A Bad Boy is Good to Find

chapter 11

Con’s enthusiastic grin sent a stab of guilt straight to Lizzie’s heart as he settled himself into the leather seat of the corporate jet taking them to their surprise destination. She’d convinced the show to fork out for the jet on the grounds that she was the Lizzie Hathaway. The real reason was more practical. If they’d taken a commercial flight to, say, New Orleans, Con might have figured out their destination at the airport and balked.

“Pretty slick.” He fondled the leather armrest like it was a woman’s thigh.

Lizzie crossed her legs and snapped her seatbelt closed. “It’s just a plane. I can’t believe you’ve never been on one before.” An odd thought tweaked her. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Same age as you.” He jumped up from his seat and walked around the plane, peering out the windows and studying the door into the cabin. Avoiding her glance.

She blinked at him as her guilt evaporated completely. “Why am I not surprised? For some reason I believed you were twenty-nine, but now I know better than to trust any information I acquired back when I was the target of your money-grubbing affections. Let me see, I think I asked you how old you were, and you said, ‘How old do you think I am?’ then laughed and looked delighted when I said twenty-nine. So naturally I assumed…” She paused and shook her head.

He shrugged, rueful expression undercut by twinkling eyes.

She stared at him. “You look at least thirty, by the way.”

“A hard life will do that to you.” He shot her a cheery grin and settled into his seat. “This is the life for me.”

“I guess this is all excellent practice for your next attempted conquest. I’m sure you’ll have her eating out of your hand as you describe all the details of a private jet that you will just delicately hint is all yours. I can see you making mental notes about everything here in preparation.” Lizzie ignored the way her legs responded as if he was stroking them.

“Nice, though, isn’t it?” He stroked his armrest again.

“Whatever. Planes all look the same to me. A way to get from A to B.”

“Speaking of which, d’you think I should ask the pilot where we’re going?”

“No!” She said it too fast and loud. “We’re under contract. If they want to it be a surprise, lets keep it a surprise.”

“Are they going to film us as we get off the plane or something?”

“I don’t think they’re going to film us at the airport—there’s a car meeting us there—but they’re definitely going to film us arriving at our destination.”

“I don’t get. What’s the point of making it a surprise?”

Lizzie tried to look casual. “I guess they want those expressions of heartfelt joy on our faces. They said it was going to be somewhere special, that would mean a lot to us.”

A crease appeared between Con’s eyebrows. “What exactly did you tell them about us?”

“Nothing but the truth. Or at least what I’ve been told is the truth. One never really knows around you. Though naturally not the whole truth.”

Con’s frown deepened. With his sun-scorched skin and expression of hard-won wisdom, he didn’t look even close to twenty-five. Was he bullshitting her again?

Now the gloves were off, she didn’t think he’d lied to her. He’d been good to her in his own misguided way. She shook her head at the memory of Mrs. Frankie Gianopolous on her lawn. Did he think you could just charm women into anything?

Con peered out the window during the flight. Lizzie closed her eyes, not wanting to see his gleeful enthusiasm over every new detail he spotted out the window.

Okay, so maybe he really was twenty-five.

But her plan wasn’t cruel. She was taking him home. Yes, she wanted to put him on the spot and make him sweat. She wanted to see the real Con, not the slick, polished version that led her up the garden path. If he had an embarrassing past he’d tried to leave behind, it would be character building for him to face up to it. Maybe he’d form new loving relationships with all the relatives he’d left behind and he’d thank her for turning his life back in the right direction.

Right?

She glanced out her own window. He had to have realized by now that they were heading South.

“I think it’s going to be Mexico.” He settled back in his seat with his hands behind his head. “I can’t wait to see you in a bikini.”

“What a scary thought. Luckily, I don’t have one.”

“Why are you so down on yourself? You had a beautiful body before you starved yourself half to death, now you have a beautiful body by anyone’s standards.”

Why did he have to wear that expression that looked so much like genuine concern?

“Trust me, women are more critical about these things. Next to Maisie I look like a hippo. I could work out day and night for a year, and she’d still find something to chuckle over. I’m sure she was laughing her ass off at me wearing all that skimpy gear she helped me pick out at Las Gordas. Probably going around calling me La Gorda.”

“I thought you two were such great friends while you were there.”

“I thought so too. Of course I was drunk as a skunk the whole time, no small thanks to Maisie. With the hindsight of sobriety I can see she was having fun with me the way a cat has fun with its prey before it bites its head off.”

“Aren’t you stepping into her jaws, then, by going on her show?”

“I’m in control now. She’s in my jaws.”

“Hardly. She’ll be the one doing the editing.”

“But I’m writing the script. It’s not as if any of this is real.”

“A typical reality show, then.”

“Exactly. And with your acting skills it should be better than most.”

“I’ll tell you straight up. I don’t like it.”

“I know. That’s part of the appeal for me.” She shot him a dry smile.

“I’m impressed that you trust me to go through with it.” Con looked at her, expressionless.

Lizzie froze. Would he? Or would he screw her? Or more likely, would he screw Maisie and then they’d both screw her? Suddenly all that empty air under the jet threatened to suck her screaming into an abyss.

She struggled to look composed. “You have a bizarre sense of honor. I believe you when you said you’d have married me that day. I believe you’ll marry me now.”

“And divorce you.” He spoke softly, eyes narrowed.

The breath squeezed out of her lungs. She held his gaze. “Yes. And divorce me. By age twenty-six I’ll be a gay divorcée and you’ll be off on your merry way to seduce some other hapless heiress.”

“That’ll be tricky if I’m famous as the man dumped by Lizzie Hathaway.” Humor twinkled in his eyes.

“This show is going to blow your cover. What a tragedy, you’ll never be able to pretend you have a private jet as everyone and their dog will know you’re just a gold-digging grease monkey.”

A muscle flickered in Con’s cheek, and she suffered a stab of regret over her snobbish jibe, which was the kind of thing her parents would say. It felt dead wrong to insult his profession, which he obviously enjoyed and was good at.

But he’d preyed on her hopeful naiveté, exploited her trust. He deserved to feel pain.

She looked out her window. Blue sky for miles.

“You can see why I was afraid to tell you the truth,” said Con after a pause. “You’d have tossed me out on my ass.”

“As you so richly deserve.”

“But think about it. You didn’t love me because I was a big-shot engineer, or because my folks had some fancy estate on a bayou. You loved me because of the good times we had together. The dinners we cooked, the walks in the park holding hands, the long conversations about books, music, life. The kissing and hugging and…”

“The hot sex.” She hissed it between tight lips. Tried to ignore the odd tug she felt as memories forced their way back.

Con looked at her with those deep brown eyes. “None of that was fake. I had the best time of my life with you.”

Shit. He was getting to her again. How did he do that? She couldn’t deny that it was the best time of her life too, by a long, long, long way.

Then she remembered. “I thought you were someone else. Someone who loved me.”

She looked right at him. Steeled herself against his masculine profile, those dark, soulful eyes.

He held her gaze. “I wanted to be that person. Someone who could love you the way you deserve. But that part of me is…Broken.”

“That makes two of us.”

He looked at her, eyes so sad, as silence roared between them over the hum of the engines.



Con got a nasty feeling in his stomach as the pilot asked them to put their seat-belts on in preparation for landing.

They’d never left the continental United States.

All those snake-curving rivers, all that lush green beauty—he’d never seen it from the air before but he was pretty sure it was the Mississippi Delta he’d spent some seriously rotten times in. And that glimmering fat ribbon down there had to be Old Man River itself. They’d probably flown right over his “alma mater” down in Natchez. And if he wasn’t very much mistaken, right now they were coming in for a landing in…

Louisiana.

He glanced at Lizzie. Tight-lipped, she adjusted her seat-belt—she’d never unfastened it—and stared out the window.

You have good food to eat, a roof over your head, you’re helping Lizzie get back on her feet. You aimed too high and got your wings burned off. You called the tune, and now you have to pay the piper. Deal with it.

He’d been honest when he told her he couldn’t love her. When you loved people, you lost them and it ripped your heart open and bled out all the good stuff. Left nothing but the working parts.

Turned you into the kind of person who could deceive someone you cared about.

He took a deep breath and straightened his cuffs. Braced himself as the plane descended toward a sliver of tarmac shimmering in the afternoon heat. A couple of bumps and they were down.

He forced a smile. “We’re here.”

“Yes.” She didn’t glance at him. She looked nervous, stiff, her fingers fumbling with her seat-belt clasp, eyes darting about.

“We don’t have to go through with this, you know,” he said softly. “You don’t have to be a liar. We can tell them it was a mistake, that we’re not ready to get married or something.”

He held his breath and cursed himself for wanting to marry her anyway. It made no sense, but—

She turned on him, eyes wide. “I’m not a liar. I’m marrying the man of my dreams, remember?” She yanked her bag down from the overhead compartment. “You were the man of my dreams not so very long ago. I’m just playing fast and loose with chronology.”

He held out his hand to take her bag. She ignored it.

“Where are we?” he asked the middle-aged pilot who had emerged from the cabin.

“This is the Houma-Terrebonne airport in Houma, Louisiana.”

I knew it. Con managed a polite nod and glanced at Lizzie.

She stood rigid as they waited for the door to open.

What the hell were they doing here?

He shouldn’t have told her where he was from, but he’d vowed to himself he wouldn’t lie to her anymore. Wouldn’t even bend the truth. He’d turned over a new leaf, and he wasn’t going back.

Whatever you’ve got coming to you, you deserve it.

A deep, ugly voice from the past echoed in his head. Made his fingers curl into fists.

“This way, watch your step!” The cheerful pilot gestured to the stairs. Con indicated that Lizzie should go first, and she did, tossing her hair stiffly behind her shoulders.

Heat and humidity wrapped around him. A black limo idled on the stained tarmac, shining in the sun. A driver got out. “Miss Hathaway?”

“Yes.” Lizzie handed him her bag and climbed into the car with no further preliminaries. Con put his own bag in the trunk.

“Where are we going?” he asked the driver, fear snaking in his gut.

“Some place called the Dumas Plantation.”

The name sounded vaguely familiar, but he wasn’t sure why. Probably near home.

Home. What a funny word for your own personal hell.

He climbed into the car with Lizzie and closed the compartment between them and the driver.

He leaned close enough to feel the heat from her skin, to smell the traces of perfume that clung to it. “This is no surprise to you. You told them to choose Louisiana.”

“I always said you were smart.” She held her chin high, corkscrew curls of hair trailing over her shoulders.

“Why?” To punish him? What had she found out? His gut tightened, and he swallowed hard.

“So you can visit your ‘ancestral home.’ Go back to that fantasy plantation all your pretend ancestors came from.” She turned to him, eyes flashing. “Be the lord of the manor for real.”

He frowned. “You’re kidding.”

She pulled her hair up and twisted it into a knot. “Nope. It’s real. Do you like the idea?”

“Can’t say I do.” He’d rather be any place on earth than here in Louisiana. This place held all the guilt and shame he’d tried so hard to run from. Things he couldn’t even think about without—

He blew out a breath of air and shook his head. Looked at the smooth, slightly flushed skin of her cheek as she stared out the window.

“You said that when you were with me you felt like you really were an aristocrat with an avenue of live oaks, so now you’ll have your live oaks if only for a few days.”

She didn’t turn to look at him, but her voice sounded soft, almost nostalgic. Had she really planned this as a kind of treat? Maybe he’d misjudged her. She’d been so hostile lately he thought she was out to draw blood from him any way she could. Maybe she still had a little bit of heart left that he hadn’t broken.

“That’s sweet of you. I mean it.” Damn. He was touched. Wanted to give her a hug. Wanted to kiss those warm soft lips he couldn’t get near anymore.

Almost forgot it was part of a scam they were pulling on a cable network and the viewing public.

She turned to him again. “I do hope there are no outstanding warrants for your arrest in the state of Louisiana.”

“Nope. I think the statute of limitations has expired on all of them.” He winked and actually started to relax a little. Who’d have thunk it? Here he was, back in Louisiana, a grown man and master of his own destiny.

Well, not really, but he would be once Lizzie had her fun with him.

He’d been afraid of the whole state for ten years, almost shivering when he heard the name, but now he could fly right in here in a private jet and go about his business.

He stretched and took off his jacket. Folded it up and placed it on the seat beside him. It wasn’t until they drove out of the airport complex and pulled onto the highway that old haunted feeling crept over him again and threatened to suck the life out of him.

He’d left this place to save his own hide, and there was no running from the guilt that came with that choice.



The car drove along quiet back roads for an eternity. A feeling of foreboding crept up on Lizzie like the Spanish moss that engulfed the trees.

Since they’d left the highway the landscape was eerie and desolate and several of the houses they’d passed seemed to be abandoned ruins. Sometimes a new house was built right next to the crumbling wreck of an old one, the past hunkered in the backyard like a ghost. Bayous and deep swamps gleamed through the trees around them.

“So this is where you’re from, huh?”

Con stared out the window, transfixed, silent for most of the ride. “Yeah.”

“It’s kind of creepy.”

“Yeah.”

“Kind of beautiful too.”

“Yeah.”

Con’s slick charm had apparently been left behind in New York and he stared out the window, not talking unless she did first. She was relieved when the car finally pulled onto the promised avenue of live oaks and began its approach to the Dumas Plantation.

“Wow.” Con craned forward to peer out the windshield. The bright white Greek Revival mansion loomed at the end of the driveway, windows shaded by deep verandas on both floors. “It’s huge.”

“It has to accommodate the entire crew, and the wedding will be in either the garden arbor, or the indoor ballroom, depending on the weather.”

“Indoor ballroom.” He smiled. “I like that.”

“And look, there’s the first camera.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and tugged at the hem of her T-shirt, anxiety shooting up her spine. “At least I think that’s a camera.” The lone cameraman looked so unimpressive, no lights, no giant microphones, just a scruffy guy with a camcorder on his shoulder.

A girl with a clipboard came running to the car the moment it stopped. Gia. Breathless and sweaty, her fine hair sticking to her forehead.

Fierce heat and humidity rolled in as Con lowered the window.

“Hey, guys, have a decent flight? Great. That’s Dino, the camera guy. He’s going to take some handheld footage of you arriving as soon as I get out of here, okay, so just act natural, head up to the steps and whatever you do, don’t look at the camera. I’ll meet you inside.” She slammed the door and scurried away without giving them time to get a word in.

“Act natural, but don’t look at the camera.” Lizzie licked her lips. “This should be interesting. It seems so rude not to say hi to the camera guy.”

They climbed out of the car and a weird fake smile attached itself to her lips. She waited for Con to join her, but he’d gone round the back to get their bags. There was some fumbling and muttering with the driver about who’d carry the bags, and Con finally joined her, empty-handed, with his own weird fake smile fixed in place. He offered her his arm, and she took it gratefully.

The walk up the rather cracked driveway took about three hours. At least that’s what it felt like. She could feel her hair bushing out in the sweltering damp air and sweat droplets moistened the skin between her breasts.

“Isn’t it lovely,” she murmured, sounding about as natural as a singing Barbie.

“It’s magnificent,” replied Talking Ken. Oh, lord, this was going to be a really long few days. Her entire body felt rigid, a walking robot, as they marched past the cameraman, eyes firmly fixed on the front door.

She stumbled on the gray-painted wooden steps and suppressed a curse, but Con’s strong arm stopped her from falling. When they opened the door, Gia was right there with her clipboard.

“Let’s do that again,” called the cameraman, just as Lizzie was about to dive into the welcome shade of the interior.

She turned to greet the man she’d so pointedly ignored, but he didn’t notice as he was busy doing something to his camera.

“He wants you to get back in the car and walk up again. It’s often more natural the second time.” Gia smiled. “More real.”