What The Millionaire Wants...

Two

So far, she’d struck out. Sighing, Laura put down her pen and stretched her arms above her head. She still hadn’t spoken with her attorney or her sister. And her conversation with Benton had not gone well at all. She still couldn’t believe her mother had actually used the Contessa as collateral on a loan and not told her. Benton hadn’t given her much in the way of details. Instead he’d referred her to her mother. Unfortunately, the time difference and distance between New Orleans and France had made reaching her mother difficult. Glancing at the clock, she calculated the time overseas and concluded it was now after two o’clock in the morning in France. Aware of her mother’s love of the night life, Laura tried the number again.

“Oui,” her mother answered on the fourth ring, her voice breathless.

“Mother, it’s Laura.”

“Laurie, darling,” she replied, genuine pleasure in her voice. “Philippe, it’s Laurie calling from America.”

She could hear Philippe shout out a greeting from the background and Laura made the obligatory hello to her mother to give to him. “Mother? Mother?” Laura pressed when her mother began to converse with Philippe in French.

“I’m sorry, darling. Philippe wanted me to tell you how well things are going here with the new club and to see when you can come for a visit. He’s eager to show it off to you and Chloe.” Without waiting for her to answer, her mother went on, “Do you think you girls could come? Why, it’s been nearly a year since I’ve seen you, Laurie. And it would be so lovely to have my babies here for a visit. We could…”

Laura closed her eyes a moment as her mother rambled. She didn’t bother trying to explain to her that at twenty-six and twenty-two, she and Chloe could hardly be considered babies. Finally, she said, “Mother, please. This is important. I need to know if you used your stock in the Contessa as collateral for a bank loan.”

For a long moment, her mother was silent. Then she said, “It was just as a formality. A guarantee, until I paid back the loan.”

Telling herself not to panic, that not even her mother could have spent all that money so quickly, she asked, “How much of the money do you have left?”

At her mother’s silence, the knot that had formed in her stomach when Jackson Hawke had walked into her office tightened. Just when she thought her mother wasn’t going to respond, she said, “I don’t have any of it left.”

Laura felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her. There was nothing left? All of the money was gone? Suddenly a roaring started in her ears. Her stomach pitched. Feeling as though she were going to be sick, Laura leaned forward and put her head between her knees.

“Laurie? Laurie, are you still there?”

When the initial wave of nausea had passed, Laura straightened and leaned back in the chair. Lifting the phone receiver she still held in her hand to her ear, she managed to say, “I’m here.”

“Darling, you sound…strange. Are you okay?”

No, she wasn’t okay, Laura wanted to scream. Her foolish, reckless mother had placed the Contessa at risk. And because she had, Jackson Hawke might very well be able to take the hotel away from them, away from her. “You’re sure it’s all gone? There’s nothing left?”

“I’m sure.”

“What did you do with all that money?” Laura demanded.

Her mother explained how she had invested six million dollars into the nightclub that Philippe had been so keen to open in France. “I used some of it to pay for repairs to the hotel that the insurance didn’t cover after the hurricane and the rest of it went to pay the back taxes on the hotel.”

Laura knew the hotel had been underinsured at the time of the hurricane and, as a result, not all of the repairs had been fully covered. But the taxes? “The taxes couldn’t possibly have been that much,” Laura argued. “Since the hurricane, the assessment values have decreased, not increased.”

“The taxes were from before the hurricane…from when your grandfather was still alive and running the hotel.”

Laura frowned. That didn’t make any sense, she thought and told her mother so. “Granddad always paid the Contessa’s bills—even if it meant using his own money to do it. He would have made sure the taxes were paid.”

“Apparently, he didn’t. Or he couldn’t. Evidently, the hotel wasn’t doing well for quite some time before your grandfather became ill and he got behind on some of the bills. The tax assessor came to see me not long after the funeral and told me the taxes were three years in arrears, plus there were penalties. He was going to put a lien on the hotel. So I went to the bank and borrowed the money to pay them off.”

Once again, Laura felt as though she’d had the wind kicked out of her. She’d known the hotel had gone through a rough patch and that her grandfather had hired a marketing firm to help him. But she hadn’t realized things had been that bad. “Why didn’t Granddad tell me? I would have come home and helped him with the hotel.”

“That’s probably why he didn’t tell you, because he knew you would have come rushing home. And that wouldn’t have been good for your career.”

But Laura suspected her grandfather hadn’t told her because he hadn’t believed she was capable of running the Contessa. A sharp sting went through her as she recalled her grandfather dismissing the idea of her working at the Contessa after she’d graduated from college. He’d insisted she was too green to run a property like the Contessa and had told her to take the job she’d been offered by Stratton Hotels. Lost in thought, Laura didn’t realize her mother had spoken until she heard her name said sharply. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I said, how did you find out I pledged my stock to the bank for the loan?”

“Because the bank sold your note, Mother.”

“Yes, I know. To some company with a bird’s name.”

“Hawke Industries,” Laura supplied and she certainly didn’t consider the man for whom the company was named to be some tame, feathered creature. Rather he was a predator—just like his name implied.

“That’s right. I remember getting a notice from them, telling me they owned the note for my loan now.”

“They own more than the note, Mother. You defaulted on the loan and now Jackson Hawke owns eighty percent of the stock in the Contessa.”

Jackson Hawke sat in the penthouse suite of the Contessa Hotel late that evening and waited for the e-mail on Laura Spencer to arrive on his computer. Following his meeting with her, he had had the investigative firm he used compile a complete background check on her. He’d asked for everything—from her favorite flavor of ice cream right down to her shoe size. He frowned as he recalled his assistant’s remark that it sounded personal. It wasn’t, Jack told himself. It was business. Strictly business. And he intended to keep it that way.

As he waited for the file, Jack took a sip of his wine and considered, once again, his earlier encounter with Laura Spencer. While he had anticipated her objections and could even understand her denial at losing the hotel, he hadn’t expected to find her outright defiance so stimulating. If he were honest, Jack admitted, the woman intrigued him. And it had been a very long time since anything or anyone had truly intrigued him.

A beep indicated the new e-mail and Jack clicked onto the file document and began reading the investigator’s preliminary report. Much of the information he was familiar with already, having attained the data during his initial investigation of the Contessa and its principals. But he skimmed through the basics on Laura Spencer again anyway—noting the names of her parents, the schools she had attended, the places she had lived, her employment history. As he perused the information in the file, he paused at the newspaper and magazine clippings Fitzpatrick Investigations had included with the report.

He studied a color photo that had appeared in a soap-opera magazine more than twenty years ago of a young Laura on the steps of a church following her mother’s wedding to an actor. Another photo showed a six-year-old Laura standing with her grandfather in front of the Contessa Hotel as the older man shook hands with the city’s mayor. Even then, there was no mistaking the stubborn tilt of Laura’s chin, the pride in her eyes, the promise of quiet beauty in her features. More clippings followed. Laura graduating as valedictorian from a high school in Boston. Laura in her freshman year at college in New Orleans. Laura making her society debut as a maid in one carnival ball and reigning as queen in another. Laura named as an assistant manager at the Stratton West Hotel in California. He paused at a more recent clipping of an elegantly dressed and smiling Laura on the arm of a man wearing a tuxedo. Jack clenched his jaw as he recognized her escort—Matt Peterson. Just the sight of his stepbrother’s face sent anger coursing through him. And along with the anger came the painful memories, the old hurt. Jack read the caption beneath the picture.

Ms. Laura Spencer and Mr. Matthew Peterson at the Literacy Gala hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Edward Peterson.

How had he missed this? And just how serious was Laura’s relationship with Peterson? he wondered. After dashing off an e-mail to Fitzpatrick Investigations, demanding answers, he considered how Peterson’s involvement with Laura might impact his deal. While his stepbrother didn’t have the money to bail Laura out, Peterson’s old man and stepmother did. And there was nothing the pair wouldn’t do for their golden-boy son.

Bitterness rose like bile in his throat as Jack thought of Peterson’s stepmother—his own mother—who had left her family for her husband’s business partner and best friend. Whether Laura was seriously involved with Matthew Peterson didn’t matter, Jack told himself. All that mattered was the deal. If his stepbrother tried to play knight in shining armor for Laura, it would only make the deal that much sweeter when Jack foreclosed on the hotel and crushed Matthew in the process.

Irritated, but not sure why, Jack shut off his computer. Deciding he needed to stretch his legs and clear his head, he pocketed his room key and exited the hotel suite.

Twenty-five minutes later, he returned to the hotel, carrying a paper bag filled with a large cup of coffee and a chocolate éclair that he’d picked up at a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop located a few blocks from the hotel. While the crisp November air had refreshed him and tempered his restlessness, it had also awakened his appetite. One foot inside the tiny shop and he’d opted for the sugar-laden pastry.

“Evening, Mr. Hawke. I see you found the place I told you about,” the doorman remarked as he approached the hotel.

“I sure did, Alphonse. Bernice said for you to come by and have a slice of apple pie and a cup of coffee after your shift,” Jack said, relaying the message the waitress had asked him to pass on to her sweetheart.

Alphonse grinned, showing a mouthful of even white teeth. “That little girl makes the finest apple pie in all of New Orleans,” he boasted. “You be sure to try some before you head home.”

“I’ll do that,” Jack promised as he entered the hotel, his gaze sweeping over the lobby. He noted the magnificent chandelier, the marble floors, the artwork and massive urn of fresh flowers that spoke volumes about the hotel’s quality. As nice and lucrative as the newer chain hotels were, they couldn’t duplicate the old-world elegance and sense of history found in a place like the Contessa.

Despite the toll time and the lack of funds had taken on the hotel, the Contessa still exuded an air of luxury and privilege to those who walked through her doors. It was on the promise of that luxury and privilege appealing to the discriminating traveler, as well as the movie community that had adopted the city, that he had banked fifteen million dollars. It was a good investment, one based on numbers, not sentiment, Jack told himself as he pressed the button for the elevator.

After pushing the button again, he waited for one of the hotel’s two elevators to arrive. Two minutes turned into three, then four. When he hit the button a third time, he took another look at the large dial above the elevator banks that indicated the cars’ positions. He noted that one of the elevators remained on the eighth floor while the other was making a very slow descent from the twelfth floor. When it, too, stopped at the eighth floor, he frowned. Walking over to the front desk, he read the clerk’s name tag and said, “Charlene, I think there’s a problem with the elevators. They seem to be stuck on the eighth floor.”

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, sir. We’ve been having a little trouble with the elevators lately. I’ll notify maintenance right away and have them check it out. I’m sure they will be operational in a moment,” she advised him and picked up the phone to report the problem.

Making a mental note to add servicing and refurbishing the elevators to his list of immediate hotel improvements needed, Jack headed for the stairs. When he reached the sixth floor where the executive offices were, he paused before opening the door. He told himself he was simply going to check the status of the elevators and find out if they were moving again. But when he reached the elevator bank, he angled his gaze down the hall toward the management offices, where the lights were still burning.

A check of his watch told him it was after ten o’clock—long past quitting time, even for the hotel’s general manager. But as he approached the suite of offices, he didn’t have to wonder who’d be working so late.

Jack looked to his left toward Laura’s office. The door was slightly ajar and he could hear music—a hauntingly beautiful piece that was one of his own favorites. Obviously, he and Laura shared similar tastes in music.

Pausing in the doorway, he saw that Laura was seated behind the mahogany desk, her head tipped back against the massive black leather chair and her eyes closed. He used the moment to study her. The hair that he had classified as a color somewhere between red and brown that morning was a deep, rich red in the lamplight. Her skin was fair and had a smooth, creamy glow. Jack could just make out the faint dusting of freckles across Laura’s nose. His gaze dipped to her mouth. Her lips were bare—no splash of bright color, no slick of gloss—which made her far more attractive in his book. She’d shed the red suit jacket she’d worn earlier to reveal a long, smooth neck and more creamy skin. The white silk blouse gently skimmed her shoulders and draped breasts that were neither large nor small, but just the right size to fill a man’s hands.

As though sensing his presence, she opened her eyes. For the space of a heartbeat, she didn’t move. She simply stared at him. Then suddenly she straightened and reached for the stereo remote. The music died midnote.

“You didn’t have to turn it off. That CD is a favorite of mine,” he told her and stepped into the room.

Ignoring his comment, Laura’s voice was cool as she said, “If you’re looking for your room, Mr. Hawke, it’s on the top floor.”

“Thank you for pointing that out, Ms. Spencer,” he said. So she had discovered he was a guest in her hotel. He’d known that she would. A good general manager made a point of reviewing the hotel’s guest list. She had apparently reviewed hers and found his name on it, which, judging from her expression, had not pleased her. He walked over to her desk and set down the bag with his coffee and éclair.

“The business office is closed.”

“And yet you’re still here,” he pointed out. “I didn’t realize being the hotel GM meant working day and night. I’m surprised your boyfriend doesn’t object to the long hours.”

“Was there something you wanted, Mr. Hawke?”

He paused a moment, considered the loaded question and the woman. Evidently from the way she narrowed her eyes, Laura realized what he was considering had nothing to do with business. Deciding it was best not to go there, he finally said, “Actually, I was taking the stairs up to my room when—”

“Why were you using the stairs?”

“Because the elevators aren’t working.”

When she grabbed for the phone, he reached across the desk and caught her wrist. Gently removing the telephone receiver from her hand, he replaced it on the cradle. “The front desk has already alerted maintenance.”

Laura pulled her wrist free. “I’m sorry you were inconvenienced,” she told him. “I’m sure maintenance will have the problem fixed shortly. In the meantime, if you need to get to your room, you can use the service elevator. I’ll show you where it is.”

“That’s okay. I’m in no hurry. I’ll just wait for the elevator,” Jack told her. Deciding to take advantage of the fact that he had her one-on-one, he sat down in the chair in front of her desk. “But since I’m here and you don’t appear to have any pressing meetings scheduled at the moment, maybe now would be a good time for us to talk about the hotel. I’m assuming you’ve spoken with the bank and confirmed my ownership position of the hotel.”

“Actually, I haven’t confirmed anything other than the fact that you purchased my mother’s note. And until I speak with my attorney and find out what your legal claim is on the property, I see no reason for us to have any discussion about the hotel.”

“All right. We won’t discuss the hotel. But I would like to drink my coffee before it gets cold. That is, if you don’t mind,” he added even as he removed the large foam cup from the paper bag. He took out the chocolate éclair that was wrapped in a thin white pastry sheet. Looking over at her, he noted that her eyes were trained on the treat. “Maybe you’d like to join me? I bought the large-size coffee.”

“No, thank you,” she said.

“Some of the éclair, then?”

“No, thanks,” she told him, but Jack didn’t miss the way she looked at the pastry.

Ignoring her protest, he divided the éclair in two and placed half of the chocolate pudding-filled confection on one of the napkins, then set it in front of her. When she simply stared at it, he said, “Go ahead.”

“I’m not hungry,” she told him.

“What’s hunger have to do with it?” he asked and bit into his half. He didn’t bother to hide his enjoyment. The rich pudding inside the chocolate-iced pastry shell was delicious. “Alphonse was right. Bernice does make the best éclairs.”

“This came from Bernice’s Kitchen?”

He nodded, took another bite, swallowed. “I was looking for a cup of coffee and wasn’t exactly dressed for the dining room,” he said, indicating the casual slacks, sweater and bomber jacket he wore. “Alphonse recommend Bernice’s.”

“Bernice is a genius when it comes to baking.” The wariness in her expression faded, giving way to a look of anticipation as she dragged her fingertip through the chocolate pudding spilling from the torn pastry. “I tried to hire her as a pastry chef for the Contessa, but she turned me down flat. Said she didn’t think it was a good idea for her and Alphonse to be working at the same place, that it might take some of the mystery out of their relationship.”

Jack arched his brow. “I got the impression they were in a…um…long-term relationship.”

“They’ve been dating for fifteen years, engaged for the last four. They don’t want to rush things,” she told him, the hint of a smile curving her lips.

“After fifteen years, I’d say there’s little chance of that happening.”

“It seems to work for them,” she said and brought her finger to her mouth.

There was something inherently sensual about the sight of Laura licking her finger, Jack thought. He found himself wondering what she would look like while making love. Would those green eyes darken with need and heat? Would her lips part, her breathing quicken? Would that smooth, cool skin feel as soft as it looked?

The direction of his thoughts annoyed him, but it didn’t surprise him, he admitted. He was a healthy male who enjoyed the opposite sex and the pleasures to be found in a woman’s body. But when it came to women and sex, he had no delusions. Plain and simple, he believed in lust, not love. And right now he was experiencing a serious case of lust for Laura Spencer.

She scooped another finger full of pudding and as though sensing his gaze, Laura looked up. Her body went still. Her eyes locked with his as awareness sizzled like electrical currents between them.

Jack watched as Laura’s lips parted and when he heard the slight hitch in her breath, he felt another stab of lust. The pudding on her fingertip fell with a splat onto the napkin on her desk. But her eyes remained locked with his. Not bothering to think about what he was doing or how it might impact his business, Jack pushed back his chair and started toward her. He had just reached the side of her desk when he heard the tap at the door.

A disapproving male voice came from the doorway asking, “Am I interrupting something?”