The King of Bourbon Street

by Thea de Salle

  She sat.

  “She’s gone after Sol, Richard,” Rain started, wasting no time. “There was a committee hearing to take away his hotel. She’s attacked his other locations, too. We have to do something.”

  “I know, but she’s avoiding me, too. I’m trying to find her to pin her down. I think she’s in Manhattan right now, but I’m awaiting confirmation.”

  “And if she keeps running?”

  Richard’s frown was telling.

  “I’ll apologize and offer my assistance to your friend. It’s the least I can do,” he said.

  “I appreciate that, Richard, I do. It’s great that you’re willing to do damage control, but frankly, you shouldn’t have to. I want her to leave him alone. I want her to leave me alone.”

  “That’s reasonable,” he said. “Except Mother isn’t reasonable. She just wants everyone to think she is. Believe me, I’d retire from damage management in half a heartbeat if I could.”

  Vaughan brought over a too-full glass of vodka and sprawled out in the chair beside Spencer. He kicked off his sneakers only to reveal two socks that did not match. He rolled each sock down not with his hands, but with the opposite foot. A stench wafted up from the below-ankle region, making Rain’s nose crinkle. She reached for the socks, compelled to roll them up into a ball . . .

  Don’t touch, don’t touch, don’t . . .

  Ewww.

  She dropped the socks into one of his sneakers and grabbed a Wet-Nap from her purse.

  “Thanks, droplet.” Vaughan smirked at her. “Mom won’t stop. She’s pissed right now.”

  “Yes, we know,” Richard said flatly.

  Rain’s phone buzzed inside her purse. She put Freckles down on the ground so she could reach for it, hoping beyond hope it was her mother calling back so they could end this thing, but no, it was just a spam email. “Crapsicles!”

  The three men in the room looked at one another and then at her. No one said anything.

  While Rain sat pensive, trying to plot her next move, Freckles jogged off to do important corgi things elsewhere in the house. Vaughan stretched out. Spencer offered Richard a cigar and the two of them lit up and puffed away, filling the space with foul-smelling smoke that was only somewhat more bearable than Vaughan’s feet.

  “Has the sex tape thing died down?” Spencer asked. “That should get the stick out of her ass.”

  No. No it hasn’t.

  . . . which is fantastic.

  “Oh! I . . . idea. What if I go to the press and plead my case? Mother can’t ignore me then.” Rain smiled at Richard, her hands folded primly in her lap, her smile so sweet honey ought to have dripped to the floor. Vaughan peered at her over the lip of his glass, eyes narrowing with suspicion.

  Shut up, Vaughan. Don’t ruin this for me.

  He said nothing.

  “I think Mama might come around if I do. Just a few minutes to clear the air. Do you think you can help me with that?” Rain reached for Richard’s arm, fingers brushing over his skin lightly. “I’d love the chance to make things right.”

  Richard hesitated, his expression gassy. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. You know how hungry they are.”

  John smirked. “They’re vicious. I’d know. I own three television stations. I’d hate to see you pig piled, Rain.”

  Vaughan snorted. “She’s already pig piled. They were all over the hotel. At least this way there’s a consistent story out there, and if Richard stands with her, they’ll be far less likely to pounce on her. I can go, but he’s got all the sway.”

  Richard peered into the fireplace, his knuckles white from his too-tight grip on the bourbon.

  “You’re sure you want to do this, droplet?” he asked quietly.

  “I’m sure.”

  Richard glanced at Vaughan. The two shared a look Rain couldn’t quite identify, but it didn’t end up mattering so much, either. Richard drained his glass and said, “All right. Let’s make some calls, Spencer. We should be able to get this done quickly.”

  “Of course.”

  Spencer pulled out his phone. Richard reached for his, but before he got dialing, he snagged Rain’s wrist with his fingers and squeezed. He leaned in close and pressed his cheek to hers, dropping his voice low so only she could hear.

  “Whatever you have to do, droplet, I understand and I support it.” He pressed a kiss to her ear. “Go pack up the rest of your things and get dressed while we get this arranged. I’ll have you on a plane back to New Orleans by midnight.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  “DON’T SAY I never did anything for you, dove.”

  Maddy dropped a hat box decorated with gold foil paper and an obnoxious red bow in Sol’s lap before sauntering over to his bar and cracking open a bottle of wine. She didn’t read the label, just selected any old bottle because she was Maddy and the world was her oyster. For that matter, she hadn’t knocked before strolling into his suite, which on almost any other night would have been awkward as hell. Fortunately—or unfortunately, as the case was—he’d been moping for the better part of five hours, thinking about Rain. Yes, the trumping of the levee committee had been efficient. Yes, it was great that Cylan’s press release for Chicago got The Golden Goose up and running again for Nash. And Najmah speaking to Channel 4 news in Alex’s stead after a fresh health inspection and a thorough scouring by pest control yielded no critters? Fantastic!

  But none of it was satisfying. A worry or three put aside, perhaps, but not satisfying, and it was all because without Rain, everything was less shiny. Hell, even the calzone Dora brought him from Gustav’s turned to dirt the moment it struck his tongue.

  Call me, kitten.

  Pick up the phone and call.

  Sol shook the hat box Maddy’d given him. It thudded in a very not-hatlike way. “What’s this?”

  Maddy poured herself a glass of wine, then him a glass of wine, and dropped it off at his elbow. She sprawled out in the chair opposite him, sitting not so ladylike in her skirt and a new blouse. She’d changed since the afternoon’s meeting. Her makeup was worn off, her hair put back into a clip instead of worn down in luxurious curls.

  Rumpled. Maddy was rumpled.

  “Open it.”

  So Sol opened it, wishing he could muster some surprise at seeing a strap-on harness with a big rubber dick still inside the O-ring. “Is this an invitation or a threat?” he asked, looping his finger in the leather and hoisting the monstrous toy. It was impressively thick and long and could, in dire situations, double as a weapon.

  “It’s a trophy.” Maddy sipped her wine. “I figured Krazinski spent a while riding your ass, so I just spent a while riding his. Virgin ass at that. He won’t sit right for a week.”

  Sol stared at it, then at Maddy. “You fucked him in the ass for me?”

  “Mmm. That’s what friends are for? How’d that song go?”

  She hummed the eighties tune, her wineglass swaying back and forth with the soft-rock beat. She had a lovely voice, all whiskey-and-cigarettes sultry, and he probably would have enjoyed her serenading him if he could stop being incredulous that she’d shoved a rubber tree branch up Krazinski’s ass in the strangest show of solidarity ever.

  “I’m flattered, I think. I’m not quite sure.” He dropped the dildo. It fwumped as it hit the crumpled wads of tissue paper inside.

  Maddy tittered. “He wanted to fuck me. He got fucked by me. He liked it, too. I should give him a button or a T-shirt so he can know he’s part of a very elite club.”

  “Not so elite when half the population is part of it, darling girl.”

  Maddy practically glimmered. “Touché.”

  Anything else Sol could have or would have said about Maddy’s revenge dildoing was interrupted by a knock on the door, followed immediately by Cylan briskly entering the suite.

  “What’s wrong with you p
eople? Are we not bothering with basic manners anymore? I invite you in, etcetera, etcetera?” Sol demanded.

  “Where’s your remote?”

  Sol pointed at the drawer in the side of the coffee table. Cylan rummaged through, turned on the TV, and flipped channels. There on the screen, sandwiched between Vaughan and a man Sol recognized as Richard Barrington, was his cupcake. She stood in front of a microphone and a roomful of reporters, looking adorable in her baby-blue Saks Fifth Avenue pantsuit. Her hair was done up, pearls glowed in her ears. Her little hands with their pink polish clasped the sides of the wooden podium.

  “Can you tell us why now, Miss Barrington?” shouted a reporter.

  Rain craned her neck back, looking like she had to stand on tiptoe to answer. Vaughan grabbed the microphone and yanked it down so it was in front of her glossed mouth.

  “In light of recent events, I want everyone to understand the truth, and this guarantees that the real story gets out there. All of it, as I know it to be true.”

  “What’s she talking about?” Sol demanded.

  Cylan hushed him and pointed at the TV.

  “Do you have a publisher yet, Miss Barrington?” called another reporter.

  Rain gestured, a graceful sweep of the wrist that bordered on regal.

  How very Elise of you, kitten.

  “We’re arranging those details now. Richard’s office has fielded requests for autobiographies in the past, and given my family’s relationship with John Spencer, we’ll likely filter any publisher through him before making a decision. Stay tuned for updates.”

  The same reporter asked, “How much of this has to do with the sex tape scandal?”

  Rain practically beamed when she said, “There is no tape, sir, I’m sorry to say. Someone started a vicious, unfounded rumor. No, my book will focus on my mother in particular, growing up in such a high-profile—and at times Machiavellian—family, and did I mention my mother?”

  Kitten, you scamp.

  She’s going to air all of Elise’s dirty laundry.

  “How do you feel about Miss Barrington’s decision, gentlemen?” shouted another reporter.

  Vaughan shrugged and pointed at his elder brother. Richard closed in on the microphone. “I support my sister in all things. She has my complete backing. But that’s all the time we have right now. Any other questions can be filtered through my press secretary, James Irwin. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”

  As the Barringtons stepped away from the spotlight, Rain sparkling as she waved, a hundred flashes of a hundred cameras catching what looked angelic but was really utter duplicitousness at play, Sol found his first earnest smile of the day.

  “She’s threatening to trash her mother for me.” Sol looked from Cylan to Maddy and back to the television, feeling like he’d just won the lottery. He pointed. “She’s actually blackmailing her mother for me!”

  Cylan said nothing, but his shoulders quaked like maybe, just maybe, he found it funny. Maddy lazed in her chair and drained her wineglass, giggling uncontrollably as she refilled it and guzzled a twenty-year-old Merlot like water.

  “I’m going to marry that woman,” Sol announced. “Because I can.”

  Much to his surprise, Cylan simply nodded and tossed the remote control into the hat box, not knowing that he’d mingled a perfectly benign electronic with a dick with a sordid past.

  “Maybe you ought to at that.”

  Sol couldn’t sleep. For all that Rain had maneuvered around her mother and was, as far as he knew, forging an Elise-less future for them, he worried that he hadn’t heard from her. Even if she lost his number, she would know to call The Seaside directly and ask for him if she wanted to talk to him. Hell, he’d instructed the night staff to wake him if she called, to not let her go to voice mail because he didn’t want to miss an opportunity to check on her, to see if she was holding up okay in the wake of all that public scrutiny.

  No kitten.

  Less than a week did not long-lost-lovers make, but he missed her. He wanted her there. He wanted to appreciate what she’d done for him at the press conference, to show her how much he liked her cleverness, her smiles. Her body, too, but that went without saying. He couldn’t stop thinking about his next steps. Yes, after barely a week. Perhaps it was ridiculous, but he was ridiculous, just as much as Rain was, in his own fashion. He was lazy or overaggressive, there was no in-between. He waffled until Cylan had to beat him with a broom to make a decision . . . or he was quick on the uptake, to hell with forethought and preparation.

  Kitten could be the former or the latter.

  The latter.

  Definitely the latter.

  It was late. He’d been lounging in his bed for hours, Maddy and Cylan long gone to their respective suites. He watched the shadows on the wall dance until, finally, he drifted off. It was deep, dreamless sleep, the kind that was hard to wake from, which accounted for why it took probably a trillion squeaks for him to clue in that something magical had happened.

  Squeak-a. Squeak-a. Squeak-a.

  “Freckles?”

  Pad. Pad. Pad.

  Sol cracked an eye only to spy a small dog with a very large, fluffy hedgehog in his mouth standing beside the bed staring at him.

  “Hello, cher.” He reached down to scoop up his friend, plopping him onto the tangle of sheets and blankets. Freckles dove back at the hedgehog, biting it all over its face and legs because he clearly had anger issues. Sol crept out of bed, pausing to don his bathrobe so he wouldn’t greet Arianna Barrington with his dick hanging out as he’d very nearly done the first day he’d met her on his front terrace.

  She was tiptoeing around the apartment, cleaning in her pretty blue pantsuit—stacking this, brushing imaginary dust off that, washing things at the kitchen sink. Rearranging her nest so it was nice and orderly. By the door was a veritable mountain of luggage. She’d left a few bags behind when she left New Orleans, but this was something else altogether.

  This is move-in luggage.

  “Kitten. Come to bed,” he said. He glanced at the clock, his vision still swimming thanks to the hour. Seven thirty.

  She stopped scrubbing the wineglass in her hand, then lifted it to the light, and seeing Maddy’s lipstick stains on the rim, dunked it back into the hot water. “Not yet. I’m waiting for a call back.”

  “From?”

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

  “The Imperial March.”

  “Mama.” She smiled and dried her hands on a dishrag. “I did a press conference.”

  Sol watched her reach for the phone. “I saw.”

  Rain pressed the speaker button, propping it up on the counter as she toweled off the wet dishes. “Hello, Mama. You’re on speakerphone.”

  “Are you blackmailing me?” Elise demanded.

  “No. I’m writing a tell-all book about being a Barrington.”

  “It’s the same damn thing, Arianna.”

  Rain started stacking the dried plates in the cabinet, but Sol walked up behind her to loop his arms around her waist, his lips pressing to the side of her neck. She stopped fussing and slumped against him, settling into his arms like they were two parts of the same whole.

  She belongs here, with me.

  “Mrs. Barrington. Hello,” he said, wanting Rain to know he was there for her, wanting Elise to know she couldn’t back either of them into a corner.

  Elise ignored him. “Arianna, you can’t write this book. You can’t. I won’t have my reputation besmirched.”

  “Actually, I can. Just like you can sue people because you’re angry with me. That’s the beauty of being a Barrington. We can do anything we want, no matter the consequences. You taught me that. Besides, my assets are frozen. I need a steady income and this should more than provide.”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Rain’s vo
ice was even-keeled, emotionless even, but she was tense all over, so Sol decided to distract her in the only way he knew how. His hands wandered, from waist to hips, down to ass and thighs, his mouth moving beneath the turned collar of her suit to find the crook between neck and shoulder, and sucking. Rain rocked back at him, a lewd, instinctual thrust, and he ground himself against her, hardening by the second.

  “Fine,” Elise finally said.

  Sol’s hands cupped Rain’s tits and she squeaked out a “Hmm?” at the cell phone.

  “I’ll drop the charges if you don’t write this stupid book. We don’t need the press. And I’ll unfreeze your assets so you . . . just don’t.”

  Rain spun in Sol’s arms to smile up at him, her lips skimming beneath his jaw. “We have a deal then.”

  “I’ll call my lawyers now.”

  And she was gone, the line going dead, the bitch beast from beyond far, far away in Connecticut. Rain offered herself up for a kiss, and he gladly accepted, his tongue flicking out to tease at hers.

  “Come to bed,” he murmured against her mouth.

  And never leave it.

  “Okay.”

  His fingers dropped to her suit coat to undo the pearly buttons, peeling it away before the slacks, both making a baby-blue puddle on the floor. The panties were next, and he crouched to tug them down, skimming his lips over her stomach in the process. He liked watching how the muscles beneath her padding rippled for him.

  Her hands dropped to his shoulders, the dishrag sliding away to strike the floor. “Vaughan is back in his room on the third floor. He said he’d rather fuck a wood chipper than spend another minute in Mama’s presence, pardon m—”

  “French pardoned.” His hands slid from her soft hips, up her spine, and to her bra, unclipping the four fastenings so the cups fell forward. He plucked it off her and scooped her up, carrying her to the bed. He had to deposit her on his side because Freckles had claimed the other. Sol affectionately—and efficiently—put both corgi and toy out in the living room and closed the door between them.

  Sorry, buddy.

  He slithered up from the foot of the bed toward Rain, gliding over her shapely legs, pressing a kiss to the dimple in her right knee, her upper thigh, just below her belly button, between her breasts and to her chin. She clamped her arms around him and squeezed tight.