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CHAPTERTHREE
Once on the porch, Olivia would’ve moved over to the open window and tried to listen in on the Beaumont brothers’ conversation if not for the dog who lay sprawled in front of it. With his floppy ears and droopy face, he didn’t look vicious, but she wasn’t willing to take the chance. So instead she did some snooping on Deacon’s phone. Despite the crack, it was a newer version of hers with twice as many apps, and she had to wonder if he needed money as badly as she’d thought. Her question was answered when she scrolled through his recent text exchanges with his brothers. It appeared that Deacon did need money and was having trouble getting it. Numerous banks had turned him down for a loan.
Relieved, Olivia started to close the message screen when she noticed a woman’s name in the list. The name Francesca brought with it an image of a lush, full-figured woman who enjoyed stomping grapes with her bare feet and seducing men with her deep-throated laugh. It turned out that the mental image wasn’t too far off. Francesca’s text about meeting for lunch was filled with sexual innuendo.
Olivia wasn’t surprised. Not only was Deacon extremely good-looking but he also had a sexual aura around him that could make any woman think naughty thoughts. Olivia’s brain still clung to the image of Deacon in all his naked glory and was now trying to insert her into a fantasy that involved lots and lots of touching.
Not wanting to go down that dead-end road, she clicked over to the phone app and dialed the French Kiss corporate office. Setting the glass of tea on the railing next to her drying clothes, she moved off the porch and around the corner of the house. She sidestepped an anthill where an industrious ant was trying to get a Cheez-It into the small hole. Olivia couldn’t help sympathizing. Since Michael’s stroke she’d felt like she carried the weight of saving the company on her shoulders, and the window of opportunity was getting smaller and smaller.
Three trucks were parked at the side of the house. One older and mud-splattered, one dinged up and splotched with gray primer, and the last newer and sparkling clean. She didn’t wonder whose was whose as much as how they had gotten there. Obviously there was a road to the house. Which meant that the old gondolier had cheated her out of a hundred dollars. While she was fuming over this, her assistant Kelly Wang finally answered.
“Okay, so I’ll have sex with you. But don’t think that it’s going to lead to anything permanent. I’m way too young to be tied down to one man…or one penis. And no kinky stuff—well, maybe a little kinky is okay. But I’m not dressing up like your mother or letting you lick my shoes.”
Once again Olivia wished she’d hired the gray-haired, Nazi-looking woman instead of a twenty-two-year-old nympho who thought that working at French Kiss would get her free lingerie and a wider selection of sexual partners. Of course the gray-haired lady had been scary, while the plump, talkative young woman had seemed more willing to take orders from a non-confrontational boss. Boy, had Olivia been wrong. Kelly spent her days reading Cosmo and talking inappropriately to the male employees.
“It’s me, Kelly,” Olivia said.
“Ms. Harrington? I thought you were doing a spa day with your mom.”
Olivia didn’t like lying to her assistant, but Kelly was a notorious gossip, and Olivia didn’t want anyone finding out about Michael’s will or her plans to buy the Beaumonts’ shares until things were settled.
“I just called to check in,” she said, “and to let you know that my cell phone got wet so you can’t reach me by that number.”
“What happened? Did you drop it in one of those sea salt soaks? I dropped my cell phone once when I was in the bathtub. It scared the shit out of me. I thought I was either going to be electrocuted or start reading women’s thoughts like Mel Gibson in that movie—what was the title?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t have time to watch movies.”
“You don’t have time for anything. All you do is work, work, work. Which makes absolutely no sense to me. Especially when you’re the boss. If I were you, I’d be going to the spa twice a week. And not with my mother. I’d be taking my hot boyfriend for one of those couples’ massages. And speaking of hot boyfriends, Mr. Calloway came by looking for you and seemed kinda annoyed when I told him you weren’t here.”
Olivia was shocked that Kelly knew about her relationship with Parker. Not that she would call it a relationship. They were more FWOB—Friends with Occasional Benefits. Still, she didn’t want anyone from work knowing about it.
“It’s probably not any of my business,” Kelly continued, “but you need to be careful with clingy guys. I mean, this isn’t the Dark Ages or Fifty Shades. If you want to spend the day with your mom at the spa, or with some other guy, then that shouldn’t be any of his—”
Olivia cut her off. “If Mr. Calloway should come back by, would you please tell him that I’ll call him later. And if there’s nothing else…”
There was a long pause. “Well, I did sorta spill my Diet Coke on the computer, and it sorta quit working. But that lawyer guy you just hired who always has the food stains on his tie—Jason something or other—came by and got it running. I hate to say this, but I think he wants to have sex with me. He got a major hard-on when I bent over to flip the power off. For a second I thought he was going to boink me right there on the desk. Not that I would’ve gone along with it—although he does have pretty eyes.”
Olivia massaged her temples. “Okay, then. If there’s not anything else, I’ll talk to you when I get back.”
“Sure. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Olivia felt that left things wide open. “I’ll try not to.” As soon as she hung up with Kelly, she called her mother. The voice was less friendly, but the morals pretty much the same. Deirdre Beaumont looked at sex as a way to a man’s heart…and his wallet. And for her it had been true. Her beauty and sex appeal had captured the attention of three wealthy husbands in her lifetime. Which was a good thing, since her mother went through money as quickly as she had gone through husbands. Michael had been the one exception. The one man her mother had actually loved. When Michael met her, Deirdre had been in her late forties. Well past her gold-digging prime. Her last husband, Olivia’s father, had disappeared without a trace after bankrupting his company. With no prospect of a rich husband in sight, she and Olivia had been living off credit cards and close friends. Michael had arrived like a knight in shining armor. Something Olivia would always be grateful for.
“Hello, Mother,” Olivia said.
“Olivia? Whose phone are you calling from?” Deirdre didn’t even wait for an answer before she started in. “I cannot tell you the hell I’ve been in since you left. That Frenchwoman you convinced me to invite into my home is nothing but a foulmouthed guttersnipe who will no doubt kill me and the entire staff in our sleep.”
“Stop being dramatic, Mother. Babette is not going to kill anyone. She’s just creative and high-strung.”
“High-strung, yes. Creative, no. I don’t have a clue why you brought her from Paris. You are much more talented than she is.”
Olivia smiled. For all Deirdre’s flaws, she had always been a proud, protective mother. “Thank you, but if I was that good, Michael would’ve had me designing. Babette is considered one of the best lingerie designers in the world.”
“I find that hard to believe. And Michael was always selfish. Even if he liked your designs, he would’ve wanted you helping him, instead of helping Samuel in the design studio. Does Samuel know about Babette?”
“No, not yet. But I plan to tell him soon.”
“I doubt that he’ll be happy. He’s extremely sensitive about his work.”
