The Temptation of Savannah O'Neill

All of which was irrelevant. Every moment of the past, every bad decision and terrible accident that led him to this point, was moot.

The only thing that mattered now was making one thing right, in a life gone horribly wrong. He had to make one damn thing right. Who betrayed Dad? Joel’s partner, Richard Bonavie, or the blonde at the drop-off—Vanessa O’Neill?

The legal system might have gotten it wrong with Matt, whose hands were bloody right down to the bone, but it wasn’t too late to get justice for his father. That’s why he was here, and the women inside that house were the key to it all.

He angled the rearview mirror and checked his reflection—a little closer to potential ax murderer than was entirely necessary, but there wasn’t much he could do. He forgot a razor.

The scruff of his beard rasped under his hands and he thought about all his clients, hiring the cool and slick Matt Woods to design their summer homes, their art galleries and condos.

That guy doesn’t live here anymore, he thought, unable to recognize himself in the green eyes that stared back.

Matt threw open the door of his rented car and slammed it behind him. What he lacked in plans he was going to make up for in bravado. Some righteous “where the hell is your mother?”

Smooth. Oh, so smooth.

The bayou around him seemed to pulse and breathe. It was warmer than St. Louis, denser, the air thick and somehow both sweet and spicy. Like flowers dipped in cayenne.

He liked it. It made him hungry for food and a woman at the same time.

The house, he assessed with an knowledgeable eye, was an aging stunner. It sat alone on the road, about a mile and a half from town, surrounded by a few acres of wilderness. She was a grand dame falling on hard times—the black trim was peeling and a few of the white hurricane shutters were missing slats. But the bones of the house were solid. Elegant. Built to withstand the Southern weather, and to look good doing it.

He imagined the windows lit with candles and the sound of music and ice in crystal tumblers spilling from the open front door.

The front door was freshly, brazenly painted scarlet.

Matt believed doors could be sexy. He believed windows and wood and concrete could be erotic. But nothing he’d ever seen quite matched the sexual statement of that red door.

It looked like the house of an aging mistress, an expensive woman of slightly ill repute, which would be Margot’s influence. But he didn’t know how Savannah the librarian fit in.

He stepped up the river-stone path, the rocks sliding under his old work boots. He’d packed work clothes, denim and rawhide, because the expensive suits, silk ties and Italian leather in his closet were beginning to mock him.

He got one foot onto the wide steps of the sweeping veranda and the scarlet door creaked open.

Margot O’Neill, he knew from the surveillance photo in the car. She stood in the doorway, the black of the hall behind her making her fair beauty more pronounced. More breathtaking, despite her years.

She was medium height and trim, with posture like a steel beam. She wore bright blue and the fabric looked rich and thin—like liquid had been poured over her.

It was no wonder men paid to have her. She was that beautiful. That rare.

And then she smiled, like she knew it.

“You’re coming about the ad?” she asked, her voice rich with years of the South.

Ad? Damn not having a plan. She tilted her head, her blue eyes losing some of their hospitality, and he knew he was moments from being kicked off the property.

“Yes,” he finally said, taking yet another leap into the unknown. “I am. I’m here about the ad.”

Good God, he hoped he wasn’t about to be Margot’s boy toy. Though there could be worse things, he speculated, catching the gleam in her eye.

“Margot, are you—” The door opened farther and a blonde goddess stood in the dark hallway. Matt’s heart stopped dead in his chest.

It was Savannah, from the photograph.

Sort of.

The beauty was there, the perfect skin, bright blue eyes and shiny sweep of hair. But that was where the similarities ended. The real-life Savannah was somehow sharper, her radiance hard and refined to an edge. Her cheekbones alone could cut through tin.

She was razor wire next to Margot’s magnolia.

There was no sunny warmth. No shimmer. This woman was a stranger to him. He knew this was ridiculous—picture or no, she was still a stranger to him. But the loss was there nonetheless. He didn’t realize how much he was looking forward to basking in that warm glow—until that glow was buried under ice.

She was, however, painfully sexy in a long straight gray skirt and a white shirt that couldn’t quite diminish the curves she clearly was trying to hide. The whole look gave her the appearance of a prison warden on lockdown.

In a porno.

And, he realized, aside from sexy she was also a dead ringer for the surveillance picture he had of Vanessa in New Orleans. Right down to the eyes, which were guarded. Wary. Hiding something.

He lost his companion, that fantasy woman, but he gained something else. Something better. Something righteous.

In a stunning moment of clarity, he knew that coming here, believing these women somehow had the answers he needed, had not been wrong.

It occurred to him that the missing gems, the Pacific Diamond and Ruby—the million-dollar reasons his father sat alone in a jail cell while his accomplices and turncoats lived in freedom—could be right here.

Hidden and guarded by Savannah O’Neill.

Out of the corner of his eye he took in the crumbling house, the faded paint, the sagging porch. That the gems were here now, or ever had been, seemed like a long shot.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, looking at Matt with plain distaste. “Who are you?”

“He’s here about the ad,” Margot said, standing aside and smiling at Matt. “Please come in.”

His lip curled, satisfaction rippling through him. Savannah must have sensed it, because her own lips tightened, her eyes narrowed.

He hitched the loose waist of his worn khakis and climbed the steps, feeling the heat of the South mesh with the sudden warmth in his flesh. His eyes stayed glued to Savannah’s as something primal swept through him.

You, he thought, have a secret. And I will find out what it is.

CHAPTER TWO

“MARGOT,” SAVANNAH MUTTERED as the strange man climbed the stairs, like some kind of predatory cat, all muscle and intention. His shaggy brown hair gleamed like polished wood and his green eyes radiated something hot and awful that she felt in the core of her body—a trembling where there hadn’t been one in years. Hot sweat ran between her breasts under her white cotton shirt. “This is not a good idea.”

“Please, Savannah,” Margot all but purred, her eyes hovering over the man like a honeybee. “Look at him. It’s a fabulous idea.”

Savannah’s hand tightened on the door as if her muscles were about to override her system and slam the door in his handsome, chiseled face.

But then he was there, big and masculine on the tattered welcome mat. C.J., the little tart, stepped out of the sleeping porch to curl around his dusty boots.

Seriously, that cat gave all of them a bad name.