He picked up the YETI and walked to the double doors to the left of Alicia"s desk. "No worries, I"ll announce myself."

He opened the left door and walked into Charlie"s office. She sat behind a dainty antique desk with her right arm c.o.c.ked back, dart in hand, ready to let it fly. Wagner glanced at the wall where she was aiming. There was a dartboard with Jerome"s face on it.

"Sorry, Ms. Guidry, he just barged in." Alicia didn"t spare Wagner a glance. "I"ll call the police."

"No, he"s fine. I added his name to the approved friend list." Charlie tossed the dart and it landed dead center in Jerome"s right eye. Based on the number of holes in the picture, she"d been playing this game for a while. She sat down at her desk with a satisfied sigh.

Alicia glared at Wagner, backed out of the room, and closed the double doors behind her.

"I"ve brought you a gift." He rested the YETI on one of the purple velvet chairs in front of her desk, unzipped it, and pulled out one large cup of sweetened-condensed-milk-covered chocolate s...o...b..ll.

"I love you." Charlie"s eyes were glued to the s...o...b..ll as she sprung up from her chair and walked around the desk.

Had she been talking to him or the s...o...b..ll? He ignored his racing heartbeat at her semi-declaration of love. He"d heard those three little words aimed at him from so many ladies, but he"d never really cared too much about them until now.

"I thought you might like a midmorning snack." He pulled out a handful of napkins, wiped the sides of the neon-pink plastic cup, and handed it to her.

She gave him a big smacking kiss on the lips and took her s...o...b..ll. She licked the top of the cone off and her eyes nearly crossed with pleasure.

He took out his own s...o...b..ll in a neon-green plastic cup, wiped it clean, and licked the top of the cone off. It was amazing. It was a fudgesicle with the consistency of an actual s...o...b..ll. How had he lived so long without this in his life?

"I think I love you back." He took another bite. "This is, without a doubt, the best thing I"ve ever tasted. So, are you busy today?"

"Yes, very." Her eyes glazed over like she was pulling up her mental schedule. "I have a brunch with the Garden District Garden Club and then four meetings with campaign donors, and then tonight I have a banquet honoring someone or something I can"t remember. Alicia will know."

"Are you sure you wouldn"t rather take the day off and play hooky with me?" It had taken all he had not to say "play nookie with me." Mentally, he patted himself on the back for his enormous self-restraint.

"I wish, but I can"t." She looked like she really wanted nothing more than to walk out of this office and never come back.

"Maybe this will sweeten the pot." He pulled out a key from his back pocket. "I have the key to the Duplantis House."

She smiled around a mouthful of s...o...b..ll. "How did you manage that?"

It had taken several phone calls to some very influential people, but he"d pulled it off. "I"m here to check out the property, remember? Besides, I know people."

"Me too, but I"ve never been able to get the key." She spooned in another s...o...b..ll bite. "Then again, I"ve never really tried that hard."

He waggled the key. "Come on, take the afternoon off. What have you got to lose?"

"Donors to my father"s campaign, my standing in the garden club, and based on last night"s kiss, possibly my virtue and most of my dignity." She shot him a naughty grin.

"I"m willing to risk it if you are." He"d talked even the most responsible of people into taking a sick day.

"I can"t." She sounded so resolute.

"Then how about lunch? Skip the garden club and have lunch with me." He was a master of negotiation.

"Well..." She showed the first signs of wavering. "I"m not speaking and my tenure as treasurer was up last month. I guess I could."

He"d been counting on lunch. The fact that she hadn"t made him work too hard for it was a good sign-but of what? Reality came crashing down on him, shaking him out of the lovesick dream he"d been walking around in all morning. He was here to ruin her, or in the least, break her heart. He"d never not come through for a client.

"What"s wrong?" She put her s...o...b..ll down on the desk and stared up at him.

"Nothing." He hung a smile on his face. "How about if you missed the first half of the garden club but made it for the second half?" He wouldn"t be her undoing. After lunch, he"d go tell Jerome to kiss his a.s.s. He wanted to spend time with Charlie for himself and no one else.

"Half for you and half for the garden club..." She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. "I can work with that."

He checked his watch. "Shall we go? Everything should be ready by the time we get to the house."

He wasn"t being deliberately evasive... or maybe just a little.

"What should be ready?" Charlie picked up her s...o...b..ll.

"More surprises." He liked doing things for her... a little too much.

"Like what?" She waggled her eyebrows. "I love surprises."

"That"s for me to know and you to find out." He dropped a kiss on her cute-as-a-b.u.t.ton nose and then offered her his elbow. She really brought out the Southern gentleman in him.

She walked back around her desk, opened a drawer, pulled out her purse, and returned and took his elbow. "I"m all yours."

"If only that were true. I"d peel that perfectly cut red business suit right off of you-" He mashed his lips together and shook his head.

"There he is." She patted his arm.

"You"d be surprised at the number of people who truly believe I"m articulate, charming, and professional." It was amazing he could even walk when he was around Charlie, what with his foot being constantly in his mouth. "Notice how I didn"t mention that fantastic lacy red bra you have on?" And there he went mentioning it. He rolled his eyes so far back in his head he could see the synapses firing in the unfiltered-caveman part of his brain.

"I guess the double-sided tape I used to keep my suit jacket from falling open isn"t doing a very good job." She shrugged. "Don"t think that will help me too much with the garden club, but it could work in my favor when I meet with Erasmus LeLandria. His eyesight is going so I"ll need to be overt so he"ll open his checkbook."

"Do all women know how to work men?" He"d long suspected they all took a cla.s.s, but he couldn"t prove it. Clearly, Charlie had not only taken the cla.s.s but was qualified to teach it.

"Absolutely. Girls" Club." She leaned into him. "We have a secret handshake. I"d show you but then I"d have to kill you."

"I knew it." Girls had been leading him around by the nose for as long as he could remember. Then again, he"d done his fair share of leading too. He opened her office door for her and waited for her to walk through.

She glanced over at Alicia, who was industriously typing away at her computer. "I"ll be back after my brunch with the Garden District Garden Club."

Alicia didn"t nod, much less look up.

Wagner caught Charlie"s lip curl. If she didn"t like her own a.s.sistant, why not get a new one? He waited until they were outside of her office building before asking, "Why don"t you like your a.s.sistant?"

"She"s a spy for my dad." The lip curl was back.

"I don"t understand. You"re way over the age of consent. You don"t need a chaperone." He opened the car door for her and then walked around to the other side and slid behind the wheel.

"Hey, watch it. I"m not that far over the age of consent." She buckled her seat belt. "You make it sound like I get a senior discount."

He thought about it for a minute. "That was a poor word choice. What a meant was, what the h.e.l.l? Why does your father need a spy?"

"The party line is that he loves me and doesn"t want anything or anyone to hurt me, but honestly, he doesn"t trust me to make my own decisions." She didn"t sound like a spoiled child-only a daughter who was tired of dealing with her tyrant of a father.

"So tell him to take a hike." Sure, she was her father"s campaign advisor, but she didn"t need to be under his thumb to do that.

"It"s complicated." She sounded tired of thinking about the issue.

He let it drop. Nothing Jerome had told him about her was right. According to Jerome, she was a spoiled rich girl who had her father do everything for her. It looked like it was the other way around.

"Do I get a hint about my surprise?" Her lips clamped down on the straw sticking out of her s...o...b..ll as she tried with all of her might to suck up the syrup.

"Nope." He smiled to himself. Apparently she really liked surprises. He filed that bit of data away for future use.

She glanced around. "Standard-issue rental car, huh. I"ve spent my fair share of time in these."

"I don"t even think it has a real make and model. Just "white rental sedan." I travel a lot too." He glanced in the rearview mirror. "How much traveling do you do?"

"More than you"d think. When it"s not election time, I"m flying all over trying to talk big business into coming to Louisiana." She took a bite of s...o...b..ll.

He looked at his s...o...b..ll melting in the cupholder and wished he could pull over and take a bite, but the downtown traffic was bad. He"d debated taking a streetcar to get here, but he hadn"t been sure how much time she"d be able to take for lunch.

Charlie touched his thigh. "It"s easier if you take North Claiborne to Esplanade and then to Bourbon since the Duplantis House is in the residential part of Bourbon." She pointed to the next big intersection.

"Thanks." He hated driving on those tiny downtown streets.

"So... I googled you." She poured the last of the s...o...b..ll into her mouth.

"And what did you find?" He knew there wouldn"t be much. He worked very hard to maintain a low online presence.

"Not much, which is interesting in this day and age." She put her empty cup in the cupholder next to his and turned to watch him. "Who doesn"t have a Facebook page?"

He held his hand up. "Me. Also, I don"t Tweet, Instagram, Snapchat, or Livestream."

"Why?" It sounded like Charlie couldn"t believe anyone would purposely stay off-line.

"When you"re in my line of business, it pays to have people not be able to research you. I like to keep a low profile." It was never a good thing for the mark to know they were being "fixed" by the "fixer."

"I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. I know you"re a Hollywood fixer who makes problems go away." She smiled. "Am I one of your problems? Are you supposed to make me go away?"

"You know I can"t answer that. Client privilege. But no, I most certainly am not making you go away. I like having you here." Right next to him. Christ, when had he turned into such a romantic? He was pretty sure that anyone who"d ever met him before would ever call him a romantic.

"So what are you planning on doing with me?" She grinned.

"I see what you"re doing. You"re trying to force me into saying something inappropriate again." Holy c.r.a.p, could he ever think of several things he"d like to do to her. All of them involved her naked, and some of them involved tying her to the bed.

"Your eyes glazed over. Care to share your thoughts with the cla.s.s?" s.e.xy wasn"t hot enough to describe the look on her face.

"No." He knew that she knew what he was thinking. "Do you always wear lacy underwear?" He shook his head. It was like his mouth had a mind of its own.

"Yes. Do you always wear suit trousers?" She patted his thigh again. "I bet you didn"t wear the jacket because you think that makes it casual wear."

"No jacket and no tie equals casual wear." He swept a hand down his body. "This is me on casual Friday."

"Don"t you own a pair of jeans?" She studied him.

"No." He wasn"t a jeans kind of guy.

"I recently bought my first pair. Once you get used to them, they"re kind of nice." She was serious.

"So before... you waitressed in... what?" By far, she was the most interesting person he"d ever met.

"Believe it or not, I used to be even more uptight." She tilted her head right and then left, like she was evaluating herself. "Not uptight exactly... maybe overly organized is a better description."

"Can you ever be truly overly organized?" He liked order. It made life so much easier.

"I used to have little pockets sewn into the inside of my suit jackets. I used to carry everything you might need in an emergency. Stain remover, hairspray, nail polish, super glue... that sort of thing." She rolled her eyes at her own behavior.

"Have lots of nail polish emergencies?" Overly prepared was even a bigger departure from the woman Jerome had told him she was.

"More than you"d think." She smiled. "Clear nail polish is a great fix all. You can use it to stop runs in your stockings, it works great as a liquid Band-Aid, you can use it to seal envelopes instead of licking all of that gross glue, use it to paint the end of a cut rope to keep it from fraying, and you can use it on screws-just paint the threads and it"s an extra level of hold."

"Now I feel like I need to carry some." He liked to be prepared too. "What caused you to leave your fingernail polish at home?"

"I left the little pockets behind the day I didn"t marry Jerome." She played with her perfectly polished red fingernails. "I needed a change."

"I can tell you feel bad about the whole almost-marriage thing. Why did you change your mind?" He really wanted to know. She didn"t seem like a flighty person, and she also didn"t seem like someone who would purposely hurt anyone.

"It was my friends who convinced me that doing the right thing meant not getting married." She picked at a piece of fuzz on her skirt. "In hindsight, I should have married him. It would have solved-or at least not created-so many problems."

"Would you have been happy?" He couldn"t see her married to that pompous jacka.s.s Jerome. Honestly, he couldn"t see any woman putting up with Jerome.

"No." She even had to think about it. "But others would have been."

"Isn"t your happiness important too?" Clearly she didn"t love Jerome. Why would she have agreed to marry him?

"Depends on who you ask." She smiled tightly and then shook her head. "For my father, my happiness is definitely secondary to his. For my best friends, who I think of as family, my happiness is very important, which is why they talked me out of marrying Jerome."

"I like them already. When do I get to meet them?" He"d never really wanted to meet a woman"s friends before.

"You"ve met Mama, and I think you did some work for Will Brodie, who is married to one of my best friends, Lucky Strickland-Brodie."

"I might have helped with a certain girlfriend who Will"s half brother, Ricky, needed to go away." He really shouldn"t divulge confidential information, but Ricky Strickland was dead and he was pretty sure Will had already told her the story anyway.

"Lucky told me everything she could find out about you." Charlie looked up at him from under her lashes. She looked s.e.xy as h.e.l.l and she knew it. "Lucky has a talent for computers and finding information that no one else can find."

"What did you find out?" He knew for a fact that there was almost nothing on him online.

"More than you"d think, and also less than you"d think. Banking records, business records, some photos, a couple of reviews, and that"s about it." Her eyes crinkled in amus.e.m.e.nt. "Did you know that there"s a whole website created in your honor? Well, maybe not honor since it"s full of women who hate you. Apparently, romancing women is your specialty. I"m not sure why your," she threw up some air quotes, ""foreign investor" thinks it would be helpful to romance me, but I"ve decided to let you take your best shot." She leaned back and grinned at him. "Just so you know, I don"t believe in love and I won"t fall for you. I do enjoy hanging out with you, but when you leave I won"t fall apart."

He wasn"t sure he could say the same thing about himself.