by JoAnn Ross
“There was nothing I could do to help. I’m no longer a prosecutor,” he reminded her. “There was no reason for the cops to talk with me.”
“I find it difficult to believe that not one officer at the scene would have been willing to discuss the crime with you. Given your former position.”
“I didn’t say no one would talk with me. What I said was there was no official reason for me to interrupt an investigation.”
“That’s very considerate of you,” she said dryly.
Although she represented more trouble than he needed, Roman liked the fact that this reporter with the exquisite face was no pushover. “Consideration had nothing to do with it. There were already enough people who didn’t belong there wandering around. I had no intention of compromising a crime scene and blowing the case for Detective O’Malley.”
From the way his gaze turned vaguely accusing, Desiree suspected that she and Sugar were two of the interlopers he was referring to. “I had the feeling,” she said, trying a new tack, “that you didn’t want to be on camera.”
“You’re right. Because we both know that the situation would have become macabre theater—you interviewing the writer of so-called slasher novels in the middle of the night, outside a cemetery where a young girl had just been attacked. I would have immediately become the story, which would have shifted attention away from trying to find the rapist.”
That made sense. Still, every instinct Desiree possessed told her that there was more behind his disappearing act than he was saying. “Do you know the victim?”
He shrugged. “I’ve no idea.”
“That’s not really much of an answer, Mr. Falconer.”
“Call me Roman. And it’s the only answer you’re going to get.” His expression was unnervingly calm. “Unless, of course, you’re prepared to tell me her name.”
He’d boxed her into a very neat little corner. Michael had contravened policy by telling her the girl’s name in the first place, on the condition that the revelation be kept off the record.
“The police haven’t released her name yet.”
“But you know.”
“What I know isn’t really up for discussion.”
Roman gave her points for trying. But it was obvious that O’Malley had already shared aspects of the crime with her. Over breakfast? he wondered. Or perhaps even earlier, like in bed?
He imagined her soft and warm, her Titian hair tousled from sleep, tumbling over her bare shoulders, her remarkable gilt eyes gleaming with the satisfied glow of a woman who’d experienced some predawn lovemaking.
Telling himself that he had no interest in who this woman was sleeping with, Roman realized that the inside access to the rape investigations he’d been seeking had just providentially come knocking on his door.
And as risky as it was, given his involvement in the crimes, he was going to have to stay close to Desiree Dupree. At least until he discovered what, exactly, Detective Michael Patrick O’Malley knew.
“So, what you’re saying is that your being in the vicinity of the crime was only a coincidence?” Desiree asked, pressing on.
She looked so earnest, despite the seriousness of the situation, that Roman couldn’t resist a faint smile. “If we were in court, you could be accused of leading a witness, Ms. Dupree.”
“Ah, but we’re not in court.”
“True.” He nodded, acknowledging her point. “I live in the Quarter.” His shoulders lifted in a careless shrug. “Sometimes I walk at night. It’s not the first time I’ve come upon a crime scene. And, unfortunately, it probably won’t be the last.
“And as much as I enjoy being visited by a lovely woman who smells of night-blooming flowers and midnight trysts in the Casbah, I’m afraid that, if you’ve come here looking for answers, I’m not going to be a lot of help.”
Once again instinct told her that he was holding back. He might be a former district attorney, turned bestselling author. He may have powerful political friends, including his father, a state supreme court justice, and his mother, a respected professor of law at Tulane University.
But if Roman Falconer thought Desiree was simply going to throw in the towel because he was making things a little tough for her, he had another think coming.
She put her notepad into her bag and stood up. “I appreciate your having been so candid with me, Mr. Falconer.” Her dry tone said otherwise. “And I apologize for taking you away from your writing.”
“It was time for a break anyway.” He stood up as well. “I just had an idea.”
“Oh?”
Roman would have had to be deaf to miss the skepticism in her tone. Despite the risk she represented, he found himself almost enjoying himself. Enjoying her.
“Why don’t I spend the afternoon thinking about last night? Trying to recall any small details I may have overlooked? I’ll drop by the station after your six o’clock newscast and we can go discuss whatever I come up with over some casino oysters at Brennan’s.”
The suggestion, along with his sudden change in attitude, set off warnings sirens. Alarms that were both personal and professional. “Are you asking me out to dinner?”
“We both have to eat. So we may as well do it together while discussing what I remember about last night.”
“But how do you know if you’ll recall anything?”
“Good point.” His smile was slow and dangerously seductive. “So why don’t I just drop the pretense, tell you I find you immensely attractive and would very much like to spend some time with you?”
Once again Desiree had the feeling he was giving her only a half truth. “I’m sorry, but I’ve already promised to appear at a charity auction for the station.”
He wasn’t surprised by her refusal. Neither was he deterred. “You work a rough schedule. Out in the middle of the night, running down a story the next morning, then a charity event.”
“I don’t have any reason to complain.”
“Neither, I suspect, does station management.” He put his hand on her back and began steering her toward the front door. “Especially since, after you began filling in for Meredith Courtney, the station crushed the competition in last month’s sweeps ratings.”
Meredith Courtney was an evening anchor who’d taken a six-week maternity leave upon the birth of her young son. Although Desiree knew that most newscasters would probably sell their grandmothers to win an anchor spot, she found the role confining. And boring.
She thought about insisting that he take his hand off her, then decided a display of such prickly behavior would only let him know that his touch was warming her skin beneath her sweater. Like him, she opted to keep some secrets to herself. “We were lucky,” she murmured as he opened the front door.
“Luck had nothing to do with it. And neither did that empty suit they’ve got you partnered with. It was all you.”
She was standing on the front step now, looking up at him while he gazed down at her. Even as she opened her mouth to defend her co-anchor, Desiree found she couldn’t. Because she’d used that same unflattering description of John Keating herself, in private conversations with close friends.
“You really do watch the newscast,” she said instead.
“I told you, I wouldn’t miss it.” He was no longer touching her, but his eyes, as they took a slow tour of her uplifted face, possessed all the sensual impact of a caress. “Beauty and brains is a lethal combination in any woman. It’s also highly irresistible.”
“I’m disappointed,” she said in a cool voice designed to hide the fact that his intimate look and black-velvet voice had her heart hammering. Her fingers tightened around the leather strap of her shoulder bag as she reminded herself that her visit here today was strictly business.
When he arched a questioning brow, she said, “I would have thought a writer whose books were on the New York Times bestselling list could have come up with a more original pickup line.”
Roman laughed at that, enjoying the much-needed release. “Nex
t time.”
His laugh was rough and harsh, almost rusty, as if it hadn’t been used in a very long time. Desiree could have taken his words as a promise or a threat. Strangely, she thought them to be a bit of both. Once again her emotions bubbled dangerously close to the surface. Once again she tamped them down.
Not trusting her voice, she merely nodded, then turned and walked away.
As he watched her stride toward her car, parked across the street, Roman enjoyed the smooth movement of her slender hips in those tailored slacks and found himself wondering yet again if Desiree Dupree’s legs were as appealing as the rest of her.
He stood in the doorway until she’d driven away. Then he went into the house, returning to the library to make a phone call.
“Hi, Mom?” His voice was filled with an easy, genuine affection that Desiree, were she to have been eavesdropping, would have been stunned to hear. “You know that charity shindig you’ve been trying to talk me into attending?”
Roman listened patiently to the familiar litany of complaints. Despite a demanding career, not to mention the social obligations that came with being the wife of a state supreme court justice, his mother had her manicured fingers into myriad community pies. Roman had long ago decided that, as much as he truly loved this woman who had taken him into her home and raised him as her own, if he caved in at every invitation to her various fund-raising functions, he’d never get any work done.
“Well,” he said, when she finally wore down, “if I’m still invited, I’ve changed my mind.”
* * *
AFTER A LONG DAY chasing down witnesses, and a six o’clock newscast in which gremlins seemed to have taken over the TelePrompTer, causing it to alternate between racing through the script and dragging it out nearly word by word, all Desiree wanted to do was go home, soak in a bubble-filled tub with a glass of white wine and a trashy novel, then fall into bed. Unfortunately, her day was far from over.
Fortunately, she was a very good actress. No one in the New Orleans Riverfront Hilton’s Rain Forest Room, privately booked for this occasion, would have suspected that she was dead on her feet.
The fact that she was here to take part in a celebrity auction was not so unusual, given her station’s reputation for supporting local charities.
What was different was that instead of the usual assortment of goods and services donated by New Orleans’s business establishments, high-profile single men and women had been placed on the auction block.
Amidst a virtual jungle of greenery, Desiree sat at her table, located near the front of the room, and nursed a single glass of champagne all evening, while making small talk with contributors who’d paid 500 for the privilege of bidding on a dream date with one of the participants. All hopes of sneaking away early had been dashed when she’d been handed the tasseled program, and seen that her name was listed last.
Unsurprisingly, the prices escalated as the liquor continued to flow. Two young women nearly came to blows over a hunky, morning-drive-time deejay, while a junior partner in a prestigious law firm, competitive to the end, offered to throw in his Rolex to keep from being outbid by a vice-president of Hibernia National Bank for an attractive blond caterer.
Finally, it was Desiree’s turn. Reminding herself that it was for a good cause—who could argue against health clinics for the working poor?—she made her way to the stage, where she was forced to smile as the auctioneer touted her various accomplishments, including a regional Gulf Coast Emmy for last year’s five-part series on crime and gambling.
“Ms. Dupree is offering a French Quarter gourmet music fantasy tour night, beginning with cocktails at Napoleon House, on to an exquisite, specially prepared dinner at the grande dame of New Orleans restaurants, Arnauds, followed by some R & B at the House of Blues, ending up with café au lait at the Café du Monde on the levee.”
He sighed appreciatively. “All this and Desiree Dupree, as well. Any man would be in heaven.” A murmur of agreement swept the room. “Gentlemen, let’s begin with five hundred dollars.”
Having watched the bidding rise to as high as five thousand, Desiree was not necessarily surprised when the starting price was easily and quickly met. She was, however, more uncomfortable and embarrassed than she’d ever been in her life.
As she stood on the stage surrounded by faux jungle scenery, a smile pasted on her face, she found herself wishing that she’d chosen to wear her chic black-and-white satin tuxedo suit, as originally planned.
Instead, at the last minute, her hand had reached into her closet and pulled out the scarlet dress shot with gilt threads. Cut like a slip, it skimmed her body, ending high on the thigh, while leaving her shoulders and back bare, revealing her attributes in a blatant way that made her feel like a headliner at one of the stripper clubs on Bourbon Street. She wondered if anyone could see that her legs were shaking.
As the bids escalated into the stratosphere, she closed her mind, concentrated on getting through this humiliating event and vowed that the next time the station manager signed her up for an appearance without asking her first, she was going to smack him.
“I have fifteen thousand dollars,” the auctioneer was saying when Desiree reluctantly tuned in again, “from the gentleman in the third row.”
“Fifteen five.” This from a man seated two tables away who’d been blatantly staring at her all evening.
“Sixteen,” called the man who’d been seated beside Desiree at the table. A former wildcatter who’d made it big in bayou oil, he’d ignored the black-tie instructions on the invitation, showing up in a Western-cut suit studded with silver and turquoise. He’d been drinking Sazeracs since before she arrived, his behavior becoming more and more obnoxious until she’d finally had to tell him—discreetly, of course—that if he put his damp hand on her leg one more time, she’d have no choice but to dump her champagne in his lap.
“I’ll bid sixteen five,” the oilman’s opponent countered.
Her drunken tablemate was obviously unaccustomed to being bested. “Eighteen.”
Desiree held her breath, praying for someone—anyone—to top that. But instead the other bidder threw up his hands and surrendered, causing Desiree’s heart to plummet.
“I have eighteen thousand dollars,” the auctioneer was saying. “And we’re going...” Desiree felt her smile slipping by notches “...going...”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” a deep voice suddenly offered.
The drawl was all too familiar. Desiree whipped her eyes to the back of the room. Usually she found men in black tie sophisticated and sexy—like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. In Roman Falconer’s case, the custom-tailored tuxedo only served as a vivid contrast to his rampant masculinity.
Their eyes met—his dark and sardonic, hers narrowed with annoyance at his grandstanding. The next thing she heard was the sound of the oak gavel striking the podium.
“Sold, to Mr. Roman Falconer, for the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars.”
The room exploded with applause and excited conversation.
Conversation that ceased, row by row, as Roman made his way toward the stage.
“Ms. Dupree.” His eyes gleamed with masculine purpose and his lips curved in a wicked smile. “I believe this is our dance.”
On cue, the band began to play. Realizing that every eye in the room was locked on them, Desiree forced a pleasant smile that belied the veiled censure in her eyes and descended the steps.
As he’d done that morning, Roman placed his hand against her back, the gesture unmistakably possessive as he led her out onto the dance floor. Desiree was relieved when other couples streamed after them.
Her skin was soft and the fine bones of her hand felt incredibly delicate in his. After a few steps, Roman leaned back and let a blatantly masculine glance roam over her. The dress, as scarlet as a defiant flame, hugged her slender curves. He’d been pleased to discover that her legs, clad in a pair of sheer stockings, were every bit as long and firm as he’d fantasized.
“Thank you.” From the time she’d finally escaped puberty at fourteen, emerging from a cocoon of braces, freckles and sharp childish angles into a bright and dazzling butterfly, Desiree had been flattered by countless men. But never had such masculine praise fluttered her nerves as it did now.
“It’s the truth.” He drew her back to him. Visible through the room’s glass wall, a stately white cruise boat, lit up like a Christmas tree in white, red and green, made its way up the Mississippi River. “The whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
Desiree flatly refused to be charmed. “I didn’t realize you were going to be here tonight.”
“It was a last-minute impulse.” He brushed his cheek against her cloud of tawny hair and drew in a deep, pleased breath. “Lucky for you, huh?”
She fit in his arms a bit too perfectly for comfort. When she felt herself tempted to lean her head against the firm line of his shoulder, Desiree stiffened. “I’m not sure I get your drift.”
“If I hadn’t shown up in the nick of time to buy you, you would have ended up spending a fantasy evening with some creep whose idea of foreplay is groping your leg beneath the tablecloth.”
Knowing a writer’s penchant for observation, Desiree was not all that surprised that he’d noticed—or guessed—the little drama that had taken place at her table. But there were a few points she felt obliged to clear up.
“For the record, you didn’t buy me. You merely paid for my companionship for one evening.”
“And you’ve no idea how much I’m looking forward to it.” Knowing he was being obnoxious, he skimmed his hand up her bare back.
“Are you always so rude?”
“Since when is telling the truth being rude?” He deftly twirled her past the banker and the caterer.
“Suggesting that sex is part of the bargain—”
“Objection, your honor. I don’t recall mentioning sex.”
“I suppose I imagined that reference to foreplay?”
