure she liked that.
“How is he?” she asked.
“Who? The baby?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Has his mother shown up?”
“No. I’ve got someone monitoring the apartment periodically, just in case.”
“Good.” She couldn’t imagine what could have kept a mother away from that beautiful baby. “But you said there was some sort of problem?” she asked quickly. That was what she’d picked up for, after all.
“Not exactly a real problem,” he said. “But…I’ve hired a live-in nanny.”
“Oh. Well, good. You checked her references?”
“Of course.”
She let out a long breath. She didn’t let herself think a lot about the baby she’d held so closely the night before. That was all a part of that other fork in the road she wasn’t going to take—even if she had picked up the phone.
“Okay, then.”
She waited. He had something else to say, but he was having trouble getting it out. She could picture him looking thoughtful, brow furrowed, then she blinked that image away. If she kept doing that sort of thing, she would be swooning again.
“Max, what is it?”
“Nothing, really, it’s just that…” He sighed. “Listen, I’m just not sure about this nanny thing. I did the regular vetting, but what the hell do I know about nannies? Or babies, for that matter. And you seem to know a lot. So I thought maybe you could come over and see if you think she knows what she’s doing.”
Wow. He needed her. That was almost enough to get those tingles started again. Everything in her wanted to say yes. She cared about the baby, but there was more. To see him again, be with him doing something important, wouldn’t that be ideal? But no, that would be wrong—on so many levels. So she didn’t say yes.
“No,” she said instead. Then she waited for the rush of self-congratulations that would surely follow. Funny, but that didn’t happen. “I’m sorry, Max,” she went on, falling back on the honest truth. “I’ve got to go to work.”
“Work? You work?”
It almost made her smile to realize how little they knew about each other. They’d shared a night of intense emotions and setbacks, more in one night than she’d had in months. She felt as if she’d glimpsed a clear picture of his character, his personality. And yet she didn’t know much about him, what he’d done with his life, what he cared about, and he didn’t know those things