Читать книгу Modern Romance June 2019 Books 5-8 - Andie Brock - Страница 16

THE RESTAURANT WAS a converted house in the Sixth Arrondissement, once owned by an art dealer. It brimmed with impressionist paintings and priceless objets d’art. A murmur went through the diners in the main lounge and piano bar as they were shown through to an atrium with only one table that was obviously reserved for the most illustrious customers.

A small fountain and an abundance of ferns provided a modicum of privacy, but the glass walls and ceiling provided none. Luli didn’t care who looked at them. She was too busy taking in the fat moon above the glittering Eiffel Tower.

“I’ve wanted to come to Paris since I first understood what it was. I can’t believe I’m here,” Luli said, trying not to betray her complete awe.

“We’ll come back soon. I have to get back to some meetings I left when you texted about my grandmother.”

“Was that a flash?” She looked toward the fountain.

“Outside? Yes.”

“No, from—”

A jewel-bedecked customer had crept to the fountain and held a smartphone in the air space behind the streaming water, aiming it at them. One of the servers in a black vest and long white apron hurried to draw the woman away.

“Ignore it,” Gabriel said. “My security team will address it.”

She couldn’t. Glints of light were popping against the wall of shrubbery beyond the atrium’s walls and on the rooftop of the adjacent building.

“I used to dream of being so famous everyone would want my photo. It’s quite intrusive, isn’t it? How do you stand it?”

“Honestly, I’m not of much interest to the paparazzi unless I’m with a woman. Even then, it very much depends on who she is. I met with a married actress a couple of times, years ago. She was researching a part. It was completely innocuous, but she was of a mind that any publicity was good publicity. She tipped off photographers every time and the entertainment sites made it into something it wasn’t. The movie did well at the box office and on the award circuit. Perhaps her strategy had some weight.” He told her whom it had been. She was quite famous, but old enough to be his mother.

Their wine was delivered and poured. Luli didn’t know where to look. Outside at the cameras? At the craning necks in the main part of the restaurant? Looking at Gabriel would only get her tangled up in his gaze.

“I suppose your connection to your grandmother makes you news right now,” she murmured, studying the ornate silver stem and the patterns etched into the tulip-shaped red bowl of her one-of-a-kind handcrafted wineglass—or so their server had informed her.

“My grandmother’s connection to me affects people who have business dealings with Chen Enterprises. I’m already so rich. No one could care less that I just got richer.”

“But you said the paparazzi only pay attention to you if the woman you’re with is famous. They don’t know who I am.”

“Exactly.” One corner of his mouth went up in a cynical curl. “The waitstaff is going to make a bundle in tips from people wanting your name. Joke’s on them. I didn’t offer it.”

“They wouldn’t recognize it anyway. I’m nobody.”

The waiter brought an amuse-bouche—a spoon that held a deviled quail’s egg on a mushroom cap with a glazed baby carrot next to it.

“It seems silly that anyone would care,” she continued. “I’m as guilty as the next person for following celebrity gossip. Your grandmother subscribed to overseas magazines and I love royal wedding photos and the like, but—oh.”

“You’ve arrived. Welcome.” His lingering smile held gentle mockery. “Yes, everyone is trying to be the first to report on my marriage. More pointedly, to whom.”

“I suppose that is news.” She was. She sobered as she recalled how attentive the couturier and her staff had been. “Was there someone else they expected? Are you with someone?” She should have asked that several kisses ago.

“Only you,” he said dryly. “A press release goes out at midnight explaining I’ve been quietly courting my grandmother’s business manager and we’ve made it official.”

“No one is going to believe that. Or that I’m a business manager.” She thought of the butler trying to throw her out on her ear, first chance he got.

“It doesn’t matter what they believe, only what I know. While you were playing dress up, I accessed the backup files and ran some reports for my edification. You make a lot of small adjustments that make a big difference. You do, in fact, manage her business affairs.”

“Mae liked me to be vigilant.”

“But you did much of it electronically. I saw the scripts you inserted to alert you when something falls outside your parameter sets. You’ve been playing with my back end for a while.”

She had, but he didn’t need to make it sound so suggestive.

Their plates were exchanged. A light shell of something that might have been egg white had been quick fried into a lacy web and bent into a basket while warm. It held a leg of squab, a half dozen bright green peas and a dollop of what she learned was whipped turnip. A smear of chili sauce framed it and violets were sprinkled for decoration.

“If you’ve gone that far,” she said, hand going to the clutch in her lap. “You’re able to restore from backup and lock me out.”

“I could. But I refuse to take the easy way. I won’t let you get the better of me.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

“I’m competitive, not sexist.”

“How did you learn to code?” She snapped a strand from the basket and discovered it was made of sharp cheese, rich and salty against her tongue.

“My grade school had three afterschool clubs—computers, arts and athletics. I didn’t want to go home, so I had to pick one. I can speak on a stage if I have to, but I have no talent for performing or other creative pursuits. I was decent in track and field, but have no interest in team sports. The isolation of a computer screen, however, was my dream habitat.”

“Why didn’t you want to go home?”

“My father was a drunk and not fun to be around.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

She couldn’t help noticing the strain of his shirt across his chest, as though his muscles had tensed despite the fact he sounded very indifferent and relaxed.

“I read that you’re a black belt in kung fu.”

“It’s a good workout and clears my mind.”

“When did you start?”

“When bullies started calling me Kung Fu Kid.” He pointed at the tiny overlap at the corner of his eye. “I went to the nearest dojo and offered my computer skills in exchange for lessons. It was another convenient way to avoid going home.”

“Did you teach those bullies a lesson?”

“My sifu taught me not to care what they said.”

“You never fought back?” What was the point in going all the way to black belt, then?

“I threw a boy to the ground once, when he tried to start something. His friends were right there, planning to help. Word got around and they stopped bothering me. Then I sold my app and everyone wanted to be my friend.”

“You were twelve? It was a game, wasn’t it?”

“This is why I never bother talking about myself. Anything of note has already been documented online.” He cleaned the meat off the delicate bone in one bite and set it aside.

“I don’t know much more than that, except that you won a national competition for young entrepreneurs and caught the attention of Silicon Valley. They paid you a million dollars?”

“Which caught my grandmother’s attention. She came to warn me not to let my father take control of my money. He cautioned me against trusting her. They had a heated discussion and I didn’t hear from her again until she came to his funeral.”

“She didn’t try to help you? Did she realize your father had a drinking problem?”

“Given how furious she was with my mother, I believe she probably did. I didn’t want her help.”

“Why not?”

“My own version of Stockholm syndrome, I suppose. The devil you know and all that.”

She absorbed that, thinking he was onto something. She had rationalized staying with Mae rather than taking the hard road of striking out on her own. Before that, she had tried relentlessly and earnestly to earn her mother’s regard.

“Did you keep control of your money?” she asked.

“More or less. I hired a certified advisor and talked my father into paying off our mortgage, which had been my grandmother’s advice.”

“Real estate has been very good to her.”

“And me. I invested heavily in property as I sold more apps. It came easily to me. Felt like a license to print money. When I was fifteen, I hired a private tutor so I had more flexibility with my education. I graduated high school early and completed a business degree before I turned twenty. I predicted the financial crash and was one of those select few who came up roses.”

“And your father...?”

“Drank himself to kidney failure, but lived comfortably until then. I supported him, put him in rehab several times. It never took.” He used a jagged corner of shell to stab a pea and ate it with a crunch.

“Did he have other family? Do you have cousins?”

“A handful of people who didn’t want to know him, but who crawl out of the woodwork periodically to ask me for start-up capital. Some ventures succeed, others have gone bust. It’s another reason I’ve kept my distance from my grandmother. It’s hard to say no to family, but it can be foolish to say yes. Do you have family besides your mother and father? Is he still alive?”

“I haven’t seen anything online about him since he went to prison for corruption a couple of years after I left for Singapore. I guess his sons are my half brothers, but I’ve never met them or tried to reach out.” She wrinkled her nose in dismay. “I presume they’re much like him. My mother’s family was very poor. She never spoke of them. I wouldn’t know where to begin looking for them and have no reason to.”

It was odd to talk about herself. No one had asked about her life or seemed interested in it for years.

Their plates were cleared and bowls of warm, scented water brought to rinse their hands.

“We should dance,” Gabriel said when she looked toward the drift of piano notes from the other side of the restaurant.

She shook her head. “I took ballet years ago, but only to help with grace and posture. I’ve never danced for real.”

“With a man, you mean? That’s a good reason to do it, then, isn’t it?” He rose and held out his hand. “Leave that here,” he said of the clutch she would have carried with her. “It’s perfectly safe.”

She nervously left it on the chair as she rose and placed her hand in his. An electric current seemed to run from the weave of their fingers up her arm to start an engine purring in her chest.

Eyes followed them, but she kept her gaze on the lobe of Gabriel’s ear as he wound through the tables ahead of her. Out of nowhere, she wondered what it would be like to nibble his ear. People did that, didn’t they? Would he like it? Tendrils of intrigue unfurled inside her at the thought of dabbling her tongue there and sucking. Of him doing it to her. She had to stifle a reflexive moan at the carnal fantasy.

Along with the pianist, there were a cellist and a violinist. It was like being in a movie as he turned when they reached the dance floor and drew her into his arms. She felt as though she floated when they began to move together.

“You’re perfect,” he said as he led with athletic grace.

Her light skirt lifted and fell against her bare legs in a sensual caress while she absorbed the strength of him, the surety of his touch moving her about so effortlessly. A pleasurable heat suffused her and she knew this would be her new memory for her stage smile. She didn’t know if she’d ever felt so light in her life. So carefree and purely, simply happy.

She suspected she was actually asleep and would wake in her plain room in the servants’ quarters of Mae’s mansion very soon.

“The entire place is spellbound,” he murmured, making her falter slightly.

“Was that the goal?”

“I can’t deny I wanted to see their reaction.”

“Why?” She became self-conscious and had to concentrate to ensure she didn’t misstep.

“A crowd like this is used to being surrounded by beauty. You’re above and beyond anything they will have ever seen.”

“Is that what I am? A piece of art you’ve acquired?” Was that why he hadn’t said anything about their kiss?

His mouth was no longer relaxed. “No.”

“What, then? A project? A percentage?”

“I have no idea. You’re unlike anything I’ve ever encountered.”

“But you want to twirl me around and say, Look what I found.”

“I want to feel you in my arms.” His voice was low and powerful enough to resonate through her.

Somehow he kept them moving without bumping into anyone while she tried to read his eyes. She didn’t know what she was seeing in those rocky ocean depths.

“You haven’t said anything since I told you,” she reminded him.

“Is it true?” he demanded.

“I’m looking to you for guidance because I have no idea what I’m doing.” She spoke with a thread of wildness in her voice. The sense of spinning beyond herself was growing as she realized exactly how much she was looking to him—because she was that far out of her depth in every single way.

His cheek ticked. “I wish I knew whether I could believe you.”

“What reason would I have to lie?”

“The twenty million I just dropped on clothes and shoes, perhaps?”

“You didn’t.” She stopped dancing. The world continued to sway and swirl. She thought she might faint as all her lifeblood dropped into her feet. “Please say it wasn’t that much.”

“With the ring, closer to thirty. It’s Paris, Luli. What did you think?”

Sequin-covered bikinis and formal evening gowns were expensive, but they were the price of pageant entry, maybe the cost of bus fare or a flight to get to the competition. They weren’t the value of a district’s worth of housing. What had she done? She clung to his sleeve to keep herself upright, vision hazy as she absorbed that she had indebted herself to him far beyond anything she could have imagined.

His arms firmed around her, supporting her. “Look at me. Are you all right?”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

* * *

If he had wanted to create a sensation, mission accomplished. Speculation about his mysterious new wife would shift to whether she was carrying his child as she paled and leaned into him.

“Come sit down.” He led her back to their table.

She took her clutch into her lap and, he suspected, checked for her passport, judging by the furtive movement beneath the edge of the table.

“Have a sip of water,” he ordered. “Then tell me why you’re upset.” She had handled the shopping like a pro. He wasn’t complaining about the cost, only pointing out that it made for a strong motive where manipulating his emotions was concerned.

“Why would you do that?” Her hand shook as she sipped. Tears brimmed her mink lashes. “I’ll never be able to pay you back. Never.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

The waiter brought their next course and she turned her face to the window to hide her distress. Gabriel waved him off from pouring fresh wine.

The single braised lamb chop with watercress and candied pistachios was decorated with a sprig of rosemary, pearl onions and dots of orange and mint sauces. Gabriel thought it looked appetizing, but Luli looked at her plate with misery. He didn’t dare tell her that the lamb had been flown in fresh from New Zealand this morning and the six vintage wine pairings they would sample with each course were thousands of euros each.

Minutes ago, she’d been incandescent, fully enjoying herself. Her mood had started to dim when she had asked if she was a project for him.

“Luli.” He set his hand palm-up on the table, wanting her to look at him. “I told you I don’t pay for sex. I don’t buy women. You don’t owe me anything.”

“I keep thinking I’ll wake up in my room. I wish I would.” She pinched her arm.

That bare cell of a room with not so much as a family photo or a glimmer of vibrant beauty that was her? No.

“I shouldn’t have started this,” she said with a despairing shake of her head. “I wanted to take control. I thought I could handle it, even if it was difficult. It was very hard when I arrived in Singapore, but I got through it. I’m a strong person,” she insisted, but sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “This is too much.”

Her gaze finally met his and the rawness she exposed clawed at his heart.

“Whatever you think you can turn me into, I’m not.” She looked to the windows, then the other direction, then the ceiling, as though she sought escape and realized she was cornered. Her breasts rose against the binding of her dress, plumping with each shaking breath.

“Luli.” He wiggled his fingers. “Give me your hand. This is culture shock. That’s all.”

“Culture shock!” She blinked and a tear fell to glisten diamond sharp on her cheekbone. Her hands stayed in her lap.

“Culture assault,” he corrected dryly. He should have anticipated it. Even his top executives dropped their jaws and bumbled with nerves when they caught a glimpse of how he lived. “Would you like to leave?”

“Does it matter what I want? Why did I think I should fight so hard or reach so high? It’s not as though I could make myself matter by wearing new clothes and going outside. I’m still nothing.”

“We’re going all the way to existential crisis? Come on, then. We’ll take this somewhere more private.” As he helped her into the car moments later, she heard him tell his driver, “Cancel the helicopter. We’ll go to the apartment.”

* * *

“Where were you going to take me in a helicopter?” she asked twenty minutes later, when he joined her on the balcony of his modern penthouse.

The colorful reflections on the Seine were smudged lines through the sparkling cityscape below. The Eiffel Tower was so big before her, she could have reached out and touched it.

She was still overwhelmed, still feeling like she was on stage, wearing this gown, but the bricked patio was about the size of Mae’s courtyard. The darkness turned down the volume on how alien the world had become, giving her a chance to catch her breath and grapple her emotions back under control.

“I was going to take you to my château. Do you want anything? I could order take-out noodles and roast pork. That might feel more familiar.”

“You have a house and a flat here?”

“I’ve been restoring the château since I bought it two years ago. I’ve never stayed there. It was built in the sixteen hundreds as a folly for the King’s mistress and has become one of mine. I have to park my money somewhere.” He leaned his elbows on the wall and studied the city below them.

At the word mistress, she had to ask. “Why did you want to take me there?” For seduction?

“It’s pretty. I thought you’d like it. At least I thought that a few hours ago, when I made the arrangements and you were having fun spending my money.”

“Why did you let me? I don’t understand what you want from me,” she said with a throb in her voice. “Am I a white elephant, more curse than blessing? A pretty adornment for your arm? Am I supposed to sleep with you because you saved me? Because we’re married?”

“One way or another, you were going to save yourself. We both know that, Luli.” His voice was firm and strong, if a shade rueful. “All I’m doing is adding accelerant.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a riddle. I enjoy puzzles.”

“I want to be a woman. My own woman,” she said, soft and fierce.

But she was realizing that leaving Mae’s house and building a new, independent life were two very different things. There was a wide chasm that had to be bridged and she didn’t have the skills or resources to do it.

He sighed. “If I see you as a woman, I’ll want to sleep with you.”

She hugged herself and rubbed her arms, even though she wasn’t cold. In fact, she grew warm. Empty in a way that longed for him to hold her and kiss her and fill her with all those sensations that made the world a magical place.

“What’s so bad about that?”

“You said you were saving your virginity,” he reminded. “For who?”

“I don’t know. You? You’re supposed to wait, aren’t you? For your wedding night?”

A long, tense silence.

“I haven’t,” he finally stated.

She sighed, admitting heavily, “I thought it might mean something to whoever it was. Have value. Maybe even if I was desperate—”

“Your virginity is not a commodity, Luli,” he cut in sharply. “Your body isn’t. Save yourself for a relationship that matters. Someone special.”

“So you don’t...” She swallowed. “Want me? Because I’m a virgin?”

“Have you looked in a mirror? Of course I want you. I’m saying don’t have sex with the first man you marry.”

She choked on a laugh, recognizing it as a joke, but they were married.

“You talked about becoming a trophy wife and that led me to believe you were experienced. Given that you’re not...” His voice became tight with reluctant honor. “I don’t know that we should go there. You would want what every woman eventually asks for and I can’t give you that.”

“Children? I don’t want them. Not for a long time, if ever. That’s totally fine if you can’t make them.”

Another pointed silence, then a husk of a laugh.

“I was going to say love, but you continue to confound me.” He straightened and leaned his hip against the low wall. “Why don’t you want children?”

“I can’t even take care of myself!” She waved a helpless hand through the air.

“You’re so blind.” He reached out and gave a tendril of her hair a small tug. “My grandmother employed two hundred people directly, not to mention the ten or so thousand who work for companies in which she invests. Who looks after all of them? Her? No.”

“That was with her money and resources. I don’t even have pajamas. I’ll be sleeping in the clothes you gave me on the airplane.” She wondered where they were.

Wondered why he couldn’t love her. Far above Paris and freedom and all the other fantasies she had ever had was the dream that one day she would be loved. Was she not worthy of such a thing? Why not?

“Silly girl,” he said. “You have six cases of ready-to-wear in the guest room. Didn’t you hear the bell when the concierge delivered them?”

“What bell? Six? Gabriel, I can’t!”

“Don’t start hyperventilating again. Come on. I want to show you something. You’ll like it.” He took her hand in his warm one and drew her inside.

Her heels clicked on the herringbone pattern in the parquet floor of the hall. The penthouse was bigger than the bottom floor of Mae’s sprawling mansion, but this was located atop a skyscraper. It was modern, but filled with old-world touches in the wainscoting and crown moldings. A castle in the sky.

“Your room,” he said, pushing open a door into a darkened room where a half dozen suitcases stood at the foot of a wide bed. “But come into mine.”

Her heart rate picked up.

He didn’t turn on any lights as they entered the massive room with the massive bed. She barely looked that direction or took in anything else. She was drawn to the primordial glow of the floor-to-ceiling aquarium.

She gasped, pulled forward by the muted burble to feast her eyes on the iridescent blues and neon pinks, the fierce reds and flashing yellows. Spots adorned long lacy tails that swished in slow motion while striped orange missiles darted into crevices in the colorful fingers of coral and swaying blades of sea grass.

She didn’t know where to look and grew dizzy trying to take it all in. She wanted to lean against the glass, breath fogging upon it as she watched.

“You like?” His arm came around her waist and she leaned into him, overwhelmed, but this time in a way that was gentle and full of wonder.

“Your grandmother’s pond only had koi. They were pretty, but nothing like this. It’s so beautiful.”

“Can you see the tub on the other side?” he pointed. “I’ll run you a bath and you can watch the fish, then dream all night that you’re swimming with them.”

She wanted to laugh, but his arm around her felt so nice her own arms reached to encircle him on instinct, needing to cling to him for fear of going adrift.

“No one has hugged me since—” She couldn’t remember. A long, long time ago. She welled up and began to shake.

“Shh.” His hand offered a soothing caress against her ribs. “Keep it together, Luli. I’m useless with tears.”

He wasn’t, though. As she began to sob in earnest, he shifted so she was pressed fully to his front. He held her in a firm embrace that kept her from breaking into a thousand disjointed pieces and spoke against the part in her hair.

“It’s okay. You’re not in there. You’re out here. Breathe.”