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Quaid winced. “Yeah, I’m sorry I haven’t gotten to that yet.”
“We know how hard you work, and the parish doesn’tpay much. As your biggest client I certainly appreciate you prioritizing me, but Sylvie wouldn’t hate having someone who could work faster.”
Rene’s wife was the mayor and one of the smartest people he knew.
“Give it to Jayna. I’m fairly certain she won’t get anything like cash out of Geraldine, and if she’s living with her momma, she’s in that trailer park.” The thought hurt his heart. She’d been magnificent in her designer suit and heels. A goddess in Louboutins.
How much of a blow to her pride had it been to come home?
He wanted her whole story. Preferably told to him after he’d gotten her into bed and given her a couple of orgasms. Then they could lie there, well-satisfied, and she could tell him how her life had gone off the rails.
The fact that he was as interested in the story as he was the sex was likely a sign of his impending old age.
“I’ll let Sylvie know.” There was a pause over the line. “Do you want me to get a report on her?”
Rene had a couple of private investigators on his payroll who could get him every bit of information on Jayna Cardet that he could ever want.
“No.” He wasn’t going to invade her privacy. He wanted the story from her, and only when she was ready to give it to him. “Don’t sic your PIs on her. If she’s still practicing, then what she did wasn’t a disbarrable offense. I suspect she did the right thing and it cost her firm money, so she got the boot. Do you know the name of the husband?”
Rene paused for a moment. “I want to say it was Todd something.”
Quaid groaned. “Shale. Todd Shale’s father runs one of the biggest corporate firms in New Orleans. I would bet a lot that’s who we’re talking about. He’s also a nasty piece ofwork. If he’s been married up until recently, he’s also had a girlfriend on the side because he was with a woman at the last conference I went to, and it wasn’t Jayna.”
The woman had been a blonde and looked to be barely twenty years old. She hadn’t held a candle to the magnificent creature who’d looked like she’d wanted to claw his eyes out earlier today.
“You sound like you’re already invested in this woman,” Rene pointed out. “I hope you didn’t admit to her you couldn’t remember who she was. Please tell me you didn’t.”
“I wish I could.” He wished he could take back more than just that. Including the fact that she’d caught him with demonic dolls in his office. “It gets worse. I kept her waiting in court and then had a judgment for my client within ten minutes of walking into the place. Then I asked her out. She turned me down.”
“How surprising. Well, I don’t suspect she’ll be here all that long. Jayna was one of those kids who left and almost never came home after she went to college. She wanted out of Papillon.”
And now she was home and was trying to find something to do while she put her life back together. He could understand that. “I can be her rebound guy.”
Rene snorted over the line. “You’re too old to play these games. You’re not twenty-five anymore.”
He knew that. All of his friends were married with kids, and it wasn’t that he didn’t want a family. He’d just never found the right woman. “Well, even if she is my dream woman, she didn’t walk back into town to stay, so I have to take comfort where I can. And Jayna Cardet looks like she could use some comfort, too. I see no reason why we can’t comfort each other while she’s here. And if she can take some work off my plate, I might have a chance to look for someone who can come in and help me.”
“I’ve been telling you to bring someone in for years,” Rene said with a sigh. “Good luck with Jayna.”
Quaid pulled down the long driveway that led to the big, Creole-style house his grandfather had built back in the thirties when he’d settled here in Papillon. That house represented all of his family’s happiness and prosperity and all the backbreaking responsibility that came with it. “I’m going to need it. Talk to you later.”
Luck wasn’t something he’d had a ton of lately. Quaid hung up and he could fully concentrate on driving down the paved road that took him home.
His heroine had long hair, but suddenly that didn’t make a ton of sense. She was a spy. Short hair was probably better to have in a fight. He could give her a fashionable bob, one that drew a man’s eyes right to her lovely lips.
If he was lucky, his mom had some function to go to this evening. If she wasn’t around, he could eat dinner in front of his computer without his mother giving him grief about working through a meal. Of course, once she realized he was working on his latest novel, the grief wouldn’t end.
Why on earth would you waste your days away in some fictional world, Quaid? You’ve been given everything you need to have an amazing life. Why subject yourself to rejection? You’re a lawyer, not a writer.
He would reply by telling her half the time he lied for a living anyway, so he didn’t see the difference. Four finished novels and fifty-two rejections later, he had to think she might be right. Still, writing those books was the only thing that kept him sane sometimes.
He realized his luck wasn’t running any better when he saw the Porsche in the driveway.
He didn’t know anyone who would drive a Porsche around Papillon with the singular exception of the one person he didn’t want to see.
The front door opened and his mother waved from the porch. “Quaid! Quaid, come inside. Your brother’s home!”
Paul stepped out next to their mother. His brother had dropped weight. His elegant clothes now looked slightly too big for his lanky frame, but he was sure his brother still did well with the ladies. He’d gone to LA to pursue a modeling and acting career. At least that’s what he’d said. Quaid had always thought what his brother was pursuing was an easier way to get high.
