Authors: Julie Ortolon
“I assumed—”
“No,” he assured her, understanding her anger better. “Chloe, those drawings were private. The only one I would have shown was the drawing of the necklace. Because that was the best evidence I had.”
“What about testimony from other family members? Or friends?”
“My lawyer says they might be perceived as having a vested interest in helping Mémère get the necklace,” he explained. “The testimony will be more compelling if it comes from you. Other than the graphic in Vortal, which isn’t an exact match, it’s the best chance I’ve got.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” she said with apology clear in her voice. She set her drink down and stepped away. Staring at her back, he tried to make sense of her refusal. Why had she come if she didn’t want to mend their rift? Finally, she turned, her expression pleading. “I know the necklace is the reason you came to Pearl Island, but I think we may have found something special while you were there. Would it be possible to set the issue of the necklace aside, and see how things go between us?”
He wanted to argue, but could see that if he pushed her, he and Chloe stood no chance of being together. If he let it go, for a while at least, maybe she would come to understand on her own how important the necklace was to him. Maybe then she would help him.
“Okay.” He nodded. “I can set the necklace aside.”
“All right.” She visibly relaxed and seemed to grow lighter. “Then, yes, spending time with you would be nice.”
She stepped back to him, looking so damned relieved.
Without thinking, he reached for her. “God, I’ve missed you so much.”
Suddenly, she was in his arms, their mouths fused, their arms wrapped tightly around each other.
“I’ve missed you, too,” she said between kisses. Her body pressed eagerly against his, making him want to sing with joy and ravage her at the same time.
A shouted taunt from one of the guys down in the arcade reminded him the door stood open. They broke the kiss, but not the embrace.
“Okay, so…” He struggled to slow his breathing. “We’ll spend time together?”
“Yes,” she said, equally breathless.
“I, um… I don’t suppose you’d be interested in going with me to a
cochon de lait
. There’s going to be a big one out on the bayou tomorrow.”
“A pig roast?” she asked brightly. “I’d love to.”
“Great.” He forced himself to move back, telling himself to quit while he was ahead. “Just tell me where you’re staying and I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
~ ~ ~
As Luc pulled up before the LeRoche mansion the next morning, nerves tangled in his stomach. He wanted so badly to get things right this time. Even with his lingering anger over the sketchpad, he longed to simply be with Chloe. Just be near her.
Because, wild as it seemed, he felt as if she got him. She knew who he was, and she liked him.
But did he get her?
No. He really didn’t. He didn’t understand why a woman as beautiful as Chloe, who had everything going for her, would want to be with him. When women came on to him because of his money, as the casino babes had, he got that. When gamer girls fell over themselves to impress him because he was Luc Renard, the creator of Vortal, he got that.
When Chloe Davis said she wanted to spend time with him? No, that he didn’t get. Because he couldn’t find any logic for it.
But, oh God, how he wanted it. Wanted her. Wanted her so much, he felt as vulnerable as if he stood in the middle of the laser arena completely exposed.
“Be careful, dude,” he whispered to himself. “She could annihilate you.”
With that caution in mind, he turned off the car. Before he’d even reached for the door handle, though, the front door of the LeRoche mansion opened and Chloe came flying out wearing a denim skirt and red top. Unlike the evening he’d picked her up for their dinner date, however, she wasn’t bounding happily toward him. She looked like she was fleeing.
She slammed through the wrought-iron gate and climbed into the car, breathing hard.
“Is something wrong?” he asked in alarm.
“Just drive, will you?” she said, staring out the front window. “Get me out of here.”
“What happened?” he asked as he pulled away from the house.
“I’m an idiot, that’s what happened. Goddamn it!” She beat her fist on the dashboard, then smoothed her hands over it as if fearing she’d damaged something. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to take it out on your car.”
“Forget the car.” He turned onto a side street and stopped. “You’re scaring me. Tell me what happened.”
“I made a huge mistake. Gigantic.” Slumping forward, she hid her face in her hands.
“Chloe?” He rubbed her back. “Talk to me.”
After a moment, she sucked in a breath as she straightened. “I hate having to tell you any of this, but I think you have a right to know.” She looked at him, her expression resolved. “I told my mother about the necklace.”
“What? When? Last night?”
“No.” She shook her head. “A while back. Before you even came to Galveston. It was during one of those rare moments when Diane and I were actually getting along.”
“Diane?”
“My mother,” Chloe explained impatiently, and he remembered that her family didn’t use endearments, a fact that still seemed odd to him. “She seemed genuinely sorry for the way things have been between us the last few years. Which I am, too. Before I knew it, we were talking and sharing, almost like friends. She mentioned reading an article about me finding the necklace. Before I knew it, I was telling her some of what I felt when I held it. What a huge mistake!”
“Why was that a mistake?”
“Because…” She plowed her fingers through her hair. “I told you about Marguerite’s pearl necklace being tied to her good luck, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, John’s luck with business ventures has gone south since he lost ownership of Pearl Island. My mother has it in her head that the mirror pendant might be a replacement for Marguerite’s necklace to restore our family’s good fortune.”
“That’s absurd.” He frowned in confusion. “They’re totally unconnected. Why would she think that?”
“Because she’s desperate, that’s why.”
“Care to explain?” he lifted a brow.
“Only if you drive.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I want out of here.”
He put the car back in gear and drove toward the highway that would take them out of town.
They went several blocks before she spoke in a near whisper. “I wish I hadn’t even come.”
“Why did you?”
“For my mother’s engagement party,” she said, sounding tired. “It’s this Saturday.”
“You don’t seem too happy about that.” He took his eyes off traffic long enough to glance over at her. “Don’t you like the man she’s marrying?”
“Actually, I do. I only met him yesterday, but he seems like a nice guy. It’s my mother who doesn’t like him.”
“Then why is she marrying him?”
Chloe waited several seconds, clearly debating what to tell him. When she spoke, her voice sounded flat. “For his money.”
“Ah,” Luc said, as bitter memories stirred, memories of women who’d vied for his attention in casinos while he raked in the winnings. But then he frowned. “Wait a second. Why would your mother have to marry for money? Her daddy’s one of the richest men in New Orleans.”
“Used to be one of the richest. These days? Not so much.” She sighed. “Things are a bit rockier than I realized, to the point that John’s decided to take on a partner. A man named Harold Bradford.”
“Harold Bradford the Saving Angel?” he asked in surprise.
“The what?”
“That’s what a lot of people in the French Quarter call him,” he explained. “Apparently, he’s some self-made billionaire who likes to save businesses that are in trouble. His deal, though, is he’ll only help out if he gets a say in how the business is put back together. He’s turned around some small businesses that were teetering on the brink, and saved a lot of families from financial disaster in the process. From what I’ve heard, he does it purely for the reward of helping people.”
“Oh, God, that makes me feel even worse.” She covered her face with her hands.
“Why?”
“Because he’s about to get seriously used. Yesterday, when I met him, I saw the way he looked at my mother. He actually loves her. Meanwhile, she’s completely panicked at the idea of having to go through with marrying him. She doesn’t have a choice, though, because John is forcing her to do it.”
“I don’t understand. What does John have to gain from forcing his daughter to get married?”
“Harold was going to pass on the partnership deal with John, until he met Diane and fell for her. When she agreed to marry him, with a lot of pressure from John, Harold said he’d help John turn LeRoche Shipping around, but only because he’s going to be part of the family. So John told Diane if she doesn’t go through with the wedding he’ll cut her off cold.”
“Wow, that’s a bit medieval, don’t you think?”
“Welcome to my family.”
She said it in a way that made him wonder how much he really knew about the LeRoche family. “How much trouble is LeRoche Shipping in that John would force his daughter to marry a man she doesn’t love?”
“Enough.”
Luc tried to imagine a business like LeRoche Shipping being in dire straits, and couldn’t. It was like imagining Donald Trump going bankrupt. Trump might have a business venture fold here or there, but his whole empire wouldn’t crumble. Would it?
“The sad thing is,” Chloe said, “Diane and I really were having a pretty good mother–daughter moment the night I told her about the necklace. Diane has always been fascinated by the legend of Pearl Island and Marguerite’s ghost. After all, when she was growing up, our family owned Pearl Island. I’ve tried to tell her since that I was wrong about the necklace having anything to do with Marguerite, but she won’t listen.” Chloe covered her eyes. “And now, it’s even worse.”
“Why?”
“This morning at breakfast, she brought it up with John and DeeDee sitting right there. She insists that the necklace really is a gift from Marguerite. That since I found it, it’s Marguerite’s way of restoring what the LeRoche family lost when we lost Pearl Island.”
“That makes no sense,” he said, entering the highway. “Unless, of course, there’s been some major improvement in John’s luck with business since you found the necklace.”
“There hasn’t been and I pointed that out,” she said, clearly incredulous. “Diane believes that’s because the necklace is locked up in a museum, so I don’t actually have possession of it. She thinks, if I can get clear ownership of the necklace, the family will be saved and she won’t have to marry Harold. Now that John knows about the necklace, he’s pressuring me, too.”
“Let me get this straight.” He tightened his hands on the steering wheel. “John LeRoche, one of the most powerful men in the South, wants the Texas Historical Commission to give my grandmother’s necklace to you because he thinks it’s a good luck charm that will restore his fortune. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?”
“I won’t go along with it, Luc,” she told him, conviction ringing in her voice. “I won’t.”
“But you won’t help me either, will you?”
“If I help you, my mother will never forgive me,” she said as if pleading for him to understand. “I stopped caring about John years ago, but I do still hold out hope that my mother and I can have a reasonably good relationship. If I help you get the necklace for your grandmother, that’s over. Forever. Can’t you see that?”
“So, you’ll let them pursue this crazy scheme even if it means taking the necklace away from my grandmother?”
“I’ll do everything I can to talk them out of it. I mean, it’s crazy. I know you said the mirror has some kind of power, but it doesn’t have that kind of power. Does it?”
That little note of hope on the end had him doubting her. If she thought the mirror had the power to restore Marguerite’s good luck to her family, would she help them take it away from him?
“No,” he told her flatly. “It doesn’t have that kind of power.”
“Luc, please believe me, I’ll do what I can to convince them of that. But you can’t ask me to choose between you and my mother.”
No, he realized, he couldn’t ask that of her any more than he could ask himself to choose between her and his grandmother. “At least now I know what I’m up against.”
“Can we please not let this ruin today?” she asked. “We agreed to set the necklace aside, and I’d like to do that. Just shove it into a corner, and focus on us.”
“I can try,” he said grudgingly.
Silence filled the car as he sped down the highway.
“Do you know,” she said after nearly a mile, “I’ve never been to a
cochon de lait
?”
“Seriously?” He glanced at her.
“No lie.” She held up a hand. “I’ve lived in Louisiana most of my life, and I’ve never been to a real, live Cajun pig roast.”
“With a lot of real, live Cajuns,” he said, trying to picture her reaction to his family. “Well, if nothing else, this should be interesting.”