Don't Tempt Me by Julie Ortolon Read Free Book Online Page A

she do about that? Tell him to go back to teasing her?
    Shaking her head, she stared across the cove and her thoughts shifted to Marguerite. How would it feel to have to wait like a prisoner in this house, day after day, year after year, for a few stolen moments with a secret lover? Knowing the penalty for getting caught would be brutal and swift. Jack Kingsley must have been one hell of a man for Marguerite to risk the wrath of her violent husband to be with him.

Chapter 5
    Adrian looked up as Sadie, his sister's sable and white sheltie, came bounding down the apartment stairs, heralding the arrival of Allison and Scott. The dog raced into the living area where Rory was bottle-feeding Lauren. The baby squealed in delight and tried to wriggle free as Sadie took off to greet Rory's husband, Oliver Chancellor, who sat at the bar that divided the living and dining area from the kitchen. Chance laughed as the dog dashed around the bar to beg for treats.
    "You are completely spoiled, you know that?" Adrian told the sheltie as he nudged a piece of toasted French bread onto the floor.
    "So, where's our guest of honor?" Allison asked as she reached the bottom of the stairs with Scott right behind her. Unlike his youngest sister, Alli had a petite build, hair as dark as his, and a shy manner that had caused men to overlook her for years ---until Scott Lawrence had checked into the inn last spring.
    "I told her six o'clock, so she should be down soon." He nodded to his future brother-in-law. "Hey, Scott. How goes the new book?"
    "It goes," Scott sighed, looking like one of the villains in his own books in his all-black attire.
    "Hey, Alli. Hey, Scott," Rory called as she gave up trying to feed Lauren and carried the baby to Chance.
    Allison shrugged out of the cardigan sweater she wore over a simple blue dress. "It's exciting, don't you think, to have Jackie here? Almost like a family reunion."
    "Did she bring the letter?" Scott hung his jacket and Allison's sweater in the closet beneath the stairs. "After all the research I've done, I can't wait to read it. It's the last piece to the puzzle."
    "She had it with her when she checked in." Rory went to wash her hands and help in the kitchen.
    "Da-da-da-da." Lauren gave her father a slobbery, milky kiss on the cheek. Chance retaliated by lifting her frilly dress and giving her a raspberry on the tummy that sent the baby into peals of laughter.
    As his sisters visited, Adrian realized how little non-working time he spent with them these days. The inn hadn't even opened before Rory had moved into Chance's apartment. Chance had started out as their financial advisor and later became a partner, then part of the family when he married Rory. The two of them had built a small house just behind the inn, so they were nearby, but it wasn't the same as having Rory live under the same roof. And now Alli was marrying Scott, and they planned to live in the Bouchard Cottage in town.
    The cottage had been built by Henri LeRoche as a way to banish his and Marguerite's daughter, Nicole, claiming she wasn't his daughter at all. Upon his death, Pearl Island and the LeRoche Shipping empire had gone to a nephew. Rather than fight him, Nicole had taken her mother's maiden name, then followed in Marguerite's footsteps to become a star of the stage in New York, London, and Paris, only to die divorced and destitute in the small Galveston cottage.
    All of Nicole's descendants had lived in the cottage since, as those "scandalous Bouchards," whispered about by Galveston's "polite society." Adrian and his sisters had grown up in the cottage after their parents' death. But when Pearl Island had been foreclosed on by Chance's bank, they'd jumped on the opportunity to turn the old mansion into a bed-and-breakfast.
    The cottage currently belonged to their aunt, Vivian Young, but since she lived in New York, she'd offered it to Scott and Allison. Which meant Adrian hardly saw either of his sisters in the evenings.
    They all