Genuine Lies

doing?”
    “Making dinner. Rotini with tomato and basil.” “Why?”
    “Because pasta’s good for the soul—and it’s impossible for you not to invite me for dinner when I’m cooking it.” He picked up a bottle of Burgundy he had breathing on the counter, poured some into a glass. “Here.”
    She took it, holding it in both hands, but not drinking. “Are you any good?”
    His grin flashed. Since her hands were occupied, he took advantage by wrapping his arms around her waist. “At what in particular?”
    It felt wonderful, too wonderful, to be held at that particular moment. “At rotini with tomato and basil.”
    “I’m terrific.” He bent closer, then sighed. “Don’t jerk, you’ll spill the wine.” Patient, he slid one hand up to cup her neck, which served the dual purpose of holding her still andmaking about a dozen nerve endings sizzle. “Relax, Jules. A kiss isn’t terminal.”
    “It is the way you do it.”
    His lips were curved when they met hers. “Better and better,” he murmured, nuzzling. “Tell me, do I set off the same kind of explosions in you as you do in me when I do this?” He scraped his teeth over her ear, then tugged on the lobe.
    “I don’t know.” But she felt her legs dissolve from the knees down. “I’m out of practice as far as explosions go.”
    His fingers tightened on the back of her neck before he forced them to relax. “That was exactly the right thing to say to make me suffer.” He leaned back to study her face. The gray of her irises had deepened, warmed to a rich smoke by whatever fires she fought down behind them. Was it his imagination, or had her scent intensified, heightened by the blood that rushed under her skin? It was a pity, Paul thought, a goddamn pity he had scruples. “You’ve got some color again. When you’re upset your skin goes as pale as glass. It makes a man determined to fix things for you.”
    The backbone he’d melted so effectively stiffened again. “I don’t need anyone to fix things for me.”
    “Which makes a certain kind of man all the more determined. Vulnerability and independence. I hadn’t realized what a devastating combination they could be.”
    Struggling for a light tone, she brought the wine to her lips. “Well, in this case it’s getting me dinner.”
    Still watching her, he took the glass from her and set it aside. “We could both have a lot more.”
    “Maybe.” She stared into his eyes, dark and brilliantly blue. And very close. It was much too easy to see herself in them. Much too easy to wonder. “I’m not sure I can handle even a little more.”
    Whether that was true or not, he could see she believed it. “Then it looks like we’ll have to progress by stages.”
    Because it seemed safer than the meltdown she’d just experienced, she cautiously agreed. “I suppose.”
    “The next stage would be for you to kiss me.”
    “I thought I had.”
    He shook his head. There was a challenge to the gesture, a not entirely friendly one. “I kissed you.”
    Julia deliberated and told herself to act like a grown-up. An adult didn’t have to take up every dare tossed her way. Then she sighed.
    Softly, she touched her lips to his. It took only an instant for her to realize this stage could be a tumultuous one. Still, she gave herself another moment, kept her lips warm against his, absorbing the thrill of risk.
    “I need to call Brandon in,” she said as she stepped back. She wanted plenty of time to think before moving on to the next stage.

Michael Delrickio raised orchids in a fifteen-hundred-square-foot greenhouse attached to his Long Beach fortress by a wide breezeway. He took his hobby very seriously and belonged to the local garden club, contributing not only financially but often giving informative and amusing lectures on the family Orchidales. One of his greatest triumphs was his creation of a hybrid he’d named the Madonna.
    It was an expensive hobby, but he was a very rich man. Many of his business enterprises were legal, and he paid taxes—more perhaps than many men in his particular bracket. Delrickio courted no trouble from the IRS, an institution he respected.
    His business ranged from shipping, theatrical and restaurant supply, real estate, catering, prostitution, gambling, electronics, extortion to computers. He was owner of or partner in several liquor stores, clubs, boutiques—and he even had a piece of a heavyweight boxer. In the seventies, after resistance on his part brought on