1
CLAIRE BRADEN couldn’t remember a hotter day coming this close to Christmas in any of the places she’d lived during her thirty-one years. Whatever had possessed her to move to New Orleans was an inspiration that had long since melted into a puddle of sticky goo.
The temperature was unbearable, though it wasn’t the heat as much as the stifling humidity. The sort of sweltering, wet-blanket air that had her dreaming of walking naked through her town house and eating fresh fruit over the kitchen sink.
Running her air conditioner in December seemed such a sin, but run it she would—if only it wasn’t in need of repair. And she hated the thought of parting with that much cash until the heat took up seasonal residence late in May.
A cold front would blow through soon. She believed that with all of her heart. Besides, it was the holiday season. Surely Santa had received her wish list already.
The air conditioner. The Kooba slouchy shoulder bag in plum, please. Ten more hours in every day. Ten less pounds around her hips. Oh, and a fling with the guy whose balcony at Number 13 in the Court du Chaud sat kitty-corner to hers.
The first was practical, necessary, hardly a treat; the second a reward with which she’d be spoiling herself once she billed her current image-consulting client. The third, a pipe dream, the fourth her inherited lot in life.
The fifth, on the other hand, was extravagant, unexpected, a gift she wanted way more than she needed. It was also a gift that would go a long way toward assuaging the full-blown case of lust she had in her heart.
Unlocking her courtyard-facing front door, she let herself into the town house’s entry foyer. The outside heat and humidity were nothing in the scheme of things. Her new neighbor was the number one source of her blood running hot.
She’d been living at Court du Chaud for two years, yet knew very few of the other residents. Establishing her business as a corporate image consultant would have been even longer in coming had she not arrived in New Orleans with a portfolio of high-profile businesses whose executive offices she’d made over, as well as client consultations already scheduled as the result of referrals from past jobs done well.
As it was, the hours she poured into work came from the same pitcher as the hours left for sleep and socializing. She hadn’t yet mastered that never-ending loaves-and-fishes magic. And as much as she enjoyed dating and making new friends, sleep was what kept her running at this pace.
She had gotten to know Perry Brazille who lived across the court. The two women often ate breakfast together at Café Eros, the two-story eatery at the courtyard’s entrance, drinking coffee, splitting one of the rich pastries that neither of them needed, comparing notes on their romantic dry spells.
And while at the café, Claire had picked up enough tidbits of gossip—most of those from the court busybody, Madame Alain—and enough snippets of conversation to know her new male neighbor would fill her straight-sex, no-emotional-involvement-fling bill nicely.
He’d paid cash for his town house, drove an import that cost a four-year tuition, dressed in suits that had never seen a rack, and had that rock-star smolder that caused women to throw panties and scream.
And, yes. It was terribly out of character for her to be drawn by external trappings when her business was all about image and she knew better than most what a fresh coat of paint could hide.
In fact, she gave herself a refurbishing makeover at every opportunity, trying on different looks as if she’d be able to find the source of her personal discontent once she hit on the right combination of color and style.
But her neighbor was hot and sexy and built like a god, and there were times nothing else mattered. Times like now with the holidays approaching when she wasn’t so crazy about spending the days alone.
After kicking off her Prada pumps, she peeled off her panty hose, then tossed them, her purse and her navy blazer onto her overstuffed sofa colored in oriental reds and golds, and headed into the kitchen for a tall glass of iced tea.
Her sleeveless white blouse unbuttoned over her ivory silk camisole, she retrieved her leather attaché and the day’s mail she’d tucked down inside, and made her way upstairs to her bedroom’s balcony.
The cane fan overhead stirred the sluggish air; she sat in one chair at the glass-and-black wrought-iron table, propped her feet on a second, dropped her attaché onto the third. It didn’t take her long to sort through the mail.
Flyers, catalogues, postcards and sales sheets went into one stack for the trash. Bills went into her Day-Timer, as did her tickets to see the Black Eyed Peas in March. That left half a dozen Christmas cards that she settled in to read with her cold drink.