Home
The French Quarter, New Orleans
Pale shafts of moonlight filtered through the banana trees and towering elephant ears in the courtyard concealed behind tall plank gates that went unnoticed by most people who passed along Conti Street. The low-slung branches of a crepe myrtle partially concealed a wrought iron bench beside a flowerbed profuse with primroses. The soulful wail of a trumpet drifted in from one of the jazz clubs around the corner.
A man strode across the ancient bricks, passed the splashing lion’s head fountain built into the wall, and mounted the sweeping staircase to the second floor. Upstairs, he inserted his brass key into the door’s old-fashioned lock. The tumbler opened with a click that echoed across the courtyard of the Creole town house.
“Hello, Clay.”
The low throaty voice greeted Clay Duvall with its usual sultry allure, but the sensual impact on him was fleeting. His mind was on a woman. Not this woman, but another woman living an ocean away from the French Quarter.
“Champagne?” Maree asked even though she knew he would want Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Expensive Cristal champagne was her favorite, not his. Offering it was Maree’s way of chastising him for arriving after midnight and not calling.
“Champagne? You know what I want.”
“You want me, darling?” she asked, her voice even huskier than normal.
The honeyed syllables revealed a youth spent in a small bayou town within a shout of New Orleans, but it might as well have been another planet compared to Clay’s background. Not that it mattered to him. He’d learned to look beyond New Orleans’ inbred society for his opportunities.
Maree slowly lifted her shapely body from the velvet chaise and moved toward him. A whisper of silk filled the candlelit room as the sheer negligee caressed her smooth skin. She repeated, “You want me?”
“M-m-mm,” he muttered, unable to force a lie. What he wanted, the woman who obsessed him, was well beyond his reach.
For now.
He didn’t know what to say, but he had to terminate this relationship. Staying with Maree would hurt her more in the long run.
“You desire me, no?”
Before he could answer, her slender arms wrapped around his neck and her full breasts nudged his chest. Pouty lips met his, then parted as her dainty tongue flicked against his mouth.
“Maree,” he half-whispered, half-sighed before he could stop himself.
Maree was good, he had to admit. She was even better now than the night he’d met her at a political reception at the Windsor Court Hotel. Maree had stood off to one side, clothed in a black linen dress that only suggested the luscious body beneath the dark fabric. There had been a hint of shyness in her half-smile and gaze partially concealed by thick alluring lashes.
Across the crowded room he’d detected an undertone of reserve in Maree’s manner, a bashful reticence in her refusal to fully return his smile. Even though Maree was a brunette, not a blonde, her attitude had struck a chord, reminding him of the only woman to have captured his heart. He hadn’t been able to resist walking over and introducing himself.
It wasn’t until after he’d begun his affair with her that Clay realized Maree was obsessed with money and social position. She was nothing like his first love. Instead, Maree was disgustingly similar to his wife—Phoebe LeCroix Duvall.
Maree guided Clay toward the bedroom, where more candles trimmed the fireplace mantel and lined the bookshelves while flickering votives adorned the dressing table. The soft light cast an amber glow across the black satin sheets on the bed she had turned back, obviously anticipating his arrival.
Beep-beep! The chirp of Clay’s cell phone reminded him that he’d come to give Maree a bracelet as a parting gift. He reached into the pocket of his sports coat and pulled out the tiny telephone. He had to tilt it toward the nearest bank of candles to read the digital display.
He shrugged out of Maree’s embrace. “I have to take this. Business.”
Clay walked back into the living room of the apartment he’d leased for Maree a little over a year ago. Her perfume hung in the air like a noxious vapor, then he realized the cloying scent was coming from what Maree called aromatic sandalwood candles. With a sigh of regret for the good times, he hardened his resolve to end their affair.
“Everything is in place,” Burt Anders told him the moment Clay came on the line. “Just say the word.”
“I want her . . . company,” Clay said. “Make the offer, and remember what I told you earlier. Be sure to keep my involvement secret. I don’t want Alyssa to know I’m behind this.”
He snapped the cell phone shut, then tucked it back in his pocket. Alyssa Rossi. The name alone made him smile as he anticipated seeing her again after being apart for almost a dozen years. A lifetime.
“Darling.” Maree had come up behind him and was touching his shoulder.
He slipped the small box out of his pocket. Knowing how she adored antique jewelry, he was positive this Edwardian bracelet encrusted with diamonds and sapphires would ease their parting. He regretted what he was about to do, but assured himself that it wouldn’t be long before she found another wealthy man. With luck, the new guy would love and marry her the way she deserved.
“I went to see Dante this afternoon,” she told him.
Her psychic had moved from the Bahamas to New Orleans to practice voodoo. He’d given it up when his so-called “visions” had lured him to the more lucrative realm of psychic readings. Maree’s obsession with having her future predicted had made her one of Dante’s best customers.
“What did he have to say?” he asked, wanting to let her down gently and hoping he could manipulate the flaky psychic’s message into a way out of this entanglement.
“Something exciting is about to happen.”
“Dante’s right. I have a present for you.”
“For me?”
“I think you’ll like it.”
“Just a minute.” Maree accepted the small package, then dashed into the bedroom and returned with an envelope. “Dante sent this to you.”
“What?” Clay took the envelope from her, noticing the back flap had been secured with a dollop of burgundy-colored sealing wax. “You know I don’t believe—“
“I didn’t ask Dante to predict your future. This was his idea.”
Clay edged away from her, a shadow of alarm troubling him. He put it down to conscience. Dropping Maree was more difficult than he’d anticipated.
He recalled another night long ago. Another woman. The woman he still loved. Leaving a woman was never easy. Not then, not now.
“It’s been fun, but—“ He charged toward the door, embarrassed and rushing the speech he’d silently rehearsed. “I-I don’t know what to say.”
She stared at him and the unopened present slipped from her manicured fingers and hit the Oriental carpet with a dull thunk.
“The rent is paid through the end of the month.” He twisted the brass knob and yanked the door open. “Take care of yourself. Ah . . . Goodbye.”
Behind him, she gasped, but Clay shut the door, blocking the sound. He descended the stairs two at a time, crossed the courtyard, and was out on the street in a matter of seconds. He didn’t stop until he reached the corner, where a trash can stood outside an espresso bar that was closed until morning.
Clay almost tossed Dante’s note on top of a heap of Styrofoam cups, but a surge of curiosity stopped him. He ripped open the envelope, shattering the seal, and chips of burgundy wax plinked onto the cobblestone sidewalk. Removing the single sheet of paper, he held it up to the streetlight, where palmetto bugs were chasing each other in circles, their wings clicking like tiny castanets. The script on the paper appeared too fine to have come from Dante’s blunt fingers.
Dust to dust,
If God won’t have you,
the Devil must.
|
