Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Copyright

“You Want Me To What?” Luc Finally Managed To Ask.

“It’s no big deal,” Peachy responded.

“My taking your virginity is no big deal?”

“I don’t think ‘taking’ is the right word. It’s not as though I’m trying to keep it.”

“True,” he acknowledged with a humorless laugh. “You’re offering to give it away. To me.”

“That’s right.”

“And this is a no-strings-attached, one-time-only deal?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Peachy stiffened. “You mean you don’t want to do it?”

Luc fervently wished she’d phrased her statement in a different way. Preferably one that omitted the word want. He wasn’t oblivious to Peachy’s appeal. But there was no way—no way in hell—he was going to do what he’d just been requested to do.

Dear Reader,

Go no further! I want you to read all about what’s in store for you this month at Silhouette Desire. First, there’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the triumphant return of Joan Hohl’s BIG BAD WOLFE series! MAN OF THE MONTH Cameron Wolfe “stars” in the absolutely wonderful Wolfe Wedding. This book, Joan’s twenty-fifth Silhouette title, is a keeper. So if you plan on giving it to someone to read I suggest you get one for yourself and one for a friend—it’s that good!

In addition, it’s always exciting for me to present a unique new miniseries, and SONS AND LOVERS is just such a series. Lucas, Ridge and Reese are all brothers with a secret past…and a romantic future. The series begins with Lucas: The Loner by Cindy Gerard, and continues in February with Reese: The Untamed by Susan Connell and in March with Ridge: The Avenger by Leanne Banks. Don’t miss them!

If you like humor, don’t miss Peachy’s Proposal, the next book in Carole Buck’s charming, fun-filled WEDDING BELLES series, or My House or Yours? the latest from Lass Small.

If ranches are a place you’d like to visit, you must check out Barbara McMahon’s Cowboy’s Bride. And this month is completed with a dramatic, sensuous love story from Metsy Hingle. The story is called Surrender, and I think you’ll surrender to the talents of this wonderful new writer.

Sincerely,

Lucia Macro

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Ene, OnL L2A 5X3

Peachy’s Proposal
Carole Buck

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAROLE BUCK

is a television news writer and movie reviewer who lives in Atlanta. She is single and her hobbies include cake decorating, ballet and traveling. She collects frogs, but does not kiss them. Carole says she’s in love with life; she hopes the books she writes reflect this.

To Melissa Jeglinski:

An editor with the “write” stuff. Thanks for your personal encouragement and professional excellence.

Prologue

Shortly after 9:00 p.m. on the third Saturday in April, Pamela Gayle Keene—called “Peachy” by just about everybody—caught the bridal bouquet tossed by the newly wed Mrs. Matthew Douglas Powell. According to nuptial lore, this meant that she was destined to be the next female among those present to get married.

Yet less than twenty-four hours after bagging the lace-frilled bundle of blossoms for which so many had so eagerly vied, Peachy found herself clutching the floral omen of her supposedly happily-ever-after fate and contemplating the very real possibility that she was going to die a single woman.

And not just any old sort of single woman, either. Oh, no. Pamela Gayle Keene was a single woman who’d never made love with a man.

She’d come close to doing so once. Very, very close. Unfortunately, while her prospective partner had been extremely willing in spirit, he’d been woefully weak in terms of fleshly follow-through.

Although Peachy was aware that being a virgin at twenty-three years of age would qualify her as something of an oddity in many social circles, she normally did not give much thought to her lack of sexual experience. A public address announcement that the plane she was flying on had suffered an equipment failure and would be attempting a “belly” landing at the New Orleans International Airport changed this state of affairs. All at once the implications of her intact status began to loom extremely large on her emotional radar. Larger than life, one might be tempted to say.

Her first reaction to the news of the emergency—which had been delivered by the plane’s pilot in a calm, country-boy drawl—was fear. Her heartbeat accelerated from a slow, steady rhythm to a panicked pounding in a few short seconds. Her stomach knotted. Her mouth went dry. Her palms turned clammy.

“Oh, God,” she whispered on a shuddering exhalation of breath. “Oh…Dear God.”

She lifted her left hand to the base of her throat, instinctively seeking the familiar contours of the bell-shaped silver locket she’d worn for nearly ten years. The locket was a cherished memento of the first wedding she’d ever attended and the emblem of an experience she’d shared with two very special women. Touching it eased her terror, just a bit.

Although possessed of a certain degree of personal daring, Peachy had always been a nervous flyer. It wasn’t that she subscribed to the dictum that if the Lord had intended people to soar into the sky He would have blessed them with wings. She didn’t. She simply harbored a gut-level conviction that flying was a decidedly unnatural activity which should be avoided whenever possible. She was also strongly inclined to question the veracity of many aviation safety claims—particularly the ones involving statistics that purportedly showed people were more likely to be killed by bathtub falls than by plane crashes.

A woman across the aisle from her began sobbing as the pilot completed his spiel. A man seated behind her started praying in a language she didn’t understand. Up front, the flight attendants launched briskly into a detailed demonstration of the applicable emergency procedures.

“After the aircraft lands…” they said, prefacing each instruction.

After.

Not if.

And not the slightest hint that instead of touching down safely and sliding to a well-positioned stop, the plane might very well end up smashing into the runway and exploding into several thousand fiery pieces.

Peachy appreciated the cabin crew’s relentlessly positive attitude. She hoped it would prove an effective counterbalance to the little voice in the back of her skull that kept shrieking, I always knew flying was dangerous! She suspected it was the same sort of little voice that had prompted a fabled hypochondriac to have the phrase “See, I told you I was sick” engraved on his headstone.

About the time the flight attendants finished explaining how to exit the plane via its inflatable escape chutes, Peachy’s fear gave way to a curious kind of calm. It was not a que sera, sera sense of resignation about what was going to happen. Passive acceptance was not—would never be—her style. Rather, this was an empowering feeling of serenity that flowed directly from her participation in the previous evening’s wedding.

That wedding had been an incandescently happy event, a celebration of the matrimonial commitment between a man and woman whose lifelong friendship had unexpectedly blossomed into passion. All the people Peachy held nearest and dearest had been there, sharing in the blissful smiles and sentimental tears. If her time was up, if the plane did crash and burn, it was profoundly comforting to her to think that her loved ones would be able to remember her in the context of such a life-affirming occasion.

As for the memories she had to cling to in what might be her final minutes…

There was the glow she’d seen in Annie’s and Matt’s eyes when they’d turned from the altar after exchanging their “I do’s” and faced the world as husband and wife.

There was the enduring warmth she’d felt emanating from her parents, who would soon mark their thirty-eighth anniversary, when they’d danced together at the reception.

And above all, there was the breathless joy she’d heard in her older sister’s voice when Eden had confided that she and her husband, Rick, were going to have a baby in October, some six months hence.

“Oh, Eden,” she’d whispered, perilously close to tears. She knew how desperately her sister and her brother-in-law yearned for a child. She also knew how many fertility experts had declared that their chances of conceiving one were next to nil. “Oh…Eden.”

“You like the idea of being an auntie?” had been the mother-tobe’s bantering response.

“Like it?” she’d echoed, eyeing her sister’s still-flat tummy with fierce affection then enveloping her in a hug. “I absolutely love it! It’s even better than getting to be one of the Wedding Belles when you and Rick—”

“We aren’t going to make it,” the weeping woman on the other side of the aisle suddenly moaned. “We’re all going to die.”

Peachy’s curious kind of calm slammed against cold, cruel reality and cracked. Regret surged through her in a torrent of couldhaves, would-haves and should-haves, of might-have-beens and ought-to-have-dones. Dreams deferred became dreams irrevocably denied. A twenty-three-year life that had seemed rich and rewarding just moments earlier devolved into an unfulfilled existence consisting of little more than missed chances and squandered opportunities.

If only—

Too late.

And then the realization struck. It popped into Peachy’s consciousness unbidden, like the evil fairy godmother who’d shown up at Sleeping Beauty’s christening to lay a curse on the baby princess rather than to gift her with a special grace.

I’m going to die without ever having done it, she thought, the fingers of her right hand spasming around the ribbon-wrapped stem of the former Hannah Elaine Martin’s bridal bouquet.

Funny, how the human psyche reacts in times of great stress. Pamela Gayle Keene had a million marvelous reasons for wanting to live, not the least of which was the desire to discover whether she was to be “Auntie Peachy” to a niece or nephew. Yet she stubbornly fixated on the notion that she had to survive so she could finally have sex. An obsession was born in the space of a single heartbeat.

I don’t need to have a lot of sex, she assured herself and any straitlaced spirits that might be listening. Just one time with one man will be enough.

Peachy felt her cheeks heat. It was a familiar sensation. Endowed with flame-colored hair and fair, freckle-dusted skin, she’d been blushing since babyhood.

Then again, maybe it won’t be, her innate honesty forced her to concede after a few moments. But given the alternative—

The pilot came on the P.A. system again. He provided a terse update on the plane’s location then ordered the members of the cabin crew to take their seats and strap in. While the bedrock steadiness of his voice was encouraging, his use of the word “final” when describing their approach to the New Orleans airport seemed a trifle ill-advised.

Inhaling a deep, deliberate breath, Peachy bent forward to assume what had been described as the emergency “posture.” She tried not to think about how much doing so seemed an act of compliance with the clichéd admonition about putting one’s head between one’s knees and kissing one’s derriere adieu.

Her long, red-gold hair swung forward, curtaining her face.

Her world was reduced to a fragmented series of sensory details.

The sharp-edged jab of the seat belt’s metallic buckle against her midriff.

The sweet fragrance of wedding flowers mixed with the rancid odor of mortal dread.

The frantic thundering of her pulse.

Please, Peachy prayed, the faces of her family and friends flashing through her mind. Oh, please.

She brought her hands up, clasping the back of her head as the flight attendants had instructed everyone to do. Drawing another deep breath, she squeezed her eyes shut and waited.

And waited.

Then waited some more.

A split second before the plane bumped down on the runway, Pamela Gayle Keene made a solemn vow about her sexual future.

Sometime later—in the middle of a “How does it feel to have cheated death?” interview conducted by a vaguely familiar male TV reporter with an off-kilter nose and a cemented-in-place hairstyle, to be precise—it occurred to her that the fulfillment of this solemn vow was going to require the cooperation of a second party.

That started Peachy thinking…

One

Lucien “Luc” Devereaux, scion of a tradition-rich but financially strapped Louisiana family and veteran of an elite U.S. Army special operations team turned bestselling novelist, had been propositioned by a lot of different women in a lot of different ways for a lot of different reasons since his sexual initiation at age sixteen. Nonetheless, the proposal he received from Pamela Gayle Keene five days after she and all the other people aboard her flight from Atlanta survived an emergency landing at New Orleans International Airport left him temporarily bereft of speech.

“You want me to what?” he finally managed to ask, staring at the improbably nicknamed redhead who’d been his tenant and downstairs neighbor in a mansion-cum-apartment building on Prytania Street for about two years.

“It’s no big deal,” Peachy responded, sustaining his gaze with remarkable steadiness even as she started to flush.

“My taking your virginity is no big deal?” he echoed tightly, wondering whether her dismissive comment had been inspired by her feelings about the sexual act itself, her expectations about his performance of it or a mixture of both. He also wondered why it should matter to him. Because there was no way—no way in hell—he was going to do what he’d just been requested to do.

Luc watched as Peachy veiled her green-gold eyes with her lush, mascara-darkened lashes. After a few moments, she lifted her left hand and began fiddling with a silver locket at the base of her throat. Her rhythmic fingering of the pendant had an odd effect on his already erratic pulse.

He’d never seen it coming, he thought, trying to rein in emotions that ran the gamut from strangely flattered to furiously stunned and then some. He, the man who’d been accused more than once of having distrust of the opposite sex imprinted on his DNA, had been blindsided by a blush-prone innocent, a decade his junior!

The weird thing was, Peachy had done it by behaving in the same straightforward way she’d behaved since the first day he’d met her. There’d been no deceit involved, no sneakily seductive tricks. Armored against guile, he’d been ambushed by honesty.

It was a perverse state of affairs, to say the least. And Luc Devereaux was a long way from understanding how it had come about.

He and Peachy had had a brief encounter in the foyer of their Garden District apartment building that morning. He’d been heading in after a five-mile run, mulling over the fate of a minor character in his latest book. She’d been heading out to her job as a junior designer with one of the city’s finest custom jewelers.

They’d chatted for a minute or two. Right before they’d gone their separate ways, she’d asked him to drop by her apartment after she got home from work.

“I need a favor,” she’d said simply, gazing up at him with clear, candid eyes.

“I’ll try to oblige, cher,” he’d answered, his grin as easy as his unthinking use of the colloquial endearment.

He’d knocked on her door about twelve hours later. She’d invited him in.

They’d talked a bit. She, perched on the edge of a lavishly fringed but slightly moth-eaten hassock. He, sprawled comfortably in a funkily shaped armchair he’d helped her lug home from a flea market the previous spring. Their conversation had been a genial one, spiced with good-natured laughter.

Eventually, he’d gotten around to asking what he could do for her.

She responded promptly and without mincing words.

It had taken him several minutes to accept that she’d actually said what he’d thought she’d said.

“I don’t think taking is the right word,” Peachy suddenly declared, lowering her hand from the locket. She shifted her position on the hassock, crossing her long, slender legs beneath the crinkled, paisley-patterned cotton of the calf-length skirt she was wearing. The toenails of her bare feet were painted a vibrant coral pink. “It’s not—I mean, it’s so—so—”

“Politically incorrect?” Luc offered sardonically.

She lifted her lashes and gave him a look he couldn’t interpret. Something—annoyance? impatience? embarrassment?—flashed in the depths of her eyes.

“It’s not as though I’m trying to keep it,” she retorted.

“True,” he acknowledged with a humorless laugh. “You’re offering to give it away.”

There was a pause. After a few moments Peachy smoothed her curly tumble of red-gold hair back from her face, squared her slim shoulders and calmly replied, “That’s right.”

“To me.”

There was another pause, a little longer than the preceding one. Then, again, a quiet affirmative.

“So that the next time you confront the possibility of dying you don’t have to worry about going to your grave wondering what all the fuss was about.”

Peachy’s eyes flashed a second time. Her delicately made features took on a decidedly determined cast. “More or less.”

“And this is a no-strings-attached, one-time-only deal.”

“Yes.”

Luc inhaled a short, sharp breath, struggling with a sudden surge of temper. He couldn’t define the source of his anger, nor determine whether it was directed more at himself or her.

When he thought he could trust his voice he said, “No.”

Peachy stiffened. Her chin went up a notch. “No?”

“No,” he repeated, underscoring the negative with a shake of his head.

“You mean—” she swallowed “—you don’t want to do it.”

Luc felt the muscles of his belly clench and fervently wished she’d phrased her statement in a different way. Preferably one that omitted the word want.

He wasn’t oblivious to Peachy’s appeal. Although she was a far cry from his usual type—he was inclined toward experienced blondes and exotic brunettes, not arty, ethereal redheads—he’d felt a powerful tug of attraction the day she’d shown up on his doorstep, seeking to rent the unit one floor down.

He’d refrained from acting on this attraction for a variety of reasons. Peachy’s comparative youth had been part of the equation. His firm conviction that getting entangled with any female tenant—much less one who’d become the darling of their mutual collection of rather eccentric neighbors within a week of moving in—would be asking for trouble had been a factor, as well.

But the key basis for his decision to clamp down and hold back had been his gut-level feeling that there was a lot more to Ms. Pamela Gayle Keene than immediately met the eye. For all her seemingly free-spirited manner, she’d exuded an aura of potential complications.

Luc grimaced, raking a hand through his hair. “Look, cher,” he began, letting his gaze slide away. “My saying no to you—it’s nothing personal.”

The ludicrousness of his words registered with him even as he was uttering them. Nothing personal? Peachy had asked him to be her first lover and he’d rejected her! What in heaven’s name could be more personal than that?

He glanced back at his would-be bed partner, expecting an angry reaction. He was startled to find Peachy was no longer looking at him. Instead, she was staring down at her well-pedicured toes. Her mouth was set in a stubborn line, her forehead was furrowed. He had the distinct and rather disturbing impression that she’d dismissed him from her mind and was now contemplating her next option for defloration.

Every instinct for self-preservation Luc Devereaux had—and he had developed a great many of them during his thirty-three years on earth—told him to get up and get out. But he couldn’t.

He just…couldn’t.

“Peachy?” he asked after a few seconds, acutely conscious of the thudding of his heart. Even the most automatic of natural functions, breathing, suddenly seemed to require a conscious effort.

She started slightly, then lifted her eyes to meet his.

“I understand, Luc,” she said quietly, without bothering to specify exactly what it was that she comprehended. “And…well, I appreciate your being honest with me.” She paused for a moment, her lips quirking into a crooked little smile. Then she rose from the hassock in a graceful movement and concluded with a shrug, “I’ll just have to find someone else.”

From another woman, Luc would have interpreted this last comment as a threat. As an attempt at emotional blackmail. But coming from Peachy…

He got to his feet slowly, keeping his gaze fixed on his tenant’s expressive face. She means it, he thought, a chill skittering down his spine and settling in the pit of his stomach. She really means it.

“You genuinely intend to go through with this, don’t you,” he said.

Peachy lifted her brows, plainly surprised. Perhaps even a little affronted. “I told you I did.”

Yes, she had. But until a couple of seconds ago, he’d been unwilling to believe that she’d been sincere.

“Why?” he asked bluntly.

“I told you that, too.”

“Tell me again.”

Peachy’s green-gold eyes flicked back and forth several times as though she was trying to figure out what sort of game he was playing at. Finally, she expelled a breath in a long sigh.

“You’ve been in life-or-death situations, haven’t you?” she questioned. “When you were in the military?”

“A few,” Luc acknowledged after a fractional hesitation, sensing where she was heading and not entirely comfortable with the direction. Although he was intensely proud of the services he’d performed for his country, not all his military memories were pleasant ones. The covert style of war he’d been trained to make had been a dirty, as well as dangerous, business.

“Didn’t you find yourself regretting things you hadn’t done?”

“While I was in the middle of an operation where I might be killed, you mean?”

Peachy nodded.

Luc felt his lips twist. “If I regretted anything, it was committed sins. Not ones I hadn’t had a chance to get around to.”

“Still—”

“Still,” he interrupted, “I take your meaning. Facing down death tends to reorder a person’s priorities.”

“Exactly.”

Luc considered for a moment or two, once again replaying the proposal Peachy had put to him. Did she truly understand the nature of the favor she was asking? he wondered. And more to the point: Did she truly understand the nature of the man of whom she was asking it?

No, he told himself. She couldn’t. She had no idea of who he was. Of what he was. Of how he’d lived.

“Am I the first man you’ve approached about this, Peachy?” he abruptly queried.

“You mean, are you the first one I’ve asked to—?” She then gestured.

“Yes.”

Her chin went up again. A blush blossomed on her cheeks. “I don’t think that’s any of your business at this point, Luc.”

“No?”

“You turned me down—remember?”

“I’m considering changing my mind.”

Peachy’s eyes widened to the point where there was white visible all the way around the irises. “I thought that was a female prerogative.”

Luc shrugged with a casualness he was far from feeling. “Consider it a matter of equal opportunity indecisiveness.” He waited a beat, then repeated his previous inquiry. “Am I the first man you’ve approached about this?”

Peachy glanced away from him, the color in her cheeks intensifying, the line of her elegantly sculpted jaw going taut. Her reluctance to respond was palpable.

“Yes,” she finally replied.

Luc released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, a primitive sense of triumph suffusing him. He closed his mind to thoughts of how he might have reacted had her answer been different. Then, goaded by an emotion he couldn’t—or wouldn’t-identify he said, “But you have other…candidates.”

Her gaze swung back to collide with his. The expression in her eyes said he was perilously close to getting his face slapped.

“That’s really none of your business,” Peachy declared through gritted teeth.

It wasn’t and he knew it, but he didn’t give a damn.

“What about that Tulane University M.B.A. the MayWinnies tried to fix you up with last month?” he pressed.

“The MayWinnies” was Prytania Street shorthand for Mayrielle and Winona-Jolene Barnes, a pair of sprightly seventy-year-old twins who rented the apartment next to Peachy’s. Although they cultivated an image of white-gloved propriety, Luc had heard from numerous sources that they’d once been quite free with their favors.

Well, no. Perhaps free wasn’t the appropriate adjective. Because gossip also maintained that in the course of bestowing themselves on a goodly number of Louisiana’s richest and most powerful men, the MayWinnies had amassed a six-figure nest egg, which they had subsequently multiplied many times over in the stock market.

Short of inquiring of the ladies themselves, there was no way for Luc to be certain how many of the stories about the May Winnies’ alleged exploits were true. He was inclined to dismiss a few of them—most notably the one involving a former U.S. senator and a Mardi Gras float—out of hand. He was also prepared to bet a substantial amount of cold, hard cash that many of the tales were dead-on accurate.

As for the rumors about his septuagenarian tenants transforming themselves from good-time girls into gilt-edged investors…

Again, there was no way for Luc to be absolutely sure. However, he and the MayWinnies did happen to bank at the same place. He’d long ago noticed that although he and his book royalties were accorded a significant degree of respect, the bank’s president practically genuflected at the mention of the Misses Barnes.

“Are you talking about Daniel?” Peachy asked, plainly startled by the specificity of his query.

Luc was a tad surprised by it himself. He hadn’t realized he’d registered the individual in question—Daniel, had she said his name was?—quite so strongly.

“Yes,” he affirmed after a moment.

Peachy began fingering her locket again. “I only went out with him once.”

Luc couldn’t tell whether she was being deliberately evasive. He fleetingly considered pointing out that “once” was one more time than she’d been out with him, but discarded the idea.

“So?” he challenged.

“So—he’s nice!”

Luc lifted a brow, contemplating the possibility that he’d just been insulted. Under normal circumstances there would have been little doubt in his mind that he had, at least by implication. But the inflection Peachy had given the adjective strongly suggested that it was Daniel, not he, whom she’d judged and found wanting.

Nice.

Hmm.

His ready-to-be-bedded tenant had a problem with nice?

She wouldn’t be unique among her sex if she did, Luc reflected with a touch of cynicism. And heaven knew, such a prejudice would go a long way toward explaining her decision to ask him to take—er, make that “accept”—her virginity. Yet he couldn’t quite reconcile that sort of character kink with the woman who’d lived beneath his roof for nearly twenty-four months.

“You’re saying that being nice disqualifies a man from inclusion on your list of potential, ah, deflowerers,” he clarified.

“I’m saying that Daniel wouldn’t understand my situation.”

“And you think I do?”

“Not anymore.” Peachy glared at him. “Look, Luc. This obviously was a mistake. I’m sorry I said anything to you. Just—just forget about it, all right?”

And with that, she started to pivot away. Reacting purely on instinct, Luc reached out and grabbed her by the arm, halting her in mid-turn.

It was the first time he’d touched Peachy with anything more intense than the most casual kind of affection. He felt her go rigid in response to the contact. Her gaze slewed back to slam into his, then dropped pointedly to his hand. After a taut moment, he opened his fingers and released her.

God, he thought, sucking in a shaky breath as he lowered a nonetoo-steady hand to his side. The potency of his emotions shocked him. My…God.

“Why me?” he demanded harshly. He couldn’t have stopped the words if he’d wanted to. He had to know.

Peachy blinked and edged back slightly. “Wh-what?”

“Why did you ask me to—?” he completed the question with an explicit variation of the gesture she’d made earlier.

There was a long pause. Peachy’s eyes moved back and forth, back and forth. Finally, she seemed to reach some kind of decision. After moistening her lower lip with a darting lick of her tongue she countered flatly, “Do you want the truth?”

He nodded.

“All right.” She swallowed, then cocked her chin with a hint of defiance. “I asked you because I thought you’d make it easy.”

“Easy?”

She nodded. “Do you remember me saying that I only wanted you to do it with me once?”

“Vividly.”

“Well, it seemed to me—I mean, you’ve never made any secret of the fact that you’re not inclined toward making emotional commitments. That you don’t want to be tied down. So I decided, uh, uh—”

“That a one-night stand would be right up my alley?”

“Not in a bad way,” Peachy quickly insisted.

“Oh, of course not.”

But even as he voiced the retort, Luc had to acknowledge the fundamental validity of his tenant’s assessment. He had no desire for a permanent relationship with a woman. He never had. He seriously doubted he ever would. In point of fact, he was supremely skeptical about his ability to sustain one. He’d never hidden that.

Yet for all its accuracy, Luc found Peachy’s reading of his character disturbing. The idea that she perceived him as some kind of…of…disposable stud unnerved him in a way he couldn’t fully explain.

“You’re not the only man I considered,” Peachy said earnestly. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. My first impulse was to go to the bar at a good hotel, maybe Le Meridien or the Windsor Court, and pick up a nice-looking stranger and let nature take its course.”

“What?”

“You don’t think I could have?”

“For God’s sake, Peachy.” He could barely speak. The scenario she’d sketched was appallingly plausible. “Do you have any concept how dangerous—”

“I’m inexperienced, Luc,” she interrupted, nailing him with a fulminating look. “I’m not an idiot. The hotel bar idea occurred to me while I was still pretty shaken up from the emergency landing. As soon as I got my brains unscrambled, I realized I could never go through with it. So I sat down and wrote out a list of all the eligible men I know. Then I started to eliminate. It was pretty much the same thing, over and over. ‘If I do it with him and it’s awful, he’ll probably be upset and that could get complicated.’ Or, ‘If I do it with him and it’s terrific, he’ll probably want to do it again and that could get complicated, too.’“ She paused, her cheeks flushing. “I ended up with you.”

Luc took a few moments to absorb this remarkable explanation then asked, “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Wouldn’t you be upset if you ‘did it’ and it was awful?”

For the first time, a hint of shyness entered her expression. “Actually…that was the second reason I decided to ask you first.”

Luc frowned, genuinely flummoxed. “What was?”

“I’ve been hearing stories about your love life from the moment I moved into the building. Even the MayWinnies—oh, they tut-tut about your behavior, of course. Which is sort of funny, considering the outrageous things they supposedly did when they were younger. Still, as prim as they pretend to be now, I can tell they get a kick out of having a lady-killer for a landlord. In any case, when I was thinking about who I should ask, I realized that if even a quarter of what’s said about you and women is true, you’d know how to make my first time, uh, well, unawful.”

There was a pause.

“Supposing it isn’t?” Luc finally asked.

“Supposing what isn’t…what?”

“Supposing not even a quarter of what’s said about me and women is true? Supposing it’s all lies?”

Peachy regarded him with disconcerting directness. “If that were the case,” she said slowly, “I think you’d tell me.”

Luc stiffened. No, he thought. She can’t be that naive! She can’t believe—

But she did. He could see it in her lovely, wide-set eyes. For reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom, this woman trusted him to be truthful about a subject that was notorious for inspiring lies.

“Men don’t usually go around puncturing the myths about their sexual prowess, cher,” he said, conscious of an unfamiliar stirring of protectiveness.

“Not if they’re the ones who’ve been spreading them,” Peachy agreed. “But everything I’ve heard about your prowess comes from other people, Luc. Where they heard it, I don’t know. Except I’m certain it wasn’t from you. Because as far as I can tell, you don’t brag about what you do, how you do it, or whom you do it with. And I…well, I admire that.”

Luc glanced away, his throat tightening. Peachy’s summation of his behavior was very much on target. But if she ascribed his discretion to gallantry, she was sadly mistaken. His first inkling of the true nature of his parents’ marriage had been gleaned from a conversation he’d overheard when he was just six years old. It was the memory of the angry, anguished confusion he’d felt when he’d listened to two supposed friends of his father crudely comparing notes about liaisons with his mother that kept him silent about his sexual affairs. The possibility that some careless comment of his might hurt someone as he’d been hurt was untenable to him.

His thoughts shifted without warning to his first sexual experience. He’d been seduced during his sophomore year of high school by the wife of one of the many men with whom his mother had broken her wedding vows. While the experience had been physically pleasurable, it had left him with more than a few psychological scars.

“Luc?”

Drawing a long, deep breath, he turned his gaze back to Peachy. She’s bound and determined to do it, he reflected. If not with me, then with someone else. And if she does it with someone else—

No! He didn’t even want to think about that scenario!

Luc exhaled in a rush, his mind suddenly latching on to an astonishing idea.

What if…what if he agreed to do what Peachy had asked, then stalled consummation until she came to her senses and called the deal off?

She would come to her senses, he assured himself. Eventually.

He’d meant what he’d said earlier, about facing down death tending to reorder a person’s priorities. What he hadn’t said—but what he knew from personal experience to be true—was that such reorderings were seldom permanent.

Of course, he conceded, there was always a minuscule possibility that the passage of time would not erode Peachy’s single-minded desire to get rid of her virginity. And if that were the case…

Thirteen years ago, Luc Devereaux had found himself standing in the door of a military plane, preparing to make his first parachute jump. Half of his brain had been urging him to make the leap. The other half had been screaming that there was still time to turn back from what probably was the stupidest stunt he’d ever contemplated.

He’d glanced at his instructor, a Special Forces captain named Flynn. Flynn had grinned, his teeth flashing a predatory white against his deeply tanned skin. Then he’d leaned in, put his mouth close to Luc’s ear and counseled, “Go with your gut, kid.”

“All right,” he said abruptly.

Peachy blinked. “All…right?”

“I accept your proposal.”

“Oh, Luc—”

“But not tonight.”

Two

“This is not a date,” Peachy stated to her reflection approximately twenty-four hours later.

Leaning into the mirror over her bathroom sink, she painstakingly brushed another coat of black brown mascara on to her lush but virtually colorless lashes. Other types of cosmetics she could basically take or leave. In fact, aside from what she now drolly classified as her “Vampira” period—a mercifully brief interlude during her first semester of design school in which she’d affected a from-the-crypt pallor, dramatically shadowed eyes and bloodred lips—she’d always applied her makeup with a very light hand.

Except for mascara, of course.

She’d gotten hooked on the stuff more than a decade ago and had experimented with everything from bargain basement brands that smelled like petrochemicals to outrageously expensive ones that supposedly contained miscroscopic fibers of cashmere. Without mascara—well, frankly, she thought she appeared rather rabbitty.

Her lashes finally darkened to a satisfactory degree, Peachy stepped back from the sink and scrutinized her mirrored image with a critical eye. There’d been a time when she’d absolutely loathed the way she looked. A time when she would have given anything to trade her gaminely irregular features, sprite-thin body and uncontrollable mop of red-gold curls for her older sister’s classically pretty face, shapely figure and straight, chestnut-colored hair. Fortunately that time had passed.

Although she still considered Eden an extremely attractive woman, Peachy had learned to appreciate and enhance her own quirky looks. The three years she’d spent in New York—the first two as a design student, the third as an apprentice with a jewelry firm—had been extremely important ones in this regard.

Where her mass of pre-Raphaelite ringlets and rather avantgarde wardrobe choices, basic black everything accessorized with purchases from army-navy surplus stores, thrift shops and garage sales, generally had been regarded as just a wee bit weird in her hometown in Ohio, they’d turned out to be very much “with it” in the Big Apple. This had done wonders for her shaky self-esteem.

Oh, sure, she’d succumbed to a few in-your-face fashion trends during her first few months in Manhattan. But she’d eventually realized that shocking people in the street really wasn’t her thing. She’d abandoned stylistic extremes, let all but two of the holes in her earlobes heal up and begun developing her own personal look. This look wasn’t middle-of-the-road by any means. But it wasn’t so far out on the edge that it scared innocent little children, either.

Interestingly, her artwork had improved as her vision of who she was and how she wanted to present herself to the world had become dearer. By the time she’d won the design contest that had led to the job offer that had brought her to New Orleans, she’d had more confidence in herself—both personally and professionally—than she’d ever had in her life.

As for the impact the last two years in New Orleans had had on her…

Perhaps it was a response to the ambrosial food or the profusion of flowers or the remarkable diversity of cultures. Or maybe it had something to do with the local credo of letting les bon temps rouler. But within weeks of her arrival in the Crescent City—shortly after moving into her Prytania Street apartment, to be precise—Peachy had realized that she felt totally at home. No matter that she’d still needed a map to find her way around, mistakenly believed Burgundy Street was pronounced like the wine and thought chicory coffee tasted like something that should be used to clean paintbrushes. Somehow, someway, she’d found a place where she fit in.

Which was not to say that everything was absolutely perfect. The weather, for example, was a tad problematic. Peachy had heard natives claim that New Orleans, which had been carved from a swamp, only had two seasons—summer and February. She’d come to the conclusion that this was code for muggy and about-to-be muggy. She’d also discovered that the local climate played havoc with what Bible scholars would call her “crowning glory.”

Grimacing wryly at her reflection, Peachy plucked a brush from amid the clutter on the counter to the left of the sink. Maybe she should wear her hair up after all, she mused. She’d styled it into a chignon earlier then unpinned it after deciding the coiffure was too fussy and self-conscious. While making herself attractive to Luc seemed a sensible thing to do given the request she’d made of him, she was wary of creating the impression that she’d expended a lot of time and effort preparing for this evening’s, uh, uh—

“Whatever,” she said, yanking the brush through her incorrigible curls.

It was unsettling, Peachy admitted silently. She knew Luc intended to make love to her, because he’d promised her he would. Yet she had no idea when or where he planned to perform the deed.

Assuming he’d even decided those details, which she was strongly inclined not to do.

How had it happened? she demanded of herself. How had Lucien Devereaux shifted from accepting her proposal, to imposing his terms in the space of a few seconds? More importantly, why had she acquiesced in a situation where she had every right to be in charge? It was her virginity, dammit!

Her mind flashed back to the previous evening.

“What do you mean…‘but not tonight’?” she’d asked once the implications of Luc’s unexpected declaration had begun to sink in.

“I think we should wait,” he’d answered calmly.

“I have waited!” she’d exclaimed, swatting a stray lock of hair out of her face. “That’s why I found myself on a malfunctioning airplane thinking I was going to die a virgin. The waiting’s over, Luc. I want to do it and be done with it and get on with my life!”

It had not been the most felicitous way of describing the consummation for which she so devoutly wished. Peachy had recognized this the moment the words had come tumbling out of her mouth. A sudden lifting of her partner-to-be’s dark brows had suggested that he, too, found her phrasing a trifle cold-blooded.

“‘Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am?’“ he’d quoted after a fractional pause.

She’d felt herself start to blush for what seemed like the millionth time but she hadn’t dared back off. “That’s one way of putting it.”

Luc’s deep brown eyes had narrowed very slightly at this point. The corners of his sensually shaped lips had quirked upward. The shift in both instances had been a matter of no more than a few millimeters. Yet the effect on his overall expression had been devastatingly seductive.

“But that’s not my style, cher,” he’d replied, his voice dropping into a velvet-lined register she’d never heard before. Even the offhand endearment he’d been using since the first time they’d met had suddenly sounded foreign to her ears.

She’d opened her mouth to say something. He’d forestalled her before she’d uttered a peep.

“The first time between a man and woman is always awkward, Peachy,” he’d observed. “No matter how much experience one—or both—of them has. There’s uncertainty about what the other person wants and there’s insecurity about whether you can provide it. It’s not…easy.”

There’d been no doubt in her mind that his choice of the final adjective had been deliberate. Easy had been the word she’d used earlier in explaining why she’d chosen him as the first recipient of her unorthodox proposal.

“So?” The breathlessness of her voice had appalled her.

“So, I think it would reduce the inevitable awkwardness if we got to know each before we head to bed for the first and only time.”

“Got to know—?” she’d echoed incredulously. “We’ve been living under the same roof for nearly two years!”

“Which means we know each other as neighbors,” he’d replied without missing a beat. “I’m talking about becoming acquainted as man and woman. About becoming…aware…of each other.”

Peachy had hesitated. She’d sensed that there was something crucial he wasn’t saying and searched his dark, deep-set eyes to try to discover what it might be.

Yet even as she’d sought for answers to questions she wouldn’t have been able to articulate if she’d tried, she’d had to concede that Luc’s arguments for “waiting” sounded reasonable.

“Well,” she’d finally begun. “I suppose…”

Luc had smiled. There’d been a brief hint of teeth, reminding her that the human race was innately carnivorous.

“There’s also the matter of my masculine pride,” he’d said. “I’d like to be sure your first time is something better than—what was your word? Oh, yes. Unawful.”

And then he’d touched her. Lifting his right hand to her face, he’d brushed his fingertips slowly down the curve of her left cheek. After that he’d stroked them, very lightly, along the line of her jaw.

The contact had affected her like a jolt of electricity. It had gone surging through her nervous system, throwing her already accelerated pulse rate into overdrive and causing her breathing pattern to unravel into short, shallow pants.

For one insane instant she’d honestly thought she might swoon. And in that same insane instant she’d decided that asking Lucien Devereaux to relieve her of her virginity was either the smartest thing she’d ever done or a mistake of such monumental proportions that she’d spend the rest of her life—

The sound of her hairbrush clattering against the tiled floor of the bathroom yanked Peachy back into the present. She blinked several times, conscious of a wild fluttering deep in her stomach. Her hands were trembling. She could feel the nipples of her small breasts straining against the lacy cups of her bra.

A glimpse of her reflection did nothing to restore her composure. Her cheeks were flushed, almost feverish looking. And there was a glazed expression in her eyes that reminded her of the zombie lore she’d heard from Laila Martigny, the fiftyish psychologist who lived in the apartment directly below hers.

Rumor had it that the regal-looking Dr. Martigny was a descendant of New Orleans’s famed witch queen, Marie Laveau. But while she would admit to being the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and to having occasional flashes of what some others might call ESP, Laila simply smiled away questions about her possible connection to the legendary “Madame L.”

“Get a grip,” Peachy ordered herself through clenched teeth as she bent to retrieve the brush. Her hair cascaded forward in an unruly tumble. She shoveled it back over her shoulders as she straightened up.

A glance at the small alarm clock that sat on the back of the commode informed her that her ill-advised stroll down memory lane had put her behind schedule. It was nearly half past seven. She was supposed to meet Luc for dinner at eight. Although the restaurant he’d chosen was within walking distance, she’d have to hustle to arrive there by the appointed hour.

She stalked out of the bathroom and into her bedroom, muttering as she went. Her resentment at having had her agenda rewritten flared anew. She didn’t need to be wined and dined as a prelude to sex, she told herself as she started dressing. No. More than that. She didn’t want it. And she’d tried to make that crystal clear to Luc. Only he’d gone right ahead and overridden her wishes.

Well, no, she amended as she smoothed down the skirt of the jade green silk dress she’d settled on after reviewing the contents of her closet four times. That wasn’t entirely fair. Luc hadn’t so much overridden her wishes as she’d succumbed to his.

But no more. Never again. The instant she sat down with him she was going to make certain he understood that this evening out was not—absolutely, positively not—a date. What’s more, she was going to tell him that she intended to pick up the check. And if he had a problem with that…

She’d deal with it, she promised herself. She’d deal with it just fine, thank you very much.

But first she had to find the shoes she planned to wear. And select a substitute for the demure pearl drop earrings she’d picked out. What she’d been thinking when she’d chosen them, she didn’t know. The last time she’d had them on had been when she’d attended Easter services with the MayWinnies!

Peachy was frantically rummaging through her drawers when she heard a knock at her apartment door. “Who is it?” she called, flinging aside a pair of hammered gold hoops that had briefly captured her fancy.

“It’s me,” a distinctively husky voice called back.

She froze. Oh, no, she thought. Not Terry. Not now!

The Terry in question rented the apartment next to Laila Martigny. He’d been born Terrence Bellehurst in Syracuse, New York, and had had a spectacular career as a professional football player until a quarterback sack in the waning moments of his first Super Bowl had pretty well pulverized his right knee.

Benched for life by the injury, Terry had forged a successful second career as a play-by-play commentator. But shortly after he’d won his third Emmy for sports coverage, he’d undergone a mind-blowing transformation.

“I got in touch with my feminine self,” he’d told Peachy with characteristic candor shortly after they’d gotten acquainted. “And honey, it felt wonderful!”

Terrence Bellehurst had been reborn as Terree, emphasis on the second syllable, LaBelle. And for the last four years, Terree had served as mistress of ceremonies for the classiest drag show in the French Quarter. So classy, in fact, that the MayWinnies had attended several performances and subsequently commented to Peachy—with what had seemed to her to be complete sincerity—that it had been a pleasure to see such perfect ladies on the stage.

Having spent three years in New York City, Peachy had arrived in New Orleans believing herself essentially inured to the vagaries of human behavior. Nonetheless, her first encounter with Terrence/Terree had been a bit unsettling. However, she’d soon been won over by her downstairs neighbor’s friendliness. Terrence Bellehurst was one of the frankest, funniest people she’d ever met. As for Terree LaBelle…well, “she” would donate the frock off “her” back to anyone in need.

“Hold on, Terry,” Peachy shouted, thrusting her feet into a pair of strappy, high-heeled sandals. “I’ll be there in a second.”

Actually, it was closer to a minute before she unlocked her door and opened it to reveal a six-foot-two-inch male who was covered from throat to ankles by a royal blue kimono-style bathrobe embroidered with silver and cerise chrysanthemums. His head was turbaned with a royal blue terry cloth towel.

Terry gave her a fast up-down-up assessment then inquired knowingly, “Hot date?”

It was the wrong question at the wrong time.

“No!”

Terry arched his brows and shifted into his sympathetic mode. “Cramps?”

Peachy grimaced, realizing she had no right to vent her emotional upset on an innocent bystander. “No, nothing like that, Terry,” she replied, moderating her tone and summoning up a quick smile. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m just a little frazzled right now. Would you like to come in?”

“Only for a sec.” Terry stepped across the threshold. He gave her another considering look. “You are going out, I take it?”

“Yes.” Peachy willed herself not to blush. “To dinner.”

“With—?”

“A…friend.” Mentioning Luc’s name would prompt too many questions, she rationalized. Better to let Terry think she was off to some mysterious rendezvous.

“Oh, really?” Her neighbor seemed thrilled.

“Yes, really.” Peachy produced another smile to take the edge off what she had to say next. “Look, Terry, I hate to be rude—”

“I need an egg.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I came up here to see if I could borrow an egg from you. Or two.”

“You feel the urge for a facial?” Peachy guessed. Convinced that his years on the gridiron had had a deleterious effect on his skin, Terry spent a significant amount of time pampering his complexion. The first time they’d met, his face had been slathered with a cornmeal cleansing masque of his own concoction.

“Breakfast, actually.”

“It’s nearly 8:00 p.m., Terry.”

“What can I say? I had an extremely late evening. It ended sometime around noon over beignets and café au lait at Café du Monde.”

Peachy didn’t want to know the details. “My eggs are your eggs,” she said. “And I think I have some fresh-squeezed orange juice, too, if you want it.”

Terry beamed. “Bless you.” Then he cocked his head and frowned. “Sweetie, I hate to play fashion police, but aren’t you the teensiest bit underaccessorized for dinner with a ‘friend’?”

“Actually, I was trying to find some earrings when you knocked.”

“Oh?” He was instantly engaged. “And what look are we going for, might I inquire? ‘Don’t touch’ or ‘Take me, I’m yours’?”

Peachy had to smile. “Somewhere in between.”

“Keep the guy guessing, hmm? That’s so wise of you. But let me cogitate for a moment. Earrings. Mmm. Well, what about those gold and jade ones you lent me during Mardi Gras?”

Peachy knew exactly the pair he meant and exactly where she had them stashed away. She also knew they were exactly what she’d been seeking.

“Terry, you’re a genius!” she exclaimed, giving him a quick hug. It was a bit like embracing a side of beef.

“I try,” he replied modestly. “But if you wear the gold and jade, you’ll have to take off your silver bell locket…”

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Peachy said, slipping into the seat opposite Luc. Glancing over her shoulder, she nodded her thanks at the black-jacketed maitre d’hôtel who’d held her chair. He nodded back, murmured something about hoping she’d enjoy her meal, then moved away.

Luc had risen to his feet as she’d approached the table. He was clad in black trousers, an open-collared white silk shirt and a dove gray jacket that bore the subtle hallmarks of a master tailor. He reseated himself saying, “The wait was worth it, cher.”

The response—so smooth, so sure—nettled Peachy.

“You don’t have to do that, Luc,” she declared, opening her napkin and draping it across her lap. She kept her spine very stiff, sitting forward on her chair rather than relaxing back into it. The May Winnies would have awarded her an A-plus for posture.

“Do what?”

“Give me any of your usual lines.”

Luc paused in the act of picking up his own napkin and regarded her with an expression Peachy couldn’t interpret. She felt her pulse give a curious hop-skip-jump.

“Is it a line if I mean it?” he asked after a moment, his dark gaze drifting over her. “Because you do look lovely tonight.”

Peachy took a deep breath, reminding herself that she was a twenty-three-year-old woman not a giggly adolescent idiot. “Thank you,” she finally answered, striving for a normal tone of voice and coming fairly close. “I had some expert help.”

“Oh?”

She gestured. “Terry suggested the earrings.”

There was a long-stemmed goblet of ice water to Luc’s right. He picked it up and took a sip. As he put the glass down he asked, “Terry knows we’re out together?”

“Uh, no.” Peachy shifted slightly. “I told him I was meeting a friend for dinner. It’s not that I’m…ashamed…of what you and I are doing. But I’m afraid—I mean, it might be, uh, well, it might be awkward, don’t you think? Trying to explain. About…things.”

Again, she found herself on the receiving end of a look she couldn’t read. Again, her pulse leapt as though it had hit a series of speed bumps.

“My sentiments exactly,” Luc concurred.

At that moment the sommelier materialized by their table with a bottle of champagne and two crystal flutes. He conversed with Luc in French for a few moments. Then, still talking, he deftly popped the cork and began to pour the pale, bubbling wine. Peachy listened uncomprehendingly to the two men, unable to reconcile their fast, fluent exchange with any of the stilted phrases she’d memorized in high school language class.

She did manage a merci after the man filled her glass. He responded at great length. Finally, after giving Luc what she could only describe as a look of approval, he took his leave.

His place was swiftly taken by a waiter who presented them with a pair of exquisitely calligraphied menus plus a small silver basket of toast points and a crock of what appeared to be truffle-studded pâté.

“Pour lagniappe,” he announced with a smile.

Lagniappe, Peachy understood. Slang for “a little something extra,” it was one of the words she’d added to her vocabulary since coming to New Orleans.

“Do you eat here often?” she asked Luc after the waiter had bustled away. What she really wanted to determine was whether this restaurant was part of some standard seduction routine.

“I come here a few times a month when I’m in town,” he answered. “If the staff seems to be fawning—well, I’m an investor in the place. The owner, Jean-Baptiste, is an acquaintance of mine from high school. He started cooking in grade school and always dreamed of opening a restaurant in the Garden District. He came to me with a business proposition about four years ago, right around the time a Hollywood producer offered to shell out an obscene amount of money for the rights to my first book. I said yes to both. My accountant figured I was setting myself up for a tax write-off. I think you’ll understand my real motivation once you taste this.”

The “this” to which he referred was a toast point he’d lavishly spread with pâté while he’d been speaking. He extended the morsel toward Peachy, clearly intending her to eat from his fingers.

After a brief hesitation, Peachy leaned forward and took a bite. The word “voluptuous” didn’t begin to describe the silken smoothness of the pâté. And the flavor…

“Goomph,” she said inadequately, trying not to drool.

Luc grinned and popped the remainder of the appetizer into his mouth.

Peachy didn’t know whether the move was intended to be suggestive of more intimate kinds of sharing. But if it wasn’t, it should have been. A quiver—part anticipation, part apprehension—raced through her. She reached for her flute of champagne.

“As for the question you didn’t ask,” Luc went on once he’d chewed and swallowed. “I usually eat alone. The last time I brought a woman here—women, actually—was about ten months ago. It was the MayWinnies’ birthday and I invited them to dinner.”

Peachy nearly choked on her champagne.

“Oh,” she was finally able to say, wondering if her cheeks were as flushed as they felt.

“Are you all right, cher?” Luc asked solicitously.

“Just…fine,” she said. Control, she told herself firmly. She had to regain control of this situation!

Regain control? a little voice inside her skull mocked. Who are you trying to kid, Pamela Gayle? Luc’s been running this show from the moment he told you, “Not tonight”!

Well, yes, she conceded irritably. Maybe he had been. But she’d been in charge—sort of—before that. She’d been the one who’d seized the sexual initiative. Oh, all right! Not seized it, exactly. But she’d definitely been the one who’d broached the subject of giving up her virginity.

Peachy took a cautious sip of the champagne. As untutored as her palate was about such things, it was still capable of discerning that she was imbibing something very special. The taste of the wine was incandescently delicious.

“Did you order this?” she asked, setting down her glass and gazing across the table at her future lover with what she hoped was a no-nonsense expression.

“Would you object if I had?”

“Luc—”

He spread his hands in apparent conciliation. “It came compliments of the management.”

“Oh.” She glanced away, wishing she’d done less doodling in French class.

There was a pause. Then: “My question stands, Peachy,” Luc said pointedly.

Her gaze slewed back to his face. “What question?”

“Would you object if I had ordered the champagne?”

“Yes.” She cocked her chin. “I would.”

He remained silent for a moment or two, seeming to weigh her unequivocal answer. Then he asked, “Why?”

Peachy took a deep breath. It was the perfect opening for what she’d told herself she was going to say.

“Because this is not a date, Luc,” she declared. “You and I—it just isn’t, all right? We’re not going out together. I mean—yes, we’re out. And yes, we’re together. But we’re not, uh, uh—”

“Dating,” he finished, reaching for a second toast point.

“I’m serious!”

“I realize that, cher.”

“Seriously serious.”

“Fine. This is not a date.”

Although she was uncertain whether he was genuinely conceding the point or simply humoring her, Peachy decided to proceed to the second item on her agenda.

“And another thing,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I want—no, I’m going to pick up the tab tonight.”

“All right.”

“This isn’t open for discussion. I’ve thought it through very carefully and I’ve decided that—” She broke off abruptly. “What did you say?”

“I said, all right.” While Luc’s tone was mild, there was a glint in his dark eyes that was anything but.

“You don’t…mind?”

“Not unless you’re classifying this meal as payment for services you’re expecting me to render in the future.”

It took Peachy a moment or two to understand what he was saying. Once she did, she was appalled.

“No,” she said, shaking her head so vigorously she felt her gold and jade earrings bounce against her cheeks. “Oh, no, Luc. Of course not!”

“Good,” her dinner companion responded. “Because while I freely admit to engaging in some less-than-respectable activities in my life, I draw the line at turning gigolo.” He raised his pâté-laden toast point to his lips. “Even on a one-time-only basis.”

The sight of Luc’s even white teeth snapping down on the tidbit he was holding sent a tremor running through Peachy.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a pause, aware that her voice was much huskier than normal. “I never meant to suggest—I mean, my paying for dinner tonight isn’t—” She grimaced, then opted for bluntness. “Look, Luc. You have a tendency to overwhelm people. Maybe you got used to giving orders in the army. Or maybe you’re accustomed to bossing around the characters you create. The point is, you like to take charge of things. And given our—no, given my situation—”

“You want to be the one who’s in control.”

There was something in his tone that caused Peachy’s breath to jam at the top of her throat.

She wasn’t unaware of the fact that Luc’s childhood had been infinitely less idyllic than hers. The MayWinnies’ pseudo-clucking over their mutual landlord’s rakish behavior was frequently leavened with delicate references to his mother’s “popularity” with the opposite sex and his father’s “fondness” for fine wine. Laila Martigny—who’d financed her education by doing domestic duty for the Devereauxs and others—was even blunter in her comments.

“When I think about the bad that’s been done to that boy,” she’d once told Peachy, abandoning her normally flawless diction for a patois phrasing that carried the lilt of her Caribbean heritage. “I’m amazed he grew up any kind of good.”

Still.

To hear the empathy in Luc’s voice…

To sense that he understood—truly understood—her feelings of vulnerability…

Peachy hadn’t expected it. She hadn’t expected it at all.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s what I want.”

An odd smile ghosted around the corners of Luc’s mouth then disappeared. Propping his elbows on the table, he steepled his fingers and leaned forward.

“Yesterday,” he began slowly, “when you were explaining why you’d decided to come to me first, I wondered whether you were leaving something unsaid.”

Peachy’s heart performed a queer, cardiac somersault. She suddenly found herself recalling her previous evening’s impression that Luc had been holding back from her on some key level—that even as he’d accepted her proposal, he’d been silently amending their verbal agreement with an escape clause.

“Like what?” she asked warily.

“Like—” his gaze slid away from her face “—you trust me.”

Peachy’s initial response was to wonder why Luc should sound so skeptical. But then she realized that what she’d thought was skepticism was something much deeper. Much darker.

“Is there some reason why I shouldn’t?” she countered.

His eyes returned to hers. The expression in them was similar to the one she’d seen the night before when she’d told him that she’d expect him to confess if the stories she’d heard about his sexual exploits were untrue.

“There’s always a reason,” he commented without inflection. “But even so…”

There was a pause.

“Even so?” Peachy prompted.

Luc unsteepled his fingers and extended both hands toward her, palms up. After a moment of internal debate, she reached forward and placed her hands in his.

“Even so,” he said quietly, feathering his thumbs against the sensitive skin of her inner wrists, “I can promise you that everything that happens between us from this moment on will be by your choice.”

Peachy inhaled an unsteady breath. She dimly registered that the rhythmic pounding of her heart was in sync with the stroke-strokestroking of Luc’s faintly callused thumbs.

She gave a shuddery sigh.

His eyes compelled her. She’d never realized how the brown of his irises shaded around the edges to a hue that matched the ravendarkness of his hair. Nor had she ever noticed the fine flecks of topaz and carnelian—

Way to go, Pamela Gayle, the small voice that had goaded her earlier piped up snidely. You’re really in control now. What’s next on the schedule? Melting into a puddle the way you almost did last night when he chucked you under the chin?

Peachy blinked several times, feeling the humiliatingly familiar surge of hot blood rushing up her throat and into her cheeks. She searched her response-fogged brain, trying to remember what Luc’s last words to her had been. Something about a promise that from this moment on—

Oh, yes. Right.

She withdrew her hands from his and folded them primly in her lap.

“Am I to take it that everything that’s happened between us before this moment hasn’t been?” she inquired, keeping her voice steady through sheer force of will. “By my choice, that is.”

The question clearly caught Luc off guard. For a moment it looked as though his surprise might turn into anger. His eyes narrowed. His lips compressed into a thin line. The tanned skin of his cheeks seemed to tighten.

And then, astonishingly, his expression eased and he started to chuckle.

“Touché,” he said, miming a fencer’s salute.

Although uncertain what Luc found so funny, Peachy succumbed to the lure of his laughter. By the time their shared merriment died away, she felt more relaxed than she had since she’d heard the announcement that the plane she was flying on was going to be forced to make an emergency landing.

“I’m still paying for dinner, Luc,” she asserted a bit breathlessly.

“Of course, cher,” he responded with a roguish grin. “And this is still not a date.”

Three

Lucien Devereaux was an attractive man.

A very attractive man.

This fact had registered on Pamela Gayle Keene in a multitude of ways the instant they’d met. Yet she would have sworn that her response to his compelling good looks had been essentially platonic until…oh, about twenty-four hours ago.

Forking up the next-to-last bite of the broiled grouper with tomato-tinged butter sauce she’d ordered for her entrée, Peachy assessed the tall, self-contained man sitting across the table from her through partially lowered lashes and uneasily contemplated the implications of what seemed to be her abrupt change of attitude.

Take Luc’s hair, for instance. She’d noted its rich, raven-wing darkness and luxuriant thickness in the past, of course. But had she ever before felt the urge to stroke it that she was experiencing at this very moment?

Not that she remembered.

That she’d been prompted to try to capture her landlord’s distinctive, slightly asymmetrical features on a sketch pad many times was something she would readily admit. Why shouldn’t she? She was an artist, after all. She’d been trained to react to the visually interesting. And heaven knew, Luc’s face was that…and more.

The boldly marked brows.

The arrogant nose and sharply angled cheekbones.

The mobile mouth, bracketed by experience-etched grooves.

She’d drawn these features over and over again. Yet never until now had she wondered how they might contort at the instant of sexual release. Never until now had she wondered whether sleep might relax their disciplined maturity sufficiently to reveal a hint of the boy he once had been.

At least, she didn’t think she’d wondered.

Peachy shifted in her seat, crossing her right leg over her left. The stir of silk skirt over nylon stocking sent a shiver coursing through her.

Was it possible that at some subconscious level—?

She denied the notion before it was fully formed. While she’d be the first to concede that she could be oblivious to certain facets of her nature at certain times, she wasn’t completely lacking in selfawareness.

And yet…

Peachy’s mind flashed back to the potent effect Luc’s touch had had on her the evening before. Then it jumped forward to the moony-goony way she’d behaved just a short time ago when she’d been gazing into his eyes.

His eyes.

Oh, Lord. Luc’s eyes!

The searching intelligence in them had impressed her from the very first. She’d seen them glint with anger and spark with humor more often than she could count during the past two years. And she’d seen them turn brooding, too. But until a short time ago she’d never realized that their expressive brown depths contained so many different—

”You know, cher,” Luc said suddenly. “There’s something I’ve been curious about.”

Peachy started, nearly dropping her fork. She drew a tremulous breath, wondering how much of what she’d been thinking might have shown on her face. If Luc had any idea what was going on inside her head…

Not that there was anything wrong with her thoughts, she quickly assured herself. Luc had said that they needed to become “aware” of each other as man and woman, hadn’t he? Well, that’s what she was doing! And given the circumstances, it was a darned good thing her burgeoning awareness of her partner-to-be was as, uh, uh…positive as it was.

She just had to be careful that it didn’t become too positive. She had to keep things in perspective. And above all, she had to remember her pledge to Luc that all she wanted from him was a nostrings-attached, one-time-only encounter.

“You want to know what the National Football League really thinks about Terree LaBelle?” she suggested after a moment or two.

Her dinner companion gave her an odd, assessing look, then started to smile. “I wouldn’t mind having the inside scoop on that, either,” he admitted. “But at the moment I’m more interested in finding out how you came to be ‘Peachy’ Keene.”

“You mean…how did I get my nickname?”

Luc nodded.

Peachy lifted her napkin to her lips and patted, trying to hide the rush of relief she felt. Questions about her nickname she could handle. She’d had lots of practice with it. Almost as much as she’d had responding to inquiries about whether her hair color was natural.

“You know my real name is Pamela Gayle, right?” she asked.

Luc nodded, taking a sip of the white wine he’d ordered to accompany her grouper and his shrimp etouffée. “I seem to recall reading it on your lease.”

“Well, when I was little, my dad used to call me by my initials.”

“P.G.”

“Mmm-hmm.” She smiled fleetingly, remembering. “I loved it. Because people called him—still call him, actually—by his initials. J.R., for John Russell. It was like a special bond between us. Anyway, I insisted on referring to myself as P.G. The problem was, I had a bit of a speech impediment when I was small. Not a lisp, exactly. But I kept saying ‘shee’ instead of ‘gee.’”

“Pee…shee,” Luc said slowly, seeming to taste the syllables. “Which eventually became Peachy?”

“Exactly.”

“Hmm.”

“I realize ‘Peachy Keene’ probably sounds like a joke to some people. Which is why I don’t use it for dignified legal documents like leases. But other than that…” Letting her voice trail off, Peachy fluffed her hair with her fingers then asked, “I don’t really think I’m a ‘Pamela,’ do you?”

She was flirting, she realized a moment later. Not a lot. And probably not too skillfully, either. Flirting wasn’t exactly her modus operandi when it came to dealing with members of the opposite sex. But the impulse to tease Lucien Devereaux—at least a bit—was suddenly irresistible.

No. Wait, she amended. Teasing wasn’t quite the right word for what she felt impelled to do. It was more a matter of…of…testing.

And not just him, either. In some strange way, Peachy felt she was testing herself as well.

Luc’s eyelids came down a fraction of an inch. The left corner of his mouth curled upward. What had been an introspective expression suddenly became very, very knowing.

“No,” he responded, his voice soft, the quirking of his lips becoming more pronounced. “You’re a lot of things, cher. But you’re definitely not a ‘Pamela.’“

There was a short pause. Peachy took a drink of wine. Luc did the same.

“I take it you’re close to your father,” he eventually observed, toying with the stem of his glass as he gazed across the table at her.

“Oh, yes,” she affirmed, trying to ignore the evocative movement of his lean fingers. The skin of her inner wrists tingled where he’d caressed her with his thumbs earlier in the meal. “Very. And to my mom, too, of course.”

“Of course.” The words held a faint edge of bitterness.

There was another pause, more awkward than the previous one. After a few moments, Luc glanced away. A moment after that, he lifted his wineglass and drained it.

What was she supposed to say now? Peachy wondered, picking up her own glass and taking a small sip. Given what she’d been told by the MayWinnies and Laila Martigny, it seemed ill-advised to opt for the obvious conversational ploy of shifting the discussion from her mother and father to his.

And yet, mightn’t failing to make some comment about Luc’s parents create the impression that she’d been prying into his background? Although she was prepared to admit that she hadn’t shut her ears to what their mutual neighbors had to say, she didn’t want him to get the notion that—

”I gather you know mine was not the happiest of families,” Luc remarked, bringing his eyes back to meet hers.

Peachy hesitated, briefly considering whether she should deny knowing any such thing. She decided against it for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that she was a lousy liar.

“I’ve heard a few things,” she finally admitted, choosing her words with care. “I mean, I know your mother and father weren’t—uh—didn’t—”

“My father was obsessed with my mother and drank because he understood that marriage didn’t mean she was truly his,” Luc said with trenchant precision. “My mother was obsessed with herself and did as she damned well pleased.”

For a split second Peachy thought the lack of inflection in his voice signaled genuine indifference and felt a strange sort of relief. Then she realized it signified precisely the opposite.

She reached for her wineglass with a hand that was not quite steady. “And you were caught in the middle.”

Luc’s control cracked for just an instant. His eyes flashed, the look in them so dangerously incendiary that Peachy felt herself flinch away from it. Then they turned opaque as stone.

“I learned to fend for myself at an early age,” he replied.

Peachy believed it. And something inside her ached as she did so. But she didn’t dare show it. Every instinct she had told her that even the slightest hint of sympathy would be rebuffed.

She cleared her throat. “They’re…dead now? Your parents, I mean.”

There was a pause. Luc’s features tightened, suggesting some sort of internal conflict. Finally he said, “They were killed in a car crash. Together.”

“Oh.” Her response was little more than a shaky exhalation. While she’d known his mother and father were no longer living, she’d not been privy to details about their demise.

Luc’s mouth twisted. “My father was driving drunk and smashed through the guardrail on a bridge. The official verdict was that it was an accident.”

That he harbored doubts about the validity of this judgment was obvious. But Peachy shied from inquiring why. Instead she asked, “How old were you—?”

“Nineteen. I was in my second semester of college. I dropped out. I enlisted a few months later.”

The question of what he’d done during those few months trembled on the tip of Peachy’s tongue. But before she could find the nerve to voice it, the sommelier, their waiter and a pair of busboys converged on their table. By the time they’d performed their various duties and bustled away, the option of asking was gone. Luc’s mood had changed. Whatever impulse had prompted him to lower his guard to a degree unprecedented in her experience with him clearly had been reined in. His defenses were back up.

Deciding the ball was in his conversational court, Peachy turned her attention to the dessert menu their waiter had presented after he and the busboys had cleared the table. It took her a good minute or two to mentally debate the merits of bread pudding soufflé with bourbon sauce versus a classic créme caramel versus a “tasting” of fresh sorbets and fruit. Not only did Luc fail to utter a single word during the entire process, he also remained silent once she’d closed the menu and set it aside.

She gazed across the table at him.

He gazed back. Steadily. Inscrutably.

Although it was not a character trait of which she was particularly proud, Peachy knew she was capable of being extremely stubborn. Pigheaded, she supposed some would say. So if Lucien Devereaux wanted to test her will by refusing to speak, that was just fine and dandy with her. She could wait him out.

Couldn’t she?

Well…

Uh, maybe…

“Look, Luc,” she suddenly blurted out. “I don’t want you to think that I spend a lot of time gossiping about you behind your back because I don’t.”

“No?” There was just enough spin on the word to make it impossible to determine whether it was meant to communicate skepticism or disappointment or a peculiar blending of both.

“No,” Peachy insisted, then grimaced as honesty goaded her to clarify. “I mean—okay. Yes. I’ve talked about you with the MayWinnies, Laila and Terry. I admitted as much last night when I told you why I’d decided to ask you to, uh, help me out. But you’re hardly our number-one topic of discussion!”

“Really.” Luc began stroking the stem of his wineglass once again, seeming to mull over the implications of her last statement. “And just what—or should I say whom—is these days?”

Peachy looked away. Although she’d spoken the truth a moment ago, it hadn’t quite come out as she’d intended.

“Peachy?”

Sighing, she turned her eyes back to his and answered, “It’s Mr. Smythe.”

Mr. Smythe—Mr. Francis Sebastian Gilmore Smythe, to be precise—had joined the Prytania Street menage about four months ago. A soft-spoken Englishman of sixty or so, he’d moved into the ground-floor apartment that previously had been occupied by Remy Sinclair, a rotund, bayou-bred pasty chef who heroworshipped Elvis Presley. Remy had given up his lease after marrying a woman he’d met during one of his periodic pilgrimages to Presley’s home, Graceland. The two had recently opened a roadhouse-cum-restaurant about fifteen miles outside of New Orleans.

Elegant and erudite, Smythe described himself as a semiretired dealer of objets d’art. Having joined him on several visits to the antique shops of the French Quarter’s Royal Street, Peachy knew he had a connoisseur’s eye and expertise. But there was something about him…

“Mr. Smythe, hmm?” A hint of amusement flickered across Luc’s angular face.

“The MayWinnies say he reminds them of Cary Grant in that movie where he played a cat burglar,” Peachy commented, wondering at his expression. “The one with Grace Kelly?”

“To Catch a Thief.”

“That’s it.”

“The Misses Barnes are worried about being robbed in their beds?”

The question caught Peachy off guard. “To tell the truth, I think they might enjoy that.”

The rather slanderous implications of this comment sank in a split second later and she began to blush. Luc’s reaction was an arched brow and a genuine laugh.

“Assuming it was Mr. Smythe doing the larcenous deed, of course,” he amended.

Peachy eyed him uneasily. “You won’t tell them what I said, will you?”

“The MayWinnies, you mean?”

“Or Mr. Smythe, either, for that matter.”

“I’m nothing if not discreet, cher.”

The response was silken in tone. It was also punctuated by a smile that started out seeming extremely straightforward then turned extraordinarily complex. The combination sent a quicksilver frisson arrowing up Peachy’s spine.

Her pulse scrambled.

So did her thoughts.

It was not until a moment after their waiter reappeared to take their dessert order that she realized Luc hadn’t actually given her the assurance she’d sought. By then it was too late to pursue the matter.

“Mademoiselle?” the server inquired politely.

Peachy blinked several times, trying to recall which dessert she’d settled on. “The, uh, sorbets with fruit, please,” she finally managed to request.

“Coffee?”

“Um, no.” She shook her head, conscious of the shifting of her long, curly hair. “No, thank you.”

The waiter angled his gaze toward Luc. “And for you, Monsieur Devereaux?”

“Cafe brûlot, s’il vous plait.”

“Très bien. Merci.”

Maybe now’s the time to take another crack at that “regaining control” effort you mentioned earlier? the little voice in the back of Peachy’s skull queried, reasserting itself with sardonic force after nearly an hour of silence as the waiter moved away.

Leave me alone, Peachy snapped silently.

It was only a suggestion, Pamela Gayle.

Yes, well, when I want a suggestion, I’ll give it to—

The realization that Luc had said something to her put an abrupt period to this mental slinging match.

“Ex-excuse rn-me?” she stammered.

“I asked about the wedding you went to last weekend,” came the smooth reply.

“Oh…well…” Peachy took a moment to put her thoughts in order. “The groom was Matthew Powell. His brother, Rick, is married to my older sister, Eden. They—Eden and Rick—came to visit me not too long after I moved in on Prytania Street.” She paused, thinking back. “I’m pretty sure you met them.”

Luc frowned. “Was this during Terry’s Eleanor Roosevelt phase by any chance?”

“Terry’s Eleanor—” Peachy started, then broke off as the floodgates of memory opened. A bubble of laughter escaped her. “Oh, Lord. I’d completely forgotten about that! Yes. It was. I introduced them to him. Eden was a little taken aback by his appearance even though she didn’t have the faintest idea who Terry Bellehurst was. And Rick—well, he’s a huge sports fan and he nearly choked. Still, Terry was so…so Terry that he put them at ease within a couple of minutes. At which point Remy showed up with a plate of profiteroles.”

“A nice, neighborly gesture.”

“He was wearing one of his spangled Elvis does Las Vegas jumpsuits, Luc.”

“Ah.”

“Then the MayWinnies dropped by to do their patented sweetlittle-old-ladies routine.”

“In stereo.”

“Except when they were finishing each other’s sentences.”

“No Laila?”

Peachy smiled ruefully. Laila Martigny would have lent a muchneeded touch of sanity to the proceedings.

“Unfortunately, no,” she replied. “She was out of town. But someone mentioned her—and her alleged psychic powers and her supposed connection to Marie Laveau.”

“You know, you’re right,” Luc declared, nodding. “I did meet your sister and brother-in-law. And I distinctly remember them seeming a bit uncertain about your choice of residence.”

“Uncertain?” Peachy rolled her eyes. “They were begging me to move back to Atlanta before we ran into you. Luckily, you managed to reassure them that everything wasn’t quite as laissezfaire as it appeared.”

“Me?” Luc lifted his brows and flashed an ironic smile. “I think not, cher.”

“Think what you want,” Peachy retorted, the nearly two-yearold memory of a brief hallway encounter between her sister, brother-in-law and the man she would one day ask to do her the most intimate of favors very clear in her mind. “I know what you did.”

Their waiter returned. He presented Peachy’s dessert with a flourish, then deftly performed the ritualized flaming of a brandysoaked sugar cube for Luc’s café brûlot.

“Merci,” Luc said when he’d been served.

“De rien,” the other man responded, surveying the table. After a moment or two he gave a satisfied nod, then pivoted and walked away.

Luc took a long sip of his liquor-laced coffee. Peachy sampled what turned out to be a scoop of mango sorbet. The taste was subtly sweet and exotically refreshing.

“And what about the bride?” her dinner partner eventually asked, setting down his gold-rimmed china coffee cup. “The one who married your sister’s husband’s brother.”

Peachy paused in the act of spooning up a chunk of fresh pineapple, oddly annoyed by Luc’s decision to allow her to have the final word in their previous exchange. She knew he wasn’t doing so because he’d accepted her assessment of what had happened when he’d met Eden and Rick. Quite the contrary.

Why, she asked herself, was he so stubbornly resistant to the idea that he might have a positive impact on someone? That Lucien Devereaux was not a candidate for canonization was beyond dispute. But it was a long fall from less-than-saintly to unredeemable sinner. Yet it was her increasingly strong impression that it was the latter category to which he considered himself inalterably consigned.

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