Out of all the women in the world, what kind of loser luck had him turning up the Princess of River Oaks as the missing baby girl a family had hired him to find?
This wasn’t personal. He couldn’t let it be. Nothing he did could regain the lost years, could repair the awful sense of impotence…of teetering on the brink…of being one of the nameless, faceless poor after their precipitous fall from grace when his father suffered a fatal heart attack, one step away from being jailed for fraud.
They’d held onto their dignity with white-knuckled hands, but Dev still remembered all too well the nights the scared boy he’d once been had dug claws into his sides to keep from giving in to unmanly sobs. The angry teenager who had fought Charles DeMille’s disdain, his hold on Dev’s mother. The young lover whose perfect revenge had turned into his worst defeat.
The man he was now knew that he’d been forged in the fire of his family’s needs. He’d served his time in the military and come back to take them away to Dallas. He’d worked hard, two and three jobs, to support them. He’d built a business and made it successful. He’d found his way on his own and was better off for it.
All that was in the past. This was a job, a special duty for valued friends. Reuniting a woman with siblings she didn’t know she had. He would do it as cleanly as possible, and then go to the next case.
Lacey’s adoption had been done by less-than-legal means and covered up in a way only money and power could manage. Charles DeMille had plenty of both.
It was easy now to see why no one had known. Dev was almost certain that even Lacey had no idea she was adopted—the girl who had walked away because he wasn’t good enough for her blue blood. The girl who had betrayed him, who had chosen a life of ease over his love. Who had taught him a lesson so painful he remembered it still.
It was too rich that Devlin Marlowe would be the one to tell her that her blood was no better than his.
What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive…Lacey DeMille’s whole life was defined by her parents’ lies. She stood on quicksand and didn’t even know it.
Sleeping Beauty was about to be awakened, one way or another.
But not with a kiss.
And no one had ever called Devlin Marlowe a prince.
Lacey stood with her date, Philip Forrester, and her parents, watching the auction as though she’d had no part in creating it. Her mind drifted to Christina, the little girl for whom she volunteered as a child advocate. To the contrasts between their lives…her own so privileged, so unearned.
The demands of that life sometimes choked Lacey. A part of her wanted badly to care nothing about how she looked or behaved, to run free like a ruffian and just be Lacey, not Lacey of the River Oaks DeMilles.
From her earliest days, she had known she must not. Never said aloud, nonetheless she had always known that she was held to a higher standard. That she had to be very careful not to slip.
But though she sometimes chafed at the propriety required, she loved her parents deeply and knew they loved her. It was bedrock. She was a DeMille.
“Agnes is pleased with your handling of the gala,” her mother Margaret murmured.
Her mother’s friend Agnes was a tyrant, but Lacey merely smiled. “I think things are going well.” It all seemed so superficial, after what she’d seen today—but the funds she raised would go to the Child Advocacy Center.
“You and Philip will drop by our little gathering week after next?”
Little gathering didn’t quite do justice to Margaret’s annual cocktail reception for four hundred, held the night before a hospital fund-raiser. “Certainly,” Lacey responded. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“You make a lovely couple.”
Of course they did. Margaret had hand-picked Philip as her latest bid for Lacey to marry and settle down to raise the next generation of DeMilles. A prominent young plastic surgeon with blue blood of his own, suave blond Philip Forrester was considered quite a catch.
Except by her. She couldn’t seem to convince her parents that they wouldn’t marry.
“Lacey, are you all right?” Philip asked.
“What?” She stirred. Around them the crowd buzzed, and Lacey realized that her item had been called as next up for bidding. “Oh—yes. Just fine.”
Philip leaned down and whispered, “So where shall I take this fabulous picnic you’re auctioning? Will you actually prepare it with your own hands?”
Lacey met his smile with one of her own. “You’d like it better if I let Clarise do the cooking.”
“You don’t need to learn to cook. We’ll have our own servants.”
“Philip, we aren’t—” He, like everyone else, assumed.
His glance grazed her. “Please, Lacey. Not tonight.”
There was nothing wrong with Philip. He was well-set financially, with a successful career and family money behind him. Impeccable manners, moved through the upper crust with aplomb, treated Lacey like a princess, but…
But what? What was she waiting for? She’d been through a number of beaux, had received her share of proposals from men her parents considered eminently suitable. She had accepted none. They all wanted what she brought to the table, not who she was.
She wanted something no one had offered. To be loved for herself, not her money or social position. Maybe she was a hopeless romantic, but Lacey had dug in her heels over this one requirement.
She’d been foolish twice, been impetuous and learned hard lessons. She would never again fall for a charming rogue. But she wanted that one great love, that grand passion.
Just then her father winked at her. “Want me to run up the bid, Princess?”
Lacey smiled and shook her head, rousing herself to tune into the bidding. Around her, discreet gestures raised the price by fifty or a hundred dollars.
“Fifteen hundred,” the auctioneer nodded toward Philip’s faint signal. “Do I have sixteen?”
A brief silence.
The auctioneer scanned the crowd. “All right. A gourmet picnic for four provide by Lacey DeMille going once, twice—”
“Two thousand,” came a voice from the back.
Lacey blinked. Who would do that? Around her, the crowd stirred. She couldn’t see over them to find the owner of the voice.
“Well, Ms. DeMille has not only created a marvelous occasion, but it appears that she’ll garner the highest contribution yet. Further bids?”
Philip glanced down at her, eyebrows lifted.
Lacey shook her head. “You don’t need to up the ante.” She was well aware that he was only here for appearances.
“Two thousand going once…going twice…”
Philip glanced across the crowd and frowned. “Twenty-one hundred.”
“Three thousand.” Same voice.
Lacey resisted the urge to stand on tip-toe. Around her, heads were craning to see the persistent bidder.
The auctioneer looked straight at Philip. “Do I have thirty-five hundred?”
She knew that Philip’s sense of thrift was screaming. He could easily afford it, but he considered economy a prime virtue. And this was her cause, not his. He didn’t like her choice of volunteer work. Like her parents, he thought she should be doing something more antiseptic.
After a long pause, he nodded, jaw clenched.
“Thirty-five hundred. Do I hear four thousand?”
The crowd fell silent. Expectation vibrated the air around them. Lacey wanted to slink out of the room as fervid glances darted her way.
“Who is it?” she whispered to Philip.
“I don’t know.” His eyes narrowed. “I can’t see where he is.”
Lacey cast a glance at her mother, whose face had gone stiff. Public spectacles were not part of the family code. Lacey had been on the receiving end of that reproof too often. Old South to the core, Margaret had a rigid code of behavior that her daughter had spent her life trying to meet. In this very modern age, Margaret stood for a way of life that had almost vanished. She�
��d fight for it with her dying breath.
Lacey rubbed one hand across her stomach and took another deep breath. Part of her wanted to push through the crowd and find the man who didn’t understand that such things weren’t done. Part of her wanted to hide.
The pause went on long enough that she thought she was safe, that Philip would win, though she had no doubt how much he’d hate paying the price for a picnic he could have just by asking.
“Going…going—”
“Five thousand.” Same voice. Same deep, decisive tones.
Around them the buzz rose. Her father was staring at Philip, waiting for him to take the lead.
She could see on his face that though pride was involved, pride would only take him so far.
The auctioneer stared at Philip.
Lacey held her breath.
Finally, Philip shook his head.
“Five thousand it is—a record for this event. Five thousand dollars for a gourmet picnic for four provided by our own Lacey DeMille.”
Around them clapping began, along with curious looks. Missy Delavant leaned across Philip with a stage whisper. “Did you get a look at him, Lacey? Do you have something going that we need to know about?”
Lacey recoiled from the woman who’d give anything to get her hooks into Philip. “I have no idea who it is.” She drew herself up in her best Margaret imitation. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to check on some details.”
She cast Philip a glance, seeing disapproval written on his face. A glance at her mother revealed a mirror image. Her father’s eyebrows lifted in dismayed surprise.
The burning in her stomach returned.
Lacey stood very straight and moved toward the front of the room.
Just shy of her destination, a man stepped out of the crowd and blocked her path.
“Hello, Lacey. Long time no see.”
Dev looked down into silvery eyes he’d thought never to see again. Fragile. He hadn’t expected fragile, but she looked like a doe caught by surprise, a sylph poised to melt away in the mists of the forest.
She was beautiful. More beautiful than ever. The woman had more than fulfilled the promise of the girl. Dressed in a column of lavender silk, she wore a slender silver ribbon at her throat, an amethyst pendant glowing against skin pale as camellias. Or white satin.
And he wanted her again. Wanted her still.
Damn it.
She had betrayed him. Had chosen comfort and luxury over love. Had walked away from him without a backward glance and chosen Daddy’s money. Daddy’s approval.
“Dev?”
Those eyes. Her sister’s eyes, he saw now. Silver, with the black ring around the iris. No wonder he’d felt Maddie Gallagher’s draw when he’d first met her, though it would never have occurred to him to make a connection then. Their hair was the same chestnut, though Lacey’s was a short, gamine cut feathering around her delicate features. Maddie’s was long and wild, in tune with her earthy exuberance.
For a moment, Lacey looked almost…vulnerable. Don’t be vulnerable, Lacey. I have news that’s going to shatter your world. You have to be strong.
“Is it really you?” she asked.
That mouth. That impossibly lush mouth, fit more for a courtesan than a Junior Leaguer. It was the other feature she shared with Maddie—and the irony struck him. He’d seen Boone Gallagher’s brain turned to mush more than once by that mouth. He’d been amused.
He was amused no longer.
“Yeah,” he spoke, finally. But his voice was rusty. Hoarse. “It’s me.”
It’s a job, Dev. Just a job. Forget the past. It will only make things worse.
He grinned to cover the rawness he hadn’t expected to feel. “How are you?”
“Why are you here, Dev?”
The inference that he was out of place stung. Anger rode to his rescue. “Don’t worry—I can afford the price of admission now.”
For a fleeting instant, he thought he saw shame flicker in her eyes, but it was gone so quickly, he could easily have imagined it.
When silver eyes turned to frost, he knew he had. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to take care of my donation. It was nice seeing you again, Dev,” she said, as if he were just a casual acquaintance.
As if he’d never seen her naked. Or heard her moan into his kiss.
She turned to go, and Dev’s hand shot out to stop her.
Lacey stepped away from him before he could touch her. One eyebrow tilted in his direction. Princess to peasant: You dare to touch me?
Dev nearly lost it then. “Not so fast, Ms. DeMille.”
She glanced in the direction of the perfectly-groomed blond he’d seen her with earlier. The man was exactly her type, and it made Dev burn.
“What is it?” Her shoulders stiffened, just a fraction. They were too slender, if intimidation was the effect she wanted.
And for a moment, Dev had a crazy urge to protect her from what must come.
Then her mother looked out at him through Lacey’s eyes. Margaret DeMille, with all her Southern propriety and perfect manners, might not be Lacey’s blood mother, but she had molded Lacey in all the ways that counted, down to the way she’d taught her daughter to look down her nose, even though Dev was half a foot taller.
And fury shot through his veins. Fury for all the lost years, for all the suffering. For Charles DeMille’s contempt for Dev’s efforts to protect his family—and for telling Dev to keep his filthy hands off DeMille’s precious daughter. Fury for laying his heart at this woman’s feet and having her turn away as though he’d offered something dirty and unworthy.
That fury made him rough. “We have a date to set, Ms. DeMille.”
That got to her. Shock rippled across the too-perfect features. “What?”
At last, Dev got a little taste of revenge. “I bought you.”
Her eyes closed, then flew open again. “You,” she accused. “It was you.”
He smiled with satisfaction. The look on her face was worth every penny. “Yeah. It was me.” He wouldn’t charge the Gallaghers for his exorbitant bid. This one was on him.
She was something to behold, all right. Dev watched her struggle to cover her shock and dismay with those perfect, elegant manners. And if her struggle twisted something inside his chest, at least he had a measure of satisfaction for all that he and his family had suffered. It was a long way from justice, but it would have to do. He had a job to complete, and he couldn’t make this personal.
“Very well.” She had it all back now, every feature composed, the slate wiped clean as if he were a total stranger. “If you’ll give me your card, I’ll call to make arrangements to be available when it’s most convenient for you and your friends.”
“There will only be two of us. And I’d better call you. I live in Dallas now, and I travel a lot. What’s your number?” Though he already had it. Unlisted numbers were little challenge for a private investigator.
When she gave him a cell phone number instead, he resisted the urge to counter with her home number just to rattle her.
“Do you need a piece of paper?” she asked.
“No.” He caught her gaze, full on. “I have an excellent memory.”
For a moment, shadows darkened her eyes, but she recovered quickly. “Fine. Does your guest have any dietary restrictions?”
Oh, Lacey. You make it too easy.
“I don’t know,” he replied, grinning in anticipation. “You tell me.”
A tiny frown appeared between her brows, but he saw the moment she understood his meaning. Saw her shrink back the tiniest fraction. “Oh, no. That won’t be possible.”
“It’s a worthy cause, right? I’d hate to have to withdraw my bid. There was no mention that I couldn’t pick my own guests.”
This time the struggle wasn’t so easily mastered. For a moment, Dev wished he could rewind and try this again. Figure out another way. Wished he could kill the need that even now, after what she’d done, made his body crave hers.
&nb
sp; She swallowed hard and shook her head. “No. There wasn’t.” She lifted her head, and he was surprised to find himself proud of her strength. “Dev, if this is about what hap—”
He broke in. “No, Lacey. The past is the past. No point in rehashing. It doesn’t have anything to do with who we are now.” It couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Not anymore. Too much was at stake.
Confusion swirled in her gaze, and he cursed himself silently. He’d lost his cool. That couldn’t happen again. “Let’s start all over.” He held out his hand. “Ms. DeMille, pleased to meet you. The name’s Devlin Marlowe.”
She looked at his hand as if it were a rattlesnake, poised to strike. Then she glanced back up at him, and he wished he knew what she was thinking. “Maybe we should talk, Dev…”
“No.” If he knew one thing, it was that nothing was to be gained by digging into their past. She had too much ahead of her to deal with, and he had to keep his emotions in check. “It was nothing. We were kids. Life goes on.”
He almost thought he saw a quick flare of hurt. He started to drop his hand and tell her to forget the whole thing—but then, very slowly, her hand rose from her side and slid against his skin.
And Dev felt like someone had plowed a fist straight into his gut.
For one treacherous second, his mind was filled with silvered moonlight on pale, smooth skin. With hot, deep kisses and a longing he’d never felt before—or since.
It was all Dev could do not to drop her hand like a hot potato, but instead, he even surprised himself. He drew her hand up to his lips. He breathed in her scent, redolent of spices and tropical flowers, and closed his eyes so she wouldn’t see how much he wanted her. How much memory claimed him. How much she had the power to hurt him.
Still.
He pressed his mouth to her knuckles and heard her tiny gasp.
Then he let her go and summoned the strength to smile as though nothing mattered.
“I know you want to back out. I hope you won’t.” He waited a beat. “The decision is yours. I’ll call you.”
Then he walked away, feeling like he’d just stepped back from the edge of a very steep cliff.
Texas Heroes: Volume 1 Page 36