Chapter 1
"Law, much like life, was ever a study of trials..."
The words from her textbook hovered in Marguerite D'Aubert Goudeau's mind and conjured up the familiar phrase of her friend and study partner Nick Gautier: "Yeah, right. Life is a soul-sucking test that you either survive or you fail. Personally, I think failure blows, so I intend to survive and laugh my ass off at all the losers."
A sad smile curved her lips as bittersweet pain lacerated her heart. She remembered Nick and his caustic take on life, love, death, and everything in between. That man had been able to turn a phrase like nobody's business.
God, how she missed him. He'd been the closest thing to a brother she'd ever known, and there wasn't a day she didn't feel his absence to the deepest part of her soul.
She still couldn't believe that he was gone. That on this very evening, six months ago, his mother, Cherise Gautier, had been found murdered in their Bourbon Street home while Nick had mysteriously vanished without a trace. The New Orleans authorities were convinced that Nick was responsible for his mother's death.
Marguerite knew better.
No one on earth loved their mother more than Nick had loved his. If Cherise Gautier was dead, then so was Nick. No one would have been able to hurt her without facing his wrath. No one.
Marguerite was certain he'd gone after whoever had killed his mother and ended up dead himself. Most likely, he was lying in the bottom of a bayou somewhere. That was why no one had seen him since. And that knowledge tore her apart. Nick had been a good, caring man. A trusted confidant and generally an all-around fun guy.
In her formal, stodgy world of having to make sure she never said or did the wrong thing, he'd been a breath of fresh air and a wonderful dose of reality. It was why she wanted her friend back so desperately.
As Nick would say, her life basically sucked. Her friends were shallow, her father neurotic, and every time she thought she liked a guy, all her father could do was run a thorough background check on the man and his entire family and then tell her why he was socially unacceptable. Or, worse, beneath them.
She really hated that phrase.
"You have a destiny, Marguerite."
Yeah, she was destined to either end up in the mental ward or alone for the rest of her life so that she could in no way ever embarrass her father or her family.
She sighed as she stared at her law book on the library table and felt the familiar tears prick at the backs of her eyes. Nick had never liked studying in the library.
When he'd been in their group, they had all piled into his house four days a week to study together.
Now those days were gone and all she was left with was vapid, insecure blowhards who could only feel better about themselves by belittling everyone else.
"Are you all right, Margeaux?"
Marguerite cleared her throat at Elise Lenora Berwick's question. Elise was a tall, perfectly sculpted blonde. And Marguerite meant "sculpted." At twenty-four, Elise had already had six different plastic surgeries to correct her body's slight imperfections. In high school Elise had been the premier debutante of New Orleans, and now she was the reigning beauty at Tulane University.
The two of them had been friends since grade school. In fact, it had been Elise who had put together the study group three years ago when they'd all been undergraduates. Elise had never been one to really apply herself to schoolwork, and so she'd conceived this as a way to use them to help her pass her classes. Not that Marguerite minded. She actually admired Elise's ingenuity and liked watching the master manipulator get the others to do her bidding.
Only Marguerite and Nick had ever seen through Elise. Like Marguerite, Nick had been immune to the beautiful blonde's machinations. But that was okay. If not for Elise, Marguerite wouldn't have been able to get so close to Nick, and in her mind that would have been a true tragedy.
Now she, Elise, Todd Middleton Chatelaine, Blaine Hunter Landry, and Whitney Logan Trahan were all that was left of the group. And that hurt most of all.
Why aren't you here, Nick? I could really use your sense of humor right now.
Marguerite toyed with the edge of the book as an image of his face hovered in her mind. "I was just thinking of Nick. He always loved this law stuff."
"Didn't he, though?" Todd said as he looked up from his book. His black hair was cut short and worn in a perfect style around his handsome face. He had on an expensive red Tommy Hilfiger sweater and a pair of khaki pants. "Had he not been a criminal of questionable and shady parentage, he might have given your father a run for his office one day, Margeaux."
Marguerite tried not to let them see her grind her teeth as they continued to use a nickname she absolutely loathed. They thought it somehow made them closer to her since they used it while others didn't. But in truth, she much preferred the plain and simple "Maggie" that Nick alone had used. Of course that was too crass a nickname for such a refined family as hers. Her father would have an apoplexy if he'd ever heard Nick use it.
But she preferred it. It certainly matched her looks and personality a lot more than "Marguerite" or "Margeaux" ever would.
Now no one would ever call her Maggie again...
The grief in her heart was overwhelming. How could anything hurt so much?
"I still can't believe he's not here anymore," Marguerite whispered, blinking back her tears. Part of her still expected to see him swagger through the doorway with that devilish grin on his face and a bag of beignets in his hand.
But he wouldn't. Ever.
"Good riddance to bad rubbish," Blaine said bitterly as he leaned back in his chair. At six feet even and extremely well-built, with jet-black hair, Blaine thought himself God's gift to all womankind. His family was rich and well connected, and they had given him an extremely overbloated sense of self-importance.
He'd hated Nick because Nick had never allowed Blaine to get away with his snobbery and had called him on the carpet for it on more than one occasion.
Marguerite pinned an angry glare on Blaine. "You're just ticked that he always outscored you on tests."
Blaine curled his lip. "He cheated."