Donna Hill - Temptation

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Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Epilogue

Fast.

The sleek bronze-toned Mercedes-Benz convertible sped down the black tarred San Francisco freeway. Jordan had purchased the car for her a year ago, to celebrate her twenty-seventh birthday and their fourth wedding anniversary. Just before…. Noelle shook her head and stepped on the gas. She wouldn’t think about it.

Faster. The turbo charged engine hurtled forward. Her honey-colored hair, fashioned after actress Halle Berry, whipped around her coppertoned face. Maybe if she drove faster she could make the memories rush past like the scenery that graced the precisely manicured lawns. Rush past the incompleteness that was her life, now that Jordan was dead.

She’d allowed herself to be totally transformed by the charismatic Jordan Maxwell. He’d taken a scrawny, uneducated girl from the New Orleans bayou and turned her into one of the most powerful women on the West Coast. She’d come so far from where she’d been, her past was almost a blur. She was in limbo. She could never go back, and the powers that be, would keep her from going forward.

Without thinking, she adjusted the black sunglasses on her nose. The simple gesture had become habitual. The designer accessory had become her signature for nearly a year.

Noelle didn’t wear the blacker than black glasses so much for sun, or to hide the tears that so frequently welled up in her eyes. She wore them more to camouflage the emptiness that had taken up residence in the dark brown orbs.

She couldn’t let them see the void or the fear that kept her walking the floors at night. There were too many jealous onlookers—so-called friends that couldn’t wait to see her fail. She knew that they snickered behind her back and that hurt her more than she’d ever let on. And no one was more outraged at her success than Trent Dixon.

Noelle rounded the hairpin turn with ease and recalled a conversation she’d stumbled upon at a party one night. It was not only amusing that Jordan hadn’t turned his company reins directly over to her, but expected, she’d overheard. Noelle was an heiress to an empire with no throne. Trent had been with Jordan when he’d hit his first big deal in the Sudan. Trent knew everything there was to know about the import-export business. Noelle supposed that it was only fitting that Trent be handed the reins. As far as she was concerned, Trent Dixon could take the company and go straight to hell.

She’d never had any interest in the import-export business and Jordan was fully aware of that fact. Her views and his remained in opposition throughout their marriage. Nonetheless, she’d continue to receive her share of the profits whether she took over or not. What she really wanted to sink her teeth into was the villa, Liaisons. The villa that Jordan had willed to her. She had plans for that. Big plans. She’d make a name for herself on her own terms, not on Jordan Maxwell’s coattails, and certainly not under the tutelage of Trent Dixon. He was the last person she wanted anything to do with.

Every time she thought about Trent Dixon she got a headache. Her body began to overheat and she couldn’t think straight. There was no way that she was looking forward to their impending meeting, since their long-distance phone conversations over the past year had been anything but cordial. They had been treading the thin line between chilly politeness and outright sarcasm. Anytime he called to advise her that her signature was required on a document, even over the scratchy phone connection, Noelle could practically taste his indignation all the way from the Sudan. But he would never know how deeply she despised him. There was nothing that he could ever say or do that would make her believe that he didn’t have something to do with Jordan’s death. And for that she’d never forgive him.

He was scheduled to arrive in the States in two weeks. She’d never met him face to face. For some strange reason the thought of his arrival made her nervous. Because of that, it was more important than ever that Liaisons be perfect when he arrived. There was no one better than Tempest Dailey to pull off that miracle. And she’d done precisely that. The gala opening of Liaisons was scheduled for the following evening.

Tempest and her husband Braxton were two people who had risen above the others and proven themselves to be true friends. Noelle couldn’t wait to see Tempest again.

Noelle stepped on the gas while smoothly cutting around a red Porsche. She checked the digital clock on the dash. Twenty minutes before Tempest’s plane was to arrive. If she kept up the 85 mph speed, she’d beat the plane with time to spare.

The trill of soft music wafted across the warm San Francisco night. Hundreds of twinkling lights hung from the trees, the balustrades and windows, turning the enormous villa into a fairyland.

Noelle St. James-Maxwell breathed a sigh of contentment. Everything was exquisite. The caterers had laid out a fare fit for royalty. Every imaginable delicacy was there for the taking. She smiled in satisfaction as she regally strolled across the grounds, nodding and waving, greeting the guests, the curious, the envious.

Noelle couldn’t call any of them friends, she thought, ruefully, shaking hands with the president of NBC studios. She knew they’d all come to gawk, to pass their comments, stir more rumors and most of all, to see if the young widow of Jordan Maxwell had what it took to run his empire.

They wanted her to fail, she knew, smiling graciously at the arrival of Whitney and her superstar husband. The circle of elite associates that her late husband surrounded himself with were a tight-knit, cliquish group. They turned their noses up at any who were not one of them. Background, education and family trees were more important than personal substance. Noelle couldn’t count a friend among them. The group had yet to adjust to the fact that Jordan Maxwell, owner of one of the largest import-export companies in the U.S., a man who could have any woman he chose, had plucked a no-count waitress from the bowels of the Louisiana swampland and dropped her in their midst. They were still reeling from that indignity five years later.

Jordan had groomed her for a world that she had never fully adjusted to and was never accepted in. Liaisons was her first real attempt at anything independent of Jordan. The thought of failure terrified her, and failure would solidify every negative comment ever said about her. For that reason, she’d never let them see the loneliness or the fear that lived in her soul, visible only through her eyes. For now, the darkness would hide her secret.