Chapter 12
That's Amore
Catrina's doorbell rang at six that evening. On her small porch, Chett stamped fresh snow off his western leather boots. He balanced a pizza box on one palm and gripped a paper liquor store bag with the other hand. A plastic grocery bag dangled from a forearm. Behind him, town streetlights pricked the black night like a string of holiday lights.
She squinted. A thick black line curved above his upper lip. "What on earth is that on your face? Black felt marker?"
His grin straightened the fake mustache. "Are you going to invite me in? This pizza is flash-freezing as we speak."
She hesitated. The days apart had given her plenty of time to think. To miss him. To get over him. To crush the desire to be intimate with him again. That desire stimulated emotions. It poked a sharp stick in her hibernating memory, waking it to wreck havoc in her carefully controlled life.
However...
She was starving. In all the drama that afternoon at the carnival and its aftermath, she'd forgotten to buy groceries. The pizza smelled delicious. So did the scent of musky aftershave wafting on the arctic draft. Determination to avoid him melted like a snowball in a frying pan.
Rescuing the child that afternoon had boosted her confidence. She'd handled a crazed mother determined to run headlong onto dangerously thin ice. Surely I can handle a Hollywood writer. I'll send him home after dinner.
Scratch that.
I'll send him home after dinner and a quickie.
She capitulated to temptation and stepped back. "I am hungry," she admitted.
He grinned and waggled his brows. He knew she knew that she wasn't talking about food.
In her foyer, Chett toed off his boots and tossed his parka over the back of a white wicker chair. Mustached, gelled blond hair, wearing a black long-sleeved shirt and thin white tie, he looked hot as all hell.
She swallowed. A primal hunger surged in her nether region. Of their own volition her gaze dropped to the crotch bulge in his tight black jeans. "Who are you supposed to be?"
"Vito Corleone, at your service." He bowed.
The name rang a distant bell. "A mob boss?" she hazarded.
He smirked. "The Godfather is one of my all time favorite films-a classic." He pointed at the plastic grocery bag hanging from her fingers. "I brought a reward for Titan."
At the mention of his name, the German shepherd's black ears angled to attention. He lifted his long black nose from his paws for an interested sniff. Catrina thumbed open the bag to peer inside. "Another cooked steak?"
He shrugged. "The bribe worked last time."
"It's a smart way to make friends. Next you'll be patting him," she teased.
He paled under his California tan. "Maybe another time," he croaked. He pulled a bottle of red wine from the paper bag. "I have something for you, too. Italian."
Catrina smiled. "Of course. What else would Vito drink?" She placed the pizza box on the old leather-strapped steamer trunk that served as a coffee table and headed for the compact kitchen.
"Titan has already eaten his dinner. I'll save the steak until tomorrow. Have a seat," she invited over her shoulder while wrapping the steak to store in the fridge.
Anticipation bubbled below her calm surface. He amused her, he turned her on. She placed a couple of wine glasses, plates, cutlery and serviettes on a white wood tray and carried it to the antique trunk, a relic from the days when steamboats conveyed tourists to Lake Muskoka resorts.
Chett perched straight-backed at one end of her navy slipcovered sofa, a position with a direct line of sight to Titan. He kept one eye on the lounging dog while he twisted off the wine bottle cap and poured.
He handed her a glass and raised his. Solemnly, he toasted, "To your and Titan's heroism today." He sipped, his baby blues above the glass filled with undeniable respect.
"Don't you start in on my 'calling' as a police officer," she warned. Sure, rescuing the child with Titan's help had made her feel good. But that rescue was a one time thing. Period. "The cops eventually arrived. If I hadn't taken action, the little girl would have been just fine."
"Did they have a trained dog? How would they have rescued the kid?" He quirked a questioning brow.
"Safety lines and dry suits," she mumbled.
"Those two cops marched on the scene dressed for patrol. I didn't see any safety lines or dry suits."
"No." Even she had to admit that much. "I'm sure they called the rescue team."
"More delay. You and Titan averted what could very well have been a tragedy." Chett sawed off a bite-sized piece of the all-dressed pizza and raised the fork to his mouth. "Actions illuminate character. I learned that in film school. You stepped up and took action. That makes you a hero."
She didn't have a comeback so she picked up her fork and buried the uncomfortable feelings churning her stomach under two thick pizza slices loaded with cheese, bacon, pepperoni and sliced vegetables. She must be crazy to keep torturing herself with the dangerous emotions that Chett evoked every time they got together. Well, he'd return to California soon. Surely he'd made progress on a screenplay. He hadn't left Jenna's cottage in days or she'd have heard about it. No one in Port Carson kept secrets for long.
Except me.
Well, Chett knew her secret, but after he returned to LA her private struggle with PTSD would be safe again. She leaned back against the cushions. "How's the script coming along?"
Chett pushed away his empty plate and refilled their wine glasses. "According to studio scuttlebutt, they're looking for another True Lies or James Bond-type story involving international intrigue. My agent tells me that studios want sophisticated scripts for action films that they can easily dub into various languages and sell overseas. There's a lot of money in foreign sales. Everybody, including me, wants to make a pile of money."
He sighed, leaned back against the cushions, and propped his feet on the trunk, as comfortable in her space as if he lived there. "An action script is certainly doable on my end, but Jenna insists that it be a vehicle for her comeback. Her demands are killing me. She wants a meaty starring role that showcases her acting skills, but nevertheless she refuses to dump the pinup girl persona. She wants to be a babe-an ageing babe, mindyou-who's taken seriously as an actor." He drained his glass. "She can't have it both ways," he said with conviction.
Catrina waved a languid hand. "The beautiful and talented Halle Berry, Scarlett Johansson and Kim Basinger were all nominated for acting awards. Halle Berry won-"
He threw up his hands. "All right, already. I grant you the point. I guess what I'm really saying is that writing a female lead character is out of my comfort zone."
"You mean a female character with a brain?" She had him like a perp pinned to the floor, and grinned at his discomfort. Back to her real question. "How far along is the script?"
He leaned to set his empty glass on the tray. "The script for tonight?" he replied, dodging her query. "Sorry, there's nothing on paper. However, I did create a scenario involving a mob boss and a female cop that may interest you."
"Si." She set her glass beside his.
"See what?"
She laughed. "Si as in yes, it interests me. We are Italian in this scenario?"
"Not you." He swiveled to face her. "You're from a big Irish family and grew up in Brooklyn. In high school, you had a crush on an extremely handsome, intelligent, charming, witty-"
"I get the drift," Catrina interrupted wryly.
"Italian-American boy," he continued. "Your cop father forbid a relationship because the boy's family was connected with the Mafia."
"Very Romeo and Juliet."
He ignored her comment. "Then you followed in your father's footsteps and became a cop."
"You're not far wrong, there. And my grandmother was Irish," she murmured.
"After the young man's father ends up with cement shoes at the bottom of the Hudson River, the son takes over the shady family business. He runs an east coast theft ring, stealing cars and shipping them overseas. The rookie female cop goes undercover to investigate him and his pals and gather evidence. Bullets and sparks fly."
"Why doesn't he recognize the cop from high school?"
He shrugged. "It was a big school. He was a senior and she a freshman. He never noticed her."
She laughed. "You have an answer for everything. How about this? Tell me you didn't merely 'borrow' the Mafia Massacre concept for tonight's scenario. I told you I hate watching those movies."
He nodded. "I heard you. Believe me, I don't want my screenplays to alienate the female half of the audience, including you. Listen for a minute. Every action film sets a protagonist who is the power for good against an antagonist who represents the wrong side of the law. That's the conflict. Then we ramp up the conflict with expressions of power-weapons, explosions, fight scenes, car chases, or whatever. Extreme action gets the audience's blood pumping and furthers the conflict. Viewers are happy when good trumps evil and the guy gets the girl."
She raised her brows. "Or the girl gets the guy."
He raised a forefinger. "Point taken. The success of Wonder Woman did teach the industry that a female protagonist can carry a blockbuster movie." He placed one warm hand on her knee-a physical connection to bolster his next words. In a husky voice that stirred the sensual pot, he said, "On the way over here I thought about what might happen if the good girl and the bad guy are conflicted by the power of mutual sexual attraction? The power of passion. Who wins then?"
Catrina considered. "If the good girl wins and puts him away, she loses the guy. Double conflict. At least it puts the relationship front and center. Is this from the screenplay you're writing?"
He lifted a shoulder. "Possibly. I'm still working it out in my head." Then he grinned. "You do inspire me." He swung her upper body across his knees, tipped her back in his arms, and lowered his mouth to whisper, "On many levels."
The pressure of his firm lips on hers sent a shiver to the tips of her toes. Their tongues tangled, slippery and warm and spicy. Heat from the gas fireplace warmed her skin. Deep kisses heated her blood. His lips left hers bereft as he kissed her eyelids, the sensitive skin at her temples, the tip of her nose, her throat, as he stoked the furnace that was her core.
"So I'm powerful?" she asked, moving her lips against his freshly shaved jaw line. She inhaled musk and wood smoke and fresh air, the divine scent almost as erotically charged as the large palm curved over one breast, thumb sweeping the nipple.
He laved her earlobe with his thick agile tongue. The tingling sensation released tight neck muscles, relaxed her head to drop into the curve of his shoulder. Dreamily she thought that this sweet expertise implied significant practice with other women. But she wasn't arguing.
"You are very powerful," he replied at last. "I've only just realized how much power you have."
Was this part of the scenario? "Explain."
"You have power over Titan. Power over others. Power over me."
At the moment she did not feel terribly powerful. On the contrary, his seductive power had her in a needy haze of desire. She needed to redress the balance. "I do have an appropriate prop," she mused.
He lifted his head to look into her eyes. She'd caught his attention.
"Handcuffs."