The King of Bourbon Street

by Thea de Salle

That’s weird.

  Her face went hot. She didn’t think he’d notice, only he had, because he stopped hyperventilating long enough to smile at her, the corners of his mouth stretched wide enough almost to wrap around the back of his head.

  “A penny for your thoughts?”

  “Steak,” she blurted.

  “Sounds delightful. Five thirty?”

  Wait, what just happened?

  He moved in beside her, his hand drifting to the small of her back and giving a gentle push. Her feet moved, one before the other, the heels of her shoes sinking into the plush runner with the pretty teal medallions. “There’s this lovely restaurant in the Garden District I’ve been meaning to try. We could take the trolley if you’d prefer, though I have a driver. But for now, the tour.”

  Oh. That’s what happened.

  The Seaside was built long instead of tall. The pool was at the very back, nestled between blocks of rooms on the left and right. A glass dome covered it, the iron framing painted white and twisted into decorative whorls. The folding doors along the front wall were wide open, the smell of flowers wafting in, the smell of chlorine wafting out.

  They walked along a curving stone path, one of two leading from the pool to the courtyard at the center of the hotel. A large fountain took a prominent position, the statue of a woman in a flowing dress rising above, her arms extended to her sides like she’d summoned the spouts of water. Wrought iron tables with pretty jewel-colored umbrellas and hanging lights claimed the left side, while rows of chaises lined the right. Flowering verandas created the surrounding walls, the interior rooms of the hotel all overlooking the courtyard, where people congregated to work on laptops, chat with friends, or grab a bite.

  At the front, near the lobby, were two stands—one for beverages, serving everything from spiced chai to freshly squeezed lemonade to Bloody Marys. The other had “gourmet quick eats” with fancy pastries, a variety of sandwiches, and exotic salads.

  “It’s lovely here,” Rain said, watching a hummingbird darting in and out of azalea blossoms. “It has soul.”

  She wandered toward the food stand with rows upon rows of sugared confections and pointed at a pastry. The young man behind the counter provided her a napkin and a small plate with a pastry upon it as well as a few slices of kiwi. When she opened her purse to pay, he waved her off.

  “Oh, thank you,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She shoved a twenty into his tip jar and took a bite of the tart, enjoying the crispy outside and the sweetly sour inside. Sol accompanied her back into the lobby, past the glass elevator, the front desk, and a few small conference rooms.

  “I’m proud of the place. It’s my home. I just let other people stay here.” He gestured at double oak doors at the end of the hall, the sign above reading Gustav’s in gilt script. They walked, not toward the main restaurant as she expected, but toward a private alcove with a pair of couches, a fireplace, a sideboard with a selection of fine liquors, and a small dining table.

  She perched on the edge of the couch, desperately hoping he didn’t see the gob of raspberry goo that escaped the tart and splattered on her cleavage. She was in luck; he had his back turned and was busy pouring himself a drink. She dabbed her mini-disaster with her finger and then sucked the fingertip clean.

  “Thirsty?”

  “No?”

  “You don’t sound sure. What do you need?” He dazzled a smile her way and she stopped chewing. He was gorgeous, with deep-set eyes, a square jaw with a jut of chin, and a full mouth. His hair was such a pale shade of blond it looked silver in the overhead lighting.

  He’s prettier than the gardener. I should have blown him.

  “Lemonade?” she squawked.

  He winked at her—oh that’s just not right—and ducked outside, talking quietly to one of his staff. He returned shortly thereafter with a sugar-rimmed glass, dropping it by her elbow before sliding onto the second couch. He was graceful, like there were no bones inside all that lankiness.

  “So what brings you to New Orleans?” He peered at her above his whiskey.

  “Scandal.”

  She sipped her lemonade, her eyes fluttering with pleasure at the combination of tang and sweet. It was the perfect counter to the sweltering heat and humidity.

  “What kind of scandal? Nothing upsetting, I hope?”

  “I blew the gardener.”

  “Pardon me?” He didn’t sound offended so much as surprised, and she clasped her glass, heat rising in her cheeks.

  “It’s a long story, but my mother wanted me to be with someone I didn’t like, and he wasn’t good at taking no for an answer, so I blew the gardener in hopes he wouldn’t want me anymore. And now there’s this sex tape thing.”

  Sol’s fingers rubbed together like he couldn’t sit still. He kept looking at her, over her, like he was shopping for goods in a particularly fascinating display. She had all his attention, all of it, and as someone who’d never experienced that before? It was compelling and distracting and made her feel special, which was probably why she didn’t answer him when he asked, “Was it at least fun?”

  Silence.

  He grinned. “Was it fun, kitten? Your gardener.”

  Kitten? Am I supposed to be kitten? I must be.

  It doesn’t bother me, I don’t think.

  . . . it’s really sort of sweet.

  “Not particularly. He smelled like Miracle-Gro.”

  He laughed a good, deep belly laugh from a nonexistent belly. She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing at all, peering down at the ornate sun design in the mosaic floor. Mr. DuMont—“No, call me Sol. Please.”—was about to say something else, but then her phone rang. And rang. And rang.

  Mama never noticed her ringtone is “The Imperial March.”

  She glanced at Sol, then back at the musical purse. It stopped for a moment, then started again, the ominous music stopping for a brief moment before it started all over again.

  “Do you have to take that?”

  “I’d prefer not to. My mother told me not to go on vacation and I did anyway.”

  Dun dun dun, dun duh-dun, dun duh-dun.

  “Well, specifically she told me not to go to LA, but she didn’t say anything about New Orleans. I doubt Richard ratted me out. He’s my oldest brother. You met Vaughan, he’s a middle brother. There’s six of them so it can be hard to keep track.”

  Dun dun dun, dun duh—

  She lunged for her purse, groping around inside until she located the offending phone and throttling its off button.

  He picked up his whiskey and leaned forward, offering the glass across the chasm between their couches. “Do you need something stronger than lemonade?”

  She sucked in a breath when his sleeve grazed her knee.

  Oh, do that again.

  Umm.

  “No, it’s . . . maybe I should just get ready for dinner?”

  Sol smiled and unfurled himself from the settee to offer her a hand. “Of course, kitten. Of course.”

  FIVE

  HIS FATHER, JAMES DuMont, was only fifty-nine when his plane kissed the mountainside. Sol, at thirty-seven, was the oldest of the DuMont boys—admittedly only by minutes, but Nash didn’t have the good sense to squirm out of their mother first—and thus the heir to the empire. Serena had her hands all over the business, but with James gone, her heart wasn’t in it anymore, so the three youngish men took over in his stead.

  James had worked hard for his laurels. He was a carpenter by trade who started buying houses in the Dallas area in the late seventies for low dollars, renovating them, and selling them for a profit. Carpentry was hard on him physically, and so when he’d saved up enough, he bought a run-down motel in hopes of getting into a less backbreaking business. He spent a year of nights and weekends beautifying it, often leaving his wife alo
ne with three boisterous boys who missed their father, but two weeks before Sol and Nash’s seventh birthday, The Brown Derby opened its refurbished doors.

  Between the restored architecture, Serena’s antique touches, and the new full-service amenities, it took off, booking out six to seven months in advance within three months of launch.

  The Austin hotel came next, then Phoenix, and then New Orleans, which became the anchor location due to demand. The family relocated from Texas when Sol was twelve, living in apartments above Gustav’s. Sol hadn’t lived anywhere since, nor would he if he had anything to say about it. NOLA shared his spirit: garish, just classy enough, and a little too loud for its own good.

  James learned early on that hotel management wasn’t any less difficult than carpentry. His calluses were gone, but acid reflux and migraines took their place, the mental faculties required to run a successful midsize chain that wouldn’t succumb to Hiltons or Ritz Carltons enormous. But he never complained, calling the hotels his dreams, and when he died, he left those dreams to three tall, blond male children who’d never thought about doing anything other than working in hospitality.

  Sol didn’t dislike the job, but he didn’t see himself expanding it, either. He was comfortable with his twelve locations, and having Alex in Dallas looking after their mother and Nash in Chicago doing whatever it was Nash liked to do—which was boring because Nash was boring—was convenient. Sol could stay in New Orleans, sign papers when Cylan told him to, and live an uncomplicated life.

  For a while, Maddy had made it complicated. They’d met two years before James’s accident, married within three months of knowing each other, and spent far too much time ignoring responsibility. The business was thriving under his father, and Sol was young enough to believe that he had all the time in the world to be Maddy’s prettiest pet. They could be grown-ups later, after excessive amounts of bondage and a few too many threesomes.

  Then James died, and the floor fell out from under him. He’d worshipped his father, and instead of processing his death in any number of healthy ways, Sol drank too much, did too much cocaine, and fucked everything that moved. Maddy would have been okay with all of those things if he hadn’t emotionally distanced himself from her in the process. She retreated because it was the only way she’d survive their crumbling marriage, and within six months, they were sleeping in separate beds.

  Not long after, Cylan came to him with two demands couched as requests: get into rehab and manage your fucking hotel before you lose it. The first was easy, the second, harder, because every time he looked at The Seaside’s letterhead, he was reminded of the man who’d taken a crumbling Confederate hospital and turned it into one of the few lucky businesses to make a profit the year Katrina hit.

  It took time. By the time Sol got his head out of his ass, Maddy was gone, most of the party crowd wasn’t interested in him sober, and his family was stretched across the country. He never wanted for company—Cylan had signed onto the payroll for good and lived next door. Maddy was a dear friend even if Sol’s depression quelled their ardor—but beyond those two intimates, people blended into gray shades of meaninglessness. Some wanted sex, some wanted money, some wanted sex and money. Some were beautiful and some weren’t, some had vision and some didn’t, but none of them had held his interest for very long.

  She, however, was interesting.

  Why? He couldn’t say, though the whirlwind of her arrival combined with her minor célébrité definitely helped. He was sure he’d seen her picture recently in a gossip rag, looking golden and charming on the arm of her beau apparent, Charles “Cockweasel” Harwood. It was hard to imagine someone who seemed like her—young, cute, a little prim—with a man who usually traded in supermodels like they were baseball cards. The notion that she’d go so far as to blackmail her own mother with a sex tape to get away from that asshat was hilarious. He wasn’t sure if he was laughing at her or with her, but they’d only known each other for a few hours, and time would work that out. As he picked out his suit for the night, leaning toward green to bring out his eyes, something oh so elusive stirred in his belly.

  Hope.

  Or, perhaps, hunger.

  He liked everything about her. How she looked, how she looked at him. From her wide-eyed guilelessness to her tendency to get stuck in dresses and spin in circles, she made his metaphorical tail twitch. He was the cat watching an ambling, squeaky mouse, and oh, how he wanted to pounce.

  Which is why he called Maddy to brag.

  She picked up after two rings.

  “Dove. We’ve been divorced a day. I don’t want you back, and begging won’t help no matter how pretty you look on your knees. Did you call Xavier? Patrice texted you his number.”

  If she had, he didn’t get it, but it didn’t matter anyway. He put the phone on his bureau and pressed speaker.

  “Better. I have a date.”

  “Cylan doesn’t count.”

  “Cylan doesn’t put out. I have a date date. With a girl this time.” He eyed his reflection and turned to the side. Thanks to his tailor, Andres, the bottom of his shirt buttoned into his trousers to keep it flat, and wasn’t that clever?

  Andres is a genius. A pocket-obsessed genius. Why do I need pockets in my vest, too?

  “Lovely! You can talk about all the things you have in common, like how good you both look with cocks in your mouths!”

  He pulled on his jacket, double breasted and evergreen. “Funny you should mention that! My date is with a certain heiress who, to get her mother to stop playing matchmaker, sucked off a gardener and filmed it. If I’m reading between the lines, she’ll release the video if her mother doesn’t back off about the would-be boyfriend.”

  “You’re going to fuck a Barrington?”

  Her comment was slightly disappointing if only because he wanted to shock and awe her with his celebrity-poaching ability.

  “Who told you? Ruiner.”

  “They mentioned it on E! Rumors of a sex tape, blah-blah-blah. I wonder if she called in her own anonymous tip. That’d be adorable.”

  “Wouldn’t it?”

  They shared a laugh, and he could hear Maddy puffing on her ridiculous robocigarette. “Nobody ever calls about my sex tapes,” she griped. “You’d think they would. It’s unmatched athleticism.”

  “They stopped caring after the third one, Madeline.”

  “You sound like Tempy.” Tempy was Maddy’s best friend and a Harvard alum lawyer from hell. Six feet tall, honey-brown skin, immaculate beaded cornrows, and queer as a three-dollar bill, she hated Sol with the fury of a starving honey badger. It probably had something to do with him asking if she resented him for stealing her girlfriend as an introductory question some years back.

  He’d had brighter moments. The woman could have used him as a toothpick if she’d been so inclined.

  “Don’t tell Tempy that or she’ll put out a hit on me.”

  “Oh, she just likes being grumpy. Don’t pay her any mind. So tell me, my chickadee.” Maddy’s co-conspirator joviality quieted, replaced by something far more serious. “Are you excited? Don’t get me wrong, dove. I know yesterday took some of the wind out of your sails, but you’re looking forward to it? I’m rather tired of your stoic old man routine.”

  He clipped his pocket watch into his vest pocket and checked the time.

  Five fifteen.

  “I feel optimistic. But I also feel pressed for time. Can’t keep the cupcake waiting too long or she might realize what a terrible mistake she’s making.”

  Another Maddy snicker. “Enjoy yourself, and text me the dirty details later. Not too early, though. I’m having dinner with a Baldwin. You know how those go.”

  “All too well. Talk soon, darling.”

  He turned off the phone and ambled toward Rain’s room, his hands wedged in his pockets.

  The first set of pockets, not the second o
r third.

  The Golden Lotus off Saint Charles Avenue was reputed to have the best Asian cuisine in the city. Sol hadn’t called ahead, but he rarely did—the locals knew him as an Upstanding Business Owner and they tended to reward him for it. Sol attributed it to his warm smiles, witty repartee, and glib humor. Cylan said it was because Sol kept his dickery close to the vest, reserved for those he cared about most.

  Rain looked . . . it was hard to say. Nice, certainly, but there was something odd about her appearance. On any other woman, the blue strapless party dress would have been elegant, and maybe scandalous with its plummeting neckline showing off oodles and oodles—and oodles and oodles and oodles dear Jesus those things are fantastic—of cleavage. On her, it looked cute. It wasn’t that she wasn’t sexy—she was sexy as hell—it was just that the golden curls, big eyes, and peach lipstick made her so adorably squishy that all he wanted to do was hug her.

  And then do other stuff to her. The skirt was painfully short, and he had a few ideas of how they could have spent the short car ride to the Lotus other than talking about the feats of Freckles the Wonder Corgi. But that was fun, too, even if it didn’t end up with ankles on his shoulders, and he got to hold her hand, which was lovely. It was small and soft, like the rest of her, and he liked the fit of her little fingers inside his spidery ones.

  He bypassed the line at the restaurant and had a table within minutes. The plan was to get to know his cupcake better, to understand how that squirrelly brain did its squirrel thing, but a Friday night in any NOLA establishment was chaotic. They had to shout to be heard, and talk was difficult.

  “I have an idea,” he said over coffee, the emaciated remains of a caramel coconut dessert midway between them. The check had been paid, the food so good he couldn’t complain about the noise or the price.

  “What?”

  He didn’t know if she asked that because she was interested in the idea or if she couldn’t hear him, so he shouted his answer. “Let’s take the trolley and walk the riverfront. It’s beautiful at night.”