She wasn’t like him. She wasn’t like any of them, probably J. T. included.
And she’d already done her part to make J. T. suffer; of that she was pretty sure, and that could be part of her anger this morning.
She was really pretty bloody angry at herself.
“I don’t play games, Mr.Francone. It’s boring and chickenshit and the eggs Benedict are the special today. What can I get for you?”
Franco was looking at her with some astonishment.
“I’ll have the eggs Benedict,” he said humbly.
“Good choice, Mr.Francone.”
She pivoted sharply and found herself eye level with a T-shirt-clad wall of a chest.
She looked abruptly up into a pair of blue eyes rimmed in red and shadowed in mauve. Little did she know, it was a bit like looking in a mirror.
Her heart felt like it literally did a backflip.
For a second neither of them spoke.
She was afraid to breathe, because she might inhale the scent of him, and that was her aphrodisiac, and she’d probably melt into a tired puddle on the floor.
“His real name is Ed, you know. Not Franco. EdO’Malley. He’s Irish,” J. T. finally said.
That was quite the non sequitur.
Franco shot J. T. a dirty look.
“Is it?” Britt said sweetly. “It suits him. Handsome and exotic. We can’t all have three names to choose from. Sometimes you just have to make one up.”
Franco was grinning at this. “You heard the lady, J. T. It suits me. Handsome and exotic.”
And suddenly, like the back peeling off a decal, Rebecca Corday appeared from behind J. T.
Britt was badly startled. Rebecca had probably been turned sidewise, Britt thought. The woman was about as thin as a dime when in profile.
Rebecca slinked into the chair across from Franco, plucked up the menu and fanned it open in her long fingers. Light bounced from her flawless manicure.
J. T. remained standing.
He’d actuallybroughtthat woman back into the Misty Cat?
“This is a rare occasion, Britt,” Franco told her. “Rebecca eats only every couple of weeks. Like a boa constrictor.”
“Ha ha.” Rebecca didn’t look the least bit amused.
“We’re all out of mice today.” Brit said this as politely as possible. Suddenly it felt like a hot little fist had taken up residence behind her eyes. “I can go see how we’re fixed for rats, however.”
And here she and J. T. locked eyes in a gaze so hard, steely, and complex it could have supported a rush-hour commute.
“I’m not hungry,” he said. Though she hadn’t asked him what he wanted.
He didn’t sit down. Even when Franco pushed a chair out for him with his foot.
Rebecca was studying Britt and J. T. very closely. As if she thought Britt intended to mount J. T. right here at the table. She remembered what J. T. had said about Rebecca hunting down happiness like an anthropologist. It looked as though she wished she had a magnifying glass to help her study what J. T. saw in Britt.
If Rebecca came at her, Britt thought she might be able to swiftly tie Rebecca’s skinny limbs into a knot and immobilize her.
