Angel’s Promise by Aleatha Romig
Rett
The icon on the monitor on my desk signaled that people were entering the outer offices. A quick hit of a few keys on my keyboard and the image of them appeared. While there were two, it was only one of the occupants who had my attention. The one who I’d left asleep earlier this morning after a night fit for the record books. If this was what it was like to be married, I should have done it a long time ago.
I turned to Leon, sitting across the desk from me. “Do you believe everything you just said?”
He nodded. “I decided you should know. I can’t explain it, the pull she had. I thought I’d broken free. I haven’t seen her or talked to her in nearly ten years.” He stood. “I know I’m not the only one. She never promised exclusivity. Hell, legends like Jezebel aren’t contrived by one man.”
Leon took a deep breath as he leaned forward, holding the arms of the chair. “I’m a lot of things, boss. I’m not a man who cheats on his wife, not readily.”
His dark expression showed more pain than I’d ever seen in him. This was a man who had helped me take over New Orleans. He carried out executions and stopped for a Po’ boy twenty minutes later. What Leon had been describing over the last hour had tortured his soul in a way the life we chose never would.
“And even after all this time,” he said, “talking about Jezebel yesterday, I can’t shake the thoughts of her, the memories...the desire to find her.”
In the pop-up in the corner of my computer monitor, I saw that Ian and Emma were waiting. Before they entered, I needed a few more answers from Leon.
“We do need to find her,” I said, “if she’s out there.”
He nodded. “She is. I know it in my bones.”
“You never had a physical relationship?” I exhaled and stood, stretching my legs. “Fuck, Leon. That’s none of my damn business. I’m hardly in a place to exert moral superiority. I’m just trying to understand how one shunned woman is as powerful as people say.”
“Once, I slipped. Tara knows. She forgave me. Maybe one day I can forgive myself. Thing is...I ain’t proud of it. That night was a symptom of my disease, not a cure to it.”
“Disease?”
“Obsession. Hell, Jezebel was a drug more addicting than cocaine. The high came in her presence. Sex was the pinnacle, but it wasn’t enough.” He shook his head as he stood. “I’m being honest, boss. Thoughts of Jezebel began slipping back into my mind when you brought Miss North here. I reasoned that she looks similar, but she ain’t Jezebel. Then like I said, after talking about Jezebel yesterday, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Even a decade later, she has a power that I’ve never known in any other woman.” He looked toward the bookcase and back. “Do you want to know the God’s truth?”
“Yes.”
“He hurt her, Boudreau. He thought he could stop her, bring her down and shame her.” A smile split Leon’s face in half. “Not her. Fuck no. Jezebel would have walked down Bourbon Street stark naked without blinking an eye. She didn’t give a fuck about what people thought they knew because she made it a point to know more. She set her mind to one thing, revenge. In that pursuit, she did her best to learn secrets.
“You see, it isn’t the wealthiest who hold the power; it’s the people with the most knowledge. Like that old saying—knowledge is power. Jezebel knew how to bring any man to his knees. She shared those secrets with her girls. From what I heard, they were good but not as good as the mistress herself.
“You know who has knowledge, boss?”
“You’re going to tell me.”
“Sometimes it’s the powerful, like Boudreau and your daddy, but it’s the others, their employees, butlers, groundskeepers, maintenance. They see what is happening every day inside the big houses. They know secrets from behind closed doors that others can’t imagine.
“I said yesterday, a man about ready to come can’t lie. There’d be few families around these parts whose secrets she didn’t know, things the fancy ladies don’t discuss, Jezebel had it all. And then, before you took control, she disappeared.
“But her power ain’t gone. If my granny were here, she’d call Jezebel a sorceress. Whatever power Jezebel had, she knew how to use it. Still does, I’d imagine.”
“We need to find her,” I said. “Hell, if she’s in New Orleans, she’s been living like a hermit.”
“No, I’d say if she’s still in these parts, which is a possibility, Miss Jezebel North is living exactly how she wants to live.” He tilted his chin toward the bookcase. “I know you need to talk to Mrs. Ramses about Underwood. If she has half the bewitching power of her mother, be careful.”
A grin came to my lips. “You’re the second person to warn me that Emma is possibly dangerous.”
“You can laugh it off,” Leon said, “but it’s the way a woman like her momma could get under your skin. Those secrets she learned? She didn’t need to push. Men offered them like sacrifices for a moment in her presence.” He stood taller, straightening his shoulders. “I think I’m going to follow up on a few things on the street. I’ll send in a report, but tonight, I’m going home and gonna take my wife out for an expensive dinner. Remind us both that even though she married a fool, he knows good when he’s got it. Tara is good, boss.”
I nodded. “Sounds like a plan, man.”
I hit the button to move the bookcase. Leon nodded to Ian as they passed one another. Ian stopped, allowing Emma to enter. My gaze met Ian’s as I stood. “I’ll text you when Mrs. Ramses is ready to be escorted back upstairs.”
Emma’s blue gaze went from me to Ian. Her neck straightened, yet not a word was uttered. Not until the bookcase closed and we were alone.
“When will I not need an escort?” she asked.
A grin came to my lips. “See, that wasn’t difficult.”
“What?” she asked as she dropped her arms to her side.
Emma Ramses was a fucking vision. Her damp hair and makeup-free face gave her an appearance of innocence, one I knew from only a few weeks of intimacy was deceiving.
Was she bewitching?
Prior to her learning of her adoption, Emma never knew the name Jezebel North. Prior to her coming to me, she didn’t know anything about the woman who bore her. As Leon’s words rambled around in my thoughts, I doubted that Emma knew what she was—innocent or bewitching—or what she was capable of doing with that knowledge.
I came to a stop merely a foot away, entering a soft, floral-scented cloud surrounding my wife. My gaze scanned from Emma’s rhinestone-studded sandals, to her sexy ankles, and the long gauze skirt—not much different than the one she wore the first night—and up over her white blouse. My attention went to the way her blouse stopped an inch above her skirt allowing a small strip of her midsection to show and up further to the scooped neckline.
Emma’s long hair was plaited into a long braid that went down the center of her back. Though everything about her was casual, I sensed what Leon warned me about. Emma emanated power that I would be better served if she never realized she possessed.
I answered her earlier question. “You waited until we were alone to question me. It wasn’t difficult, was it?”
Emma’s arms crossed over her breasts as she exhaled. “I’m trying, Rett. Give me something in return.”
“I think I’ve misled you. It wasn’t intentional.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t make concessions or deals that involve my authority, Emma. You’re my wife now. That position has its benefits, its own clout, but don’t forget: that power never supersedes mine nor is over me.”
Emma looked around the office and back to me. “Why am I here?”
“I have a few reasons.” I took a step closer until her chin rose, continuing our eye contact. “Tell me. Am I interrupting your busy day?”
“Well, you see, my day was already cut short because I didn’t get a lot of sleep.”
“Get used to it, Mrs. Ramses.”
Her smile grew.
“One reason I called you down to me was because I knew if I went upstairs, my agenda would be lost.”
“And why would that be?”
My hands went to her waist, my fingers splaying on her soft, exposed skin. “Because seeing you, knowing you’re mine, not only because of fate but legally ordained by the State of Louisiana, I can’t keep my hands off of you.” The blue of her eyes swirled with emotions as her nostrils flared and her breaths deepened.
This wasn’t why I called her down. It was why I didn’t go upstairs, but that was what Emma did to me. It was what Leon warned about.
I tilted my head as I pulled her hips to mine. “Do you regret it?”
“You need to be more specific.”
“Marrying me, Emma. I told you the first night we met what your requirement would be. You said I do and signed the marriage certificate...now you have an obligation to fulfill. Do you regret any of that?”
“You said I’d be your queen. That’s hardly something to regret.”
“I promised you the world at your feet and every desire to be indulged, with one task. Tell me you remember that task.”
Her breasts heaved with my words. The soft material of her blouse tented as her nipples hardened. It was impossible not to notice.
“I remember,” she said, her words coming in a breathy gust.
“Tell me.”
Emma’s eyelids fluttered as she seemed to be fighting her own battle, the one where she wanted the influence that came with being my wife, the power she displayed last night in the front office, but was still unsure about the rest.
With one finger, I lifted her chin. “Don’t make me wait, Emma. I don’t like waiting.”
“You said my task was to be ready for you no matter what you ask.”
“There’s a word you’re missing.”
“Obey,” she said, her gaze locked on mine.
“Good girl.” I took a step and another, leading her toward the conference table. Each of my steps forward caused her to take one backward. Never did our eyes leave one another’s.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Are you ready? Did you come down here ready to obey?”
