by Josie Brown
Jack is mowing the front yard. I’m sure the neighbors, many of whom are piddling around now in their well-manicured gardens, are ecstatic about this. The grass has grown ragged during our far-flung travels.
When Jack realizes I’ve pulled into the driveway, he turns off the mower and walks over. It’s a hot day and his tee-shirt is damp with perspiration. He must think I’ll swat him away because he pulls it off and uses it to wipe down his chest before drawing me in for a kiss.
He’s wrong. Neither sweaty abs nor stinky underarms keep me from jumping into his arms and kissing him as if I haven’t seen him in a year.
Time with our loved ones is too precious to waste.
When I finally let him come up for air, he gasps out, “Well, hello to you too.” Before I know it, he’s carrying me into the house.
I tease, “Hey, He-Man, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Taking you up on your very blatant invitation.”
I glance around. “What will the neighbors think?”
With a devilish grin, he declares, “That you’re one very lucky woman.”
Hell yeah, they will. And they’ll be right.
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The End
Thank You!
Dear Reader,
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I want to thank you in advance for your appreciation of my novels. If you enjoy them, I welcome you to leave a review online—no matter how short—specifically on the bookstore’s website.
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I’ve linked to it here for you…
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Doing so is the best way to help others find my books. For that, I thank you!
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—Josie Brown
NEXT UP FOR DONNA!
A stand-alone novel by Josie Brown & Deborah Coonts
EXCERPT
Chapter 1
Lucky
My life imploded thirty seconds ago at 4:26 p.m. on a heretofore mundane Tuesday afternoon—well, mundane by Vegas standards. There was the dust-up with hookers trolling Delilah’s Bar and the man who wanted his therapy horse to be allowed to watch him play the slots. And a bunch of young men had put a Vegas Knights hockey helmet on one of the statues, which I thought was an improvement, but unfortunately, nobody asked me. I let the kids go, said no to the horse and encouraged the hookers to move on down the Strip, but, like I said, fairly ho-hum Sin City shenanigans.
After that, I rushed back to my office to grab the one remaining suitcase. Yes, I am taking a vacation—I haven’t had one in seventeen years, not a real one anyway. Two days in Reno didn’t count. And my recent trip to Macau was business. Today will be all pleasure. I’m heading to Paris with my fiancé, Jean-Charles Bouclet—a French chef of world renown and a dish all on his own.
I’d promised. A promise that left me twitchy…for many reasons. First, I have an overblown sense of self-importance when it comes to my job. My name is Lucky O’Toole and I’m the go-to gal when the shit hits the fan at the Babylon, Vegas’s most over-the-top playground. And, second, I have a near-pathological ability to screw up my personal life.
So, right now, straddling the fence of indecision, I didn’t need complications. But one was standing in front of me blocking my exit.
My father.
I looked at him with one eye closed, as if sighting down the barrel of a gun. With his salt-and-pepper hair cut short, a strong jaw set at a defiant angle, and determination in his eyes, he’d come to get what he wanted. Today he wore his full battle dress: a light wool suit, diamond collar bar that secured a Hermes tie, Ferragamo loafers and no socks—the Vegas casino owner from Central Casting. A flash of gold at his wrist completed the look. Play to the crowd, he’d always told me. A dangerous thing in Las Vegas, a city that launched imaginations to the moon.
At six feet of solid woman, I had my father by several inches. And after recently taking a bullet to the chest, he had yet to find the flush of health. I could take him, but I didn’t have the heart. “Say again? You need me to do what?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he crooked a forefinger and ran it around the inside of his collar, pulling it away from his neck. “Make a quick detour to London on your way to Paris.”
“You can’t be serious.” I’d mortgaged my soul and threatened death to anyone who screwed up this trip.
“Very.” He looked it, too. Dammit.
I lowered my head. “Please?”
A tic worked in his cheek. “Lucky.” His tone held a warning. He needn’t have bothered—I was beyond caring. If he killed me, it would save Jean-Charles the trouble. Either way, one of them would. This dilemma had horns for sure.
I put down the suitcase I’d been holding, the last of three. The other two were already in the limo that waited at the front of the hotel. What did one take to meet the future in-laws? The chic and very Parisian future in-laws? A terrifying face-to-face that had me teetering on an emotional tightrope.
London would give me time to think. But that always got me into trouble.
I needed to get on that plane. If I didn’t, somehow, I knew life would fray at the edges and eventually disintegrate. I summoned my most determined, grown-up voice—hard to do when giving my father the old push-back. “I can’t. Jean-Charles has us on a tight schedule—parties in our honor, fancy dinners at restaurants that wouldn’t accept a reservation from God herself. Send someone else.”
“I can’t.” His push was stronger than mine, or perhaps just more practiced. “It has to be you. Sheik Mohammed Ben Halabi has a bee up his tight little ass and only my humblest apologies and grandest offerings will have a chance of making it right. I’d go myself but the doctors…” He trailed off.
No way would the docs clear him to fly to L.A. much less across the pond. He wasn’t asking; we were negotiating.
What my father couldn’t handle fell into my lap. My father, Albert Rothstein, a.k.a. the Big Boss, occupied the only rung on the corporate ladder above mine.
And the sheik—Ben to his friends—was our most important client. The amount of money he kept in play across many of our properties around the world exceeded the GDP of Switzerland. Okay, a bit of hyperbole, but not much. And, as one of my father’s most ardent supporters, he’d invested in several of our properties in Macau and Singapore.
“You’re offering me to Sheik Ben?”
“Of course not. But you are my family. And sending family will show him the matter is of utmost importance to me.”
“I liked the days where a prize racehorse or a fast car would be sufficient.” I felt myself caving. “So, what is this huge kerfuffle that has you offering to raise my salary and give me anything else I can think to ask for like unfettered use of the G 650 in order to get my compliance?” I’m a private jet whore, what can I say? I’d sell my mother to have the sleek jet at my disposal, but on the open market my mother Mona wouldn’t bring enough to cover the hourly cost for a short hop to Palm Springs. London would cover it—not that I had a choice. But I did have a strong negotiating position and I wasn’t above using it.
“I did not promise…” he stopped when he ran into my glare. Avoiding it, he selected a c-note from the slim wallet he’d extracted from his inside jacket pocket. He began to fold the bill, clean crisp folds he could do blindfolded. “Jesus,” he muttered as a tiny figure began to take shape, “You’re worse than your mother.”
For once I didn’t bristle at the comparison. My mother was the High Priestess of the Cult of Getting What You Want—a quid pro quo pro, if you will. I’d done a lot of giving people what they wanted—it was a character flaw that made me good at my job but made my personal life suck eggs. Now I was ready for a bit of take after all the give. “You going to tell me what you need handled in London, or do I need to order some tea leaves and rustle up a psychic?”
He blew a puff of disgust, then unfolded his tiny figure, smoothed the bill and began again. “Apparently the daughter of one of the highest-ranking members of the Royal family is working for us at the L
ondon Club.”
“Really? Cool. A direct pipeline into the money pit. How’d we get her? That’s quite a coup.” This so did not seem to be the big goddammit he was making it out to be.
I had a hard time concentrating. Jean-Charles would be here any minute. I’d been running all day and must look a fright. I leaned around him where I could glimpse myself in the mirror hanging on the far wall. Light brown hair, blue eyes, cheekbones high and sharp enough to hold up my vanity. Even though my life was taking a hard right, I still looked like me, such as it was.
My father placed the tiny figure on my desk and raked a thumbnail down a crease. Then he held it up in the light. Satisfied, he began folding again. “You don’t understand. The daughters from those families do not work. They consume. It is expected of them to display their father’s wealth. Her working is an insult to the family. A very large insult.”
“According to Sheik Ben.” Like most of the world, I had little knowledge of the inner workings of the closed Saudi society.
“Yes. The girl, Aziza, is his niece. The family is most disgraced.”
“According to Sheik Ben.”
“Yes, according to Sheik Ben, but it’s his opinion that matters. Lucky, this is right in your wheelhouse. With all your experience, with your deft touch and keen discernment, I can trust you to do it right, to smooth it over and avoid a huge diplomatic incident. God knows we don’t want to land in the middle of something like that. Really, this is one day, max. Wine him, dine him, do your thing and you’ll be on your way to Paris before you know it.”
“Lathering it on a bit thick, don’t you think? And no hip waders within easy reach.”
“There!” My father admired his creation then pressed it into my hand with a smile. “For you.”
A heart.
And mine melted. I never could say no to him. I pocketed the heart then gave him a hug. He didn’t have to tell me how important this was—I could see it in every crease of his face. And he was right—this I could do with my eyes closed. “You owe me, big time.”
“Thank you.” He actually seemed to deflate in relief—so not like the pre-bullet version of my father. “I knew you’d go.”
“Go where?” My French chef strode into my office, resplendent in creased jeans and an untucked, form-fitted cotton shirt in a pale blue that matched his eyes. He wore a scarf knotted around his neck, also blue but several shades darker. His brown hair curled slightly over his collar. Somehow, he had morphed into a Parisian when I wasn’t looking. In his chef’s whites—and out of them—he was just a man. A rather exquisite man, but a man. And I was a woman. Handy that. And now? Now he was French, I was a Vegas rat, and the differences took my breath. A frisson of fear slithered through me.
Opposites attract, but likes stay together.
One of Miss P’s platitudes that hit me right between the eyes.
Miss P is the head of my staff and my most trusted bellwether. She wasn’t here, so I ignored her voice in my head and prepared to try to dazzle Jean-Charles with my best corporate soft-shoe. It wouldn’t work—it never did. But it was all I had.
Jean-Charles grabbed my shoulders and leaned in. I met him more than halfway, putting everything I had into the kiss. God, he still made my toes curl. Did I do that to him? That’s what I wanted—magic. Not just for me, but for both of us.
I felt a tug on my pants leg. A small voice said, “Lucky! What about me? Papa, let her go.”
Both Jean-Charles and I started giggling which totally broke the spell. I reached down and grabbed Christophe, my rather insistent future stepson. His blonde curls mimicked his father’s as did his blue eyes, although Christophe’s were a few shades darker. At five years old, he still fit on my hip, but he was getting pretty heavy. It didn’t help that he wiggled all over with excitement. In one hand he clutched a beautiful bouquet of hot pink tulips. “These are for you. I picked them out myself.”
“Tulips are my favorite. How’d you know?” I made a big production of planting a noisy kiss on his cheek, which made him giggle. “Thank you.”
His face turned serious…sort of. “We’re going to Paris! Mémé and Papi will be there. And Tante Desiree.” His face creased. “But no cows or pigs. That’s right, Papa? And no chickens.” He looked a bit distraught over the chickens.
“They must stay at the farm.” Jean Charles fought a smile.
“He has no future in the restaurant business.” What can I say, I have a flair for the obvious.
“But there will be cakes, and candies and pastries!” Christophe vibrated with the thought of it all. “We need to go, or we’ll miss the plane. We can’t miss the plane!”
“We won’t.” I took a quick glance at the clock. We’d make it, but it would be close.
With the limo idling at the curb and time-a-wastin’, Paulo, our chief driver, would be getting antsy. The airport wasn’t far, but Christophe was right, we needed to go. “I need to talk to your father for a minute, then we’ll go.”
I put him down and handed him off to my father. “Give us a few minutes, please.”
It was the least he could do; we both knew it. He took Christophe’s hand—I kept the tulips. I watched them until my office door closed behind them. Absent during my childhood, my father was getting a short course in parenting, not only from Christophe but from a set of unexpected twins born recently to him and my mother. As a former hooker, my mother would’ve been well aware that pregnancy can happen to a woman well into her forties. Guess she’d forgotten. Life had bitch-slapped that message home with a vengeance. Proof there is a God, if you ask me.
I buried my nose in the flowers.
“They don’t have an odor.” Jean-Charles sounded calm even though he had to have known he wouldn’t like what I had to tell him.
I took that as a good sign. “I’m buying time.”
“What is it your father needs?”
I gave him the Cliff Notes version.
“This man. This sheik. He is more important to your father than your happiness?” As an opening salvo that was a bit harsh.
“Probably.” My honesty momentarily silenced him, giving me the opening I needed. “Look, my father wasn’t my father for as long as I can remember. He and my mother just sprung all that on me recently, if you recall.” There’d been a good reason they’d kept my heritage secret—my mother’s subterfuge and a potential felony statutory rape conviction—but I still smarted from the years of wondering why my father hadn’t wanted me. Ancient history that left me with thin scabs over old wounds. “I started working for him when I was fifteen, so our relationship still rests on a foundation of business as usual.”
“You can change that.” His jaw had turned to concrete, and he no longer smiled.
I had that effect on a lot of men. It’s a gift, what can I say. A tool in my limited repertoire. “Working on that, but now is not the time for a major breakthrough. We haven’t the time nor a skilled therapist on speed dial. I’ve got to go to London. I’m taking the Gulfstream. I won’t be twenty-four hours behind you.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he was taking it as the fait accomplis that it was. “Friday night is my mother’s big party. A party for you, if you recall.”
“I recall.” That reminded me of another party I could now check on—a prominent soirée for the third cousin to the Queen or something. A big deal for our London Club. It wouldn’t hurt to check over the preparations.”
“She will not forgive you if you are not there because of your job.”
Personally, I thought that sort of thinking a bit limited, but now was not the time to crack that nut. “I understand.”
His shoulders rose and fell with a sigh. “Lucky, your job—”
“Is as important as yours.”
“Of course.” He tossed off the words as if they didn’t hold my soul.
And there it was, the super big swamp pit separating us. He could say the words, but he wasn’t so good at living them. If he couldn’t make the leap, that
would be a dealbreaker.
Teddie had understood that. Teddie. But he hadn’t been able to live the truth either. And he’d broken my heart in the process. Now he was back, wanting me to trust him again.
Why did men put women to such choices?
I pushed all that aside. “Come. Let’s get Christophe. We have to run.”
“He will be so disappointed. He made me promise he could sit with you on the plane.”
Guilt. Not the best thing to leave when parting from a loved one. “I’ll make it up to him. And I’ll be a day behind, no more.”
I weighed the odds. If I was a betting gal, I’m not sure which side of that bet I’d put my future on.
* * *
Chapter 2
Donna
A dainty shawl of snow drapes all of London. More is expected late this evening. And yet, be it rain, snow, sleet, or hail, the weather never seems to deter Londoners from getting on with their lives.
Even the posh set proves to be a hardy lot. They are out in droves for the latest Couture, Fashion, and Jewelry auction at Christeby’s.
Already four items have been put on the block. Each has been auctioned off at a good twenty-to thirty percent above the opening bid. The article I want—a rare cream and bronze Hermés Kelly handbag embellished with gold hardware— is estimated to go for between ten and twenty thousand Euros.
In any event, my employer, a CIA-contracted black-ops organization known as Acme Industries, has been instructed to offer whatever it takes to get the purse.
If you’re wondering why the CIA is suddenly gaga over haute couture, let me assure you that it’s a matter of national security. Somewhere deep in the handbag’s lining is a small sliver of paper. Written on it is a password and ID to a secure cloud containing a list of the spies working for the MSS—China’s Ministry of State Security—who are embedded in the United States. The handbag’s seller is the wife of a Chinese defense minister. Her quid pro quo: to leap to the front of the United States’ immigration line with an S-6 visa. Once stateside, she’ll disappear into our Federal Witness Protection program.