looked the part. She felt the part.
Taking a deep excited breath, she smiled into the mirror. “Nicholas Fairfax, here I come.”
2
That night
NICK FAIRFAX tugged up the knees of his tuxedo slacks and knelt to inspect the cornerstone of the Risqué Theatre. The sidewalk below him was cracked and uneven, the result of too many years of eroding soil and landscaping that had overgrown the boundaries of its original design.
This property needed work, both inside and out, and as the project architect for the theater’s renovation, he would see it restored to its former glory during his stay in Savannah.
Splaying his palm over the Roman numerals indicating the first stone had been laid in 1865, he closed his eyes and quietly pledged the promise he made before beginning every new project. “I’ll do my best.”
By nature Nick wasn’t a superstitious man, yet he felt obliged to declare his intentions before contributing his vision to that of architects from other generations, a passing-the-torch ritual he’d begun when his newly founded company, the Architectural Design Firm or ADF as it had become known, had accepted its first project.
Now, ten years later, ADF had grown into one of the largest historic preservation architectural firms on the West Coast. He enjoyed a success that was as much a result of hard work as good fortune and Nick preferred not to overlook the basics of that success. Or lose sight of the responsibility he undertook when starting work on any historical building.
“I haven’t seen you go wrong yet,” Dale Emerson, ADF’s senior project manager, said. “And we’ve been rebuilding these babies together for a long time.”
Nick appreciated the sentiment, knew Dale took their work just as seriously, which had earned him his place as Nick’s right-hand man. Getting to his feet, he raised an eyebrow. “The Risqué Theatre is a bit richer than our usual fare.”
“Don’t tell me all those naked bodies in the pargeting are giving you cold feet, buddy?”
Nick laughed. Renovating the ornamental plasterwork on the Risqué Theatre’s ceiling hadn’t bothered him while reading Dale’s property analysis—though he’d suspected the original designer had worked with a relentless hard-on all through construction. After seeing the Risqué Theatre in all its glory, Nick realized he’d probably be empathizing with the guy before long.
“Come on, let’s go inside.” He wouldn’t dwell on the unique obstacles this project presented, not with the monumental task that lay ahead. “The Arts Council is paying big bucks for ADF’s services. Schmoozing will go a long way to keep them smiling while they cut the checks.”
They walked past the box office. Though well after Labor Day, the Georgia night enveloped them with a sultry breeze, temperate though still cool enough not to break a sweat. The theater loomed above, a neoclassical structure constructed after the Civil War as part of a massive reconstruction effort to incorporate the crushed Confederacy into a newly united America.
Savannah had escaped Atlanta’s fiery fate during Sherman’s March to the Sea, and as such had seemed the logical place to focus efforts to begin the nation’s healing process. The Risqué Theatre had been one such effort, a place to celebrate culture and art at a time when the city’s morale had been low and people’s faith shaken. Culture and art hadn’t seemed especially important while coping with husbands and sons lost in the bitter struggle to preserve the Southern way of life. Not when many faced the difficult task of rebuilding homes, careers and lives from the ashes of defeat.
A dark period in the nation’s history, the goal had been to rebuild America into a nation stronger and more united than ever before. Savannah’s insightful politicians of the time had caught their city’s attention by targeting men’s—and women’s—fundamental interest in sex.
Nick had researched the history of the theater back to its conception, a task he both enjoyed and found integral to starting a project of this magnitude. The Risqué Theatre was a part of history and he was obligated and honor bound to maintain not only the structure, but to preserve the essence of the time period that made this and every historical project unique.
He’d worked on a variety of buildings through the years—churches, museums, private mansions—but the Risqué Theatre presented a new challenge of retaining the distinctive flavor of a building that had provided a home to an eclectic variety of theatrical venues through the years. From vaudeville, burlesques and gangster films, to modern film noir, performance art and improvisation, the Risqué Theatre had been home to them all.
“Whoa, buddy.” Dale peered up at the ceiling moldings once inside the theater, at naked cherubs who grinned maniacally while pointing golden love arrows at them from every direction. “The thought of spending the next few months fixing every erection in this place is killing me. Damn good thing the media has stopped sniffing around your love life.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you were a real pain in the ass when you gave up dating to avoid the press. I can’t imagine tackling this place if you were living the celibate life. I’d quit right now.”
Nick frowned. A close friend and valued employee, Dale Emerson might clean up well in his expensive tux, but his background was firmly rooted in construction, where men worked with men and spoke their minds freely.
“What choice did I have? You know how the media zeroed in on me after I accepted the presidential appointment. That sort of notoriety isn’t fair to any woman. If I didn’t give them news to report, I knew they’d replace me as playboy of the month.”
“Try playboy of the year.” Dale rolled his eyes. “I told you to think hard about accepting that appointment.”
Nick handed the tickets to a uniformed usher and said dryly, “I didn’t see a choice about that, either. Besides, the presidential appointment gives ADF prestige and credibility, which has been good for business. And it gives me a chance to get out of the office and into the field more often.”
“Yeah, yeah, gotcha. The only thing more important than your sex life is ADF. But I still say we weren’t without prestige and credibility, whether you’re on-site or not.” Dale glanced around the foyer, where the crowd already gathered, though they’d arrived early. He let out a low whistle. “Looks even more risqué than when I conducted the site analysis. Would you look at that.”
Nick glanced at a column supporting the semicircular arch above a sloping spiral staircase. At first glance the sculpture appeared to be no more than an intricately worked column, but upon closer inspection the plasterwork depicted a life-size bodycast of a nude couple joined at the genitals.
Sex was everywhere at the Risqué Theatre, in the architecture, on the stage, in the walls that displayed playbills of naked bodies and edgy artwork from decades of erotic performances. If Nick had anything to say about it, sex would be in his immediate future, too.
Dale shot him an amused glance. “Buddy, we’re in for a treat if all Southern belles look like her.”
Nick followed Dale’s gaze to an opening in the crowd where a woman stood amazingly alone, a woman who made every drop of blood in his veins plummet south.
“You’re not kidding.” This Southern belle was a vision straight out of a wet dream with her long slim curves swathed in a red leather dress designed to make men crave sex. Supple leather clung to every sleek curve of a body equally designed to inspire thoughts of tangled limbs and sweaty skin.
She wasn’t exactly tall, rather lanky and very feminine with long dancer’s legs and creamy skin that swelled over her bodice and made his breath catch hard.
And her hair. Nick had never seen hair like hers, deep-auburn hair that made him yearn to do a lot more than run his fingers through it. Rather he wanted to run his naked body through it. Falling far below the sassy short jacket she wore, her hair shimmered beneath the lights and inspired images