Masquerade by Janet Dailey Page B

People—like water —seek their own level." It was a truth he'd learned the hard way, on more than one occasion.
    She arched an eyebrow at that. "And you accept that?"
    "It isn't a question of accepting it. It's reality."  
    "If women had that attitude, we'd still be in the kitchen."
    "Somehow I doubt you have ever seen the inside of a kitchen—except maybe to complain to the cook."
    "I think you'd be surprised at how well I know my way around a kitchen, but that's not the point." She shrugged idly, her eyes never leaving him. "You disappoint me, Mr. Buchanan. I thought you were more of a gambler."
    "I don't play longshots, if that's what you mean."
    She laughed, and the throaty sound of it worked on his senses. "I've been called many things, but never a longshot." She reached into her lap for her purse. He heard the snapping click of the clasp opening. She took something out of it, then presented it to him in a flourish, with a twist of her wrist. "Here's a sure thing, Mr. Buchanan. One ticket to this evening's show . . . and look." She wiggled it. "No strings attached."
    He took it from her, then hesitated warily. "What's the catch, Miss Jardin? What's behind this?"
    "No catch. And if it was prompted by anything, then it's probably something Nattie once told me."
    "What's that?"
    "A little sugar never hurt a lemon."
    He smiled in spite of himself and slipped the ticket inside the breast pocket of his suit coat.
    A half-dozen times that afternoon, back in his office, he took it out and looked at it. Each time, the sight of it gave him pause. And a hundred times he debated with himself whether or not he should go.
    In the end, he showered and changed at his apartment, then went to the Fairmont Hotel, which, like most New Orleans natives, he continued to think of as the Roosevelt. He was shown to a table for two in the hotel's supper club, the Blue Room. The emptiness of the chair opposite him stared accusingly back. One word from him at lunch, and Remy Jardin would have been sitting there. He wondered if he could stand to stare at it all night. Finally he decided he couldn't, and he started to get up.
    That was when she walked in, dramatically feminine in a high-necked two-piece dress of silk jacquard, inset with embroidered lace at the throat and with another wide swathe accenting the hem. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a crown of soft curls, a style that was both sophisticated and sexy.
    "Sorry I'm late. I hope I haven't kept you waiting long," she said, as if he'd been expecting her to come all along. Had he?
    "Remy." It was out. He'd said her name.
    "Yes, Cole," she replied softly.
    "Nothing," Ripping his gaze from her, he moved briskly to pull out the other chair at the table.
    "Nothing," she mocked playfully, following after him to take her seat. Her dress was a pale shade of ivory, but the effect of it was anything but virginal, as Cole discovered when he saw the back of it. It plunged all the way down, giving him a glimpse of the tantalizing hollow at the base of her spine. "Your longshot comes in, and all you can say is 'nothing.'"
    "I see you changed for the occasion." He took his own seat, rigid, tense, every instinct telling him to walk out now.
    "You like my dress?"
    "That isn't a dress. It's a weapon."
    "Mmmm, a lethal one, I hope." She smiled, deliberately provocative.
    "Just why have you set your sights on me?" He leaned back in his chair, trying to put more distance between them and negate the effect she was having on him. But he heard the whisper of silk over silk as she crossed her legs under the table.
    "Frankly?" Unexpectedly, her expression turned serious, her look soberly contemplative. "Initially—as I told you before—I came to see you out of sheer curiosity. I wanted to meet the man who wanted no part of one of the most elite krewes in New Orleans. When I did, you were— at least at first—almost exactly what I expected. Then I saw the way you looked at that