The Sexiest Man Alive (The Romanos 1)

She frowned, glanced at the clock. She’d made it a point to be ready early. But Matthew was earlier still.

“Good evening,” she said formally, when she opened the door—and tried not to let her mouth drop open, too.

/> If he’d been gorgeous last night, in jeans and a leather jacket, what word could possibly describe him tonight?

He was wearing a tux. A tux! The last time she’d gone out with a guy in a tux had been in high school, the night of her senior prom, and dear, sweet Sam had certainly not looked like this in his rented-for-the-occasion evening wear. His pants had been too short, his jacket sleeves too long, and his collar had tilted to the west.

Matthew’s collar didn’t tilt at all.

The tux fit as if it had been made for him—which, she had no doubt, it had. He looked—there was no other word—gorgeous.

The sexiest man alive, she thought, and a dangerous little hum of excitement danced through her blood.

“Hi.” Matthew gave her a lazy smile. “I know I’m early,” he said, and wondered if his nose would start growing for the lie. “I didn’t mean to be, it just worked out that way.”

Of course, he’d meant to be. He’d hoped to catch her in her robe again, or maybe even as she was coming out of the shower, when she’d have looked soft and flushed and…

“Beautiful,” he said softly “Susie, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Susannah pinkened. “It’s the dress.”

“Like hell it is ” He smiled. “Not that the dress isn’t spectacular. Turn around so I can admire the view from all angles.”

She laughed, blushed harder, but did as he asked.

“They said the restaurant was—”

“Posh.” Matthew grinned and swept a hand the length of his jacket. “I know. That’s the reason for the monkey suit.”

“Don’t apologize. You look…” Their eyes met “You look…very nice.”

“Thanks.” He reached past her, took the silk coat she’d borrowed from Claire from the chair where she’d left it and draped it around her shoulders. His hands drifted across the nape of her neck, lingering for no more than a second.

A tremor went through her.

“Cold?”

Susannah smiled brightly and picked up her small silver evening bag. “No, no, I’m fine. Just a—”

“A goose walking across your grave.” He grinned again. “My grandmother says stuff like that. Doesn’t yours?”

“My grandmother?” Susannah thought of her prim New England grandmother, a woman who’d refused to admit anyone existed unless they could trace their ancestry to the Mayflower, and never mind that the Madison family had been dead broke for years and years, and she laughed. “My grandmother—the only one I ever knew, anyway—would probably have fainted if anyone ever said anything so earthy around her.”

“Ah,” he said, “well, Nonna is Sicilian. She’s earthy, all right.”

“Sicilian?” Susannah asked, looking at him. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah. She came to this country when she was twelve, but you’d never know it.” The boyish grin spread over his face again. “She used to whack me across the backside whenever she figured I needed it, but I loved her anyway. And she made the most incredible lasagna. We had dinner at her house every Sunday when I was a kid. It was my father’s one day off, and we used to put on our good clothes, go to church, then go to Nonna’s for dinner. She lived right around the corner from us, in North Beach.”

“North Beach in San Francisco?” She couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice. “Isn’t that—”

“Little Italy. They still call it that, I guess.” Matthew opened the door and Susannah stepped past him into the hall. “All I know is, if the guys I grew up with saw me in this outfit, I’d end up having to defend my honor.”

She laughed, and he laughed, but her head was spinning. Matthew Romano, born in one of San Francisco’s old ethnic neighborhoods?

So, maybe he hadn’t spent his life just sitting around and counting his money, after all.

* * *

The Gilded Carousel looked as if it might be the real thing.

“Posh isn’t even the word,” Susannah whispered over a flute of Dom Pérignon.

“Uh-huh. I keep thinking they’re going to ask to see our pedigrees.”

“My grandmother—remember her?”

“Certainly. The old broad with the fancy ancestors.”

Susannah laughed. “That’s her. She’d be happy to oblige.”

“Well, hell, Susie, why not?” Matthew smiled. “I’m impressed. A gen-u-ine descendent of Mayflower stock is nothing to sneeze at.”

“Trust me, Matthew, it’s meaningless. I grew up in a big, run-down house on Beacon Hill.”

“Boston?”

“Uh-huh. And I grew up hearing all about the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers—and pretending that, when the lights suddenly went out, it was because of a power failure, not because the electric bill hadn’t been paid.”

Susannah straightened in the gilded, elegant chair. Why on earth had she said that? She never talked about her childhood. Never. What was the point? Life was what you made of it, and she’d been working like a demon to make the most of hers as long as she could remember.

“Sorry,” she said, forcing a smile to her lips. “There’s no reason to bore you with my family history.”

“I’m not bored at all. Actually, I’m amazed that the Mayflower crowd has the same problems as the bunch from Little Italy.”

“Not all of it.” Susannah waited while the waiter served her shrimp scampi and Matthew’s boeuf en croute. “Some of them have money. And some of the ones that don’t aren’t embarrassed to go out and earn it.”

“But not Grandma?”

Susannah pretended to be shocked. “Grandmother, if you please. No, not her. One didn’t discuss finances. It was…lower class.”

“In other words, it was better to pretend there’d been a power failure than to admit you couldn’t pay the electric bill,” Matthew said, and smiled.

“Exactly. My father agreed. Or didn’t want to quarrel with her. Whatever. He had no real skills, so he toyed with selling stocks and insurance to people he knew—people who, I suppose, felt sorry for him—but when he died, we were really broke. The house went for taxes. My mother went to work. She got a job as a saleswoman in—” she smiled “—in a posh little shop where she spent her time waiting on people who’d once pretended to be her friends.”

Matthew’s smile disappeared. “It sounds like a rough childhood,” he said, his eyes fixed on her face.

“No. Oh, no. I know that lots of people have it much worse. And, in a way, I suppose it was a good lesson.”

He reached across the table, his hand curling around hers.

“In making sure the electric bill gets paid?” he asked, smiling a little.

Susannah laughed. “Yes. And in the importance of being able to make my own way in this world.” His hand felt wonderful, holding hers. Hard. Warm. Protective. Carefully, she disengaged her fingers and sat back. “Don’t look at me that way, Matthew. Really, I know it’s silly to complain about having grown up pretending to be rich. I mean, we always had food on the table and a roof over our heads. Lots of people have less.” She picked up her fork and stabbed a shrimp. “Anyway, that’s all in the past. Grandmother died years ago, and my mother lives in an apartment. she’s got a job she likes, and friends…”

Suddenly, she seemed to hear the endless prattle of her own voice. The fork dropped from her hand to the table. She dipped her head, made more out of recovering it than it was worth. When she looked up, her expression was composed and serene.

“We might have to score the Gilded Carousel a broken heart for ambience,” she said lightly. “Any place that makes me cough up the family secrets couldn’t possibly have ambience. My grandmother would tell you that.”

Matthew nodded. She wanted to change the subject. Well, that was fine. This entire conversation was making him uneasy. Not the things Susannah had told him about herself. He wanted to know more about her, and he’d been completely caught up in listening to her and in watching the play of emotion on her lovely face.

r /> The uneasiness came from something else entirely.

Seconds ago, for no good reason, he’d suddenly found himself thinking how much his nonna and Susannah would like each other.

It was such a pointless thought that it had made everything around him blur.

Now he was thinking something even more pointless.

He’d sat opposite scores of beautiful women in his life, half listening as they babbled about everything from parties to politics. He knew how to look interested and how to say all the right things, but he couldn’t, for the life of him, recall ever wanting to take a woman into his arms and tell her—and tell her…

The hair rose on the back of his neck.

Carefully, very carefully, Matthew put down his fork and his knife.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said politely, “but I’m afraid we’re going to have to pass on coffee and dessert.”

Susannah looked up. Heat swept through her veins.

She had embarrassed him. Embarrassed herself. She could see it in his face. His smile was polite, his eyes cool, and she knew that he was counting the minutes until he could end the evening.

Whatever had possessed her to tell him the silly story of her life? Matthew Romano was her boss. He was a man who’d tried to seduce her. His interest in her began in the office and ended in bed, and since she’d made it clear she wouldn’t be making any stops there, that was the end of it.

Why had she bored him with all her very private baggage?

She knew better than to make things worse by apologizing. Instead, she pasted a bright smile to her lips, folded her napkin and dropped it beside her plate.

“Mind? Matthew, that’s perfect. I was going to suggest the same thing.” She tried not to think about how quickly he rose from his seat or how, when he helped her with her coat, there was no lingering brush of his hand against her neck. “I have an early meeting tomorrow. You know how it is.”

He didn’t. He didn’t know how anything was, not at this moment, but he wasn’t going to admit that to her or to himself.

“I do, indeed,” he said pleasantly. “In fact, I have a meeting, too. In Los Angeles.” He took her elbow as they left the restaurant and walked to his car. “I meant to mention it, Susannah. I might not be back for a while.”