by Leslie Kelly
Anyone who broke the heart of her baby sister deserved destroying. He was just lucky Jade was only going to humiliate him, not castrate him like she’d prefer to do.
“There is one other person who could get away with saying such a thing,” Tally said, after probably trying to decide whether or not Jade had been paying her a compliment. “Your mama. I wish she hadn’t chosen this month to go on her cruise. I need her here.”
“It is her honeymoon,” Jade said, not bothering to keep a dry note from her voice.
“What’s one more honeymoon to your mama?”
That sentence, in a nutshell, could probably explain Jade’s entire life. They’d each had their own ways of dealing with Daddy’s death more than a dozen years ago. Jade had grown mature before her time. Jenny had settled firmly into her role of spoiled baby. And Mama had just kept getting married, hoping she’d find someone else to love as much as she’d loved Daddy.
A shrink would probably say their past explained why Jade felt so protective of her sister, Jenny. It had been the two of them, facing the zaniness of their world with a much-married mother and a scandalous family, for a long time. Though only five years older, Jade had become so used to mothering her sister that she sometimes forgot they were just siblings.
It incensed Jade to remember the tears on her sister’s cheeks. Jenny deserved some payback for what Ryan Stoddard had done to her. And Jade was going to see that she got it.
“Jade? Are you listening to me?”
She returned her attention to Tally. “Of course. But I have to say, this time I think Mama’s finally met her match. A man with money who doesn’t let her tell him what to do.”
Tally nodded. “I have high hopes, too. But I do miss her. I needed her tonight. I don’t suppose you…”
Jade narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “Don’t even think about it. I’m not one of your society matrons. Most people in this room have no idea who I am, and I like it that way.”
Tally frowned. The argument was an old one.
“Besides,” Jade added, “if I want somebody to drop dead, I’ll tell them to drop dead. Not, ‘How delightful you look, sugah. Oh, I just love your hair. Why, it’s almost exactly the shade and style of my grandma’s French poodle.”’
Tally chuckled as Jade laid on a heavy Southern accent, which was nearly nonexistent in her everyday speech. “You’re rather good at that.”
“I don’t want to be,” Jade replied.
And she didn’t. No matter how much her mother and her cohorts had tried to teach her, Jade had never learned to enjoy being sweet while cutting, honest while evasive. She much preferred direct insults to veiled ones, outright lies to such intricate games.
Though, tonight she was setting herself up for a very intricate one, wasn’t she? The thought made her return her attention to the dark-haired stranger. She shivered a little. Intricate games, indeed.
“‘Bye, darling, have fun,” Tally said. Then she greeted the rich northerner with an air kiss and a gushing compliment on his clip-on tie, which Jade knew must be driving Tally mad.
Jade watched, then whispered, “Time to move.”
As she sipped her drink—ginger ale with a twist of lime, which would appear to most to be alcoholic—she scanned the crowd again. Even if she hadn’t been looking for the man when she’d shown up here tonight, she knew her eyes would have sought him out anyway. Just as any woman looked at something she desired but couldn’t have.
Only, Jade meant to have him.
Earlier, his blue suit had stood out in the sea of black tuxes and brightly colored gowns, but she didn’t spot him at first. Then finally she found him, leaning indolently against an arched doorway leading to another room.
Watching her.
He’d been watching her.
She flushed slightly. Darn. Caught off guard.
The man’s eyes met hers from across the room. Blue. Or green. Surrounded by lush lashes and topped by dark brows that were slightly raised as he caught her stare.
Then he smiled.
Her legs wobbled. Good lord, no man had made her legs wobble since she was twelve and her Cajun second cousin had visited from New Orleans. Stoddard was altogether too big. Too ruggedly handsome. Too powerful-looking to play games with.
Yet that’s exactly what Jade planned to do. Play games with him. And then leave him in the dirt.
But why is he here?
She didn’t mean why was he here in Savannah. She knew why—for a big architects’ convention, conveniently scheduled in her home city this year. The convention had saved her from traveling to New York to track him down.
But she’d expected him to stay at the hotel adjoining the convention center. Finding out from a friend at the hotel that he wasn’t registered there had been a shock. Even more of a shock had been learning he was staying here at the Medford House.
Ryan Stoddard had no business being in this secluded, exclusive little piece of Savannah society. No business at all. He should be sitting in a loud hotel bar with the sounds of tinkling glasses and businessmen comparing last year’s sales figures. Scoping out the women, flirting while they wondered how far they could go without technically cheating on their wives.
Not here, amid the husky laughter of bored millionaires and the scent of jasmine and magnolia that permeated the room from open French doors leading out to the lush grounds. Not in this place which many decades ago would have held tobacco planters and wounded veterans, as opposed to the bankers and stock brokers who comprised the elite set these days.
This was her turf. And damned if she wanted him on it. She’d planned to launch her attack on his ground, then slip away, back into the shadows of hers, where he’d never find her.
No way could she implement her original plan. A big chain hotel would have been simple—a pickup in a bar, a trip to his room, a heated encounter. Then walking out, laughter on her lips, leaving him naked and humiliated as he realized he’d been had. Realized he wasn’t going to get off scot-free for breaking the heart of a member of her family.
“Jenny,” she whispered, still missing her only sibling.
Her sister had gone off to try to be a star on the stage in New York City, against the family’s wishes and to Mama’s utmost horror. She’d landed on the stage, all right—a raised platform in a diner where she served chicken noodle soup and pastrami on rye between showstopping numbers.
She’d seemed happy enough, though, at least until last week when she’d come home for Mama’s wedding. Jenny had been crying about a man she’d met at the restaurant. She’d fallen hard as only a vulnerable, lonely twenty-one-year-old could. The stranger had swept her off her feet then dropped her flat.
Ryan Stoddard, aka the bastard.
It was time for him to pay. If Aunt Lula Mae found out, she’d likely want to punish him herself. And it still might come to that. If Jade couldn’t publicly humiliate him, she just might have to get some of his hair and let Lula Mae do what she did best—curse him so he’d never be able to, uh, perform again.
But not until she’d given it a shot. Her way.
Which meant Ryan Stoddard was in for the most embarrassing night of his life.
RYAN HADN’T EXPECTED her to be so beautiful.
She stood out like an exotic jungle flower among a bunch of daisies. Her silky-looking dark hair was nearly black, skimming over her shoulders and down her back until it was lost against the color of her dress. A soft, red scarf draped loosely across her shoulders provided a dramatic contrast that drew the eye again and again.
Her skin was smooth and perfect, a warm tanned color like fine coffee full of rich, sweet cream. She was taller than most of the men who’d been eyeing her all evening, and held her slender jaw slightly up, indicating confidence and perhaps a bit of arrogance.
Though in a crowd, she seemed alone. Her detached attitude was enticing because of its mysterious quality, but off-putting because of her disinterest in her surroundings.
Her body was s
in, her face was flawless, her eyes were wicked.
How appropriate for a thief.
“Mr. Stoddard, are you enjoying yourself?”
Mamie Brandywine, the owner of the bed-and-breakfast and museum, joined him. She briefly pulled his attention off his target, the woman he’d come to Savannah to find. Jade Maguire.
“Very nice, thank you.”
“And you’re finding your tours of the local plantation homes helpful in your research?”
“Absolutely,” he said, trying to get his mind off the seductive, deceitful temptress and back on his job. Something he’d been putting on the back burner for the past few weeks while trying to get retribution for what had been done to his grandmother. Fortunately, his quest for justice had led him here, to the very city he needed to visit while writing an article on the architecture of the Old South.
“I’m truly enjoying the tours you’ve set up. Thanks so much for arranging for me to stay in some of the local inns,” he added, trying to find some basic element of charm—or at least cordiality—within himself. It had been buried beneath a layer of anger for weeks.
That anger had increased the moment he’d seen Jade Maguire. She should have looked like a thief, a crone, a crook.
But she didn’t. She looked like every man’s fantasy. The kind of woman he’d always imagined but never found—mysterious, sultry, intelligent, almost unattainable. God, Ryan couldn’t resist a challenge. And Jade Maguire screamed, “Look, but don’t touch,” a challenge no man could resist.
To his eternal shame, he wanted her in spite of knowing what she’d done. Wanted her with instant avarice and a healthy dose of anger. He wanted her under him, crying for mercy even as she cried out in passion and begged him to take her.
He’d never felt the heady mix of passion and anger before. Never understood its power, though he’d heard of it affecting other men.
Now he got it. It was nearly painful to be in the same room with a woman he’d desired on sight, but who’d swindled a valuable family heirloom from a helpless elderly woman.
Well, he could concede, his grandmother was not exactly helpless. She had a steel spine beneath her high-necked blouses—which made it even more imperative for him to get the painting back as soon as possible. The elderly woman was so embarrassed at having been tricked by the deceitful con artist that she’d refused to bring the police in on the case. She’d also forbidden him to tell Grandfather she’d let the painting be stolen. She’d concocted some story about it being on loan for an exhibit to keep the old man from asking any questions. She was relying on Ryan to bring it back before she could get caught.
“I can’t tell you how pleased we are that Architectural Digest is going to devote an article to the construction of our fair city,” Mamie said, interrupting his heated thoughts about the woman across the room.
The article. The reason Ryan was getting the red-carpet treatment here in Savannah. What perfect timing that he’d come here for an annual meeting, after being solicited to write a piece for the journal. He’d kill three birds with one stone.
The conference. The article. And the thief.
“Savannah has paved the way for other cities to save their historic treasures,” he replied, completely in earnest. “Anyone who wants to preserve treasured buildings of the past would look to your city as a fine example.”
The pudgy woman preened and not very subtly smoothed her hand over the low, tight neckline of her unattractive, fluffy green dress. Very tight. Very low cut. The wares were nearly spilling out, which was apparently what she wanted.
Ryan stiffened ever so slightly and took a small step back. His stance grew a bit more formal as he sent out a silent message that he hoped she’d get. He didn’t want to have to flat-out turn her down and risk alienating the woman who owned the inn he’d be sleeping in tonight. Particularly because he imagined she had keys to all the rooms.
He had a sudden mental flash of a fleshy woman creeping into his bed in the dead of night. Talk about your basic nightmares. He’d had flings with older women—his university guidance counselor came to mind—but never decades older.
Then the picture in his oversexed brain changed, and it wasn’t the proprietress face he imagined entering his room in the dark of night. He saw the thief—Jade—lovely and deceptive. Graceful and conniving. Intoxicating and completely ruthless.
The image of her dark black hair against his white sheets made him gulp a big mouthful of his drink.
“Are you all right, Mr. Stoddard?” Mamie asked as he coughed a bit into his fist.
“Fine,” he murmured. “Just…went down the wrong way.”
Everything about this situation had gone down the wrong way, from the minute his grandmother had told him she’d been robbed. First, tracking the wrong J. Maguire from Savannah, he’d wound up meeting the younger sister, Jenny, up in New York. He’d realized within hours that she wasn’t the right woman. Thankfully, he’d only taken her out to lunch once. So she wouldn’t have had any reason to mention him to her sister.
The second detective he’d hired—a better one—had found Jade, and his grandmother had confirmed the description. Ryan had taken the information and come to Savannah determined, in charge, using the cover of the convention and the article to get where he wanted to be—close to her.
Everything had gone fine. Right up until the moment he’d actually seen the woman he was after.
He could be in over his head with this one. It was somehow exciting, rather than disturbing, to imagine the sexy brunette sneaking into his room. Trying her tricks on him, creeping in to take something that belonged to him. Taking him.
He forced the traitorous thought away. Yes, she was damned attractive and he had to clench his fists to remind himself he had to trick her. Not take her.
Unfortunately.
“Well, if you need any help getting around,” Mamie said, not noticing his distraction, “I’d be more than happy to help you in any way.” She drew her hand to her throat again, flashing a big chunky rock on her ring finger and tapping her collarbone with the tip of her red-tinted fingernail.
Not on your best day, lady.
Since she hadn’t gotten the nonverbal hint, he gave her a broader one. “I’m also enjoying getting to meet some of the beautiful young women of your city.”
That seemed to get through. The woman was twenty years his senior, at least, with a husband dangling around here somewhere, probably downing drinks wondering how he was going to pay for her next party. Not to mention her next diamond.
“Well, there’s no shortage of those.” This time Mamie’s smile was somewhat forced.
“What about her?” Ryan asked, nodding toward Jade, who stood talking with an older woman in a Southern-belle ball gown.
Mamie’s mouth stiffened even more. “Jade Maguire. She can show you some things, all right. She owns one of those trashy tour guide companies that prey on out-of-towners who like to be scared out of their wits with silly ghost stories at night.”
Nothing he hadn’t known. The private detective he’d ordered to track down the right J. Maguire had sent a file on Jade’s company, Stroll Savannah, which had become one of the most popular tourist traps since she’d opened it a few years ago.
He knew where she lived. Where she’d gone to school. What she liked to drink and when she liked to eat. Who she employed. Who she dated—nobody, really, which had been a surprise. When she traveled and where she went.
He’d been prepared for everything. Everything except how beautiful she was.
“You can find better tour guides,” Mamie said.
The biting tone in the woman’s voice was a surprise. Then again, he imagined a woman who looked like Jade got a lot of jealous responses from overweight, aging society matriarchs. He was about to put the woman in her place, some unexpected instinct making him want to defend Jade, a woman he personally had hated for weeks. But before he could do so, Mamie continued.
“Her father was just an Irish bartender.�
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“So she’s not a native of the city?”
Mamie shrugged, then grudgingly conceded, “She’s actually part of a long lineage of Savannians. On her mother’s side. Her father’s name was Maguire, but her mother’s maiden name was Dupré.” The woman leaned close, looking around to ensure she wasn’t being overheard. “Some of those Duprés…well, they’re not quite the purest family line, if you know what I mean.”
He didn’t. And for some reason, though he should want to gather more ammunition to use against Jade, he resented the woman’s snide tone and didn’t ask for details.
“The party’s going well.”
She frowned at the change of subject, looking disappointed that he hadn’t taken the bait. Why hadn’t he? Stupid. That’d been a stupid move. But he somehow couldn’t find it within himself to regret it.
“I suppose.” Then she put out her dark-tinted bottom lip in a small pout. “Are you going to be moving to the Winter Garden House tomorrow? You’re sure we can’t convince you to stay?”
Ryan shook his head. “Sorry. I must spend some time at all the inns I’ll be writing about.”
Not to mention the fact that Jade Maguire’s tour company capped off their nighttime haunted history tour with a visit to the famous Winter Garden inn. Since he’d paid one of her employees to call in sick tomorrow night, he knew damn well who’d be leading the tour.
It was almost too easy luring the tigress into his den.
Hell, she was making it even easier because she’d been looking at him all night. Giving him these intense stares, studying him.
Ryan was used to the stares of women. Under normal circumstances, this woman’s interest would have gotten exactly the kind of reaction he’d always had to a beautiful, seductive female. Instant heat. Hot pleasure. The kind of crazy passionate relationship he’d enjoyed more than a few times in his life. The kind that had kept him from settling down to anything more permanent—much to his grandmother’s dismay.
Grandmother didn’t believe he wasn’t secretly interested in marriage, kids and all the suburban crap the women she introduced him to seemed to want. And he didn’t want to force her to admit he didn’t possess the love-at-first-sight gene that had downed so many of his family members.