Temptation

She felt suddenly nervous, and childlike under his steady gaze. She lowered her eyes, focusing them on her notepad.

“Will you be dining alone?” Irrationally she hoped that he was.

“Fortunately.”

Her head snapped up in question. Her face was hot with embarrassment, as if he’d read her mind. “Pardon?”

Jordan chuckled at her discomfiture while enjoying the lilt of her creole accent. “Fortunately, because I hope that you may be able to join me.”

“Oh, no, monsieur,” she mumbled, both flattered and afraid. Nervously she looked around for her aunt. “That is not possible.”

“Maybe not now. But you will. Perhaps next time,” he said, fully confident that it would be a reality.

Jordan looked at the lovely young woman and smiled. He was used to having what he wanted and from the moment he set eyes on Noelle, and saw the spark of eager intelligence in her eyes and the pride with which she wore her stained uniform, he determined that she would be his.

“In the meantime, I’d like a table and a bottle of your best wine—to toast the occasion of our meeting.”

Noelle felt her heart flutter. She didn’t know which way to look. Instead she turned and quickly guided him to a vacant table near the piano.

For the balance of the evening, she consciously avoided going near Jordan’s table. But it didn’t stop him from following her with his eyes.

Throughout the night, each time that Noelle dared to look in his direction, he raised his glass in a toast. Then, in an instant, without warning, he was gone.

Several months passed and Noelle didn’t see Jordan again. But she couldn’t seem to forget him or the way he’d made her young heart feel. Special. No one had ever done that before. Each time that she strolled through the teeming New Orleans streets, she thought she spotted him in the crowd. At night she dreamed of his face. The strong caramel features, wide dark eyes and hair that reminded her of the first sprinklings of snow.

Then, when she was beginning to believe that seeing him again was an impossibility, he reappeared one steamy night in August.

Noelle saw him standing in the doorway. A flood of heat swept through her and for several moments she stood immobile, unwilling to believe that he had returned. She willed her legs to move.

“You’re just as beautiful as I remember,” he said, his deep timbre thrilling her.

No one like him had ever called her beautiful. She smiled in response.

Her heart raced. “What brings you back after so long, monsieur?”

He took her hand in his. “I thought you’d be ready to have dinner with me now.”

Noelle felt her body tremble. She quickly looked around the café. She spotted her aunt scowling at her from the rear.

She looked up at him, her eyes begging him to understand. “Please, monsieur, my aunt…” She looked over her shoulder.

Jordan looked beyond Noelle and spotted Chantal.

“Let’s tell your aunt that you’ll be leaving.” Gently, he pulled Noelle behind him and walked up to Chantal.

That was the last day that Noelle worked in the café. Jordan had smoothly convinced Chantal that her niece had the potential to achieve wonderful things, and he was going to be sure that she did. In exchange for Noelle’s services, Jordan dutifully sent a very large check to Chantal each month, which seemed to appease her. However, it was difficult for Chantal to believe that a man like Jordan Maxwell could see any value in her meek, little niece. But if he was willing to pay for Noelle’s absence, who was she to argue? Perhaps Jordan saw something in Noelle that she, herself, had missed all of these years. She could only hope that Noelle would be happy in her new life.

For a man who had conquered every obstacle in his life, Noelle was a new challenge for Jordan. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of his soul, Jordan saw in her a part of him that was missing. Her naïveté intrigued him. She didn’t have a greedy, or pretentious bone in her body. She was unlike any woman he’d ever known. But he knew that in order to fit into his world she would have to be molded as a sculptor models clay into a work of art.

Noelle was instantly caught up in Jordan’s vision of what he wanted for her. His dream became hers. She was overwhelmed by his expectations, thrilled at the possibilities yet frightened of the doors that he intended to open for her.

“You have talents that you have yet to discover,” he’d said to her. “I intend to bring them to the forefront for all of the world to see.”

The first step in her transformation was her education. Jordan hired private tutors to help refine her speech and catch up on her studies. Studies that were conducted in the cozy apartment that he’d selected for Noelle. With that completed, he sent her to the University of Virginia, where she’d met Tempest and Braxton. Her graduate work took place in Europe, Africa, the Orient. She purchased her leather from Italy, her jewels from Africa, her silks from Hong Kong. She visited the finest haute couture houses in Paris.

Noelle didn’t have time to think about what was happening to her. She felt as though she were in some magical dream world where Jordan was the magician who could make anything happen. But Jordan was a hard taskmaster. “Can’t” was not in his vocabulary. He demanded perfection from everyone around him, and accepted no excuses for anything less. He readily used ridicule as a weapon to propel you. Ultimately you produced, if for no other reason than to prove him wrong. In the end, you achieved what you thought was impossible, and secretly you thanked Jordan. He, in turn, received your loyalty.

With no close friends nearby, and her only family hundreds of miles away, Noelle was enveloped in the cocoon that was Jordan Maxwell. She relied on him for everything.

Noelle always felt as if she were in a never-ending dream. She agreed with every suggestion, critical comment or word of effusive praise that Jordan uttered, afraid that if she ever challenged Jordan’s wishes, for her, she’d wake up from her dream and find herself back in Chantal’s café.

Her transformation took five years to complete, and in the fifth year, Jordan married his creation.

Jordan Maxwell had literally swept Noelle off of her feet and into a world that she had only imagined. Only now it was more magnificent than she’d ever dreamed. She was only beginning to see the power that Jordan wielded. With a simple phone call he could have planes, boats, cars at his disposal. With a dash of his signature he could transfer millions of dollars. By simple request, he could secure the company of politicians, diplomats, movie stars. “Everyone has a weakness, Noelle,” Jordan often told her. “Find it and you have conquered them.”

Her sheltered years in New Orleans had left her naive about the ways of the world. Even her travels across the globe were chaperoned. She never imagined how much subterfuge, envy, and viciousness that existed in Jordan’s everyday life and did not believe the rumors of darker dealings.

What she did understand, however, was that she did not truly fit into his world. All of the fine clothes, the culture, the money, the power would not change the fact that she was only a cook from a backwater café. And to Jordan’s friends and associates, she always would be.

Jordan protected her as much as possible from the gossip. She, in turn, worshipped the ground that he walked on. But deep in her heart, she wondered if Jordan truly loved her. She knew he loved what he could do for her and he loved the person that he’d created. But did he truly love her? She didn’t think so.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Noelle,” Tempest said softly. She gently stroked her arm, pulling Noelle back from the depths of her memories.

Noelle blinked back the images. She gave Tempest a faltering smile. “I know,” she whispered. “These are my ghosts. I’ll find a way to banish them. One day.” She forced a smile. “In the meantime, I have a half dozen guests that have reservations for the opening weekend. So, shall we get them settled?”

Chapter 3

Trent moved like a caged panther around his suite, tossing his belongings around as if they were to be discarded.

Noelle St. James-Maxwell had unnerved him. That’s all there was to it. He’d never met a woman capable of doing that to him, especially without even trying.

He blew out an exasperated breath and jammed his hands in his pockets. How in the world was he supposed to accomplish what he’d come to do, if he couldn’t be in the same room with her without losing his cool? To compound the problem, once she realized who he was, he was sure she wouldn’t come within ten feet of him.

He ran his hand across his bearded chin. Perhaps he could get around that little inconvenience, he thought. At least until he won her confidence.

He stopped pacing. The wheels began to spin. He was sure that he could pull it off. All he needed was a few weeks, two months at best, and his work would be finished.

He strode across the room to the phone and picked up the elaborate Liaisons brochure that had only been distributed to the selected few. He dialed the private number.

The illuminated numbers on the bedside clock, were reflected in Noelle’s weary eyes. In little more than an hour the sun would rise across the bay. She hadn’t slept more than a few minutes all night.

Instead of succumbing to the fatigue that enveloped her, she tossed and turned, reliving the moment she’d heard of Jordan’s death. She never confided her true feelings to anyone about that moment.

She’d always been too ashamed.

No one really knew or understood her relationship with Jordan. On the surface, they appeared to be the fairy tale couple come to life. In a way, they were. They looked great together. Their goals were one. They were perfectly complementary. Yet her life was anything but a fairy tale, it was simply all that she knew.

While she respected and adored Jordan, he left her empty. She was a shell, a product of his creation. She missed something she had no name for and every so often pangs of loneliness would hit her. How many times had she questioned her reasons for remaining with Jordan? How many nights had she spent alone, unfulfilled, but too loyal to her husband to commit the unspeakable? Jordan sensed it too and inexplicably he provoked her, intentionally trying to drive her into another man’s arms.