Mignon had forced him into her upscale Warehouse District salon and given him a complete makeover. It had been humiliating but necessary, he supposed. After all, he couldn’t enter the chic multimillion-dollar mansion of one of the wealthiest widows in New Orleans with shaggy hair, a ratty beard and rough, broken nails. He’d drawn the line at a full body wax and a spa treatment though. A man had to hold on to some pride.
Mignon had worked miracles, just like her ad campaign promised. He’d walked in looking like a homeless man and walked out looking as if he’d stepped out of GQ. No one would have known he was the same person.
Serena, the elder of the twins, had taken him shopping for a designer wardrobe that probably cost more than his VA disability pension for a year, using an untraceable credit card issued by Conrad Burke, the head of New Orleans Confidential. Teresa, the younger twin who planned to marry a millionaire as soon as she found one who fit her high standards, had decided what kind of car he should drive and had rented and furnished him a trendy apartment in the renovated Warehouse District. The lavish apartment would be his home for the duration of his “visit” to the States.
He’d almost choked at the amount of money the elite Confidential agency had spent on his cover story. It backed up Burke’s emphasis on the importance of Seth’s part in the investigation.
A limousine pulled up behind him and Seth recognized New Orleans District Attorney Sebastion Primeaux arriving with the mayor. He’d known he’d be in exalted company at this shindig. But the D.A. and the mayor? His target, the woman who was hosting this charity auction, sure traveled in important circles.
As Seth stepped onto the sidewalk, he assessed the other vehicles parked along First Street. Teresa had been right. Nobody drove economy iron. Every vehicle here cost at least six figures.
Seth closed his eyes for an instant, getting into character for the part he was about to play.
He was no longer a Special Forces Weapons Sergeant. His career had ended when his knee had been in the right position to save two young Iraqi kids from a bloody death. Nor was he the bored, pissed-off-at-the-world drifter who’d moped around the French Quarter for several months. Not since he’d accidentally happened upon a bank robbery and neatly disarmed the idiot waving a semiautomatic weapon. His fast action and his faster field-stripping of the weapon on the spot had ended up on the evening news and had caught the attention of a Southern gentleman with a whiskey-smooth drawl and the unyielding strength of steel.
Conrad Burke had contacted Seth and invited him into an abandoned warehouse that turned out to be a high-tech operations center the like of which Seth had never seen, even in the army.
There Burke had introduced Seth to the Confidential agency. At first, Seth had laughed at the idea of a secret agency operating above the law under the auspices of the Department of Public Safety. It sounded like something out of a spy movie, but he soon discovered that Burke was deadly serious. He’d given Seth a brief rundown of the history of the agency and the reason this branch had been established in New Orleans.
Seth had listened, fascinated and bewildered. The idea that Conrad Burke had chosen him to join New Orleans Confidential because he’d been in the right place at the right time and foiled a bank robbery was daunting.
For the first time since he’d come home, Seth found himself interested in something besides his own rotten luck. Listening to Burke, he began to believe he might be able to do some good. Be somebody. Make a difference.
So he’d stepped into the persona Burke had outlined for him. He told himself it would be a like a special operation and he treated it that way—studying, preparing himself mentally and physically. He forgot about Seth Lewis, street kid. He was continental, suave and filthy rich.
This assignment was nothing like a desert campaign. Even so, he felt as if he were on foreign soil. He’d grown up in the Ninth Ward, a poor, beaten-down section of the city. Now he was in the exclusive section of New Orleans that ran along St. Charles Street. His assignment—to win the confidence of the lovely widow of rumored Cajun mob mouthpiece Marc DeBlanc, then seduce her for any information she might have.
Refusing to imagine what this Garden District rich bitch who casually threw hundred-thousand-dollar parties without blinking an eye might look like, Seth squared his Gaultier-clad shoulders and prepared to beard the lioness in her den.
He hesitated with his hand on the ornate knocker, his confidence challenged by a twinge of doubt. It worried him that he was so anxious to live up to Burke’s expectations. What if he failed? All he knew was that he was tired of waking up every day wondering what the hell he was going to do with his life. Burke’s offer was a second chance. He was not going to blow it.
He affected a polite, bored expression as the door swung wide, releasing muted conversations, an undertone of New Orleans jazz, and soft lighting, along with a whoosh of air-conditioning.
When his eyes lit on the vision who’d opened the door, he had to clamp his jaw to keep his mouth from dropping open.
Framed in the doorway was an angel. He blinked. Working hard to maintain his cool, he remembered what Mignon had told him about the patrons of her exclusive spa salon. The very rich are never in a hurry. They don’t have to be. So he stood there as if he had all the time in the world and let his gaze roam over the woman.
She was golden-white all over. From her sleek, pale hair pulled back from her face into some kind of intricate knot to her simple floor-length dress, which looked white but shimmered with gold, she glowed. She looked like a fairy princess sprinkled with gold dust.
Seth took the hand she proffered and could have sworn he saw a spark as his fingers touched her silky smooth skin. He knew he felt it.
When he met her gaze, his heart thudded to somewhere south of his stomach. Her eyes were a deep sapphire blue. But it was the look in them that hit him like a blow. She looked sad and surprised and fearful all at once. He had an unfamiliar urge to gather her close and protect her from everything bad in the world.
“Hi,” she said, her mouth turning up in a smile that stole a bit of the sadness from her eyes and lit them with delightful flickers of lighter blue. “Do come in. I’m Adrienne DeBlanc. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Calling on his military control to keep his gaze bland and bored, Seth swallowed his surprise. This was the mob widow, answering her own door? She didn’t look at all as he’d imagined. She was young, beautiful, elegant. Her neck, bare of jewelry, curved enticingly above the plain neckline of her dress. Her nape invited a kiss, while the delicacy of her diamond-studded earlobes made his mouth water.
“Seth Lewis,” he said, affecting the vague continental accent he’d been rehearsing for days. “Brechtman Forbes. We just opened Crescent City Transports here.” Now came the tricky part. He gestured vaguely. “A new business acquaintance mentioned the charity auction. Hope you don’t mind me dropping by. I have a soft spot for literacy causes.”
Adrienne DeBlanc’s smile drooped almost imperceptibly and her fingers went rigid in his. “A business acquaintance. Of course.”
She sounded disappointed.
“Please come in. Now who did you say—?”
She paused as a young man in a crisply starched white coat apologetically whispered in her ear.
She inclined her head briefly. “Please pardon me. I have a small hors d’oeuvres crisis to avert. Make yourself at home.”
Seth nodded. He’d dodged the first bullet. His breath whooshed out in relief as he snagged a flute of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter.
The large front room with its hardwood floors and gauzy flowing curtains was sparsely furnished, giving it a cool open feeling. The furniture