Ben watched him with growing impatience.
JT waved a hand in the air, remembering what he was going to say. “Carly’s a great kid. With a face like hers, you’re lucky she’s not out running wild with boys.”
It made Ben uncomfortable that JT had noticed his daughter’s good looks, but the truth was that everyone did. Like Olivia, Carly drew stares wherever she went, and someday soon her beauty would surely be Ben’s agony.
It was no less than he deserved, for all the womanizing he’d done in his youth.
JT’s face brightened with another idea. “Your dad never stopped riding you when you were growing up. That’s why you took off, right?”
Ben’s mouth twisted. “Yeah.”
“So just be cool, and she’ll turn out fine.”
Ben thrust a hand through his hair, hoping JT was right. To say his father had raised him with an iron hand was putting it mildly. He’d demanded nothing less than excellence in every subject, every sport. Buckling under that constant pressure, Ben had dropped out of school and left home. He’d traveled around the world, in pursuit of pleasure and the perfect wave, molding himself into the kind of man his father disapproved of.
JT’s parents, in contrast to Ben’s, had been incredibly lax. His mother was a B-movie actress who couldn’t be bothered with a young son on a movie set. She’d shipped him off to live with his dad, an aging rock star who’d been resting on his laurels since having a string of hits in the late seventies. He died of a drug overdose when JT was eighteen.
Ben wanted better for his daughter than what he and JT’d had. Every day he struggled to achieve a middle ground with her, but he never knew when to lay into her and when to lay off. Carly was a master manipulator, playing on his insecurities, and she’d had him wrapped around her little finger since birth.
Olivia had always hated him for making her be the only disciplinarian.
Ben pushed that thought aside and looked out at the cold blue Pacific, wishing it was pounding out something worthier, something more punishing.
Sonny didn’t know why she was so nervous about her date. Her instincts told her that Ben Fortune as a murder suspect was just another dead end.
As a hot boyfriend, if she were free to treat him as such, he was a good start.
She spent too long getting ready, trying on and discarding several outfits. Although she’d bought a few new items with Grant’s highly exaggerated wardrobe budget, she knew the last thing Ben would be interested in was another cookie-cutter beach bimbo.
She finally decided on the jeans, half boots, and sweater she’d worn to Grant’s office. It was casual, unpretentious, and demure enough to keep him guessing.
To impress Carly, she added a Kate Spade clutch, a flashy little bronze number only large enough to hold her cell phone and a few essentials.
She left her SIG at home.
Sonny knocked on Ben’s door, his borrowed sweatshirt in hand, noting the perfectly manicured landscaping around the front entrance. Juniper trees were interspersed with beach pebbles and colorful, decorative shells. Judging by their massive size, the shells were treasures from foreign shores.
When he opened the door, she shoved the sweatshirt into his arms in a lame attempt to deflect his attention from her appearance.
It worked, at first. “Cool,” he said, as if he’d been looking around for a jacket or something similar to wear in deference to the winter chill.
As he raised his arms to pull the garment over his head, his T-shirt rode up above the low waistband of his jeans, exposing a few inches of flat stomach, outrageously sexy hip bones, and an intriguing line of silky dark hair leading down from his navel.
A sensual image came to mind, one of her falling to her knees and rubbing her cheek across that smooth expanse.
Her heart began to beat a pagan rhythm. Oh man, oh baby, oh…
Oblivious to her lustful paralysis, he ran a hand over his hair, straightening the sweater’s hem and cuffs. “How do I look?”
She had to laugh. “Good.”
His eyes roamed over her, and he wasn’t shy about zeroing in on her breasts. “So do you. Better than good. Delicious.”
Her stomach muscles clenched. “I look…delicious?”
“Yeah. Buttery and syrupy, like waffles. Or maybe I’m just hungry.” He looked up the stairs. “Carly!”
Carly Fortune swept down the stairs, throwing her long hair over one shoulder, outdoing them both with a spectacular, slinky black dress. It was long-sleeved and high-necked, with a short skirt that showed off legs most women would kill for.
“I said casual,” he complained.
“Daddy, you’re wearing
Carly summed her up coolly. “Are you a lesbian?”
Sonny almost choked. “Uh…”
“Carly!”
“What, Dad? Look at her hair.”
“I’m sorry.” He clamped his hand around Carly’s forearm, applying enough pressure to silence her. “My daughter is obsessed with sexuality.”
Carly’s jaw dropped. “I am not.”
“Then don’t ask rude questions.”
In a midnight blue Lincoln Navigator worth more than Sonny’s annual salary, there was an argument over where they would eat. Ben still had a hankering for pancakes.
“I am not going to IHOP in this dress,” Carly wailed. “How about Veracruz?”
Ben looked to Sonny for confirmation. “Sounds lovely,” she said, hoping she would live through the meal.
Veracruz was an upscale steak and seafood house where no one blinked an eye at their mixed attire. The maitre d’ called Ben by name, told Carly she looked stunning, and seated them at the best table in the house.
Sonny ordered a steak, hoping she wasn’t showing her trailer park heritage by having it cooked thoroughly. Most snobs turned their noses up at anything but medium rare. As it turned out, the faux pas was much worse. Just when Sonny was cutting into her steak, thinking she’d dodged a bullet, Carly announced, “Dad’s a vegetarian.”
Her knife clattered against the plate.
“Don’t you think that’s wimpy?”
Sonny looked carefully, but she couldn’t find anything unmanly about him. “No.”
“Carly’s exaggerating,” Ben said, giving his daughter a quelling stare. “Enjoy your meal. Please.”
“I’m not exaggerating,” Carly insisted. “You don’t eat red meat. It’s totally gay.”
His mouth tightened at the slur, but he let it slide. Sonny supposed he had to pick his battles. When Carly turned to her for a reaction, Sonny lifted her fork and took a big bite, wanting no part of the conversation.
Ben also polished off a good amount of his meal, not letting his daughter’s surly mood bother him. For a gay man, he was giving off some pretty strong hetero vibes, and Sonny had to admit that under his gaze she’d never felt less like a lesbian. Every time their eyes met the air between them crackled with electricity.
“I have better things to do than watch you two stare at each other,” Carly said acidly.
“Like what?” Ben asked, his patience worn thin. “Smoke weed in your room?”
Carly narrowed her catlike eyes at him. “When are you going to get over that?”
“It was five days ago.”
“Oh, please. You’ve smoked a mountain of pot in your lifetime.”
“That doesn’t mean you can.”
“You don’t let me do anything!”
Ben nodded, agreeing that this was the best course of action.
“He doesn’t even let me drive,” she complained to Sonny. “I’ve had my learner’s permit for six months.”
Sonny tried not to shudder at the idea of Carly Fortune behind the wheel of an automobile.
“I’m going to the ladies’,” Carly announced, squaring her shoulders.
