[The Sons of Lily Moreau 03] - Capturing the Millionaire

by Marie Ferrarella

  “I’ll be here before four on Saturday,” she promised him, opening the door. “Be good,” she told Winchester.

  And then she was gone.

  “You have to help me, Hannah.”

  On her knees, Hannah Martingale Peters looked up from the display she was trying to rearrange, recognizing the voice before she saw Kayla approaching her. Because of its small size, Shelby was one of the few holdouts when it came to chain stores. Martingale’s had been opened by Hannah’s great-grandfather, and everyone in her family had worked here at one time or another. Each generation had improved or expanded the store, leaving its mark.

  While still only a single story, the building was sprawling, and the store offered a little bit of everything, the way a five-and-dime once might have.

  Leaning a hand on the counter to help her gain her legs, Hannah softly cursed the arthritis that kept her from leaping to her feet the way she had once been able to.

  She anticipated what was on the vet’s mind. “Honey, Ralph and I have as many dogs now as we can handle. I’d like to help you out, but what with Jonas and Corky and—”

  Kayla was quick to stop the outpouring of words. Hannah, a big-hearted woman loved by all, had the ability to go on and on about nothing for hours.

  “No, it’s not about the dogs. At least, not directly,” she qualified. She saw interest pique in Hannah’s blue eyes. “I have to attend a fund-raiser—”

  Her mouth dropped open. “A fund-raiser? My, my, that is impressive.”

  Kayla knew the woman wanted details, and she was more than willing to give them— but only after her problem had been tackled and put to rest.

  “I need a drop-dead-gorgeous dress to wear.” She’d already gone through the ones on the racks and found nothing that suited her purpose. Hannah gave her a tolerant look. “Well, darling, we don’t stock dresses that might kill people. Have you checked out our newest collection? There are a few very pretty ones straight from L.A.” A tall woman, Hannah eyed the town vet, thinking her a tiny thing that needed fattening. That was what happened when you had no family to look after you, she mused. “I think one of them might suit you just fine.”

  Kayla shook her head. “I’ve already looked, Hannah.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, hoping against hope. Time was getting short. “Is there anything in the storeroom that you haven’t put out yet?”

  Hannah began to shake her head and then stopped, suddenly remembering what had accidentally arrived in the last shipment. The order had been a mistake.

  “Well, there was one. I told Ralph to send it back. Nobody here has any need for a dress that sparkles.” She laughed, recalling her own reaction to the slinky gown. “Can you just see it at a barbecue, or the fall fair? The hem would get all dirty—”

  “Can I see it?” Kayla asked, hoping that for once, the woman wasn’t exaggerating. Hannah lifted one wide shoulder and let it drop. “If it’s still here. Like I said, I told Ralph to send it back. Ordinarily, the man never does what I ask him to, but probably, just this one time—”

  Kayla couldn’t wait through Hannah’s diatribe about the failings of her husband of thirty years. “Can you check?”

  “Well, of course I can.” She paused to straighten a sign, then looked at Kayla again. “You mean now?”

  She nodded vigorously. “Please.” Rather than go, Hannah peered at her, squinting through her glasses. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this excited about a dress before.” With a heavy sigh, she abandoned the display and waddled toward the rear of the store.

  No, she’d never been excited about a dress before, Kayla thought, but that was because she’d never had a man to impress. It had suddenly occurred to her, on the drive back to Shelby with the newest rescued German shepherd riding in the back, that a lot of women Alain had gone out with might be attending this fund-raiser. The last thing Kayla wanted was to look like a hayseed next to them. And she would if she wore any of the dresses in her closet. They were functional, not fancy. Kayla raised her voice and called out, “Find it?”

  “Still looking,” Hannah responded. She mentally crossed her fingers. She wondered if she’d have time—should Ralph have proved to be dependable this one time—to drive up to Santa Barbara for the sole purpose of buying a dress that threatened to melt the eyes of the beholder.

  Probably not.

  She said a small prayer that Ralph had not deviated from his normal slothful pattern.

  Chapter 13 For the umpteenth time, Alain pushed back the sleeve of his jacket and looked at his watch. As if staring at it could somehow make the small hour hand move backward of its own accord.

  She was supposed to be here by now. He distinctly remembered Kayla telling him that she would be here on Saturday at four o’clock. Promising to be here at four. Well, it wasn’t four anymore. Or five, or six. It was ten after six. The fund-raiser was scheduled to begin at eight o’clock sharp, at his mother’s house. The printed invitations said so.

  To his amazement, Lily had moved at incredible speed, contacting people and verbally twisting arms as she called in favors in that deep, honeyed-whiskey voice of hers.

  He knew she wasn’t doing it for an organization she’d never heard of; she was going to all this trouble for him.

  Now, for some reason, Lily felt the need to try to make up for lost time. To make it up to all of them. She was bent on living life to the fullest, not as the toast of the art community, or the most celebrated hostess on four continents, but as a loving, doting mother.

  She’d already thrown Philippe and Janice an embarrassingly ostentatious engagement party, and was just waiting for Georges to make a formal announcement—or even a whispered one—to do the same for him and Vienna. Lily had even taken on, rather enthusiastically, the role of Kelli’s grandmother. Although everyone knew that to call her that to her face meant being the recipient of a world of hurt, where medieval tools of torture were involved.

  But even though she’d seemingly undertaken this new role with gusto, Alain knew his mother well enough to know she would be far from pleased if Kayla didn’t show up at the gala.

  The legendary Lily Moreau did not suffer being embarrassed. Why wouldn’t Kayla show? he silently demanded, beginning to pace about the living room. It didn’t make any sense. She seemed so devoted to those dogs. The organization stood to make a lot of money. She wouldn’t turn her back on that.

  Pivoting on his heel to retrace his steps, Alain almost tripped over Winchester, who had become in only a few days his ever-present shadow. “You know her, Winchester. Why isn’t she here? If she was running late for some reason, why wouldn’t she call to tell me?”

  And why, he wondered silently, was he so wound up about a woman he hardly knew? Why was he all but dancing attendance this way? Why was he worrying?

  He’d never done anything like this before, never gone so far out of his way to try to please a woman. Hell, pleasing women came easily to him, but that usually involved dinner, some form of entertainment and then a few hours of complete, pure physical pleasure. And that was it. Nothing more.

  But this was different. Felt different.

  This felt like involvement.

  And with involvement came problems. A whole slew of them.

  Alain didn’t want to go that route, didn’t want to feel the kind of pain he knew his mother had felt.

  Damn it, what had he been thinking, asking her to do this? What was wrong with him? If it was Kayla’s intention to— His train of thought abruptly derailed. Winchester was suddenly alert, his head turned toward the front of the house. Every bone in his body appeared to stiffen in complete concentration.

  “You hear something?”

  Before the question was out of his mouth, Alain heard the doorbell ring. He crossed to the door in record time. As he pulled it open, Winchester suddenly nudged him out of the way. The next moment, the dog was prancing excitedly on his hind legs, his front paws on Kayla’s torso, welcoming her the only way he knew how.

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nbsp; Alain could only stare. “You’re all right.” “Which is more than I can say for this freeway system of yours,” Kayla exclaimed. Her eyes blazed as she declared, “There are way too many people stuffed in down here.”

  She was obviously struggling to subdue an enormous case of road rage. She’d been stuck in traffic for an unforgivable amount of time, and cut off three times.

  His relief at seeing her gave way to amusement. She looked adorable with smoke coming out of her ears. “I’ll see what I can do about sending them to another county.” Abandoning the banter, he closed the front door and then physically moved Winchester out of the way. “My turn,” he told the animal, pulling Kayla into his arms.

  “You don’t want to hug an uptight woman,” she warned him.

  There wasn’t anything he wanted to do more. “Yes, I do,” he retorted, tightening his arms around her just a bit. “I want to kiss one, too.” Oh, no, she wasn’t about to let him lead her astray. She’d moved heaven and earth to find the right gown to wear to this thing, and she wasn’t going to get sidetracked into not wearing it. “I’ve got to get dressed.”

  “We’ll make up for lost time,” he promised her, kissing the side of her throat. “I’ll help you, I swear.”

  She was still struggling, but not nearly as much. “Yeah, right. That’s like asking a coyote to watch the sheep.”

  “They’ve got a very strong union, I hear. The coyotes.”

  Whatever Kayla was going to say in protest was muffled as his lips came down on hers. The frustration she’d brought into the room with her died a swift, painless death, swept away by the surge of feelings that erupted the instant their kiss began to flower.

  On the long trip down from Shelby, she had done her best to talk herself out of feeling anything for Alain. She’d even listed all the reasons why nothing could come of her seeing him. Over and over, she told herself that she was investing in something that had no future. Heaven knew she didn’t need to feel the pain of heartache, didn’t need to once more court abandonment.

  And abandonment would surely come. He was a playboy, emphasis on the word play. Granted, she didn’t exactly have one foot in the grave, and there was still time to enjoy the lighter side of life before she settled down. But the truth was, she just wasn’t built that way. She didn’t know how to dally, how to have an interlude and just walk away. She didn’t have sex, she made love. There was a huge difference. Her heart, despite all her internal lectures, was bent on settling down. On nesting.

  And the more she was with Alain, the more she wanted to be with him.

  The more she wanted the impossible. Kayla realized that she was digging her fingers into his arms. Damn him, he was turning not just her knees into liquid, but her whole body, as well. Any second now, she was going down for the third time.

  With effort, Kayla placed her hands against his chest and pushed. Or tried to. Her strength seemed to have deserted her. She’d never felt so feeble in her life.

  She all but sucked in air the moment she pulled her head back. “Have you registered that mouth of yours yet?” she quipped. “It really is lethal.”

  Her stomach was fluttering like a flag in a hot Santa Ana wind.

  “I never had complaints before,” he told her.

  “I bet you haven’t.” And there it was in a nutshell. He’d kissed a legion of uncomplaining women. He was first and last a playboy. And right now, he was playing in Kayla’s yard. But not for long.

  As if it was going to hurt any less when he returned to his life, Kayla silently scoffed. She was already a goner and she knew it.

  Well, if she was a goner, she might as well just enjoy the time she had, however short that might turn out to be.

  Willing her pulse to stop scrambling, she said, “My dress for the fund-raiser is in the trunk. Where can I change?”

  The look in his eyes was nothing if not wicked. “Right here would be nice.”

  The traffic had made her late, despite the fact that she had left early. There wasn’t much time for her to turn into a butterfly. “Seriously.” “Seriously,” Alain echoed, doing his best to keep a straight face. They both knew what would happen if she took him up on that. “I change in here and odds are we won’t make the fund-raiser on time.”

  All his earlier concerns had burned to a crisp the second he’d kissed her. All he wanted now was to make love with her. “My mother’ll understand. She’s a romantic at heart.”

  I’ll bet. For an intelligent man, he could be almost sweetly simple. “With everyone but her sons,” Kayla told him.

  “What makes you say that?” she hadn’t even met his mother yet. There was no way she could come to that kind of a conclusion. “Well, for one thing, the old ‘do as I say, not as I do’ rule.” From everything she’d read about her—a great deal in the last few days—Kayla had a feeling that Lily Moreau didn’t like sharing the spotlight—or her men—with another woman. “Your mom might have led an incredibly Bohemian lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean she’d like the fact that her son’s excuse for being late to a function she was presiding over was that he was making love to some woman.”

  It was, he thought, an interesting choice of words. “Is that how you think of yourself? As ‘some woman’?” Kayla had never had a problem with self-esteem. She was comfortable with who and what she was. But that was in her world, in Shelby. This was a whole new universe, filled with competitors.

  She looked at him for a long moment, trying to pretend that there wasn’t a great deal riding on his reply. “Don’t you?”

  The answer that came to mind unsettled him. Alain wasn’t ready to share it with her. And because he wasn’t, he suddenly realized just how serious this was. Because if it hadn’t been, he would have suavely said no, adding a few lines about how special, how unique she was. Charming her. Tossing words into the wind.

  But these words had weight, had substance and meaning, and that really unnerved him.

  Made him feel vulnerable for the first time in a long time.

  So instead, he smiled and said, “Let’s go get your outfit out of the car and I’ll show you to the guest room.” For a second, everything stood still. What had just happened here? Kayla wondered. Had Alain retreated? Was it happening already, his rethinking the situation and wanting to create a safe amount of distance between them?

  She drew in a long breath, reminding herself that nothing was transpiring that she hadn’t already anticipated twice over. She did her best to sound unaffected, even as she felt the ground crumbling beneath her.

  “By the way, Mick said to tell you that your car is ready.”

  Her words didn’t register for a beat. Right now, the sports car was the furthest thing from his mind. “Oh, right, I’d almost forgotten.”

  Just how rich was this man that he could forget about an expensive sports car like that? She really didn’t belong in this world, Kayla thought.

  Alain opened the front door again. “I’ll have to make arrangements to pick it up.” Arrangements. Not, “I’ll be there next week to get it.” Arrangements. That meant he was going to send someone else to get the car. So much for seeing him back in her neck of the woods, she thought cynically.

  Kayla had no doubt, as she led the way back to the truck parked by the curb, that after tonight, more than likely, she would never see Alain again. Lily Moreau’s house, like the woman herself, was awe-inspiring. Lavish, it stopped just inches shy of overstepping the boundaries and being overdone. Made to look like a home along the French Rivera, the building stood three stories high.

  The driveway of Mediterranean-blue-and-gray paving stones, circled a fountain that would have easily dwarfed most structures. Here, it appeared to fit right in. The tennis court in the back shared landscaping with an Olympic-size pool she’d expressly built for guests.

  Everything both inside and outside the impressive building was pristine. White was her trademark and it was everywhere. It made the blasts of color that much more dramatic when they appeared.


  “Ready?” Alain’s question penetrated the haze in Kayla’s brain as she tried to take everything in at once—and tell herself that the woman got dressed the same way as everyone else. Kayla realized that he had come around to her side and was holding the passenger door opened.

  A valet had slipped in on the driver’s side to take his rented vehicle away. “Ready,” Kayla replied, with far more conviction than she felt. Taking her arm, Alain tucked it through his own. “Don’t think of her as a celebrity,” he whispered into her ear. “Just think of her as my mother.”

  And that, Kayla thought, was exactly the problem. The celebrity she could deal with. The mother… He’s not bringing you home to Mother, this is just a party with an excuse. It doesn’t matter whether or not she likes you. A week from now, this’ll all be a faint memory, nothing more.

  The knot in Kayla’s stomach loosened a little. The moment she walked into the foyer, Kayla saw it was a house built around Lily Moreau’s paintings. The same splashes of color on the canvases that graced the entryway and the walls beyond were reproduced in the marble floor and the furnishings.

  There was beauty everywhere she looked. It was a little like heaven—with a twist. “You look gorgeous,” Alain whispered in her ear. He was repeating himself, but thought she needed the reassurance. As if dropping his jaw when he first saw her emerge from the guest room in the slinky, silver-and-blue gown that lovingly hugged every curve she had wasn’t enough.

  She flashed him a grateful smile and he struggled with the surge of desire that fought to take possession of him. There would be time enough for that after the gala.

  It couldn’t get here soon enough for him.

  And then, as if on cue, he saw his family moving forward, en masse, converging all around them. “Brace yourself,” he whispered. It seemed to Kayla that half the room had suddenly descended on her. She tightened her grip on Alain’s arm, even though she’d promised herself not to let this event make her feel like a fish out of water. Catching her reflection in a mirror that hung on one side, she decided the smile she forced to her lips looked genuine enough.