Every instinct for self-preservation Luc Devereaux had—and he had developed a great many of them during his thirty-three years on earth—told him to get up and get out. But he couldn’t.
He just…couldn’t.
“Peachy?” he asked after a few seconds, acutely conscious of the thudding of his heart. Even the most automatic of natural functions, breathing, suddenly seemed to require a conscious effort.
She started slightly, then lifted her eyes to meet his.
“I understand, Luc,” she said quietly, without bothering to specify exactly what it was that she comprehended. “And…well, I appreciate your being honest with me.” She paused for a moment, her lips quirking into a crooked little smile. Then she rose from the hassock in a graceful movement and concluded with a shrug, “I’ll just have to find someone else.”
From another woman, Luc would have interpreted this last comment as a threat. As an attempt at emotional blackmail. But coming from Peachy…
He got to his feet slowly, keeping his gaze fixed on his tenant’s expressive face. She means it, he thought, a chill skittering down his spine and settling in the pit of his stomach. She really means it.
“You genuinely intend to go through with this, don’t you,” he said.
Peachy lifted her brows, plainly surprised. Perhaps even a little affronted. “I told you I did.”
Yes, she had. But until a couple of seconds ago, he’d been unwilling to believe that she’d been sincere.
“Why?” he asked bluntly.
“I told you that, too.”
“Tell me again.”
Peachy’s green-gold eyes flicked back and forth several times as though she was trying to figure out what sort of game he was playing at. Finally, she expelled a breath in a long sigh.
“You’ve been in life-or-death situations, haven’t you?” she questioned. “When you were in the military?”
“A few,” Luc acknowledged after a fractional hesitation, sensing where she was heading and not entirely comfortable with the direction. Although he was intensely proud of the services he’d performed for his country, not all his military memories were pleasant ones. The covert style of war he’d been trained to make had been a dirty, as well as dangerous, business.
“Didn’t you find yourself regretting things you hadn’t done?”
“While I was in the middle of an operation where I might be killed, you mean?”
Peachy nodded.
Luc felt his lips twist. “If I regretted anything, it was committed sins. Not ones I hadn’t had a chance to get around to.”
“Still—”
“Still,” he interrupted, “I take your meaning. Facing down death tends to reorder a person’s priorities.”
“Exactly.”
Luc considered for a moment or two, once again replaying the proposal Peachy had put to him. Did she truly understand the nature of the favor she was asking? he wondered. And more to the point: Did she truly understand the nature of the man of whom she was asking it?
No, he told himself. She couldn’t. She had no idea of who he was. Of what he was. Of how he’d lived.
“Am I the first man you’ve approached about this, Peachy?” he abruptly queried.
“You mean, are you the first one I’ve asked to—?” She then gestured.
“Yes.”
Her chin went up again. A blush blossomed on her cheeks. “I don’t think that’s any of your business at this point, Luc.”
“No?”
“You turned me down—remember?”
“I’m considering changing my mind.”
Peachy’s eyes widened to the point where there was white visible all the way around the irises. “I thought that was a female prerogative.”
Luc shrugged with a casualness he was far from feeling. “Consider it a matter of equal opportunity indecisiveness.” He waited a beat, then repeated his previous inquiry. “Am I the first man you’ve approached about this?”
Peachy glanced away from him, the color in her cheeks intensifying, the line of her elegantly sculpted jaw going taut. Her reluctance to respond was palpable.
“Yes,” she finally replied.
Luc released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, a primitive sense of triumph suffusing him. He closed his mind to thoughts of how he might have reacted had her answer been different. Then, goaded by an emotion he couldn’t—or wouldn’t-identify he said, “But you have other…candidates.”
Her gaze swung back to collide with his. The expression in her eyes said he was perilously close to getting his face slapped.
“That’s really none of your business,” Peachy declared through gritted teeth.
It wasn’t and he knew it, but he didn’t give a damn.
“What about that Tulane University M.B.A. the MayWinnies tried to fix you up with last month?” he pressed.
“The MayWinnies” was Prytania Street shorthand for Mayrielle and Winona-Jolene Barnes, a pair of sprightly seventy-year-old twins who rented the apartment next to Peachy’s. Although they cultivated an image of white-gloved propriety, Luc had heard from numerous sources that they’d once been quite free with their favors.
Well, no. Perhaps free wasn’t the appropriate adjective. Because gossip also maintained that in the course of bestowing themselves on a goodly number of Louisiana’s richest and most powerful men, the MayWinnies had amassed a six-figure nest egg, which they had subsequently multiplied many times over in the stock market.
Short of inquiring of the ladies themselves, there was no way for Luc to be certain how many of the stories about the May Winnies’ alleged exploits were true. He was inclined to dismiss a few of them—most notably the one involving a former U.S. senator and a Mardi Gras float—out of hand. He was also prepared to bet a substantial amount of cold, hard cash that many of the tales were dead-on accurate.
As for the rumors about his septuagenarian tenants transforming themselves from good-time girls into gilt-edged investors…
Again, there was no way for Luc to be absolutely sure. However, he and the MayWinnies did happen to bank at the same place. He’d long ago noticed that although he and his book royalties were accorded a significant degree of respect, the bank’s president practically genuflected at the mention of the Misses Barnes.
“Are you talking about Daniel?” Peachy asked, plainly startled by the specificity of his query.
Luc was a tad surprised by it himself. He hadn’t realized he’d registered the individual in question—Daniel, had she said his name was?—quite so strongly.
“Yes,” he affirmed after a moment.
Peachy began fingering her locket again. “I only went out with him once.”
Luc couldn’t tell whether she was being deliberately evasive. He fleetingly considered pointing out that “once” was one more time than she’d been out with him, but discarded the idea.
“So?” he challenged.
“So—he’s nice!”
Luc lifted a brow, contemplating