Raw Talent |14| Gilded Pleasures and Low Intensity
Read Chapter Thirteen here or start from the beginning of Raw Talent here.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Fox Maison hadn’t expected her mother’s death to hit her quite this hard. I mean, the woman had given birth to her, for sure. But she had also encouraged her to be independent. Baroness Monique Therese Yolanda DuMaison had been a loving, but absentee mother for the most part, and under her tutelege, Fox had grown the wings of a beautiful albatross and flown the coop as soon as she was able.
She had been closer to her beautiful, indulgent mother than she was to her beautiful, indulgent father, but she was used to leading an independent life of gilded pleasures and low intensity. The emotions she was experiencing now were profound. Like an exceptional fawn startling through the private woodland of a fancy Earl, she felt full of vulnerable adrenalin. And the business had never been better, which was a sterling silver butter knife in her soft and creamy woman’s heart.
Plus Jackman DuVall hadn’t called since their business meeting, which was worse in many ways. She’d really thought there was a connection there, a pulse of attraction beneath the cool steel blade of his robber baron sex-veneer. And Fox could use some passion right about now. The world was a harsh and unforgiving place, where even the rich and beautiful could perish.
Her mother’s will was going to be read on Tuesday and Fox didn’t think she could face it alone. She gazed at Jackman’s number on her contacts list. Dare she ring him? She needed a friend, someone strong and brave and hard enough to take all of her grief and soak it up and dry her tears with sexy flames of passion. Someone who could buy her a yacht the way normal men bought their girlfriends panninis. Chicken and bacon paninis with cheese and pesto. Fox could eat all the paninis she wanted and never gain an ounce because of genetics. Even in her grief she was startlingly lovely.
With faltering fingers, she dialled Jackman’s number. A woman’s voice answered. Fox hung up immediately, in floods and floods of tears. Jackman DuVall had betrayed her for the last time. She was never, ever speaking to him ever again. Period.
