Free The Setup by Marie Ferrarella Page A

thought of Blake, who was partially responsible for this. Blake, who was supposed to have been here, lending his support, distracting him. But at the last minute, Blake had called to say that he’d meet Jefferson at the gallery instead. His excuse was that “something” had come up. Judging from the soundshe’d heard in the background, Jefferson figured that what had come up was Blake’s libido.
    He frowned. It was almost as if the man was trying to prove something to himself. That he was still the stud, the babe magnet he had been all through college. If Jefferson hadn’t helped Blake, hadn’t stayed up all those nights tutoring him, he would have flunked out of Tulane.
    And this was how his friend paid him back, Jefferson thought darkly. Deserting him at the last minute. How the hell had he allowed himself to be talked into this?
    Reaching the ground floor, the elevator came to a stop. Jefferson made up his mind. As soon as the last passenger stepped off, he was going to take the elevator back up to his floor, call Sylvie on her cell phone, make his apologies and act like the father of a sixteen-year-old instead of some over-the-hill Romeo.
    The elevator doors slid open slowly, almost sighing as they did so. It seemed to him that everything here moved in slow motion.
    He didn’t belong in New Orleans. He’d outgrown it. His time here was something out of his past, and it was wrong to try to recapture it or even revisit it. Whoever had come up with that old saying about not being able to go home again had been right.
    You couldn’t just—
    Jefferson’s breath caught in his throat like a stone. The elevator car had emptied and he was standing alone in the center of it.
    Standing and staring at this vision who was looking directly at him.
    The doors began to close again. At the last moment, he stuck out his hand, and the doors slid apart again.
    His mouth had suddenly gone so dry, he felt as if he’d just gargled with sand.
    “Sylvie?” Her name left his lips almost hesitantly.
    Sylvie began walking toward the elevator car, curious and maybe a little amused that he hadn’t left it yet. “If you’re planning on riding up and down in the elevator for a while, we’re going to miss the beginning of the dinner,” she warned him.
    A dimple. There was just the slightest hint of a dimple in her right cheek when she smiled like that. He saw it now as amusement highlighted her face.
    And then he came to. Feeling like a dolt, Jefferson quickly put out his hand to stop the doors from closing again. They slid back once more, allowing him to walk out into the lobby.
    Sylvie hooked her arm through his as if they were old friends instead of new strangers. “What was all that about?”
    He didn’t want to tell her that his second thoughts were having second thoughts, or that he’d almost lost his nerve. He didn’t even want to admit the latter to himself.
    “I, um, thought I left something in my room.”
    The luminous eyes that were turned up to his face told him she saw right through him. “And did you?”
    Looking into them, he found himself getting lost.It took effort to draw back, to keep from drifting into those eyes and forgetting everything else. “Did I what?”
    “Leave something in your room?” she prompted.
    It was hard stringing one thought into another when she gazed up at him like that.
    “Um, no, I didn’t,” he finally said, his tongue as thick as that of a first-time offender coming up with an alibi. “My—my wallet’s right here.”
    God, but that sounded lame, he thought, annoyed with his lack of creativity. No one listening to him would have taken him for a six-figure corporate lawyer who could withstand the scrutiny of razor-sharp legal minds bent on taking him down.
    But then, none of those sharp minds had ever had a body or a face like the woman beside him. He felt lucky that he could remember his name.
    His middle name eluded him.
    “Then we’re all set to go?” she asked.
    She posed