by Hailey North
Daffy didn’t know how to respond. How often did a married couple with a toddler underfoot have sex?
“It’s been almost two weeks, and now, if what that other attorney said is true, he’s gone to Jazz-fest without me.” Her tears had stopped flowing, and suddenly Jonni sounded fiercely determined. “I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, but I’m going to fix it.”
Jonni’s assumption of responsibility pushed one button too many. Daffy leapt up and said, “I’ll go make that tea.”
Walking rapidly from the room, Daffy vowed to discover the truth. Her sister might be willing to hide her head in the sand, but if David were cheating on Jonni, she’d make him sorry he’d ever looked twice at any woman other than her kindhearted, far-too-generous twin.
For starters, she’d get Jonni to invite her to tomorrow night’s party. That would also make her legitimately unavailable should the devastatingly sexy Hunter James call to ask her out.
9
Hunter fingered the fine wool fabric of one of the rows of dark suits hanging in the closet of the room he occupied in Aloysius’s aunt’s house. He hadn’t yet had time to find a suitable house, but under his partner’s tutelage, he’d found the time to order seven suits.
One for each day of the week, he’d explained to the tailor down on Canal Street. Aloysius had urged him to order at least a dozen, but Hunter wasn’t so caught in the grip of sudden-wealth syndrome that he could expend his money quite so extravagantly. Besides, he wasn’t all that comfortable in a suit. Give him jeans and a polo shirt any day.
That thought prompted him to toss one of his favorite pairs of faded jeans into the carry-on bag atop his bed. This trip to Vegas was a quick one. Keynote speaker of the semiannual TekWare convention. Aloysius would be wanting to drag him around the golf course, a torture Hunter had no intention of inflicting on himself. He had to hand it to his partner; if not for Aloysius’s initial startup capital, Hunter would probably be sitting in a cubicle working as a grunt for some other software genius.
But Aloysius had seen the potential in Hunter’s designs. And even though they had nothing in common and had circled around each other as suspiciously as a pedigreed poodle and a street mutt on their first encounter, the two of them had become like brothers. A little lopsided at times, their relationship, but all in all, it worked out surprisingly well.
Except for the times Aloysius tried to brush the country dust off Hunter and pass him off as one of his own kind. Hunter always bucked when it came to that. He was proud to be nouveau riche and too smart to pretend he was anything but.
Thinking of pretending brought Daffy squarely to mind. He hadn’t intended not to tell her he was going out of town. Yet he hadn’t meant to let the information slip.
So what in the hell had he intended?
Thinking of his high state of arousal when he’d stumbled away from her front porch only last night, Hunter knew exactly what he’d wanted—yet he had followed through with his plan. He’d resisted her charms.
Fat good that it did him.
He was set to leave for Las Vegas, to be gone for more than forty-eight hours.
Would Daffodil Landry still be salivating for him when he returned?
Part of him wanted to say yes, of course. Look how hot she’d been after only a few days.
Yet Daffy wasn’t just any woman.
She was an equal at the game of seduction.
Hunter frowned and stared at the phone beside his bed. He should call her. Dangle the possibility of a date.
Dangle—hell, ask her to go to Vegas.
He wasn’t sure where that thought had come from. But as Hunter folded a second polo and added a second suit—for what reason he knew not, except that it was so richly tailored, and as a youngster he’d never known anyone with two such exceptional suits to his name—he seriously considered the idea.
She’d think it sporting of him. Daring. Sexy.
Insane.
They hadn’t even had sex and he was considering asking her to go to Vegas with him?
Hunter stroked the silky wool of the fabric. Why not? To take by surprise and stealth was the plan most favored by strategic generals; guys trying to snag a date should follow that very format.
A smile forming on his face, he reached for the phone. Wouldn’t Daffy be surprised?
His fingers outstretched, he pictured Daffy in the limo next to him, arriving at Caesar’s Palace in royal style from the airport. As keynote speaker for TekWare, Hunter would be accorded every luxury. He pictured a suite at Caesar’s, decadent beyond his wildest dreams. Oh, yes, he should invite Daffy.
He curled his hand around the phone.
It rang.
“May I speak to Hunter James, please?”
Hunter wrinkled his forehead. Funny how Daffy’s sister sounded so much like her yet carried such a different energy. “Speaking.”
Jonni identified herself, apologized for bothering him—was she bothering him? But of course she was; he was such a busy man. She’d gotten the number from Aloysius; she hoped that was okay.
Hunter held the receiver slightly away from his ear and waited for Daffy’s sister to tell him why she was calling him on a Saturday morning. Finally she did.
“It’s a cocktail party, mainly lawyers from my husband’s firm, but I’ve asked Daffy to help me out and she said she would. And I was thinking, well, hoping, actually, that you might want to attend also. Though I do apologize for the short notice.”
More matchmaking? Hunter smiled, liking that possibility. He didn’t know what he’d done to win her favor, but he appreciated her assistance. “When is the party?”
“At seven.”
“The date?”
“Um, tonight.”
Tonight at seven, Hunter had planned to be rolling dice at a hot craps table. Had planned. Past tense.
“Sure,” Hunter said. “Happy to help out. Just give me the address, or do you want me to pick Daffy up at her place?”
A silence followed, probably the first breath Jonni had taken during the conversation. So Daffy didn’t know the ever-resourceful Jonni was inviting him.
“We’re on Octavia, just off St. Charles. It might be best . . .”
“Don’t worry, I’ll just appear on your doorstep, so woeful to find myself surrounded by nothing but lawyers that Daffy will no doubt have pity on me and take me under her wing.”
Jonni laughed and gave him the street address. He memorized it as she launched into a thank-you for the beautiful bouquet he’d sent, and then he managed a fairly quick good-bye, and hung up.
Then he punched in the number of his secretary.
She was more than happy to notify the pilot of the private plane—courtesy of TekWare—of their later departure time and to prepare for two passengers. And champagne. But of course.
Money might not buy happiness, Hunter reflected, but it sure could purchase opportunity.
Her sister sure knew how to throw a party. But then, so did Daffy. It was a skill both of them had learned at their mother’s knees. Her mother was much better at teaching flower arranging and napkin folding than she was at expressing affection.
Daffy ducked behind a bushy palm on her sister’s rear patio. She’d just spotted one of David’s partners she’d made the mistake of dating two too many times.
Suppressing a delicate shudder, Daffy sipped her mineral water topped with a twist of lime and surveyed the gaily chatting couples and trios dotting the terrazzo-floored area between the back of the house and the pool.
It was funny how she could tell which ones were lawyers and which ones were lawyers’ wives. The female attorneys looked like men and weighed about twice as much as the butterfly ladies hovering on the arms of their husbands.
Studying the contrasting female styles, Daffy felt a bit like an alien. She didn’t fit in with either type, so what did that say about her? Well, tonight was about helping her sister, not about worrying over her own stalemated life.
Familiar with all
the movers and shakers of the city, Daffy picked out the firm’s three senior partners. At most events of this nature, she’d have a camera in hand, ready to capture the smiles manufactured for the paper. Two of the partners served on some of the most prestigious boards and fund-raisers in the city. The other had a thing for animals and was well known in SPCA circles. Daffy rather preferred the animal lover to the others and attempted to give him more photo coverage whenever possible.
Tonight, however, she carried no protective gear. She was present clearly as a socialite, the sadly single sister-in-law of the firm’s junior partner.
As such, she had to be prepared for approaches she’d rather not experience.
She should have brought a date, Daffy reflected as she scowled into her drink in hopes of deflecting a man descending on her.
“Daffodil, how lovely to see you,” said the man.
“Thank you,” she said, quite unable to remember his name.
“Carroll,” he said, “Carroll Dunbar.”
“Yes,” Daffy said, “I know.” Well, perhaps lying at cocktail parties was only a venial sin.
“It’s been ages since I’ve seen you. Where have you been keeping yourself?”
“Working?”
He laughed and leaned too close. Arching his brows, he said, “A lady as pretty as you shouldn’t be working herself to the bone.”
She smiled. Even an idiot could have seen she was not amused. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m not skin and bones, then,” she said. “Excuse me, Dar-roll, I have to help my sister.”
“Carroll,” he said, sounding far more indignant than Daffy thought he had a right to sound. “That’s Carroll.”
Daffy swept off, feeling strangely alone in the sea of people.
When she’d asked her sister if David had told her he’d gone to Jazzfest, Jonni had answered in a more roundabout fashion than usual, admitting that he’d said he’d stopped for a beer on the way home.
And no, she hadn’t asked him outright. She didn’t want to be a nag.
There were at least five women at the party not clinging to someone’s arm. She spotted David, drink in hand, speaking earnestly to a clone in a dark suit. At least he wasn’t flirting with anyone in his own home.
Oh, yes, they all looked like lawyers and talked so importantly.
Everyone except her.
“Hello, there.” A man’s rich voice called to her from almost within her mind. It couldn’t really be . . .
Hunter.
Hunter? Here? Impossible!
Daffy refused to move with any speed. Negligently, she allowed her neck to swivel oh-so-slowly around and her body to follow. “What a surprise,” she said, almost drawling her words, trying to absorb the fact that the only man she wanted to talk to was standing right there on Jonni’s terrace. Her sister must have loved those flowers!
Hunter smiled, his eyes bright and yet at the same moment as dark as midnight. “You are a beautiful spot in a jungle of darkness,” he said, bending over her hand and capturing it in his. His eyes roving her body, he said, “Now, that’s what I call a dress.”
“You don’t think it’s too much?” As soon as she said the words, Daffy wanted to bite her lips. She needed Hunter’s approval as much as she needed Carroll’s attentions. “For a dull and prosaic evening, that is.” She added the modifier, hoping to take away from her comment.
Still holding the hand he’d claimed, he rocked back on his heels. Daffy began to burn from above her knees where the form-fitting red cocktail sheath stopped, up past her belly button, and across her cleavage—much of which the dress exposed to view.
“Beautiful,” he said. “Please don’t ever dress like everybody else.”
She smiled, despite herself. “What brings you here?”
“You,” he said, far too promptly for her self-control.
“Don’t you mean Jonni?” Daffy couldn’t resist teasing him just a bit. “She’s the woman over there who looks a lot like me and thinks she can—”
She stopped, this time actually biting her lip. She’d been about to say—who thinks she can find me the perfect man. Those were words this egotist did not need to hear.
“Help make you happy?” Hunter murmured the words, awfully close to her right ear. His breath stirred her hair and Daffy wished the rest of the guests far, far away. Then, slowly, she remembered her mission this night was to help her sister, not to lose herself completely the first moment Hunter threw out one of his all-too-hard-to-resist lures.
“I think Jonni just wanted a bit of moral support tonight,” Daffy said, quickly adding, “You know, a few guests who have nothing to do with law.”
She didn’t want to hint at anything else. Jonni had taken her sister into her confidence and it wasn’t like Daffy to violate that. But she’d love to know Hunter’s take on the scenario. She’d be willing to bet he could tell by looking whether or not a man was walking over the double yellow line.
Hunter grinned. “Well, that’s me. The only thing I have to do with lawyers is to pay their bills. And boy, can they bill.” He gazed around the room. “Do they ever quit working?”
Daffy shook her head. “I think it’s a point of pride with them.”
Hunter grimaced. “And to think I’ve been told I’m a workaholic.”
“By whom?”
“Aloy—” Hunter stopped in mid-word.
“That’s okay,” Daffy said, easing another glass of mineral water off a tray proffered by a circulating waiter. “You can say Aloysius to my face. I won’t go ballistic.”
“That’s good to know.”
“I think, now that Aloysius has found the love of his life, he’ll be able to put the past behind him.” She sighed softly. “We would have made a terrible couple, you know.”
“Why is that?” Hunter’s voice was low and he was looking at her far too intently for her comfort level.
“Maybe we should circulate,” Daffy said.
Hunter put his arm out, blocking her from the rest of the crowd. “Sure. As soon as we play twenty-one.”
She stuck her tongue out. “You’re awfully bossy.”
He answered in kind. “You bring it out in me. What’s wrong with Aloysius and you?”
Daffy was surprised he’d asked the question that way. For a man supposedly pursuing her, why try to couple her with another guy? She furrowed her brow. Was this some sort of Hunter reverse reasoning? Shooting a glance at him from under her lashes, she said, very sweetly, “He puts ketchup on his eggs.”
“That’s disgusting!” Hunter made a face, then laughed.
Daffy grinned at him. She’d gotten his mind off her real answer and he realized that. She appreciated a man with wit and perception. Softly, she said, “Aloysius wants the perfect dress-up doll of a wife. And that I will never be.”
Hunter toyed with the stem of the glass he’d been holding. “I see.”
Daffy waited, but he said no more. In a way, that pleased her. Hunter and Aloysius might be business partners, but Daffy sensed they had nothing in common when it came to choosing the perfect partner. Aloysius wanted a Mrs. Junior Leaguer Stepford Wife.
But what did Hunter want?
“Would you like to go out after this is over?”
“Hmm?” Daffy was startled out of her reverie by his question, pleasantly so.
“You know, go somewhere else, as in you and me, out and about?”
He’d leaned forward as he asked the question and Daffy swore not two inches separated his face from hers. What was she thinking? She’d spent all her time dwelling on Hunter and not once scoping out the women at the party who might be dwelling too much on Jonni’s husband. She muffled a breathy sigh of anticipation, and said, “What did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking of trying Vegas.”
Vegas. For someone who covered the social scene, keeping on top of all the nighttime hot spots and new restaurants was second nature to her. But the name didn’t ring a bell. “Is that new?”
&nbs
p; He grinned. “Compared to New Orleans, I guess it is.”
Daffy drew back. “Vegas? As in Las Vegas?”
He nodded. “As in Nevada. Tonight.” He tapped his breast pocket. “Come with me?”
Daffy started to laugh. “You can’t be serious.”
“I can’t?” He touched her then, the lightest of strokes on her bare upper arm. If he’d suckled her puckered-up nipple, she wouldn’t have reacted more strongly. Desire built in her like a wave about to smack the beach, and Daffy said, somewhat breathlessly, “How could I just up and go to Vegas? With you?”
He cupped his chin in his hand and said slowly, “On an airplane?”
“Be serious.”
“Oh, I am. And don’t worry. We have time before the flight to swing by your place for you to pack.”
“You think of everything, don’t you?” She was torn between admiration and amazement.
He took her in his arms, his hands on her shoulders, his body closing on hers. “I promise you won’t regret it.”
Daffy swallowed. She wanted him. Tonight. Last night. Now. No, she wouldn’t regret that part. But would she regret this feeling that threatened to take over her reasoning self and push her into his arms? Slowly, she realized they were dancing and he wasn’t holding her shoulders but had slipped his arms around her, and they were moving cheek to cheek, as the three-piece string trio Jonni had hired slipped into “Crazy.”
She snuggled against him. Dancing didn’t mean she was going to Vegas with him. But it did mean she didn’t have to talk while her brain whirled through the possibilities.
So much for dancing. She had barely made two circles around the small dance floor set aside on the rear patio when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Unwilling to let go of Hunter, Daffy pretended to ignore the interruption. Then she realized Hunter had stopped moving.
It was Jonni, standing next to her husband.
“Hey, sis,” Daffy said, looking from her twin to her brother-in-law. On the surface, things looked just like always. David dominated; Jonni stood by. But something about the overly bright sparkle in Jonni’s eyes hinted to Daffy that all was not as it appeared.