THE TEMPTING

by D. M. Pratt

  Eve’s eyes connected with his as she stepped from the shade and the heat of the warm morning sun pressed down on them. Eve was hit by a feeling of déjà vu. Of course this wasn’t the first time he had come to the house, not to mention all the times he had tried to speak with her while she was still in the hospital. Eve liked him. Something about him made her even trust him. There was an easy kindness he exuded. Cora and Beau didn’t like him at all. As a matter of fact Beau vehemently hated him. Cora insisted repeatedly that Beau was jealous—always saying it in that coquettish, playful, Southern belle way she had when she wanted to make a point while avoiding making anyone mad. But Eve never felt jealousy coming from Beau—just immense concern that played itself out in southern hostility. After the last interrogation, Beau had demanded Mac leave her alone.

  Once she refused to press charges everyone thought Detective Blanchard would go quietly away. Beau asked her to promise never to talk to him again and Eve had agreed. After all, she and Beau were getting married and, whatever the circumstances of the case Mac was trying to build, she had forgiven Beau his passionate indiscretion that fateful night. After all, she had been a willing accomplice to his seduction and every day that passed she found herself falling more and more in love with him. She was moving on to a bright new future. But there Mac stood, a walking red flag warning her of some danger neither he nor she could articulate. He was staring directly at her, obviously wanting to probe her for more answers to questions she knew she didn’t know how to answer.

  “Eve, I mean Ms. Dowling …,” Mac said.

  “Detective Blanchard?”

  “Mac, please, you promised to call me Mac,” he replied. He stood there watching her, waiting for an invitation to speak to her despite the palpable tension between them.

  “You shouldn’t be here. My fiancé has asked you not to come here or talk to me, detective. The case is closed,” Eve said.

  She moved to pass him, but Mac blocked her.

  “I know. It’s just . . . This isn’t about police business exactly . . . I . . . have been… and please don’t think I’m crazy until you hear me out. I have been having … these dreams… nightmares is a better word. You’re in them a lot. They’re so real and I… I was wondering if you …”

  His words stopped her. She looked into his eyes. He knew and worse, he knew she knew. Eve could tell he knew from the flash of horror that flushed her face and turned her cheeks red. He knew she understood exactly what he was talking about: dreams and visions from another time and place that made no sense. Eve fell silent, but her heart screamed, pounding in her chest like a frightened, captive bird desperate to escape its cage.

  Yes, I’m having dreams too, nightmares, daydreams, fragments of images that don’t make sense. Horrible dreams that wake me from sleep and block my eyes and fill my mind with dread and fear that something happened I can’t remember. That something very wrong is happening. She wanted to say all of it out loud to Mac, but Philip’s screams cut through the air. He wanted his mother and he wanted her now!

  “I … I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about and I have to go to my son. Please leave, detective.”

  “I think you do, Eve,” he said as he pressed his card into her hand.

  She felt a rush, a connection that calmed her. “I know you know, Eve. Call me when you you’re ready to talk. Help me help you before it’s too late,” he whispered.

  Eve backed away. Her heel caught a stone and she began to stumble. Mac caught her, his arms circling her waist. He pulled her close, lifting her off her feet. Face to face, their breath mingled and she could smell the scent of aftershave, leather and clove breath mints. His arms were strong and she felt amazingly light in his embrace. For a moment, Eve actually felt something she realized she’d not felt in a very long time … truly safe.

  Eve twisted from his arms and pushed away. She headed to the summer house. Her head spun, a new, strange, light-headedness made her dizzy again, but this time pleasantly so. She quickly glanced down at the card in her hand. A voice inside her said, tear it up and throw it away, but she slipped it into her pocket and followed the sound of Philip’s cry.

  Chapter Four

  As much as he hated the conventionality of corporate wear, Beau always looked good in a suit. It wasn’t just that his tall frame and broad, square shoulders filled the Armani Black Label suit; it hugged his body in all the right places. He knew how to choose the perfect ink blue color, the one that looked like a night sky over the bayou, to punch the blue of his eyes. It was the way he carried himself: the calm certainty, the tilt of his head, the regal but never snobby presence he could exude. There was something rare about him. He sat in his pale blue shirt and mustard gold tie that seemed to pick up the flecks of amber in his eyes. Those amazing blue eyes could capture the warmth of a summer sky and brighten a room when he smiled or flash a chill as cold as an ice storm. Right now, he was angry … very angry. His eyeballs ached. He’d been reading over legal documents all day. He’d started at ten in the morning, sitting with seven pinched-faced, cold hearted, viciously calculating lawyers; two of whom belonged to the oldest legal firm in New Orleans, the prestigious firm of Robb, Gallagher and Grant and were trustees of the Gregoire Estate; two belonging to his grandfather, Millard Le Masters, who had declared Beau dead so he could sue the Estate and overturn the will. It all started when Millard learned not only was he not sole executor after Beau’s death, but that he’d not inherited any portion of the Estate itself or even a small part of the vast family fortune. Instead, the entire Estate had been bequeathed to the Avery Charitable Trust. The two Avery Charitable Trust representatives were very, very unhappy at the possibility of losing such a grand gift. Their sadness doubled when Beau returned and they were told everything was to revert back to the original heir. The seventh attorney, the only non-pinched-faced member of the legal clan, was Beau’s attorney and childhood friend, Augustus Valentine Lafayette the fourth, aka A.V. to his friends, of which Beau was and always would be listed as his best. A.V. was movie-star handsome with sandy blonde hair, wicked green eyes and beautiful full lips that anyone would love to kiss. He was smart and tall with a quick wit that could give fifty lashes with a single quip. If he had a fault it was that he liked to drink very expensive cognac and make love to anything that caught his fancy.

  Beau watched the proceedings with burning eyes, exhausted from the hours of arguing over the Gregoire Estate and its sizable fortune. The Estate encompassed an enormous amount of rich Louisiana land, multiple homes, multiple farms, cotton and pepper plantations and the, as yet, untapped oil and gas fields. That treasure trove Millard had planned to crack open like a case of vintage Lafitte Rothschild, circa 1947. The Trustees blocked him based on the wishes of Beau’s parents, which were that after their death nothing was to be done with the property until Beau came of age and could, with the Trustees’ guidance, decide how he wanted to run the Estate. Millard has waited patiently for his grandson to get through high school and then college and even suggested that he take a year off to travel and see the world. Beau’s last credit card bill and passport visa came six months later from Tibet. After that, there was nothing for eight years. At exactly seven years, without any word from Beau, Millard hired a series of investigators to find proof of Beau’s life - or death. By the end of the eighth year Millard filed to declare him dead.

  Once Millard had Beauregard Gregoire Le Masters declared legally dead, Millard assumed, as his only living relative, he would inherit, uncontested, the Estate. He demanded the codicil of the will that related to Beau’s death be read and implemented. Upon learning that his daughter-in-law, with the consent of his only son, had left him out of their will, he went to war to overturn the will. The fact Philip Gregoire senior and his wife Geraldine had left the entire Estate to the Avery Charitable Trust made the situation even more complicated. Then, to top the entire fiasco off, Beau showed up, very much alive, and the real legal nightmare began.

  The small hand o
f the fine antique, grandfather clock that dominated the main conference room of Robb, Gallagher and Grant chimed seven P.M.

  “Enough, gentlemen,” A.V. said.

  A.V. raised his eyebrows signaling Beau to get up as he gathered his stacks of papers, phone, iPad and computer and stuffed them into his monogrammed, don’t-fuck-with-me, oxblood leather Versace briefcase. He closed the sterling silver latches of the case with a final gong that signaled to all the meeting was over. He and Beau stood.

  “There’s not a goddam thing anyone can say that hasn’t been said since this shit hit the fan. Ergo, I and my client are leaving and we will see you in court.”

  “Ergo?” Beau whispered an aside.

  “Beau, son, let’s work together on this. I don’t see why you can’t grasp how deeply invested the Avery Trust and I are in these new gas and oil fields, not to mention all the restructuring I had done on all the land and property rights,” Millard repeated probably for the thousandth time.

  “You didn’t own it and, since I’m alive, neither does the trust. If you all hadn’t been such greedy assholes, perhaps we could have come to some kind of an agreement of joint tenancy,” Beau said.

  “You need me,” Millard said.

  “I don’t need anything from you, I never did and neither did Mother and Dad, so get over it, grandfather,” Beau said.

  Millard rose to his feet.

  “You ran away from the Gregoire legacy and that’s bigger than anything that’s laid out on this table, Beau. You have no choice because no one else understands the truth about your family. You know that as well as I do and you will accept who you are, Beau. The question is will you accept my help?” Millard asked with an icy tone that Beau alone understood.

  “You chose to sell your soul. I didn’t have that luxury,” Beau said with a cold last look.

  Beau and A.V. left the room. They walked in silence down the two-hundred-year-old corridors and out into the main entry to the glass elevators that anchored the center of the atrium. Beau looked around at this architectural marvel that perfectly blended the old and the new. It had been tastefully modernized when they knocked out walls and floors and added a grand Plexiglas and wrought iron stairwell and elevator that screamed French Quarter 21st century. Yet, somehow, the designer managed to maintain the staid feel of we’re the oldest, richest and finest law firm in New Orleans and don’t you forget it. Beau was fuming. He felt suffocated standing inside those thick, hallowed walls. He could smell the tucked leather furniture and feel the glare of the gleaming brass as it reflected the fine Persian rug that graced the floors. Every wall in every hall and room they passed was accented by an array of stunning classic oil landscapes capturing the stodginess of the fine old south.

  The elevator door opened and Beau and A.V. stepped in, rode in silence, then stepped out. They walked together for a long time. They were friends and words between friends were often not needed. But the biggest secret between them was that Beau was A.V.’s heart. He had been since they were small. As teens they’d played football and tennis and been inseparable, but the night of Beau’s parent’s death, A.V. had been the only one who could console his grief. Beau, lost in fear, loneliness and anguish had wept on his friend’s shoulder and in the sadness they had crossed a line and explored love for the first time. Millard found them naked and spent, tangled in each other’s arms. A.V., to this day, had never found a way to fill the void Beau left in him. That night remained unspoken. In Beau’s mind it was a memory of a one night, boyhood experience, never to be repeated. After Beau’s parent’s funeral Millard shipped Beau off to boarding school in Europe. A few letters and emails went back and forth between them in the beginning and then … nothing from either. Years went by, life went on and then, word of Beau’s death came. The news of Beau’s death hit A.V. harder than he thought it would. He even went to their old club house deep in the bayou, a tiny shack they’d built together a thousand summers ago as boys. It sat inside the arms of an old banyan tree. He wept and drank several toasts to Beau and hoped his ghost was in a better place. Beau never shared the dark secret of his family legacy and his fears that he would succumb to the curse he didn’t understand.

  A.V. cried for his lost friend, but his love for Beau was a truth he never shared with anyone. The tears flowed again at the service Millard held. Millard looked at A.V., blaming him for his having to send Beau away. Millard knew what no one else did.

  When Beau came back from the dead and Eve …. well… happened, A.V. stepped in, stepped up and stood by him. He never left his side. Their friendship picked up and just kept going without a single hiccup. Yes, secretly, A.V. kept a candle of hope Beau would see him as he saw Beau, until the day Eve woke from her coma. When the call came, A.V.’s heart broke again. He thought, though beautiful and smart, Eve was not worthy of Beau’s love or trust. He didn’t trust her, just some “gut somethin’ southern lawyers have,” he told Beau. Beau said he loved her from the first moment he laid eyes on her and that was that. A.V. never said another disparaging word about Eve or about his deeper feelings for Beau. He was asked to be the best man at the wedding and, after the wedding, to stand Godfather to Philip along with Cora as Godmother for the christening. Friendship was his fate and he accepted it to keep Beau in his life.

  As they stepped out of the building and into the street, they were assaulted by the sweltering air that made everyone move slower. It was why the south was the south: that unbearable humidity could suck the sweat out of you and leave you limp, lazy and soaked. The tiniest breeze rolled off the river and cooled their wet faces, giving a small respite from the heat of the late afternoon. It felt good and carried the sweet smell of chicory coffee and freshly fried beignets covered in a thick dusting of powdered sugar. Beau could see A.V. was as tense and angry as a caged tiger.

  “What the hell was that legacy bullshit about?” A.V. asked finally.

  “Let it go,” Beau said. “I have. All of it.”

  A.V. started to pursue the line of questioning, but one side glance from Beau stopped him in his tracks.

  “Well, fine, because this whole cluster fuck is an exercise in futility. They can’t win. You know it, I know it and those arrogant old toads up there know it,” A.V. said.

  “At five hundred dollars per lawyer, per hour, they’ll drag this out and earn enough to satisfy their coffers,” Beau said.

  “Not if I can help it,” A.V. said.

  A.V. breathed in the air. He filled his lungs, letting out a huge sigh to expel all the frustration from the day. Beau followed his lead and visibly relaxed. He rolled the last of the tension off his shoulders with a shrug.

  “You got time for a drink or a coffee?” A.V. asked as they walked.

  “I do, but I want to go home and see Eve and hold my son. Remind myself of the reasons I’m staying in New Orleans and fighting to get my life back,” Beau said.

  “Back? You know, you never told me where you were all those years Millard was looking for you.”

  “I know and I am grateful you never asked,” Beau said.

  “You must know I’m curious as hell; have been since you showed up.”

  Beau stopped and looked at A.V. for a long time. Perhaps he was sizing him up or considering if he should share some part of “the lost years” as A.V. jokingly referred to them.

  “Let’s just say I was doing all the things we promised we’d do and then some,” Beau said.

  “That sounds ominous,” A.V. said.

  A.V. looked at him. Beau knew by his even stare that A.V.’s “lawyer gut feeling” was twisting around inside his stomach, in turmoil from a thousand unanswered questions.

  Beau had always been a bit of a mystery, even as a kid.

  “It is,” Beau said with a laugh as A.V. rolled his shoulders and continued walking.

  “I have a couple of buddies who did a few tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. They say the same thing.” A.V. pointed to Beau’s eyes. “They have the same look in their eyes when they say it too.
Seen stuff you wish you hadn’t and can’t erase the images from your mind.”

  “Let’s just say I promised I wouldn’t tell and it’s very important that I keep that promise,” Beau said.

  “Let’s just say, whatever it is, when you’re ready to share, I’m here to listen.”

  “I know and thanks,” Beau said.

  “We’ll get through this bullshit with Millard and the Trust too. I’ll make sure the Gregoire Estate is yours, Eve’s and Philip’s. Hang in there.”

  Beau and A.V. shared a hug. A.V. turned, walked away and in a moment, disappeared into the crowd that filled Royal Street.

  Beau watched him go. Millard’s threat gnawed at him as he headed to the sanctuary of the one place he knew he should never have come back to.

  Chapter Five

  That night Eve sat at her vanity and brushed her hair. It was a ritual her mother had taught her. Eve found it relaxing. Each stroke seemed to pull away all the stress and left her to relax in the moment. She looked at herself in the mirror. The dark circles seemed more evident this evening than at any other time. She hated wearing makeup, but tonight she wanted to look exceedingly pretty for Beau. He had been in New Orleans most of the day arguing with the lawyers, fighting over contracts and trying to undo what his grandfather had done. He’d missed both dinner and his most favorite ritual of putting Philip to bed. Eve heard the sound of his car driving up their gravel driveway. There was a long pause before the car door slammed. She wouldn’t be able to hear Beau arrive once they moved into the big house. She wondered what it would be like living in the monstrously large main house of Gregoire Manner.

  Eve dabbed a little concealer on the dark circles under her eyes and pulled out her favorite scent- a small blue crystal bottle of pear and amber oil from Egypt that Cora had given her. She dabbed her finger and traced down her long neck and into her décolletage, letting the oil ride in between the cleavage of her breasts. They were high, full and pressed against the tight bodice of her cream-colored nightgown. She listened to the noise downstairs in the small study just off the parlor as Beau uncapped a crystal decanter and poured himself a glass of single malt scotch. It must’ve been an incredibly stressful day—he wasn’t a drinker. A few moments later she heard his heavy steps coming up the stairs. She tied her hair back into a long braid and tied a small ribbon at its end. It was loose enough so that if he ran his fingers through her braid, it would tumble apart. She knew that playing with her hair was one of his pleasures. Eve stood and lit scented candles. She dimmed the lights in the room. She felt his presence at the door before she turned, the match still between her fingers.