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Louisiana would always be in his blood, he supposed, even if sometimes he wanted to exorcise it from his mind.
And here, on the outside, beyond the windows where the thoroughbreds looked out into the mundane, with his past shimmering in his blood, seemed the perfect place to wait for Vanessa. When the party was over, they would continue what they’d started.
He justified his exit from party networking by reminding himself he was mostly a mystery to the people inside, and it wouldn’t be wise to push himself too firmly just yet. His change of heart and legal specialty wouldn’t be welcomed by some, wouldn’t be believed by others. Keeping his distance, allowing them to learn about him in pieces, and, of course, letting the rumors fester and grow more elaborate could only help.
For years he’d deliberately kept the details of his past sketchy. Having a shady cousin who specialized in security matters worked in his favor at times. Some of his history they would never learn—or understand—but that also had its advantages. In his new life he wanted to walk in the light. He was tired of wading through muck, even though he always managed to find the gold in places nobody else wanted to go.
A talent or a curse?
He wasn’t sure he cared anymore. At least the money he’d earned had its uses. It provided comfort and security where once he’d suffered misery and chaos.
He heard the stumbling shuffle behind him before he turned and saw the heavyset man coming down the path. He guessed his age at under twenty-five, possibly a former athlete who’d stopped intense training and taken up late-night steak dinners and bourbon.
“Hallooo!” the guy said as he waved—and weaved—drunkenly toward Lucas.
Damn it to hell. I don’t have time for this.
“Bea-u-ti-ful night, ya think?” the drunk guy mumbled, gesturing with the crystal tumbler in his right hand.
“Ou—” Lucas had to physically stop the Cajun French from leaking out. “Yes.”
“I tell ya.” The man clapped a friendly hand on Lucas’s shoulder. “I haven’t seen a night like this ’un since our big hunt of oh-two. We were stalking these turkeys…”
Please, dear God, not another hunting story.
“Fascinating,” Lucas cut in. “Are you a professional?” From experience, he knew hunters loved this mistaken assumption.
Sure enough, the guy’s chest puffed out. “Nah. Just do it on trips with the firm.”
“What firm?” Lucas asked casually.
If possible, his chest expanded more. “Douglas and Alderman.”
“Ah. Top drawer.”
“You bet yer ass.”
For a moment, Lucas wondered if the guy talked with that heavy slang at the office. He couldn’t imagine so. Douglas and Alderman were reportedly both a couple of old-moneyed curmudgeons, who brandished traditionalism, dignity and family pedigrees like swords.
“’Course he’s gone and done it now.”
“Who?”
“Broke the code.”
Lucas angled his head as the guy took another long swallow from his glass. “Who broke what code?”
“Douglas. Joseph freakin’ Douglas.”
Ah. The premier curmudgeon. Who certainly wouldn’t want to be gossiped about by a junior executive. Which this guy had to be.
Lucas fought against curiosity and ethics. The latter he’d given up some time ago, and now wanted back. He should excuse himself. Hell, he should run the other way.
He didn’t move.
Though he’d never had the pleasure of a face-to-face introduction with Douglas, earlier that evening he’d not-so-subtly steered his elegant wife in the opposite direction from Lucas and the circle of people he had been talking to. They were undoubtedly part of the crowd who would likely never accept Lucas’s change of specialty. Of course, his lineage didn’t include Civil War generals whose wife and children had held their ground against Union troops in front of the family’s plantation home, then served them fried chicken, turnip greens and biscuits until peace was declared, thereby saving one of the few seventeenth-century homes still standing in Atlanta.
By contrast, Lucas’s ancestors had probably been too busy helping Blackbeard and Jean Lafitte pirate and profit in the Big Easy to bother with turnip greens.
He wondered if Douglas’s dissing could be an effort at intimidation. It likely wasn’t personal; he probably just didn’t like competition. Douglas’s firm had a division that specialized in helping companies and hospitals protect themselves against frivolous lawsuits—exactly the job Lucas had just been hired to do by Geegan, Duluth and Patterson.
“I couldn’t believe it,” the drunk guy muttered, hanging his head. “Ya can’t have two wills. Ya just can’t.”
Despite his effort not to listen, Lucas’s legal antenna shot up. “No. You certainly can’t.”
“Mrs. Switzer, she’s so nice. She’s so broke. It’s not right. We have to help her.”
“Of course you do.”
“But it’s still not right. The other will, you know.”
“The other will?”
“The one Mr. Switzer had Mr. Douglas draw up last month, just before he died. Why did he have to even talk to that stripper? And in Daytona Beach?”
“His client drew up another will?”
“No.” He shook his head emphatically, then laid his finger against his lips. “It’s a secret. Mrs. Switzer’s so nice. Did I tell you she always calls me by name? She always says, ‘Good morning, Anthony, how are you today?’ in that soft voice.”
“How gracious of her.”
“Mr. Switzer shouldn’t have had that affair. Mrs. Switzer’s so nice.”
He definitely should have run, Lucas reflected. There was a time when he would have relished having this kind of information about a competitor or opposing attorney. Other people’s bad habits—and subsequent carelessness—had fueled more than one victory in his past.
A stripper, an affair, illegally ignoring a client’s wishes? Two wills? It was an orgy of scandal.
He eyed the drunk junior executive next to him. Maybe the guy was full of crap. He could have gotten Douglas mixed up with an episode of Law & Order for all he knew.
He clapped the guy on the shoulder, then walked by him. “Sorry to hear about your troubles, mon ami, but I’ve got a hot date.”
“Hey, ya never tol’ me your name, buddy!”
Even if he had, the guy likely wouldn’t remember it. But Lucas couldn’t take the chance regardless. “No, I didn’t, did I?”
He inclined his head, then headed inside through the kitchen door.
“HOW HOT?” MIA ASKED, her eyes blazing with excitement.
“Smokin’,” Vanessa assured her as she stacked dirty dishes in a storage box.
“Ooh, you get all the good ones!”
Vanessa cut her gaze to her friend. “I do not. You do.”
Mia grinned. “Oh, right.”
“You get all the good ones, play with them awhile, then toss them away like old socks.”
“Somebody has to try them out and warn the rest of you away.”
“Half those guys want to marry you.”
Mia wrinkled her nose. “Exactly my point. Yuck.”
Vanessa shook her head and finished loading the box. Mia’s mother had been married and divorced four—or was it five?—times, so, not surprisingly, Mia considered matrimony as the black hole of relationships. She’s happy until that “I do, you do, we do” business, Mia always said, then dullsville becomes splitsville. No thank you.
Vanessa just hoped her friend wasn’t playing the breakup game because she was afraid she’d follow in her mother’s footsteps.
Oh, like you aren’t afraid of following in your mother’s footsteps? Red bra, tattoo and attitude—you’re a walking case of fear of debutante-itis.
Vanessa mentally waved away her bothersome conscience. “Still, Mia, you need to find a boyfriend. Somebody you love. Or can at least date for more than a month.”
“Why?”
Good question. She wasn’t sure. Maybe it was this longing to reconnect with her family that had her wishing for a lasting relationship in her life. In the past, when things hadn’t worked out with a guy, she’d shrugged and moved on, but lately she found herself wondering if she should consider her choices more carefully, if she should slow down and look for a more serious relationship.
Mia grinned. “Remember that great line by Madeline Kahn in Clue? Something about how men should be like tissues—”
“Soft, strong and disposable. I remember, but she didn’t have Colin—”
“Out.” Mia waggled her hands in a shooing motion. “Go find Mr. Hot. I’ll finish up.”
The reminder of Lucas brought a wave of longing and heat sizzled through her body. She was being brazen and rebellious again, flitting off into the night with a man she’d met just an hour ago. A man whose last name she didn’t even know. A man who would no doubt turn out to be mistake number 423.
She’d slow down tomorrow.
All but vibrating on the spot, she asked Mia, “Are you sure there’s not too much to clean up alone?”
“I’ll get Colin to help.”
“Good idea. I’ll call you later.”
“I’m jealous.”
“I know.”
“And he’s even safe. That ridiculous brandishing your invitation and a picture ID business your mother insisted on actually worked out in your favor.”
Her mother was the overprotective type, which is exactly why neither she, nor Vanessa, could classify what she was doing as safe. “He could be a closet fetishist. Maybe he likes to wear women’s underwear.”
“Or he could be bad in bed.”
Vanessa laid the back of her hand across her forehead. “Perish the thought.”
“Seriously, drive your own car, keep your purse, your Mace and your cell phone nearby.” Mia bit her lip. “Maybe I should meet him…. You know, just to be sure I get good vibes, too.”
No woman in their right mind would want a potential lover to meet gorgeous, darkly sultry Mia. Vanessa blew her a kiss as she backed toward the door. “I’m fine, and you’re too good to me.”
“It’s a big sacrifice, all right.”
“Be nice to Colin.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Before Vanessa could do more than smile, the door at her back swung open. She spun and found herself face-to-face with Lucas.
His broad shoulders almost completely filled the doorway. In the bright light of the kitchen, she could see the custom-made details of his dark blue suit and perfectly pressed white shirt. His hair was windblown into sexy disarray. His eyes, seeming even more intensely green than she remembered them, focused on her face. When a hint of his spicy cologne floated toward her, her knees wobbled.
As she grappled for stability in a world suddenly wavering, she tried to focus on what it was about him that riveted her attention.
His amazing looks, certainly. His elegance, intelligence and confidence, too.
But there was more. A kindred, tattooed spirit? A risk-taking nature? A sense that he, too, felt alone in the world much of the time? Hadn’t she just been wondering why she always had to be the pursuer in her relationships? Hadn’t she just told herself she’d give away a prized cheesecake recipe to have a man look at her the way Colin did Mia?
Well, here certainly was a man pursuing her and looking at her with more than a casual interest….
That look was it. Or part of it.
He focused on her. Only her. As if no one else existed for miles. The desire to continue to be the center of his attention was overwhelming her, drawing her closer to him as if he had a magnet buried inside his chest.
One side of his mouth turned up in an enigmatic smile. “Just the woman I was looking for.” His gaze slid to Mia, then back to Vanessa. “Ready to go?”
As her heart fluttered, she somehow managed to keep her voice from trembling. “Lucas, this is my roommate and business partner, Mia Medini. Mia, Lucas…”
“Broussard,” he filled in, giving Vanessa a wink that told her he wasn’t afraid of his last name.
Unlike her.
Lucas approached Mia with his hand outstretched.
Mia’s eyes widened briefly before she shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“You ladies did a wonderful job with the party.” His gaze met Vanessa’s. “I especially liked the strawberries…and chocolate.”
Vanessa’s stomach trembled.
And it happened again. He looked at her as if nobody else were there. His eyes glittered with the promise of delight and pleasure.
