Woman Most Wanted by Harper Allen

Author:Harper Allen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

“Matt, you’re shedding.” Turning to her brother, Carmela planted an abstracted kiss on his cheek while plucking a pale beige Zappa-hair from his jeans. Under strongly arched eyebrows her eyes were a warmer brown than his, and right now they were lit with a secret amusement. Matt saw it.

“Back off, cara,” he said in an undertone as her lips left a faint carmine smudge just above his jawbone. He caught her gaze and held it defensively. “For your information, I’m thinking of becoming a monk,” he muttered. He shot a frustrated glance at Jenna, who was hurriedly shrugging into the paisley robe she’d been wearing the day before and had left slung over a chair. “Preferably in a silent order.”

His sister spared him a pitying glance. With one tanned thumb she rubbed perfunctorily at the lipstick print on his skin. “So handsome. So dumb,” she said, shaking her head and smiling up at him. “Are you going to introduce us?”

“Jenna, this is my sister, Carmela Tucci,” he said through gritted teeth. “Jenna Moon, Carm. She’s…uh, staying here for a few days until she finds a new apartment.”

He emphasized his last few words, but the only one paying attention to him anymore was Zappa.

“I’m glad to see someone using that robe.” Carmela held out her hand to Jenna. “For some reason, my brother never wears it.”

“It makes me look like Noel Coward,” he muttered. “It’s just not me, Carm.”

“Of course.” She let her glance dwell with sisterly appraisal on the discus-thrower shoulders, the washboard-hard torso, the well-worn jeans riding his hips. “You don’t want to do anything to emphasize that effete powder-puff image you project.”

No one seeing them together could doubt that they were related, Jenna thought. They both had the same thick dark eyebrows, the same strong cheekbones, and skin that still held the warmth of a Mediterranean heritage. But the real tip-off was the easy, teasing familiarity in Carmela’s attitude and the slight, unwilling smile tugging at the corner of Matt’s mouth. Despite the wicked gleam in Carmela’s eye, the bond between the two of them was obvious. They’d grown up together. They’d always had each other. She felt a tiny, wistful pang of envy.

“What I really came by for was to remind you to show up for dinner on Saturday,” Carmela continued. She made a small moue of resignation at Jenna as if she’d known her for years, and the wistful pang subsided a little as Jenna felt herself being drawn into the other’s woman’s hospitable orbit. “He’s terrible at remembering family stuff, so I’m dumping this one on you, Jen. Seven o’clock and don’t eat for at least twelve hours beforehand because it’s the usual D’Angelo famiglia thing—Mom’s making one of her massive lasagnas, Tina’s bringing focaccia, Sophie’s doing her weird eggplant dish and I’m baking a chocolate birthday cake for Stacey. My baby’s turning sixteen,” she explained wryly. “God, that makes me feel ancient!”

She looked anything but, Jenna thought as Carmela swept past her brother, slipping off the buttery-soft short leather coat she was wearing and negligently handing it to him.

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