JoAnn Ross - Legacy of Lies

“So often the most wonderful things you hear turn out to be an exaggeration. And a crashing disappointment.” Miranda’s expression revealed that she was finding Zach anything but a disappointment.

“It must be difficult,” Miranda mused, “trying to run the business while Aunt Eleanor’s locked away in the library with that horrid old witch conducting séances.”

“I’m managing,” Zach said.

Some inner instinct warned him that Eleanor’s niece might have a hidden agenda. The board needed Miranda’s vote at this year’s annual meeting. Zach wasn’t about to give her any hint that the chain’s future was not as sound as ever. Which it was. He wouldn’t allow it to be otherwise.

“Perhaps things will get better for you,” she suggested.

Zach would have had to have been deaf to miss the invitation in her tone. When she smiled at him over the rim of her teacup, he felt another slow pull deep in his groin.

“Perhaps they will,” he agreed.

She inclined her head charmingly. Then, recrossing her legs with an erotic swish of silk, she gave him an enticing flash of lacy garter and smooth thigh.

It had begun to rain; a steady drizzle that streamed down the windows and made the line between ocean and sky blur.

“I’m afraid I must confess I don’t really keep up on the details of the American end of the business,” she admitted. “I have enough to keep me busy with the London store. And, of course, my ongoing effort to increase the chain’s couture lines.

“But I do know that Lord’s headquarters are in Los Angeles. Before Auntie’s unfortunate attack, had you come here to Santa Barbara on business? Or pleasure?”

This morning he would have answered business. But since there was no mistaking her signals, Zach answered, “A bit of both.”

“I’ve always admired a man who knows how to play as hard as he works.” She took another sip of tea and eyed him expectantly from under the silken fringe of her expertly dyed lashes. Leaning forward, she placed her hand on his knee and looked him directly in the eye. “Now that you’ve done your duty and provided me with much needed sustenance, I suppose we should return to the hospital. Heaven knows what that horrid woman has done to Aunt Eleanor’s blood pressure.”

Her demeanor, as they left the lounge and waited for the valet to bring Zach’s Mercedes, revealed that returning to the hospital was definitely not her first choice.

“I have some business to discuss with Eleanor. And then you’ll probably want to visit with her again,” Zach said ten minutes later as he pulled into the hospital parking area.

“Aunt Eleanor and I have a great deal of catching up to do,” Miranda agreed.

“I thought you might. After your visit, I’ll take you back to the house.”

“I’d appreciate that. If you’re certain I won’t be intruding on your busy schedule.”

She was. But Zach didn’t care. Laissez les bons temps rouler. His mind was practically writhing with erotic images. “I’ll shuffle things around while you’re with Eleanor.” He cut the engine and pocketed the key.

“That’s very kind of you.”

“And then, after you get settled in at the house, we’ll go out to dinner.”

“It sounds positively delightful,” Miranda said.

Unable to resist the creamy lure of her skin another minute, Zach ran the back of his hand down her cheek.

“And then, after dinner, you’ll spend the night with me,” he declared in a firm, deep voice that brooked not a single argument. “All night. In my room. In my bed.”

Miranda’s lips curved in a slow, seductive smile that burned as hot as an Olympic flame. “Yes.”

Chapter Six

Paris

Alex’s days, weeks and months flowed into each other like long ocean swells as she labored under Debord’s watchful, unrelenting eye.

The designer continued to closely monitor her work, brutally subtracting a flounce here, dispensing with what she considered marvelously sexy feathered trim there, all the while treating her to a dizzying array of seemingly casual touches and intimate smiles that left her weak in the knees.

His personal attention to his new protégée did not go unnoticed by the other assistant designers. Jealousy, that ugly emotion rampant in the fashion business, reared its green head on an almost daily basis.

More than once Alex arrived at work only to find that the “cleaning woman” had mistakenly tossed out yesterday’s sketches. Or a colleague “accidentally” spilled coffee over designs she’d labored past midnight to finish. Even her beloved pencils disappeared, fortuitously discovered buried beneath some discarded towels in the change room.

Although the others steadfastly refused to accept her, nothing could banish the joy Alex felt every time she entered the studio.

Four months after her promotion, Debord invited Alex out to dinner. Refusing to play coy, she immediately accepted.

They dined at the Café le Flore, a place that remained unchanged from the days when Picasso had made it his unofficial salon and Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir had sat out the German occupation at a table in the back.

But Alex’s mind was not on the past but the future. The immediate future, to be exact. She wore one of her own creations, which had been designed to capture and hold a man’s attention. Created of tissue lamé, the strapless dress dipped to her waist in the back. The sparkling gold fabric duplicated the lightest strands in her multihued hair; layers of black net petticoat peeked enticingly from beneath the billowy skirt.

Glittery gold stockings, ridiculously impractical backless high heels and gold chandelier earrings that dusted her shoulders completed the festive look.

“Did I tell you that I plan to include two of your designs in the fall line?” Debord asked.

“No!” Pleasure surged through her. “Which ones?”

“The silk dinner suit with the sarong-style skirt, for one. It should work up nicely in smoke.”

Her tawny eyebrows crashed down toward her nose. “Gray?”

“Purple is inappropriate.”

Momentarily putting aside her excitement that the master had chosen her work, Alex crossed her legs with a quick, irritated rustle of ebony petticoats. “It’s not purple. It’s amethyst. Jewel-toned.” Alex had intended to press to have it also offered in ruby, emerald and sapphire.

“More women can wear gray than purple. The suit will be offered in smoke. And, of course, black.”

Of course, Alex thought. Although she knew she should be thrilled, she felt like a mother who’d just handed over her only child to the Gypsies.

“What other design did you like?”

Although asking Alex to hold her tongue was a little like asking her to stop breathing, she was clever enough to know that getting into an argument with Debord over the line that would ultimately bear his name would prove a fatal mistake.

Patience, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time in months.

“The velvet evening dress with the gold braid.”

“Oh, that’s one of my favorites.” After the brutal change he was making to her dinner suit, Alex could hardly believe he’d actually selected her most flamboyant and sexy design. “I’m surprised you like it,” she admitted.

He lifted an amused brow. “Because it is cut to showcase a woman’s curves?”

“Well, yes, actually. I know you usually prefer to design for a thinner female shape.”

Debord’s gaze moved over her, taking in the softly feminine curves displayed by her gilt dress.

“Although I will not take back what I said about men preferring their wives to dress like ladies, I will admit that you are definitely correct about one thing, chérie.”

His voice lowered, becoming deep and intimate. His gaze caressed her breasts, causing her nipples to harden into little points that pressed painfully against the gold tissue lamé.