As You Like it

“I still design them.”

“But not for profit. Creating sophisticated computer toys for my kids doesn’t count.”

“Profit’s just another word for selling out.”

“Spoken like a true rich man.”

“Don’t start with me.” Beau raised a finger. The one riff that existed between them was the issue of Beau’s mother.

Francesca Gregoretti Thibbedeaux MacTavish Girbaldi had been born with a platinum pasta fork in her mouth and a flare for the dramatic. She could trace her family lineage back to Christopher Columbus and she lived life with the full entitlement she believed was her due.

She’d met Beau’s dad when she was just sixteen and visiting America on a work visa for a modeling assignment. She’d fallen for Charles Thibbedeaux’s charm and he had tumbled for her beauty, not realizing she came from one of the wealthiest families in Europe. When Francesca got pregnant with Beau, Charles had dutifully married her in front of a justice of the peace at city hall and in that one fateful action brought down the wrath of the powerful Gregoretti clan.

And set the stage for the battle zone that became Beau’s childhood.

He had been through it all with his mother. Divorce, family squabbles, divorce, the numerous lovers, more divorce. But what hurt him the most were the prolonged periods of estrangement from his father and his two half siblings.

Francesca’s little dramas had been played out in lavish backdrops all over the world. A chalet in the Swiss Alps. A villa in Italy. A castle in Scotland. On the Concorde. On a Greek shipping magnate’s yacht. Riding the Orient Express.

From the bright lights of Las Vegas to the hustle and bustle of New York City to the exotic crush of Hong Kong, he’d trailed Hurricane Francesca and her wreck of human carnage.

Beau would have given his last breath to have spent his life at his father’s treasured ancestral home outside of New Orleans with Jenny and Remy and his sweet-natured stepmother, Camille.

But spoiled, pampered Francesca liked using him as a bargaining tool far too much to ever let him go.

Beau shook his head. He didn’t like dwelling on the past.

“You need a purpose in life.” Remy slung the white bar towel across his shoulder and plunked down in the chair across from him. “You’re adrift.”

“I’m waiting.”

“For what?”

Beau shrugged. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

Just then the sound of high heels clicking against concrete and the whiff of honeyed perfume lured Beau’s attention to the doorway.

A tall, striking blonde stalked over the threshold and into the bar with the presence of gale-force winds. He certainly knew the type. Had seen such women every day on the streets of New York City, dominating the sidewalks with their intensely focused determination. Tough. Success oriented. Self-centered. He had watched them and pitied them.

They had no connectedness to anything truly meaningful. Everything about them screamed money and status and image.

She looked to be in her midtwenties, maybe a couple of years younger than his own twenty-nine years, with flawlessly applied makeup. She wore an understated but expensive long-sleeved blue silk dress cut in a classic style favored by discerning business-women who sought to look professional while maintaining a hint of femininity. Tucked under one arm she carried a slim, black leather briefcase and in the other a small blue clutch purse that matched her outfit.

The only thing about her that was the least bit “out there” were her funky shoes. Fashionable azure-and-silver stilettos completely inappropriate for strolling the French Quarter, but just perfect for showing off miles of long, gorgeous calves.

Her features were more compelling than beautiful. She wasn’t fashion-model anorexic, and he admired that about her body. Nice breasts, not too big, not too small, in perfect proportion to rounded hips emphasizing her tapered waist.

Her hair was bobbed in a sleek, chic cut and he could tell she wore wispy bangs in order to camouflage a wide forehead. Her eyes were a little on the small side but he’d always had a thing for women with deep brown eyes that went all squinchy when they smiled. He realized he wanted to see her eyes crinkle and dance.

And he wanted to touch her.

No, wanted was too mild a word for what he was feeling. He ached to touch her. To find out exactly what her skin felt like. How smooth, how soft. Suddenly, his fingers burned raw and needy.

Just looking at her made him think of velvet and midnight and satin sheets and sunrise.

If he kissed her, would she taste like forbidden fantasies and sensual sin?

His entire body responded to his unexpected desire and damn if he didn’t feel the beginnings of a hard-on. It was lust at first sight.

Obviously, it had been too long since he’d gotten laid.

Remy got up from the table, leaving Beau to observe the newcomer from beneath the brim of his baseball cap, and slipped behind the counter. The woman headed straight for the bar as if she knew unequivocally what she wanted.

She definitely was not a tourist. The lady was on a mission.

Beau cocked his head and waited with interest to see what she would order.

A martini? A Manhattan? A cosmopolitan? Certainly not a beer. Never a beer. Not enough prestige in a simple concoction of barley and hops.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” Remy greeted her, purposefully injecting a heavy layer of the charming thick French Cajun accent the tourists adored.

Beau envied his brother’s accent. Between his world travels and Francesca’s insistence he take allocution lessons to eradicate any trace of what she disdainfully called “Louisiana good for nothing drawl,” he could not shake the resulting smooth, neutral, urbane tonality from his voice no matter how hard he tried.

“Good afternoon.” The woman smiled at Remy.

“What you be wantin’, chère?”

“Perrier.” She undid the clasp of her wallet and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. “And some information.”

“Information?” Remy raised a quizzical eyebrow at the same time he twisted the top off the bottle and poured the iced mineral water into a glass. A glugging, fizzy sound filled the silence.

As Beau studied the woman, he realized he might have been a bit too hasty in his initial assessment of her. Underneath the indomitable stride, her squarely set shoulders and those forthright eyes, he sensed a certain vulnerability that all the busy activity and high-powered success could not salve. He saw it in the way she hesitated for just a nanosecond, briefly sinking her top teeth into her bottom lip. Drawing her courage?

Maybe she wasn’t quite as self-confident as she’d first appeared, but she did a pretty impressive job of hiding it.

That sweet, slight hint of contradiction did something strange to him.

Bam! His heart rate kicked up a notch and his mouth went irrationally dry.

Resolutely, she tucked a strand of hair behind one ear, slid her fanny onto the nearest bar stool and hooked the heels of her stilettos behind the wooden rungs. “I’m looking for Beau Thibbedeaux. Would you happen to know where I could find him?”

Uh-oh. So she was looking for him. Not a good sign. The old familiar queasiness every time his past caught up with him winnowed through his stomach.

He traced his gaze over her body again, this time determinedly ignoring her lush curves and searching for clues to her occupation. Too finely dressed to be a private investigator. Not obedient enough to be one of Francesca’s handmaidens. If it weren’t for those sexy shoes he would say she was a lawyer.

She probably was a lawyer in spite of the shoe fetish. Two years later and he was still dodging fallout from the Migosaki deal gone awry. Good grief, would it ever end? Couldn’t they just let a man be?

Well, Remy had gotten his wish. Beau now had something to occupy his mind.