Pillow Talk (3 page)

The traffic edged ahead, then sped up as a tour bus pulled over to let the jam clear itself. Parker didn't want to think of his brother dead. He wanted to think of him at his best before he'd bowed out on his responsibilities and let drugs and booze and all the wrong women dull his pain.

It was easier to think of this woman Jules had left behind and focus his anger on her than it was to accept that for Jules there were no more chances.

Poor Jules.

Parker knew two things for sure. One, his brother was dead. And two, when Jules had left for Las Vegas three days ago, it had been within hours of a stormy meeting between the two of them, an encounter during which Jules
had threatened to do whatever it took to get Parker to agree to the buyout offer for Ponthier Enterprises.

Whatever it took. Parker mulled over that phrase and wondered what it had taken for Margaret "call me Meg, please" to marry a man she scarcely knew.

Money? A chance to better herself? The promise of luxury? A fancy wedding ring?

He frowned. He played the image of her hand over in his mind. Surely she'd worn only a thin gold band, a ring that looked lost on the tapered fingers of her hand, and not at all the type of ring Jules had given to either one of his previous wives.

Of course, most of the women Parker dated wanted a ring on their fingers at any cost. But none of the ones in his circle—or Jules's—would have settled for such an inexpensive selection.

Perhaps Jules had promised her the family diamond and emerald ring both his first and second ex-wives had graciously returned. No doubt that explained the temporary gold band. Parker remembered his ex-
fiancée's
curiosity over the Ponthier heirloom. Jules had divorced and sworn never to remarry at the time Parker had found himself engaged to Renee DuMont. That knowledge must have prompted Renee to inquire whether the famous ring would be offered to her.

Parker grimaced and settled into a crawl behind yet another tour bus that had positioned itself in the middle of the avenue. He hated to remember how foolishly he'd behaved over Renee. His engagement to her was the only thing he'd ever done that pleased his mother, a fact that should have tipped him off much earlier to the mistake he was making.

Renee and the other women of her class—Parker's class, to be sure—held college degrees and reasonably responsible jobs. But given the chance, and the ring on their finger, they exchanged their business suits for designer dresses, white gloves and round-the-clock nannies.

But Parker didn't want to spend his life with a woman who played at the job of wife and mother. He wanted someone who tackled it from the heart. Having grown up with a socialite mother who cared more about who painted the family portrait than whether her children felt loved, Parker had promised himself he'd remain single his entire life rather than enter into a marriage that was for show only.

Recently Parker had taken to dating professional women his age or older. Trouble was, with those women, he came in last in terms of their time and attention.

"You're a greedy sort, you know." He said the words aloud and smiled at himself. It was true. He did want it all—a woman who wanted to love him and only him, put him first in her
sphere, and not insist he settle down to creating a nest full of children and so many demands he couldn't work late if and when he needed or wanted to. In turn, he knew himself capable of worshipping the right woman. The intensity he brought to work he would bring to the woman he loved.

Renee hadn't understood why he couldn't put business pressures aside to attend all the social functions she insisted were equally as important to a man of his position. Their final fight had occurred when he'd forgotten he was escorting her to a Carnival ball and driven hours southwest of the city to check on some sugarcane production problems. Renee had been furious that she had to go alone. The next day Parker had apologized but she'd handed back the ring, fury in her green eyes.

Parker still held out the hope that Renee and all the others just weren't right for him and when he found that perfect someone, he'd achieve the necessary balance in his life without prompting.

Last month he thought he'd found a good prospect. Lucille was the rare female who'd reached the position of managing partner of an important law firm, a spot normally held by a member of the old boys' network. True, she worked eighty-hour weeks, but when they met for lunch during the week or dinner on the weekend, she clearly signaled her interest in him as a man.

Three weeks into seeing her, Parker had taken her to dinner at Louis XVI in the French Quarter. She'd been all over him, holding his hand, grazing her leg against his under the table. By the time he'd gotten back to her condo in the Warehouse District, he knew he wasn't leaving that night without them having sex.

He'd packed his condoms. He was ready for action.

As he recalled the scene that had followed their entry into her apartment, Parker groaned, then found himself laughing as he drove.

He had her out of her suit within minutes. He'd lifted her and carried her across the sterile, white-carpeted living room. She had her lips on his in a lock that wouldn't break. He dropped her on the bed and reached for his belt and zipper simultaneously.

She lay back on the bed, wearing only her bra, panties, and nylons—nylons that snaked only to her thighs where they were fastened with beguiling black garters. Parker dropped his pants as he unbuttoned his shirt. He spent far too long between women, trying to find the right one.

"Sugar," she'd said, lifting her foot and stroking his crotch, "there's just one thing we need to do before we proceed."

"Right." Parker reached for his pants pocket and fished out a condom. "Don't worry, we're covered." He winked and ripped open the packet.

She sat up.

Suddenly, she looked a hell of a lot more like a trial lawyer arguing a point with a judge than a passionate woman about to drive him wild in bed.

She pulled out the drawer in her bedside table and tossed a piece of paper towards him.

Parker bent and picked it up. "What's this?"

Fishing in the drawer, she said, "Something you need to read and sign before we proceed. It shouldn't bother you; the word on the street about you is you're the last man in New Orleans who wants to be saddled with a kid." She faced him and held out a pen.

"Read and sign?" He heard the note of danger in his voice, but the lawyer, for all her cleverness, missed the signal.

Leaning forward, she stroked his balls through his underwear and said, "Just a little fine print to make sure we're on the same page."

Her hand was hot and her fingers kneaded him in a greedy, knowing way. Parker squirmed, then crumpled the paper and tossed it over his shoulder.

"What are you doing?"

"Who needs a document at a time like this?" He dipped his head and kissed her leg at the top of her stocking.

She stilled his head with a firm grip. "If you don't read and sign it, you have to leave."

Oh my God,
Parker remembered thinking.
She's serious.
"Okay, you're the lawyer. Why don't you tell me what it says?" And even as he said the words, his desire waned.

"Sure, but you still have to sign your own name." She leaned forward and cupped him again. Her breasts pushed over the lacy top of her bra. She whispered, "The terms are straightforward. It's a release of liability from any consequences that may result from our engaging in intercourse."

"Such as?" If she'd known him better, there's no way she would have missed the dangerous lowering of his voice.

"Infectious diseases and/or pregnancy."

"You're releasing
me
from liability if
you
get pregnant?"

"Yes, but more importantly, paragraph two, clause two, gives me sole custody should any child result from this coupling."

Parker removed her hand from his crotch and stepped onto the floor. He looked down at her. Her lips were parted, her pupils had grown so dark they'd taken over most of her green eyes. She wanted it, yeah, but what kind of woman acted this way? How had he even considered going to bed with her? "And you thought I'd sign this?"

She wet her lips and lay back on the bed. Her full breasts
teased him. "Why not? Mr. Work-
a-holic Ponthier couldn't be bothered with a kid."

He reached for his pants. Zipped his fly. His
breath came fast and he was harder than a green stalk of sugar cane. "Babe,” he said, "you don't know me well enough for me to screw you."

Then he turned and left her place.

And that fiasco had been the last time he'd been in bed with a woman, successful professional or otherwise.

No wonder he'd reacted so strongly to the woman in Jules's suite. She'd been half naked when he first walked in. He'd caught a glance of a silky garment that scarcely covered her crotch before she grabbed some clothing and then the bathrobe to cover herself.

Yeah, that's all it was, Parker told himself, pulling into the circular drive at Ponthier Place, the family's mansion on St. Charles Avenue. Of all the visits he'd made since he'd moved out of his childhood home, he dreaded this one the most.

Maybe that was why, as he got out of his Porsche and climbed the stairs to the side entrance, he let the image of the dark-haired beauty with her shapely legs drift in, then fill his mind. And as the picture formed, Parker didn't mind at all that he had to return to the hotel in less than an hour to collect the woman his brother had sent tumbling into their lives.

Three

M
eg
stood
under the awning in front of the Hotel
Maurepas, shivering from the breeze ruffling her lightweight coat and the maroon material of the overhang that stretched from the door to the sidewalk.

Or was she shivering from something other than the brisk wind? In response to the doorman's whistle, a cab pulled over and Meg stepped toward it. She'd decided to face the Ponthiers on her own, without waiting for Parker.

The power of the Ponthier name both frightened and intrigued her. When she'd called down to the front desk earlier to say she was leaving, she'd had no idea what to say about checking out. The manager had come on the line and assured her he'd have her luggage sent over to the house and she wasn't to worry her head over a thing.

Meg smiled at the doorman, who had just finished instructing the cab driver in a grave
voice that he was to deliver her to Ponthier Place. She slipped him a tip from her slim cash supply and settled into the cab.

Out of the breeze, she still shivered slightly, which answered one of her many questions. Well, a little stage fright was good for any performer.

The cab pulled into the traffic on a street whose lanes were separated by a broad grassy area lined with tracks. Good, she was on her way.

And without Parker Ponthier's assistance.

Parker wasn't going to like it when he returned to collect her and found her gone. He'd probably never been disobeyed in his bossy life.

"Good," she muttered. Parker made her feel like she'd gotten dressed in someone else's skin. Right now she needed all the composure she could muster.

Folding her chilled hands in her lap, Meg looked out the window. The cab moved at a sedate pace up the wide, tree-lined street. Leaning forward, she asked the driver, "Why are there train tracks in the middle of the street?"

"Those are the St. Charles streetcar tracks." The driver spoke matter-of-factly, as if the simple description explained everything.

Just then a streetcar lumbered up alongside where the cab had stopped at a red light. With

a screeching that would have done an angry parrot proud, it ground to a halt.

The kids would love to take a ride. Meg registered a pang of guilt at that thought. She missed her children terribly. The only times she'd been away from Teddy and Ellen were when they'd gone to sleepover camp last summer and when she'd been in th
e hospital when Samantha was born
. The last time she and Ted had spent a vacation alone had been their honeymoon. And in the last two years before his death, Ted had protested he'd been too busy at work to go away.

Three days felt like a lifetime. Both the cab and the streetcar moved forward and Meg wondered how soon she could extricate herself from the Ponthiers. Mrs. Fenniston was a dear, not to mention a lifesaver, but even a saint wouldn't want to be saddled with someone else's children much more than three days.

She'd console Jules's mother, attend the funeral, then slip out of their lives.

Her attention was captured by an imposing three-story brick building reigning behind an iron grillwork fence. Black shutters emphasized the story-high windows, accentuating the graceful lines of the edifice and drawing the eye upward toward a gleaming cupola and bell tower. "What a magnificent building! What is that?"

"Sacred Heart Academy," the driver rattled off. He half-turned in his seat and pronounced,
"The people that's got money, they like to send their girls there."

"It's an all girls school?"

He nodded.

It sure didn't look like any of the schools in Las Vegas. Meg glanced through the back window of the cab. It looked far too starchy for Ellen's tomboy tastes but she could see Samantha, sweet and precious, modeling a uniform and walking sedately up the broad stone steps.

Then she shook her head. Whatever was she thinking?

The cabbie offered, "I guess you're not from here."

"Oh, no, I'm from Las Vegas," Meg answered, admiring a smooth stone marble gray building that took up most of a block.

"Vegas, eh? You got some gambling there, don't you? I like to play the slots myself, but this city sure has messed up its gambling business."

"Really?" Having grown up in Las Vegas, Meg couldn't fathom any municipality unable to effectively milk such a cash cow. But then, she had no idea how her own husband had mangled his business affairs so badly she now faced bankruptcy, either.

Life had been
comfortable, but their postage-
stamp three-bedroom house had never been good enough for Ted. Meg had been content, visiting with her neighbors while the children's friends played with them on the quiet street.

But Ted was embarrassed and entertained his business clients at restaurants rather than bringing them to the toy-cluttered house with its tiny dining room.

His financial services company did fairly well but he dreamed of bigger and better things, a dream that grew to an obsession and led him to disastrous borrowing and misguided investments that he'd hidden from Meg.

"It's all about politics and greed," the cabbie said, shaking his head. "The rich get richer and the poor just get taken for another ride."

Not wanting to dwell on the poor getting poorer, a thought too close to her own circumstances, Meg changed the subject by asking how far it was to Ponthier Place. She was getting nervous over the cab fare.

"Above Napoleon and below Jefferson."

"And that means?"

He grinned. "Sorry, I forgot—"

"—I'm not from here," Meg finished for him.

"Next block," he said, slowing down.

Looking ahead, Meg saw three imposing houses on the right and wondered which one was Ponthier Place. On the other side of the avenue, a sprawling mansion with broad porches and an inviting circular drive occupied the entire block. "Is that another school?"

The cabbie smiled as if she'd said something clever, then swung in a U-turn to the other side
of the street. Before Meg could register what he was doing, they'd passed through the brick posts standing guard at the mansion's drive.

"Here you are," he said.

"This—" Meg swallowed "—this is Ponthier Place?"

"Was yesterday. Is today. And to hear tell of that family, it most likely will be tomorrow." The driver nodded, then threw the car into park. He closed out the meter and Meg was fishing in her purse when she heard the cab door creak open.

Looking up, she saw an older black man dressed in a double-breasted white jacket and gray pants holding out a white-gloved hand to her. She glanced from the cab driver to the man, then decided to slide out of the car before she paid the driver. Something about the way the white-jacketed man waited unnerved her. He expected, Meg realized, for her to let him take over.

As she stepped from the cab, accepting the offered arm of the now gently smiling man, Meg said, "I still have to pay for the cab."

"You go on inside, Miz Ponthier, and I'll take care of everything."

"Oh, I'm not—" Meg's eyes widened and she said, "Call me Meg, please!"

The man nodded. "Very well, Miz Meg. I am Horton."

And Horton's job was to take care of things. Meg backed away from the cab up the sweep
of steps that led to the side of the largest house she'd ever been privileged to visit.

Privileged?

Meg shivered again and rubbed her hands together, then tucked them in her pockets. Whoever lived inside this house would take one look at her and know Jules hadn't really meant to marry her. Even the orphanage where Meg had lived her early years hadn't been as large as Ponthier Place.

The double French doors opened and Meg paused halfway up the steps to see who'd come to greet her. After encountering Horton, she half-expected a uniformed maid to drop a curtsy. Instead, she looked straight into the stormy eyes of Parker Ponthier.

The last person Parker had expected on the doorstep of the family home was Jules's posthumous bride. He'd already withstood the condolences of one great aunt, one cousin, Jules's boyhood pal and fellow dilettante Kinky de LaSalle, and Dr. Prejean, all of whom were now gathered in the Great Parlor.

That congregation had him looking forward to the escape offered by the necessity of retrieving the widowed Mrs. Ponthier from the Hotel Maurepas. Now with her arrival he was pretty much trapped. Parker frowned at the thought.

"You're not at all happy to see me, are you?"

Parker ignored her comment and glanced out to where Horton had finished his business with the cabbie and begun his slow walk back
to the steps. Horton never hurried. Facing her, Parker said, "No doubt that's why you took a cab." Annoying woman.

Unfortunately, Parker thought, this woman wasn't just annoying. She was stubborn, gutsy, intelligent. And attractive. She leaned slightly forward, and even beneath her coat, her figure caught his eye. Her dark eyes flashed a challenge at him, as if daring him to continue gazing at her body. Parker mastered his thoughts, and as he did, he realized he remained in the doorway, effectively blocking her entry.

By this time, Horton had climbed the steps and waited, not without a slight frown suggested in his bland expression. Around Horton, the long-time family retainer who functioned as butler, houseman, and surrogate father, even Jules had minded his manners.

And so under Horton's watchful gaze, Parker forced himself to move and held the door wide. "Welcome to Jules's home," he said, the words almost lodging in his throat.

From Horton, Parker received an approving nod. From Meg, a wide-eyed stare. She did, however, precede him into the foyer.

"You might have waited for me," he murmured.

She shot him a look that warned she could hold her own against him. "I'm not in the habit of waiting for people who insult me."

Parker raised his brows. She could indeed hold her own.

"May I take your coat, Miz Meg?"

She smiled and started to shrug out of a lightweight coat that couldn't have done much to shield her from the wind that had kicked up the otherwise calm December afternoon.

"I'll do that," Parker said, catching the coat as she let it slip from her arms. In his mind, he saw himself not stopping with her coat, but moving to free her of her other clothing. He grasped her coat and pushed the wayward image from his mind.

Instead of thanking Parker, Meg bestowed a genuine smile on the houseman as he nodded, loosed the coat from Par
ker's grasp, and stepped back.

It wasn't at all the same sort of smile she'd given him. No, that had been more of a challenge, a gesture that proclaimed, "You won't catch me at my game and by the way, I don't like you either."

A prickle of pride teased at him and Parker knew himself well enough to know he wanted this woman to smile at him in the same way. Warm and wide and genuine, a smile for a man to drown himself in.

"Truce?" he asked softly.

She glanced at him, then around her new surroundings. "I'll think about
it," she said, not at all hard-
edged.

He smiled and held her gaze. "Good."

Then she turned away and stepped forward from the side entrance foyer into the Central
Rotunda and any hint of a smile drained from her face.

"This isn't a house—this is a—museum!"

Parker took the three broad steps that led from the entry area to the center of the first level of the house, a rotunda that led in all directions to the primary rooms on the first floor.

He supposed it did resemble a museum, but having played hide and seek and G.I. Joe among the velveteen-covered gilt chairs and nineteenth-century writing desk and antique globe, to name only a few of the pieces cluttering the central rotunda, Parker didn't give much thought to the space.

Or to the impression it might make on someone not from his world.

But Meg's eyes had opened even wider and he knew, as clearly as if she'd spoken the words, that she knew almost nothing about the life led by the man she'd married.

Jules surely would have described Ponthier Place. Parker much preferred the family home in the country, known as Sugar Bridge, to the pretentious showplace Teensy had created at the St. Charles homestead.

But as much as Jules protested against the hold it held over him, as much as he'd tried to run away to the rooms he kept at the Hotel Maurepas, as much as he'd tried to avoid any gathering held in that house, he would have told any woman he loved about Ponthier Place.

For Jules, his life was a love-hate relationship, and nowhere was that more clearly spelled out than in his relationship with his family.

Given the death of their father—by drowning in a boating accident along with his current mistress—and the way Teensy catered to Jules's every whim and clung to him even more, Parker would have been amazed if family hadn't held a tight rein over Jules's actions. Or reactions.

Thankful that as the second child he'd escaped much of the notice of his parents, Parker had watched as his older brother had succumbed to his own confusion and hostility towards his family, a hostility matched only by his seemingly unbreakable need for them.