Authors: Jianne Carlo
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Multicultural & Interracial, #African American, #Erotica, #Multicultural, #Contemporary
Carnal in Cannes
Mediterranean Mambo:
Carnal in Cannes
Jianne Carlo
Mediterranean Mambo: Carnal in Cannes
Copyright © September 2010 by Jianne Carlo
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eISBN 978-1-60737-849-5
Editor: Antonia Pearce
Cover Artist: Christine M. Griffin
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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author"s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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* * *
Chapter One
The silver iPhone lying to the left of Harrison Indiana Ford"s side plate vibrated. Picking it up, he checked the number, let out a snort, and slapped the cell phone onto the table.
“Not going to answer?” Suresh Singh, Internet wunderkind and his cohort for the coming weeks, asked.
“And torture myself? Not likely.”
Stretching his long legs, Harrison slunk down in the restaurant chair and surveyed the glistening murky waters lining the Vallon des Auffes, a creek off the Quai de Marseille. Fish, sautéing in olive oil redolent with garlic, dominated a strong breeze, which teased the hems of peach linen covering the round tables of L"Epuisette"s dockside veranda.
“It"s the stepmother, I take it?”
“Hmm.” Harry hooded his eyes against the sun"s glare reflected in the water.
Sated by an excellent version of lamb stuffed with goat cheese and several choice Bordeaux vintages, he turned to a hunger he hadn"t been able to satisfy, not since Suresh"s masquerade party three weeks ago.
“Who is she?”
Startled out of his musings, he glanced at the twenty-four-year-old genius across the table and shook his head. “How"d you know it was a woman?”
“The look on your face.”
Harry mugged a grimace and answered, “One that got away. Wrong time, wrong place.”
“I"ve seen women fall like stacked dominoes every time you so much as grin.
Don"t tell me one actually said no?” Suresh"s black eyes always held a hint of amusement as if laughter framed his outlook on life.
“Never got to even ask. More"s the pity,” Harry muttered as the vision of the long-legged beauty who had haunted him for weeks went straight to his prick.
Down, boy.
He shot a warning glance at his crotch. For the last couple of weeks, he"d been like a bull in heat. Marseille proved fertile hunting ground for coffee-cream complexions, and he"d rocked several women"s worlds, seeking an exotic beauty with odd-colored eyes—one the color of wet clay, one as blue as a cloudless desert sky.
Temporary fixes.
2
Jianne Carlo
Wishing he could banish the image of the beauty standing by the chaise lounge from his brain, Harry straightened. So much had changed since the night of the fateful masquerade ball.
The phone did a ninety-degree spin on the table, and he shrugged, not even bothering to glance at the screen.
Suresh crossed his eyes trying to read the number upside down. “You"d better take this one. It"s the doctor.”
Harry jabbed the speaker button. “Halliday, what"s up?”
“I"ve examined all the candidates. None are viable.”
Staring at the cell he frowned, quirked an eyebrow, and mouthed,
Viable
? to his inky-haired companion. Aloud he grouched, “What the freaking hell do you mean?”
Dead silence.
“Did you hear me?”
“None of them"s a virgin.” Doc Halliday, a confirmed Confederate reprobate, was his stepmother"s representative in ensuring Harry and his future bride followed the terms of his daddy"s will to the letter.
“Let me speak to Austen.”
A few clacks and bumps, and the
Glory’s
chief steward and bosun"s voice reverberated over the phone. “Hang on, Harrison. Let me get outside.”
A car horn tooted, and he heard the scraping of rubber on gravel as his fingers drummed the tablecloth. A creak of metal on metal and leather scrunching through loose rocks followed.
“Most of these women look like hookers, Harry.” Austen"s voice held a strange tone. “I think you"ve been set up.”
“What the heck?” He twisted the phone around and barked, “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“SITREP,” Austen said, going into commando mode and using army lingo for a situation report. “The doc"s examined nine of these women and not one of them"s a virgin. Who vetted these women? Harry, you"re down to the wire. Why the frigging hell did you leave everything for the last minute—”
“Cut it, Austen. Let"s deal with the situation. None of the women are virgins?”
“Nine of them aren"t, according to Halliday.”
“So Halliday"s examined nine of the ten? What about our doc?” Harry turned thirty-two in two days, and he had to be married by midnight on his birthday and have the proof that the vows had been consummated by the following morning, or his daddy"s fortune went to his stepmother. Fingers curling into his palm, the edges of his normal sangfroid frayed, he muttered a curse under his breath. He"d become too accustomed to the mañana of the Mediterranean.
“Our doc says number ten"s the real deal. He concurs with Halliday on the other nine.”
Mediterranean Mambo: Carnal in Cannes
3
“Is the virgin still there?”
“Yeah.”
“Make her sign the prenup. Once she does, escort her and the doctors to the Hotel de Paris. Don"t let her out of your sight.”
“Uh, there"s a slight problem.”
“Spit it out, man.”
“Halliday won"t examine the last one because she"s not white.”
Rage tempered his rising panic, and the memory of the night Silas died made his gut cramp. The hate crime had ingrained a complete intolerance of prejudice in his soul, and nothing triggered Harry"s fury more than racial prejudice. Fighting to control his rising ire, he took a deep breath and flexed his fingers, but the tic that signaled the beginning of a slow burn pulsed below his left eye. The vision of Silas"s battered body brought his current situation into complete focus.
“Call my freaking stepmother. It"s her problem. Tell her I"ll be there in an hour and I"ll be marrying my bride this afternoon.” In a deliberate move he avoided asking Austen what the lone virgin looked like and ended the call.
“He"s right, you know. You shouldn"t have left everything to the last minute,”
Suresh stated.
Eyes narrowing, Harry said through gritted teeth, “This ain"t my first rodeo.
I"ve been in tighter spots, and I have a fallback position.”
Suresh looked up from signing the receipt for their meal. “I took the liberty of asking for the check. From what I overheard, things are going south on you?”
Harry threw his white napkin on the table and stood. “I"ll fill you in on the way there.”
By the time they reached Suresh"s Hummer, he had the man up to speed.
“How many responses did you get to this personal ad?”
“Ten.”
“Only ten women wanted to trade their virginity for a million euros tax free?”
Suresh shot him a speculative glance as the gas-guzzler"s engine roared to life. “And the number ten, awfully pat.”
“I hired the best matchmaker on the continent to find my bride. Geoff narrowed the dozens of candidates down to ten. And the amount of money involved wasn"t stipulated precisely.” Harry paused when Suresh winced. “What?”
“I still can"t get over that you chose a
matchmaker
. It smacks of medieval chastity belts.” Suresh shuddered.
“I"ve been cooped up with a virtual army of lawyers trying to prove the will Delora produced is a fake. With time slipping away I had to have a backup plan.