Ruby

By Jeffe Kennedy

When Danielle Sosna takes one last assignment in New Orleans before heading to France and her dream job at Vogue Paris, she’s all business and not interested in savoring the city’s supposed sensual treasures. She certainly doesn’t plan to succumb to the temptation presented by the seductive Cajun chef Bobby Prejean. Dani prides herself on her self-discipline, so she knows that nothing Prejean offers, not even his lurid teasing of decadence and sexual adventures beyond imagining, will make her lose sight of her goals.
Undaunted by Dani’s stubborn resistance, Bobby Prejean gladly accepts the challenge of chipping away at the enticing, gray-eyed woman’s strength of will. The tough ones always have the sweetest, hottest interiors. Because she refuses to give him even her name, he dubs her Ruby and entices Dani to enjoy her anonymity, to taste the pleasures of a single night of wild indulgence, as she’d never allow herself otherwise. The only rule is she must agree to obey his every command.
As Dani discovers the carnal underbelly of New Orleans, the fetish clubs and extravagant parties, she finds herself liberated by the masks Prejean ties on her, and the other bonds and toys he uses to tease her. The one night spins into a week of delirious suspension between pleasure and pain, indulging in all kinds of feasts, of the palate and the flesh. But no mask can disguise what Dani begins to feel for her piratical lover, a fascinating man who alternates between feeding her gourmet meals and tormenting her beyond reason.
She might even be tempted to stay forever—except that she has plans, and Dani has never changed her plans in her entire life...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeffe Kennedy
• Release date: Jan 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781958679166

Jeffe Kennedy

Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning, best-selling author who writes fantasy with romantic elements and fantasy romance. She is an RWA member and serves on the Board of Directors for SFWA as a Director at Large. She is a hybrid author who also self-publishes a romantic fantasy series, Sorcerous Moons. Books in her popular, long-running series, The Twelve Kingdoms and The Uncharted Realms, have won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance and RWA’s prestigious RITA® Award, while more have been finalists for those awards. She's the author of the romantic fantasy trilogy The Forgotten Empires, which includes The Orchid Throne, The Fiery Crown, and The Promised Queen. Jeffe lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine. She can be found online at her website, every Sunday at the SFF Seven blog, on Facebook, on Goodreads and on Twitter.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

No, Dani said into her cell, I need more than that.

She listened to the local contact drawl on about docks, something about the river being high, or low—she’d lost track of which was the problem—and eyed a vine spilling over a crumbling stone wall. It tumbled with florid blossoms, glowing scarlet, deep-throated blooms that seemed nearly sexual. They could work in one of the shoots, a metaphor for allure. The very lushness of the bloom might put the models to shame, however.

Besides, the concept for the Fashion Masquerade piece focused more on contrivances and layers of artifice. Not the real sensuality of nature.

Her stomach sent up a hollow signal and she glanced at her watch. If she didn’t get a move on, she’d miss an opportunity to eat anything at all.

Look, she finally interrupted, breaking what she knew was a cardinal rule of the South, either you can deliver or you can’t. It’s as simple as that. I don’t want to play the bitch here, but if I can’t have the location, then I have to come up with something else. Okay? Fine. Call me later when you know.

She swiped the phone to silence, tucked it, along with her sunglasses, into her purse and hastened through the stone archways of the next restaurant on her list. No way would she entirely miss the fabulous dining New Orleans offered. Following a strict calorie budget—tighter even than the monetary one for this location shoot—she could flirt with temptation for one lunch each day, without completely succumbing to the dark side.

A little denial never hurt anyone.

Sometimes it was better when it hurt. Pain is just weakness leaving your body.

Settling at her table in the shaded courtyard, her pin-striped jacket felt like just the right weight. Fortunate, since the damp cling of her white silk shirt told her she didn’t dare take the fitted top layer off. It might not be all that hot yet in the city, but it was humid as hell.

Welcome to the Court des Deux Pendus, the smooth, impeccably garbed waiter greeted her, snapping a linen napkin open on her lap after setting a basket of fragrant rolls on the table. May I offer you a cocktail or bring you water? We offer a Perrier sparkling or an Evian still.

The still, please, with a wedge of lime.

She handed back the wine list and, resolutely, the bread basket. And, if you have a kind heart, save me and take this away.

He glanced from the rolls to her with a raised eyebrow. These are rosemary yeast rolls, made in the traditional style, with whipped honey butter. Are you sure?

She groaned and fluttered her hand over her heart. Maybe half, but that’s all.

With a conspiratorial smile, he offered the basket and she plucked out a single roll. He promised to be back with her water and to take her order. Dani cut the roll, set the slightly larger half on her coffee saucer and scooted it to the other side of the table.

The first nibble melted in her mouth, sweet, heavy, with that perfect spike of rosemary. Resisting the wild desire to devour it, she forced herself to set the rest down and opened the leather-bound menu to decide what she could be allowed to have. The embossed image on the cover caught her eye, a stylized icon of two women, hanging by manacles. Les Deux Pendus, apparently.

She had just started to read the italicized story on the inside flap, when the waiter returned, pouring her water from a glass bottle with a neat twist of his wrist and setting a salver of lime wedges at her elbow.

For our specials we have Oysters Gratin, made with fresh-caught Gulf oysters, spinach, Italian sausage and Grana cheese bread crumbs. The soup is a cream of garlic. We also have Prawns Louisianne, served with our house remoulade. For the fish of the day, we have a delightful red snapper, just off the boats this morning, stuffed with shrimp, crawfish and crabmeat, topped with saffron cream sauce and served with a side of étouffée and our Boursin whipped potatoes.

She longed for the oysters, but even one would likely blow her entire calorie budget, what with the sausage. And the butter and the egg yolks and the cheese. Eat the entire appetizer and she’d never be a size two again. Something a woman working in the industry could not afford. She’d pick just one indulgence. A small one. I’ll have the snapper, preferably poached, but without the cream sauce. Instead of the potatoes, I’ll have a green salad, no dressing, and the étouffée on the side. She handed the leather-bound menu back to him.

The waiter automatically took it, smooth, but with a pinched look around his mouth. Madam—

Is there a problem?

Of course not, madam, but the chef is—

Then I don’t understand. She cocked her head, adding a sweet smile that worked on vendors, pouty models and diva photographers alike. The waiter was no different, disappearing instantly.

She sat back, crossing her legs inside her pencil skirt and enjoying the whisper of her silk hose. Sipping the cool water, she surveyed the courtyard. Heavily draped with overhanging vines, it felt nearly like a cave—or a grape arbor. She loved the sense of European age here, the gracefulness of another era. France should be even better. Perhaps once her position was safely solidified at Vogue Paris, she would take weekend trips to the countryside to see the medieval towns, the ancient vineyards and sample the wines. Oh, and the cheeses. If she rented a bike, the exercise would offset what she ate.

But that was for later.

On the stone walls—exposed brick on one side, heavy cut gray blocks on the others, like what might be used to build a cloister or a dungeon—hung various accoutrements of the building’s previous life. Here a set of iron manacles. There a leering metallic mask. A gargoyle peered through the leaves, tongue hanging out lasciviously.

It all made an intriguing contrast to the pretty diners sitting at their white linen–draped tables, wielding sparkling silver and sipping from crystal.

A crash from the kitchen shattered the mood, heads swiveling to catch the source of the commotion, a voice bellowing, quite clearly now, Not in my restaurant!

A man in chef’s whites charged out among the elegant tables, zeroed in on her and, with a sneer twisting his handsome mouth, strode up to her table.

You do not tell me.

Excuse me? Dani looked him up and down to steady herself. Slim, American—which surprised her because most five-stars seemed to think they needed European chefs—dark eyes that matched his neatly trimmed beard, a piratical gold hoop in one ear. Was that a Cajun accent? Surely not.

I cook for you. You eat. That’s how this works. He gave the abandoned half roll a glinting glance of contempt. You will have my snapper as I give it to you. I promise it will be perfect.

She set her teeth. "I pay and you make what I want. That is how this works."

He reassessed her and Dani felt his estimation rise, as it always did. She knew what they saw when they looked at her—the cursed cupid’s bow lips, her thickly lashed gray eyes, the round cheeks that never slimmed, no matter her body fat, and the Grecian black curls that would not be tamed in this humidity. She looked like a china doll.

It always shocked them that she wasn’t as sweet as she looked. Surprise!

Fire sparked in his black eyes. Behind him, the maitre d’ hovered. She pursed her lips, painted a perfect candy red, and raised the arches of her brows. Did I stutter?

Unexpectedly, a smile crept through his anger, not of pleasure, but of a challenge taken. An image of him tossing her over the table, raising her skirt and plunging into her flashed through her mind, so vivid and sudden, so unlike her usual thoughts, that she wondered if somehow it came from him.

"No, chère. Did I?"

The courtyard wasn’t cool at all. Her breasts felt suddenly hot and swollen inside the silk cage of her bra. She fought the urge to scissor her legs together. All for one fantasy-inducing smile. It must be the adrenaline of confrontation. That spiced-cream Cajun cadence didn’t hurt either. She took up the gauntlet.

Snapper. She enunciated clearly, so he could read her lips. Poached. No sauce. Green salad—

He slammed his palms down on the table, hard enough to send a nervous titter through the riveted diners, not enough to make her flinch. The maitre d’ fluttered forward, hesitated, then disappeared from view as the chef leaned in. He smelled of garlic simmering in butter, a hint of sweet spice and chicory.

No. Not in my restaurant.

You don’t know how to cook anything less than ten thousand calories? She baited him. His gaze fastened on her lips and for a wild moment, she thought he might actually seize her. A ridiculous thought, but her cheeks heated.

Madam, I— The maitre d’ tried to intercede, banished by a peremptory flick of the chef’s hand.

Why do you come here, I wonder? His penetrating gaze fixed on her.

To eat.

That is not eating.

It’s moderation.

Pfft. He blew air through his teeth. You lie to yourself. You go for the extreme, but the wrong one, I think. I won’t play your game. You will leave.

I beg your pardon? The shock closed her throat around the words.

Leave. Go back to New York. I will not feed you. You don’t deserve what I have to offer.

Her face burned. It seemed everyone stared at her. The maitre d’, though he wrung his hands, did not rush up to apologize. The waiter stood by, impassive face hardly showing his titillated interest.

You can’t make me leave.

Oh, but I can. You don’t tell me. I tell you.

But—

"No, chère. He pressed a finger against her lips and smiled. Go away like a good girl. When you’re ready to play my way, come back."

He turned his back, waving his hand with the same decisive gesture of dismissal.

With as much dignity and grace as she could cling to, she stood and picked up her bag. Never let them see you cry. This wasn’t worth weeping over. After dabbing her very expensive and extremely permanent lipstick on the linen napkin, not only to remove the burn of his touch on her lips, she tossed it on the table. It fell next to the abandoned half roll.

She nearly reached out to take it, but stopped herself with an iron will.

She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

CHAPTER TWO

The afternoon shoot dragged on, the models cranky and the photographers despotic. It didn’t help that the cooling afternoon weighed on them with oppressive gloom. Just one last job to smooth your way to Paris. Right. Like a Mardi Gras piece would run any time before oh, say, next Mardi Gras. By then she would have made her mark in the new editor’s job—or washed out. This was her pound of flesh to pay for getting the Paris gig. Pain for the prize.

Absolutely worth it.

Never mind that her hollow stomach wailed her into dizziness, since she’d had no time to find an alternative lunch. Or, rather, that she’d been too angrily stubborn to find something else. Skipping lunch didn’t normally bother her much—not like she hadn’t done it before. Of course, she’d had more for breakfast those days, not saving for a lovely lunch that got snatched away by some diva of a chef. Even she could not go all day on two egg whites and a slice of tomato—and half a roll, miraculous as it had been.

She was still mad, yes. But those nearly black eyes and that sultry voice had lit another hunger in her too. She’d been working so hard she hadn’t dallied with a sexy man in…wow, months? No wonder she felt so restless.

So when the thickening gray that had supplanted the morning sun broke without warning into a drenching rain, even though it was only four o’clock, Dani called a halt for the day. Everyone was so grateful for a reprieve, they didn’t even bitch and moan about the 6:30 a.m. call she asked for. With uncharacteristic alacrity, the entire group was gone in minutes, scattered to their various hotels and amusements.

She headed toward the B&B, at first hurrying through the rain. As she splashed through the deepening puddles on the uneven sidewalk, her stockings soaked through. In fact, all of her was as wet as if she stood under a shower. Since her pace didn’t matter, she slowed, rain running down her face, sliding over her skin. A pack of squealing tourists hustled by, sharing one plastic rain poncho like a tarp. Prepared locals gave her smug smiles from under the umbrellas they always carried.

She smiled back. The rain might be cool, but the feel of it sliding on her skin brought the world into focus. A small discomfort, like her hunger, to make getting indoors that much more pleasurable.

She passed the Court des Deux Pendus without glancing at it, no matter how much she might want to. Up ahead, a man leaned against a courtyard wall, legs crossed at the ankles, an enormous black umbrella protecting his upper half, while his stylish leather shoes—likely Italian—were irretrievably drenched. Idiot.

"You look like a drowned rat, chère."

The familiar