Romano's Revenge

Except for last night.

Joe slid even further down in the bed, rolled on his belly and closed his eyes. Maybe, if he lay still, his head would stop hurting—and the memory of himself, bending the blonde back over his arm like some second-rate actor in a bad movie—maybe that would go away, too.

It wouldn’t. It didn’t. How could it?

He hadn’t planned it. All he’d had on his mind was how to come up with a polite excuse that would get him out the door before the entertainment started. And then a chunky little man in a chef’s outfit had wheeled out a cart topped by the phoniest-looking cake in the world.

“Here comes the babe,” the guy next to Joe had murmured happily.

And the next thing he’d known, a blonde in a teeny-weeny bikini had come sailing up out of the top of the cardboard cake as if this were the Olympics and she was determined to take the gold in diving.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t.

A hot-looking babe? Definitely. Joe rolled onto his back, put his hands beneath his head and smiled at the ceiling. Gook on her face, but the basics had still been visible. The bottomless green eyes. The elegant, straight nose and the razor-sharp cheekbones. A soft, sexy mouth, so artfully made up that it almost looked as if she wasn’t wearing lipstick. No smile on the mouth, but hey, you couldn’t expect a babe like that to have everything.

Not even, as it turned out, a way to make a graceful exit from the cake.

To put it bluntly, the lady was a monumental klutz.

While the top part of her had been coming up out of the cake, the bottom had gotten tangled in the cardboard. Or in something. Whatever, Blondie had emerged maybe halfway and then she’d gotten this panicked look, started to flail her arms around…

Which was when he’d gone into his Sir Galahad act, Joe thought, wincing as he rubbed his hands over his stubbled face.

The leap onto the stage. The quick move, grabbing her and hoisting her free of the box.

And then, that kiss.

That kiss. Not just a kiss. A long, deep, hot kiss. And for no good reason, except that she was there and so was he.

Well, yeah. There’d been a reason. It had to do with the stunned look in her eyes, and the soft feel of her in his arms. The smell of her, too. Gardenias, maybe. Or roses. The old-fashioned kind.

“Hello, honey,” he remembered saying, and then he’d given her the kind of long, appreciative look her face, her figure, her sexy outfit demanded…

Until he got to her feet, and those shoes. Those homely, sensible, I’m-not-what-you-think-I-am shoes. He’d wanted to laugh. To tell her that a woman with her looks could wear clogs, for all he cared, and she’d still look like—

Like what? a clear, calm voice in his head had said.

Like a woman who needed to be kissed, he’d thought in response.

That was when he’d kissed her.

If only he could stop the action right there. Just stop it, cut it, edit it out like a bad piece of videotape…

Joe sat up. There was no getting away from the memory, the part he’d never live down.

The part when Blondie, without a moment’s hesitation, balled up her fist and caught him with a right, just behind his ear.

“Double damn,” Joe muttered, and swung his feet to the floor.

The other guys had loved it. The leap. The kiss. Her swing. His yelp of surprise. Her squirming out of his arms and rushing off-stage with the little guy in the white suit running after her…

Oh, yeah. He’d made an ass of himself, all right.

“Bozo and the Bachelor Party,” Joe said, and huffed out a breath.

“Way to go, Romano,” somebody had yelled.

“Drunk as a skunk, huh, Joe?” some other wag had shouted.

He’d let them think so. It made things easier on the old ego if people thought he’d had one too many, but the truth was, he hadn’t. A glass or two of wine at Nonna’s and a bottle of beer at the party weren’t enough to turn a man’s brains to mush.

By the time they’d served what they’d humorously called a midnight supper at the bachelor bash, he was hungry. But, after one cautious, awful bite, he’d put down his fork. Whoever had hired the caterer deserved to be ridden out of town on a rail.

Joe sighed.

After the night he’d had, was it any wonder his head hurt? First that unwanted gift from Nonna. Then a shot to the head from Blondie, although it really hadn’t hurt anything but his ego. You’d think she’d been wearing a nun’s habit instead of a handful of stretchy stuff sprinkled with glitter…

The phone rang. He grabbed it and growled hello before its vicious trill could puncture his eardrums.

“Joe, my man. How’re you doing?”

Moving nothing but his eyes wasn’t easy, but Joe managed. According to his alarm clock, it was just after seven.

“You’d better have a good reason for calling me at this hour,” Joe said sourly. He winced at his brother’s chuckle. “And hold down the noise, okay?”

“I guess that answers my question,” Matt said. “Big night, huh?”

“Long night. “ Joe winced and snatched the phone from his ear. “What’s that noise? Sounds like a semi, blasting an air horn.”

“It is,” Matt said cheerfully. “Susannah and I are on our way to the airport. We’re flying to New York for a long weekend.”

“Yeah. Great.”

“You could manage to sound a little more enthusiastic.”

“That’s about all the enthusiasm I can work up in the middle of the night.”

“It’s not the middle of the night.”

“It is, for civilized people.”

Matt laughed. “See? I told Susie it wouldn’t be a good idea to drop by.”

“Damned right. I’ve killed people for less.”

“Yeah, I told her that, too. So we decided we’d phone to wish you a happy birthday in advance.”

“A happy…” Joe raked his hand through his hair. “What is this, a family project? First Nonna, now you.”