Private Passions

  Dear Reader,

  New Orleans has always been one of my favorite cities. And although it may be famous for Mardi Gras, if there’s a place anywhere in this country that knows how to celebrate Christmas with more flair than The Big Easy, I haven’t found it.

  Since New Orleans is also a city of contrasts, I decided it was the perfect location to set a Secret Fantasy depicting the dark side of passion. Private Passions is the story of a journalist who falls under the spell of a deadly handsome, tormented man who could have been born in the most secret reaches of her imagination. A compelling man who leads Desiree Dupree into a labyrinth of danger and desire.

  While researching this story, I experienced a few tense moments myself, when I was caught taking unauthorized photographs inside the police station. Fortunately everything turned out okay. Except for having to spend the rest of the evening listening to my darling husband, Jay, saying, “I can’t believe you did that!” over and over again. But at least he can’t accuse me of being boring.

  I do hope you enjoy Desiree and Roman’s erotic love story.

  Jo Ann Ross

  Private Passions

  JoAnn Ross

  To Jan Grammick, in Harlequin’s contracts department,

  who came up with the offshore bank and

  helped Desiree keep her secret.

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  Epilogue

  1

  IT WAS CHRISTMASTIME in New Orleans. Holiday lights glittered gaily along St. Charles Avenue, twinkled on the towering oaks of City Park, sparkled from the famed wrought-iron railings, flashed on the sides of the historic streetcars and blazed from the Creole Queen on the river.

  On Bourbon Street, the sounds of Christmas carols, melancholy blues and jazz poured out of open doorways. Along with the usual performers at Jackson Square, musicians had claimed every street corner in the French Quarter, delighting holiday shoppers and revelers with songs of sleigh bells, herald angels and miracles.

  In the midst of the festive holiday lights, Roman Falconer’s Greek Revival town house was as dark as the inside of a coffin. The house, built French style flush against the sidewalk, was fronted by balconies surrounded by lacy iron scrolling and backed by a shady courtyard. Its damp brick walls had faded to the soft hue of a late summer rose. Roman had bought the house, which was reputed to be haunted, with the royalties earned from his first blockbuster bestseller, Jazzman’s Blues.

  Like a six-year-old anxiously anticipating the arrival of Old Saint Nick on Christmas Eve, Roman had stayed awake until dawn on his first night in his historical-register house, awaiting an appearance from his resident specter.

  Five years later, he was still waiting.

  A ring encircled a white moon, casting a ghostly glow over the crumbling brick front steps. The shimmering light was more eerie than pleasing.

  It also suited Roman’s bleak mood.

  His head was throbbing. His hands, as he unlocked the moss green front door, were far from steady.

  Once inside, he managed to make his way upstairs to his office, where he retrieved a bottle of Irish whiskey and a glass. One of a set he’d received as a Christmas gift last year, the Waterford old-fashioned glass featured an evergreen surrounded by brilliant wedge cuts. He filled the glass all the way to the top of the sand-blasted pine tree.

  He’d left his computer on. The phosphorescent light emanating from the screen filled the room with an unearthly green glow. He didn’t bother to read the words on the screen. He knew them well.

  Too damn well.

  He took a long swallow, felt the fire flow down his throat and into his gut and willed his body and his restless, tormented mind to relax. But that was difficult.

  Knowing what he knew.

  And wondering about the rest.

  * * *

  SOMEWHERE IN the South Pacific, Desiree Dupree was being held hostage by a modern-day pirate who’d boarded her sleek white yacht in the dead of night. Held hostage to reckless passions even more deadly than this dangerously mesmerizing man.

  At first she’d fought him, clawing and slashing and screaming at the top of her lungs, despite the fact that there was no one to hear her. In the end, she’d had no choice but to surrender.

  She was lying on her back on the smooth teak deck, her bound wrists lashed above her head to the white mast. Her eyes were closed, every nerve ending in her body tingling as her captor’s sinfully wicked hands rubbed coconut oil over her naked body.

  His voice was low and seductive as he reminded her of all the things he’d already done to her, all the things he intended yet to do—scandalous, outrageous things that both shamed and excited her.

  Through half-lidded eyes, she watched his ruggedly cut mouth slowly approach her oiled breasts.

  His dark head blocked out the sun. The unwilling anticipation streaming through her made Desiree feel as if he’d touched a sparkler to her heated flesh.

  She drew in a breath.

  And waited.

  The shrill ring of Desiree’s bedside phone shattered the still night air, causing her lushly erotic dream to splinter into crystalline pieces.

  Cursing, she scooped up the receiver. “Dupree.” Her grumpy voice lacked its usual smooth tone. The voice on the other end of the line was equally disinclined to pleasantries. “They’ve got another rape. At St. Louis Number One. Looks like our boy again.”

  “How long ago?” Instantly awake, Desiree jumped out of bed, carrying the phone with her as she went to the closet.

  “I just picked it up on the scanner. Lucky I had it on, huh?” Adrian Beauvier, her producer at WSLU-TV, added.

  “Lucky,” Desiree agreed absently as she retrieved a crimson cashmere sweater and a pair of gray wool slacks.

  She’d often wondered how LaDonna, Adrian’s wife, felt about sleeping with a police scanner sputtering away beside the bed all night. Perhaps that partly explained the departure of two previous Mrs. Beauviers.

  Still, Desiree had to admit that Adrian’s fanatic dedication to the news had certainly contributed to the station’s success. And it had done a lot for her own career, helping her break more than one big story in the five years she’d worked at WSLU. But not one of them had approached the attention-getting potential of this one.

  “I’m on my way,” she promised.

  “I’ll have Sugar meet you there.”

  Sugar, who was known solely by that name, like Cher or Madonna, was a three-hundred-pound African American cameraman whose past exploits included playing offensive lineman for Louisiana State. He’d also had a short career as a professional wrestler, which, rumor had it, was cut short when Sugar couldn’t get it through his head that he was supposed to be pretending to break his opponent in two.

  There was much conjecture around the station as to how he’d come to call himself Sugar, but to Desiree’s knowledge, no one had ever gotten up nerve to ask him. He wasn’t all that communicative at the best of times; if a conversation seemed to be heading in a personal direction, his renowned glare could cause even the most effusive anchorman to discover a stutter he’d never known he had.

  St. Louis Cemetery Number One was bounded by Basin, Conti and Treme streets. Desiree pulled her car in behind the phalanx of police vehicles parked at the curb. The flashing lights atop the cruisers lit the gates of the cemetery in alternating blue and red, reminding her of the revolving color wheel her grandmother had used to illuminate their aluminum Christmas tree back when Desiree was a child.

  The tree, l
ike everything else about the Garden District house in which she’d grown up—including her grandmother—had seemed cold and sterile.

  A red-and-white ambulance was parked behind the police cars.

  Normally at this time of night the cemetery would be deserted, save for those few brave and needy souls who ventured forth to make a request at the tomb reputed to belong to Marie Laveau, New Orleans’s voodoo queen of the nineteenth century.

  Tonight, however, the uneven sidewalk flanking the cemetery was crowded with sightseers. Desiree flashed her press pass at the uniformed officer and ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape. Her boots made crunching sounds on the crushed shells that served as gravel in this part of the Gulf Coast.

  “‘Bout time you got here,” Sugar said with a grunt. “Typical, though. Poor old Sugar got to do all the work, then the talent shows up just in time for her stand-up.”

  Desiree’s first, knee-jerk reaction was to bristle. Then, remembering that Sugar knew only too well her distaste for the term that suggested she was nothing more than a well-paid pretty face, she managed a shrug.

  “Better you turning into a Popsicle than me. Damn, it’s cold tonight.” She rubbed her gloved hands together.

  “You probably not feeling near as cold as that girl in there,” he drawled, nodding his shaved head toward the rows of white marble tombs.

  The police had set up so many incandescent lamps that the crime scene was lit up like Canal Street during a Mardi Gras parade.

  “Start the tape rolling,” Desiree instructed Sugar when she spotted a familiar face. “And don’t turn it off until I tell you.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Miz Dupree,” he drawled.

  Ignoring his sarcasm, she wove her way through the rows of tombs—the above-ground burial necessary due to the city’s high water table—to the man running the show. Deputy Chief of Detectives Michael Patrick O’Malley was standing behind a trio of paramedics who were bent over a young woman, obviously the victim. His expression was neither welcoming nor encouraging.

  “O’Malley don’t look real happy to see us,” Sugar observed with his knack for understatement.

  “Just keep shooting.” As she steeled herself against the icy blue glare, Desiree tried not to think how there’d been a time, not so long ago, when the detective had looked at her in a very different way. “But don’t focus on the victim’s face.”

  O’Malley’s opening words, like his glower, were definitely less than cordial. “Doesn’t Beauvier ever sleep?”

  “I don’t know. I guess you’d have to ask LaDonna that question,” Desiree responded mildly.

  “Freakin’ guy’s like a vampire. Up all night. Speaking of which, why aren’t you home in bed, Ms. Dupree?”

  Despite the circumstances, his voice deepened at the mention of Desiree’s bed. He’d been a frequent visitor to that bed for three months, until the combination of his dislike of her producer’s penchant for middle-of-the-night calls and constant arguments with Desiree herself had done their romance in.

  “I’m a crime reporter, Detective,” she reminded him, as she had so many times in the past. Unlike those other times, when she’d admittedly been guilty of screeching at him, her voice remained cool. “Unfortunately, criminals don’t always keep bankers’ hours.”

  She glanced past him again, this time catching a better glimpse of a young brunette woman. No, Desiree decided, she was not yet a woman, but a girl poised on the brink of adulthood. She was wrapped in an army green, police-issue blanket; her complexion was white, her brown eyes red-rimmed.

  An involuntary shiver ran through Desiree. She felt as if she’d just looked into one of the ghostly white tombs. This had not been the erotic, fantasized forced sex that dreams were made of. This was a harsh, brutal, unromantic rape.

  She took a deep breath to clear her head.

  “Was she able to give you a description of her assailant?”

  “Hasn’t said zilch.” O’Malley cursed. “The paramedics said she’s in shock.”

  “That’s probably not a surprise, considering.”

  “Probably not,” he agreed gruffly. Unlike her, he’d seen the bruises and teeth marks up close. “The kid’s lucky to be alive. But she’s not a lot of help this way. One of my guys tried to talk to her, but it was like talking to air.”

  Desiree watched as the medics carried the shock-stricken victim to the waiting ambulance. “Do you know what she was doing in the cemetery at this time of night?”

  “She’s a working girl. One of the beat cops told me she’s been picked up in the last three hooker roundups. She probably brought some john here for privacy.”

  He glanced around at the crumbling white tombs. “It’s not like any of the residents are going to object to the noise.”

  Though she cringed at his uncaring tone, Desiree knew his gallows humor was merely a cop’s way of dealing with the cruel and deadly side of life. “I’ll edit that out.”

  He shrugged. “You’ll do whatever the hell you want. You always do.”

  This was no time to rehash old arguments. “Is it the same perpetrator?”

  Another shrug. “Too soon to say.”

  Desiree saw the familiar wall going up. “But the M.O.’s the same?” she pressed.

  “I don’t recall mentioning anything about the M.O.”

  Coaxing more than five words out of Michael Patrick O’Malley at a time was not for the fainthearted. And she’d thought the Irish were supposed to be loquacious.

  “What you’re saying is that you won’t tell me anything.”

  “You’ve got more than the rest of the press so far.” He glanced back toward the gates and swore. Word had gotten out; other reporters had begun to arrive. “Speak of the devils.”

  He turned to a uniformed patrolman standing by. “Kolbe, escort Ms. Dupree and her cameraman back to the sidelines. This interview is over.”

  “Come on, Detective,” Desiree coaxed, “give me just one decent quote and I’ll go peacefully.”

  “How you go isn’t really my concern. Just that you go.”

  And then it appeared, that fleeting expression that let her know she wasn’t the only one who sometimes thought about days past.

  “Give me a break, Desiree,” he said quietly. “If I let you stay here, I’ll have to let those jackals in. And pretty soon any bit of evidence I’m trying to preserve will be trampled.”

  He had, she admitted, a point. “Can we talk later?”

  “Lord, I’d forgotten how stubborn you can be when you’ve got your teeth into a story.”

  “I want to make sure I get the facts straight. If a serial rapist is loose in the Quarter, people need to know. If not, surely you wouldn’t want the citizens of New Orleans to panic if there’s no need.”

  Knowing when he was licked, he muttered a curse—less savage than his earlier one—and caved in. “If I can get away, I’ll meet you at eight at the Coffee Pot for breakfast.”

  “Terrific. I’ll even buy.”

  “We’ll go dutch. Wouldn’t want the law-abiding citizens of the Big Easy to think their public servants can be bribed with a double helping of Cajun hash and cottage fries.”

  “Never happen,” she said. “You’re one of the good guys.”

  “Keep that thought,” he advised her dryly. “Now get out of here before I have to start throwing my weight around.”

  Desiree allowed a patrolman to escort her back behind the police barricades. “You may as well get some shots of the crowd,” she instructed Sugar. “While we’re here. Then we can do my stand-up.”

  “Local color is always good,” he agreed.

  Hoping that she’d find someone who’d actually seen something useful, Desiree began jockeying with the other reporters in an attempt to interview the spectators. She was headed toward a heavy woman with a cap of frizzy, pewter-colored hair when a movement on the periphery of the crowd caught her attention.

  Roman Falconer.

  No, Desiree told herself, it couldn’t po
ssibly be him. Although she was admittedly not familiar with the personal habits of famous, bestselling novelists, she doubted many of them roamed the rougher parts of town in the middle of the night.

  Then again, perhaps he was slumming, researching his latest book. Given that Falconer was a teller of tales of murder and mayhem, a serial rapist running loose in the French Quarter would be right up the man’s alley.

  He was tall and rangy. Borrowing a phrase from the novel she was currently reading, Desiree decided the author had a “lean and hungry” look.

  On closer examination, there was no mistaking that the man watching the crime scene with such intensity was indeed Falconer. The first time those mesmerizing indigo eyes had captured her attention had been five years ago, from a pyramid-shaped display of his books in the window of Beaucoup Books on Magazine Street.

  The most recent had been tonight, from the back of his latest bestseller resting on her bedside table. Indeed, now that she thought about it, the pirate in her dream had looked a great deal like the mystery writer.

  Their gazes met for a prolonged, suspended moment—her amber eyes inquisitive, his cobalt stare dark and oddly haunted.

  His clothing, a black leather jacket and black jeans, was starkly austere, giving him the look of a creature of the night. Her admittedly fanciful mind, stimulated perhaps by the crime that had taken place, instantly brought up thoughts of Jack the Ripper. All it would take to complete the image, Desire decided, was a bit of fog swirling around the author.

  “Hey! I know who you are!” A strident voice shattered the oddly intimate mood and a woman grabbed hold of her elbow. “You’re that television reporter, Desiree Dupree.”

  With effort, and from years of training, Desiree managed—just barely—to keep the irritation from her tone. “Yes, I am.”

  “You know, you’re a lot prettier than you look on television.”

  “Thank you.” Desiree forced a smile. “I think.” She tugged her arm free and turned back toward where she’d seen Roman Falconer.