“May I escort you to the door?” Diego asked Misty.
“In a minute. I need to speak to someone first.”
“Thank you for the birthday present,” Maggie said.
“My pleasure, hon. How’s the design coming?”
“I’ll have the sample ready in a couple of days. It’s very romantic.”
“Romantic. Well, there’s a first time for everything. My buyers will be shocked.” She winked at Maggie as she glided by, then came up beside Brendan and bent to whisper something in his ear.
“Are you working with Misty?” Diego asked Maggie as they waited, glued to the scene like onlookers at an accident.
“Um, I had an idea for a new product for her line—a departure from her usual stuff. What do you suppose she’s saying to him?”
“I’d like to know,” he said. “It’s an interesting combination, don’t you think? She would eat him alive.”
“I don’t know. I think he’s used to getting what he wants.”
He cast her a cool glance. “Has he been bothering you, Magnolia?”
Why. he’s jealous, she realized, his tone of voice saying more than his words. How intriguing. How very intriguing. “These plates are getting heavy.”
J.D. watched her walk away, then he mentally shook his head as Misty strolled back, her hips swaying provocatively, and accepted his escort from the room.
“Thanks again for the other night,” she said, her husky voice full of emotion.
“My pleasure.”
“I’m not too sure about that. But you saved my life. I won’t forget it.”
“Right time, right place,” he said with a shrug. “Quit hanging around those kinds of bars, Misty. Trouble’s the only thing you’re going to find.”
“Which begs the question of why you were there, doesn’t it?” She sighed. “Sometimes I just need to be where no one knows or cares who I am.”
He heard the loneliness in her voice. He, too, lived a lonely life, although for very different reasons. His was a loneliness that meant safety for those he cared about.
“Where’d you go, lover?” Misty asked J.D. as they reached the door of the club.
He smiled at her. “Not far.”
“Are you sure I can’t repay you with a little more than thanks?”
“I make it a rule to avoid personal business with guests.”
She fingered his lapel. “You don’t break rules, I suppose.”
“Not personal ones.”
“An interesting answer.”
“If I had accepted you, you’d be backpedaling your way out of it right now. You and I both know there’s someone more than willing to end your loneliness, Misty.”
“We’ve sung this tune before.” Her blond Adonis opened the door behind her. “Good night, then. Oh, J.D.? I did remember red’s your favorite color.”
He puzzled over her words as the door closed on her rich laugh. Returning to the dining room, he observed Hastings slipping something into Maggie’s skirt pocket.
“Thank you for joining us tonight,” J.D. said as he came up beside them.
Hastings’s irritation at the interruption was hardly noticeable, only a slight twitch of his left eye.
J.D. didn’t question what intrigued the man. Magnolia possessed a lethal combination of beauty, energy and sensuality that she didn’t seem aware of, making her even more attractive. If asked, she’d probably call herself a pretty good flirt. And certainly she possessed a kind of wholesomeness that kept most men at flirtation distance, the place she’d established for guests and members of the Carola, no matter how famous, how powerful or how insistent they were.
She moved in and out of roles as situations warranted, a skill he admired, even though it often meant she played a role with him, as well.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” Hastings said.
“Good night, sir,” she said.
“I’ll clear the table while you change,” J.D. said after Hastings left.
She looked at him, surprised. “A lofty malître d’ would sink so low as to clear a table?”
“I thought perhaps you’d be tired. After all, you’re thirty now. Old. Your stamina must be fading.”
Maggie responded to his teasing by crossing her arms and cocking a hip. She looked around, making sure they were alone. “I can finish my work here, jog home and still have enough energy to make love, honey. I’m in my prime.”
She shivered as he ran a finger along her jaw Fog crept into her brain, masking logical thought.
“What did Hastings put in your pocket?” he asked so softly she had to lean toward him to hear the whole sentence.
“Huh?”
“Hastings. Did he give you money?”
The synapses in her brain started transmitting information again.
“Of course he gave me money,” she said as she turned and picked up the dirty dishes. “A tip. You know, this hot-and-cold business of yours is really gettin’ on my nerves.”
“How much of a tip?”
“None of your business.”
He slid a hand into her skirt pocket, shocking her. The cup rattled against the saucer in her right hand; in her left, the fork slid off the dessert plate. The feel of his hand against her hip, however briefly, brought forth all sorts of images that danced before her eyes, then faded into confusion over whether he was establishing a closer relationship with her or preventing her from having one with someone else.
“What are you doing?” She tried to jerk away. He held her in place as he drew the folded currency from her pocket and turned it to look at its value.
“Dios. A hundred dollar bill, Magnolia?”
She stared in amazement. Brendan always left her a generous tip, but this was staggering. She swallowed. “I give good service.”
He unfolded the bill, revealing a white business card with a phone number handwritten on the back. He held it close to her face for her to read, front and back.
She looked from the card to him. “At least he didn’t write, ‘There’s more where this came from.”’
“It is implied.”
“I’m not stupid, honey. I know what it means.”
“Do not call me ‘honey.’ You use your Southernness like a shield, when it is convenient. I am serious here.”
“You think you don’t fall back on your background, as well? Listen to yourself. Do not. lt is. I am. And your machismo gets pretty tiresome, too. You don’t have the right to tell me what to do. But that’s been your choice all this time, not mine, as you well know.” She angled her right hip his way. “Return my property, please.”
Holding her captive with his dark, unblinking gaze, he deliberately tucked the card and money into the breast pocket of her shirt. She held her breath as he stuffed them to the bottom, the backs of his fingers more than lightly grazing her nipple, which pebbled at the first touch of his fingers and ached as he pulled his hand away.
She fought for every ounce of control she could muster. “If you’re done manhandling me...?”
J.D.