Читать книгу One Naughty Night - Joanne Rock - Страница 8

BAD DECISION number five thousand thirty-eight—overdressing.

Esmerelda Giles rocked back on the low heels of her sandals and sighed as she watched the parade of half-clad bodies strut down Ocean Drive toward the swanky new dance club that would be her destination tonight.

Even though the hands on her antique silver-and-turquoise watch pointed to 11:32 p.m., the well-lit street hummed with activity. A steady stream of cars rolled down the avenue at a snail’s pace to see and be seen. Foot traffic converged on Club Paradise from every direction as if all of South Beach wanted a chance to meet and mingle at Miami’s most risqué hot spot.

And every single person Esme laid eyes on wore considerably less than she did.

Shoot. How could she have made such a mistake after spending at least forty-five minutes deciding what to wear for this ridiculous blind date?

Esme fingered the featherweight silk of her outfit—a vintage gypsy dress she’d unearthed at a consignment shop on one of her antiquing outings. The gossamer garment ranked as the most seductive item of clothing she’d ever owned, yet it looked like a schoolgirl’s frock next to the sexy getups sported by every woman in line at Club Paradise’s side entrance across the street.

Once again, Esme’s judgment had been faulty.

Surprise, surprise.

In the weeks since she’d lost her job, her car, a little bit of her self-respect and her life’s dream to boot, Esme had been trying really hard not to exercise her own judgment. In fact, following the explosion of her previously well-ordered life, she’d realized that every decision she’d ever made had led her to lose her job, her car, some self-respect and her life’s dream. Therefore, she couldn’t trust her horrendous instincts.

Which accounted for her new desire to do the opposite of everything her instincts suggested.

She would have never considered going on a blind date before, but now as she waded through the rubble of her old existence, she’d decided maybe she ought to try it. She’d accepted her kindly new neighbor’s matchmaking attempt and had agreed to meet the woman’s nephew at the Moulin Rouge Lounge inside Club Paradise tonight.

Yippee.

While she stood on the street corner where the bus had deposited her and debated what to do about her overdressed condition, Esme was jostled by a pack of young men. She stepped aside quickly, mindful that she needed to quit dreaming and pay attention to her surroundings. A tall guy with spiky hair and a red silky T-shirt swept past her making breathy little psst sounds at her in the way one might call to an animal.

Is this how people communicated attraction these days, or was the man trying to insult her with his catcall? God, she was so out of touch with the real world. She hadn’t been on a genuine date since grad school and even then she’d only gone out with history geeks who were as socially inept as her.

But no more.

Tonight marked a symbolic change in Esme’s life. A new mode of thinking, a new take-charge attitude. She’d thought the way to keep her touchy-feely former boss at bay was by buttoning up to the gills in conservative suits and layers of clothes, but Mr. Too Many Hands had probably read her insecurities in her wardrobe and thought he could help himself.

Steam hissed through her as she remembered those moments trapped in his grip and the ugly fallout of her resistance. She’d been fired in short order for sexual harassment even though he had been the one harassing her. Using his techno-nerd skills, her ex-boss had managed to manipulate the company computer system into printing out manufactured obnoxious e-mails supposedly from her to him. And now here she stood a week later.

Pissed and unemployed.

But ready to make a few changes in her life.

Stepping back into the shadows of an alleyway between two of South Beach’s historic, ice-cream-colored art deco buildings, Esme decided to make a few last minute adjustments to her wardrobe before she embarked on her blind date. The little overnight bag she planned to drop off in her complimentary hotel room before her midnight rendezvous didn’t include a change of clothes other than the casual outfit she’d wear tomorrow.

And frankly, she didn’t even want to cross over to that swanky, sexy side of the street looking like she did right now. She couldn’t do much about overdressing since she had no intention of stripping off her dress. But ditching another item of clothing might make her feel a little more daring and a lot more naked.

Reaching beneath her blouse, Esme unhooked her white lacy bra and wriggled out of the straps one arm at a time. Her barely-34Bs didn’t really require the support and somehow going braless seemed even more bold than baring a little midriff.

Old Esme never would have taken such a risk. New Esme planned to do just the opposite.

Flinging her bra off to one side to drape across a stainless steel trash can, Esmerelda Giles prepared to meet her blind date—one Mr. Hugh Duncan, journalist—with a serious take-charge attitude.

And possibly a little jiggle.

“RENZO, NO WOMAN is ever going to snap you up with that kind of old-fashioned attitude.” Giselle Cesare, head chef at Club Paradise and part owner of the popular singles playground, stirred her teriyaki sauce and glared at her older brother.

“Since when has it been my mission in life to get snapped up?” Renzo stood propped in the half-open door shortly before the resort’s main kitchen closed for the night and stared out over the writhing, wriggling bodies on the dance floor of the Moulin Rouge Lounge. He reached behind him to poke his mouthy sister in the ribs and steal a hunk of bread from the crusty Tuscan loaf sliced on the counter beside her. “I’m swearing off women since Celeste anyhow, remember?”

He’d been engaged to a woman raised as old-school Italian as him, but even she’d gotten scared off at the last minute by the idea of lifelong commitment. According to Celeste, she couldn’t allow her first lover to be her last.

Not that he blamed her exactly, but he sure as hell would have liked to have been informed of her decision before he showed up at the altar in his tux.

No, he definitely wasn’t in any hurry to be snapped up by any one right now. He shoved his pilfered bread in his mouth and resumed watching the erotic flow of scantily clad bodies out on the dance floor. Still leaning in the doorway, he could easily monitor the activity outside the room while occasionally helping Giselle with her work in the kitchen. Even after all formal food service ceased at midnight, the main kitchen still buzzed with activity until almost dawn thanks to twenty-four hour room service and the prep work that needed to be done before the hotel’s three restaurants opened for breakfast.

Despite the high titillation factor of the action in the lounge, Renzo wasn’t here to take in the floor show. He usually spent his few evenings away from his carpentry work at Club Paradise in order to keep an eye on his baby sister, although tonight there was an added chore. Later he needed to meet his older brother Nico to discuss the Cesare family finances and how in the hell they were going to cover their little brother’s law school expenses without going broke. Renzo was already working every spare second of the day. He needed to figure out a way to channel a more high-end product to a higher-paying clientele, but so far he hadn’t come up with how to accomplish this.

“Oh please. Renzo Cesare the monk?” Giselle ladled her sauce over a fresh batch of spinach noodles and slivers of grilled chicken. “Don’t try and tell me you’re swearing off women. It’s been six months since Celeste went back to Rome. Move on already.”

“And you’re such an expert on heartbreak, Ann Landers?” Renzo hadn’t mentioned his new financial concerns to Giselle, knowing his sister felt guilty enough about spending her inheritance by investing in Club Paradise. And although the idea of Giselle opening her own business where she could indulge the full extent of her culinary skills had sounded great at the time, none of the Cesare men had been prepared for her to bake bruschetta among half-naked bodies in South Beach’s most racy club.

Giselle garnished the teriyaki dishes with a curly strip of orange peel and a healthy chunk of Tuscan bread while Renzo rang a pager to signal one of the wait staff.

“Admittedly, no. I’m not an expert since men never get close enough to me to break my heart thanks to you.” She frowned up at him, her forehead damp with steam from the stove.

“Just because the last guy you dated didn’t break your heart doesn’t mean he didn’t cause you a hell of a lot of grief. Excuse me for trying to make sure that doesn’t happen again.” Some married SOB had lied to Giselle that he was single and taken her for a ride last winter. Renzo still hadn’t forgiven himself for not keeping a better eye out for her.

“I’m entitled to make my own mistakes, damn it. You and Nico have suffocated me with big brother watchfulness ever since then. If you don’t hook up with some majorly distracting females soon, I may be forced to strangle the both of you.”

“Sorry, sis. Cesare men don’t throw their women to the wolves, and this place of yours is crawling with them.” He snagged a plate of teriyaki for himself along with an extra slice of bread. “But since you’re feeding me tonight, I’ll give you a reprieve and you can have the next hour to yourself.”

Giselle shoved him toward the door. “I swear you and Nico are only playing watchdog so you can eat for free. Will you at least try to look mildly charming and less like a muscle-bound bouncer while you chow down so maybe some naive woman will steal you away for a few days?”

Renzo reached for a bottle of water before he backed out of the kitchen and into the club. “I’m not interested in the kind of women who want to steal me away. Neanderthals need to do all the stealing.”

As the heavy metal door swung shut behind him he heard Giselle call him a chauvinist pig and he smiled. No news there.

Dance music flooded his senses as he melted into the crowd to search for a table. Snippets of conversation around him drowned out his own thoughts, escalating into an unintelligible, continuous rumble of noise and laughter.

Although Renzo made no attempt to look charming while he ate at his table for one in the back of the bar, tempting women approached him twice. Part of him responded to their frank come-ons and slinky attire. It had been six months since Celeste, after all. Old-fashioned values be damned, his sister had been right to suggest he was no monk.

But he had more on his mind than sex—even with the thumping bass of R&B music pulsing through the dance club and the swirl of moody red and blue lights above him. As the clock behind one of the bars struck midnight, Renzo told himself he needed to do a better job keeping the wolves from Giselle’s door—a sacred trust passed along to him and his brothers by their father on his deathbed. More importantly, he had to figure out how in the hell to pay for his younger brother’s latest bills in law school while the rest of his family built their careers.

Obviously he needed a second job to supplement his carpentry, but—

Holy hell.

Renzo’s attention snapped from finances back to the action on the dance floor. The scene that a moment ago had been a mass of rump shaking, thigh flashing and heavy breathing got a little more interesting as a petite blonde dressed like a fairy in a high-school play glided into view.

Renzo had her pegged for the glasses and hair-in-a-bun type in two seconds flat. Her fluttery lavender dress looked like the kind of thing other women wore to church. Yet here she was, flitting through South Beach’s most notoriously exotic club in an ankle length skirt.

She had a schoolteacher walk too. Very proper. No lazy hip rolling or swinging of arms going on there. In fact, she seemed to take up as little space as possible, edging her way through the crowd, shoulders delicately drawn in and her blue eyes wide with palpable surprise at the sex-drenched atmosphere.

She stood out in the crowd to him—a conservative anomaly in the room packed full of skintight clothes and do-me high heels.

Not that anyone else seemed to notice.

While Renzo tracked her with his eyes as she inched her way between men and women playing complex games of flirtation, he realized no one else noticed the incongruity of this reserved creature in the midst of the urban jungle.

Talk about being thrown to the wolves. The feathery blonde looked completely unprepared to handle herself in a flagrant meat market like this one. Where was her big brother, damn it?

Rising to his feet, Renzo passed off his plate to a harried busboy and moved closer to the dance floor, all thought of second jobs and law school tuition forgotten for the moment.

Not that he was attracted to this woman, he told himself. Just that the protector in him couldn’t stand to watch her brand of innocence stomped by the lascivious lounge lizards populating the club.

He had already glimpsed some slick Don Juan type headed her way, two drinks in his hand. And no way did this man know the wide-eyed blonde. Renzo had seen this particular Romeo at the club every night he’d checked in on Giselle for the past month. Nico had tossed the guy out on his ear last week for aggressively dancing with a woman who obviously wanted no part of his company.

Renzo finished his bottle of water and tossed it on to the bar, keeping his eye on the silk-suited barracuda closing in on little Miss Innocent. Giselle wouldn’t exactly mind if he didn’t get back to the kitchen for another hour.

She could call him a chauvinist all she wanted. He had every intention of running interference for the blond newcomer—at least until he convinced her she was out of her depth in these shark-infested waters.

Swearing off women didn’t mean he couldn’t help out a lady in distress. Or possibly introduce himself after he’d given her a hand. He had a pulse, after all.

And, damn it, he wasn’t a monk.

ESMERALDA WONDERED if it was too late to back out of the blind date thing when she spied the man in a slick silk suit walking toward her with two drinks in his hand. He shared the same reedy, too-perfect good looks as her former boss, an association that brought a wave of nausea to her already quivery belly.

She forced herself to stand still, however, determined not to follow her instincts tonight. If this guy turned out to be Hugh Duncan, she would find a way to survive it. Although she suspected it would be easier to get through the evening if she’d worn her bra. At this rate, she’d be hunching her shoulders all night to disguise the fact.

Then again, her date might be very nice despite the strong cloud of musky cologne that reached her long before he did.

Her lovely neighbor Mrs. Wolcott assured her Hugh was a perfect gentleman.

Straightening her spine as the man approached her from the right and opened his mouth to speak, Esme jumped when another voice intervened.

“I’ve been keeping an eye out for you.” The warm, masculine rasp emanated from her left. Somehow she’d missed this man’s approach in her fear of turning her back on Mr. Reedy.

A damn shame considering the newcomer looked like a page on a girl’s pinup calendar. She had never possessed such a thing herself, but in the many hours of her life she’d spent ensconced in bookstores, Esme had most certainly spied hunk calendars. This guy, with his dark hair, even darker eyes and sexy bronze skin should have been in one of the “Studs of Italy” editions.

Not that she’d memorized her favorite titles or anything, either.

“You’ve been looking for me?” She wondered if her voice conveyed a pathetic amount of hopefulness. Glancing back and forth between Mr. Reedy who’d taken the liberty of ordering a drink for her already and the Italian stud who possessed killer muscles and yet not a hint of aggressive body language, Esme crossed her fingers that the Italian stud proved to be Hugh Duncan.

She cast a pointed look to her left, away from the overpowering cologne of Joe Slick. “I’m Esme Giles. Are you Hugh?”

The guy to her right bristled, raising himself a little taller in his polished leather shoes as he shoved a drink under her nose. “Hey, Esme, how about some sex on the beach?”

She struggled not to roll her eyes. Even the college history geeks had been above using that tired bit. Curious, she wanted to ask the man if that line had ever worked for him before, but Mr. Tall, Dark and Delicious inserted himself between them to face her.

“I’m the man you’re looking for.” He nudged the reedy guy’s glass aside with one hand while smoothly steering Esme toward the back of the club and away from the other man.

Very presumptuous. And okay, maybe a little sexy.

Part of her was grateful for the assistance since she’d been getting a sinus headache from the other guy’s cologne overload, but part of her didn’t appreciate being led around by the nose. Or in this case, the elbow.

The new Esmerelda had every intention of calling her own shots and following her own path in life.

She stopped just before they reached a secluded table, refusing to go any farther until she’d confronted Rambo.

Whirling on him, she sent her skirt in a swirl about her legs, the resulting breeze creating a delicious draft up her dress. But as she faced her rescuer again, she was struck anew by his sexy good looks. The bronze skin, the dark eyes, the longish dark hair. His sharply sculpted face was full of hard angles, relieved only by the soft fullness of his mouth.

And despite the serious feminine competition all around, this guy had noticed her and stuck around long enough to help her out of a sticky situation. The night seemed to be looking up.

Clearing her throat, she tried to remember Mrs. Wolcott’s description of Hugh Duncan and failed. Any mental vision she might have formed of Hugh had somehow transmuted into the hard edges and clean lines of the man standing in front of her. “I’m sorry, but did you say you were my date?”

“You’re meeting a blind date?” His dark eyebrows knit together in an intimidating furrow. “In this meat market?”

What a perfectly eloquent assessment of the place. Club Paradise was lushly beautiful with its rich appointments and clever lighting, but the atmosphere in the lounge was a bit—sexually overt. Mrs. Wolcott had given Esme a room here tonight so she would have safe territory to retreat to if her date didn’t work out. “It is a meat market, isn’t it?”

He grumbled something unintelligible under his breath about idiotic men as a group of dancers clad only in strategic white feathers breezed past them.

She noted with interest that his gaze didn’t stray to the expanse of exposed feminine flesh that passed almost under his nose. If anything, she had been more curious about the feathered dancers than he seemed.

Appreciation for meeting a real gentleman—something far too rare in her opinion—warmed her to her toes. And he’d known she was meeting a blind date. Obviously she had found her man. “If you think Club Paradise is such a pick-up joint, why did you want to come here tonight?”

“This wouldn’t have been my first choice, that’s for sure. Who was it you said you were meeting again?” He glared around the room as if surprised to find himself here.

“Hugh Duncan.” She snagged a fresh prepoured glass off the champagne fountain at one end of the bar and helped herself to a little more of the bubbly drink. As part of ladies night, the Moulin Rouge Lounge offered free champagne to its female guests until 1:00 a.m., according to a sign in the lobby. She’d had a glass a few minutes ago, but the nervousness chugging through her and the tingly awareness of the man standing next to her urged her to indulge in a little more. Between the rapid pounding of her heart and the swift whoosh of air in and out of her lungs, the sedative effects of alcohol would be most welcome right about now. “I’m so glad I found you. I have to admit I’m a little out of my element in here. I feel better already to be with someone I can trust.”

He was quiet for so long, she hesitated before sipping her champagne.

“Assuming you are my date tonight?” A wave of nervousness threaded through her. She’d be a little bit embarrassed at this point if he wasn’t.

He reached for the glass just as she put it to her lips, covering her hand with his own, effectively seizing the drink and awakening a long slumberous desire she hadn’t known she’d harbored until just this very moment.

“Why don’t you let me get you a drink?” He leaned closer as he spoke in soft, serious tones. The gesture was at once totally innocent and thoroughly intimate. His dark eyes cut through the shifting blue and red lights, making the rest of the noisy club disappear for one heated moment. “And I am most definitely your date tonight, Esme Giles.”