As You Like It. Lori Wilde

comfort of your hot bod, that’s not what I’m proposing.”

      “No? Then what?”

      “Five Benjamins says you can’t bring Thibbedeaux in.”

      Marissa stared at her competitor. The idea that he was willing to bet against her to the tune of five hundred dollars had doubt creeping around inside her.

      “I’m betting you have to sleep with him to get what you want.”

      “You are such a jerk-off, you know that? I don’t have to lower myself to your level. I can convince Beau Thibbedeaux to take the job without any added sexual enticements.

      “A thousand bucks says you can’t.” He extended a hand.

      Phooey. She shook off her reservation. She’d proved once and for all she was a better negotiator than Dash.

      “It’s a deal,” she said and slapped her palm into his.

      2

      “WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME you got laid?” Remy Thibbedeaux asked his older half brother and silent business partner, Beau.

      Remy was polishing the bar with a dish towel and putting out fresh peanuts in anticipation of happy hour. The front door stood open and a light tourist crowd prowled the street. Several weeks from now the entire French Quarter would be wall-to-wall people in town for Mardi Gras.

      But this afternoon the small Bourbon Street bar and grill was empty save for the two brothers and Leroy Champlain, a blind jazz musician who napped at the back table, soaking up the sunshine slanting in through the spotless window. His fastidious brother kept the place cleaner than an operating room, which was quite a feat considering their centuries-old location.

      Beau sat cocked back on the two rear legs of a cane-bottomed café chair, tugged the brim of his New York Yankees baseball cap down lower over his forehead and took a lazy swig from his beer. “Can’t see how that’s any of your business.”

      “I was thinking a pretty female might snap you out of your doldrums.”

      “Well, you can stop thinking.”

      “You worry me, Beau. Mopin’ around with nothing to do.”

      “I’m not in the doldrums,” he denied. “And I’m certainly not moping.”

      “So what would you call it?”

      “Evaluating my options.”

      “Bull. You’ve got nothing to occupy your mind. What with me running the bar and Jenny taking over the B and B you’ve simply got too much time on your hands.”

      “Serious evaluating takes time.”

      “I hope it’s your future you’re seriously evaluating. It’s been over eighteen months since you split the sheets with Angeline.”

      “I didn’t break up with Angeline. She broke up with me.”

      “’Cause you wouldn’t ask her to marry you.”

      “A man doesn’t like to be rushed.”

      Remy snorted. “You two went together for five years. Can’t say as how I blame the woman for wanting a commitment.”

      “It wasn’t commitment that had me dragging my heels and you know it. Angeline and I simply weren’t right for each other.”

      “It took you five years to figure that out?”

      “We had our moments.”

      “She never did get over you leaving Manhattan.”

      “Nope.” Beau took another swig. He had been nursing the bottle all afternoon and the beer had grown warm. It tasted dry and yeasty. “She didn’t understand about connectedness.”

      Remy shook his head. “You and this connectedness business.”

      “Try having my childhood and see what you end up yearning for.”

      “Point taken.”

      A long companionable silence ensued, punctuated only by the squeak of Remy’s towel against the bar’s brass railing and Leroy’s soft snores.

      “Do you ever miss it?” his brother asked a few minutes later.

      “Miss what?”

      “You know.”

      “Manhattan?”

      “Designing video games.”

      “I still design them.”

      “But not for profit. Creating sophisticated computer toys for my kids doesn’t count.”

      “Profit’s just another word for selling out.”

      “Spoken like a true rich man.”

      “Don’t start with me.” Beau raised a finger. The one riff that existed between them was the issue of Beau’s mother.

      Francesca Gregoretti Thibbedeaux MacTavish Girbaldi had been born with a platinum pasta fork in her mouth and a flare for the dramatic. She could trace her family lineage back to Christopher Columbus and she lived life with the full entitlement she believed was her due.

      She’d met Beau’s dad when she was just sixteen and visiting America on a work visa for a modeling assignment. She’d fallen for Charles Thibbedeaux’s charm and he had tumbled for her beauty, not realizing she came from one of the wealthiest families in Europe. When Francesca got pregnant with Beau, Charles had dutifully married her in front of a justice of the peace at city hall and in that one fateful action brought down the wrath of the powerful Gregoretti clan.

      And set the stage for the battle zone that became Beau’s childhood.

      He had been through it all with his mother. Divorce, family squabbles, divorce, the numerous lovers, more divorce. But what hurt him the most were the prolonged periods of estrangement from his father and his two half siblings.

      Francesca’s little dramas had been played out in lavish backdrops all over the world. A chalet in the Swiss Alps. A villa in Italy. A castle in Scotland. On the Concorde. On a Greek shipping magnate’s yacht. Riding the Orient Express.

      From the bright lights of Las Vegas to the hustle and bustle of New York City to the exotic crush of Hong Kong, he’d trailed Hurricane Francesca and her wreck of human carnage.

      Beau would have given his last breath to have spent his life at his father’s treasured ancestral home outside of New Orleans with Jenny and Remy and his sweet-natured stepmother, Camille.

      But spoiled, pampered Francesca liked using him as a bargaining tool far too much to ever let him go.

      Beau shook his head. He didn’t like dwelling on the past.

      “You need a purpose in life.” Remy slung the white bar towel across his shoulder and plunked down in the chair across from him. “You’re adrift.”

      “I’m waiting.”

      “For what?”

      Beau shrugged. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

      Just then the sound of high heels clicking against concrete and the whiff of honeyed perfume lured Beau’s attention to the doorway.

      A tall, striking blonde stalked over the threshold and into the bar with the presence of gale-force winds. He certainly knew the type. Had seen such women every day on the streets of New York City, dominating the sidewalks with their intensely focused determination. Tough. Success oriented. Self-centered. He had watched them and pitied them.

      They had no connectedness to anything truly meaningful. Everything about them screamed money and status and image.

      She looked to be in her midtwenties, maybe a couple of years younger than his own twenty-nine years, with flawlessly applied makeup. She wore an understated but expensive