Читать книгу Cinderella's Millionaire - Katherine Garbera - Страница 12

There were times when it didn’t pay to be a part of a big Italian family, Joseph Barone thought as he listened to his sister Gina give him last-minute instructions on how to handle the press today. She was the VP of PR, and in his opinion the one who should be escorting the contest winner—Holly Fitzgerald—around. But Gina and her husband, Flint, a noted spin doctor, thought it would be better if a top executive did the honors. And somehow he—the CFO—was the only one who could get up at five in the morning to handle this latest volley in Baronessa’s PR plan.

“If anyone brings up the passion fruit gelato debacle, acknowledge that it was a mistake and one that Baronessa won’t make again. Then use the fact sheet I gave you on the new flavor.”

“Got it,” he said.

Gina smiled at him. “Thanks for doing this.”

“As if I had any choice.” Joe had tried arguing but it was hard to win with his mother or sisters. Italian women never fought fair, and in the end, guilt and familial duty had won out.

“Mom thought you’d be the best one.”

“Yeah, once you convinced her of it. You owe me, Gina.”

She ignored his remark and consulted the schedule in her hand. “I’m going to check and see if the contest winner is here yet.”

Joe watched his sister walk away. Gina was tall compared to other women, but she’d always be his little sister. She had changed in the last few months since her marriage to Flint Kingman. She now wore her curly light brown hair down instead of pinning it up. But then, finding the love of your life could do that to a person. She radiated a glow that only a woman in love had, and he was a little scared to see her so much in love with her new husband.

He’d changed after he’d met Mary. And then changed again after she’d died. But some things were better left in the past—and Mary was one of them.

Though it was only a little after seven, he knew his entire day was shot. He resigned himself to working half the night to make sure the forecasts they’d done for this new gelato flavor were correct. Baronessa needed a shot in the arm, and this contest, as harebrained as he’d thought it was at first, might be the answer.

He sat in one of the first-floor conference rooms in the five-story building that housed the executive offices, patiently having makeup put on for the television interviews he was doing this morning. He had an inkling of why neither his dad, the CEO, or brother Nicholas, the COO, had been unable to free their schedule today.

But Baronessa was worth a few sacrifices and certainly worth the ribbing he’d have to endure if any of his siblings wandered in while he was in the makeup chair.

To distract himself, he glanced around the room. A sense of well-being assailed him as it always did when he realized he was a part of something that had grown from a small family business into an international company. There was something about knowing exactly where you came from.

And there was something about being surrounded by his family history every day that soothed his wounded heart. Most of the time.

The gelateria had grown into more than an ice-cream shop founded in the forties by his grandparents Marco and Angelica and was now a Fortune 500 company. One Joe was proud to work for. He loved his job as CFO and had cut his teeth working for a large entertainment company in California before coming back to Boston and taking his place in the family business.

“Here she is,” Gina said, entering the conference room with another woman.

Joe’s breath caught in his chest. The woman walking toward him bore an uncanny resemblance to his deceased wife. Slim and petite, she had auburn hair that fell in waves around her shoulders. Mary’s hair had been shorter, he thought. But her features were similar. Heart-shaped face, full lips and a nose that curved the slightest bit to the right at the end.

Joe prided himself on his resilience. He’d survived things that would have destroyed a lesser man. But he didn’t want to tour the company’s headquarters with the doppelgänger of his deceased wife. Gina would just have to do it.

“Holly Fitzgerald, this is my brother and Baronessa’s chief financial officer, Joseph Barone.”

“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Fitzgerald,” Joe said, shaking her hand. Her hand in his felt soft, small, fragile. Damn. It had been a long time—five years to be exact—since he’d held a hand that delicate.

“Please call me Holly.”

He nodded. He’d survived by keeping himself aloof from women, by letting no one but family close to him, and he didn’t intend to let this contest winner rock the secure moorings of his world. “Gina, can I speak to you privately for a minute?”

“Of course. Holly, why don’t you see our makeup artist. There’s coffee, tea and juice on the sideboard. We’ll be right back.”

Joe didn’t wait for his sister but walked out of the conference room. His brother-in-law was tall with chocolate brown hair and, according to his sisters, drop-dead gorgeous.

“Where’s Holly?” Flint asked as soon as Joe stepped into the hallway.

“In makeup.”

“Damn. How long do you think it’ll take?” Flint asked.

“I don’t know. Go check on her.”

“I will. Joe, don’t go anywhere. The satellite uplink is ready and we have about ten minutes before the first interview.”

Gina came out of the room and the look on her face let him know she wasn’t pleased with him. “What’s up?”

“I can’t do this,” Joe said.

“Joe, we’ve been over this. There is no one else,” Gina said.

When Gina talked to him like that, he felt like a four-year-old who wasn’t getting his way. But there was not a chance he was going to spend the day with a woman who reminded him of things he didn’t want to remember.

“Okay, she’s almost ready,” Flint said, coming back out.

“He isn’t,” Gina said, pointing at her brother.

“We don’t have time for this,” Flint said. “You both have to be out in the garden now so that we can get on the morning-news segments on the East Coast.”

Gina tried reassuring him again. “Joe, you’ll do fine. Stick with the script I gave you.”

“I’m not nervous about the interview. I just don’t want to spend the day with her.”

“Joe—”

“I don’t want to spend the day with him, either,” Holly said from the doorway. “In fact, I just want my check and then I’ll be happy to go.”

Of course, he didn’t want to spend the day with her, Holly thought. She probably looked as if she spent too much time in the kitchen, which of course she did. In fact, this morning she’d gotten to the bakery at 3:00 a.m. because of her obligation to Mrs. Kirkpatrick, the owner of the small downtown bakery where Holly worked.

She felt out of place in this old-money office building and wanted nothing more than to get back into her chef’s uniform and back into her pastry kitchen.

She hated the spotlight. She wouldn’t have entered the Baronessa contest except for the thousand-dollar prize. She needed that money to pay her father’s hospital bills. HMOs had pretty much alienated small businessmen from affordable health care, and her mechanic father was no exception.

But that didn’t explain why Joseph Barone wanted nothing to do with her. He was attractive in a way that made her uncomfortable. She’d grown up around men, having helped to raise her three brothers, but something about this Barone made everything feminine in her spring to life.

He watched her the way a panther watches prey. Not afraid of her, exactly, but ready to pounce if she did anything threatening. Was he afraid she’d embarrass Baronessa?

Damn. She should have checked her appearance in the mirror before she’d come in. Maybe she still had flour on her face or in her hair.

Gina Barone-Kingman took her arm. “Holly, we can’t do that. Baronessa needs the publicity your gelato will bring.”

“I’m willing to do my part,” Holly said. And she was. She’d never shrunk from her responsibilities and didn’t intend to now. Even if there was something she couldn’t identify in Joseph’s eyes….

“Listen, Gina, we need to talk,” Joseph said, stepping forward.

Flint Kingman took control. “Not now.”

Holly had met the man earlier. She could tell he worked in public relations by the way he moved and talked. He had a quick smile and a confident, take-charge attitude. She liked him, but had the feeling he could charm just about anyone.

“Outside, both of you,” Flint ordered.

Flint took Joe’s arm and herded them all out the front doors into a beautiful garden awash with colorful flowers. A camera crew stood ready, while the makeup team put some finishing touches on Holly.

Suddenly she didn’t know if she was going to be able to talk intelligently with a camera on her. She’d never really been proficient at public speaking. She’d made it her practice to blend into the background, and she was very good at it.

“Until I arrived this morning, I didn’t know we were doing television interviews,” she said softly.

“Relax, you’ll do just fine,” Flint said, patting her shoulder. His touch and tone made her believe his words.

Although he was kind, he was steely in his determination. She made a note to read the fine print before entering another contest. In fact, the only thing she hated more than speaking in public was seeing herself speaking in public. She only hoped none of the Boston stations would pick up this satellite feed and use it.

Flint gestured for her and Joe to sit in some director’s chairs that were set up in front of a screen with the Baronessa logo on it. Holly’s hands shook so badly that she had to clench them together.

Joseph reached over and covered her hands with his. His touch surprised her. She glanced up to see if his expression had changed, but his eyes were still guarded. His hand on hers was big and warm, his nails neatly manicured. Not at all like the masculine hands she was used to seeing. Hands with dirt under the nails and calluses on their palms.

“Don’t worry. I might not like this but I know what I’m doing,” Joseph said.

“That’s reassuring.” She meant it. She needed his experience to navigate this. She’d have to make sure to someday return the favor.

He removed his hand. “I thought it might be.”

Around them stage techs bustled, making adjustments to mikes and cameras. Flint and Gina both gave them last-minute tips, and then everyone backed away. Through it all, Holly wondered why Joseph didn’t want to spend the day with her. If it were the press, she could understand. She too, was reluctant to be interviewed all day long.

But it couldn’t be, because he said he knew how to handle them. It must be her. This was a new record for Holly. She’d never had a man detest her on sight before.

“Can I ask you something, Joseph?”

“Sure, and call me Joe.”

“Why don’t you want to spend the day with me?” she asked. She knew she shouldn’t voice the question, but couldn’t help herself.

Maybe she hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before. Maybe the closer you got to thirty the less control you had over your mouth. Maybe…maybe she just needed to feel as if she was sitting by a friend in the glare of the spotlight, instead of next to a man who didn’t want her near him.

“It isn’t anything personal.”

Let it go, Hol. Just smile at the camera, talk about cooking, collect your check and get out of here.

“It kind of sounded like it,” she said. What was her deal today? Definitely not enough sleep, she decided.

Joe shrugged. “You remind me of someone.”

Though he didn’t say it was a woman, she sensed it was. She knew men. Knew the way they thought and acted.

So she should have known better than to ask the question that was on the tip of her tongue. Her dad and brothers would never admit a woman had broken their hearts. “Did she break your heart?”

Joe stared at her in a way that made her feel like she had a spotlight shining on her.

“Sorry, that was way too personal,” Holly said quickly. But she knew by his reaction that she’d struck a chord, and she wanted to know more.

“Yes, it was.” The look he gave her made her squirm in her chair. Not in embarrassment, though. It was a male look that made her blood flow a little faster. This man had a presence of sophistication that made her feel like an inexperienced prep-chef in the kitchen of a world-renowned master.

She looked around but couldn’t stand the suspense. “Well, are you going to answer?”

He laughed and the sound surprised her. It was a warm sound from a very cold-looking man. A man she sensed didn’t find much humor in life.

“No.”

Fair enough, she thought. The stage director came over and gave them some directions, and when he left, Holly glanced over at Joe. He didn’t look nervous, but she was.

“Is it my hair?” she asked after a few minutes. Men had some strange illusions about redheads.

“Is what your hair?” he asked.

“The thing that reminds you of the other person.”

“Yes.”

“She’s not Orphan Annie, is she? Because I thought all the makeup I’m wearing covered my freckles.”

He didn’t smile but she sensed his amusement. “No.”

“No to freckles or to Annie?”

“Annie. I can still see your freckles.”

“I knew it. I’m covered with them.”

“Everywhere?” he asked in an intimate voice.

“Yes,” she said, meeting his clear brown eyes. There was something sensual in his gaze and she couldn’t look away.

Joe Barone was more than she’d expected him to be and that unnerved her. She felt safe flirting with him, for some reason. Well, safe wasn’t really how she felt, but it was fun. It was weird to realize she didn’t understand him—he didn’t fit with what she’d come to expect from men—and even stranger to realize that she wanted to.

Her freckles weren’t the only things about Holly Fitzgerald that lingered in his mind. Her sweet scent lingered on the air—something homey that reminded him of his mom’s kitchen at the holidays and something else more elusive. An aroma distinct to Holly and no other woman.

She’s in your life for a day, he told himself. He’d best ignore it.

But he couldn’t. His groin was tight and his blood ran heavy whenever he thought about those damn freckles on her creamy skin. He wanted to strip that professional-looking suit from her body and find each and every freckle. To caress it first with his fingers, then with his tongue.

Whoa, boy. Obviously it was past time to start dating again. But he’d never been into casual sex. Even before Mary, he’d slept with only two other women and no one since her death five years ago. He’d completely shut off that part of his nature—until today when it roared back to life, demanding his attention.

The stage techs broke down the equipment, and the garden was slowly returning to its beauty. This place had long been one of Joe’s favorites. He’d found solace here more than once, but not today.

The July sun beat down on him, but that wasn’t the source of the heat running through his veins. No, a certain redhead was responsible. “No redheads” had been more of a safety precaution than a rule. Still, he knew better.

Why wasn’t his body getting the message?

Holly laughed at something his sister said, and his groin tingled to life. He needed to get away, but for once his pager was silent. Giving in to the pull he felt from her, he joined her and Gina at the coffee and pastry table.

“So, are you over your fit?” his sister asked.

Only family treated him as if he was a defanged tiger. Everyone else in his world trod lightly around him, treating him like a loose cannon. He wished he understood why because then maybe he could wield that cannon against his sister. “Gina, I’m trying to remember why I tolerate you.”

“Familial duty.” Gina smiled up at him.

“Right now I wouldn’t mind being disinherited.”

Gina laughed. “Joe, you know we’re Italian. There’s no escaping the family.”

He smiled at his sister. He knew she always had Baronessa’s success at heart and that she’d worked hard to prove herself to the family. “Sorry I tried to back out.”

“Hey, it’s okay. Flint’s ideas are always bigger than he makes them out to be.”

Gina left to join her husband, and an awkward silence fell between him and Holly. Joe wasn’t an open and gregarious man. Never really had been. But the past few years he’d fallen deeper and deeper into a silence he found comforting.

Holly lifted her hair off the back of her neck as the sun rose in the sky. She had to be hot in that suit she wore. A few tendrils of curling red hair clung to her nape. The skin there was covered with those freckles she seemed worried about. He took a sip from the Evian bottle in his hand to keep from leaning down and blowing on her overheated skin.

“So…” she said.

He raised one eyebrow at her. If she had an inkling of the direction his thoughts had been heading, he was in deep water.

“Are you ready to confess all?” she asked with a gamine grin.

“No. But I am curious about you.” Joe decided to go on the offensive and drive her back into hiding. He’d been called brooding more than once by the women he’d dated. Why was it so hard to keep Holly at arm’s length?

“I’m an open book,” she said.

Her blue eyes said otherwise. Interesting. He’d really like to delve beneath her depths and uncover her secrets. But he didn’t think he could do that and still keep her at arm’s length.

“Yes. I already know you’re a pastry chef,” he said.

She took a bottle of water from the refreshment table. “In fact, I was at work this morning before I came down here.”

“You must really love baking,” he said. Though his family had made its name in the gelato business, Joe had never taken to baking or cooking. He could heat frozen dinners and reheat the casseroles that his mom sometimes sent to her kids’ houses. But beyond that he wasn’t even interested in trying.

She put the water down and stepped closer to him. Again her scent assailed him. It was time to end this conversation and get on with the rest of the day’s activities. As soon as she answered, he’d say something vague and move away from her.

“I do. The kitchen is the only place where I’m totally in control. Totally alone. There’s a…peace to it.”

“Why aren’t you ever alone?” he asked.

“Family,” she said. That one word summed up the way he sometimes felt about his.

He patted her shoulder trying for a brotherly touch, but knew he failed. Her arm under his hand was soft and he couldn’t help sliding his hand down to her tiny wrist. She wore a charm bracelet there with a tiny gold rolling pin on it. “I know what you mean.”

Who had given her the bracelet? A lover? Jealousy took him by surprise and he ran his finger under the fine gold chain, resting his finger on her pulse. It threaded steadily.

“Joe?”

Ah, hell, he thought. He knew better. Why was he even looking at her this way? “Did a man give you this?”

“Yes,” she said huskily.

“A lover?”

Her pulse doubled. “No.”

Her pupils had dilated and he saw more than awareness in them. He saw the same hunger that was coursing through his veins. Her lips parted and the air around them seemed to stop moving.

He leaned forward. “Would anyone object if I kissed you?”

“Are you going to kiss me?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“There’s no man in my life,” she said. Holly watched him with feminine speculation in her eyes, and Joe knew he’d never be the same.