The Love Potion Read Online Free PDF Page B

have a right to know, dontcha think?”
    She refused to budge.
    He tried to think. Houma and the bayou region were a vast network of gossip grapevines. A guy couldn’t piss in his own toilet without the entire parish counting the drops. Luc figured Terrebonne Pharmaceuticals wouldn’t be bringing in outsiders for this experiment. It would probably be men within the company, in order to preserve secrecy. And he didn’t care what Sylvie said, secrecy would be important. He couldn’t think of anyone…except…no, that was impossible. “Your boss,” he guessed.
    Sylvie’s cheeks immediately turned bright red.
    He clapped his knee with glee at the absurdity of the situation. “Don’t try to deny it, chère . I can see the truth on your face.”
    “Oh, all right. Charles Henderson will be one of the participants,” she confessed hesitantly. “But don’t you tell anyone.”
    Like anyone would believe me! Once he snappedhis gaping mouth shut, he burst out laughing. He couldn’t help himself. “You’re giving a love potion to a gay man? Talk about!”
    “Gay? Gay?” she shrieked, and his ears started ringing again. “He’s not gay.”
    “Honey, Chuckie boy is one-hundred-percent lah-di-dah. I guar-an-tee.”
    “How do you know? Are you gay? Oh, this has got to be the worst thing you’ve ever said to me. The worst.”
    “ I’m not gay,” he said with affront. “But I have gay clients.” Well, he’d had one gay client two years ago…a female impersonator at a gay nightclub in Lafayette, The Blue Lily.
    “It’s not true,” she whispered weakly.
    “It’s true, Sylv. It’s true.”
    Tears filled her eyes…eyes that were really rather pretty, a luminous shade of blue, like the sky seen through a bayou mist on a summer day. Whoa! He caught himself up short. It was one thing to be a sucker for a woman’s tears, but now he was beginning to notice nice things about Sylvie.
    Could her jelly bean potion really be working?
    Nah!
    He felt kind of low unloading such bad news on Sylvie, though. Was she in love or something with a gay man? “Does it matter so much, Sylvie?” he asked with as much sensitivity as he could summon. He was still having trouble holding back a smile at the whole ludicrous situation.
    “Drop dead!” she said with a sniffle.
    So much for sensitivity . He walked over to the table and picked up his jar of water. “When can you do the tests? I need an answer ASAP.”
    “I’m not doing your tests.”
    “Oh, yes, you are, Sylv.” Setting the jar back down, he picked up the dish of remaining jelly beans, scooped them up, and stuffed them in his jeans pocket. Patting the bulge with satisfaction, he said, “Evidence.”
    “Don’t you mean blackmail?”
    “Whatever.”
    “I’ll do it on one condition. You have to go out of town for at least a week. You can’t be anywhere in my vicinity.”
    “A week?” he sputtered.
    “You did suck up a double dose of those jelly beans,” she said defensively. “So, yeah. At least one week. I’ll put off the human trial runs until your ingestion runs its course.”
    Ingestion? Now, it’s an ingestion? Hell! “Oh, all right.” He didn’t have any pressing cases on deck, and he was on vacation; he’d been planning a trip deep into the bayou. He wasn’t sure he wanted to stay away for even a week, though. Well, she didn’t need to know that. As a parting shot, he added, “I hope I don’t get hungry tonight…for jelly beans.” He patted his pocket again.
    “You wouldn’t!”
    Maybe he would, Luc decided. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t. But one thing was sure. If he was getting into the blackmail business, he wanted something more than a lab test for his efforts. And he knew just what it was gonna be.
    Slooow dancing.

Chapter Three
    “I’ve never seen so many men with no behinds in all my life,” Sylvie observed the next evening.
    “You’ve got a point there,” Blanche agreed. “Most of them are politicians, and everyone knows