Romano's Revenge

“It’s Lucinda,” Lucinda had said politely. “He won’t be?”

“No. You see, he needs you.”

“Needs me? I don’t understand.”

“He is a busy man. Always going here and there. Molto importante, yes? But he lacks something in his life.”

“A cook?” Lucinda had said helpfully.

“Exactly. He doesn’t eat right. He doesn’t touch his vegetables.”

“Vegetables.” That was good. She could prepare green salads with the best of them.

“You will love working for him, Luciana.”

“Lucinda.”

“Of course. Lucinda. He’s very easygoing. Charming, and gentle.” Mrs. Romano had clasped her hands and sighed. “He is caring. And sensitive. My Joseph is the most sensitive man in all of San Francisco.”

Gay, was what she’d meant. Lucinda had understood the code word, and the job had become even more appealing. A wealthy gay man who traveled a lot would be easy to work for. Gay men abounded in San Francisco, and the ones Lucinda had met were invariably low-key, gentle, and kind.

Kind enough to hire her, if the chef flunked her out of the cooking school?

“No way,” Lucinda said, and knew the time for excuses was long gone.

She kept Miss Robinson firmly in mind as she let down her hair and ran her hands through it until it had the tousled look she’d noticed in magazine ads. She had no lipstick; she rarely used makeup. But there was a little cosmetics bag in the costume box. Inside, she found eye shadow. Eyeliner. Lucinda used them all, then bit her lips to pinken them. Finally, she put on the tiara and squinted at herself in the mirror.

Something was missing, but what? Her hair was okay. The glasses were gone. The costume fit as well as it was going to fit. Still, there was more. She’d forgotten something…

She jumped as a fist pounded against the closed door. “Well, Ms. Barry?” Chef Florenze boomed. “Are you going to grace us with your presence?”

Lucinda put her hand to her heart, as if to keep it from bounding out of her chest. Then, before she could change her mind, she unlocked the door and marched out.

“Very sensible of you, Miss Barry,” the chef said with an unctuous smile.

Lucinda marched up to him. “Three hundred bucks, or I don’t move from this spot.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Three hundred.”

Florenze’s narrow mustache twitched. “Two.”

“Two-fifty.”

“Listen here, young woman—” Something in her eyes must have convinced him that she meant it. “Two-fifty,” he said, “and snap to it.”

“That’s the spirit,” she heard Miss Robinson say as she strode to the serving cart that held the cardboard cake and climbed under it.

Her stomach gave a dangerous lurch. So did the cart. The rubber wheels squealed as she, and it, were pushed across the floor. Doors slammed against walls as they were opened. She heard the sounds of music and male laughter, and then the pounding of a chord—C major, she thought dispassionately—on a piano.

“Gentlemen,” a deep voice cried, “to Arnie and his loss of freedom!”

“To Arnie,” other male voices chorused.

“Now, Ms. Barry,” Chef Florenze hissed, and Lucinda took a breath and burst through the top of the cake, arms extended gracefully above her head, just as if she were back in Boston, diving not up into the noise and the light but down, down, down into the glassy depths of a warm, blue pool.

But it wasn’t a pool, it was a stage, and she hadn’t burst free of the cardboard cake. She’d gotten tangled in it. And while she was still blinking and fighting furiously to extricate herself from the horrible chunks of cardboard, two things happened, almost simultaneously.

The first was that she realized that the “something” she’d forgotten were her low-heeled, sensible white shoes. They were still on her feet.

The other was that a man, a blur of muscles and blue eyes and black hair, had come to her rescue.

“Just put your arms around my neck, honey, and hang on.”

“I am not your honey,” Lucinda said. “And I don’t need your help!”

She slapped at his hands as he reached for her but his arms closed around her, anyway. The crowd cheered as he hoisted her into his arms.

“Go for it, Joe,” somebody yelled, and the man grinned, right into her eyes.

“Love those shoes,” he purred, and when the crowd cheered again, he bent his head, covered her mouth with his, and kissed her.

CHAPTER THREE

JOE awoke to the sort of foggy, gray morning that gave San Francisco a bad name, a pounding headache—and the nagging sense that he’d made an ass of himself the night before.

Carefully, he eased his shoulders up against the headboard of his king-size bed. If he moved slowly enough, maybe his head wouldn’t separate from his shoulders the way it was threatening to do.

The fog coiling around the bedroom windows was okay. Actually, it was fine. He was pretty sure that even a single ray of sunlight would have been enough to trigger the incipient implosion of his skull.

The pain would ease up eventually, he knew, but the feeling that he’d done something incredibly stupid might not. That was different. The feeling just wouldn’t go away.

What? What could he have…

“Oh, hell.”

He groaned, closed his eyes and slid down against the pillows.

Damned right, he’d made an ass of himself.

How else to describe a man who’d kissed the blond babe who’d come out of that cake?

He knew he’d never hear the end of it, especially since he’d always made it a point to distance himself from that kind of silliness. All right, so guys did it all the time. He’d been at a dozen bachelor bashes and there was almost always some idiot who leaped up, grabbed a girl and planted a kiss on her lips.

He’d always watched the proceedings with a bored smile.

When Joe Romano took a woman in his arms, the kiss led to something more intimate than providing a couple of laughs at a stag party.