She would have expected Damien to be smug about that last part, and waited for his reaction, but he just looked troubled.
And he didn't even acknowledge the compliment. "I honestly don't remember her. I wish I did. I can see how worried you are."
"I am worried. Lizzie has left before… she's kind of a free spirit. But she's never been gone this long without contacting someone. So what can I tell you that will help? How can you be sure she'll know that you're having a party?"
Damien had ordered black coffee, and when the waitress placed the mug in front of him, he smiled at her. She was a plain woman, heavyset and wearing her hair pulled back in an unflattering pony tail. When he smiled up at her, her hand paused with the coffee, and she blushed a little.
"Anything else I can get ya right now?" she asked, beaming back at him.
"No, we're fine, thank you so much." He glanced at her chest where her nametag hung crooked on her cotton uniform. "Ruby."
She blushed again, clearly flustered. "Just yell if you need something, alright?"
"I will, thank you."
Marley wanted to ask what the hell that was all about. Ask if after she was done dishing on Lizzie, he would tell her who exactly Damien du Bourg was and why he flirted with random women. And then he could just provide a nice little explanation for why he hosted sex parties on a regular basis. Instead, she sat across from him and fought impatience, irritation. She wanted to hear what he had to say about Lizzie and then she wanted to leave. Because to her complete and total irritation, she understood why Ruby stammered and blushed at Damien's smile. Marley felt the same way.
There was something irresistibly attractive about him. She couldn't pinpoint it, but it radiated from him, and she absolutely did not want to respond to it.
He took a deep drink of his coffee, than sat back with a sigh. "Do you understand what kind of parties I have?"
"I have a vague idea that they're adult parties."
"That's a very polite way to put it." He looked amused. "My parties are definitely adult parties, and they are by invitation only. You won't find drug addicts or prostitutes, anyone underage or participating against their will. My parties are for sophisticated, successful adults who want to engage in discreet, anonymous entertainment. Your sister was not someone who would have been extended an invitation. Therefore, she must have attended as a guest of someone who did get an invitation."
Marley wasn't sure if that was helpful or not, and detected an insult to her sister. "So, you can ask everyone who got invitations in June if they know Lizzie?"
"No." He shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. We don't use names, only e-mail addresses, and my guests are assured that their attendance is not kept on record. So if I were to contact them all asking if they know your sister, they would assume that I have records of their attendance, which I don't. And mentioning Lizzie's real name will immediately close mouths anyway. Even if they don't mind being singled out, they're going to know that if a girl disappeared during one of my parties, there could be a major scandal. And if they're the one who brought Lizzie, they're certainly not going to admit it now that she's missing. These are people in important positions in the community—these are doctors, lawyers, ministers."
"Ministers?" Marley almost choked on her soft drink.
Damien smirked. "Yes. It's not p**n stars who want complete anonymity, Marley. It's people who are doing what they shouldn't be doing."
He might as well have added a "duh" at the end of his sentence.
"Do they pay you?" Maybe it was none of her business, but she was pretty sure she could alter her attraction to disgust if he arranged these parties for a fee. Bad enough he did it at all, but for profit? That was more than she could handle.
"No." Damien's expression was closed, inscrutable. "I do it as a community service."
That was a novel way to put it. Most people just stuck to working the soup kitchen and tutoring at-risk kids when they felt the urge to help their fellow man. But whatever. "And for your own entertainment?"
"Of course." He shrugged carelessly, but his eyes told a different story. When Marley looked at him, she saw it clearly, so obvious she couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before. Damien's eyes were burning, with both anger and a raw, agonizing pain.
The emotion took her breath away, stripped her indignation, stirred her compassion. Marley found herself reaching forward, putting her hand over his, wanting to comfort him. "Damien…"
She stroked his hand, and he glanced down at it, looking startled. The moment hung between them—his pain, her sympathy, his reluctant help, her fear. Then Damien shifted his hand, slipping it over the top of hers, and held her still. His thumb moved, stroking across her skin, sliding under to circle over her palm. She sucked her breath in at the sudden change in his eyes. The pain was gone, replaced by desire, a raw and powerful lust, and she snatched her hand back.
Touching him had been a mistake. It had taken her gesture of comfort and flipped it on its side, shifted control over to him, and made her feel vulnerable, needy. As though when he had caressed her hand, he had seen inside her, where she was hungry to be the center of attention for the first time, desperate to have someone love her, focus on her, be strong enough to let her lean on them just once. Whatever truth there was to that, none of it was relevant here with him, and she wasn't about to let Damien muck around in her insecurities.
She sipped her soft drink, then said, "So if you invite the same people, you're hoping Lizzie will show up with whoever she was with last time? What about her picture? I thought you were going to show it to some people."
"Just a few close friends. My hope is more that she'll arrive with the same people as before, which is why I wanted to hear about her. I need to know the type of man she is usually drawn to and where she was before she arrived in Louisiana. Maybe I can target the invitations based on that, since we don't know what night she was here exactly."
"She made it sound like she was here for several days."
"That's helpful. I had a three day event in mid-June."
The word event made Marley want to snicker, but she held it in. "I think she came here straight from Cincinnati. She was definitely home for Memorial Day, because I left the following week, and I saw her before I left."
"What type of man does she normally go out with?"
Any man with two legs that had at least a smattering of English language skills. But that would sound snarky if she said it out loud, which it probably was. Marley shrugged. "Lizzie doesn't have a type—she's gone out with construction workers and a doctor. Tall guys, short, thin, built. I've never seen her date a guy much older than thirty, thirty-five though. And generally speaking, they're white."