Butterface (A Hot Romantic Comedy) (The Hartigans) Read online

  “The wedding planner chick?” Gallo sputtered. “Did you see the size of that nose and the general ugh of that face? Do we need to let the captain know it’s time to pull you in for a physical so you can get your eyes checked?”

  Ford cut a deadly glare at the detectives who, technically, were his bosses. “Shut up, Gallo.”

  The comments pissed him off. Of all the people in the world, they should be the last ones to fall for the whole hot-equals-good bullshit. They were cops, after all. They spent every day neck-deep in cases of people who might be beautiful on the outside but were a fucking radioactive cesspool on the inside. Yet these two morons still only saw the surface, which probably explained why the organized crime task force was circling the drain.

  “Come on, you gotta admit the wedding planner is harsh on the eyes, not like that one.” Ruggiero glanced over at the boutique hotel’s reception desk. “You know, she asked about you when we came out here.”

  Ford didn’t mean to look over at the hotel clerk, but he did anyway. She was a sexy blonde with big tits and an ass that would bring a sinner to church—the kind of girl his brothers would be chatting up by now. But him? Not a chance.

  He wasn’t the charming Hartigan. He was the boring, rule-following nerd who’d become a cop instead of a firefighter and never heard the end of it.

  His brothers Frankie and Finian would have fallen at the clerk’s feet. Not him—especially not if Ruggiero and Gallo were the ones saying she was hot for him. They’d pulled so many pranks at the station that the captain had dragged them into his office and reamed their asses more than once for it.

  “Like I’m gonna believe you two,” Ford said, looking around the lobby for Kapowski, who’d promised he’d be here if he could.

  Gallo held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  Ignoring the obvious setup, Ford brought it back to business. Trying to shame these two into good behavior worked about as well as it did on a dog—momentary remorse followed five minutes later with Rover being snout-deep in the kitchen garbage. Again. “Has Kapowski showed up with the files about the latest Esposito surveillance yet?”

  Gallo shook his head. “That would be a negative.”

  “And you two are out here waiting on him so you can review it in a timely manner?”

  “Fuck no.” Ruggiero held up his glass, clinking the ice cubes in the international sign for another drink. “That’s what we have you here for, son.”

  “You’re a real piece of work, Ruggiero.”

  “I know.” He flashed a grin, obviously unperturbed by the dig. “It’s why all the ladies love me.”

  Gallo laughed loudly. “There is no one who believes that.”

  “Tell that to my wife,” he groused. “She’s convinced I’m banging half the nurses at St. Vincent’s.”

  Ford didn’t want to touch that, not even with Gallo’s probably radioactive dick. “I’m heading up. If Kapowski ever gets here, you can just have him deliver the info to room two-oh-five.”

  Why was he so ready to spend a night working instead of following up with the wedding planner, no matter what Ruggiero and Gallo said about her? Because there was nothing in the world Ford wanted more than nailing the Esposito crime family.

  He’d been close, so close, to making a case against the organization. But as his grandpa had always said, close only counts in horseshoes and the backseat of a car. It definitely didn’t count in police investigations, and that’s why he was stuck getting brain rot as the task force’s low man on the totem pole for the foreseeable future. But he wouldn’t be there forever.

  Growing up as the odd man out of the seven Hartigan kids, he’d learned early on that it wasn’t about winning the battle, it was about winning the war. Eventually, if he played it smart—which he always did—he’d move up to running the task force. Then, give him two decades and, at fifty, he’d be the youngest police commissioner in Waterbury’s history.

  Gallo gave him a questioning look. “You’re staying here?”

  “I’ve had two beers,” Ford said, stopping before he sang them song and verse on department policy and the law.

  “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary,” Ruggiero said and took a drink from the red cocktail straw of the new amaretto sour the bartender had handed him. “Even my grandmother can drive home after two beers.”

  “It’s against department policy.” Section forty-two point eight point three, to be precise.

  “Fucking rule follower.” Gallo rolled his eyes and turned his barstool back around to face the bar and the giant TV screen showing the Harbor City Ice Knights losing. Again.

  “We are law enforcement officers.” Which meant they needed to hold themselves to a higher standard, to put law and order above everything else.

  Ruggiero snorted. “That doesn’t mean we have to be know-it-all assholes.”

  Ford clamped his mouth shut and hammered the tip of his middle finger against his thumb, counting down from twenty-five because ten wasn’t going to do it with these two.

  Once he tapped to twenty-five, he let out a breath. “Just have Kapowski bring up the files if he stops by. We need his detail tonight to pay off. If the tip about the massive drug deal we got was right, the Espositos will be flooding Waterbury with heroin.”

  Even Ruggiero and Gallo grimaced at his words.

  Despite their general assholery, they knew a lot of people would suffer if they didn’t stop this deal—and right now they didn’t have jack shit on it.

  Ford grabbed his key out of his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Ruggiero. “Room two-oh-five. He can leave the files and the key on the desk in my room. I need a shower.”

  Ruggiero shrugged, his grimace replaced with a shit-eating grin. “Maybe I’ll have that hot receptionist bring them up instead.”

  “You’re hilarious,” Ford said and marched toward the elevators so he could get out of this monkey suit.

  If Ford had been one of his brothers, he would have been able to cajole the other men into not being such giant assholes. However, Ford had long ago accepted that he wasn’t like the rest of his family. Brusque. By the rules. No-nonsense. That was him, the boring, dark-haired, odd man out of the wild, fun-loving, rough-and-tumble Hartigans—the guy who had women sprinting away from him after a single kiss. Yeah. He was a real catch.

  Chapter Two

  Gina’s stomach was still going all woozy whenever she thought back to that kiss, but the wedding reception had finally wound down and the happily-wedded and sloshed couple had disappeared into their honeymoon suite. That meant Gina’s time in hell was done. Thank you, baby Jesus.

  She loved her job as a wedding and event planner—really, she did—but nothing was ever as sweet as the moment she walked away from a job well done. In T-minus twenty minutes, she’d be out of these heels and cute-but-not-revealing green dress and back in her own home, with nothing but the creaky silence of the old Victorian for company. She couldn’t wait.

  It wasn’t the most exciting life—she owned that—but it was hers, and she was determined to make the most of it. No sitting around waiting on Prince Charming, who only existed in storybooks. Forget that pampered dweeb. What she needed was a handyman who wouldn’t run screaming from her home renovation to-do list. Well, that and more clients for her start-up business. Orgasms would be nice, too, but she’d found her vibrator was a hell of a lot more reliable for that than the few men who’d been in her bed.

  Purse in hand and gaze locked on the hotel’s front door so she couldn’t get flagged down by any drunk guests, Gina almost slammed right into one of the cops who’d been the source of the newly married couple’s tequila supply. Way to go, Regina.

  The guy—what was his name, it was something with a G, Gerry? Gionni? No. Johnnie—had stepped away from the hotel’s reception desk and directly into her path. How she managed to stop in time, she had no clue.

  “How you doin’ tonight, Miss Wedding Planner?” Johnnie asked, trouble brewing in his slightly unfocused eyes.
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  Great. This was the last thing she needed right now.

  Okay, the real last thing was getting called back to duty by a more-than-tipsy bride, but a run-in with a drunk guest was a close second. Blowing him off wasn’t an option, though.

  She had her reputation to consider, and her fledgling company didn’t need the bad word of mouth because he perceived her as being rude. Add to that the fact that her brothers, Paul and Rocco, were known to have had multiple run-ins with the cops, so giving the detective a reason to give her—or her family—a hard time wasn’t a smart move. Sure, it wasn’t like her brothers were top-level guys in the Esposito organization, but they had plans—the stupid kind of ideas she’d spent her entire adult life trying to talk them out of.

  The only good part of them being the neighborhood loan sharks was the fact that they actually helped a lot of people who were struggling, much to the detriment of their bottom line. They were the softest loan sharks that ever existed. Her brothers would help anyone with a sob story and give terms that didn’t involve broken legs for late payments. It wasn’t the usual route for loan sharks and that meant their profit margin sucked. They hadn’t told her directly, but she’d heard they were trying to get a better position with the Espositos so they could get someone else to do the debt collecting. Her brothers were sofities, but they also wanted to make a buck.

  So while she didn’t have anything, even peripherally, to do with the family business, pissing off the cops and making her brothers targets was not an option. Damn. Some days there really was no winning.

  “I’m doing fine, thanks,” she said, using her I’m-here-to-help work voice. “Did you need help with something?”

  “I’m good.” He paused, seemingly for effect. “However, there is something that I could do for you.”

  There was an awkward pause as he continued to stare at her, and her brain went on the fritz when it came to coming up with inane conversation—because she highly doubted there was anything this guy could do for her. And in her experience, when someone told her they wanted to do her a favor or gave her an I’m-interested look, there were ulterior motives at play. That lovely reminder of how her life worked brought back the old familiar clammy hands and tight chest feeling that hit her hard.

  It took a couple of deep breaths, but she got the anxiety under control so much faster than she had in the past. Three cheers for growing up.

  “As fascinating as I’m sure the offer is, I’m gonna have to pass.” She tilted her chin back toward the closed ballroom doors, where the pumping bass for the stragglers going late after the newly married couple retired was still going strong. “That wedding tuckered me out.”

  “Sure, sure,” Johnnie said, tapping a hotel key against his meaty palm. “It’s just that Ford Hartigan asked me to keep a watch out for you. You know our boy Ford, right? He was the guy you kissed tonight.”

  Her cheeks flamed. “Why would he want someone to be on the lookout for me?”

  “I couldn’t say for sure,” Johnnie said and then looked over both shoulders before taking a step closer and dropping his voice to a low whisper. “But he asked me to watch out for the hot chick from the Kiss Cam. I think he’s interested, if you know what I mean.”

  Gina stiffened. In her entire life, no one had called her “the hot chick.” Absolutely no one. She wasn’t pretty, let alone hot, and denying that fact wasn’t ever going to do her any favors.

  Keeping her chin high and her breathing steady—thank you, hours of yoga training—she put on her neutral smile and took a step toward the door. “I gotta go.”

  He held up the hotel key card. “Room two-oh-five.”

  That stopped her. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s his room number,” he said. “Ford wanted to see you, but he’s stuck in his room waiting for a report to get delivered.”

  “Why does he want to see me?” Her natural cynicism warred with the hope for something different this time. He had offered to buy her a drink. She’d been the one to spurn him. And that kiss… Maybe he was hoping for another chance? Could that be possible?

  The detective continued, “Look, you’re a smart woman. You know the Kiss Cam was a setup. Ford had been watching you all night, and you may not believe it, but he’s kinda shy and didn’t know how to approach you. The guy’s married to his job. I mean he never dates. I was just trying to do a friend a solid.”

  “Really?” She didn’t bother to keep the yeah-sure look off her face even as the quiet voices urging her to believe got louder and louder.

  “I know, he’s not the most, shall we say, emotive guy out there, but he’s interested in you, ya know?” Johnnie shrugged. “But if you don’t feel the same, I can pass that message along. He’d just hoped…”

  The cop shrugged and let the rest of what he was going to say fade away.

  None of this sounded right, but a helium balloon of hope filled her chest anyway. “No offense,” she said. “But why should I believe any of this from you?”

  He smacked his hand against his chest over his heart. “Right in the ticker.” Then he held out the key. “Look, you don’t know me from Adam, but I swear I have my buddy’s best interests at heart here, and you seem like a nice lady.” He held up his free hand to stop her from interrupting. “I hate that I put you on the spot with that Kiss Cam thing. Ford feels like shit about it, even though he had no idea what I was up to. He wants to make it up to you. Wanted to at least apologize in person. No one’s forcing an independent, smart woman like you to do anything. Take the key and go talk to Ford or don’t, it’s your choice.”

  Gina stared at that key card. Maybe this was a sign that life for her was about to change. That’s what her grandfather would have said.

  He would have told her to take this opportunity and seize adventure whenever she could. Spending the night—because they were all grown-ups here, and even though no one was saying it, they all knew that’s what they were talking about—in an overpriced hotel room with a seriously sexy man? That wasn’t something offered to someone like her every day, not even every five years. Who knew if the opportunity would ever come again? And what kind of giant chicken would she be if she walked away from this chance—especially when she wanted him as much as he seemed to want her?

  “Fine. I’ll at least let him apologize in person.” She plucked the key from his fingers, pivoted direction, and headed toward the elevators, ready to give opportunity, adventure, and a night of steamy sex with a hot cop a shot.

  …

  Hot beads of water pounded down on Ford’s shoulders, taking away the tension that had been building there since the disastrous kiss with Gina. Gina. He liked the sound of her name. It rolled off his tongue like a mix between a groan and a wish—especially while his eyes were closed and his hand was wrapped around his cock, giving it a slow, tight stroke.

  He hadn’t been lying downstairs. She may not be what anyone would call a beauty queen, but there was something about her, something tempting and challenging, that had caught his attention and made him wonder about…everything. Just how soft was her skin at the dip in her waist? Was her laugh low and dirty or a warm soprano? Would she moan when he unzipped that green dress that had clung to her every curve? What would make her call out his name?

  What could he say, he was a cop down to his core.

  Finding the answers to all of life’s questions turned him on—especially if they were about Gina. She made him so fucking curious. He slid his palm up and down his length, his other hand planted, fingers spread wide against the hard wall tile, and let the fantasy take him. One stroke. Two. Then the unmistakeable sound of his hotel room door opening caught him halfway down the shaft. His eyes snapped open as reality slammed into him.

  Shit.

  Kapowski.

  The stakeout report.

  Grateful that he’d mostly shut the bathroom door, so at least the patrolman snagged for the special detail wouldn’t get an eyeful of Ford jerking off, he turned in the shower r
ight in time to see a flash of a green dress and wavy brown hair pass by the door. Then it was gone. Kapowski was blond and stuck to all black. So who in the hell… His fast-thickening dick figured it out quicker than his brain. Gina the wedding planner was in his room.

  What was happening?

  How did she get in?

  Why was she here?

  That’s when he heard a voice shouting in his head, Who fuckin’ cares? She’s here and she wouldn’t be if she didn’t want you.

  Maybe refusing his drink offer had been because she was still on the clock and not because of him?

  Stop asking yourself questions while your hand’s around your cock and talk to the woman in your hotel room, the voice yelled.

  “I’m in the shower,” he called out, which was fucking brilliant repartee in its obviousness.

  The lights in the bedroom clicked off right as she said, “I picked up on that.”

  Figuring that if he thunked his head against the tile it would be loud enough for her to hear in the other room, he clamped his eyes closed and counted to ten instead. Then, he turned the shower knob all the way to the left, letting it linger at the apex of cold for a minute to try to clear his head and deflate his hard-on so he wouldn’t walk out like a fucking loser who’d been jerking off in the hotel bathroom by himself.

  Which he was.

  But she didn’t need to know that.

  By the time he turned the water all the way off, music was playing in the other room. It wasn’t gonna-bang-you-against-the-wall or make-love-to-you-all-night long stuff, it sounded like what his sister Fallon listened to when she did yoga. Oh God. Thinking about his sister right now was not what he wanted to do. His dick shriveled up. Fuck. Going out there as Danny Dinky Dick was not what he wanted, either. Could he catch a fucking break?

  Beyond the fact that a chick you were just thinking about while your hand was around your cock is in your hotel room, chucklehead?

  He snatched the towel off the stack on the shelf and dried off. “I’ll be right out.”

  “Take your time,” she said, her words coming out in a breathy rush.