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“Evaluating my options.”
“Bull. You’ve got nothing to occupy your mind. What with me running the bar and Jenny taking over the B and B you’ve simply got too much time on your hands.”
“Serious evaluating takes time.”
“I hope it’s your future you’re seriously evaluating. It’s been over eighteen months since you split the sheets with Angeline.”
“I didn’t break up with Angeline. She broke up with me.”
“’Cause you wouldn’t ask her to marry you.”
“A man doesn’t like to be rushed.”
Remy snorted. “You two went together for five years. Can’t say as how I blame the woman for wanting a commitment.”
“It wasn’t commitment that had me dragging my heels and you know it. Angeline and I simply weren’t right for each other.”
“It took you five years to figure that out?”
“We had our moments.”
“She never did get over you leaving Manhattan.”
“Nope.” Beau took another swig. He had been nursing the bottle all afternoon and the beer had grown warm. It tasted dry and yeasty. “She didn’t understand about connectedness.”
Remy shook his head. “You and this connectedness business.”
“Try having my childhood and see what you end up yearning for.”
“Point taken.”
A long companionable silence ensued, punctuated only by the squeak of Remy’s towel against the bar’s brass railing and Leroy’s soft snores.
“Do you ever miss it?” his brother asked a few minutes later.
“Miss what?”
“You know.”
“Manhattan?”
“Designing video games.”
“I still design them.”
“But not for profit. Creating sophisticated computer toys for my kids doesn’t count.”
“Profit’s just another word for selling out.”
“Spoken like a true rich man.”
“Don’t start with me.” Beau raised a finger. The one riff that existed between them was the issue of Beau’s mother.
Francesca Gregoretti Thibbedeaux MacTavish Girbaldi had been born with a platinum pasta fork in her mouth and a flare for the dramatic. She could trace her family lineage back to Christopher Columbus and she lived life with the full entitlement she believed was her due.
She’d met Beau’s dad when she was just sixteen and visiting America on a work visa for a modeling assignment. She’d fallen for Charles Thibbedeaux’s charm and he had tumbled for her beauty, not realizing she came from one of the wealthiest families in Europe. When Francesca got pregnant with Beau, Charles had dutifully married her in front of a justice of the peace at city hall and in that one fateful action brought down the wrath of the powerful Gregoretti clan.
And set the stage for the battle zone that became Beau’s childhood.
He had been through it all with his mother. Divorce, family squabbles, divorce, the numerous lovers, more divorce. But what hurt him the most were the prolonged periods of estrangement from his father and his two half siblings.
Francesca’s little dramas had been played out in lavish backdrops all over the world. A chalet in the Swiss Alps. A villa in Italy. A castle in Scotland. On the Concorde. On a Greek shipping magnate’s yacht. Riding the Orient Express.
From the bright lights of Las Vegas to the hustle and bustle of New York City to the exotic crush of Hong Kong, he’d trailed Hurricane Francesca and her wreck of human carnage.
Beau would have given his last breath to have spent his life at his father’s treasured ancestral home outside of New Orleans with Jenny and Remy and his sweet-natured stepmother, Camille.
But spoiled, pampered Francesca liked using him as a bargaining tool far too much to ever let him go.
Beau shook his head. He didn’t like dwelling on the past.
“You need a purpose in life.” Remy slung the white bar towel across his shoulder and plunked down in the chair across from him. “You’re adrift.”
“I’m waiting.”
“For what?”
Beau shrugged. “I’ll know it when I see it.”
Just then the sound of high heels clicking against concrete and the whiff of honeyed perfume lured Beau’s attention to the doorway.
A tall, striking blonde stalked over the threshold and into the bar with the presence of gale-force winds. He certainly knew the type. Had seen such women every day on the streets of New York City, dominating the sidewalks with their intensely focused determination. Tough. Success oriented. Self-centered. He had watched them and pitied them.
They had no connectedness to anything truly meaningful. Everything about them screamed money and status and image.
She looked to be in her midtwenties, maybe a couple of years younger than his own twenty-nine years, with flawlessly applied makeup. She wore an understated but expensive long-sleeved blue silk dress cut in a classic style favored by discerning business-women who sought to look professional while maintaining a hint of femininity. Tucked under one arm she carried a slim, black leather briefcase and in the other a small blue clutch purse that matched her outfit.
The only thing about her that was the least bit “out there” were her funky shoes. Fashionable azure-and-silver stilettos completely inappropriate for strolling the French Quarter, but just perfect for showing off miles of long, gorgeous calves.
Her features were more compelling than beautiful. She wasn’t fashion-model anorexic, and he admired that about her body. Nice breasts, not too big, not too small, in perfect proportion to rounded hips emphasizing her tapered waist.
Her hair was bobbed in a sleek, chic cut and he could tell she wore wispy bangs in order to camouflage a wide forehead. Her eyes were a little on the small side but he’d always had a thing for women with deep brown eyes that went all squinchy when they smiled. He realized he wanted to see her eyes crinkle and dance.
And he wanted to touch her.
No, wanted was too mild a word for what he was feeling. He ached to touch her. To find out exactly what her skin felt like. How smooth, how soft. Suddenly, his fingers burned raw and needy.
Just looking at her made him think of velvet and midnight and satin sheets and sunrise.
If he kissed her, would she taste like forbidden fantasies and sensual sin?
His entire body responded to his unexpected desire and damn if he didn’t feel the beginnings of a hard-on. It was lust at first sight.
Obviously, it had been too long since he’d gotten laid.
Remy got up from the table, leaving Beau to observe the newcomer from beneath the brim of his baseball cap, and slipped behind the counter. The woman headed straight for the bar as if she knew unequivocally what she wanted.
She definitely was not a tourist. The lady was on a mission.
Beau cocked his head and waited with interest to see what she would order.
A martini? A Manhattan? A cosmopolitan? Certainly not a beer. Never a beer. Not enough prestige in a simple concoction of barley and hops.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” Remy greeted her, purposefully injecting a heavy layer of the charming thick French Cajun accent the tourists adored.
Beau envied his brother’s accent. Between his world travels and Francesca’s insistence he take allocution lessons to eradicate any trace of what she disdainfully called “Louisiana good for nothing drawl,” he could not shake the resulting smooth, neutral, urbane tonality from his voice no matter how hard he tried.
“Good afternoon.” The woman smiled at Remy.
“What you be wantin’, chère?”
“Perrier.” She undid the clasp of her wallet and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. “And some information.”
“Information?” Remy raised a quizzical eyebrow at the same time he twisted the top off the bottle and poured the iced mineral water into a glass. A glugging, fizzy sound filled the silence.
As Beau studied the woman, he realized he might have been a bit too hasty in his initial assessment of her. Underneath the indomitable stride, her squarely set shoulders and those forthright eyes, he sensed a certain vulnerability that all the busy activity and high-powered success could not salve. He saw it in the way she hesitated for just a nanosecond, briefly sinking her top teeth into her bottom lip. Drawing her courage?
Maybe she wasn’t quite as self-confident as she’d first appeared, but she did a pretty impressive job of hiding it.
That sweet, slight hint of contradiction did something strange to him.
Bam! His heart rate kicked up a notch and his mouth went irrationally dry.
Resolutely, she tucked a strand of hair behind one ear, slid her fanny onto the nearest bar stool and hooked the heels of her stilettos behind the wooden rungs. “I’m looking for Beau Thibbedeaux. Would you happen to know where I could find him?”
Uh-oh. So she was looking for him. Not a good sign. The old familiar queasiness every time his past caught up with him winnowed through his stomach.
He traced his gaze over her body again, this time determinedly ignoring her lush curves and searching for clues to her occupation. Too finely dressed to be a private investigator. Not obedient enough to be one of Francesca’s handmaidens. If it weren’t for those sexy shoes he would say she was a lawyer.
She probably was a lawyer in spite of the shoe fetish. Two years later and he was still dodging fallout from the Migosaki deal gone awry. Good grief, would it ever end? Couldn’t they just let a man be?
Well, Remy had gotten his wish. Beau now had something to occupy his mind.
Remy shot a quick glance over at Beau. Want me to rat you out or not?
His preliminary impulse was to shake his head, glide right out the side door and disappear into the crowd. But he knew better. He’d learned the hard way you couldn’t run from your problems.
Plus this particular problem had the upside of being intriguingly attractive.
And it had been a very long time since he’d gotten laid.
But the dark recesses of his brain warned: You know you’re not the kind of guy who can kiss and then sprint.
It was true. He had never been able to treat sex casually the way most men seemed to be able to. Other than Angeline, he’d only had one other sexual partner and she had been his high-school sweetheart.
He blamed his inherent sexual loyalty on his basic need for connection. Having grown up in a fractured home with no real place to call his own, getting yo-yoed from one continent to the other, from one step-family to the next, Beau longed for a steady, stable woman he could make a life with. That’s why he’d had such trouble letting go of his relationship with Angeline long after it was evident their basic values clashed.
But he wasn’t a kid anymore whose mother was too busy pitching hissy fits to pay him the slightest bit of attention. Wasn’t it time he overcame his annoying impulse of equating sex with love?
Not that he was jumping to any conclusions about Miss New York City. But his unexpected sexual desire for her did raise a few issues.
“Beau Thibbedeaux?” the woman repeated to Remy. “I understand he’s part owner of this bar. Where might I find him?”
Beau pushed up the brim of his cap with one finger and settled his chair firmly on the ground. “I’m Beau Thibbedeaux.”
The woman whirled around to face him. Her eyes widened as if seeing him for the first time. “Oh.”
“What do you need?”
She planted an optimistic smile on her face and darn if her eyes didn’t scrunch up in the cute little way he’d imagined. In the blink of a second, she hopped off the bar stool and took two long-legged strides across the floor, her hand extended dominate side up, leaving him with no choice but to get to his feet and accept her proffered palm.
Her skin was warm against his. Her smell—clean, sophisticated, enticing—teased his nostrils and made him itch to nuzzle the nape of her neck.
“How do you do, Mr. Thibbedeaux? I’m Marissa Sturgess.”
Nice name, he thought, but said, “You may call me Beau.”
Silently he tried it out. Marissa. He liked the romantic way her name rolled off his tongue. He imagined whispering it in the dead of darkness and felt his body heat up.
Her smile deepened and simultaneously dug a soft place into the center of his solar plexus. He’d had a lot of practice assessing manipulative smiles and he could have sworn hers was genuine.
“Beau,” she said and the sound of his name on her lips was positively testosterone stoking.
Bizarrely enough, her eyes seemed to burn him. Everywhere her gaze landed, his skin sizzled. His nose, his cheeks…his lips.
Involuntarily, he lifted a hand to his mouth.
Weird.
“I’m a huge fan,” she said.
Fan? Oh no, was she some kind of computer-geek autograph seeker who’d acquired carpal tunnel syndrome from countless hours of playing his most popular video game, Star Tazer?
She indicated his baseball cap with a wave of her hand and he laughed. Oh yeah. The Yankees.
He was still trying to puzzle together who she was and what she was doing here when she said, “I was wondering if I might have a moment of your time.”
Now, that sounded like the prelude to a sales pitch. She was a saleswoman not a lawyer. Yes. That would explain the shoes.
But not his sudden disappointment because he’d misjudged her smile.
“I’m just the silent partner,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Remy. “My brother handles all the purchasing orders.”
“I’m not selling anything.”
He folded his arms over his chest, his hands tucked under his armpits and his feet planted shoulders’ width apart. “No? Isn’t everyone selling something?”
“Can we talk?”
He waved at the chair across the table. She eased into the seat and he plunked down opposite her. Remy hustled over with her Perrier and a fresh beer for Beau.
“Got yourself a live one,” Remy whispered. “Go for it.”
Marissa’s lips curled in amusement. “I appreciate the compliment.”
Remy grinned back, nudged Beau in the shoulder with his elbow, winked and nodded at him.
Beau kicked Remy lightly in the shin. Knock off the matchmaking.
Thankfully, a couple of customers strolled in and claimed Remy’s attention.
“Ignore my brother. He can’t stand it because he’s married and I’m not.”
She dropped her gaze for a fraction of a second and pressed her lips together before raising her head and meeting his eyes once more. There it was again, the hint she didn’t feel quite as competent as she hoped to appear.
“Mr. Thibbedeaux. Beau.” She took a sip of Perrier, and then settled her hands in her lap. “Why don’t I just cut to the chase? I’m an account manager for Pegasus software in Manhattan.”
He said nothing, just watched and waited. He’d heard of Pegasus. It was a small but rapidly expanding company that had built their reputation on cutting-edge technology and a penchant for maverick risk taking.
“Our largest client is Baxter and Jackson.”
“The sex institute?” He purposely put an emphasis on the word sex to see if he could provoke a blush. No such luck. Her professional persona was firmly in place and she wasn’t about to encourage him. But, although her lips didn’t turn up at the corners, her eyes did crinkle and he felt as if he’d been awarded a grand prize.
“Yes. The sex institute.”
“Must make for a titillating work environment,” Beau said, exaggerating the first syllable of titillating. He made sure his voice was low and husky and provocative.
“At times.”
Cotton candy wouldn’t melt in her mouth; her expression was that dry. He wondered what it would take to wet her up from the inside out.
“So what does all this have to do with me?” he ventured, although he had a pretty good idea where the conversation was headed and he was loath for it to roll there. Maybe he was wrong and she would surprise him, he hoped wistfully.
“Baxter and Jackson have commissioned Pegasus to produce a virtual-reality video game for them.”
“A touchy-feely video sex romp? I thought Baxter and Jackson were strictly clinical.”
“It’s an interactive, instructional type game designed to assist couples who have trouble letting themselves go during intimacy.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. Baxter and Jackson have done considerable research that shows a sense of whimsy is a key ingredient in happy relationships. Apparently a lot of their patients don’t know how to instigate their own bedroom fun. Hence the idea for a video game.”
“You don’t say.”
She kept her voice just above a whisper and leaned in closer. “Just between you and me and the fence post, I think it’s a preposterous notion, but they are the clients.”
“What’s so preposterous about it?”
“You shouldn’t have to play a game to get closer to your significant other.”
“Personally, I’ve always been a big fan of whimsy in the bedroom. I like toys and games and role-playing. How about you?”
He was being wicked and he knew it, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He had the strangest urge to ruffle her feathers. Maybe it was because she’d ruffled his without even trying and he could not stop thinking about undressing her and discovering exactly what delicious treats lay beyond her composed exterior.
Now here it was at last. The pink flush staining her cheeks. He suppressed a triumphant grin.
She straightened, pulling away from him. “I suppose your sublime appreciation of wacky boudoir antics is why they asked me to contact you about designing the game for them.”
“Boudoir antics?” He laughed and wriggled his eyebrows.
“It’s an expression.”
“Yeah, if you’re seventy-five.”
“What would you have me say? Love-shack frolics?” She narrowed her eyes and her nostrils flared. “The mattress tango? The sleeping-bag slide? Tube-steak boogie?”
“I was thinking something a little more down and dirty.”
Wooo, he’d pushed her hot button and she was fun to tease. He murmured a phrase that would have spurred his Italian grandmother to scrub his mouth out with Ivory.
She glared in irritation. “Get over yourself.”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you have to make a joke of everything?”
He shrugged. “Sorry. It’s my nature. Survival mechanism.”
She drummed her fingernails on the table. “Can we return to the topic at hand?”
“If you insist. I’d much rather bug you about sex. It’s so easy to make you squirm.”
Ignoring that last comment, she said, “We’re prepared to offer you significant compensation if you sign on to the project”
Beau shook his head. He had to admit, the idea of creating a virtual-reality sex video game was intriguing, especially if he would be working closely with Marissa, who, it seemed, could morph into something of a spitfire when she got charged up. And once upon a time he would have found the Baxter and Jackson concept quite challenging. But not anymore.
“I’m sorry you wasted your time coming down here, Ms. Sturgess, but I’m retired.”
“People come out of retirement all the time.”
“Not me.”
“Perhaps if you slept on it.” She reached up a hand and fingered her beaded necklace.
“Really, I’m not interested.”
She fished a pen from her briefcase, jotted down a number on a cocktail napkin and passed it across the table. “Would this help persuade you?”
“Money isn’t going to win me over.” He pushed the napkin back toward her without even glancing at it.
“What will it take then?”
“That chapter of my life is over.”
“Why?” she challenged.
“What do you mean why?”
“You’re a young man. You were once one of the best software designers in the world. Why would you walk away from it?”
She met his stare and Beau realized she honestly couldn’t fathom why he had left both his career and New York City behind. Even though he expected it from her, he felt oddly disappointed. She asked the same damn questions Angeline had asked. He couldn’t explain it to her, just as he’d been unable to explain it to Angeline. He knew she simply wouldn’t understand. Not a success-oriented, achievement-driven woman like her.
“I’m sure there are plenty of designers in Manhattan that would leap at the chance to create this game for you, Ms. Sturgess.”
“Marissa,” she said and laid her hand over his.
The physical contact weakened his knees, tightened his stomach and made him glad he wasn’t standing. She was pulling out the womanly wiles now and God help him, he was susceptible.
“No can do, Marissa.” Best to send her on her way posthaste before he got himself into serious trouble.
“Everyone has their price, Beau,” she wheedled. “Come on. Tell me. What’s yours?”
That approach was not going to work with him. He found it mildly insulting that she wouldn’t accept no for an answer, even at the same time he admired her buoyant tenacity.
“You can’t afford me.”
“How do you know?”
“Trust me on this, you wouldn’t be willing to pay my price.”
“How do you know unless you tell me what it is?” she insisted.
“And risk getting my face slapped?” He chuckled. “Not hardly.”
She ground her teeth. “Don’t tease.”
“Who’s teasing?”
He held her gaze. He wasn’t even sure what he was proposing, or even if he was proposing anything, but the jump of sexual electricity between them was undeniable. Why let the opportunity slip through his fingers? Especially when it was past time he learned how to enjoy good sex for its own sake and not as a prelude to commitment.
She sucked in her breath. “Listen, this project would help lots of sexually dysfunctional people improve their lives. Don’t you want to help people?”
“Not particularly.”
Her forehead wrinkled in shocked surprise. “What happened to you?”
“Life.”
She launched in again, arguing in circles, gesturing with her arms, talking faster and faster until he feared she was going to burn up all the oxygen in the room. Like a swivel-hipped running back, she was relying on her verbal speed and agility and commitment to her position to influence him.
Poor woman.
She had no idea she had selected exactly the wrong track with him. If she had only stuck with the sexual banter he might have been persuaded. But when those around him got excited and tried to force him into going along with them, Beau stubbornly dug into his position. He shook his head.
She kept talking, working first one angle and then another. The woman would have made a terrific filibuster or a kick-ass auctioneer.
“No,” he said calmly, dispassionately, when she stopped to take a breath.
Their gazes clashed. Her brown eyes flashed a challenge as clearly as if she’d drawn an épée from its sheath, readied her stance for a lunging round of thrust and parry and uttered “En garde.”
“Perhaps I wasn’t making myself clear enough. If you were to…”
“I said no.”
“I don’t take no for an answer.”
“Guess you’re going to have to this time, because I’m not changing my mind.”
“I don’t believe this. Offer a man a huge amount of money to do something he loves, something he’s the best at and he turns you down. Who does that?”
“I do.”
“You’re impossible.” In disgust, Marissa threw her arms into the air and the back of her rapidly moving hand struck his beer bottle.
Like a ten pin smacked by a twenty-pound bowling ball, the bottle rocketed against the wall and shattered, bathing them both in beer.
The brittle sound of unintentional violence snapped off the high ceiling like whiplash. Every patron in the place turned to rubberneck, and for the first time Beau noticed the bar was more than half-full and Leroy was no longer sitting at the back table.
“Oh, oh,” Marissa sputtered, her eyes widening at what her strong-chinned zeal had wrought.
“Wow,” Beau drawled then lazily licked beer foam from his lips. His words were light, but his chiding expression was not. “Impressive display of pique.”
“I’m sorry,” she apologized and took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to lose control.”