On the outside, the square house—white with massive columns, wide stairs and a wraparound veranda on the second story—looked exactly like some of the plantation homes outside New Orleans he’d seen during a cruise up the Mississippi. Inside, every glorious detail made him feel like a tacky, bumbling idiot: the glittering chandeliers dangling from twenty-foot ceilings, the wall murals depicting plantation life, the priceless antiques artfully arranged atop priceless rugs, the knickknacks and bric-a-brac from untold Chinese dynasties, the crystal vases full of flowers from the garden—tulips in the spring, fragrant yellow roses right now.
Every time he came here he tried to touch as few things as possible lest he break something. Growing up with his single father in the West End downtown, after Mama ran off, he’d never dreamed that anyone anywhere lived like this, much less a black man. If this was a plantation house, then slave had become massa.
Maria and Ellis belonged in this world. He never had, and never would.
Firm footsteps on the polished floors announced Ellis’s arrival. The man who’d been a mentor to him walked through the elaborately framed door from the kitchen carrying a tinkling crystal goblet of iced tea in each hand.
Ellis handed David a glass and smiled. “That went well, didn’t it?”
David stared at him for an arrested moment, then laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “About like telling a polar bear she’ll have to eat celery from now on.”
Ellis waved him to a blue silk sofa and they sat. “I didn’t expect her to be thrilled,” Ellis said. “But it’s for her own good. A little tough love won’t kill her.”
“It might kill us, though.”
They both laughed. Hoping he wouldn’t spill it and make a mess on the sofa, David took a sip of his syrupy, rich, dark tea and made an appreciative sound. Another thing he’d missed. Sweet tea, Miss Beverly called it. Southern style, which meant one part tea to about forty parts sugar. He’d always suspected she put a dab of honey in it, too, but he’d never been able to prove it.
For four years, ever since he left Cincinnati, he hadn’t allowed himself a sip of tea—sweet, hot or otherwise—because the taste of tea was a painful, stabbing reminder of the first time he ever saw Maria Johnson.
“David, this is Miss Beverly.” Ellis stood and gestured to the trim, walnut-skinned woman as she came through the doorway from the kitchen carrying two glasses of iced tea.
David, equally awed by his new boss and his boss’s fabulous house, had been sitting on the blue silk sofa, waiting for dinner and trying to ignore the butterflies in his stomach. Now he jumped to his feet and took his glass from Miss Beverly, the servant. He couldn’t get over this behind-the-scenes view of how the other half lived. She smiled as if she completely understood how he felt, reminding him vaguely of one of his great-aunts. He liked her immediately.
“Miss Beverly,” he said, shaking her hand. “How are you?”
Her smile widened and she winked at Ellis. “This one’s got manners,” she said in drawling Georgia tones.
“Don’t I know it?” Ellis said.
“This here’s sweet tea,” she told David as he raised his glass to his lips. “I’ll be back a little later to check your blood-sugar level.”
They were all still laughing when the phone on the end table rang and she snatched it up. “Johnson residence.” She listened, then, “It’s for you, Ellis.”
Ellis handed his glass back to Miss Beverly. “That’ll be Jenkins calling about the meeting,” he told David. “I’ll take it in my office. You make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”
He left. So did Miss Beverly, but not before first fussing over David and making sure he didn’t need a snack to hold him over until she could get the roast on the table. Alone, he took a moment to gape openly at his surroundings. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, he could see one of those wraparound porches and, below that, the glittering pool and dark gardens, gorgeously lit by spotlights.
Within the living room, he didn’t know where to look first. Lamps warmed every corner, making a room that should have felt like a cavern instead feel warm and inviting. Murals of slaves working green fields covered the walls, and he moved to one side of the room to inspect the work more closely.
And that was when he heard her.
High heels drummed on the hardwood floors, announcing the arrival of a purposeful woman. The voice followed—young and husky, the siren’s voice of a seductress calling a lover to her bed or leading a sailor to his doom against the rocks.
“Daddy? Miss Beverly? Where is everybody?”
David had every intention of moving forward out of the shadows to let her know he was there, but then he saw her and couldn’t move a muscle.
Tall. Shapely. Beautiful. For a few seconds his stunned brain could register only the rough outline, but then the details came into focus. She’d been poured into one of those stretchy black dresses that drove men wild. Wide hips, rounded butt, miles and miles of bare legs. Gleaming honey-brown skin, long, dark, rumpled hair that begged for a man’s hands to sift through it, four-inch heels. Young; in her early twenties or so.
She breezed in, didn’t see him, gave a tiny what-the-hell shrug and turned to the enormous gold-framed mirror. Humming absently, she checked her lipstick and fluffed her hair with no real interest, as if she was only confirming that she was still as beautiful as she’d remembered. He must have moved or made some sound because she froze and their eyes met in the mirror.
Maybe she liked what she saw—he couldn’t say. But her gaze raked over him and then the beginnings of a smile curled her delicious, glossy lips. “Who are you?” she demanded of the mirror.
“David Hunt,” he said, surprised his dry mouth and throat could produce any sound.
She frowned a little, but it was a teasing, flirtatious frown. “You’re not a homicidal maniac, are you?”
“Not so far.”
In one fluid movement she threw back her head to laugh and whirled to face him. Her hair swung over her shoulder, brushing the tops of her breasts until she tossed it back. Her laugh was the unabashed belly laugh of a passionate woman who sucked every experience she could out of life and then looked for more.
“What are you doing here?”
He stepped closer, pulled into her orbit by forces much stronger than himself. “Eating dinner. Your father’s my new boss. I’m on summer break from Wharton.”
“Really?” She raised her pointed chin and stared at him with wide, dark, almond-shaped eyes. “I hope he’s not working you too hard.”
“Don’t worry about me.” He took another step closer. “I like to work hard.”
Her gaze flickered over him. “I’ll just bet you do.”
They stared at each other well past the point of polite curiosity. One part of his brain screamed he should run away from this woman for reasons too numerous to count, but another more insistent part told the first part to shut the hell up. He shoved his hands in the pants’ pockets of his suit to keep from reaching for her, but found himself creeping closer instead. “What do you do with yourself?”
“Not much. I work in a boutique in New York.”
“Why not work for your father? I’ll bet you’d be good at public relations.”
Another head toss. “Maybe I want to go out on my own. Conquer the world.”
He didn’t doubt this woman could do anything she set her mind to. “Yeah? And what’ll you do the day after tomorrow?”
Another laugh. This one slid over and then under his skin, heating him from the inside out. Their gazes held and her smile died off. A faint flush crept up her neck and over her cheeks; she shivered. In the distance he heard the doorbell ring, but anything other than this moment with this woman was irrelevant, including his new boss.
“When do you go back to New York?” he asked, praying both that she’d sayright now andnever.
“I’m moving back here,” she said breathlessly. “I want to come home.”
“Good.”
“I’m from Cincinnati. My father still lives here.”
“And where’s your mother?”
David felt his facial muscles clench a little with that familiar tightness, but he went ahead and told her the ugly truth he’d only ever discussed with a handful of people in his entire life. “She walked out on me and my dad. And then she got killed in a car accident.” He swallowed, cleared his throat and wondered why on earth he was telling his life story to this perfect stranger. “Long time ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Maria said, and in her eyes he saw perfect understanding. “My mother died, too. Long time ago.”
Too stunned to speak, he could only stare as the silence lengthened. What was happening here? Was he dreaming? Was it magic? Maria was a sorceress, maybe, or a witch or, at the very least, a hypnotist. That had to be it. What other explanation could there be for this powerful, delicious spell she put on him? For the pull he felt toward her, and the excruciating lust? Surely a mere woman couldn’t affect him like this. He spoke without thinking, apparently no longer in charge of his own thoughts, words or body.
“You’re incredible.”
She flushed and something troubled appeared in those dark eyes, but he also saw warmth and excitement. Interest. Intense attraction.
“What’s your name?”
It took her forever to speak, as if she were answering a question far more important than the one he’d asked. Finally she took a deep breath and opened her mouth.
“Maria.”
“Nice to meet you, Maria.”
He held out his hand, forcing contact. A pathetic manipulation well beneath his dignity, but how else would he get to touch her tonight? She hesitated, as if she wanted to refuse but couldn’t think of a reason to do so.
When she slipped her soft, cool palm into his, electricity arced between them, as vivid as a rainbow at the foot of a waterfall. And then he caught her intoxicating scent—flowers with a hint of lemon—and knew his life had changed forever.
Voices intruded, and then Miss Beverly came into the room, breaking the spell between them. Maria snatched her hand back, dropped her gaze and furtively looked away, as if she’d been caught downloading kiddie porn.
David couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“George is here, honey,” Miss Beverly said before disappearing back into the kitchen.
Reality jerked David back to his senses and his gut turned to lead. A man walked in behind Miss Beverly, bringing with him a haze of jealousy that grabbed David in a stranglehold and clouded his vision until he could barely see.
The man was probably in his mid-thirties, which, as far as thirty-year-old David was concerned, was way too old for Maria. Medium height, medium build, mustache. Silk shirt and pants that cost more than David paid for two months’ rent. The smarmy, satisfied smile of a man to the manor born with a beautiful woman on his arm.
David despised him—deeply and eternally—on sight.
“Hi, baby.” He went straight to Ellis’s daughter and leaned in to kiss her on the lips, but at the last second she turned her head and gave him her cheek.
“Hi.” She smiled—it was strained and tight, nothing like the glorious one she’d given David a few seconds ago—and kept her eyes lowered.
George noticed him for the first time and his gaze flickered over David’s dark suit, which was nice but certainly not of the caliber the young prince here wore. David glared but the man didn’t have the decency to drop dead.
George held out a hand. “How you doing? George Harper.”
David swallowed the bile in his throat and took the man’s hand. “David Hunt.”
“Nice to meet you.” George turned back to Ellis’s daughter and pressed a hand to the small of her back. “Let’s go. We’ll be late.”
Somehow David watched her go without snatching her back and away from Harper. Maria shot David a last, furtive glance over her shoulder, then let Harper steer her into the foyer. Stomach roiling, David followed them, hovering just out of sight inside the doorway and listening for whatever sounds of Maria his hungry ears could absorb.
“Is that what you’re wearing, baby?” Harper asked her in a low voice.
. long, tense pause followed and then Maria spoke. “What’s wrong with this?”
“I was hoping you’d wear that strapless dress. I want everyone to see how beautiful you are. You know I need to make a good impression tonight. Can you change for me?”
Outraged, David listened and prayed Maria would flatten Harper where he stood for making such a ridiculous request. But then, unbelievably, there was a swatting sound—did that jackass have the nerve to smack her on the butt?—and Maria spoke.
“Okay,” she said tightly.
David couldn’t believe it.
Maria went upstairs while David seethed in impotent silence. Ellis came out of his office, saw George, and took him back to his office to show him his new driver. David went out to the foyer to wait at the base of the curved staircase for Maria.
She came right back, this time wearing a strapless black dress that was off the charts in the sexiness department. He couldn’t begin to imagine how all those delicious, velvety-brown curves managed to stay restrained, but they did. Maria looked heart-stopping, a trophy beyond any man’s wildest dreams. And if anyone bothered to look beyond the hair, the face and the body—something George Harper obviously never did—they’d also see that she looked self-conscious and miserable.
Seeing David at the bottom of the stairs, she seemed to shrink, and crossed her arms over her chest as she descended. Something on his face must have made her think she needed to defend herself.
“I just thought I’d change—” she began.
Though he had no right whatsoever to speak his mind, David’s indignation made it impossible for him to keep his lips together and his big fat mouth shut. He saw Maria’s future, as if someone had handed him a crystal ball: her youth, her desire to please, her strong father, her overbearing, older boyfriend who ignored her feelings every chance he got. If she spent too much more time around those two men, they’d swallow her whole and burp up her bones. There was no way David could stand silently by and let Maria disappear.
“Don’t let him treat you like that,” he told her in a low, urgent voice he hardly recognized as his own. “You’respecial. If he doesn’t know how lucky he is to be with you, then he’s an even bigger punk than I think he is.”
She seemed dazed, as if she didn’t know what to make of all his fervor. Her mouth opened, but her voice was on a five-second delay. “Everyone thinks I’m the lucky one,” Maria said finally. “They keep saying how rich and smart George is—”
“George,” he said, unable to keep the hostility out of his voice over being forced to say the man’s name, “wants a doll he can show off.”
Her eyes widened. “Don’t all men want dolls?”
“I don’t.”
Their gazes locked and held, and so many things pulsed between them that he couldn’t begin to analyze them all. Understanding. Knowledge. Longing. Passion. Unthinkingly, he took a step closer to her—he had to becloser to her—but then they heard the laughing, approaching voices of Ellis and Harper, and another beautiful moment was spoiled.
But as David watched her leave for her date, he knew that something powerful had been born tonight—something undeniable—and one day soon he and Maria would have to deal with it.
“Ahem.”
The rumble of Ellis clearing his throat brought David back to the present with an uncomfortable start and no idea how long he’d been daydreaming. Ellis’s bland face showed no expression in particular, but his sharp, focused gaze told David they were about to enter delicate territory.
“I hope I haven’t put you in a t
ough position,” said Ellis.
“How’s that?”
“Working with Maria. Supervising her. The two of you have a past, after all.”
David forced a blank stare. Have a past,eh? Was that the euphemism these days for a blistering affair that left nothing behind but scorched earth? Or maybe the only thing that’d been scorched was him.
“That is ancient history, Ellis.” He tried to look reproachful. “I’m surprised you’d even mention it. Maria and I both moved on with our lives years ago.”
“That’s what I thought.” A beat passed while Ellis stared over the fine crystal as he sipped his tea. “Still, I…” Dropping his head in a pretty good hangdog move, he rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. It seemed like there might still be a little chemistry there when you saw each other just now.”
David shrugged ruefully. “Well, she hasn’t been tapped with an ugly stick while I was gone, has she?”
They both laughed and the tiny bit of tension that had been between them passed, but that in David’s body didn’t. The image of Maria, sleek and oiled, curved and bare, toned and ripe, would haunt him until his dying day, possibly surpassing even the image of the first time he saw her. Before today he’d nursed the ridiculous hope that he’d either exaggerated her beauty after all these years or that she’d gone to seed and gained thirty pounds or so.
No dice.
He should’ve known. Maria Johnson would never let herself go, and looking good was an area in her life in which she was willing to work hard. And boy, did it pay off.
The years had only deepened her looks. A new wisdom—or was it cynicism?—shone from those dark eyes, and it fascinated him. As did the long hair, dark once but now the same honey color as her skin. Was it still as soft? He’d never know.
He knew he’d never see a more beautiful woman if he lived to be two hundred. But luckily all he had to do was think of the twisted black heart that lay beneath those glorious breasts, and his blood cooled right off.
Sort of.
He’d known she was divorced, of course. Known she’d had a short, rocky marriage, heard rumors about George’s infidelities, and the large award of spousal support. Maria Johnson had always been on his radar. He just hadn’t expected to be this…overwhelmed by seeing her again.
Sweeter Than Revenge Page 3
