Her Secret Affair

For some reason he was grinning very broadly. “But you prefer Chey.”

“Well,” she admitted, “Mary is awfully common, especially in my family.”

“There is nothing at all common about you,” he told her blatantly.

“I should hope not,” she quipped, ignoring a shiver of delight.

He reached across the table then, and covered her hand with his, and suddenly the comfortable, chummy atmosphere evaporated. “I think it’s time I showed you the house,” he said silkily, “unless you were serious about that second tart.”

“Regretfully not,” she said, pulling free her hand and scooting back her chair. “Like your grandmother, I prefer to exercise a little more self-control.”

“Don’t be fooled by Grandmama,” he said, getting to his feet. “As if Seth doesn’t provide her with enough exercise, she works very hard out in the garden.”

“Gardening isn’t work,” Viola protested ardently. “It’s pure relaxation.”

“For you,” he said, bending down again to pluck the boy off Chey’s lap so she could rise. “It’s pure torture for me.”

Viola pointed toward the weight bench. “That would be torture for me.”

“To each his own,” Chey said brightly.

“An excellent theory,” Brodie commented, passing the boy to his grandmother. “I have a theory about self-control,” he went on, reaching out an arm to bring Chey to his side. “General restraint makes occasionally losing it quite enjoyable. Don’t you agree?” he asked in an intimate voice that stopped her heart and closed her throat.

Chey coughed and muttered, “I, um, prefer not to lose mine at all.”

“Maybe you just haven’t found the indulgence you can’t resist yet,” he suggested softly.

She couldn’t have answered that if she’d wanted to, and he knew it. She saw it in his eyes. Abruptly, he dropped his arm and looked to his son. “Don’t wear out Grandmama. Understand?” The boy nodded, two fingers in his mouth. Brodie bent and took his son’s small face into his hands, turning it toward Chey. “Tell Miss Chey, ‘Good to meet you.’”

“Goo to mwee oo,” the boy said around his fingers.

Viola pulled his hand from his mouth and instructed him to try again. He managed it better this time.

“It was nice to meet you, too,” Chey said. She widened her gaze to include Viola. “It was especially nice to see you again, ma’am.”

“I know you’ll do well for us, dear,” Viola Todd said. Then she looked to her grandson and a silent communication passed between them.

He bent and kissed first the boy and then his grandmother on the cheek. Straightening once more, he moved toward Chey, lifting a hand to take her arm. Automatically, she shied from his touch. It was a foolish thing to do, foolish and telling, and it brought a flush of embarrassment to her cheeks. Brodie just smiled knowingly and clasped his hands behind him, the hunger in his pale blue eyes as blatant as any declaration. Well, Chey mused as she strode off in front of him, she now knew what it felt like to be a pineapple tart on that man’s plate.

Chapter Two

“We’ll start down here on the first floor and work our way up,” Brodie said in a brisk, businesslike tone.

Chey nodded at that and folded her arms tightly as they passed through the doorway into the central hall side by side. “How many rooms are there?”

“Twenty-eight rooms on the first two floors, counting the butler’s pantry and linen storage. The third is made up of the laundry, an apartment belonging to Marcel and Kate, the couple who cook and keep house for us, and the attics, which are a virtual warren of irregular cubicles crammed with furniture and junk. Kate and Marcel have just finished renovating their own space, so that need not concern you, and I don’t foresee using the attics for anything other than storage, but you’re welcome to take a look. Much of the furniture appears usable to me, but you would be the better judge.”

Chey nodded with interest. “These old houses often turn out to be hiding valuable antiques. It’s possible we’ll find some of the original furnishings.”

“That’s good. I like the idea of authenticity—within reason, of course.” He opened the first door they came to. “This is one of the worst,” he said, “the breakfast room.”

She peeked inside, leaning past him to do so. The room was indeed a shambles. A plumbing leak had caused the ceiling to fall in and the wallpaper to peel. The carpet had rotted away and left the wood planking beneath exposed. A swinging door, now off the hinges, leaned against one wall. Large, multipaned, ceiling-to-floor windows looked out into the garden room, and like those of many homes of the period, which were taxed according to the number of rooms and doors they contained, the bottom section could be raised to create a direct pass-through. “I assume that doorway leads to the kitchens,” she said, pointing to the vacant space next to the unhinged door.

“Yes, via the butler’s pantry, which also opens into the formal dining room. We could go through that way since the floorboards are sound, but it’s such a mess I’d rather not take a chance on ruining that pretty suit you’re wearing.”

She ignored the compliment, quickly withdrawing from the room. “I have to come back and take measurements, anyway.”

Thereafter, she kept her distance. They made a thorough survey of the entire first floor, which, in addition to the breakfast room and kitchens, included an actual ballroom, a large formal parlor, a formal dining room capable of seating two dozen comfortably, a cloakroom, a billiards room, a “smoking” room, an informal family room, two rest rooms, a “ladies withdrawing room” now claimed by Viola as a type of office, and an antiquated elevator from the 1930s. The kitchen had been completely renovated with modern, restaurant-quality appliances and fixtures, but Chey was relieved to see that the original brick floors, exposed beams and fire ovens had been left alone. The formal rooms were dingy and unattractive, having been last redecorated in the 1950s. The billiards room had been gutted; some of the floor had rotted. The cloakroom and smoking room had been relegated to storage, while the family rooms were shabby and horribly “updated” with shag carpets and cheap paneling. The two rest rooms were barely adequate, and the library, with falling shelves and a fireplace that undoubtedly leaked, was in deplorable shape.

The second floor had fared better and boasted a long, wide landing that ran the length of the back of the house and opened onto a balcony that overhung the garden room. Two smaller hallways branched off the wider, central one, allowing access to fourteen separate chambers. As in so many older homes, some rooms could only be reached by traveling through others and several doorways had been blocked by previous renovation. A cramped, rickety servants’ stairway plunged straight down into the butler’s pantry, its lower access blocked by a locked door and table. Chey noted that the shaft, which ran all the way to the third floor, provided perfect access for a central air-conditioning system, which had to be a prime consideration, given the hot, sticky Louisiana summer now rapidly approaching. Chey decided to make it a priority issue.

Brodie had set up a temporary office in a room at the front of the house that opened onto his personal bedchamber, and he’d had special electrical and telephone lines installed there to protect the several computers that he had up and running. The electrician he had employed had done a cursory inspection of the remainder of the house and had reported that some sections had been rewired as recently as twenty years previously, while some rooms utilized wires much older and some were without electricity altogether. Brodie, therefore, had engaged the man to draw up a rewiring schematic and present a proposal, which he now plucked from the metal table that he was using as a desk and handed over to Chey, much to her delight.

“Thank you,” she told him, tucking the rolled schematic under one arm. “This will make it easier to put together my bid.”

He seemed amused by her choice of words. “What bid?”

“I thought you wanted me to bid on the project,” she told him, confused.

“I want you to oversee the project,” he said flatly.

“You mean, you’ve already made a decision?” she asked, astounded.

“I made the decision before I wrote the letter,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Before you even met me?”

He folded his arms and perched on the corner of the metal table. “There are better ways to judge a person when it comes to business, Mary Chey. I assumed you’d know that. Besides, my grandmother met you at the tea, went there for that express purpose, in fact, as soon as my investigation confirmed you were the best person for the job.”

“You had me investigated?” she demanded.

“Thoroughly, your business dealings anyway. I never pry into a person’s private life.”

Chey was temporarily dumbfounded. She tried to be offended, but he’d picked her for the job, after all. Still, it rankled somewhat, knowing that someone had delved into her past. “That’s an odd way to conduct business, isn’t it?” she asked with some asperity.

“On the contrary,” he said calmly, “it’s an efficient way of doing business.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Chey glanced around, a purely defensive gesture, and realized that art objects and other items from all over the world comprised much of the clutter. “What about personalities?” she asked. “Clashes happen, you know.”

“The way I look at it,” Brodie said, bringing her attention back to him, “it’s easier in the long run to work with someone who does a good job even if you don’t particularly like the individual, than to discover that someone you genuinely like is going to shaft you with shoddy work.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” she said coolly.

“My way,” he retorted succinctly. “So, do we have a deal or not?”

“That depends,” she said smoothly, though in truth she had no intention of turning down the job. “Exactly what is the deal? I mean, if you don’t want me to bid on the project, then I can only assume you’re offering a salary?”

He shook his head. “Not at all. I know exactly how much this job is worth to me, how much it will probably cost and what a reasonable profit on it would be for you. I propose to deposit everything I’m willing to spend into a special bank account to which you will have unlimited access. I expect fully three-fourths of the sum will go into the house. The rest is yours. If you overspend, you diminish your own earnings. If you underspend…well, I’m warning you here and now that I expect quality for every penny and I’ll be personally inspecting the work and the invoices.”

It was eminently fair, provided he put up enough money. “What if I’m not satisfied with the sum you’re willing to spend?”

“Then I’ll look elsewhere,” he said simply. “But I think you’ll approve. And just for the record, the way I see it, I’m buying your expertise. That means you are in charge of everything that has to do with refurbishing, repairing and redecorating the house. Everything.”

“Except you’ll be checking up on me,” she pointed out.

“Just to be sure I’m getting my money’s worth,” he clarified. “I won’t be second-guessing you. You are the expert here, aren’t you?”

His directness, like everything else about him, unsettled her. She was used to tiptoeing around certain issues, to employing great diplomacy and tact in swaying her clients to allow her to act for them. She said, with a little more asperity than she intended, “You bet I am.”

He grinned, the wretch. “I’m banking on it, not that it’s much of a gamble. I happen to know that, in addition to your degree in architecture and design, you have a good deal of experience in restoration and the attendant construction disciplines. In fact, I’m told that you have actual on the-job experience in trim carpentry, plumbing and masonry.”

He actually knew about the summers she’d spent working in the trades with her brothers! She didn’t know whether to be offended or impressed. The former felt safer. “Then why did you ask?” she snapped.

He chuckled unrepentantly. “Just to see how you’d respond. I dislike false modesty.”

“And I dislike arrogance.”

He laughed outright. “Is it arrogant to do your homework? To be sure someone’s up to the job?”

She couldn’t really argue with that, but she didn’t have to like it. Folding her arms huffily, she said with heavy sarcasm, “I suppose you think you’re a better business person than I am, because I’ve never gone to such lengths to check out anyone I’ve contracted with.”

“But then you aren’t the one ponying up a million dollars.”

Her mouth fell open. It was almost twice what she’d expected, and she’d been prepared to fight, wheedle, beg and wrangle for that! She swallowed her mental exclamations and got her mouth wrapped around a sensible reply. Eventually. “Uh, that…I can definitely work with that.”

He chuckled. “I should hope so.” He straightened and extended a hand toward her. “So then, are we agreed?”

She’d have been insane to balk at that point. “Absolutely.” She put her hand in his. Lightning shot up her arm and down her spine. What was it about him that did this to her?

“I’ll have the contract in your office tomorrow morning,” he said, then, releasing her, he rose smoothly from the corner of the desk and swept his arm toward the door. “Now, shall we finish our inspection?”

She slipped by him untouched, but she was well aware that he was amused by her reluctance to come into physical contact with him again. She only wished that she could be amused about it. The fact was, it troubled her greatly. Men did not affect her this way; she didn’t allow it, and she didn’t like it one bit that she seemed to have no control over the matter where Brodie Todd was concerned. It left her little recourse except to restrict her attentions solely to the business at hand and ignore everything else.

He took her through his own Spartan, dreary bedchamber, several empty ones, three cramped, outmoded bathrooms, and Viola’s slightly more personable suite. He pointed out every element of Seth’s rooms, from the corner cabinet filled with toys in the playroom to the narrow bookcase crammed with reading material in the bedchamber. Brodie was especially concerned about the lack of amenities available for guests, explaining that he often entertained influential people, even foreign dignitaries on occasion, but he emphasized that the family rooms must come first. They were just leaving another nondescript room when a small body hurtled around the corner and flung itself at Brodie’s knees, exclaiming, “Daddy, I see Mama!”

Brodie looked up as Viola came into view, huffing slightly from trying to keep up with the boy. “How is she?” he asked. “Anything new?”

Viola shook her head. “She seems completely unchanged to me, and Brown says she’s seen nothing beyond the usual eye flutters and twitches.”

Brodie sighed and nodded. Viola stroked his arm consolingly. “Poor thing,” she said. “I know you want her to improve.”

“I want her to damned well wake up,” he muttered fiercely, but before anything else could be said, Seth loudly demanded, “Twucks now, Gramuma!”

A duet of voices, Viola’s and Brodie’s, instantly instructed the child in the art of courtesy, and he rewarded them with compliance, changing his demand to a plea. “We pway twucks now pwease?”

When Chey and Brodie left the room, Viola was on her hands and knees on the floor unrolling a mat with a scale drawing of a highway system on it while Seth pulled out an entire carton full of toy trucks.

“I really should hire a nanny,” Brodie said once the door was closed. “Caring for a small child is too much for Grandmama.”

“Why don’t you then?” Chey asked, curious despite her better judgment. Silently she was wondering why the child’s mother didn’t just step in.

Brodie grimaced. “I don’t want my son raised by servants. It might be different if his mother could devote a little attention to him.”

“Why can’t she?” Chey heard herself asking.

For the first time, Brodie’s control seemed to slip. His handsome face hardened, and his hands tightened into fists. “See for yourself.” Abruptly, he led Chey down a hallway toward the last of the rooms, saying, “I don’t want her disturbed any more than necessary, for reasons you’ll understand, I’m sure. I’ve already seen to her needs as best I can. In fact, I doubt it’s necessary or even desirable that you do much with her suite, but I thought you ought to see it, at least.” With that he opened the door of what seemed a combination sitting and hospital room. The walls had been plastered and painted coral pink. A ruffled sofa and chair stood around a plush rug and a delicate table over-flowing with a large vase of fresh flowers. The rest of the furnishings were strictly utilitarian, however, from the hospital bed to the monitors and intravenous pole. A small metal cart bearing a tabletop television and stereo was parked at the foot of the bed. Music played softly.

A tall, husky woman with short, tightly curled gray hair stood up from a comfortable chair as they entered the room. Chey nodded, but Brodie ignored the other woman, moving instead to the bed. The big woman’s mouth turned down at both ends, but it struck Chey as her usual expression rather than one of present disapproval. Chey approached the bed more out of curiosity than anything else and watched silently as Brodie sat down beside the small figure lying there. He picked up a slender, manicured hand and held it cupped in his own, speaking softly, telling the other person who Chey was and why she was there. Carefully, Chey sidled toward the foot of the bed, desperately wanting to see the person to whom he was speaking. What she saw shocked her deeply for two reasons.

The first was that the woman appeared to be comatose. The second was that hers was the face of an angel framed by bright, strawberry blond hair flowing over her shoulders and frilly white lace nightgown. Someone had made up her face, adding subtle color and shadow, but the angel herself slept on unaware. Indeed, only the gentle rise and fall of her chest gave any indication at all that she actually lived. Chey felt slightly sick to her stomach and told herself that it was compassion for the poor thing upon the bed, as well as her husband and son. It was at least partly that, but it was also more, and Chey was, at bottom, honest enough to admit to herself that she felt a twinge of pure envy as she watched Brodie reach up and gently cup, then pat one rosy, angelic cheek before rising to his feet once more and joining her at the foot of the bed.

“The doctors say it’s best to keep familiar things around her, so we brought her own furniture with us. We painted the walls her favorite color and set up the room exactly as it was in Dallas.” He nodded at the large woman standing to one side. “As her nurse, Brown came with us.” Finally, he addressed the older woman. “This is Miss Simmons, Brown. She’s going to transform the house, bring it all up to form for us. If you or Janey have need of changes in your rooms, Miss Simmons is the one to consult.”

“I could use some fresh paint on my walls,” Brown stated matter-of-factly, “and the toilet in the bathroom runs all the time. I don’t need nothing else.”

“And Janey?” Brodie asked. “What about her?”

Nurse Brown bristled. “I take care of her needs.”

A muscle flexed in Brodie’s jaw. “I realize that,” he said tightly. “I meant, do you need any changes to make your job easier?” The woman shook her head. Chey couldn’t help noticing that her eyes were as cold and steely a gray as her hair. Brodie tilted his head. “Fine. If you think of anything later, just let me know.” With that he turned toward the hall door, motioning for Chey to follow. He pulled the door closed behind them, muttering, “Hateful old sow.” He glanced at Chey and said, “Sorry. But that woman rubs me the wrong way.”

“Then why keep her on?”

He grimaced. “Because she’s devoted to Janey. They knew each other before, you see. Brown was, is, a friend of the family. Janey’s mother died when she was small, and I guess for that reason Janey’s always depended on Brown. After the accident, Brown wouldn’t leave her side, and since the doctors think that if Janey wakes up again, it will help to have familiar faces and things around, I’ve kept her on.” He sighed, fingered his short, thick goatee and said, “I wouldn’t have moved Janey at all, frankly, but my grandfather died six months ago, and Seth and I are all the family my grandmother has left, so I decided to move everyone home to New Orleans, and that meant bringing Janey, and therefore, Brown with us.”

Chey nodded her understanding, then ventured carefully, “Exactly what is Janey’s condition, if you don’t mind my asking?”

He shook his head and moved once more down the hallway toward the stairs. Chey fell in beside him as he spoke. “She’s in a coma, obviously. The doctors don’t know exactly why, some sort of trauma to the brain. She was drinking that night. It was March, Seth’s first birthday, as a matter of fact. Anyway, she fell into a nearly empty swimming pool. It’s a miracle she didn’t drown, but I sometimes wonder if that wouldn’t have been kinder.”

Chey stopped and waited for him to turn to face her. “I’m sorry,” she told him sincerely. “Two years of watching your wife languish in a coma must have been very difficult.”

“Ex-wife,” he corrected.

Chey blinked at him, the air fixed in her lungs. He wasn’t married! Not that she should care. Better if he were. But surely he hadn’t divorced his wife after she’d been injured. In Chey’s opinion, that would have been despicable. It wasn’t, however, any of her business.

He folded his arms and tucked in his chin, looking down at her, his blue eyes holding hers as surely as any physical touch. “We should get up to the third floor now,” he said, changing the subject.

She nodded, and he moved down the hallway once more. As he led her toward the upper and final story of the house, he talked about the changes he had made to accommodate the couple who cooked and cleaned for him. He’d had everything updated to their personal specifications, including the plumbing and wiring. Obviously, he considered it their private domain. The attics, however, were of prime interest to her, and she was right about the treasures hiding there.

Though dusty and disorganized, the place was crammed with enough antiques to keep an antique-lover happily busy for days just cataloging and investigating, exactly what she determined to do. At first glance it looked as if she could furnish the entire house with what she found there. It was an absolute treasure trove, and though she wasn’t dressed for it, Chey could not resist digging through the most easily accessible portion. Before she realized it, she was absorbed in her discovery. She forgot about the pristine condition of her suit and everything else. It was one magnificent find after another, and the next thing she knew, Brodie was pushing hair out of her face, hair that should have been confined in its usual sleek twist. She looked up at him, shocked speechless to find him so close. He wound a golden-blond strand around his forefinger and tugged gently. She felt it all the way to the soles of her feet.

“I thought Wonderland was the temples of Malaysia or the rivers of India,” he told her softly, “but I see that for you it’s a musty old room full of used furniture.”

Her heart, which seemed to have leapt up and lodged in her throat, was beating so hard she could barely speak, but somehow she managed to form the words, “Not used, antique.”

His smile spread all the way across his face. “Antique,” he conceded. Then she realized that his face was descending toward hers, that he meant to kiss her. She tilted her chin up, but at the first electric brush of his lips against hers, she yelped and hopped away, bumping her upper thigh on a sharp corner. Dumbly, she looked down and recognized a walnut sugar chest, probably built about 1840. One part of her mind spun out an assessment. A plantation piece from the days when sugar was a precious commodity kept under lock and key, it was not found much north of the Mason-Dixon line and would make an excellent occasional table. Another inner voice screamed that she should run before something awful happened, something that would change her life forever, something for which she was not prepared.