Paris blew out a huge sigh. “Now that’s one for the record books. I really don’t know why they got divorced. It seemed like one day they were all blissful and the next day, she’d packed up and moved out. Nobody could really get to the bottom of it all because Julian was in such bad shape he wasn’t talking. When she left him, it really tore him up,” she said slowly. “Maybe if I tell you how they met, it’ll help you understand the whole mess better.”
Ruth curled up in the oversized armchair with Kasey beside her. “That sounds like a plan. Okay, how did they get together in the first place?”
Chapter 15
New Orleans, Louisiana Seven years ago
Julian Deveraux’s eyes lit up when he saw his baby sister standing on the steps of the university library. She was home for the summer and rather than sit around relaxing like a normal person, she was taking classes. She was a bright and academically focused young woman of whom he was very proud, but she wasn’t the reason behind the sudden light in his eyes. That look was for the young woman standing next to Paris. Who is she? She’s a cutìe, whoever she is, he thought. Like every Deveraux man in family history, Julian Deveraux had an eye for the ladies. And this one was just his taste. She was tall, almost as tall as Paris, who was about five-ten. She was a luscious shade of brown, like melting milk chocolate. Her skin was smooth and velvety-looking, too, and he wondered if it would taste as sweet as it looked. She was beautifully put together, with real hips and a real bosom intersected by a small waist. He loved a woman with a curvy body and hers looked perfect to him. She had long black hair that came below her shoulder blades in a long heavy braid. Her features were pretty and classic; she had a nose that was neither too wide nor too broad, a luscious-looking mouth with a Cupid’s bow and thick natural eyebrows over big dreamy eyes with long lashes. And she was wearing glasses, little wire-rimmed ones that only served to draw more attention to those big eyes.
For one wild moment Julian pictured her lying next to him with her hair spread out against a crisp pillowcase and her dreamy eyes softened with contentment. For some reason she smelled like lilacs and he was about to show her more of the passion they had just shared. He had to jerk himself back into reality before the young woman thought he was deranged. He greeted Paris and asked very nicely who her friend was. Paris smiled and began the introductions.
“Maya Simmons, this is my oldest brother, Julian. Maya is from Connecticut and she’s in med school. Maya, Julian goes here, too. He’s just finishing law school,” she said. Before either one of them could exchange a word, Paris glanced at her wristwatch and gasped. “Shoot, I’m fixin’ to be late for class! Maya, don’t forget you’re coming over for dinner,” she said over her shoulder as she darted off.
Julian could have kissed his baby sister. For one thing, she knew just what he liked in a woman. And for another, she’d never been late for a class in her entire academic career. She was just giving them a chance to be alone, God bless her. He took another look at Maya, who was looking better every minute. She was wearing a midcalf skirt and a modest T-shirt with a white lab coat thrown over one arm with a stethoscope sticking out of the pocket. Suddenly she spoke.
“It was nice to meet you, but I have to go,” she said.
Her voice almost made him collapse on the spot. It was soft and well-modulated, but deeper in tone than he would have expected. That low, sultry voice was the last thing he would have expected to hear from those pretty lips and it sent a nice little shiver up his spine. He gave her his best smile, the one that had been charming females of all ages since he was in grade school.
“I’m surprised we’ve never run into each other before,” he said.
She looked puzzled by the statement. “Why would we? It’s a big campus,” she pointed out. “And we’re in totally different disciplines, so there’s really no reason why we should.” She rearranged her book bag and jacket, and again said she had to leave.
“Are you on your way to class, or maybe to clinic? I’ll be more than happy to give you a lift,” he offered gallantly.
“No, thank you,” she said with polite disinterest.
“Well, if you don’t have a class right now, maybe we could get an iced tea or a cup of coffee,” he said, demonstrating the legendary Deveraux charm.
“No, thank you. Have a nice day,” she said and without another glance in his direction she turned and left him standing there looking like a gawky freshman. A high school freshman at that. He couldn’t stop watching her walk away, though, and was immensely cheered to note that she had a high, round booty to go with the rest of her bounty.
Paris joined him as he stood on the stairs looking at Maya’s retreating figure. She’d been hiding behind a huge column to see how things progressed and she was shaking her head as she returned to his side. “What did you say to her, you oaf? Obviously you scared her off,” she said with disgust.
Julian smiled down at her from his towering height. All Deveraux men were blessed in that department. “Are you kidding? I’m going to marry that young lady. She just doesn’t know it yet,” he said with a slow, sexy grin. “She’s gorgeous, smart and she has sense enough to run from a predator. She’s gonna be mine, just wait and see. C’mon, I’ll buy you lunch and you can tell me everything you know about her.” Without waiting for an answer, he draped his arm over her shoulders and they took off in the direction of his parked car.
***
Maya was so shaken by her encounter with Julian that she walked all the way back to her apartment. She usually took the bus or carpooled, but she was too rattled to do anything else but put one foot in front of the other. She lived in a big old house that had been divided into four generously sized apartments. She shared a second-floor two-bedroom with a fellow med student and on occasion there was a third or fourth person staying there on the pullout couch in the living room. When she’d reached the second floor and opened the door, she closed it immediately and leaned against it as if to catch her breath. She wasn’t really out of breath; all the walking she did on campus kept her in shape, as well as her regular swimming. Maya loved the water and took the time to swim several times a week in the natatorium on campus.
No, it wasn’t a lack of breath that was making her heart pound like a jackhammer; it was the encounter with the handsomest man she’d ever seen in her life. Why in the world did she have to run into someone like that? It was like being a diabetic in a pastry shop, full of delightful goodies that were all off-limits. And Julian Deveraux was definitely in that category. He should have the words Danger, Do Not Enter tattooed on his forehead. She was about to peel herself off the door and get something to eat before studying when her roommate, Minoo, came into the living room.
“What in the world is wrong with you?” she asked in alarm. “Is someone after you?” Considering the fact that they lived in a fairly dicey neighborhood, it wasn’t an impossibility.
Maya stood up straight and picked her book bag up from where she’d dropped it. “No, it wasn’t like that at all. In fact, I almost wish it had been a purse snatcher or something because this is much worse,” she mumbled as she straggled across the room to sit down at their dining room table.
Minoo’s eyes grew huge. She was East Indian; petite, funny, intense and very pretty. “You’re not making any sense at all. What are you talking about?”
Maya crossed her legs at the ankle and looked away from her friend. Finally she began talking and playing with the end of her braid at the same time. “You remember my friend Paris?”
“The tall girl, very pretty and nice? Yes, of course. What about her?” Minoo demanded.
Maya sighed heavily. “She introduced me to one of her brothers today. I knew she had four brothers, she talks about them all the time. But I had no idea they looked like that,” she muttered. Finally meeting Minoo’s worried gaze, she explained, “I met her oldest brother, Julian. In my entire life I’ve never been affected by a man like that. He’s tall and he smells good and he has nice manners and he�
��s just so handsome you wouldn’t believe it. I’ve seen good-looking men before but nobody ever made me weak in the knees. I had to get away from there while I could still walk,” she said, dropping her head into her hands.
Minoo’s eyes filled with understanding. “Oh, now I see. Was he stuck up and rude? Sometimes really good-looking men are,” she said.
Maya kicked at a table leg as she tried to explain. “No, Minoo, he wasn’t like that at all. He was really polite, very pleasant, in fact. He asked me to have coffee with him, he offered me a ride to class, and he was very, very nice.”
“So what’s the problem? He sounds like a very nice man, what’s wrong with him?” Minoo demanded.
“There’s nothing wrong with him, but there’s a whole lot wrong with me,” Maya said with a wry twist to her mouth. “On my best day I couldn’t hope to get a man like that interested in me and this is far from my best day. Men like that end up with tall, skinny, perfect-looking women who don’t smell like disinfectant and puke by the end of the day. That’s our usual perfume after a clinic day, if you recall. They don’t spend every hour of the day studying and every hour of the night toiling away in the hospital on whatever rotation you get stuck with. A dumpy medical student from Connecticut is not what Mr. Julian Deveraux is looking for in his life, trust me.”
Minoo’s expressive face went from concerned to exasperated to compassionate as Maya let out her frustrations. When she finally wound down, Minoo got up from the table and patted her hand. “I’m making you some tea. A glass of chai is just what you need. It will help you put everything into perspective.”
“There’s nothing to put into perspective. I think I’m being very realistic about this. There’s no point in getting all excited about a man who’s way out of my league,” Maya retorted bitterly.
“Honestly, Maya, I don’t know how you managed to get this far in medical school with such a fragile ego. You have everything a man could possibly want, including a beautiful figure. My cousin almost lost his mind when he met you, remember? In my country, men would be crawling on their hands and knees to get to you and you somehow think that this man is out of your league?” She banged the teakettle with force as she spoke.
“You are brilliant, Maya. You graduated from high school early, you got your undergraduate degree in three years instead of four and your MCAT scores are a legend on this campus. You’re the one student everyone envies, the one everyone wants to emulate and you feel inadequate because you don’t think you conform to some bizarre standard of Western beauty?”
Minoo continued to fuss as she prepared the fragrant, spicy chai. “Has it ever occurred to you that everyone doesn’t think the way you do? What makes you think this man is so stupid that he can’t have his own standard of beauty? You might be just the kind of woman he desires, how do you know?”
The look of shock on Maya’s face was so hilarious Minoo had to stop her lecture and laugh at her. She came and embraced her friend, kissing her on the cheek as she did so. “I’m sorry to be so harsh, but I can’t stand to see you unhappy like this. That’s why I’m glad I have an arranged marriage. I thought I would hate it, but I’m looking forward to it,” she admitted.
“But you’ve met him, haven’t you? I mean, you two already know each other and he’s not horrible or anything, right?”
Minoo laughed merrily. “I have known him for a long time and he is a wonderful man. If he were someone I found absolutely horrible or vice versa, we could call it off. But lucky me, he is tall and handsome, he is also studying medicine and he has very liberal ideas about women and men and marriage. We’ve always liked each other very much. We didn’t tell our parents that, we just let them think it was all their idea,” she laughed. “But you’re not fooling me. You are being very silly about this man. Just because a man is handsome, does that mean he’s also mean and stupid? Of course not. You should give him a chance, Maya. If he asks you out again, you should go. I insist,” she said with finality. “You will go out with him or I’ll call my cousin and tell him you like him, he’ll be here on the first plane to take you back to India with him.”
Maya laughed uproariously at that, while Minoo calmly served the chai in tall glasses filled with ice. “You keep laughing and you’ll find yourself in New Delhi with six children and no degree. My cousin is not very liberated,” she warned as they began to sip the sweet, milky tea that was both spicy and soothing.
Over the next few weeks, Julian exercised every weapon in his considerable arsenal to woo Maya. Even though she continued to blow him off, he didn’t stop trying. To a Deveraux the word no meant try harder. He’d picked Paris’s brain thoroughly for information that would make his path to Maya easier to tread, but she wasn’t much help.
“Look, she’s very sweet, so don’t even think about messing over her. She’s an only child and she’s from Connecticut. Her mother and father were really strict with her and I have a feeling she hasn’t dated too much. She’s really, really smart, some kind of genius, actually. She’s like a superhero around here. They call her the curve-buster because she routinely scores so high on all tests. They even give her some props in her clinicals and they usually treat med students like doody, you know what I mean. But Maya kind of holds her own because she’s quiet and minds her own business, but she has a way with people. She doesn’t act like a know-it-all, but dang, she’s real close to being one,” Paris had told him.
He’d held off as long as he could, but the day she attended church with Paris was his undoing. She’d worn a pink dress and she looked so pretty it was all he could do not to grab her and run out of the church with her. She was sitting in the pew the family usually occupied, with Paris on one side and his father on the other, so all he could do was try to pay attention to the service and not stare at her legs, which were stupendous. If he ever had any influence over her he’d get her to stop wearing midcalf skirts, they covered up something he considered to be a national treasure. Or maybe she should keep wearing them so no one could see those gorgeous legs except him. He was thinking about it so hard he almost missed the collection plate when it was handed to him.
He was thrilled to discover that this was the Sunday Maya was coming to dinner and he wasted no time in inviting himself along. It was okay though, since his brothers were also in attendance, the whole noisy, nosy crew of them. He quickly decided that his best course of action was to be the quiet one that day. He was the perfect gentleman, helping Paris set the table, leading the grace and refusing to rise to any of the pointed remarks his brothers threw his way. They knew that Maya was just his type and they could feel his temperature rising so it was their extreme pleasure to needle him all afternoon. He refused to go for the bait, though.
Instead of trying to sit next to Maya, he’d seated himself across from her so he had a better view of her face. He’d never seen a face he liked better. She looked like a doll with her wavy hair cascading down her back. The top was held away from her face in a big barrette, and soft, silky tendrils escaped and made her look sweetly feminine. She had a mind like a steel trap, though. She talked law with his father and impressed the hell out of his brothers, who were all aspiring lawyers like himself. She was smart, gentle and funny and before the meal had reached its conclusion, Julian knew in his heart that she was the one for him. No matter what it took, he wasn’t going to rest until she was his wife.
He started slowly, sending her a card here and a plant there. He was very canny about his choice of plants rather than flowers because he was right. She didn’t care for cut flowers, but she adored having green growing things around her. How he knew this he couldn’t have said, but Maya just didn’t seem like the dozen roses type. He stopped just short of stalking her, although he now knew her class schedule by heart and could find her on campus anytime he wanted to. They did encounter each other around the university a few times, and each time she was cordial if not warm, giving him the impression that she could at least stand the sight of him. He finally asked for her telep
hone number, which was a mere formality since he could have extorted it from Paris any time. He was touched to his heart when she wrote it down for him in his notebook. His slow, steady courtship now included telephone calls, which he made sure weren’t too frequent and too long. But he loved talking to her so much it was like torture for him to hang up the phone. He craved the sound of her voice like a starving man craved food; it was like sustenance to his soul.
He’d worked up the nerve to ask her out a couple of times, but she’d refused both times, citing exams as the reason. He didn’t harass her or beg her to go out with him because having just finished law school, he knew how very hectic her schedule was. It just didn’t stop him from wanting her more and more every time he thought about her, heard her dulcet voice or, best of all, caught a glimpse of her. But good things come to those who wait and the opportunity he’d wanted so long finally fell into his lap. It was a hot night and Maya happened to be on duty in the emergency room when what looked like the remains of a gang war straggled in. It wasn’t any such thing; it was just Julian and his overly spirited brothers.
Maya was shocked to find Julian in the examining room. He was sitting on the side of the bed looking like he’d been run over by a truck. One eye showed some definite bruising and a cut over the other eye was bleeding copiously, as head wounds will. His shirt was torn at the shoulder and his long legs, quite visible in shorts, had a number of scratches on them. She stared at him for a moment before speaking, and when she did, her normal doctor’s demeanor was gone.
“Julian, what on earth happened to you?” she gasped.
“This? Aww, this was just a family spat. My brothers and I were playing football and one thing led to another and this is the result,” he said offhandedly. “Trust me; we’ve all looked worse than this.”
She took his vital signs with trembling hands and dabbed at the cut over his eye. “You’re going to need stitches, you know. I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t leave a scar,” she murmured.
Before the Storm (The Cochran/Deveraux Series Book 9) Page 15