Lessons Learned

move there, and we were depending on the TV spot for that. Without it…” She shrugged and resigned herself. “It’s a wash.”
    Letting his eyes half close, Carlo decided the sofa was an excellent place to spend an hour or so. “I don’t wash.”
    She shot him a level look. “You’re not going to have to do anything but lie on your—back,” she decided after a moment, “for the next twenty-four hours.”
    “Nothing?”
    “Nothing.”
    He grinned. Moving faster than he looked capable of, he sat up, grabbed her by the arms and pulled her down with him. “Good, you lie with me. Two backs, madonna, are better than one.”
    “Carlo.” She couldn’t avoid the first kiss. Or perhaps she didn’t put her best effort into it, but she knew it was essential to avoid the second. “Wait a minute.”
    “Only twenty-four hours,” he reminded her as he moved to her ear. “No time to waste.”
    “I’ve got to— Stop that,” she ordered when her thoughts started to cloud. “There’re arrangements to be made.”
    “What arrangements?”
    She made a quick mental sketch. True, she’d already checkedout of her room. They’d only kept the suite for convenience, and until six. She could book another separate room for the night, but—she might as well admit in this case it was foolish. Moving her shoulders, she gave in to innate practicality. “Like keeping the suite overnight.”
    “That’s important.” He lifted his head a moment. Her face was already flushed, her eyes already soft. Almost as if she’d spoken aloud, he followed the train of thought. He couldn’t help but admire the way her mind worked from one point to the next in such straight lines.
    “I have to call New York and let them know our status. I have to call Boston and cancel, then the airport and change our flight. Then I—”
    “I think you have a love affair with the phone. It’s difficult for a man to be jealous of an inanimate object.”
    “Phones are my life.” She tried to slip out from under him, but got nowhere. “Carlo.”
    “I like it when you say my name with just a touch of exasperation.”
    “It’s going to be more than a touch in a minute.”
    He’d thought he’d enjoy that as well. “But you haven’t told me yet how fantastic I was today.”
    “You were fantastic.” It was so easy to relax when he held her like this. The phone calls could wait, just a bit. After all, they weren’t going anywhere. “You mesmerized them with your linguini.”
    “My linguini is hypnotic,” he agreed. “I charmed the reporter from the Free Press. ”
    “You left him stupefied. Detroit’ll never be the same.”
    “That’s true.” He kissed her nose. “Boston won’t know what it’s missing.”
    “Don’t remind me,” she began, then broke off. Carlo could almost hear the wheels turning.
    “An idea.” Resigned, he rolled her on top of him and watched her think.
    “It might work,” she murmured. “If everyone cooperates, it might work very well. In fact, it might just be terrific.”
    “What?”
    “You claim to be a magician as well as an artist.”
    “Modesty prevents me from—”
    “Save it.” She scrambled up until she stradled him. “You told me once you could cook in a sewer.”
    Frowning, he toyed with the little gold hoop she wore in her ear. “Yes, perhaps I did. But this is only an expression—”
    “How about cooking by remote control?”
    His brows drew together, but he ran his hand idly to the hem of her skirt that had ridden high on her thigh. “You have extraordinary legs,” he said in passing, then gave her his attention. “What do you mean by remote control?”
    “Just that.” Wound up with the idea, Juliet rose and grabbed her pad and pencil. “You give me all the ingredients—it’s linguini again tomorrow, right?”
    “Yes, my specialty.”
    “Good, I have all that in the file anyway. We can set up a phone session between Detroit and the studio in Boston. You can be on the air there while we’re here.”
    “Juliet, you ask for a lot of magic.”
    “No, it’s just basic electronics. The host of the show—PaulO’Hara—can put the dish together on the air while you talk him through it. It’s like talking a plane in, you know. Forty degrees to the left—a cup of flour.”
    “No.”
    “Carlo.”
    Taking his time, he pried off his shoes. “You want him, this O’Hara who smiles for the camera, to cook my linguini?”
    “Don’t get temperamental on me,” she warned,