Peachy's Proposal

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.