by Julie Leto
“You mean too interesting,” Zane countered. “For how long are we switching?”
“For as long as you want.”
“And you’ll take care of Reina Price?”
“If you take care of Toni Maxwell.”
Somehow, Grey knew he’d gotten the better end of the deal.
REINA SLID AWAY from the window and sighed, crossing her arms over her stretchy white lace T-shirt, then sliding her hands down her thighs, over tight black leggings tucked into ankle-high boots. All dressed up and nowhere to go, she mused. Actually, she could just go downstairs, into the bubbling pit of sensuality better known as Club Carnal, but what was the point? Only because of her friendship with the new owner, Chantal Dupre, had she showed up at all.
She already knew most of the men writhing in the mass of scented foam, dancing and flirting and drinking with the hippest, hottest babes in the city. None of them interested her. None of them ever had. Her growing ennui wasn’t just a key part of her public persona anymore. Reina really was bored. With the club scene. With her predictable personal life.
She grabbed her tiny purse from where she’d laid it on Chantal’s desk and marched toward the elevator. Before she could push the button, the doors slid open and her best friend popped out.
“And where do you think you’re going?” Chantal demanded.
Reina feigned a look of innocence. “Downstairs to enjoy the bubble bath firsthand?”
Chantal snorted. “Yeah, right. You’ll ruin your boots. You’re bugging out on me.”
Reina huffed, caught. “Chantal, I’m very proud of you for buying the club from your brother and organizing this entire grand reopening and making sure all the right people are in attendance. But I’ll go crazy if you make me stay.”
“You used to love club hopping.”
“I also used to like cotton candy for breakfast and watching Beverly Hills, 90210. People change.”
Chantal chuckled, crossing the long, fourth-floor room her brother had converted into the club’s office. “I would have loved to have seen you tell Pilar you wanted cotton candy for breakfast.”
“You think she said no? My mother is immeasurably indulgent.”
“She’s also always been obsessed with the state of her figure—and yours. You got 90210 in Paris?”
“In London. Or maybe it was during the summer in New York. I don’t remember. Chantal, may I go, please?”
After tossing a zipped bank bag into a desk drawer, Chantal stared at her friend from the tip of her boots to the top of her head. Reina didn’t have to exaggerate the outward signs of her restlessness. If she didn’t escape soon, she’d do something totally uncharacteristic. Like scream.
“Oh, all right. It’s not like you’re actually downstairs filling my coffers with a long drink tab. Where are you going anyway? Hot date?”
“Actually…”
Reina did, in a manner of speaking, have something sinful and sexual planned. Nothing like Chantal imagined, she was sure, but with a little help from the suitcase of toys she stored beneath her bed, she hoped to experience a little release of the tension zinging through her since Claudio allowed her to peek at il Gio’s drawings.
“Tell me!” Chantal grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her over to the long leather couch.
“There’s nothing to tell. I actually have a date with a hot book.”
“Book? Damn girl, you can’t tease a recently divorced woman that way. Here you had me thinking you’d finally broken down and taken a lover.”
Reina rolled her eyes. “Why do I have to take the lover to satisfy your needs? The divorce has been final for three months, Chantal, and I’m sure any one of those studs you have on the guest list would willingly satisfy your libido.”
Chantal licked her dark-lined lips, then walked over to the bank of tilted windows that overlooked the club from four stories up. The disco balls and high-tech laser lights glittered starlight colors all around the dark office. The latest techno music pounded through the walls, in time with an accelerated rhythm. Reina watched her friend, tapping her high heels to the beat, look over the mass of sexually charged people dancing and drinking below.
“There are some hunks in attendance,” she said, almost absently. “Did you see Zane’s twin, Grey?”
“Zane has a twin?” Reina asked, surprised. Zane Masterson was not only the landlord for both her Arts District gallery and her Garden District home, but she also considered him a good friend. They’d dated a few times at the behest of mutual acquaintances, but found more in common for a casual relationship. She considered them to be fairly close, but obviously not close enough for him to admit that his brother and he shared the same genetic makeup.
“Didn’t you know?” Chantal asked.
“I knew he had a brother who runs the Louisiana Daily Herald, but I had no idea they were twins.”
Wait a minute…Grey Masterson, Grey Masterson. Why did the name seem so familiar?
“You should check him out,” Chantal suggested. “He’s sort of cute in a serious, suspicious sort of way. He looks just like Zane. Or Zane looks like him. I don’t remember which one was born first. Anyway, he just got done interviewing me for his newspaper.”
Reina’s memory finally clicked. “Is this the same Grey Masterson who was featured in the book by that cheesy actress? What was her name? The one who starred in that blockbuster slasher film?”
Chantal nodded. “Yeah, yeah.” She giggled. “I almost forgot. Did you read her book? They boinked like bunnies all over town. Add stamina to the man’s appeal.”
Reina shivered. She had nothing against an adventurous love life, but she valued discretion above all else. The idea of having her sexual escapades chronicled in a bestselling book horrified her. She remembered her mother shopping around an exposé of her affairs a few years ago, but, thankfully, no publisher of merit was willing to pay a large advance to a famous but fading stage actress.
“No, thanks. Privacy means too much to me.”
“Well, he didn’t write the book, the hussy did. Heard he was pretty pissed.”
“I’ll bet. Well, speaking of books—” she grabbed her purse again and this time made it all the way inside the elevator, though she held the door open by pressing the button “—I have a date with a bestseller myself. Don’t be offended if I have more fun with Il Gioielliere’s Diaries than you have making money.”
Chantal rushed toward her. “You have a copy? It’s been sold out at Book Star for a week. I’m dying to read it!”
Reina frowned, then waved her hands. “I don’t actually have a copy yet, but I’ll bet my mother has one.”
“Well, I’ve got dibs next. From what I hear, that book will put any of those young studs downstairs to shame.”
A shiver of electricity coursed through Reina. She loved anticipation, sometimes even more than sex. Particularly since anticipation had been all she’d permitted herself lately.
“I’ll let you know.”
She released the button, amused by Chantal’s dreamy, envious look as the doors slid closed.
“HAVE A COPY? Love, I have a case.” Pilar Price lounged on a velvet chaise, sipping her evening cognac beside a table lit with a dozen beeswax candles. Reina leaned down and kissed her mother, wondering why the woman looked so beautiful, so put together and sensuously arranged at this late hour. Her jet hair, glossy from a fresh application of color, sat artfully arranged atop her head. Swathed in a silky nightgown, she looked no older than Reina, particularly in the candlelight. The woman knew how to set the stage for a seduction. “In the parlor, beneath the Queen Anne table.”
“A case?”
“They’re very hot property. I ordered them in as gifts. Go along and take yours. But I haven’t time to chat, mi amore.”
At that moment, her mother’s maid, Dahlia, charged into the room, scenting the air by pressing the golden bulb of an antique atomizer. “Reinita! You should know better than to show up here at this hour,” Dahlia chastised
lightly.
Reina smiled as Dahlia swept a quick but genuine kiss across her cheek. “Might run into a paramour, might I?”
Dahlia only clucked her tongue. “Maybe you should find yourself a paramour of your own. Besides, a woman like you shouldn’t be charging about the Quarter at this hour.”
“Oh, hush, Dahlia,” Pilar insisted, waving her hand. “Reina doesn’t charge anywhere. I taught her much better than that. She only came to borrow a book, which I’ve told her is a gift to keep.”
“Thank you, Mother. I won’t overstay my welcome.” She hurried into the parlor and retrieved the book from a very large box, shipped, according to the label, directly from the publisher. She clutched the gilded cover to her breast, anxious to get started. She returned to the library where her mother relaxed. “I have an important meeting tomorrow and just need to do my homework.”
“Meeting? With whom?”
Pilar attempted to look disinterested by picking at the lace on her sleeve, but Reina knew her mother well enough to recognize deep curiosity. She’d decided earlier this afternoon not to tell her mother about Claudio or his offer.
When she’d told her mother about the thefts at the gallery, Pilar had completely overreacted. She’d railed about danger and demanded Reina move in with her, a command Reina defied, despite two weeks of the silent treatment. Even in her sulking, Pilar had called the chief of police and demanded a full investigation, much to Reina’s deep embarrassment. She was thirty years old, for God’s sake. She didn’t need her mother running to her rescue.
So she opted to keep her new opportunity to herself.
“Zane Masterson.”
Reina grinned, congratulating herself for producing a truthful response so quickly. Her mother’s lessons in honest duplicity had not fallen on deaf ears.
“Oh,” Pilar groaned, rolling her eyes. “You’re wasting your time with that one. He’s a perennial bachelor, committed to nothing and no one. Or maybe that’s why you’re dallying with him now, after all these years, so you don’t have to risk your heart to love?”
Reina’s brow popped up. Her mother wasn’t a brainless woman, but she wasn’t usually so perceptive about anyone other than herself. Still, Reina had nothing to lose by admitting enough to squelch Pilar’s interest. “Actually, Mother, that’s it, precisely.”
Pilar nodded absently, instantly more intrigued by the lay of silk across her thigh. Seduction without love was old hat to Reina’s mother.
“Well, then, darling. Have fun.”
With a brief wave, Pilar dismissed Reina, who immediately jumped at the opportunity to escape before Dahlia added her two cents, which usually included something about Reina finding a husband or other such nonsense.
She had no more time for a husband than she did for a lover. Which she didn’t need, at least for tonight, so long as she had the book, her toys and her vivid imagination.
2
“YOU’RE LATE.”
Grey bristled. Yes, he was late. But he certainly didn’t walk into Reina Price’s gallery expecting to be snapped at by someone he knew wasn’t the owner. He opened his mouth to verbally reduce the petite woman’s sneering sauciness to a size more appropriate for her body, but smacked his lips together and grinned instead. Grey Masterson might not suffer such a rude greeting, but Zane Masterson wouldn’t give a damn.
“What’s new?” he said instead, easing beyond the glass doorway with an unhurried step.
His question stopped her high-heeled march across the gallery. She turned, a perplexed look on her china-doll face. “You’re never late. Not unless you’re going to a party.”
Grey forced his expression to remain nonchalant while he filed the information away for further reference. “Today’s no party, then, huh?”
She shook her head before slipping back onto the tall stool behind the reception desk. “I wouldn’t know.”
Flipping on a headset and then punching a number into the telephone, the young woman dismissed him without another glance. Grey wondered what Zane had done to make the woman so hostile. Probably dumped her. Or worse, turned her down. She was attractive enough, he supposed, but she looked a little naive, despite makeup too thick for her youthful skin and clothes too tight for such a slim but shapeless body. He figured such attire was probably appropriate for an art studio that specialized in erotic creations, but she looked too much like a child playing dress-up for his taste.
Taking a moment to look around the gallery, he tried not to appear as if the pieces displayed on the warm white walls or in glass cases spaced over a black-tiled floor were completely new to him. Grey had no idea how often Zane visited his rental properties but knew Zane had bought this building long before renovation of the Arts District had made the neighborhood hip. New Orleans, a city more inclined to preservation by neglect rather than restoration by design, had embraced the change with its usual laid-back acceptance. So long as they could still throw a party or host a parade on Julia Street, the main thoroughfare, everyone won.
Yet even the leading purveyors of the Quarter’s motto laissez les bons temps rouler—let the good times roll—had raised shocked eyebrows over the Price Gallery, which featured artists who specialized in sexual art. He glanced at paintings that even he might have considered pornographic if not for the skilled blends of color and original brush strokes. Stopping to admire a glass sculpture of a woman’s breast, the nipple erect and tipped with gold, Grey wondered where he would put such a piece if he shelled out the—good Lord—ten-thousand-dollar asking price.
Behind him, a buzzer sounded. He watched the snippy receptionist paste on her best smile before she waved in two well-dressed couples. Judging by their clothes, they could easily afford such luxuries. The studio brimmed with interesting, eye-catching pieces. At least a dozen customers milled about, chatting with two artists working along the back wall of the gallery in studio areas that sported neat worktables and a fully operational kiln protected by glass.
The studio was unique, allowing the patrons to see the artists at work. Reina Price had successfully taken the concepts practiced in the square around Jackson Park—artists plying their trade for the world to see—and brought them into a setting made even more intimate by the subject matter. Although he didn’t know much about art, he recognized talent when he saw it. Not only in the featured artists, but also in the woman who ran the show. Grey approached a cube-shaped case displaying a delicate flower pin reminiscent of labia and a stimulated clit. Then he spotted the two-thousand-dollar price tag with a small red “sold” label tacked on the top. Yeah, Reina Price knew what she was doing.
He remembered the cultural society’s objection during Reina’s opening, a prelude to their even more vigorous disapproval when the National Trust Artists’ Museum had allowed the Joshua Eastman Gallery of Erotic Art to open. Reina had been considered an interloper, a European-bred upstart riding on the celebrity of her mother, the world-renowned stage actress, Pilar Price. The criticism shifted with the Eastman Gallery, since the Eastman family had lived in New Orleans since before the War Between the States. Evidently, new or old, the grand dames of New Orleans wanted everything overtly sexual and erotic confined to the T-shirt shops on Bourbon Street.
Just a few months ago, Grey had exemplified this code of conduct. For him, sexual preferences and erotic interludes had always gone on behind the closed doors of a bedroom, or a boardroom, or the back seat of a limousine if that’s what the situation warranted. But always in private. Now that Lane’s book had spent weeks on the bestseller list, he wondered if he’d ever experience such personal privacy again.
One good thing about being Zane was that it became a nonissue. No one expected him to be discreet.
Grey watched for any sign of Reina, suddenly worried about convincing her that he was Zane when she probably knew the real Zane’s daily habits better than he did. He’d just learned his brother wasn’t known for tardiness. That surprised him. He couldn’t remember the last time Zane had showed up on tim
e for a family dinner or meeting of the stockholders. He frowned, surmissing Zane only showed up on time for events he deemed important. Grey should have guessed. Zane always had valued his friends, particularly the female ones, over anything else.
Grey had had little time to grill his brother before the switch, so he’d only kept to the most basic information. Not knowing made the game more enjoyable. As usual, Zane had no serious entanglements Grey had to worry about and no other pressing commitments beyond his appointment with Reina. He’d admitted that he’d dated the exotic jewelry designer a few times, but that they were now simply friends and business associates. And while Grey couldn’t squelch the curiosity he harbored about Ms. Price, the circumstances suited his oath to stay away from women for a while. He didn’t have to pretend to be attracted to Reina, or engage in any of the painfully obvious flirting his brother usually employed, not when their romance was long over.
But when Reina stepped out of her office, Grey wondered if maybe he would have to do some pretending after all.
Before she caught sight of him, she greeted one of the couples who’d entered the gallery after he had. Dressed in slim black silk slacks and a sheer long-sleeved blouse that hugged her flesh, Reina Price was stunning. The dark hue of her clothing, coupled with the ebony gloss of her upswept hair, added an air of mystery to her guarded expression. Her smile exuded natural warmth, but her lips, berry-stained, curved with caution. Her dark, wide eyes, framed by mile-long lashes, enhanced a carefully constructed air of mystery.
Grey slung his hands into the pockets of his slacks, shocked by his instantaneous physical reaction. The pictures they’d printed in his newspaper hadn’t done her justice. He hadn’t expected her to be so tall, so…stacked. Her stiletto heels and visible satin bra undoubtedly enhanced the effect, but Grey didn’t care. He whistled aloud, figuring Zane would never hide his appreciation for such awesome beauty.
