Picture Perfect Christmas

His eyes automatically went from the pictures to Philippe and back again. “You may be on to something,” he said. “I’d be mad, too, if somebody put me on display like a hunk of meat.”

Veronica was too busy looking at Philippe with new eyes to answer him.

Philippe’s anger hadn’t abated. He wasn’t the only one with a temper, though. Chastain was as hot as he was. “I asked you why you were here. Only select invitations were given for tonight’s showing,” she said nastily.

He hadn’t released her arm completely, but instead of clutching her upper arm he’d moved his hand until he was holding hers. With his free hand he reached into his suit coat and pulled out his invitation.

“If you didn’t want me here, you shouldn’t have sent this,” he said in a low voice that nonetheless resonated with fury. “And I can see why you wouldn’t want me here to witness that.” He didn’t bother to glance at the three nudes because he knew as well as she did that he was the model she’d painted so exquisitely.

“If you make a spectacle out of this evening you’ll live to regret it,” she said, barely moving her lips.

“If you don’t take those down right now, you’ll be the one with regrets. I’ll sue you and this gallery and anything else I can think of and it won’t be pretty,” he vowed.

Anyone else would have cowered under the heated rage and Phillipe’s look of pure venom, but Chastain wasn’t having it, not tonight. She was about to go off on him but David suddenly appeared with a glass of water.

“Here you are, sweetheart. You’ve been chatting so much I thought you might be thirsty.”

Chastain relaxed at once. “Thank you, David. This is an old friend, Philippe Deveraux. He surprised me tonight. I had no idea he’d be in New York,” she said with a slight edge to her voice.

David shook hands with Philippe, which caused him to let go of her hand. “Deveraux? You must be related to Chastain’s friend Paris,” he said with his usual calm demeanor.

“I’m her brother,” Philippe replied. Only Chastain, who knew him way too well, could hear the seething undertone in his voice.

“David, I’m going to chat with Philippe for a few minutes. I haven’t talked to Paris in a while and I want to catch up. We’ll be right back,” she promised as she began to lead Philippe to the elevator. Neither of them spoke until the elevator rose past the gallery, at which point Chastain poked him in the chest with her index finger. “You are a total jackass. I hope you know that.”

“And I hope you know you’re in a world of trouble, baby girl.”

“Arrgh!” Chastain growled as the elevator arrived on the third floor. She walked into the apartment and turned to face him. “You overgrown, arrogant, self-centered jerk! What makes you think I’d invite you to anything, much less my first showing in New York?”

Philippe again took out the invitation and the envelope in which it had come and tossed them at her. “This does.”

A sudden barrage of barks came from her bedroom and Chastain turned abruptly to let Lulu out of her crate. Further argument was forestalled as Lulu followed the sound and scent of Philippe into the living room. When Chastain composed herself enough to return she found Philippe sitting on the sofa while Lulu stood in his lap and licked his face fervently.

“I forgot she loves you best,” Chastain said.

“That’s only because I rescued her,” he said between licks.

Chastain looked away from the sentimental reunion and picked up the discarded invitation and its matching envelope. She took one glance at the handwriting and recognized it as Mona’s. I’ll deal with her later. Right now I have to deal with this.

“Look, Philippe, my assistant sent that invitation to you. I knew nothing about it. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to invite you because I knew you wouldn’t come all the way to New York for me,” she began. He cut her off with a sneer.

“It just so happens that I’ve been in New York for the past two months. I’m working up here.”

“You left the law firm?” Chastain blurted out the question without thinking. There were four Deveraux brothers in New Orleans and they practiced law together. Philippe was in environmental law and he was passionate about it.

“No, I didn’t leave the firm. I’m on a presidential committee working with the U.N. to push an international initiative for environmental programs. I’ll be here another couple of months.”

He patted the sofa cushion next to him and Lulu jumped off his lap and sat obediently. She put one paw on his hand and gave him her happiest smile. Chastain softened when she saw the adorable picture they made, but it didn’t last.

“I’m going back downstairs, Chastain. My date is probably wondering where I am. And make sure those pictures come down tonight or you and your friend will find yourselves in the middle of a nasty lawsuit.”

He rose to his full six feet five inches and gave Lulu a final pat before leaving. Chastain was left with a crumpled invitation in her clenched fist and the beginnings of a colossal headache. But if he thinks I’m taking those pictures down he’s got another think coming. The days when I did anything to please Philippe Deveraux are over, done and gone.

Chapter 3

“Well, that was fun. Thanks for bringing me along, Philippe.”

A deep growl was his response.

“She seemed really glad to see you,” the woman went on. This time her prodding had an effect. Philippe crossed his arms and lowered his thick eyebrows in a fierce glare.

They had left Studio L a few minutes after Philippe returned from talking to Chastain and once they were seated in the limousine that was waiting for them they’d ridden back to her home without a word being spoken. When they’d reached the two-story penthouse she called home, his date finally had enough. She closed the door behind them, locked it and turned to face him with a smile.

“She’s even more gorgeous than you said. Would you like a drink?”

“Frederique, if you say another word I’m going to throttle you.”

“Don’t call me that,” she warned. She hated her full name and would only answer to Ricki.

“Then stay out of my business,” he replied.

Ricki Fontaine covered a smirk with her hand and repeated her offer of a drink. She was a cousin of the Deverauxes from Lafayette. She had gone to Eastern schools and married a chef who was now a millionaire, thanks to his talent and business savvy. Or maybe he was a billionaire now, Philippe wasn’t sure. She was often his favorite cousin but not tonight. Tonight she was a pure pest.

He walked over to the French doors that led out to the terrace and frowned when he couldn’t open them. “How do you get out of here?”

“Thinking of jumping, are you? Loverman had everything in here child-proofed. The boys are absolutely fearless as well as being as curious as heck. And the girls are even worse, if that’s possible. So, unless your thumbprint can access the keypad over there you won’t be flinging yourself off the roof tonight,” she said dryly. “Or me, either, because you look mad enough to try it.”

“Loverman” was one of her many sappy nicknames for her husband, Antoine. And despite still looking like she was in her twenties, Ricki was the devoted mother of five children under the age of ten. Her long, black hair, smooth dark brown skin and her firm, curvy body all belied her mommy status. Normally Philippe considered her to be quite charming, but she was working his last nerve tonight.

“I’m going to bed, Ricki. Thanks for coming with me,” he said in a dead voice.

“Oh, no you’re not! You’re going to sit down and relax and I’ll make you a nice hot drink to loosen your tongue. You have some things to get off your chest. Let me check on my babies and get out of this outfit and I’ll be right back,” she said.

Philippe groaned as he took off his suit jacket. He had taken off his tie and cuff links and was staring balefully at the twelve-foot Christmas tree that graced the room when Antoine entered the room. He was wearing a silk robe and pajama bottoms, despite the fact that it was only nine o’clock. He put in long hours with his restaurants and usually retired early.

“The baby woke up and Ricki couldn’t let her go back to sleep without some mothering.” Antoine still had a strong French accent, even though he’d been in America for years. He and Ricki had met when she was in college and it was love at first sight. “She tells me you have some issues to deal with. Let’s have a cognac and you can tell me what’s putting that look on your face.”

Philippe was about to refuse the offer, but somehow the prospect of Antoine’s excellent cognac sounded like a plan. Antoine’s family owned one of the best vineyards in France and under the management of his brothers they had become one of the biggest importers in the world. Antoine also owned three restaurants in New York and two in New Jersey. His latest project, though, was training homeless and unemployed people in the restaurant business. He said it was his way of giving back to the country that had been so good to him.

They went into the study, which was also a wine cellar. The rich wood that lined the walls held specially made racks that were cleverly disguised behind the paneling and kept each bottle at the perfect temperature. Soon they were each sitting in sinfully comfortable club chairs with a snifter of a hundred-year-old imported cognac that warmed the throat and loosened the tongue.

“So what happened at the showing? Your friend, was she not pleased that you had come?”

Philippe snorted. “I wasn’t pleased that I had come. I haven’t seen Chastain since she dumped me three years ago to take off for France. Chastain and I have been in and out of love since we were kids. I thought at one point that we’d be getting married, but instead she got some genius grant and decided to leave me, leave her family and everything else and work on her painting in Paris,” he said with obvious bitterness.

“She’d already been away long enough. She went to college in D.C. and instead of coming home to New Orleans she pranced her little ass off to New York to get an MFA and just stayed here. After Katrina she moved back home and said she was back to stay. But after about four months she got the news that she’d been awarded this big fellowship. That was cool. It really was, because she’s extremely talented. She’s really gifted, Antoine, I’m not kidding. But the grant didn’t have any restrictions on it. She could have done anything she wanted with the money and she chose to just get up and go. She didn’t seem to give a damn about what she was leaving behind. She just left.” He drained the rest of his snifter and nodded in the affirmative when Antoine offered him a refill.

“I think you mean ‘who’ she left behind,” he said wisely. “You said ‘what’, but I think you meant to say ‘who’.”

Philippe shot him a searing look, but gave up and shrugged. “Who meaning me. Yeah, I guess that’s what I meant to say. Whatever.” Taking another sip, he looked longingly at the expensive humidor on the table.

Antoine understood the look at once and offered Philippe a cigar, which he assured him was excellent. “Better than a Cuban, I promise you. Normally Ricki makes me go out on the terrace, but as long as we air out this room she may let me live.”

After lighting the cigars the two men smoked in silence for a moment. Antoine went back to the subject at hand. “So you haven’t seen her in three years, you go to her opening and then what? She wasn’t glad to see you? She didn’t welcome you?”

“She made a fool out of me, that’s what she did. She’s there looking like she just left a photo shoot and she’s got some chump hanging all over her like he owns her. Before I could say anything to her, I happened to look up and see these three huge paintings of a nude man and then I realized they were paintings of me. There I am, big as life, hanging on a wall naked,” he snarled. The anger began building again until he felt it might erupt until Antoine interrupted him.

“So? They weren’t good pictures, you looked bad, what?”

“Hey, man, come on now. If you walked into an art gallery and saw three nudes, life-size nudes hanging in the middle of the room and you realized it was you, you’d be as mad as I am. That’s a total lack of respect. It’s like a slap in the face. It’s like letting the whole world know that I was just a lay for her. I don’t know how she could do something so low-down. But I told her that they’re coming down or I’m going to sue her and that gallery for…”

“For what? If someone painted me in the nude I’d be quite flattered, that is if they were beautiful art. Were they caricatures or cartoons? Did you look like an idiot or something?”

“Not really,” Philippe admitted. He roughed up his hair with one hand while he thought about the portraits. “It wasn’t like my full face was visible.”

“And she’s very talented, you said? Did she make you look good?”

Philippe was about to answer in the affirmative when he caught himself. “That’s really not the point, Antoine. The point is that she painted those pictures without my knowledge or permission and she has them on public display. My privacy has been invaded and she’d going to remove them from that exhibit or face the consequences.”

Ricki sailed into the study wearing pink silk pajamas and a cashmere robe in the same color. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not. Thanks for the talk, Antoine. I’ll see you tomorrow, this time I’m really going to bed.”

He left the room, leaving the couple alone.

“Loverman, what did we say about cigars?” Ricki waved her hand in front of her face with a grimace.

“Sorry, darling. Philippe looked like he could use one. I’ve never seen him this upset about anything before.”

Ricki got comfortable on her husband’s lap, snuggling next to his heart with a contented sigh. “Philippe is actually one of my more mild-mannered cousins. They all have hot tempers, but Philippe was always the most laid-back of the bunch. He must have really been crazy in love to react like that.”

Antoine stroked her silky hair and inhaled the fragrance that always clung to it. “How bad were the portraits? He seems to think they were a source of humiliation.”

Ricki turned her head so she could kiss his neck. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t really get to see them that well. I noticed them, but I was busy looking at these exquisite renderings of Bricktop and Richard Wright. This lady has an amazing gift, Antoine. I was staring at the paintings and the next thing I knew Philippe was dragging me out of there like the place was about to explode.

“But I want some of her work,” she said thoughtfully. “As soon as I take the children to school tomorrow the baby and I are going to have a little field trip. And I’m going to find out what’s going on with Philippe. I think I should call his sister to get the real scoop.” She was reaching for the phone when he stopped her.

“Call her tomorrow. Your husband is also crazy in love and he wants to show you how much.”

Ricki dissolved in sexy giggles, which were quickly drowned by her Loverman’s lips.

Philippe stood in the shower and let the hot water beat down over his body as though it could wash away the strange feelings that were roiling around inside. He’d always prided himself on being the man in control, the calm in the storm. Hell, he’d had to be the mediator in so many of his brother’s fights that he’d learned to control his emotions and keep a clear head. And all it took was one look at Chastain for all of his mature powers of reason to desert him. He’d done much worse than dive off the deep end, so to speak. He’d plunged into the shallow end of the pool of stupid and hit his head.

He finally turned off the water and stepped out of the huge circular shower enclosed in glass. He used one of Ricki’s thick towels to dry off and went into the bedroom to find something to sleep in. He normally slept nude, but he tried to exercise some modesty since he was in a home with small children. He’d already found out that they would occasionally burst into the room to say hello without an invitation. He put on a pair of boxers and an old T-shirt and sat on the side of the bed.

Chastain had always been a pretty girl, but during the time she’d been in France she had turned into a beauty. It wasn’t just the fact that he hadn’t seen her in three years. There was something remarkable in her transformation. When he’d spotted her across the room at Studio L, it was like all the air had been sucked out of his lungs. The dress she was wearing looked like it was made for her alone. It fit her like a second skin. It looked like a second skin, too, because it was so close to the honey color of her perfect complexion. Her hair was still short and ultra-stylish, showing off her beautiful eyes, deep dimples and the perfect lips that could kiss like no one else in the world, as he well knew.

He remembered the first time he’d ever laid eyes on Chastain, the day she’d come home with his sister, Paris. The family had recently moved to New Orleans and Paris was going to a Catholic school for girls. She hadn’t been looking forward to a new school but meeting her new friend Chastain had made her day. She’d promptly brought her home to meet the family and Philippe could remember it as if it was yesterday. She was a little thing with bony legs, a bandage on her knee and long, brown braids. One of her kneesocks was up and the other one was down around her ankle and her blouse was halfway tucked into her plaid uniform skirt. Instead of having her navy blue blazer on as it should have been, hers was tied around her waist and she was wearing big round eyeglasses with a piece of tape on the frame front. For some reason she was the cutest thing he’d ever seen and his opinion had never changed.

Even now, after she’d stepped on his heart twice and exposed his naked body to the world, he still couldn’t bring himself to despise her. After all they’d been through, all she’d put him through, something about her still called to him like a siren. But that didn’t mean he was going to let her off the hook. If those pictures stayed up, they were going to court.

Chapter 4

At Studio L, Chastain’s mood was no better than Philippe’s. After all the guests had left, she went up to the loft, accompanied by David. Mona wisely decided to stay downstairs for a moment, ostensibly to see to the guest book that all the attendees had signed, but she didn’t escape a dark look from Chastain that meant a conversation was inevitable at a later time. David asked if she wanted something to drink and she nodded.

“Just let me get Lulu out of her crate. She likes to be in there while I’m away, but she insists on being out the instant I return.” In a few minutes, she was back, taking a seat at the bar that separated the well-appointed kitchen from the dining area. Lulu was seeking David’s attention while he poured two cups of steaming tea that smelled delicious.

While Chastain sipped hers, he played with Lulu and fondled her ears. “So what happened tonight? I could see that Philippe upset you in some way. What was he saying to you?”

“Nothing much. He just said that if I didn’t take down the nudes he would sue you and me. He seemed to think that he was the model and that I was invading his privacy,” she said. She didn’t look at him while she was speaking. She was busy running her index finger around the top of the cup.

“He said what?” David looked incredulous before reaching over to take her free hand. “He can’t sue us. He doesn’t have any basis for a lawsuit, regardless of the subject of the paintings. It wouldn’t even get to court.”

Chastain allowed him to rub her hand and wrist and enjoyed the comforting sensation. “I don’t know about that. The law is something he knows very well. He’s a lawyer, his three brothers are lawyers, his late mother was a lawyer and his father is a state Supreme Court justice. He doesn’t play when it comes to the law.”

“Maybe not, but I think tonight was more about love than law. He did model for those paintings, didn’t he?”

Chastain jumped and pulled her hand away. “No! Well, not exactly. We did have a relationship a long time ago. And yes, when I painted the pictures I was thinking about Philippe, but it wasn’t like he was sitting in the room. I painted them from memory,” she said with a slight defensive edge to her voice.

“He must have meant a great deal to you,” David said quietly.

Chastain met his eyes for the first time and flushed under his steady gaze. His beautiful eyes were warm with concern and locked on hers. She had to answer him honestly; there was no point in lying. “At one time, he meant more to me than anything else. But that was a long time ago.”

“Before graduate school?” he probed gently.

“Before I started college, actually,” she told him. “He broke my little teenage heart a few days before Christmas when I was a senior in high school.”

David leaned over and kissed her forehead. “It was his loss,” he said.

“And then he broke it again before I went to Europe,” she said slowly, watching David’s face for his reaction.

“I see. So he blew two opportunities to be with you,” he said. “He’s a bigger fool than I would have imagined. Come walk me to the door. You need to get some sleep because you’re going to be hella busy for the next few weeks. The showing is going to be the talk of the town, Chastain.”

“You’re right. If we get sued by the Deveraux family, everybody on the East Coast is going to know about it,” she said wryly.

“He’s not stupid, Chastain. He might be jealous and cranky because he can see that he threw away two chances of a lifetime with you, but he’s not crazy enough to try to pursue a frivolous lawsuit like that. It’ll all blow over, believe me.”

“I wish I could.”

“You can.”

He held out his hands and she took them, rising from the tall stool. She and Lulu walked him to the door and she wasn’t surprised when he kissed her. He did it slowly and gently and it was warm and reassuring, like everything about David.

“See you tomorrow, Chastain. I’ll send Mona up. I have a feeling she’s hiding from you.”

“And you know this. Tell her I’m up here with a blunt instrument just for her head.”

“You’re crazy. Sleep well.”

“Mona, I’m not going to kill you, at least not in front of Lulu. She’s much too delicate to witness murder, aren’t you, sweetie?”

Lulu was making growling noises as she burrowed under the many pillows at the head of Chastain’s bed. Her head popped up as Chastain spoke and both women laughed at her disheveled look. “Shake it out, Lulu, you got crazy face,” Chastain said. The little dog shook her head vigorously, restoring her usual appearance. “Now as for you, Miss Mona, I don’t know what to say to you. When had you planned on telling me you sent that invitation?”

Both women were wearing pajamas and Chastain was applying cream to her face as she spoke. Chastain was in the middle of the bed and Mona was perched on a broad hardwood bench with a thick upholstered cushion.

“I wasn’t trying to start anything, I really wasn’t. It’s just that I was trying to invite everyone who was close to you. I just went down your address book.” Her face was pink from embarrassment. “Besides, I know how close you are to his sister and the rest of the family, so I thought it would be strange if you didn’t invite him, too. And, I um, I um…”

Chastain stopped smoothing the cream onto her neck. “Um, what? Go ahead and spit it out, the worst has already happened. You um what?”

Mona bit her lip in an effort to look innocent. “Okay, well, you talked about Philippe so much and I could tell, well, I always felt like he was your true soul mate and I thought if you two got together in New York at Christmastime anything could happen,” she said hurriedly.

Chastain didn’t lash out at her, although she did try to sic Lulu on her. “Go bite her, little girl. Bite her big toe,” she urged.

“I’m not going to say you were wrong in what you did, but your reasoning was way off base. The Philippe Deveraux ship has sailed, as you could see for yourself tonight. Did you happen to notice the woman he was with? His date? That’s the kind of woman he really goes for, tall, dark, curvy and delicious. He and his brothers all have a thing for a woman they can hang on to. But she’s got to be beautiful and brilliant, too. All of their women are the business, honey.”