Wedding Favors (16 page)

“I want to know why Girard is so hot to get his hands on the Lefevre mansion,” Thomas said. “What about that house has got his attention?”

“Maybe the lovely woman inside it?” Marc grinned. “She certainly got your attention at the wedding. Everyone saw you go after her when she stormed out of the reception. And then she calls our mother and says she won’t be returning to the hotel.” Marc waggled his brows. “I hope you had a good time.”

“I didn’t spend the night with her, if that’s what your leering look means.”

“No? Huh. How disappointing.”

“Since when has my personal life been discussed at the office?”

Marc’s smile didn’t leave his face. “Since you started wanting to rake up dirt on the guy who’s giving Madison a hard time.”

“She’s an old friend. I want to help her.”

“Sure, bro.” Marc returned to his computer. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure out what Girard is up to.”

Angela’s smile echoed Marc’s. They both thought Thomas had fallen for Madison, and they were patronizing him.

They weren’t far from wrong. Leaving Madison Saturday night had been one of the hardest things Thomas had ever done. When he’d withdrawn from her mouth to see her lips red and wet with his come, he’d re-hardened instantly. Her smile had held triumph.

Holding her afterward, his arms wrapped around her while they stood silently together in the hall, had been one of the best experiences of his life.

She hadn’t asked him to stay, hadn’t asked him to pleasure her in return. In fact, she’d seemed kind of in a hurry for him to go. She’d walked him to the door, pausing in the foyer for another long, deeply satisfying kiss.

“I’ve had my eye on Girard for a while,” Thomas said, breaking the silence that had stretched too long. “He’s too squeaky clean. That always arouses my suspicion.”

“And when you found out he was hitting on Madison Rainey, you became even more ... aroused,” Marc said.

“If he’s so rich and successful, why does he want a house that will suck out a ton of money to pay off its debts and fix up?”

“Like I said, it comes with one hell of a pretty lady,” Marc said.

Thomas shook his head. “Girard doesn’t strike me as a man head over heels in love. In lust maybe, but not adoration. I don’t want Maddie marrying anyone who doesn’t fall down and worship her.”

Marc winked at Angela. “He has it bad, doesn’t he?”

Angela gave them both a wise smile. “I’ll start a file on Keith Girard.”

“You’re a peach, Angela,” Thomas said.

“Flattery will get you everywhere.” Angela disappeared back into the front office.

“Seriously, Thomas, what’s up?” Marc asked after Angela had closed the door. “This has you bothered. I haven’t seen you this uncertain about a lady in ... well, ever. I take it that Madison’s not someone you’d invite to the club.”

“She isn’t into the lifestyle. And that’s fine with me.”

“I see.” Marc gave him a long look. “Don’t let yourself get your heart broken, bro. A weeping Dom isn’t what the ladies have in mind.”

“I’m not going to get my heart broken,” Thomas growled.

Sure. He’d held a secret yen for Madison for years, and touching her and kissing her on Saturday night had only fanned the fire. She was already wrapped around his heart, but if she didn’t want him, he’d at least make sure she was all right. Starting with keeping the irritating Girard away from her.

Thomas went back to his desk, frowning, while Marc openly laughed.

 

 

“I’m
so extremely busy, it isn’t funny,” Madison said to Keith Girard.

Girard wouldn’t get off the porch. He’d waltzed up and knocked on the door, leaving his sleek gray Jaguar at the curb in a no-parking zone. Madison wasn’t more busy than usual—she had a lunch date with her liaison at the couture house about designs for next spring, but that was several hours from now. Still, she had no intention of wiling away the time with Keith. After her evening with Thomas, she’d decided hell would freeze over before she considered marrying Keith Girard to save her house. She’d find another way, any way.

“Sit out here a minute with me, Maddie. It’s a nice day, and I need to show you something.”

“Really, Keith. Busy.”

“You’re going to want to see these.” Keith took a manila envelope from a pocket of his laptop bag. He opened it and slid out a picture just far enough for Madison to see herself in vivid color, on the floor of her own hallway, her face pressed to Thomas Dupree’s crotch.

Madison’s mouth went dry. “What the hell?”

Keith dropped the photo back inside the envelope and seated himself on an Adirondack chair on her porch. He set down his laptop bag, crossed his ankles, and let the manila envelope rest on his stomach. “We need to talk, Maddie. How about some tea? It’s warm out here.”

“No way in hell am I fixing you tea.” Madison folded her arms, clenching her fingers so he wouldn’t see them tremble. She perched on the end of the porch swing, bracing her sandaled feet against the worn floor. “Give me that picture and get out.”

Keith fanned himself with the envelope. “There’s more than one. You’re a naughty girl, Madison Rainey.”

“And you are a Peeping Tom. What I do in my own house is my own business.”

Keith opened the envelope again and drew out the glossy photos. He must have taken them through the side window, the curtains of which had been open. That meant he’d climbed the fence into the yard, stood on something, and used a zoom lens. What kind of person did that?

Someone who wanted something from her.

Keith studied each photo before passing it to her—Madison and Thomas kissing, Thomas dropping his pants, Madison on her knees, Thomas’s head thrown back, eyes screwed shut in pleasure while her hands cupped his smooth ass.

It occurred to Madison that Thomas could be compromised by these pictures more than she could. Neither of them were married, they hadn’t been doing anything many adults didn’t do, and they’d been in a private house. But while Madison worked in the fashion design world, where sexual adventurous-ness wasn’t that unusual, Thomas had a business to run, clients to reassure with his reliability. What if these photos came up on an Internet search of “Dupree Courier Service, New Orleans”?

In anger, Madison tore the photos into shreds and let the pieces drop to the porch.

“I printed those off my computer,” Keith said. “I can send them anywhere I want to with the click of a mouse.”

“What do you want?” Madison asked in a hard voice.

“Sell me your house, Maddie. I’ll make you a good offer. I’ll call my real estate agent right now, and we can start the paperwork. Then I’ll delete the photos.”

Sure he would. Madison’s gaze went to the laptop bag. He followed her speculative look and smiled.

“I saved them on a server. Even if you steal my laptop, I can still get to them.”

Madison scowled. “My grandmother would roll in her grave before she let a Girard live in her house.”

“So you want the world to see that Madison Rainey, the Lefevre heiress, likes to suck cock?”

Madison felt a chill out here on this hot porch, but his words enraged her. “You’re sick.”

“It wasn’t me with my mouth full of come. Tell you what, do that to me, and I might erase half of the pictures.”

“You do know that extortion is a crime, right? That you can go to prison for it?”

“Yes, but these photos would have to be submitted as evidence at my trial. So many people would see them.”

“You’re an asshole,” Madison snapped.

“All you have to do is give me the house. I know you’re in debt to two big loans on it, and the tax men haven’t been nice to you. What else are you going to do?”

“I’ll think of something,” Madison said through tight lips.

“You’re desperate, and you know it. Here’s what I’ll do—you agree to marry me and deed me the house, and you can live here the rest of your life. For that I’ll delete the pictures.”

“Go screw yourself.”

Keith’s smile faded, and his eyes went hard. “I know things about Thomas Dupree that he wouldn’t want getting out. I know things about you, too, Madison. I want this house, and I want you. And Keith Girard doesn’t stop until he gets what he wants.”

Madison sprang to her feet, the shreds of photos falling like spent petals. “Keith Girard can get the hell off my property.”

“Don’t be stupid. I can humiliate you. And Dupree. Ruin you both.”

Madison’s heart beat swiftly. He could hurt Thomas, and she couldn’t deny that she’d be embarrassed as hell if those pictures got passed around. Would Thomas be angry at her for not doing something as simple as closing the drapes? But the yard was fenced. How could she have anticipated that Keith—or maybe someone he’d hired—would snoop around like that?

“Damn you.” Her words sounded feeble, but she didn’t know what else she could do. Hack into Keith’s network and delete the photos herself? Fat chance. She’d never figure out how to do that. Madison and computers didn’t mix beyond simple e-mail.

“Shall I call my real estate agent?” Keith got to his feet and took out his cell phone.

Damn it, why had Madison given in to temptation and invited Thomas to come home with her? And let him seduce her in the hallway? She could at least have taken him upstairs to her bedroom, where the back windows and balcony were screened by honeysuckle vines.

Her fountain wish hadn’t even come true. Thomas hadn’t stayed, and she’d not been ravished by a sex god. But maybe that was a good thing, because Keith would have only taken pictures.

Madison’s skin crawled. She couldn’t let Keith get away with it, but at the moment, she had no clue what to do.

“Is this gentleman bothering you?” a smooth male voice asked.

Madison jerked around. A tall, broad-shouldered man with black hair and dark eyes had come up the steps. He wore a business suit, like Keith, except he’d taken off his jacket, and his tie was loose against his dark blue silk shirt, as though he’d been walking home from work. But he didn’t live around here, Madison knew. She’d not have forgotten a hunk of man like him in the neighborhood.

He did look familiar, though, as though she’d met him recently. Ah, that was it. He’d been at Val and Leon’s wedding. He was a friend of Demitri’s.

“Butt out,” was Keith’s gracious reply.

“Yes, he is bothering me,” Madison said. “I was just trying to get him to leave.”

The
tall man gave Keith a look that would have made a more intelligent man run away. Keith nonchalantly picked up his laptop case and settled the strap over his shoulder.

The stranger gave the bag a scrutinizing glance. Madison swore that just for a moment the man’s eyes blazed white-hot, but then he blinked, and his eyes looked normal again.

“I’ll be in touch,” Keith was saying to Madison. “I’ll give you until tomorrow to think about it. Then I do what I have to.”

Madison didn’t answer. She folded her arms and ground her teeth, waiting in silence while Keith made his way down the porch steps and out to his car. Too bad a cop hadn’t driven by and given him a ticket.

“What was he saying to you?” the tall man asked. “You look unhappy, sweetheart.” His voice was deep and wine-dark, slurred by a faint accent she couldn’t place.

Madison had been raised to be hospitable to strangers and visitors, but Keith had sapped whatever was left of her patience. “I met you at Leon’s wedding, I know, but I’ve forgotten your name. Why are you here?”

“I sensed you were in trouble.” He smiled, his eyes warm and dark. “My name is Alexi. I am a friend of Demitri, who is the third in the menage with Leon and Val.”

Madison’s eyes widened. She started to blurt her surprise, then she lowered her voice, mindful of her neighbors. “A menage? Leon and Val?”

“Leon and Val and Demitri are lovers together,” Alexi said, as though he were announcing nothing more alarming than that he’d had potatoes at dinner last night. “Did you not know this?”

“No. It’s not something you discuss, is it?”

“Not among your kind.”

Her kind? What did he mean,
her kind
? “Do you want to come in?” she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. “It’s hot out here. I have a pitcher of sweet tea brewed. Do you like sweet tea? It’s kind of a Southern specialty.”

“I have acquired a taste for sweet tea, yes.” He smiled again, and Madison thought that if she hadn’t already been far gone on Thomas, she’d be attracted to this man. He was Greek, she thought, like his friend Demitri.

She led the way into the house, shutting the heavy front door behind them. Damned if she’d let Keith and his camera take pictures through the screen.

Alexi followed her to the back of the house to the sunny kitchen, which was Madison’s favorite room. As a child, she’d spent days perched on a stool watching Myrtle, her grandmother’s Creole cook, create miracles with food. The room was large, with a counter dividing it from the breakfast room, which was a glassed-in back porch. French windows led from it to a shaded courtyard behind the house.