The Setup Read online

  “Nothing like a bunch of grown men trying to recapture their childhood,” she commented. She saw the thoughtful look that came over Maddy’s face. “What?”

  “Nothing.” Very slowly, Maddy surveyed the gallery space that she’d chosen for tomorrow’s event. “You just might have given me an idea for another one of these gatherings.”

  Sylvie reviewed her last couple of sentences, then gave up. “I’m not even going to ask.” She took out the hammer and nails she’d brought with her. “Sometimes, Maddy, you’re even too off the wall for me.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Staring at the far wall, Maddy fisted her hands at her waist and tried to envision it in a different color. “Think it’s too late to paint that bright orange?”

  “Much too late,” Sylvie assured her. At the very least, orange would have clashed with one of the paintings she’d brought. “But if you’re really going for a different look, we could have wall treatments.” She was thinking out loud, the intensity in her voice rising as the idea gelled. “I know this place that would be willing to lend us coverings that look like textured wallpaper.” She could already see them in her mind. “Might make a difference in the look of the place.”

  Maddy gave her a quick embrace. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  Sylvie laughed. “I thought that was why we were friends.”

  For a single moment, Maddy became serious. “We’re friends because you’re the best, the kindest and most generous person I’ve ever known.”

  Picking up her hammer, Sylvie got back to the business of hanging the paintings. “You’re only saying that because it’s true.”

  Maddy watched for a moment, then went to bring over more chairs. “If one of us was a man, this might lead somewhere.”

  “If one of us was a man, we wouldn’t have been friends this long.” Once she’d hammered in the nail, Sylvie hung up the first painting. She moved back to gain perspective and make sure the painting was straight. “Men have their place, but it’s generally not in a woman’s life.”

  “Boy, I can’t wait for tomorrow night. You and your date might just wind up the focal point of our evening.”

  About to hammer in the second nail, Sylvie stopped dead. She knew how Maddy’s mind worked. Her friend would think nothing of turning the spotlight on her. “Don’t you dare,” Sylvie warned.

  “You turning shy on me, Syl?” Not that she would believe it for a minute.

  “No.” The word was reinforced with several measured raps of the hammer. “But I have a feeling Jefferson might be.”

  “Protective already,” Maddy mused. “I think this bodes well.”

  “Not protective,” Sylvie corrected. She did not want this getting out of hand, and if she let Maddy make assumptions there were sure to be tabloid stories the morning after the event about the lawyer and the “hotel heiress.” “I just don’t want the evening blowing up in my face, that’s all. Or drawing itself out,” she tacked on, because the latter would probably be more accurate.

  “What are you wearing?”

  Sylvie shrugged carelessly, concentrating on the second and larger painting. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  Amused, Maddy could only shake her head. “You’re the only woman I know who doesn’t agonize over clothes. Of course, if I had your figure, I’d look good wearing a cereal box.”

  Sylvie laughed. “Now I remember why we’re friends. Because you’re blindly loyal.” Finished, she put down her hammer and hung up the painting. Perfect. “I’m going to call that woman about the wall treatments.” She took out her cell phone.

  Being busy kept her mind off the following evening—and the nerves that were suddenly and unaccountably mutinying in her stomach.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IT WAS BECAUSE SHE’D BEEN out of the loop for so long, Sylvie decided the next evening. There was no other explanation for the strange, almost uncertain feeling she was experiencing.

  She sat in the back of the cab she was taking from her apartment to the hotel, watching as the driver maneuvered through narrow streets that barely seemed to have room for people, much less cars. The distance was just a few miles, and the driver was keeping up a steady stream of conversation, but his words amounted to only so much noise buzzing about the outer edges of her thoughts. Her mind was otherwise occupied.

  On her way to meet Jefferson Lambert, she was sailing out with less than her usual confidence. So much so that she’d had second thoughts. Which was completely unlike her.

  Going out had always equaled having fun. She’d never been the kind to have her heart flutter, her hands grow damp or her feet feel as if they were literally getting cold. Yes, she’d felt weak in the knees a time or two, but that had been the fun part. She used to like diving into a new adventure, a new relationship. A new man.

  Now, for some reason, there was this uneasiness in the pit of her stomach.

  Life as Daisy Rose’s mother had subdued her more than she’d realized.

  Someone set off a row of fireworks and the noise brought her around for a second. She leaned forward to see, but they were driving through the crowded French Quarter now, and the darkness that had descended made it difficult to make things out. Sylvie leaned back again, lost in her thoughts. The driver continued talking. Something about people not knowing how to handle fireworks.

  She still had a desire to embrace every day. But now her focus was on arranging a new sale for the gallery, or closing up shop early to get in an extra hour with her daughter.

  There was a time, not all that long ago, when “possibilities” meant catching a flight to Paris on someone’s private jet, or running off to Acapulco for the day. Or the week. Whatever the spirit moved her to do at the moment. Back then, she was up for everything and there was no such thing as tomorrow. Having Daisy Rose in her life made her very conscious of tomorrow. And all the tomorrows that were to come.

  So, Sylvie concluded with a suppressed, impatient sigh, having turned into this semi-conservative person might be what was responsible for her feeling a little less than a hundred percent secure about the evening that lay ahead of her.

  She shifted in her seat, careful not to wrinkle her dress. The one thing she was confident about was the way she looked tonight. She had a passion for clothes, and combining it with her love of art, she took more than a little pleasure in putting together outfits for both herself and Daisy Rose.

  Tonight she was wearing a gently clinging silk dress with soft ruffles around the rather low cut neckline and scalloped hem. She’d silk-screened the lime-green and pink fabric herself. To offset the romantic impression that the dress created, she’d overprinted a veve, a ritual symbol inspired by New Orleans’ voodoo tradition. It had eight sides and looked like a hot-pink starburst with blue edges.

  As a finishing touch, she’d piled her riotous red hair on top of her head, securing it with a few strategically placed pins.

  “You look pretty, Mama,” Daisy Rose had proclaimed when she saw Sylvie emerge from her bedroom less than half an hour ago.

  Sylvie had laughed. Nothing else mattered, she’d thought, but the way she looked in her little girl’s eyes. She’d kissed the top of Daisy Rose’s head. “Thank you, pumpkin.”

  “Well, there’s no arguing with that,” Anne Marchand had said with an approving nod as she looked her daughter over. “You are a vision.”

  “An apparition is more like it. When are you going to put some meat on your bones, girl?” Celeste Robichaux spoke up from the deep maroon winged armchair that she favored. It went with nothing else in the living room, but Sylvie had placed it there out of deference to her grandmother. Although Celeste was a remarkably youthful octogenarian, Sylvie had noticed that she was beginning to have difficulty getting up from too-soft, too-low sofas and chairs.

  She had looked fondly at her grandmother. Behind the old woman’s back, she and her sisters referred to their mother’s mother as the Queen. Stern, sharp-tongued and regal, Celeste Robichaux did
not brook disobedience. But they all knew that beneath the domineering veneer beat a heart that was loving and kind, especially when it came to her four granddaughters. Her generosity was one of the worst-kept secrets in the family.

  And the Queen’s eyes missed nothing.

  “Meeting someone?” she asked in a manner that said it was a foregone conclusion and no denials would be accepted or believed.

  The question took Sylvie aback. She had said nothing to either woman beyond the fact that she was going to Maddy’s party, and attending parties was something she had done on more than one occasion. For a moment, she thought of brazening it out, the way she would have done as a teenager. But she saw no point to it. Lies were cumbersome things.

  Sylvie shrugged casually, checking through her small purse to make sure she had everything she needed. “As a matter of fact, I am.” She grinned broadly as she explained, “Your other granddaughters conspired against me and got me a man, Grand-mère.”

  Instead of looking shocked, Celeste made a dismissive noise and waved her finely manicured hand at the information. “I hope they didn’t throw away the receipt. Only one use for most men.” She glanced significantly at Daisy Rose. “After that…” Her voice trailed off, as if she knew that her meaning was understood.

  “My Remy had a great many uses,” Anne reminded her mother with no small amount of affection in her voice. Until he was taken from her suddenly four years ago, the genial, outgoing Remy had been the love of her life. No one who had ever met the man had not liked him. He’d even won over her mother, no easy feat.

  Both she and her mother had volunteered to look after Daisy Rose tonight while Sylvie went out. Anne had volunteered first, but since her heart attack, her mother insisted on accompanying her almost everywhere, refusing to believe her protests that she was “just fine.” Anne knew that the woman meant it out of love, but it still made her feel trapped. Not a condition a woman who’d been her own boss for so many years welcomed.

  “Your Remy was the exception that proves the rule,” Celeste sniffed, undaunted.

  Sylvie had lingered a few moments longer, waiting to see if the air would clear. Grandmother could be cantankerous when she chose and she didn’t want anything to upset her mother.

  But Anne remained her usual cool, collected self, an attitude that had taken years to hone around the woman who had given her life and the verve to pursue it.

  It appeared that war was not to break out tonight. Satisfied, Sylvie had hugged each woman in turn and given her little girl a sound kiss, solemnly instructing Daisy Rose to keep an eye on her grandmother and great-grandmother.

  “You can count on me, Mama,” Daisy Rose had promised in her almost grown up voice.

  Lord, Sylvie thought, what had life been like without Daisy Rose? She couldn’t begin to remember. With a delighted laugh, she’d hugged the little girl again, and then, seeing the taxi pull up outside her door, she had taken her purse and her leave.

  “Have a good time,” were Anne’s parting words.

  “But not too good,” Celeste had called after her, raising her voice. “Daisy Rose doesn’t need a little brother or sister yet.”

  No need to worry about that, Grand-mère, Sylvie thought to herself now, as Celeste’s words echoed in her head. The last thing she was looking for was a relationship with Gregory Peck.

  Or even Johnny Depp, she added silently, thinking of what she’d said to Maddy yesterday. Her life right now was very, very full. There was no room for anyone else.

  They were here, she realized abruptly, finding herself looking up at the hotel’s familiar front entrance as the taxi slowed to a stop.

  The next moment, one of the valets employed by the hotel was at her door, opening it for her.

  “Miss Sylvie, surely you didn’t come back to work tonight,” Paul said. His dark eyes swept over her appreciatively. Married, with three children and one on the way, the man still had an eye for the ladies, although it was on a strictly “look but don’t touch” basis. His wife numbered a voodoo high priestess among her distant relatives, it was rumored, and Paul was not a man who took chances. “Not dressed like this, at any rate. You look lovely.”

  She smiled her thanks as she handed the cabdriver several bills to cover the fare and a generous tip. “Very perceptive of you, Paul.” Sylvie slid out of the cab, accepting the valet’s hand. “I’m going out with one of the hotel guests.”

  Closing the taxi door behind her, Paul smiled. “Lucky guest.”

  She smiled to herself as she murmured, “We’ll see.”

  THE LAST DATE he had been on was back in college. With Donna. An entire generation had been born and grown up since then, Jefferson thought nervously as he adjusted the light gray silk tie at his throat.

  What was he doing here, acting like some single guy, pretending to have a clue? He wasn’t single. He was a family man. A family man whose family, through no fault of his own, was no longer as large a unit as it once had been. But family men didn’t date.

  With a sigh that went clear down to his toes, he put on his jacket and left the hotel room, checking to make sure he had his key card in his pocket.

  He hadn’t even felt this nervous taking his bar exam, he thought.

  Jefferson pressed the button for the elevator. It arrived almost immediately. Getting in, he felt like a condemned man about to walk his last mile. Definitely not the way to approach a date.

  The elevator doors closed with an unnerving finality. The only way he was going to get through tonight, he decided, was to pretend this was just some kind of work function he was attending. Sylvie Marchand wasn’t his date, she was just someone he was escorting. That she was lovely didn’t help matters any. On the contrary, it made him feel guilty. As if he were somehow cheating on Donna. It didn’t matter that she was gone, that she had been gone for eight years. She was his wife and always would be. When he had said, “Until death do us part,” he hadn’t meant her death—he’d meant his.

  He had no business doing this, no business going out socially with anyone but old friends.

  Old friends.

  He thought of Blake, who was partially responsible for this. Blake, who was supposed to have been here, lending his support, distracting him. But at the last minute, Blake had called to say that he’d meet Jefferson at the gallery instead. His excuse was that “something” had come up. Judging from the sounds he’d heard in the background, Jefferson figured that what had come up was Blake’s libido.

  He frowned. It was almost as if the man was trying to prove something to himself. That he was still the stud, the babe magnet he had been all through college. If Jefferson hadn’t helped Blake, hadn’t stayed up all those nights tutoring him, he would have flunked out of Tulane.

  And this was how his friend paid him back, Jefferson thought darkly. Deserting him at the last minute. How the hell had he allowed himself to be talked into this?

  Reaching the ground floor, the elevator came to a stop. Jefferson made up his mind. As soon as the last passenger stepped off, he was going to take the elevator back up to his floor, call Sylvie on her cell phone, make his apologies and act like the father of a sixteen-year-old instead of some over-the-hill Romeo.

  The elevator doors slid open slowly, almost sighing as they did so. It seemed to him that everything here moved in slow motion.

  He didn’t belong in New Orleans. He’d outgrown it. His time here was something out of his past, and it was wrong to try to recapture it or even revisit it. Whoever had come up with that old saying about not being able to go home again had been right.

  You couldn’t just—

  Jefferson’s breath caught in his throat like a stone. The elevator car had emptied and he was standing alone in the center of it.

  Standing and staring at this vision who was looking directly at him.

  The doors began to close again. At the last moment, he stuck out his hand, and the doors slid apart again.

  His mouth had suddenly gone so dry, he felt as if
he’d just gargled with sand.

  “Sylvie?” Her name left his lips almost hesitantly.

  Sylvie began walking toward the elevator car, curious and maybe a little amused that he hadn’t left it yet. “If you’re planning on riding up and down in the elevator for a while, we’re going to miss the beginning of the dinner,” she warned him.

  A dimple. There was just the slightest hint of a dimple in her right cheek when she smiled like that. He saw it now as amusement highlighted her face.

  And then he came to. Feeling like a dolt, Jefferson quickly put out his hand to stop the doors from closing again. They slid back once more, allowing him to walk out into the lobby.

  Sylvie hooked her arm through his as if they were old friends instead of new strangers. “What was all that about?”

  He didn’t want to tell her that his second thoughts were having second thoughts, or that he’d almost lost his nerve. He didn’t even want to admit the latter to himself.

  “I, um, thought I left something in my room.”

  The luminous eyes that were turned up to his face told him she saw right through him. “And did you?”

  Looking into them, he found himself getting lost. It took effort to draw back, to keep from drifting into those eyes and forgetting everything else. “Did I what?”

  “Leave something in your room?” she prompted.

  It was hard stringing one thought into another when she gazed up at him like that.

  “Um, no, I didn’t,” he finally said, his tongue as thick as that of a first-time offender coming up with an alibi. “My—my wallet’s right here.”

  God, but that sounded lame, he thought, annoyed with his lack of creativity. No one listening to him would have taken him for a six-figure corporate lawyer who could withstand the scrutiny of razor-sharp legal minds bent on taking him down.

  But then, none of those sharp minds had ever had a body or a face like the woman beside him. He felt lucky that he could remember his name.

  His middle name eluded him.

  “Then we’re all set to go?” she asked.