Welcome to Temptation

by Jennifer Crusie

  “If I could, I’d show you the real tape because Temptation looked wonderful in it, but unfortunately, whoever stole that vile tape to sabotage the premiere, also took everything we had. Cherished is gone forever.”

  Thank God, Phin thought, and kept a wary eye on the crowd.

  “However, to make it up to you, my sister and I would be more than happy to tape your next theater performance so that can be shown on your cable channel.”

  Frank sat up at that, looking vaguely cheerful for the first time in weeks, and Amy looked surprised. She looked down at her hand and extended her fourth finger.

  “The most important thing now, though,” Sophie said, “is to help the police find the pervert who thought it would be a good idea to show pornography to schoolchildren.” Sophie sounded outraged, and Phin wondered if that was real or con. He was pretty sure the rest of it was a con, but at least the populace wasn’t trying to lynch her.

  “So what I’m asking you all to do, is to think about who has the most to gain from this,” Sophie said earnestly, and one or two people began to look interested.

  “The mayor did it,” the heckler said from the back, and Sophie said, “Why? That would be political suicide, I’ve even heard some people are so shortsighted that they’re talking about not voting for him, but they can’t be thinking this through. He’d have to be crazy to play that tape.”

  “He is,” the heckler shouted back, and Sophie said, “No, he isn’t, and you should be ashamed of yourself for just shouting things out instead of standing up for what you believe in, the way your mayor does. The people of this town don’t like cowards and they don’t like cheats, which is why they’re not listening to you and why they’re going to find out who really did this. The people of Temptation are too smart to fall for this. You’re all upset now, but pretty soon you’re all going to be asking yourselves the smart question: Who has the most to gain? It’s your civic duty to ask that question, all of you.”

  She let the silence hang there, and Phin thought, Don’t look at Stephen, let them get there on their own.

  Sophie nodded. “You all know this town so much better than I do, you’ll figure this out, and then I know you’ll punish the culprit properly. Thank you.” She sat down abruptly, and Phin could see her hands shaking.

  Amy held out five fingers and said, “You got everything but the smile.”

  “I can’t work miracles,” Sophie said, and Phin thought, The hell you can’t.

  Because she’d made porn, and she was getting away with it. Stephen couldn’t get her for it because he’d stolen the tapes, and if he produced them to get her, the townspeople would know he had been responsible for the debacle the night before.

  Hell of a woman, his Sophie.

  Phin leaned over. “Not bad,” he told her, and she lifted her chin, still shaking, and said, “I was magnificent.”

  “I want to know what she was getting at,” Stephen was blustering loudly, and Phin leaned back and said,

  “No, you don’t, that’s the last thing you want to know. I declare this meeting adjourned.”

  Hildy said, “Works for me,” and stood up. “You can all go home now,” she told the crowd. “Show’s over.”

  “Wait a minute,” Stephen said, and Virginia turned to him with loathing.

  “This is all your fault, all of it,” she told him, and got up and left, leaving her stunned husband behind her.

  “Some days are like that, Stephen,” Phin said, as he stood up to go.

  “Sit down, I want to talk to you,” Liz said, and Phin nodded as he watched the crowd. Most of them were still throwing him dirty looks, but one or two looked at Stephen with some curiosity.

  Sophie went out with Amy and Hildy, and nobody said anything to her, nasty or otherwise, so she was going to be fine. Better than fine, if he had anything to do with it.

  Then Wes came to stand in the doorway and caught his eye, motioning to him as people filed out around him.

  “Make this fast,” he told his mother as he nodded to Wes. “I have things to do.”

  Rachel sat by the garden at Leo’s house, marveling at where she’d ended up. It looked like paradise. Leo’s tiled pool sparkled blue in the sunlight, and there were palm trees, real palm trees, and blooming hibiscus, and up by the hot tub there was a lemon tree that really grew lemons.

  She couldn’t wait for Sophie to see that. She could pick them right off the tree and make lemonade.

  Leo came out and sat down on the chaise next to her, still looking slightly stunned, and handed her a glass of what looked like sludgy orange juice.

  “What is this?” Rachel said, looking at it with deep suspicion.

  “Vitamin citrus smoothie,” Leo said. “Drink it. It’s good for you.”

  Rachel sipped it. It wasn’t bad. “It’s great.” She looked at Leo over the glass. “Thank you.”

  “I’m going to hell for this,” Leo said, and Rachel knew he wasn’t talking about the smoothie. “Your father is going to come after me with a shotgun.”

  “He doesn’t have a shotgun,” Rachel said. “He has a nice rifle, though.” Which he would probably use if he had any idea of the things Leo had done to her in his bedroom. Amazing, the things older men knew.

  Not to mention how much longer they lasted.

  She grinned again, the silly, satisfied grin that she couldn’t keep off her face even though it made her look like a dork. She was in L.A. now. She was supposed to be sophisticated. A producer’s mistress wasn’t supposed to grin like somebody who’d just had the first great sex of her life.

  “Twenty years old.” Leo shook his head.

  “I am not the first twenty-year-old you’ve slept with,” Rachel said. “Cut me a break. How dumb do you think I am?”

  “No, but you’re the first twenty-year-old I’m going to marry,” Leo said. “How dumb does that make me?”

  Rachel straightened. “Marry?”

  Leo sighed. “Yeah.”

  “You’re going to marry me?”

  “I think it’s best for the kids. Especially if one of them’s going to be mayor of Temptation someday. You know how those people are.”

  “Leo.” Rachel felt tears come to her eyes, which was ridiculous because she hadn’t even realized she wanted to be married. But she did. Her mother would be so happy.

  Leo’s face softened. “I’ll take care of you, Rachel. You’ll never be sorry.”

  Rachel nodded through her tears. “And I’ll take care of you, too. You think you don’t need it, but you do.”

  “I’m sure I do,” Leo said, patting her hand.

  “No, really.” Rachel put the smoothie down and went into the house for her bag. When she came back out she said, “I was going to use this to convince you I should have that production job, but now it can be a wedding present. Although I still want that production job.”

  “You’ve got it, you’ve got it.” Leo peered in the bag. “What have you got?”

  Rachel pulled out a videotape and handed it to him and watched his face go slack with surprise.

  “Don’t tell me—”

  “Yep.” She patted his arm. “It’s Cherished, the last version. I found it in Daddy’s car, along with all the other tapes when I threw my bag in the trunk. I called Wes and told him where we left the car so he can find the others, but I knew you’d want this one.”

  Leo looked at her with wonder. “You’re amazing.”

  Rachel nodded and crawled onto the chaise with him. “I’m beginning to see that. And that’s just in Temptation. Imagine what I can do now that we’re in L.A.”

  “Imagine,” Leo said, putting his arm around her.

  Rachel looked out over the lemon tree and the palm fronds and the hibiscus and thought, This is all mine. I’m going to be Rachel Kingsley. A movie producer. Then she narrowed her eyes at the hibiscus.

  “Leo, who weeds this place?” Rachel said.

  “The gardener,” Leo said.

  “Fabulous,” Rachel said,
and relaxed into her new life.

  At roughly the same time, Davy watched Clea come out of Suisse Invest Limited of the Bahamas, cross the street, and slump down onto one of the brightly painted benches that lined the edge of the beach. It had taken her long enough to get the bad news. If he’d thought he had a couple million in a bank somewhere, he wouldn’t have dawdled.

  She wasn’t dawdling now, she was in shock. He was sympathetic. So were any number of men who slowed as they went by her. Time to get a move on. He crossed the street and sat down beside her. “Hey, Clea,” he said. “Heard you’re broke.”

  She jerked her head up and then her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

  “Saving your life, which is more than you deserve,” Davy said. “In fact, if you didn’t have something my sister wants, I’d probably let you rot. You’re a fairly miserable human being, you know.”

  “What are you doing here?” Clea said again.

  “That’s good. Focus.” He put his hands in his pockets and stretched his legs out. “Let’s see. You just went into that bank and found out that the bank book you took off Zane’s body is for an empty account.”

  Clea looked around to see if anyone was listening. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “When Zane was fibrillating on the dock,” Davy said slowly and distinctly, “you went through his pockets and found the bank book. And then you sat there and watched him die. And I stood on the back porch and watched you do it because I thought the poor son of a bitch was drunk.” He felt his anger rise again, that he’d been that stupid, that she’d been that callous. “You can go to jail for that, Clea. It’s called ‘depraved indifference,’ and you could go away for a nice chunk of time.”

  “You can’t prove it,” Clea said.

  “I can do you a lot of damage,” Davy said. “Temptation is the one place on earth where the mayor and the police chief will listen to me.” She looked at him with unadulterated loathing and he shrugged. “Do what I tell you to and neither one of us will have to go back there.”

  Clea flopped back against the bench. “Great. Now I have to sleep with you.”

  “I wouldn’t have you,” Davy said, and Clea glared at him. “Okay, it’s probably because I already have had you, but I like to think it’s also because you’re such a cold, conniving, murderous bitch. Pay attention. You’re going to sign over the deed to that farmhouse to Sophie.”

  “No, I’m not,” Clea said. “I’m selling it to Frank for three-quarters of a million.”

  “Sure,” Davy said. “Go back to Temptation, explain why you let Zane die, deal with the police and the lawyers, and when you’re done, how much of that three-quarters will there be left?”

  “More than I’d have if I just give the damn thing to Sophie,” Clea said.

  “No, you’ll have three-quarters of a million if you give it to Sophie,” Davy said. “That’s how much I’ll transfer into an account for you once you send off the deed.”

  “And where would you get—” Clea began and then she turned on him. “You’ve got my money!”

  “My money,” Davy said. “It’s been mine since the night Zane died and I copied the number and password out of the book in your bedroom while you were talking to the police. One wire transfer, and it was mine.”

  “How could you do that?” Clea said. “I had the bank book.”

  “It’s not a passbook account, dummy,” Davy said. “It’s a password account. All you need is the account number and the password.”

  Clea looked at him with such venom, he almost moved back. “You son of a bitch.”

  “This is pretty easy, Clea,” Davy said. “You give Sophie the farm, I give you seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you use it to find your next rich guy, and everybody lives happily ever after. Hell, you’ll probably inherit more from Zane.”

  “There was a lot more than that in that account,” Clea said.

  “Sure was.”

  “I could have had all of that and the three-quarters from the farm,” she said, and her voice had a vicious edge.

  “The key words being ‘could have had,’ ” Davy said. “That was then, this is now, and I’m bored with this conversation. You have one hour to bring me that deed transfer and the number of an account where I can transfer your money. After that, the price drops.”

  Clea’s face smoothed out and became lovely again. “You know ...” she said, leaning closer.

  “Nope,” Davy said warily. “I told you. I’m not interested.”

  “If you really thought I was a murderer, you wouldn’t let me go,” Clea said, sliding closer to him, and this time Davy did move back. “I know you. I know what you did to Chet in Iowa.”

  “Chad.”

  “You’d want me punished,” Clea said silkily as she leaned closer. “Want to punish me, Davy?”

  “I already did,” Davy said flatly. “I took your money.” He checked his watch. “Fifty-nine minutes.”

  “We could have it all,” Clea said, putting her hand on his arm. “You and me.” She was breathtaking in the sunlight, like human whipped cream.

  “No, we couldn’t,” Davy said, trying to ignore his body’s interest. “Sophie wants that farmhouse.”

  “Sophie?” Clea laughed low. “Sophie’s just your sister. I—”

  “You’ll never get it, will you?” Davy said.

  Clea drew back. “What?”

  “Family,” Davy said. “Strongest force in the world. Even trumps lust. Go get the deed.”

  Clea looked at him with undisguised malevolence. “This is not over, you bastard.”

  “Oh, yes it is,” Davy said. “Because I’m sure as hell finished with it. Go get the deed.”

  Clea drew a deep breath and shoved herself off the bench, and Davy watched her stride back to the hotel, magnificent in her fury.

  “Actually it doesn’t trump lust,” Davy said, when she was too far away to hear him. “It just trumps you.”

  “You’re sure I can’t talk you out of this?” Sophie said, as Amy threw her suitcase in the backseat with the rest of the camera equipment.

  “Positive.” Amy came back to the porch steps where Sophie stood. “I really need to just go. And maybe after a couple of months, I’ll want to come back. This place has some good stuff in it.”

  Sophie tried to sound skeptical. “You think the good stuff is just going to sit around and wait until you come back?”

  “If he’s the good stuff, he will,” Amy said. “But I’m not counting on it. He never even made a pass. Three weeks, and he never made a move on me.”

  “You didn’t give him any openings.”

  “I didn’t want to.” Amy stepped back. “But he could have made one anyway. And he didn’t talk to me today before the council meeting, he just took off to go to the airport for something.”

  “I’m sure it was important,” Sophie said. “Things are a little hectic in Temptation these days.”

  Amy sighed. “Yeah, but he knows I’m leaving and he went to the airport anyway.” She straightened her shoulders. “And I really do want to see L.A. Even if Davy says I’ll hate it, I want to see it.” She gave Sophie a weak smile. “I’ll come back for Thanksgiving. You’ll have me and Davy, just like always.”

  “Good enough,” Sophie said, trying not to cry. She hugged Amy good-bye, holding on tight for a minute, and then Amy pulled away to walk to the car without looking back.

  “Be careful,” Sophie called after her, and Amy waved without turning and got in the car, and Sophie realized from the way she bent over the steering wheel that she was crying. “It’s okay,” she called out to Amy, “you’re doing the right thing. Stay out of bat country. Everything will be fine. Nothing but good times.”

  Amy nodded. She backed up the convertible and made her U-turn to get out of Temptation, and then she was gone.

  This is good, Sophie told herself. We needed our own lives. This is good.

  She sighed once and then walked through the h
ouse and out the back door, letting Lassie out with her this time. “So it’s just us,” Sophie said, as they walked down the hill. “A girl and her dog.” Lassie barked and ran down to the dock, and Sophie followed her and kicked off her shoes to sit on the edge and dangle her feet in the water. The river was still high from the rain, and fast, and it flowed cool and sweet past her ankles.

  “So here’s the thing, dog,” Sophie said. “We’re out of a job, living in a house we’re going to be evicted from at any minute, deserted by our siblings, discarded by our uptight lover, and with nothing to show for it because a creep of a politician stole all our work.” Lassie lay down beside her, evidently overcome by the enormity of it all. “I’m looking for a bright side here, Lassie, I’m looking for a rainbow, but I am not seeing one.” Lassie pricked up her ears. “Okay, forget the rainbow. What we need is a plan.”