Unmasked (10 page)

Jackson glanced at Leo. “A black coffee, please,” he said quietly. He waited until the bartender brought the cup, then tapped his finger against Luc’s sleeve near the place where he’d bandaged the cut. “Has anyone looked at this since the night of the fire?”

“I told you, it’s fine.”

Keeping his movements casual, Jackson slid the sleeve back until he saw the edge of a clean gauze bandage. He touched his fingertips lightly to the skin beside the gauze and found it cool. He couldn’t detect any sour aroma, either, so the cut likely wasn’t infected. Whatever was bothering Luke, it wasn’t his injury. “I’d like to thank you again for your help with Emilio last week,” Jackson said. “The hospital staff told me his burns are healing well.”

Luc closed his hand into a fist and smacked the bar, causing the coffee cup to rattle in its saucer. “Damn them.”

“Who?”

“The Corbins. They’re scum.”

There had been no advantage to keeping the Marchands’ suspicions about the Corbin brothers a secret—all the hotel employees had needed to be put on alert for their appearance and for any further attempts at sabotage. Because of that, Jackson didn’t find Luc’s statement unusual, but the vehemence with which he spoke seemed off. “We’re doing everything we can,” Jackson began.

“They have to be stopped before they hurt anyone else.”

“We won’t give them the chance.”

“The Marchands have been good to me. They’ve treated me like family. They don’t deserve this.”

“No, they don’t,” Jackson said, pushing the cup closer to Luc. “They’re good people.”

Luc eyed the coffee. “I don’t want that. I want another drink.”

“It won’t help.”

“What?”

“Getting drunk. Avoiding a problem won’t solve it. It’ll still be there when you’re sober, only it’ll look even worse through a hangover.”

Luc slumped forward, put his elbows on the bar and dropped his head into his hands.

Jackson looked past him to where Charlotte was sitting. She was still involved in her conversation with Melanie and Robert. Mac’s men were circulating unobtrusively, keeping a watch on the patrons and the doorways. The singer started another number. Everything appeared normal, so Jackson returned his attention to Luc.

The man was deeply troubled. Jackson suspected it had to be about something more personal than the problems of his employer. “Is it money or a woman?” he asked.

Luc turned his head just enough to glare at Jackson through one eye. “What?”

“Whatever’s bothering you.”

Luc snorted. “Is this a hobby with you, going around sticking your nose into other people’s problems?”

“As a matter of fact, it is,” Jackson said. “I can’t help it, been doing it all my life.”

“Sure, it’s easy to play the nice guy when you’re born with a silver spoon in your mouth. You wouldn’t understand what it’s like to be on the outside looking in.”

Jackson tilted his head. “I’ve never had money, Luc. I don’t know where you got that idea.”

“You’re tight with the Marchand family. And you’re a doctor.”

Although Jackson might have been accepted by the Marchands, he doubted whether
Grand-mère
Celeste would ever change her opinion about him. But he wasn’t going to start explaining that to Luc. “I’m a doctor because I won a full scholarship to Harvard,” he said. “I couldn’t have afforded even one year of state college on what I earned delivering refrigerators for my father’s store. I know all about being on the outside looking in.”

Luc’s elbow slid against his coffee cup. He jerked upright and wiped the spatters from his sleeve. He was silent for a while, as if debating whether or not to go on. When he spoke again, his voice had lost its edginess. “My old man was born rich. Silver spoon, big mansion, the whole works, but his mother kicked him out.”

“She must have had a reason.”

A muscle twitched in Luc’s jaw. “She did. He never saw that he brought it on himself. He blamed everyone else for trashing his life.”

“Where is he now?”

“Dead.”

Jackson watched him closely. He didn’t believe Luc was drinking because of grief, so he didn’t offer any condolences. Instead he waited in silence for the concierge to speak again.

Luc stared down at the coffee cup in front of him. “The problem is—” His voice hitched. He cleared his throat and grabbed the cup with both hands. “I blamed everyone but him, too. I never gave his family a chance. I thought I owed it to my old man to settle the score and now I’ve ended up trashing my own life.”

“How, Luc?”

“It’s too late to fix things.”

It was hard to follow Luc’s cryptic ramblings. Jackson took a stab anyway. “You want to reconcile with your family. That’s what’s bothering you, right?”

Luc moved his head back and forth in a slow negative. “There are too many lies. I don’t know how.”

“It’s simple. Just tell them the truth.”

Luc gulped down half the coffee, then coughed and wiped his eyes. He looked around the barroom, stopping when his gaze reached the table where Charlotte, Melanie and Robert sat. Abruptly he shoved himself off the stool.

Jackson grabbed his arm. “Careful there.”

He jerked his arm free and staggered sideways a few steps. “You were right.”

“Luc—”

“Sitting here getting drunk won’t solve anything. That’s the kind of thing my old man would have done.” He smoothed
his hair and straightened his tie, his hands shaking with the clumsy concentration of someone striving to appear sober. “I need to tell the truth.”

Jackson frowned in concern. “Let Leo call you a taxi.”

Luc patted his pockets and came up with a cell phone. “Thanks, doc, but I got it covered.”

There was nothing more Jackson could do short of forcing the man back on the stool and waiting until he sobered up. Besides, his priority was to keep an eye on Charlotte, not to dispense free advice. He looked at her table, only to discover it was empty.

All thoughts of Luc were smothered by a surge of pure adrenaline. She was gone. God,
no!

But the panic that kicked up his pulse was short-lived. Before he could get more than two strides from the bar, he heard her voice behind him.

“Hi, handsome. Do you come here often?”

He blew out his breath and pivoted to face her. She was smiling. A real smile, not one of her professional ones. The sight didn’t exactly calm his pulse, but it brought it down to a rate reasonable. He tried to ignore the tightness that persisted in his chest—he didn’t want to examine why he’d been so quick to panic in the first place.

Holding out his good hand, he endeavored to keep his voice casual. “No, I don’t, but I heard this is where the most beautiful women are.”

She took his hand and laced her fingers with his. The briefcase she’d brought into the bar with her was gone. Instead she held a white paper bag in her free hand. “Are you enjoying the music?”

“Sure. You were right—Holly’s good. Did you finish your business?”

“Yes, we’re all done. I made sure of it, see?” She held up the bag. “I traded my briefcase to Melanie for a midnight snack from Chez Remy.”

“Sounds as if you got the better half of the deal. What’s in there?”

She swung the bag behind her back. Her hair rippled as she shook her head. “Oh, no, you don’t. It’s not midnight yet.”

He smiled at the note of teasing in her voice. This was more like the Charlie he used to know. He slid his arm around her waist, swaying gently to the beat of the music. “So what did you decide on for the ball? I’m guessing it wasn’t po’boys and beer.”

“Robert and Melanie want to pull out all the stops for this one. They said they intend to make it a night to remember.”

“You’re still not looking forward to it.”

“I’m looking forward to it being over. The Corbins’ offer expires at midnight, the same time we end the ball.”

And once the hotel was no longer the target of a take-over, Jackson thought, his stay with Charlotte would be over, too.

But Yves would have finished the second test by then, anyway. If the news was good, he’d be scheduling surgery and Jackson could begin planning his return to work.

Charlotte laid her hand on his chest. “What’s wrong?”

It was a good question. Why did the thought of getting what he wanted—of them both getting what they wanted—leave him feeling hollow?

The music slowed. The saxophone resonated with the
opening bars of an old torch song, a melody of loss and yearning. Jackson didn’t want to listen to that—or to the questions in his head. He put his lips beside Charlotte’s ear. “Want to go someplace where we can get naked?”

She laughed. “I thought you’d never ask.”

O
NLY A TRACE OF THE
melody reached the courtyard, yet the longing in the notes came through loud and clear. Luc wove his way past the lounge chairs and moved into the shadow of a lemon tree. Leaning his back against the trunk, he inhaled deeply in an effort to clear his head.

It would be simpler to walk away and just keep going. He could talk himself into another job without any trouble, just as he’d talked himself into this one. People trusted him, they called him charming, and he’d always had the gift of making people like him. He’d inherited that talent from his father.

Just as he’d inherited his cowardice?

Luc regarded the cell phone he clutched in his hand. He didn’t have to make the call. It still wasn’t too late to cut his losses. If he left now, the Marchands would never have to know who he was. He could fade out of their lives the same way his father had. His grandmother hadn’t mellowed—she was still the unbending tyrant who had banished her only son. He wouldn’t miss her.

Yet he’d miss the others. Anne was a good woman, as were her daughters. They’d fought back against all the problems he’d caused during the past months and had kept the hotel going. They hadn’t collapsed under pressure; they were the same generous, compassionate women he’d grown to know and admire. Their
courage shamed him, as did their trust. He couldn’t simply walk away and leave them to fend for themselves.

But the only way he could stay was by telling the truth. And if he did that, they might not want anything to do with him. Not that he could blame them…

He dropped his head back against the tree trunk. That was the point: he couldn’t blame them. He shouldn’t have in the first place. Too bad it had taken him so long to figure it out. As he’d told that doctor, he’d trashed his life. The best he could hope was that he’d end up in jail. That is, if Blount didn’t have him killed first.

The thought sobered him faster than the fresh air. Luc glanced around the courtyard, but apart from a few groups of guests who strolled near the pool, he couldn’t see anyone hanging around. That didn’t guarantee anything, though. Mike Blount was planning something big, Luc was certain of it. The vandalism the Corbins had done was only a prelude. And no one was telling him anything, which didn’t bode well. Every bit of common sense he possessed was warning him to get out now.

But his heart was telling him something else altogether. He’d believed the Marchands owed him, but it was the other way around. If he wanted the chance to be part of this family, he had to stop thinking about what he could take from them and start focusing on what he could give.

The music swelled to one last lingering note, then ended in a round of applause. Luc lifted his phone and dialed the number he’d found in Charlotte’s office when he’d planted the Corbins’ offer in her briefcase. He’d committed the phone number to memory days ago—some part of him had known all along that this was the only way out.

The voice that came on the line was businesslike yet still good-natured.

Luc took a steadying breath and began to speak. “Hello, Detective Fergusson, this is Luc Carter….”

C
RÈME
B
RÛLÉE À LA
Charlotte was one of four special desserts that Remy Marchand had created in honor of his daughters. The traditional elegant dish reflected the personality of his eldest. Made with eggs and rich, heavy cream, the custard needed skillful handling and slow cooking in order to achieve its full potential. The praline topping that completed it lent an air of polished grace, and at times it resisted being pierced, but once the shell was broken it quickly fell apart to reveal a lush, sensual center.

Normally the dessert was only available at Chez Remy, the hotel’s four-star restaurant.

But Charlotte couldn’t remember it ever tasting as good as it did here in her living room.

She parted her lips to let Jackson feed her another spoonful. The custard melted on her tongue instantly, sending a spurt of pleasure through the roof of her mouth. She curled her bare feet beneath her and leaned into the corner of the sofa. She was wearing nothing except Jackson’s shirt, but it easily covered her thighs.

Jackson steadied the plate on the cushion between them and dipped his spoon back into the custard. “Your face is so expressive,” he said, leaning forward to feed her another
spoonful. “Just watching you eat that makes me feel as if I can taste it.”

She licked a morsel from the corner of her mouth. “You probably can. You had most of it already.”

“It was only the outside.” He snatched a piece of the praline shell from the plate and popped it into his mouth. “And as everyone knows, sugar’s energy food. I have to keep up my strength.”

“Well, since you put it like that…” She took the spoon from his hand and scooped another piece for him. “Open up.”

His eyes gleamed as he caught her hand. He let her feed him, then turned her hand so that he could lick the spoon. “Mmm.”

Charlotte was amazed to feel a tiny aftershock of pleasure follow his hum of enjoyment. He’d made a similar sound a few minutes ago when they’d been in her bed. And as far as amazement went, it continued to astound her how readily she felt that pleasure at all. “I’ll have to remember to thank Melanie.”

Still holding her hand, he kissed each of her knuckles in turn. “Did she make the dessert?”

“No, desserts aren’t her forte, but it was her idea to package it to go.”

“I do like your sisters.” He guided her hand back to the plate. “They come up with some excellent ideas.”

“Oh?”

“Although next time ask Renee to give you a bigger box of condoms. At the rate we’ve been going through them, two dozen aren’t going to be anywhere near—”

She stopped his words with another mouthful of custard.

He swallowed and lifted one eyebrow. “What?”

“You’re getting a swelled head.”

His lips twitched. “Charlotte, I’m not going to touch that one. It would be too easy.”

She laughed and tossed the spoon onto the plate. “Oh, Jackson. This is
all
too easy.”

“What is?”

“This.” She waved her hand at herself and then at him. Although he’d put on his boxers when they’d gotten out of bed, he was completely comfortable with his near nudity. So was she. Sharing banter and a snack was comfortable, too. “I thought it would be harder,” she said.

He winked. “Give me a few minutes and it will be.”

“Oh, you’re incorrigible.”

“Incorrigible,” he repeated. “I’ve been called worse.” He moved the plate to the side table and patted his lap in invitation.

She slid across the sofa and snuggled into his embrace with a sigh. Although he couldn’t grip her with his right hand, his arms held her as securely as she could have wanted. “This is nice.”

He stroked a lock of hair from her cheek. “Does that mean I’ve redeemed myself?”

“Redeemed? What are you talking about?”

“I realize you haven’t forgotten how bad I used to be at this.”

Her brow furrowed. “If you’re referring to those times when we were kids, they really don’t matter.”

“Don’t they? I thought that’s what you meant when you said this was easier than you’d expected.”

“Jackson, I—”

“It’s okay, Charlotte. My bumbling would have put anyone off. It’s probably why you keep looking surprised.”

“Surprised?”

He smoothed his index finger over her forehead, then rested
his hand on her hip. “Each time you climax, you get this look of shock. I guess you didn’t believe I was capable of—”

“Jackson, you’ve got it wrong. I’m shocked at myself, not you.”

“Why?”

She hesitated. Putting this into words made her seem almost pathetic, yet she didn’t want Jackson to think she was judging him on his past performance. He’d been such a generous and considerate lover, she had to be honest. She placed her palm against his cheek. “Until yesterday, I’d never had an orgasm.”

“You…” He blinked. “Never?”

She traced the line beside his mouth with her thumb. “I don’t know why. I’m not a prude. I just never managed to achieve that particular goal.”

His fingers tightened against her hip as he regarded her. Disbelief gradually gave way to a look of comprehension…followed by more than a hint of male smugness.

She didn’t take issue with the smugness—he was entitled to it. “This isn’t that big a deal, Jackson. I haven’t dwelled on my lack and I’ve accepted who I am. My life has been full and very rewarding. Sex has never been important to me.”

“You were married for eight years.”

“Yes.”

“And you never…?”

“No.”

He moved his hand to her thigh and fingered the hem of the shirt she wore. “I had no idea.”

“No one except my ex-husband does. For one thing, I was too embarrassed to discuss it. And for another, it wasn’t relevant. I’ve
been too busy with my work to think about romance, so I don’t date. And now that I’m forty I’m quite settled with my life.”

“But you’re enjoying it now.”

“Obviously. As you said, it has to be because of the circumstances.” She tapped his chest. “And the chemistry between us.”

“We’ve got lots of that.” He leaned back against the arm of the sofa and stretched out one leg across the cushions, shifting her so that she was half lying on top of him. He stroked her hair for a while before he spoke again. “Is that why you divorced Adrian, Charlotte? Because you didn’t have… chemistry?”

She should have known the topic wouldn’t stay off-limits. She’d introduced it herself by talking about her sex life. “Not directly, but it was a contributing factor.”

“How?”

“Adrian wasn’t faithful, Jackson. I’m not sure when he started having affairs, but I didn’t discover it until we’d been married almost five years.”

“But you hung in for another three.”

“I thought the fault was mine. I was so indifferent about our sex life, I couldn’t really blame him for looking elsewhere, so I wanted to give him another chance. And on top of that, there was our business partnership.”

Jackson’s hand stilled. “Right. Your parents gave him a job.”

“He was very valuable to the hotel.”

“And the hotel’s bottom line was more important to you than fidelity.”

She heard the note of distance in his voice, yet she couldn’t deny that what he’d said was true. What did it say about her if she’d willingly put up with a humiliating and unsatisfying marriage rather than risk hurting the family business?

But it hadn’t only been the business she’d cared about, it had been her dream of a marriage like that of her parents, of sharing her life as well as her love.

“Yes,” she said. “You could put it like that.” She pushed herself off his chest and rose to her feet. “In the end, the hotel was more important to me than Adrian.”

Jackson stayed where he was, sprawled across the sofa, but he no longer looked relaxed. This was a touchy subject for both of them. “Adrian Grant might have had blue blood and a pedigree, but he was a bastard anyway.”

“Oh, more than you know.” She rubbed her arms as she moved across the room. Jackson’s scent rose from his shirt, making her feel as if he still held her. “Adrian knew how much I wanted children, Jackson. He claimed he wanted them, too, and that we would give them the same kind of unconditional love and deep roots that my parents had given my sisters and me. He insisted we take a house with a big yard and enough room for plenty of children, close to
Grand-mère
so they could visit every day. He spun a beautiful tale of the life I’d always wanted.”

Jackson remained silent. She was grateful he did. It was the first time she’d spoken about this to anyone, and now that she’d started, she felt a need to finish. She paused beside the bookcase, her gaze falling on a photo of Daisy Rose. A lump formed in her throat as she thought of her niece’s love for fairy tales. Maybe it would be kinder if Charlotte stopped reading them to her—believing in them only led to disappointment.

“When I failed to get pregnant,” she said, “I thought it was because there was something wrong with me. Not medically—I went through all the tests—but I started to believe I
wasn’t enough of a woman so I wasn’t meant to be a wife and mother. It wasn’t until our eighth anniversary that I learned the truth. Adrian had had a vasectomy before we were married, only he had never bothered to tell me.”

The sofa creaked. Jackson’s bare feet made no noise on the carpet, but she could feel his approach. He spoke from over her shoulder. “Charlotte, I’m sorry.”

“You said you never liked him. You always were a good judge of character.”

“I didn’t like him then because he was a snob. And because he married you.” He rested his hand on her back. “I detest him even more now for the way he betrayed you.”

“I should have seen it, Jackson, but I was so wrapped up in getting this make-believe future that I wanted, I couldn’t see reality. Apparently Adrian had decided not to run the risk of fathering any illegitimate children during one of his affairs. That’s why he’d had the vasectomy. He married me for prestige and for the chance to run the hotel, so he made an effort to be discreet. He didn’t want to scandalize his family or hurt his image. He was always very conscious of his image. He spent more time in front of the mirror than I did, but that wasn’t surprising since Adrian’s first and only love was Adrian—” Her voice broke. She put her face in her hands. “
Mon Dieu
, how could I have been such a fool?”

Jackson took her by the shoulders and turned her toward him. “You weren’t a fool, Charlotte. You were just going after your dream.”

She dropped her hands and looked at Jackson.

It had been a mistake from the start to marry Adrian. She’d thought that she’d loved him, but how could she have? Their
courtship had been a whirlwind. He’d been handsome and sophisticated, a veritable Prince Charming who happened to have a degree in hotel management. On the surface he had seemed like the perfect match for her. She hadn’t taken the time to look deeper because she hadn’t wanted to. She’d been on the rebound, desperate to fill the void in her heart that had formed when Jackson left.

With the type of unspoken understanding they used to share, Jackson widened his stance to slide his feet outside hers and drew her into his embrace.

Charlotte accepted his comfort gratefully, even as she strove to remind herself that this wouldn’t last. Any feelings that she allowed to grow now would be as hopeless as they had been before.

So it was a very good thing she was being practical and realistic this time, and that they had both agreed that what was going on between them was only temporary and physical, right?

Right?

It had all seemed so clear when she’d woken up this morning, yet now…

She dropped her forehead into the hollow of his shoulder, just as she’d done countless times in the past. “I don’t know if it’s possible to love a thing the way you can love a person,” she said. “But after my divorce, the hotel was all I had left of the life I had wanted. It’s been my one constant. It’s become more to me than just a business or a building, it’s my framework and my anchor.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she slipped her arms around his waist. “Jackson, I honestly don’t know what I would do without it.”

J
ACKSON YANKED OPEN
the front door with far more force than was necessary, causing it to smack into the stop that had been built into its frame. Wood creaked and hinges rattled, transferring the vibrations all the way up his arm. Charlotte gave him a quizzical look as she walked past him into the hotel.

He shrugged. “It slipped,” he said, moving his hand to the small of her back.

She continued to regard him as they started across the lobby. “You’ve been in a strange mood this morning. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He forced a smile. “Where to first?”

“My office. I should catch up on my messages.” She glanced past him. “That’s odd. I wonder where Luc is.”

Jackson turned his head and saw that the spot behind the concierge’s desk where Luc usually stood was empty. “He’s probably nursing a hangover,” he commented.

“Luc? I didn’t know he drank.”

“He did yesterday. I saw him in the bar. He seemed upset about some problems he’s having with his family.”

“I know very little about Luc’s family. He’s been very private about his personal life—”

“Charlotte?”

At the sound of her name, Charlotte paused. Julie Sullivan, her assistant, was hurrying toward them from the front desk. She barely glanced at Jackson before she started into a list of problems. Charlotte went into what Jackson was beginning to think of as her manager’s mode. This was how it had been every morning so far. The moment they walked through the door she became swallowed by the hotel.

And why not? As she’d told him the night before, it was her anchor. The one constant in her life. She loved it like a person.

The two women continued to discuss business as they headed for the grand staircase. Jackson shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and followed, making sure to stay close to Charlotte in spite of the milling guests. The place was more crowded today than he’d seen it yet. That was good. With Mardi Gras concluding in a little more than thirty-six hours, they needed this business if they wanted to stay solvent. He didn’t want her to lose the hotel, did he?