"No," both men growled.
Susannah nodded. "Just checking," she said pleasantly.
Silence fell over the table. Something was wrong, all right.
Lucy could almost see the hostility in the air. Matthew looked furious, and Joe-Joe looked even worse. His face was all sharp planes and angles, his mouth a thin, hard line.
"Well," Susannah said after a minute, "Joe? Has Lucy seen your boat?"
"No." He said it with finality but that didn't stop Susannah, whose brows lifted.
"You mean, he hasn't taken you for a grand tour of Lorelei yet, and shown you what a beauty she is?" She grinned. "And if that isn't enough, Matthew gets to retaliate by asking you to board Enchantress so he can tell you the very same thing."
Nobody spoke. Lucy looked at Matthew. His eyes were shuttered, his mouth tight. She looked at Joe. A muscle twitched, high in his cheek.
"The Romano brothers surely love their sailboats," Susannah said with artificial good cheer. "Don't you, guys?"
Still, no one spoke. Lucy looked at Susannah and loved her for trying so hard to overcome whatever had happened in their absence. Susannah looked at her. Say something, her eyes pleaded.
Lucy cleared her throat. "Well," she said into the silence, "what's the difference between the two? Between Enchantress and-what was it? The Laurel?"
She gasped as Joe grabbed her hand. "Her name is Lorelei," he snarled. "Lorelei. Is that so difficult to remember?"
"No," Lucy said in surprise, "not really. I simply-"
"There's nothing simple about you, babe. Nothing at all."
His hand clamped around her wrist; she winced as he shot to his feet and all but dragged her up with him. Dimly, she was aware of conversation stopping at the tables around them, of Matthew half rising from his seat, of Susannah stilling him with a touch of her hand.
"Let go of me," Lucy said. "Joe, dammit-"
"That's what she's best at," Joe said, glaring at his brother. "You wanted to know who she was, where she comes from, what she does? Well, this is what she does. She argues. She gives me orders."
"Romano, you-you loud-mouthed brute-"
"She calls me names and drives me crazy." Joe leaned forward and banged his fist on the table. "That's what she does, damn her, and I'm tired of it!"
"Listen," Matthew said, "Joe, take it easy. Just calm down, okay? Just-"
"I'm frigging tired of it," Joe snarled, and strode off.
It would have been a great exit, but he was still holding Lucy by the wrist. And he was taking huge steps, so that she had to run to keep up with him.
"Stop it," she hissed as he hurried her through the dining room. She tried not to look at the faces that turned to watch their passage, all those stares and wide eyes. "Romano, for heaven's sake-"
"Heaven has nothing to do with this," he said as she stumbled after him.
She was right, though. People were staring, and that only made his temper run hotter.
"What are you looking at?" he demanded of a man at a table as they rushed past.
"Why, nothing," the man stammered, "nothing at all."
But Joe wasn't listening. He wasn't thinking, either; somewhere, deep inside his brain, where a semblance of sanity still remained, he knew that. His thought process had been skewed all to hell, and it was Lucy's fault.
It was her fault because she was supposed to act like his fiancée, but she hadn't. That was why Matthew had started asking all those damned questions. Because Lucy hadn't kept her end of the deal. She'd blown it. She hadn't sat close to him, hadn't smiled into his eyes, hadn't touched his hand or laughed at his jokes...
Not that he'd told any jokes, he thought grimly as he shoved open the glass doors that led out onto the dock. Hell, how could a man tell so much as a one-liner when the woman seated beside him wasn't doing her part? Wasn't pretending to belong to him? Wasn't melting against him, the way she had when he'd kissed her at the foot of the stairs tonight. Wasn't sighing his name, touching his face, trembling in his arms?
Oh, yeah. Matthew had caught on, thanks to Lucy. "What's the deal here, man?" he'd said the minute the women had gone to the powder room.
"What deal?" Joe had replied, looking his brother straight in the eye.
"Don't try and con me," Matt had said sharply. "You're no more engaged to that woman than I am. Who is she, and what's going on?"
So Joe had told him, or he'd tried to. He'd explained about Nonna, and about her matchmaking, and Matthew had listened, and nodded; he'd even laughed when Joe explained the plan, that he'd pretend he was involved with Lucy in order to teach Nonna a lesson.
Except, then, Matt had said, well, the plan would backfire, that Nonna would come to accept his having a fiancée who couldn't cook and wasn't Italian and what would Joe do then?
And Joe, who'd spent the evening watching Lucy act as if she didn't want him, felt the swift, sudden kick of anger in his gut and demanded to know what in hell business that was of Matthew's.
Matt's face had gone white and he'd said, "It's my business because you're my brother. And it looks to me as if this babe has you buffaloed."
And Joe, who knew he'd brought on those words, who'd thought them a zillion times himself, had gone nuts.
He didn't remember much, just jumping to his feet, reaching across the table, grabbing Matt by his stupid bow tie, and then a couple of waiters had come scurrying over.
And, dammit, it was all Lucy's fault.
Joe spun around, grabbed her by the shoulders. "We had an arrangement," he said.
"You let go of me, Romano."
"You were supposed to make my brother think we were engaged."
"He does think we're engaged, more's the pity."
"Not anymore, he doesn't."
"Good. I'm glad you told him the truth." Lucy struggled and twisted, trying to get free. "They're such nice people, your brother and his wife. How could you lie to them that way?"
"It wasn't a lie, it was an arrangement. And you blew it."
"Don't be ridiculous! I did everything I was supposed to do."
"No way."
"But I'm not doing it, anymore. I want out, Romano. Out! You got that? I want-"
"What? Moonlight and roses? Sweet smiles and a ring on your finger?" Joe's hands tightened on her shoulders. "Couldn't you pretend, just for one night?"
"I did pretend! I wanted to tell them the truth, but I didn't. What more do you want?"
"This," Joe snarled, and he dragged her into his arms and kissed her.
It was an angry kiss. A spiteful kiss ... and then Lucy made a soft little sound in her throat, and Joe groaned, and everything changed.
"Lucinda," he whispered.
"Joe," she said softly.
He took her face in his hands and kissed her again, his mouth gentle on hers, and she kissed him back, just as gently, and he groaned again and angled his lips over hers, and the kiss changed, went deeper, deeper, until Joe swung Lucy into his arms.
She looped her arms around his neck. "Where are we going?"
"To my boat." He laughed softly, leaned his forehead against hers. "I'll never make it back to the house."
Lorelei was at a slip only a few feet away. He carried her on board, across a teak deck painted ivory by moonlight, and down into the soft darkness of the cabin.
Slowly, he let her slide down the length of his body to her feet.
"Wait," he said softly.
Lucy waited, standing alone in the blackness, trembling with anticipation. Seconds later, moonlight streamed into the cabin. Joe came back to her and took her in his arms. "I've done the wrong thing," he said, "all night."
"No. No, it was me. I-I kept thinking how wrong it was, for us to pretend-"
He slid his hands into her hair, stopped her words with a kiss. "I acted as if you weren't there, when all the time I wanted to take you in my arms, kiss you the way I'd kissed you before."
She smiled into his eyes. "Did you?"
'Listen."
Lucy listened. Faintly, like a whisper borne on the breeze, music drifted over the water.
"The band is playing. If we'd stayed in the clubhouse, I'd be asking you to dance just about now." Joe brushed his mouth over hers. "Will you? Dance with me, Lucinda?"
Her throat constricted. This was dangerous. Oh, so terribly dangerous. Something was happening here, something that wasn't supposed to happen ...
"Lucy?"