Living the Charade(2)

       
           



       

Ignoring the fact that she felt as if he was still watching her, she  turned to Ruby. 'He's got holes in his jeans and a T-shirt that says "My  pace or yours?" How many glasses of this crap wine have you had?'

Ruby paused, glancing briefly back at the bar. 'Not him-although he  does fill that T-shirt out like a god. I'm talking about the suit he's  talking to.'

Miller turned her gaze to the suit she hadn't noticed. Similar-coloured  hair, square, clean-shaven jaw, nice nose, great suit. Yes, thankfully  he did look more her type.

'Oh, I think I know him!' Ruby exclaimed.

'You know Ripped Jeans?'

'No.' Ruby shook her head, openly smiling in the direction Miller dared  not turn back to. 'The hotshot in the suit beside him. Sam someone. I'm  pretty sure he's a lawyer out of our L.A. office. And he's just the  type you need.'

Miller glanced back and noticed that tall, dark and dishevelled was no  longer watching her, but still some inner instinct told her to run.  Fast.

'No!' She dismissed the idea outright. 'I draw the line at picking up a  stranger in a bar-even if you do think you know him. Let me just go to  the bathroom and then we can share a taxi home. And stop looking at  those guys. They'll think we want to be picked up.'

'We do!'

Miller scowled. 'Believe me, by the look of the one who needs to become  reacquainted with a razor all it would take is a look and he'd have you  horizontal in seconds.'

Ruby eyed her curiously. 'That's exactly what makes him so delicious.'

'Not to me.' Miller headed for the bathroom, feeling slightly better  now that she had decided to call it a night. Her problem still hovered  over her like a dark cloud, but she was too tired to give it any more  brainpower tonight.

* * *

'Would you stop looking at those women? We are not here to pick up,' Tino Ventura growled at his brother.

'Seems to me it might solve your problem about what to do with yourself this weekend.'

Tino snorted. 'The day I need my baby brother to sort entertainment for me is the day you can put me in a body bag.'

Sam didn't laugh, and Tino silently berated his choice of words.

'So how's the car shaping up?' Sam asked.

Tino grunted. 'The chassis still needs work and the balancing sucks.'

'Will it be ready by Sunday?'

The concern in his brother's voice set Tino's teeth on edge. He was so  over everyone worrying about this next race as if it was to be his  last-and okay, there were a couple of nasty coincidences that made for  entertaining journalism, but they weren't signs, for God's sake.

'It'll be ready.'

'And the knee?'

Coming off the back of a long day studying engine data and time trials  in his new car, Tino was too tired to humour his brother with shop-talk.

'This catch-up drink was going a lot better before you started peppering me with work questions.'

He could do without the reminder of how his stellar racing year had  started to fall apart lately. All he needed was to win this next race  and he'd have the naysayers who politely suggested that he would never  be as good as his father off his back.

Not that he dwelt on their opinion.

He didn't.

But he'd still be happy to prove them wrong once and for all, and  equalling his father's number of championship titles in the very race  that had taken his life seventeen years earlier ought to do just that.

'If it were me I'd be nervous, that's all,' Sam persisted.

Maybe Tino would be too, if he stopped to think about how he felt. But  emotions got you killed in his business, and he'd locked his away a long  time ago. 'Which is why you're a cottonwool lawyer in a  four-thousand-dollar suit.'

'Five.'

Tino tilted his beer bottle to his lips. 'You need to get your money back, junior.'

Sam snorted. 'You ought to talk. I think you bought that T-shirt in high school.'

'Hey, don't knock the lucky shirt.' Tino chuckled, much happier to be  sparring with his little brother than dissecting his current career  issues.

He knew his younger brother was spooked about all the problems he'd  been having that so eerily echoed his father's lead-up to a date with  eternity. Everyone in his family was. Which was why he was staying the  hell away from Melbourne until Monday, when the countdown towards race  day began.

'Excuse me, but do I know you?'

Tino glanced at the blonde who had been eyeballing them for the last  ten minutes, pleasantly surprised to find her focus on his little  brother instead of himself.                       
       
           



       

Well, hell, that was a first. He knew Sam would get mileage out of it for the next decade if he could.

He turned to see where her cute friend was but she seemed to have disappeared.

'Not that I know of,' Sam replied to the stunner beside him, barely  managing to keep his tongue in his mouth. 'I'm Sam Ventura and this is  my brother Valentino.'

Tino stared at his brother. No one called him Valentino except their mother.

Switch your brain on, Samuel.

'I do know you!' she declared confidently. 'You're at Clayton Smythe-corporate litigation, L.A. office. Am I right?'

'You are at that.' Sam smiled.

'Ruby Clarkson-discrimination law, Sydney office.' She held out her  hand. 'Please tell me you're in town this weekend and as free as a  bird.'

Tino willed Sam not to blow his cool. The blonde had a sensational  smile and a nice rack, but she was a little too bold for his tastes. His  brother, however, he could see was already halfway to her bedroom.

Some sixth sense made him turn, and his eyes alighted on the friend in  the black suit with the provocative red trim at the hem. She glanced at  her empty table and her mouth fell open when she scanned the room and  located her friend.

Then her eyes cut to his and her mouth snapped closed with frosty  precision. Tino saw her spine straighten and grinned when she glanced at  the door as if she was about to bolt through it. His eyes drifted over  her again. If she'd bothered to smile, and he hadn't just ended a short  liaison with a woman who had lied about understanding the term 'casual  sex', she was exactly his type. Polished, poised and pert-all over. Pert  nose, pert breasts and a pert ass. And he liked the way she moved too.  Graceful. Purposeful.

As she approached, he took in the ruler-straight chestnut-coloured hair  that shone under the bar lights, and skin that was perhaps the  creamiest he had ever seen. His eyes travelled over a heart-shaped mouth  designed with recreational activities in mind and the bluest  wide-spaced eyes he'd ever seen.

'Ruby, I'm back. Let's go.'

And a voice that could stop a bushfire in its tracks.

Tino felt amused at the dichotomy; she should be leaning in and  whispering sweet nothings in his ear, not cutting her friend to the  quick.

'Hey, relax. Why don't I get you a drink?' he found himself offering.

'I'm perfectly relaxed.' Her eyes could have shredded concrete as she  turned them on him, but still he felt the effect of that magnificent  aquamarine gaze like a punch in the gut. 'And if I wanted a drink I'd  order one.'

Well, excuse the hell out of me.

'Miller!' Her friend instantly jumped in to try and ease the lash of  her words. 'This is Sam and his brother Valentino. And-good news-Sam is  free for the weekend.'

The woman Miller didn't move, but the skin at the outside of her mouth  pulled tight. She seemed about to set her friend on fire, but then  collected herself at the last minute.

'Hello, Sam. Valentino.'

He noticed he barely rated a nod.

'I'm very pleased to meet you. But unfortunately Ruby and I have to go.'

'Miller,' her friend chided. 'This is a perfect solution for you.'

This last was said almost under her breath, and Tino directed an enquiring eyebrow at Sam.

'It seems Miller needs a partner for the weekend,' Sam provided.

Tino eased back onto the barstool. And what? They were recruiting Sam?

He cocked his head. 'Come again?'

'No need,' the little ray of sunshine fumed politely. 'We're sorry to disturb you and now we have to go.'

'It's fine.' Sam raised his hand in a placating gesture Tino had seen  him use in court. 'I'm more than pleased to offer my services.'

Services? Did he mean sexual?

Tino felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. 'Would  somebody like to fill me in here?' He sounded abrupt, but clearly  someone had to protect his little brother from these weird females.

'Miller has to go away on a work weekend and she needs a partner to  keep a nuisance client at bay,' her friend Ruby explained helpfully.

Tino eyed Miller's stiff countenance. 'Tried telling him you're not interested?' he drawled.

She snapped her startling eyes to his and once again he found himself  mesmerised by their colour and the way they kicked up slightly at the  corners. 'Now, why didn't I think of that?'

'Sometimes the things right in front of us are the hardest to see,' he offered.

'I was joking.' She looked aghast that he might have taken her  sarcastic quip seriously and it made him want to laugh. It wasn't too  difficult to see why she was in need of a fake partner, and he revised  his earlier assessment of her.