Picture Perfect Christmas. Melanie Schuster

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СКАЧАТЬ glance at the handwriting and recognized it as Mona’s. I’ll deal with her later. Right now I have to deal with this.

      “Look, Philippe, my assistant sent that invitation to you. I knew nothing about it. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to invite you because I knew you wouldn’t come all the way to New York for me,” she began. He cut her off with a sneer.

      “It just so happens that I’ve been in New York for the past two months. I’m working up here.”

      “You left the law firm?” Chastain blurted out the question without thinking. There were four Deveraux brothers in New Orleans and they practiced law together. Philippe was in environmental law and he was passionate about it.

      “No, I didn’t leave the firm. I’m on a presidential committee working with the U.N. to push an international initiative for environmental programs. I’ll be here another couple of months.”

      He patted the sofa cushion next to him and Lulu jumped off his lap and sat obediently. She put one paw on his hand and gave him her happiest smile. Chastain softened when she saw the adorable picture they made, but it didn’t last.

      “I’m going back downstairs, Chastain. My date is probably wondering where I am. And make sure those pictures come down tonight or you and your friend will find yourselves in the middle of a nasty lawsuit.”

      He rose to his full six feet five inches and gave Lulu a final pat before leaving. Chastain was left with a crumpled invitation in her clenched fist and the beginnings of a colossal headache. But if he thinks I’m taking those pictures down he’s got another think coming. The days when I did anything to please Philippe Deveraux are over, done and gone.

      Chapter 3

      “Well, that was fun. Thanks for bringing me along, Philippe.”

      A deep growl was his response.

      “She seemed really glad to see you,” the woman went on. This time her prodding had an effect. Philippe crossed his arms and lowered his thick eyebrows in a fierce glare.

      They had left Studio L a few minutes after Philippe returned from talking to Chastain and once they were seated in the limousine that was waiting for them they’d ridden back to her home without a word being spoken. When they’d reached the two-story penthouse she called home, his date finally had enough. She closed the door behind them, locked it and turned to face him with a smile.

      “She’s even more gorgeous than you said. Would you like a drink?”

      “Frederique, if you say another word I’m going to throttle you.”

      “Don’t call me that,” she warned. She hated her full name and would only answer to Ricki.

      “Then stay out of my business,” he replied.

      Ricki Fontaine covered a smirk with her hand and repeated her offer of a drink. She was a cousin of the Deverauxes from Lafayette. She had gone to Eastern schools and married a chef who was now a millionaire, thanks to his talent and business savvy. Or maybe he was a billionaire now, Philippe wasn’t sure. She was often his favorite cousin but not tonight. Tonight she was a pure pest.

      He walked over to the French doors that led out to the terrace and frowned when he couldn’t open them. “How do you get out of here?”

      “Thinking of jumping, are you? Loverman had everything in here child-proofed. The boys are absolutely fearless as well as being as curious as heck. And the girls are even worse, if that’s possible. So, unless your thumbprint can access the keypad over there you won’t be flinging yourself off the roof tonight,” she said dryly. “Or me, either, because you look mad enough to try it.”

      “Loverman” was one of her many sappy nicknames for her husband, Antoine. And despite still looking like she was in her twenties, Ricki was the devoted mother of five children under the age of ten. Her long, black hair, smooth dark brown skin and her firm, curvy body all belied her mommy status. Normally Philippe considered her to be quite charming, but she was working his last nerve tonight.

      “I’m going to bed, Ricki. Thanks for coming with me,” he said in a dead voice.

      “Oh, no you’re not! You’re going to sit down and relax and I’ll make you a nice hot drink to loosen your tongue. You have some things to get off your chest. Let me check on my babies and get out of this outfit and I’ll be right back,” she said.

      Philippe groaned as he took off his suit jacket. He had taken off his tie and cuff links and was staring balefully at the twelve-foot Christmas tree that graced the room when Antoine entered the room. He was wearing a silk robe and pajama bottoms, despite the fact that it was only nine o’clock. He put in long hours with his restaurants and usually retired early.

      “The baby woke up and Ricki couldn’t let her go back to sleep without some mothering.” Antoine still had a strong French accent, even though he’d been in America for years. He and Ricki had met when she was in college and it was love at first sight. “She tells me you have some issues to deal with. Let’s have a cognac and you can tell me what’s putting that look on your face.”

      Philippe was about to refuse the offer, but somehow the prospect of Antoine’s excellent cognac sounded like a plan. Antoine’s family owned one of the best vineyards in France and under the management of his brothers they had become one of the biggest importers in the world. Antoine also owned three restaurants in New York and two in New Jersey. His latest project, though, was training homeless and unemployed people in the restaurant business. He said it was his way of giving back to the country that had been so good to him.

      They went into the study, which was also a wine cellar. The rich wood that lined the walls held specially made racks that were cleverly disguised behind the paneling and kept each bottle at the perfect temperature. Soon they were each sitting in sinfully comfortable club chairs with a snifter of a hundred-year-old imported cognac that warmed the throat and loosened the tongue.

      “So what happened at the showing? Your friend, was she not pleased that you had come?”

      Philippe snorted. “I wasn’t pleased that I had come. I haven’t seen Chastain since she dumped me three years ago to take off for France. Chastain and I have been in and out of love since we were kids. I thought at one point that we’d be getting married, but instead she got some genius grant and decided to leave me, leave her family and everything else and work on her painting in Paris,” he said with obvious bitterness.

      “She’d already been away long enough. She went to college in D.C. and instead of coming home to New Orleans she pranced her little ass off to New York to get an MFA and just stayed here. After Katrina she moved back home and said she was back to stay. But after about four months she got the news that she’d been awarded this big fellowship. That was cool. It really was, because she’s extremely talented. She’s really gifted, Antoine, I’m not kidding. But the grant didn’t have any restrictions on it. She could have done anything she wanted with the money and she chose to just get up and go. She didn’t seem to give a damn about what she was leaving behind. She just left.” He drained the rest of his snifter and nodded in the affirmative when Antoine offered him a refill.

      “I think you mean ‘who’ she left behind,” he said wisely. “You said ‘what’, but I think you meant to say ‘who’.”

      Philippe shot him a searing look, but gave up and shrugged. “Who meaning me. Yeah, I guess that’s what I meant СКАЧАТЬ