Sure as Hell by Julie Kenner Read Free Book Online

pruney.”
    “You’ll still be beautiful.”
    “You’re a charmer,” she said, a smile in her voice.
    “And you know it’s true,” he said, teasing. “You are many things, but modest is not one of them.”
    That got a real laugh out of her. “Such a short time, and you already know me so well.”
    “It doesn’t feel short to me,” he said, then immediately regretted it. He was crossing the line into date language. Into relationship territory. And that, he knew, was verboten.
    “No,” she said. “Not to me, either.”
    The lightness in his heart caused by her words was tempered by the fact that she was physically pulling away. She stood up and pushed the door to the shower stall open, then wrapped herself in a fluffy terry-cloth towel. She leaned against the wall and started to finger-comb her hair.
    “Hey,” he said. “What about me?”
    “You wanted a towel? Too bad for me. I like the view without.”
    “Yeah?” He strutted forward, doing a convincing imitation of Mr. Nude Universe. “In that case, I’m just fine.”
    She laughed. “You may be fine—in fact, I’m in complete agreement—but you’re also dripping all over the floor.”
    “So? It’s not your floor.”
    “Good point. Drip away.”
    He started to go to her. Started to work up the nerve to cancel his flight and tell her he was staying.
    He couldn’t do it, though. The thought that he’d see nothing in her eyes but irritation—or, worse, disappointment—was too much to bear.
    The sharp ring of his cell phone from the bedroom drew his attention, and he hurried toward it, grabbing a towel as he went simply because he happened to know the wholesale cost of the carpet in the bedroom area. He glanced at the caller ID, saw his father’s name, and seriously considered letting it roll over to voice mail.
    He couldn’t do it, though. It was the same damn thing that had gotten him to Monte Carlo in the first place. That irritating Pavlov’s dog response to His Master’s Voice.
    He snapped open the cell phone, and barked an irritated, “What?”
    “Ah, bien ,” his father said. “You are still there. I had heard you might be aboard a plane.”
    “You heard.” Dante resisted the urge to bang his head against something hard. “Well, actually you heard right. I’m on my way out this morning. I figure if you don’t need to be here, then neither do I.”
    “ Mais non . What you don’t understand is that I do need to be there. And I must be there by Friday.”
    “What’s Friday?”
    “The opening of the new wing.”
    “Right.” He should have known. Anything for the hotel. Nothing for the family.
    He shook off the thought. It sounded too damn whiny, and the one thing Dante was absolutely sure of, his father wasn’t worth the grief.
    “I need you there with me,” his father said.
    “You’ve done this stuff dozens of times. I think you can handle it.”
    “I’ve never done one with an assassin on the loose.”
    Okay, that caught Dante’s attention. “What in hell are you talking about?”
    “Just that. Security received a tip. Someone is trying to kill me. That’s why I called you, Dante. I need your help. Please, son. I can’t live in hiding forever. I have to come back for the opening or my reputation will be destroyed. Stay. Stay and help me find this assassin.”
    Lucia forced herself not to pay attention as her Man of the Moment spoke in urgent tones on the phone. What did she care, after all? Wives and girlfriends cared when their men had tense phone calls with colleagues. But Lucia had never been a wife-or-girlfriend kind of girl. And she wasn’t going to start now.
    He was leaving, and that was good. Hell, he was probably getting chewed out right that very moment, his boss wondering why his tail wasn’t on the morning’s earliest flight. Soon he’d be off to the airport, and the unfamiliar tug around her heart would disappear. That was good. That was what she wanted.
    Because what she wanted most was to