Pretty Boy Problems Read online

  Avery Beauregard Montgomery

  Beau—6:23 PM the same day

  “Jesu Christo, what a day!” I muttered under my breath as I slid behind the wheel of my black convertible Porsche. With a sigh, I tilted my head back and closed my eyes. Here we go again. This was getting old. By this, I meant having to start over from ground zero and rebuild.

  I mean, merde! One of these days, I was going to do the right thing just because it’s the right thing to do. Thirty-eight years old and not a lot of tangible achievement to show for it. No home, no job . . . no life to speak of.

  This wasn’t my plan when I started out years ago. As the first-born child of Avery and Alanna Montgomery, I planned to blaze a trail for my younger brother, Roman, and younger sister, Katrina, to follow. My childhood was golden; I had no recollection of Pops and Madere struggling to make ends meet. When we moved from Louisiana to Dallas, it was an easy transition for the whole family.

  After years of civil servant jobs, Pops had opened a trucking company. Madere worked as his operations manager. They worked hard, and the company remained successful until the day they sold it a little over five years ago.

  I grew up as an athlete, a scholar, and generally known as “that nice Montgomery boy” around the neighborhood. Sometime in junior high, I sprung up eight inches, all arms and legs. My ass was gangly. My head was too big, nose too prominent, lips too wide for my face.

  Thankfully, by the time I reached high school, I had grown into both my features and six-foot-four frame. It seemed like overnight I went from being the smart, nice boy with quiet manners to “that dude” that guys envied and girls wanted. I liked the feeling; I liked it a lot.

  I excelled in sports without very much effort and excelled in my classes with very little studying. Apparently, I looked good doing both. Vividly, I can recall the day that I realized the full advantage of attractiveness. I had stayed out with a friend enjoying a lil female companionship the night before a major project was due. For the first time, I skipped turning in a homework assignment.

  When I got to class the next day, my teacher asked me why I hadn’t turned in my assignment. I had no valid answer so I decided to wing it. On a whim, I walked up to Miss Whisler’s desk and knelt beside her looking into her eyes. In a soft voice, I apologized, swearing it would never happen again. After a slight pause, she blushed. Then she told me it was okay, just this once.

  My friend, who was just as nice, held the same grade point average, but wasn’t quite as easy on the eyes, was given an incomplete and an afternoon in detention. It was a turning point for me. I got it. In an illuminating moment it was all clear to me. Beyond brains, beyond brawn, beyond brown skin, and whisky-gold eyes . . . I had “it”—that indefinable charisma that drew people.

  You can call it charm, maybe it’s second nature, I don’t know. But I realized I had it, and I was going to make it work for me. Having “it” meant that, sure, I could work hard for extra credit, or I could spend that time in a more entertaining pursuit and charm my way to the grade I wanted anyway.

  Yeah, yeah—I realize that the day I decided to use my looks, wit, and smile was the day I stopped trailblazing. It was the day I got comfortable. But I’m not sure that if I had to do it all again, I wouldn’t do it exactly the same way.

  I had a combination of academic and athletic scholarship offers. Baseball was the sport I loved. I played short stop; I could run, hit, throw, and jump with minimal contact. I chose Tulane because it was back home (still considered Louisiana home), and I knew I could be a big fish in a little pond there. Baseball paid for my first two years of college. Officially, I majored in marketing. Unofficially, I majored in women. I received high marks for both pursuits.

  Right before my junior year, a talent scout from a modeling agency “discovered” me in Café du Monde late one summer night and sent me to New York. Modeling part-time paid for the last two years of college when I transferred to LSU. Once I graduated, I moved to New York and modeled full-time.

  What they don’t tell you about modeling? It’s boring as hell. The majority of your time is spent waiting around or running to catch a flight. You are treated like a commodity and not a very smart one at that. But tell me what else I could do that paid me $5,000 plus expenses for two days’ work?

  I lasted for ten years; that’s five times the average male model’s career. I earned a decent nest egg that, contrary to popular belief, I have not blown through. I buy myself a new car every two years and pick up jobs here and there, as I see fit.

  At thirty-eight years of age, I was a man still waiting for my purpose in life to reveal itself. I wished it would hurry the hell up. There had to be more than this. Forty was just around the corner. I had no intention of becoming “that guy”—the one who had all the potential and pissed it away. The one still chasing twenty-year-old tail in his forties. I couldn’t be that guy. If I knew nothing else, I knew I was better than that.

  But for right now, this instant? I needed a place to lay my head for a minute. Wiping my hand down my face, I started the engine and made a ten-minute drive south along Central Expressway.

  That’s how I found myself, fresh off a firing by my brother and an eviction by my sister-in-law, standing outside my sister’s high-rise condo in downtown Dallas, hoping (praying) she was out of town.

  Kat was a model as well and frequently jetted off for days at a time. I was pretty sure that she was doing a beach shoot on the other side of the planet and would be there for a week or so. At least I hoped so. If Kat was home, she would want explanations; she would want chatter and explanations, and I wasn’t in the mood for any more soul searching.

  With my laptop case slung over my left shoulder and a garment bag in my hand, I leaned on the doorbell. After a few minutes with no response, I dug into my pocket for the spare key I had made for emergency situations such as the one I found myself in now.

  “Kat?” I called out as I stepped in the door. “Katrina? It’s Beau.”

  Still no answer. With a relieved sigh, I set the bags down in the entryway and ventured deeper into the unit. I strolled past the open great room with kitchen and living area attached, ignored the guest rooms and bath for now, and headed for the master suite.

  It wasn’t until I was outside the master bath door that I heard the shower running and Maxwell crooning.

  I sighed. A brother cannot catch a break today, I thought as I pushed open the door. Fog and the strong scents of ginger and peaches wafted heavy throughout the area. I stepped deeper into the room. Kat’s shower was a huge glass-and-tile enclosed box on the far side of the room. Without pausing, I yanked open the shower door and dove into my explanations. “Kit-Kat, it’s Beau. I’m staying a few nights. No lectures, okay?”

  A startled scream came from the wet woman under the hot stream at the exact moment I realized it wasn’t my sister, Katrina, in the shower. No indeed, it was not. Instead, I allowed my eyes to roam up and down the lovely frame of a tall sister around five-foot ten, with short hair a la Halle Berry, curves for days, high cheekbones, lush lips, and widely set big brown eyes currently widened with alarm.

  “What in the entire hell is this?” The sudsy, angry, and gloriously naked vision before me spoke.

  Now you know I considered myself to be quite a connoisseur of the female form; and this right here was a mighty fine specimen. Taking my time, I leaned against the tile wall and looked my fill in blatant appreciation. “Well now . . . you’re not Kit-Kat.”

  Regaining her composure, the young woman turned the water off and reached for her towel. “A gentleman would have averted his eyes.” She spoke with a decidedly deep Southern drawl, all warm and whiskey-laden. Something about her struck me as familiar. I rarely forgot a face or a figure like hers.

  “I’ve never claimed to be a gentleman,” I answered honestly. I took a step back to allow her to pass. She was a cool one, seemingly unfazed to find herself near naked in my sister’s bathroom with a strange man.

  She tuc
ked the towel around her chest tightly and shot me a look. “You must be Beau.”

  I tilted my head in acknowledgment. “Mais oui, in the flesh and at your service.”

  “Well, Beau, I’m Belle. Your sister and I are designing a clothing line together. She invited me to stay here until I find a place of my own. She didn’t mention anything about additional houseguests.” Her tone, though pleasant, was stern. She wanted me gone. I needed to stay. So here we stood.

  I gave a quick shrug. “She didn’t know. I’m an unexpected drop-in. Just here for a day or two. Are you going to send me out into the hot Texas evening with no place to go, chérie?”

  “How is it that you have an accent and she doesn’t?” Belle inquired as she perched on the edge of the vanity chair and reached for some lotion.

  “Some of us cling tighter to our roots than others.” Truthfully, I liked to let a lil Louisiana roll off my tongue from time to time. The fact that ladies seemed to love it was all the more reason to sprinkle it in the mix. I flashed my most charming smile and headed for the door. “So what’s it gonna be, Belle? Shall I start dinner or head for the elevator?”

  Belle tilted her head to the side and assessed me with serious consideration. Long moments passed as she eyed me up and down. Finally she shrugged. “You have the weekend, and then I talk to Kat. I’m partial to fish on Fridays.”

  Score! My smile spread. There was never a deal Beau Montgomery couldn’t close given forty-eight hours, a set agenda, and a beautiful woman. “Seafood it is.” I slipped out the door and closed it behind me. I laughed softly when I heard the click of the lock. She might be a cool one, but she was no fool.

  3

  Delaney Mirabella Richards

  Belle—7:42 PM the same night

  Using a dry washcloth to wipe the condensation from the mirror, I shook my head and sucked my teeth. I took one look at the gleam in my eye and the flush on my cheeks, and I started talking to myself. “Baby girl, no. Matter of fact—hell to the no. That big piece of caramel temptation is the last thing I need right now. Brother Beau. Man like that? Sex on a platter, trouble on tap? No ma’am. We do not need the headache.” Okay, I had officially started lecturing myself. Out loud. Not a good sign.

  The well-earned reputation of Mr. Beauregard Montgomery preceded him. He was an angel to look at, heaven to sleep with, and hell to give your heart to. Hard to resist, hard to get over. I knew myself: inside the boardroom, I was hard as nails. Outside, I had a weakness for tall, pretty boys with killer smiles, tight bodies, and serious bedroom game. Beau was just my type of chocolate addiction. Addictions were nothing but time-sucking black holes. I had zero time for a beau or a Beau of any type or flavor right now.

  This Southern girl had busted her ass way too long and too hard to get to this position in my life. I was not about to get sidetracked by anything or anybody. Coming up in the midsize town of Valdosta, Georgia, I dreamed of seeing the world and living a glamorous life. Or at the very least, a more glamorous life than my mother led. I swore to myself at a very young age that Delaney Mirabella Richards was an onward and upward girl—no looking back, no regrets. Success with no strings, no limitations, no excuses, and no complications.

  For years I watched my mother, Delores, sacrifice her own dreams and needs. She was a brilliant artist who gave all that up when she married my father, Percy. Instead, she worked two administrative jobs and kept an immaculate house, all while raising five kids. There was me and my younger brothers, Dalton and Davis, along with two younger sisters, Loren and Tina. Five kids, two jobs, and a needy husband—that’s how I summed up my mother’s existence. In my mind, the most egregious crime was the way my mother catered to her husband, my father. I swear I never saw him load the dishwasher, iron a shirt, or make his own plate. Not once. Delores ran to do it each and every time.

  It drove me crazy. My father worked long hours as a custodial supervisor at Valdosta State University. I appreciated the hours he put in to provide for the family, but did that mean he could not fetch his own iced tea at the dinner table? I never once saw him do a thing for her; it was always the other way around.

  When my mother passed away at the ridiculously tragic young age of forty-seven, there was nothing that could convince me that my father wasn’t partially to blame for my mother’s heart giving out too soon. Would it have killed him to treat his wife like an equal and not like a servant?

  At the time of my mother’s death, I was a slightly rebellious seventeen-year-old who had been modeling for two years. During a spring break cheerleading trip to Miami my sophomore year of high school, a photographer asked if he could take my picture. Then he asked if he could send it in to an agency. My father hated the idea; my mother loved it. After a lot of back and forth discussion between my parents, I signed two weeks later at the tender age of fifteen.

  I was a pencil-thin girl, five-foot ten and a half, with olive-tinged brown skin, long thick hair, and what I’d always considered to be just an “okay cute” face highlighted by doe-shaped chocolate eyes and a wide mouth. I was like nothing in the marketplace at that time. They tell me I was an immediate sensation in the modeling industry. All I knew was that I earned my own money, plus enough to send home for my siblings. The world outside of Georgia was mine to explore.

  The agency that booked me called me poised, told me I wore evening gowns and jeans with equal panache, and displayed the professionalism of someone twice my age. My parents made sure I balanced my schoolwork with my career. I had been accepted to FIT, UCLA, and Pratt Institute. My plan had been to head to California or New York right after graduation. But that very afternoon, two hours after my high school graduation, Delores Richards declared that she was tired and went to lie down on the sofa. My mother never woke up again. The doctors said she had a congenital heart defect that had been worsening for years.

  From that day forward, I was determined to grab life and live it by my own rules. But at the same time, I was very aware of being forced into the role of matriarch in my family. I was the one the others called for advice and decision making and money. It made me extremely focused and driven.

  I gave up pursuing a degree in fashion design and modeled full-time, until right around the time of my twenty-fourth birthday. Using the single name “Delaney,” I was fortunate enough to grace covers of magazines and strut catwalks world-wide.

  Sometime after the age of twenty-one, I started developing curves. Serious curves. The kind that apparently made me ideal for lingerie and bathing suit shoots. But even with bodacious curves, the industry was a tough taskmaster. After a memorable job where a photographer told me I needed to lose ten pounds—I was over six feet tall in heels and weighed 117—I decided enough was enough.

  I had made enough money to put myself and the rest of the family through whatever schools we chose. There was also the undeniable fact that I was a girl who liked chocolate and French fries. I wasn’t meant to live on brown rice and tofu. I was a child of the South. I wanted my chicken fried and cozied up next to some mashed potatoes, not naked on top of brown rice. I missed gravy, dammit! So I semiretired from modeling, only picking up a gig here and there as needed. I moved to New York, enrolled belatedly at FIT, and lucked out when one of my swimwear designs was chosen at a “One to Watch” showcase during Fashion Week.

  I launched BellaRich Designs with swimsuits and lingerie. My designs had a nod to old Hollywood and pin-up glamour but used flashy, sinuous fabrics and design elements to give them a modern update. My bestseller was and still is a turquoise halter top tankini with built-in bra and tummy support similar to a swimsuit Jane Russell wore in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Each of my creations has a signature pink rose stitched into the design somewhere. The fuchsia flower became the company logo.

  A few years later, I launched the Trés Belle Women’s Ready-to-Wear line with a splashy show in Times Square. That’s how I met Kat. She was my headliner for the show. She made a completely inappropriate but hilarious joke about double-sided tape bac
kstage. We’ve been good friends ever since.

  After our last show together, Katrina approached me about partnering to launch a menswear line. Perfect timing. I had been thinking about expanding into menswear and was awed by Katrina’s preliminary sketches. She couldn’t draw worth a damn but I was able to ascertain her ideas from the rough work. We decided to give it a go.

  To keep the new line a surprise, Kat suggested we set up a satellite office in Dallas. So here I was at the age of thirty-two, ready for a new challenge. That challenge did not include tangling with Katrina’s older brother. No matter how smoking hot and tempting he was. And Brother Beau looked good.

  In my experience, which I’m not ashamed to say is considerable, getting tangled up with men slowed you down, sapped your energy, and blurred your focus. Especially when a man clearly knew exactly how to tangle you up. I remember hearing about Beauregard Montgomery and his exploits among the modeling set. He quit modeling a year or two after I started, but he was legend.

  Even without the stories, I knew men like Beau. I almost married a man like Beau. Lucas Turner. He was an aspiring model, aspiring business manager, and unfortunately, an aspiring adult. He failed to achieve any of those three titles. Luke was pretty, spoiled by countless women, and never worked hard a day in his adult life. Wonderful to look at, fun to roll around with until that one morning—the morning you realized you weren’t building a relationship, you were supporting and raising a supposedly grown-ass man. No. Thank. You. Lesson learned.

  Sure, having those caramel colored eyes scan up and down my body had reminded me of just how long it had been since I’d indulged in any type of naked aerobic activity with a man. And if even half of the rumors about his “talents” were true, he was worth falling off the wagon for an hour or two. The worst thing for a woman who needed a little loving was falling into the path of a man who loved women. And when he looked the way Brother Beau did? Dangerous.