The Queen of Dauphine Street

by Thea de Salle

  Clean body, clean teeth, brushed hair, a smear of liquid lipstick, a white silk tank top and black slacks with sandals to show off her sparkly red pedicure, and she headed downstairs. Patrice lured her from the suite and toward the elevators with a light coffee. She tried to get her to take a muffin, too, but Maddy waved her off, guzzling coffee that was hot enough to qualify as caffeinated lava.

  “I need to wait a bit. Medicine hangover.”

  “I’ll have them make you something on the plane,” Patrice returned.

  That’s not what I said, Patrice. That’s not what I said at all.

  But it wasn’t worth arguing over because Patrice was right: Maddy needed to eat eventually because death, like brains, was stupid. Maddy stepped into the foyer of The Diamond and donned sunglasses to keep out the hellacious sun. Center of the solar system or not, it was rude to do what it was doing to Maddy’s tired eyes so early in the day.

  I am so crabby today.

  “Maddy. Hey!”

  Darren. She swiveled her head only to discover the tall, beautiful man standing to the right of the revolving doors waiting for her. Again he wore jeans, again he wore a T-shirt, but this time, instead of work boots, he had on sneakers, and his arm was trussed up in a sling. Beside him was Alex. Why he’d wear long sleeves in Texas heat, she didn’t know, but there he was, in business pants and a dress shirt, a tie, and polished shoes.

  “All set to go?” Alex asked.

  “Of course I am. I’m ready for anything.”

  “Except breakfast,” Patrice piped in.

  “Shut up, Patrice.” Maddy rolled her eyes and sipped her coffee. She tilted her head forward so she could look at Darren over the rim of her sunglasses. He smiled at her in a blazing wash of white teeth.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Good morning, dove. Cast? No cast? If there’s a cast, I want to sign it. I won’t even draw anything obscene.”

  “No cast. Just bandages and a sling for a couple days. Alex said you had medical staff on the ship.”

  “A certified nurse and a doctor, actually,” Patrice replied for her, never once looking up from her iPad. “Your luggage is loaded, Miss Roussoux. We should head for the airport. Your plane leaves at ten.”

  “My plane leaves when I tell it to leave. I own it,” Maddy griped, but she closed the gap between her and Alex and pressed a kiss to his cheek anyway. “Good to see you. Thank you for everything yesterday. I’ll take good care of your friend, I promise. He’ll come back more tan and swollen with fruity drinks.”

  “Good.” Alex pulled her in to hug her, pressing her face against a thick neck that smelled like Ivory soap and mint. She squeezed him back with her free hand, her fingers daring to glide down over his back, toward his hip, and meandering in the direction of his very firm, taut . . .

  He snagged her wrist.

  “Behave yourself,” he chided, but his heart wasn’t in it. He cast a smile Darren’s way over her shoulder. “Watch yourself. She’s trouble. The good kind of trouble, but trouble all the same.”

  “I got this. Thanks for everything, Alex. I’ll call you.” Darren and Alex shook hands, Patrice tutted near the rotating door to hurry them along, and a minute later, the three of them climbed into the limousine to battle their way through downtown Dallas traffic.

  Maddy slumped into the seat and drained the last of her coffee. She handed the empty cup to Patrice, wordless, and Patrice produced a fresh cup out of thin air because she was magical like that. Annoying, but magical. She also rustled a pastry bag in front of Maddy’s face in invitation. The muffins were warm and fresh baked, but Maddy turned her nose up at them all the same.

  Patrice sighed.

  “You haven’t eaten in a day. Just eat the muffin top?”

  “Mmmm, no. Coffee.”

  “You can’t live on coffee alone.”

  “Get thee behind me, Satan!” Maddy hollered. Patrice rolled her eyes and tucked the bag back into what was, if Maddy was being honest, a diaper bag full of Maddy-keeping supplies. There were probably juice boxes in there, for Christ’s sake.

  Darren peered at them from the seat to Maddy’s left, his head cocked to the side. “Why aren’t you eating? Sick to your stomach?”

  Maddy smirked. “Klonopin is a dirty, dirty whore the next day, that’s why.”

  He nodded. “Huh. Well, I’ll make a deal with you.”

  “Mmm?”

  “I’ll tell you my best joke if you take a bite of muffin.”

  “Whose side are you on, Mr. Sanders?”

  He grinned. “My own. Okay, so why did the coffee file a police report?”

  Maddy looked between her cup and the handsome face not three feet away. “I’ll bite. Why?”

  “It got mugged!”

  “Oh, dove. Oh, if that’s your best joke . . .”

  She didn’t finish the thought. She was too busy laughing in spite of herself, and then she was too busy hate-eating a blueberry muffin to talk.

  SIX

  DARREN GOT HIS first black eye on a Carnival cruise ship two and a half years ago while sailing to the western Caribbean. The plan had been to celebrate his anniversary with Kelly. The first night was great, the second night, also great. Rum and Cokes, lobster tails, and sunbathing, followed by hours of rigorous fucking. They’d always been good at that; she was athletic and eager with an appetite that rivaled his own. What happened between the sheets had never been the problem. If anything, it was one of their strengths—all sorts of disagreements were sorted out with sex when the words wouldn’t come.

  No, the problem was, as per usual, the drinking. The third night they were on board they went dancing. Darren liked to dance—was good at it, even. He’d funded two of his college years working at a high-end strip club in Austin and didn’t have a single regret. His mother was broke, his father wasn’t in the picture, and grinding beneath the lights was lucrative for a guy like him. After graduation he started the construction business in earnest and retired his Velcro costumes. Dancing became a recreational activity only, and that night on the cruise, he and Kelly hit the parquet for fun. It’d started out all right, with her rubbing against him in her pink sundress with the palm tree print, her blond hair bobbing by her ears, but around midnight, when she was far into her drinks, another girl had the audacity to try to dance with him while Kelly was at the bar. He’d extricated quickly, told the woman he had a girlfriend, but Kelly came back at the worst time possible, when the girl was wheedling invitations into his ear. Shouting, accusations, a thrown drink—it’d been a disaster, and when he’d made the mistake of following Kelly back to their shared room, she’d hit him. Hard.

  It’d shocked him. He’d never been punched before, and after it coming from someone he loved, he could only stand there, stunned, his nose bleeding on his shirt. She screamed in his face, she threw things. He hadn’t known what to do, so he’d shut the door and gone down to the nurses’ station. They’d doctored him, asked what happened, and he gave the excuse any abused person might give in the wake of an assault by a loved one.

  “I walked into a door.”

  There’d been an accident report, lies through his teeth, ice packs, and a hell of a black eye. He’d opted not to go back to the cabin that night. He claimed a deck chair and watched the sun rise instead. Going out to sea had sounded like the ultimate freedom, but that perspective changed when you were trapped on a boat with a psychotic drunk ready to whale on you.

  At seven o’clock in the morning, Kelly appeared, sobbing her apologies. She had to stop in the middle of her snivel fit to throw up over the railing, her body wracked with shivers. He’d been angry with her, hadn’t talked to her for another two hours, but she’d sworn up and down she’d get help as soon as they were on land, that she was done with the booze, that she loved him and hadn’t meant it.

  She didn’t drink again that trip. He
believed she was really done with it because he’d wanted to believe it—wanted to believe everyone deserves a second chance.

  It was the first time she hit him. It also wasn’t the last.

  But he didn’t want to think about her as he eyed Maddy’s ship. He thrust the toxic memories away and licked his lips, his eyes narrowing as he perused the deck with its pool, its cozy tables with colorful umbrellas, the stocked bar and lounge chairs. He didn’t even know what to call the vessel. “Yacht” conjured images of sleek metal ships that looked like floating needles on the ocean. Maddy called it her boat, but that seemed irreverent in the face of so much glass and chrome. The best he could come up with was a miniature cruise ship. The Capulet wasn’t one of the big liners that housed two thousand people, but it had a max capacity of four hundred before crew, Maddy had said, and it would have been five hundred if she hadn’t given half a deck to her tiger for a jungle gym.

  Of course she had a tiger jungle gym. She was that kind of person.

  Maddy’s heels clicked against the gangplank ten feet ahead of him. He followed her up the ramp, one of his arms in a sling, the other limp by his side. He’d tried carrying his own luggage from the limousine to the dock, but Maddy had hissed at him like a rabid raccoon when he’d touched it, insisting she paid people for that, he was on vacation, and he’d best start acting like it.

  She’d softened it with an air kiss that danced above his cheek before sashaying her way to the Capulet. He hadn’t argued—because how did you argue with that?—and when both of them stood on the beautiful hardwood deck, she paused, spreading her arms wide, a bright smile on her face. The ocean air rustled the black hair she’d tied back into a ponytail. The sun struck her sunglasses and almost blinded him.

  “Welcome to my favorite house that isn’t a house. We’re on the first floor—you’ll be down the hall from me, in one of the suites. Private deck, Jacuzzi in the bathroom, all the amenities. Sound all right?”

  “Sure does,” Darren said, overwhelmed by the luxury surrounding him. That one woman could own something like the Capulet—for private use—boggled his mind.

  I’ve met rich people. She’s not rich people. She’s whatever the next level after rich is. A money god? Scrooge McDuck?

  She tilted her sunglasses down to offer a saucy wink that made him appreciate just how long her eyelashes were before she sauntered toward the steps to the left of the pool. Her ponytail swayed back and forth like a pendulum, hitting one side of her back and then the other. That wouldn’t have been noteworthy, except Darren was a hips guy, and Maddy Roussoux had hips. Wide ones, even, that were connected to really long legs, which he also appreciated in a woman. It wasn’t a bad view, to be walking behind her, and he relished the whole bouncing package right until she stopped outside of a closed door and knocked on it.

  “First things first. You have to meet Cappy,” Maddy said. “We share the floor with her. She’s family.”

  A strange, guttural groan rumbled inside. Darren quirked a brow, then a higher brow when it happened again. A moment later, an older white man opened the door and popped out his head. He was silver gray on top, with short hair and a trim mustache beneath a long, wide nose. Lines and wrinkles riddled a sun-beaten, leathery face with thin lips and disproportionately large ears. He wore a short-sleeved tan shirt tucked into a pair of blue jeans and work boots similar to the ones Darren wore at construction sites.

  Another low-toned growl sounded.

  Are you hungry, man? Darren thought, thinking the old dude seriously needed a taco, but then a different head popped around the door and he forgot to be a smartass. The tiger’s head was at least the size of a basketball, the backs of her rounded ears black with white spots, the stripes around her yellow-green eyes pitch black against her orange and white fur. Her paws were the size of saucers. She was as wide as the man propping open the door with his hand.

  What a beautiful thing to behold.

  For a four-hundred-pound murder machine.

  A murder machine that responds to “furry babby,” “mama’s widdle kitty,” and “boo boo bear,” apparently.

  Maddy sat on the floor, her legs splayed. The older man stepped aside so the feline could exit the room. There was another animalistic moan from the cat before Maddy was overcome; the tiger’s paws went over her shoulders, a thick, fuzzy chest pressing against her face. Maddy oomphed and fell back, so the tiger did what was most logical to it and lay down on top of her, until the poor woman was buried beneath a cat thrice her weight.

  “Edward Richter, Cappy’s keeper, but everyone calls me Richter,” the old man said with a crisp English accent, his hand extended Darren’s way for a proper shake.

  “Darren Sanders. Is she going to be all right under there?” Darren watched the tiger snuffle at Maddy’s dark head before giving it an affectionate lick.

  Or maybe she’s tasting her?

  “She’s not going to eat Maddy, is she?”

  “Hardly. Capulet’s fond of Madeline. She’s quite tame, but you never want to underestimate these creatures. There are some basic safety rules on board, the most important being to limit quick movements if you can, and not to run away from her or her prey instinct might kick in. I doubt she’d maul you, but she will pounce because that’s how I play with her in her enclosures. Otherwise, you’re quite safe. It’s my job to see to that,” Richter replied.

  “She’s a pussycat,” Maddy said from beneath her tiger prison. “A big babby face.”

  “Babby. Is that like baby?”

  “Yes. Except better.” Maddy managed to shove the tiger aside far enough so she could breathe again. She spit out tiger fur and suffered through a thorough snuffling by her adoring pet. Her hands fisted in the thick fur as she tilted her head back and bellowed, “Patrice! Where are you?”

  “Is Capulet out?” Patrice called from the steps behind them.

  Maddy rolled her eyes. “Yes, she’s out.”

  “Let me know when she’s back in her room and I’ll come down. Thank you.”

  “Wimp.” Maddy sighed and nodded at Richter, pressing a kiss to Capulet’s broad muzzle. The tiger yawned, exhibiting all fifty trillion white teeth that could and would rend flesh from bone.

  Darren took a micro step back.

  I might be with Patrice on this one.

  Maddy, however, seemed unperturbed. “Ugh. You smell awful, kitty. You’ve been fed, I take it?”

  “She has.” Richter reached down and looped his fingers under the cat’s rhinestone collar. It was leather on the bottom, Darren could see, but the top had been bedazzled with colorful gems that were probably real, if he had to venture a guess. Maddy’s eccentricities would almost certainly extend to sapphire and ruby cat necklaces.

  Richter managed to haul the tiger off her mistress and guide her back into a side room. “Unless you’ll be needing her for anything else, she’s off to the Jungle Room for the rest of the day.”

  “No, that’s perfect,” Maddy said. “Be good, boo boo. Mommy missed you. That wedding was the worst.”

  Darren wasn’t sure what was weirder, that Maddy baby-talked Catzilla, that he was helping her up off the floor and then patting her down to get the tiger fur off her clothes, or that she followed up that whole nature-special exchange with “So what first? Lunch or the dick gallery?”

  While he had an undeniable curiosity about the phallus collection to rival all phallus collections, he was hungry, as was evidenced by his growling stomach. Maddy eyed it and then him, her smile widening.

  “That sounded like a Capulet moan. I take it sandwiches are in store?”

  “You must love me,” he said with a wink, and Maddy led him down a hall carpeted with intersecting jewel-toned medallions. There was art on the walls, some of it protected by glass with mini bronze plaques beneath. Later, when he wasn’t starving, he’d take a stroll and see what she had in her collection.
He liked art. He couldn’t draw worth a shit, but he appreciated when other people did it well.

  “Patrice! Have some Reubens sent down to my suite. And some sides, blah-blah-blah,” Maddy hollered behind her.

  “Is the kitty gone?” Patrice replied, singsong, maintaining her position at the top of the stairs.

  “Yes, the kitty is—get me the goddamned Reubens, please!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Maddy pointed at a light wooden door to their left with a number two on it. “Your room,” she said, walking by it and then another twenty feet to a second door with a big, gold number one. She gestured Vanna White style before pressing her finger to a keypad next to the door handle, waiting for a play of lights, a beep, and a click.

  Her voice went all raspy husky when she threw herself dramatically against the wall and said, “Come inside, big boy,” before shoving the door wide in invitation.

  He looked in at red walls, an enormous circular bed with a black canopy and purple velvet pillows, and black lacquered furniture.

  Oh my. If you insist.

  SEVEN

  DARREN’S EXPRESSION SUGGESTED they definitely were not in Kansas anymore, and Maddy couldn’t be more pleased. She scanned the room right along with him, her upper lip twitching. She didn’t want to laugh, afraid he’d misinterpret it as her laughing at him, but the reality was, the room was designed to evoke a response. She’d told her decorator—an obnoxious Frenchwoman named Emanuelle who wore too much perfume and tended to throw n’est-ce pas onto the end of every sentence—that the rest of the ship could be seashells and pale blues and ocean decor, but her bedroom had to be a showstopper. She wanted a rock-star-meets-bordello love dungeon, with velvets and silks and so much richness it was like gorging on fudge.

  Emanuelle had delivered, griping the entire time that it didn’t fit the theme of the ship, but Maddy had promptly reminded her that she was paying her far too much to bitch about one odd request.