An Offer He Can't Refuse by Christie Ridgway Page B

and explain to him she was a mob boss's daughter.
    How many clients would the association cost her as the media publicized the mob angle? How many more if she allowed herself to be lured back into the bosom of the family?
    "Johnny,
I…" I might be kissing this job good-bye
. "I—"
    A flurry of sapphire silk and Shalimar swirled near, then dropped onto the cushioned bench opposite Téa and right beside—almost right onto the lap of—Johnny. "Hello, my loves," the actress Melissa Banyon trilled, in her little-girl-lost voice. "Have you been waiting for me long?"
    Téa glanced over at Johnny, but he was looking in the general direction of the actress's breasts again. "I, um, don't believe we've actually met," she said.
    "We'll fix that right up." She grabbed Téa's wineglass and gulped the contents down. "I'm Missy, and
you
are the most interesting in the room."
    Since she was beaming all her A-list power at Johnny while she said this, Téa figured the comment didn't include her. But then the actress aimed her famous violet eyes her way. "Don't you just want to eat him up?"
    Téa glanced over her shoulder to where Missy's Frenchman was smoldering from a spot at the bar across the room. "I thought he was wonderful in
The Foreign Legion
. I saw it twice."
    "No, no, no." Missy Banyon gave a flamboyant wave of a hand heavy with rings. "Not
him
. He's nothing. He's an im-bay-ceel."
    Her French accent was atrocious.
    "He's your fiance," Téa thought she should add.
    "And so, so stupid." She turned to Johnny and arched her back so her breasts poked out like super-sized cupcakes. "Don't you think?"
    He yanked his gaze off those silicone works of art to take in the angry-looking man at the bar. "I think this is where I keep my mouth shut."
    Missy didn't seem to mind carrying on the conversation alone. Still chattering away, she clapped her hands together to send the waiter scurrying for more drinks. No one, besides Raphael, of course, seemed the least bit perturbed or surprised that the actress had joined their table.
    It was a Palm Springs tradition, this fond indulgence of the Hollywood set that cruised so freely about town. Their presence was, after all, what had put the place on the map, and those who made their living off the rich and famous—which was all of them to some degree or another—regarded celebrities with the same affection as highly paid nannies for charming, yet overpampered children.
    Looking at the impossibly lovely Missy Banyon, Téa tried hard to feel accordingly. But it was one thing to let a Hollywood couple be given the best table in the room and quite another to confront one of
People
magazine's Most Beautiful People across your own. Dropping her gaze to her empty glass, Téa tugged on her sleeves, dusted off nonexistent lint, and hoped she appeared as invisible as she felt. As the awkward teenager inside of her started to awaken again, her hand wandered toward the star-shaped bowl of saturated fat nibbles in the center of the table.
    Which was whisked out of her reach as the drinks were delivered. In record time, Missy drank down two Cosmopolitans, then used a napkin to pat her overpuffed lips. "If you must know," she said, as if they'd been pressing her for details all along, "Raphael and I are having a terrible argument."
    A surfer could ride the waves of animosity rolling from the vicinity of the bar. "You don't say?" Téa responded. "I couldn't tell. It must be all those acting lessons the two of you took together during your courtship."
    Missy frowned, Téa's wry tone going right over her head. 'Those were PR lies made up by our publicists for the press. During our so-called courtship, I was filming
Neon Nights
in Tokyo. And
that's
what our argument is about." She rounded on Johnny, nearly poking her cupcakes against the lapels of his jacket. "Did your first kiss involve tongue, or not?"
    The question must have amused him, because his smile dug a dimple deep in his left cheek. It was one of those