'That's right.' Addy glanced toward the French doors, wondering what Dina's former brother-in-law was doing out on the patio. Had one of the female guests propositioned him? Was he meeting her outside? A shiver of unexplainable excitement rippled through her. A vision of herself standing on the patio appeared in her mind. The dark stranger held her in his arms, his wide, full-lipped mouth moving downward.
'I knew he was a Latin lover boy,' Janice said, again elbowing Addy in the side. 'Hey, didn't you hear what Ginger said?'
'What?' Half dazed by the vividness of her daydream, Addy stared at her cousin in confusion.
'His name is Nick Romero. Oh, God, don't you just love the sound of it?' Janice was practically writhing.
'I think the proper term is Hispanic.' Ginger looked at Addy, seeking her agreement. 'Anyway, you're right about one thing, the term 'Latin lover' does come to mind the minute you see him.'
Addy wondered how much of Ginger and Janice's conversation she'd missed while indulging in a fantasy about the man they were discussing. It was quite apparent that the man had a mesmerizing effect on women, and she absolutely refused to allow any man, not even this one, to arouse any long-dead dreams of passion. No, she'd happily settle for the nice, warm feelings she shared with her friend Jim Hester. Though neither wealthy nor sophisticated, Jim was a dear man, and he possessed something that Addy desperately wanted, had wanted for as long as she could remember, had mourned the fact, after two miscarriages, that she might never have one of her own. Jim Hester had a child.
Addy didn't want or expect passion. As a Plain Jane, she'd long ago learned that despite the fact she had no problem attracting men, it was always her father's millions that attracted them and not her beauty or charm. Dina's stepson, Brett Windsor, definitely saw dollar signs whenever he was around her, so she didn't encourage him.
'I think you and I should give Addy a shot at Nick Romero,' Janice said, and laughed when she saw the stricken look on her cousin's face.
'You're right. After all, a man like that just might find Addy's sweetness and innocence a real turn-on.' Ginger stopped a waiter, retrieved a canape from a silver dish, then popped it into her mouth.
'I'm hardly innocent,' Addy said. 'I'm a thirty-five-year-old divorcee, not an eighteen-year-old virgin.'
'Regardless of that fact, you could write everything you know about sex on the head of a straight pin.' Janice stopped a waiter for a fresh glass of champagne.
'Would you look at that?' Ginger nodded toward the French doors where a stunningly beautiful Dina Lunden was slipping outside.
Addy watched. Dina's black satin gown shimmered, every inch adhering to her slender body in a way that accentuated her round hips, her small waist and her voluptuous bosom. Even at forty-six, the woman reeked of sex appeal and looked at least ten years younger. It didn't hurt that she was classically beautiful, with a kittenish type of sexuality. The kind that had made Marilyn Monroe a legend.
'Looks like step-mommy-to-be has beaten us all to the punch,' Ginger said. 'I wonder what she wants to talk to Nick about in private?'
'Are you implying that there's something going on between Dina and her former brother-in-law?' Addy asked.
'There's one way to find out,' Ginger said.
'We could all three go outside for a breath of fresh air,' Janice said.
'No.' Addy held up a restraining hand. 'You two stay here and enjoy the party … and make sure Daddy doesn't come outside.'
Nick Romero leaned his hip against the brick patio wall. Damn, his leg ached. He'd been standing too long. Ever since an Uzi had ripped his leg open nearly seven months ago, he'd had to learn to live with pain. Indeed, the pain had been his friend. As long as he could feel the pain, he was alive. While he'd passed in and out of consciousness, he'd kept reminding himself that as long as he could feel, he wasn't dead. And so he had embraced the agony, he'd clung to it. He'd been damned and determined that no maniac's sneak attack was going to kill him. After all, he'd lived through Vietnam, through almost ten years as a Navy SEAL and nearly a dozen years as one of the DEA's top agents. He hadn't overcome poverty and prejudice and the constant threat of death to let some psycho from his best friend's past destroy him. No, Nick Romero was made of stronger stuff.
He smelled her perfume before he saw her. Heavy, spicy, erotic. Even when Dina Lunden had been Dina Romero, his brother Miguel's wife, she'd bathed herself in cologne. Back then, it had been the cheap stuff, the kind you bought in dime stores for a dollar, the kind that Dina could afford on her waitress's salary and her husband's meager wages from farming. But once Miguel had gone to work in the oil fields, Dina started buying her perfume at the drugstore.
Funny, what a guy thought about when he smelled a woman's perfume. Of course, Dina wasn't just any woman. She was special. Despite the fact that what he'd once felt for her was long dead, she would always be special. A man never forgets his first love, especially if she was his brother's widow.
'Nicky.' Her voice had that same soft, little-girl coo it had so many years ago. 'I saw you come outside and thought now might be a good time for us to talk. Privately.'
She was still a damned good-looking woman. Still sexy as hell. The one blonde he'd never been able to forget. 'Talk away. I'm listening.'
She moved forward, stopping hesitantly. She reached out, her long, slender fingers draping themselves around his forearm. 'I've missed you, Nicky. It's been a long time.'
'Not so long, Dina.' She had such a hypnotic smile. A smile that promised so much and gave so little. Nick knew how deceptive everything about this woman could be. 'I came to your last engagement party and your last wedding.' He noticed that her smile scarcely altered, but the light in her eyes dimmed ever so slightly. 'It couldn't have been more than three years ago.'
'Almost five.' She squeezed Nick's arm, her sculptured pink nails biting into the fabric of his tuxedo. 'You haven't missed one of my weddings, have you, Nicky? Except…'
'Except the one that you didn't invite me to.'
'I thought you'd forgiven me for marrying Briley Fuller so soon after Miguel died.'
Nick tilted her chin with his index finger, looking directly into her big blue eyes. Like her lips, those eyes promised so much. False promises. 'I've forgiven you for everything. It's myself that I've never been able to forgive.'
'Silly boy, you didn't do anything wrong.' She nudged her body closer, pressing her full breasts against his chest.
'I lusted after my brother's wife, and when he wasn't three months cold in the ground, I screwed her.' Even, now, after all these years, he could still taste the bile as it rose to his throat, still hear the condemnation on his grandmother's tongue when she found Dina in Nick's bed. He'd thought he was in love. He'd been seventeen. And he'd been a fool.
'Miguel was dead. I was lonely.' She ran the tips of her long nails across his jaw. 'And we wanted each other.'
Taking her by the shoulder, Nick pushed her away from him. 'I was seventeen. I wanted a woman, and at that time you were my ideal. Blond, big-boobed and knowledgeable.'
She laughed, the sound like a high-pitched bell. Clear and sharp and feminine. 'I'm so glad we've stayed friends, despite the fact you wouldn't even speak to me after I married Briley. He was a mistake, but … he was so rich.'
'You seem to like your men that way,' Nick said, glancing over Dina's shoulder toward the French doors. They had just opened, and a tall, slender redhead was looking straight at him.
Nick's gut tightened. There was something familiar about the woman, her titian hair, her towering height, her strong features. She certainly wasn't classically beautiful, but she possessed an earthy appeal that not even her plain dress and subdued hairstyle disguised.
'You mean that I like rich men?' Dina asked.
'Yeah, rich mistakes. How many will this make? Five?'
The redhead walked out onto the patio, closing the doors behind her. She stood less than twenty feet away. And she was still staring at him. He felt an odd sensation in the pit of his stomach. Amazed at his reaction, Nick admitted to himself that the tall, skinny redhead turned him on. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so fascinated by a woman.
