Playboy Bachelors

Her laughter had entered her eyes. “You didn’t even begin to scratch the surface,” she told him.

Philippe looked at her, a little stunned, wondering if that applied to her as well.

Chapter Seven

The noise didn’t register until after the fact.

Somewhere, a door had closed. Someone was in the house. The next moment, he didn’t have to speculate if it was one of his brothers.

One other person had the key to his house and it was that voice he heard now. Low and full-bodied like brandy being poured over ice, it filled the air, preceding her and coming at him without so much as a greeting or a preamble.

“And what is this I hear about you having the house remodeled?”

He glanced up from his computer to see her standing in his doorway. Lily Moreau was given to dramatic entrances, even with her own family. By all accounts, she was a dramatic woman. From the top of her deep black hair, shot through with captivating streaks of gray, to the tips of her toes, polished, manicured and encased in the Italian designer shoes she favored, Lily Moreau, renowned artist, woman of passion and world traveler was the very personification of drama.

His smile was automatic. She was probably the most trying, infuriating woman in the world—she was at least in the top five—but he loved her dearly. “Hello, Mother, how are you?”

She took possession of the room and moved around like a force of nature, searching for a place to touch down, however briefly. Swirls of turquoise, at her wrists, ears and neck and along her torso, marked her path. Turquoise was one of her two favorite colors.

“Confused,” she responded, pivoting to face him on the three-inch heels that rendered her five-foot-five. “My firstborn, the most stable child of the litter, has ventured into my territory without so much as a single request for input.” She flounced down on the sofa, clouds of turquoise floating about her still trim hips and softly coming to rest in a circle around her. “I’d say I was more than confused. I’d say I was hurt.”

Accustomed to these performances whenever his mother was in town, Philippe hardly looked away from his monitor and the equation that troubled him. “No reason to be hurt, Mother. And as for your ‘territory,’ since when have you been moonlighting as a handyman?”

“Handyman?” Frowning, Lily moved forward on the sofa. “I thought you were having the house redone.” Although she strongly maintained that of the three of them, Philippe had inherited her artistic bent, he had always been determined to bury it. By now his flair was so far from the surface, it would have taken a crane to be resurrected. She liked being consulted on matters, liked being in the thick of things. Color schemes, textures, room dynamics, these all came under her purview.

“Not quite.” He had a strong hunch he knew where his mother had gotten her information. Georges had been the one to let J.D. in the other day when she had dragged him off to those damn stores. “Tell Georges to get his facts straight.”

“It wasn’t Georges,” she informed him, on her feet again and moving about. She stopped to finger a plant she had given him the last time she’d visited. It was two steps removed from death. On an errand of mercy, she walked into the hall, her destination the kitchen. “It was Alain.”

“Tell Alain to get his facts straight next time,” he called after her.

Philippe didn’t bother asking how his other brother had gotten into this. He imagined it was like the old fashioned game of telephone, where Georges had taken his own interpretation of the events and told them to Alain who then put his own spin on it before telling their mother. He was actually surprised they didn’t have him buying a villa in the south of France or some equally improbable scenario.

She was back with a cup full of water. Lily poured it slowly into the pot, then tried to arrange the drooping, drying leaves. “And the facts are?”

Philippe glanced at his mother. He should have known that she would want in on this. She was the one he should have sent with J.D., not gotten roped into traipsing around after the woman from store to store, selecting things that held little to no interest for him. All he’d wanted was to have a cracked sink replaced.

But to say anything on that subject would get him sucked into a conversation he didn’t want. “That you don’t come by enough for me to see you with a scowl on your face.”

“Scowl?” The plant was completely forgotten. Lily reached for her purse and the compact mirror inside. “I’m scowling? I can’t scowl, I’ll get wrinkles before my big show.” Mirror opened, she reviewed her appearance from several different angles, then decided that she was fine. Not twenty-two-year-old fine, but fine nonetheless.

Philippe caught the magic word. “Another big show?”

“Always another big show,” she declared with gusto. It was what she thrived on, that and the men in her life. “If I can’t paint, I’ll just lie down and they can throw dirt over me.” She tossed her head, dark ends flirting with the tops of her shoulders. “I’ll be as good as dead.”

She certainly had a way of phrasing things, he thought. “They throw enough dirt over you, you will be.” One of the first things he’d ever learned about his mother was that, barring some crisis, there was nothing she liked to talk about more than her paintings, so he gave her a gentle nudge in that direction. “So, where and when is this big show?”

“Three weeks from Saturday at the Sunset Galleries on Lido Isle.” She recited the information as if it had been prerecorded. And then she gave him a deep, penetrating look. “You’ll be there?”

Turning in his chair so that he faced her instead of the computer, he grinned. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

She took hold of his hands as if that was all she needed to discern whether or not he was telling her the truth. Fingers wound tightly around his palms.

“No, really, you’ll be there?” She nodded absently toward the screen. “You know how you get when you get involved in your work.”

“I’ll be there,” he promised, wiping any trace of a smile from either his voice or his face.

Lily sighed, as if getting him to agree had been an ordeal. “Good. I want you to meet him.”

“Him?” Philippe eyed his mother warily. “There’s another him?” He should have known there would be. It had been, what, five months since the last one had been sent packing? That was a long dry spell for his mother.

“Yes,” Lily replied joyously. She’d moved on to the rear of the room to gaze out at the backyard it faced. All three houses shared it as if it was one large yard instead of the culmination of three. “You need a gazebo, Philippe,” she decided and then, glancing back at him, she waved her hand. “Get that look off your face, I know what you’re thinking.”

He made it a point to be as laid-back as she was dramatic. “I sincerely doubt that.”

She was not his mother for nothing. “You’re thinking, here we go again.”

He laughed, impressed. “Very good. I guess I’m getting too predictable.”

She didn’t waste words on defending her past choices. She was a woman who had always believed in moving forward. “This time, it’s different.”

And where had he heard that before? Philippe mused. He went back to focusing on his work, uttering a tolerant, “Of course it is.”

“It is,” she insisted, crossing to his desk and presenting herself behind his monitor so that he was forced to look at her. She clasped her hands together and resembled a schoolgirl in the throes of her first major crush. “Kyle is everything I’ve been looking for in a man. Funny, smart, youthful and vigorous—”

Philippe shot his hand up in the air to halt the flow of words. “If that word doesn’t apply to the way he polishes your silverware, Mother, I really don’t want to hear about it.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Oh Philippe, you know what your trouble is?”

Yes, he had a mother who had never grown up. “I’m sure you’ll tell me,” he replied patiently.

She took his chin in her hand, lowering her face to his. “You’re not at all like your father.”

Moving his chair back, he eyed his mother. “I thought that was a good thing. You left my father because he gambled away the floor from under your feet,” he reminded her.

She refused to dwell on the bad. It was one of her attributes. “But first he swept me off those feet, Philippe. He had this zest for life—”

“Otherwise known as Texas hold ’em.”

“Oh Philippe,” she sighed mightily, “you were born old.”

He didn’t see it as a failing. If anything, it kept him from making his mother’s mistakes and leading with his heart instead of his head. “One of us had to be and someone had to be there for the boys.”

The hurricane stopped moving. Lily’s expression turned serious. “Was having me as a mother so terrible?”

He wouldn’t allow his mind to stray to the hundred and one shortcomings his mother possessed. The bottom line was that she meant well in her own way and she did love them. Of that he was certain. So he smiled at her and said, “You had your moments.”

“I had my hours, Philippe, my days,” she corrected majestically. “And I always loved all you boys to distraction.” Long, slender fingers touched his cheek the way she did when he was small and needed her comforting. “I still do.”

“I know that.”

She dropped her hand to her side. The movement was accompanied by the sound of gold bracelets greeting one another. “I’m a passionate woman, Philippe. I need passion for my art. I use passion,” she insisted.

This was a conversation they’d had before. Several times. “I know that, too, Mother.”

She kissed his cheek, then rubbed away the streak of vivid red from his skin. Any minor disagreement that might have arisen was terminated before it had a chance to form. “Is there a reason for this handiwork you’re having done?”

“Yes,” he replied simply, “the bathroom sink is cracked.”

“Oh.” She looked exceptionally disappointed. “I was hoping that it was being done because you were finally settling down.”

Philippe addressed the phrase in its strictest sense. “I’m the most settled out of the three of us,” he reminded her.

The drama returned as Lily sighed and resumed her restless patrol of the small converted bedroom. “With a woman, Philippe, settling down with a woman.” She retraced her steps and presented herself before him again. “Have you been seeing anyone?”

“Only you when I’m lucky.”

Lily closed her eyes and sighed. “Use that charm on someone else, Philippe. Someone who matters.”

Momentarily surrendering, he rose to his feet. He just wasn’t going to get any work done with his mother here, bombarding him with questions. He might as well enjoy this visit.

“You always matter, Mother. Want some coffee?” he suggested.

She looked as if she was going to say yes, then surprised him by shaking her head.

“I don’t want to take you away from what you’re doing.” She took exactly one step toward the threshold before she continued talking. “Just wanted to invite you to the show and to see if you had any women stashed here.” The expression on her face told him that she hoped he’d do better on her next unexpected visit. “Your father always had women stashed here and there.”

There wasn’t very much he remembered about his parents’ union when it had been official, although his mother had taken his father back for a short time between her second and third husbands. But they hadn’t been married then. “Before you got engaged?”

Lily moved a stray hair from her cheek. “No, after we were married. After gambling and family, women were your father’s primary addiction.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if it had no impact on her whatsoever. Lily might have been a cauldron of emotion, but she was never judgmental.

Philippe blew out a breath. “Not much of a prize,” he commented.

But his mother’s eyes were shining like two bright jewels. “Vigorous, Philippe. He, too, was very vigorous.”

It was going to take him days to get the image she’d planted out of his head, Philippe thought. If he were still at a young and impressionable age, that just might have scarred him for life.

But then, if his mother’s actual lifestyle hadn’t done it while he was growing up, he sincerely doubted that anything at this stage possibly could. Flamboyant, eccentric and completely unorthodox were all terms that were synonymous with the name Lily Moreau and he’d survived his childhood to become a relatively well-adjusted, successful man. If his house was a little empty at times, well, everyone paid some kind of price in life. Being alone was his.

Besides, it was a great deal more preferable than constantly making the wrong choices.

His mother still hovered over him. “I worry about you most of all, Philippe.”

That was the last thing he wanted. For her to worry or, worse, to do something about that worry.

He had only one response for that. “Don’t.”

She sniffed, taking offense. “I may not be Norman Rockwell’s idea of the perfect mother, but I’m still a mother.”

He knew she meant well. Philippe softened. “Norman Rockwell’s been gone for a long time, I don’t think you need to worry about him. And I appreciate the concern, Mother, but I am a grown man. We march to different drummers. You taught me that, remember?”

“Yes, but sometimes the music is the same.” She pressed full lips together, thinking. And then her eyes widened the way they did when she’d been struck by an idea she liked. “Kyle has a sister—”

For a second, the name escaped him. “Kyle?”

“Yes, the reason for the smile on my face. You’re not paying attention, Philippe,” she admonished with a trace of impatience.

His mother’s boyfriend’s sister. Oh God. That was all he needed, to be coupled with a woman old enough to be his mother. That little tidbit would finally send him into therapy.

He put his hands on her shoulders, as if that could somehow push all the wild ideas she had back into her head. “Mother,” his tone was firm, “Don’t worry about it. Now, I do have work to do, so…”

She took her dismissal graciously enough and picked up the purse she’d dropped onto the sofa upon entry. “I’ll let myself out, I know the way.” She hesitated for a second. “You won’t forget about the show?”

“I won’t forget.”

She nodded, taking him at his word. “And see if you can bring someone,” she coaxed, then added with emphasis, “Someone female.”

“I’ll see what I can find on Amazon.com,” he dead-panned.

Lily sighed. “Some things never change.” Raising herself up on her toes, she kissed his cheek again. “But I love you anyway.”

He smiled as she left the room. “Nice to know, Mother.”

Sitting down, within moments Philippe was lost again in the details of the knotty programming problem he’d run up against.

And then he was roused out of its midst again.

“Philippe?”

He closed his eyes, summoning strength. He didn’t often get impatient with his mother, there was no point. But he could get impatient at the loss of an afternoon’s work, especially since he’d sacrificed an afternoon just the other day.

Taking a deep breath, he released it again before saying, “Yes, Mother?”

“You are a sneaky devil.”

The single sentence, hanging in the air without preamble, begged for questions, for an explanation. He pushed away from his desk and rose to his feet, resigned to getting both.

“Why, Mother?”

There was no answer. He was about to follow the sound of his mother’s voice when the need was abruptly vanquished. Lily made a reentrance.

She wasn’t alone.

His mother’s ring-encrusted fingers were delicately wrapped around the small hand of J.D.’s daughter. J.D. was right behind them, bringing up the rear.

Philippe felt like the beach at Normandy on D-day.

“Where have you been hiding these two?” his mother asked with the air of someone who felt she had the right to know everything that transpired in the world of her sons.

“We’re not hiding,” Kelli informed her before he could find his own tongue. “We’re right here.”

J.D. seemed a little overwhelmed by his mother. Welcome to the club, he thought.

“Did we have a date I forgot about?” he asked. The second the word was out of his mouth, he realized his mistake. His colossal mistake.

“Date?” Lily echoed, vibrating with both curiosity and joy.

“I came for the check,” J.D. explained. She was sure she’d mentioned it to him.

Lily’s eyes widened. “He’s paying you? Oh, Philippe—”

Janice had no idea what was going on but she just pushed ahead, hoping that somehow everything would straighten itself out if she just hung on to her part of the truth. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I brought Kelli with me again.” She tried to take Kelli’s hand, but the woman in turquoise was in her way. “She really wanted to see you.”

“He is charming, my son,” Lily agreed and turned to the woman she assumed was the child’s mother. “I’m Lily Moreau. It’s very nice to meet you.”

The next thing Janice knew, she found herself enfolded in an enthusiastic one-armed hug. Although she hugged Kelli at every opportunity, she came from a family that was light-years removed from anything demonstrative. She wasn’t sure how to respond to this strange woman’s embrace.

“Likewise,” she murmured from within the embrace.

Letting go, Lily turned to her son again. “Philippe, out with it. Who is this lovely creature?”

“She’s my contractor, Mother.”

Lily laughed dryly. “You have your father’s sense of humor. I would find him alone with all sorts of beautiful women. He always referred to them as his clients. Even in the dead of night when I came back from a tour and discovered him indisposed, so to speak.” There was no malice, no hurt in her voice. She was simply recounting something from the past that had occurred in her life.

Still, Philippe couldn’t believe she was saying this in front of a stranger. “Mother,” he said sharply, glancing at J.D.

“I really am his contractor,” Janice told her. “I need a check from you to make a down payment on the materials we decided on,” she told him.

Kelli tugged on the woman’s hand. “I’m Kelli,” she informed her. And then proceeded to blow her away by asking, “Are you the lady who painted the pretty picture over there?”

Lily seemed stunned and then immensely pleased. “Why, yes, I am.” She bent down to Kelli’s level. “Do you like it?”

Kelli’s hair bounced about her face as she nodded. “Very much.” And then she added in a very grown-up voice, “I paint, too.”

Lily smiled warmly. “Do you, now?” There was genuine interest in her voice, not just the sound of forced tolerance.

“Yes, she does. Very well.”

The confirmation with its comment came not from Kelli or even J.D., but from Philippe. His mother looked at him with an interested expression that immediately told him he should have kept that comment to himself.

But since he hadn’t, he might as well back up what he’d said. He looked at J.D. “Why don’t you show my mother the drawing you carry around with you?”

Janice paused. It was one thing to show the drawing to a person she was talking to, it was another to show it to a woman who had had her paintings on display in galleries in Paris.

But Kelli gazed up at her so eagerly, there was nothing else she could do. Taking out her wallet, Janice carefully unfolded the drawing she kept tucked away there, then handed it to Lily.

Lily studied the drawing with great interest. “You did this?” There wasn’t a hint of a patronization in her voice.

Kelli nodded. “Uh-huh.”

Lily’s smile crinkled into her eyes. “Really?”

“Really,” Kelli echoed, then crossed her heart with childish fingers.

Lily looked up in Janice’s direction. “This is very, very good.”

Janice already knew that, but it was nice to hear a professional agree. “Thank you.”

Lily studied the drawing again. It looked better to her with each pass. “Have you thought of getting your daughter some professional training?”

It was one of her cherished hopes, but it was something to address in the future, not now. “She’s a little young for that.”

“How old is she?” Lily asked.

Kelli responded instantly. “I’m four and three-quarters.”

“Oh, four and three-quarters,” Lily parroted, suppressing a smile. She glanced up at Janice. “Mozart was four when he wrote his first concerto.”

“Well, he ultimately didn’t wind up very well, did he?” Janice countered. She didn’t want anyone treating Kelli like some oddity.

“Well-read, too.” Lily nodded, looking back at her son. Her comment, clearly about J.D., was for Philippe’s benefit. “You’ve given me hope, Philippe.”

“Remodeling, Mother, she’s remodeling a couple of rooms for me.”

“Four,” Janice corrected. “I’m remodeling four rooms for you.”

“Very promising,” Lily commented. Philippe could almost see his mother’s thoughts racing off to the finish line. Any protest he might offer would only make the woman believe the very opposite. This was a case of discretion being the better part of valor.

So for the time being, he kept his silence and hoped for the best. He’d survived Hurricane Lily before.

Chapter Eight

Like most people, Philippe had a temper. However, unless one of his own was being threatened, it took a great deal to nudge that particular part of his personality awake. He usually took things in stride. Being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic didn’t faze him. But deadlines that came and went, his deadlines, made him uneasy. Because he felt responsible for the failure to meet this particular deadline, he’d become progressively more irritated.

And God knew, the noise wasn’t helping.

Philippe looked accusingly at the closed door. He’d been in his office for the last three hours and it was just getting worse.

This was definitely not what he had bargained for.

Afraid of losing his work, he saved it, assigning the program’s temporary name yet another number to differentiate it from previous versions. He laced his fingers together behind his head and leaned back in his chair.

When he’d agreed to have work done on his house, he’d forgotten to consider one important thing.

The noise factor.

Right now, the house abounded with it. How could one woman create this much noise? It seeped into every crevice of the house, taking his office prisoner.

It didn’t matter if his door was open or closed. He was still very much aware of it. Sometimes the noise was loud, sometimes almost deceptively soft, making him think that perhaps he’d weathered the worst. But then it would start again. And continue.

At its best, the noise could be likened to an erratic heartbeat. At its worst, it was like the circus setting up winter quarters outside his door—with a herd of less-than-tame elephants in charge of doing all of the hammering.

It had been like this for three days.

Philippe dragged his fingers through his hair and counted to ten. And then ten again. It didn’t help. His long dormant temper had gone short-fuse on him.

Abandoning his computer and its multitude of crashes, Philippe went out into the hallway and made his way to the kitchen, the source of all this ungodly noise.

He was ready to do whatever it took to get some peace.

Wearing safety goggles and wielding a sledgehammer, J.D. didn’t seem to see him at first. For a second, despite the irritation that was close to the boiling point within his chest, he hung back, just watching her.

She swung that sledgehammer like a pro. Tirelessly. Splintering cabinets she’d already crowbarred from the wall.

He found the rhythmic movement oddly hypnotic. J.D. wore faded jeans that seemed to lovingly adhere to her every curve and a gray T-shirt that was damp in several places, obviously with her sweat.