“I don’t know. But I like to be cautious. It comes with the job.”
Felix was waving his hand in front of her to get her attention. She looked at him, startled, and mouthed, What?
“Tell him to look for hidden assets.”
“Excuse me?” she said to Felix.
“What?” Richard asked.
“Tell him that your husband doesn’t want to fight the settlement anymore because he’s afraid you’ll discover his hidden assets in the Caribbean and Switzerland,” Felix said.
He was being rude to interrupt, and he couldn’t possibly know anything about Beau or their divorce, but something about the look in his eyes had Regan saying, “Richard, do you think he could have hidden assets? I seem to remember something about the Caribbean and Switzerland.”
“Ah.” Richard made a sound of satisfaction. “That would explain the sudden cooperation. He could be worried we would uncover his true financial status.”
Uh-oh. Regan realized immediately that she shouldn’t have said anything. “If he does have money hidden, I don’t care,” she assured her lawyer. “I just want the divorce, that’s all.”
Felix frowned at her.
Richard didn’t seem to like her statement either. “Hey, I know, Regan, but come on. If the guy’s trying to smoke a few mil past us, we shouldn’t let that fly. You just offered him a shitload of money. If he doesn’t need it, we should withdraw our offer.”
“No. Forget I said anything. I don’t care about the money.”
There was a big pause. “Alright. I’ll keep you posted. Ciao.”
Regan hung up the phone and glared at Felix. “What do you think you’re doing? You completely threw me off balance in the middle of a very important phone call.”
“He’s hiding money.”
“One, how do you know? Two, who cares? I don’t. I just want a divorce.”
“How do I know? I know,” he said, leaning over the table so that his face was closer to hers, “because I have the second sight. I’m intuitive, or whatever the hell you want to call it. And you should care because he was a shitty husband and you shouldn’t have to pay off an ass**le to get out of your marriage.”
His vehemence shocked her. Regan was having trouble thinking with him in her space. She could see the dark stubble on his chin, feel the warmth of his breath, watch the pupils expand in his blue eyes.
He withdrew, falling back against his chair, and she felt irrationally irritated with him. “How do you know he was a shitty husband? Maybe I’m just a bad wife. Maybe I’m just flighty or fickle.”
Felix shook his head slowly. “No, there is nothing flighty or fickle about you at all. And he had to be a shitty husband to put that look in your eye at the Christmas party.”
“What look?” Regan turned her cell phone around and around on the table, nervous and not sure why.
“Fear. Desperation. Like a caged animal.”
Jesus. That was so accurate she was horrified. Who else had seen that in her? “Well, then you should understand why I don’t want to risk screwing up my divorce. If he’s going to let it go through uncontested, I am beyond happy.”
“You deserve more,” he said simply.
Regan felt the hairs rise on her arms. It was the first time someone had put it quite like that. Her family and friends argued with her that she shouldn’t have left. Chris wanted her to stick it to Beau. But no one had ever told her in such a straightforward way that she was entitled to better in her life.
“Thank you,” she said softly, feeling comfortable with him, truly comfortable, for the first time. Then she looked at him, curious about the man in front of her. She supposed she believed in fate, and somehow, it just seemed that she and Felix had been destined to cross each other’s path. But who was he, how did he live, who did he spend his time with? “So tell me about yourself, Felix.”
“Nothing to tell. I run a voodoo shop. Nothing more, nothing less.”
That couldn’t possibly scratch the surface of his life, but she wasn’t surprised that was his answer. He seemed reticent about himself. Perfectly willing to talk about her, but dismissive about himself. “Do you have a girlfriend? A special someone?”
Felix gave a short laugh, though there didn’t seem to be a lot of amusement in it. “No. Any woman who would date me would undoubtedly deserve more.”
That was annoying. Men always dropped lines like that, and she found it to be false self-effacement. They didn’t really believe it, they just didn’t want to work at a commitment. It also chafed that it seemed directed at her, like she shouldn’t get any ideas about the two of them having any sort of relationship.
“So is that a warning?”
He shook his head slowly. “No. It doesn’t do any good to warn anyone anyway. We all do as we want, for the most part, regardless of the danger.”
Maybe that was her problem. She hadn’t known what she wanted, so she had done what she had thought she’d wanted, regardless of the danger of it being a mistake, and married Beau. Could that be the real danger? Never knowing the truth of what you wanted? “What if you don’t know what you want?”
“Everyone knows what they want, whether they acknowledge it or not. You have to be honest with yourself.”
What she wanted, right at the moment, was him. She could be honest with herself, but she wasn’t about to be honest with Felix about it, so she made a noncommittal sound.
He had shifted his weight in the chair so he was leaning forward again, and it unnerved her. Regan fought the urge to back up, to create distance. It felt like he was challenging her and she wanted to hold her ground. Her skin tingled, her ni**les hardening. There was such a sexual energy surrounding him, and she couldn’t help but respond to it. Or maybe it was just that she found him attractive and she hadn’t had sex in four months. Either way, she was always very acutely aware of her body around him.
“There is no memory with less satisfaction than that of some temptation which we resisted.”
Indeed. Regan was very, very tempted by Felix, and while she knew she should resist, doing the smart thing gave absolutely no satisfaction to a woman in desperate need of a good lover.
Chapter Six
Felix tugged at the tattered cuff of his shirt, hoping the sleeve of his jacket would cover the flaw. Not that anyone would see the embarrassing evidence of his poverty.
He shouldn’t have come tonight. He was in a foul mood, feeling a familiar swell of jealousy at the casual wealth of those in the ballroom as he watched through the windows. So entitled, every last one of them, and yet most had never done a damn thing to earn their money. Their easy lifestyle was an accident of birth, as was his reverse fortune.Yet they took great delight in looking down on him and his mother.