Читать книгу From Paris With Love Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 47

Eight

The French offices of Beguile were located only a few blocks from the Arc de Triomphe, on rue Balzac. Sarah always wondered what that famed French novelist and keen observer of human absurdities would think of a glossy publication that pandered to so many of those absurdities.

The receptionist charged with keeping the masses at bay glanced up from her desk with a polite expression that morphed into a welcoming smile when she spotted Sarah.

“Bonjour, Sarah! So good to see you again!”

“Bonjour, Madeline. Good to see you, too. How are the twins?”

“Horrors,” the receptionist replied with a half laugh, half groan. “Absolute horrors. Here are their latest pictures.”

After duly admiring the impish-looking three-year-olds, Sarah rounded the receptionist’s desk and walked a corridor lined with framed, poster-size copies of Beguile covers. Paul Vincent, the senior editor, was pacing his glass cage of an office and using both hands to emphasize whatever point he was trying to make to the person on the speakerphone. Sarah tipped him a wave and would have proceeded to the production unit, but Paul gestured her inside and abruptly terminated his call.

“Sarah!”

Grasping her hands, he kissed her on both cheeks. She bent just a bit so he could hit the mark. At five-four, Paul tended to be as sensitive about his height as he was about the kidney-shaped birthmark discoloring a good portion of his jaw. Yet despite what he called his little imperfections, his unerring eye for color and style had propelled him from the designers’ cutting rooms to his present exalted position.

“Alexis emailed to say you would be in Paris,” he informed Sarah. “She’s instructed me to put François and his crew at your complete disposal.”

“For what?”

“To take photos of you and your fiancé. She wants all candids, no posed shots and plenty of romantic backdrop in both shallow and distant depth of field. François says he’ll use wide aperture at the Eiffel Tower, perhaps F2.8 to...”

“No, Paul.”

“No F2.8? Well, you’ll have to speak with François about that.”

“No, Paul. No wide aperture, no candids, no Eiffel Tower, no François!”

“But Alexis....”

“Wants to capitalize on my engagement to Number Three. Yes, I know. My fiancé agreed to a photo shoot in New York, but that’s as far as either he or I will go. We told Alexis that before we left.”

“Then you had better tell her again.”

“I will,” she said grimly. “In the meantime, I need to use Production’s monitors to take a last look at the layout I’ve been working on. When I zap it to Alexis, I’ll remind her of our agreement.”

She turned to leave, but Paul stopped her. “What can you tell me of the Chicago meeting?”

The odd inflection in his voice gave Sarah pause. Wondering what was behind it, she searched her mind. So much had happened in the past few days that she’d forgotten about the shuttle Alexis had jumped for an unscheduled meeting with the head of their publishing group. All she’d thought about her boss’s unscheduled absence at the time was that it had provided a short reprieve. Paul’s question now brought the Chicago meeting forcibly to mind.

“I can’t tell you anything,” she said honestly. “I didn’t have a chance to talk to Alexis about it before I left. Why, what have you heard?”

He folded his arms, bent an elbow and tapped two fingers against the birthmark on his chin. It was a nervous gesture, one he rarely allowed. That he would give in to it now generated a distinct unease in Sarah.

“I’ve heard rumors,” he admitted. “Only rumors, you understand.”

“What rumors?”

The fingers picked up speed, machine-gunning his chin.

“Some say... Not me, I assure you! But some say that Alexis is too old. Too out of touch with our target readership. Some say the romance has gone out of her, and out of our magazine. Before, we used to beguile, to tantalize. Now we titillate.”

Much to her chagrin, Sarah couldn’t argue the point. The butt shot of Dev that Alexis had insisted on was case in point. In the most secret corners of her heart, she agreed with the ambiguous, unnamed “some” Paul referenced.

Despite her frequent differences of opinion with her boss, however, she owed Alexis her loyalty and support. She’d hired Sarah right out of college, sans experience, sans credentials. Grandmama might insist Sarah’s title had influenced that decision. Maybe so, but the title hadn’t done more than get a neophyte’s foot in the door. She’d sweated blood to work her way up to layout editor. And now, apparently, it was payback time.

Alexis confirmed that some time later in her response to Sarah’s email.

Sea-escapes layout looks good. We’ll go with it. Please rethink the Paris photo shoot. Chicago feels we need more romance in our mag. You and Hunter personify that, at least as far as our readers are concerned.

The email nagged at Sarah all afternoon. She used the remainder of her private time to wander through her favorite museum, but not even the Musée d’Orsay could resolve her moral dilemma. Questions came at her, dive-bombing like suicidal mosquitoes as she strolled through the converted railroad station that now housed some of the world’s most celebrated works of art.

All but oblivious to the Matisses and Rodins, she weighed her options. Should she support her boss or accede to Dev’s demand for privacy? What about the mess with Gina? Would Alexis exploit that, too, if pushed to the wall? Would she play up the elder sister’s engagement as a desperate attempt to save the younger from a charge of larceny?

She would. Sarah knew damned well she would. The certainty curdled like sour milk in the pit of her stomach. Whom did she most owe her loyalty to? Gina? Dev? Alexis? Herself?

The last thought was so heretical it gnawed at Sarah’s insides while she prepped for her first meeting with the Giraults early that evening. Dev had told her this would be an informal dinner at the couple’s Paris town house.

“Ha!” she muttered as she added a touch of mascara. “I’ll bet it’s informal.”

Going with instinct, she opted for a hip-length tuxedo jacket that had been one of Grandmama’s favorite pieces. Sarah had extracted the jacket from the to-be-sold pile on at least three separate occasions. Vintage was vintage, but Louis Féraud was art. He’d opened his first house of fashion in Cannes 1950, became one of Brigitte Bardot’s favorite designers and grew into a legend in his own lifetime.

This jacket was quintessential Féraud. The contour-hugging design featured wide satin lapels and a double-breasted, two-button front fastening. Sarah paired it with a black, lace-edged chemise and wide-pegged black satin pants. A honey-colored silk handkerchief peeked from the breast pocket. A thin gold bangle circled her wrist. With her hair swept up in a smooth twist, she looked restrained and refined.

For some reason, though, restrained just didn’t hack it tonight. Not while she was playing tug-of-war between fiercely conflicting loyalties. She wanted to do right by Dev. And Alexis. And Gina. And herself. Elise Girault could take a flying leap.

Frowning, she unclipped her hair and let the dark mass swirl to her shoulders. Then she slipped out of the jacket and tugged off the chemise. When she pulled the jacket on again, the two-button front dipped dangerously low. Grandmama would have a cow if she saw how much shadowy cleavage her Sarah now displayed. Dev, she suspected, would approve.

* * *

He did. Instantly and enthusiastically. Bending an arm against the doorjamb, he gave a long, low whistle.

“You look fantastic.”

“Thanks.” Honesty compelled her to add, “So do you.”

If the afternoon negotiating session with Monsieur Girault had produced any stress, it didn’t show in his face. He was clean shaven, clear eyed and smelled so darned good Sarah almost leaned in for a deeper whiff. His black hair still gleamed with damp. From a shower, she wondered as she fought the urged to feather her fingers through it, or the foggy drizzle that had kept up all day?

His suit certainly wasn’t vintage, but had obviously been tailored with the same loving skill as Grandmama’s jacket. With it he wore a crisp blue shirt topped by a blue-and-silver-striped tie.

“What was it Oscar Wilde said about ties?” Sarah murmured, eyeing the expensive neckwear.

“Beats me.”

“Something about a well-tied tie being the first serious step in a man’s life. Of course, that was back when it took them hours to achieve the perfect crease in their cravat.”

“Glad those days are gone. Speaking of gone... The car’s waiting.” He bowed and swept a hand toward the door. “Shall we go, ma chérie?”

Her look of surprise brought a smug grin.

“I had some time after my meeting so I pulled up a few phrases on Google Translate. How’s the accent?”

“Well...”

“That bad, huh?”

“I’ve heard worse.”

But not much worse. Hiding a smile, she picked up her clutch and led the way to the door.

“How did the meeting go, by the way?”

“We’re making progress. Enough that my chief of production and a team of our corporate attorneys are in the air as we speak. We still need to hammer out a few details, but we’re close.”

“You must be making progress if you’re bringing in a whole team.”

Sarah refused to acknowledge the twinge that gave her. She hadn’t really expected to share much of Paris with Dev. He was here on business. And she was here to make sure that business didn’t get derailed by the wife of his prospective partner. She reminded herself of that fact as the limo glided through the lamp-lit streets.

* * *

Jean-Jacques Girault and his wife greeted them at the door to their magnificent town house. Once inside the palatial foyer, the two couples engaged in the obligatory cheek-kissing. Madame Girault behaved herself as she congratulated her guests on their engagement, but Dev stuck close to his fiancée just in case.

The exchange gave Sarah time to assess her hostess. The blonde had to be in her mid-fifties, but she had the lithe build and graceful carriage of a ballerina...which she used to be, she informed Sarah with a nod toward the portrait holding place of honor in the palatial foyer. The larger-than-life-size oil depicted a much younger Elise Girault costumed as Odile, the evil black swan in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

“I loved dancing that part.” With a smile as wicked as the one she wore in the portrait, Madame Girault hooked an arm in Sarah’s and led her through a set of open double doors into a high-ceilinged salon. “Being bad is so much more fun than being good, yes?”

“Unless, as happens to Odile in some versions of Swan Lake, being bad gets you an arrow through the heart.”

The older woman’s laugh burst out, as loud and booming as a cannon. “Aha! You are warning me, I think, to keep my hands off your so-handsome Devon.”

“If the ballet slipper fits...”

Her laugh foghorned again, noisy and raucous and totally infectious. Sarah found herself grinning as Madame Girault spoke over her shoulder.

“I like her, Devon.”

She pronounced it Dee-vón, with the accent on the last syllable.

“I was prepared not to, you understand, as I want you for myself. Perhaps we can arrange a ménage à trois, yes?”

With her back to Dev, Sarah missed his reaction to the suggestion. She would have bet it wasn’t as benign as Monsieur Girault’s.

“Elise, my pet. You’ll shock our guests with these little jokes of yours.”

The look his wife gave Sarah brimmed with mischief and the unmistakable message that she was not joking.

* * *

Much to Sarah’s surprise, she enjoyed the evening. Elise Girault didn’t try to be anything but herself. She was at times sophisticated, at other times outrageous, but she didn’t cross the line Sarah had drawn in the sand. Or in this case, in the near-priceless nineteenth-century Aubusson carpet woven in green-and-gold florals.

The Giraults and their guests took cocktails in the salon and dinner in an exquisitely paneled dining room with windows overlooking the Seine. The lively conversation ranged from their hostess’s years at the Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris to Sarah’s work at Beguile to, inevitably, the megabusiness of aircraft manufacturing. The glimpse into a world she’d had no previous exposure to fascinated Sarah, but Elise tolerated it only until the last course was cleared.

“Enough, Jean-Jacques!”

Pushing away from the table, she rose. Her husband and guests followed suit.

“We will take coffee and dessert in the petite salon. And you,” she said, claiming Dev’s arm, “will tell me what convinced this delightful woman to marry you. It was the story in Beguile, yes?” Her wicked smile returning, she threw Sarah an arch look. “The truth, now. Is his derriere as delicious as it looked in your magazine?”

Her husband shook his head. “Be good, Elise.”

“I am, mon cher. Sooo good.”

* * *

“I’m good, Dee-vón.” Grinning, Sarah batted her lashes as the Hôtel Verneuil’s elevator whisked them upward. “Sooo good.”

Amused, Dev folded his arms and leaned his shoulders against the cage. She wasn’t tipsy—she’d restricted her alcoholic intake to one aperitif, a single glass of wine and a few sips of brandy—but she was looser than he’d yet seen her.

He liked her this way. Her green eyes sparkling. Her hair windblown and brushing her shoulders. Her tuxedo jacket providing intermittent and thoroughly tantalizing glimpses of creamy breasts.

Liked, hell. He wanted to devour her whole.

“You were certainly good tonight,” he agreed. “Especially when Elise tried to pump you for details about our sex life. I still don’t know how you managed to give the impression of torrid heat when all you did was arch a brow.”

“Ah, yes. The regal lift. It’s one of Grandmama’s best weapons, along with the chin tilt and the small sniff.”

She demonstrated all three and had him grinning while he walked her to her door.

“Elise may be harder to fend off when she and I have lunch tomorrow,” Sarah warned as she extracted the key card from her purse. “I may need to improvise.”

His pulse jumping, Dev took the key and slid it into the electronic lock. The lock snicked, the door opened and he made his move.

“No reason you should have to improvise.”

She turned, her expression at once wary and disbelieving. “Are you suggesting we go to bed together to satisfy Elise Girault’s prurient curiosity?”

“No, ma’am.” He bent and brushed his lips across hers. “I’m suggesting we go to bed together to satisfy ours.”

Her jaw sagged. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, ma’am,” he said again, half laughing, wholly serious.

She snapped her mouth shut, but the fact that she didn’t stalk inside and slam the door in his face set Dev’s pulse jumping again.

“Maybe,” she said slowly, her eyes locked with his, “we could go a little way down that road. Just far enough to provide Elise with a few juicy details.”

That was all the invitation he needed. Scooping her into his arms, he strode into the room and kicked the door shut. The maid had left the lamps on and turned down the duvet on the bed. Much as Dev ached to vector in that direction, he aimed for the sofa instead. He settled on its plush cushions with Sarah in his lap.

Exerting fierce control, he slid a palm under the silky splash of her hair. Her nape was warm, her lips parted, her gaze steady. The thought flashed into Dev’s mind that he was already pretty far down the road.

Rock hard and hurting, he bent his head again. No mere brush of lips this time. No tentative exploration. No show for the cameras. This was hunger, raw and hot. He tried to throttle it back, but Sarah sabotaged that effort by matching him kiss for kiss, touch for touch. His fingers speared through her hair. Hers traced the line of his jaw, slipped inside his collar, found the knot of his tie.

“To hell with Oscar Wilde,” she muttered after a moment. “The tie has to go.”

The tie went. So did the suit coat. When she popped the top two buttons of his dress shirt, he reached for the ones on her jacket. The first one slid through its opening and Dev saw she wasn’t wearing a bra. With a fervent prayer of thanks, he fingered the second button.

“I’ve been fantasizing about doing this from the moment you opened the door to me this evening,” he admitted, his voice rough.

“I fantasized about it, too. Must be why I discarded the chemise I usually wear with this outfit.”

Her honesty shot straight to his heart. She didn’t play games. Didn’t tease or go all pouty and coy. She was as hungry as Dev and not ashamed to show it.

Aching with need, he slid the second button through its opening. The satin lapels gaped open, baring her breasts. They were small and proud and tipped with dark rose nipples that Dev couldn’t even begin to resist. Hefting her a little higher, he trailed a line of kisses down one slope and caught a nipple between his lips.

Her neck arched. Her head tipped back. With a small groan, Sarah reveled in the sensations that streaked from her breast to her belly. They were so deep, so intense, she purred with pleasure.

It took her a few moments to realize she wasn’t actually emitting that low, humming sound. It was coming from the clutch purse she’d dropped on the sofa table.

“That’s my cell phone,” she panted through waves of pleasure. “I put it on vibrate at the Giraults.”

“Ignore it.”

Dev turned his attention to her other breast and Sarah was tempted, so tempted, to follow his gruff instruction.

“I can’t,” she groaned. “It could be Grandmama. Or Maria,” she added with a little clutch of panic.

She scrambled upright and grabbed her bag. A glance at the face associated in her address book with the incoming number made her sag with relief.

Only for a moment, however. What could Alexis want, calling this late? Remembering her conversation with Paul Vincent at Beguile’s Paris office this afternoon, Sarah once again felt the tug of conflicting loyalties.

“Sarah? Are you there?” Alexis’s hoarse rasp rattled through voice mail. “Pick up if you are.”

Sarah sent Dev an apologetic glance and hit Answer. “I’m here, Alexis.”

“Sorry, kiddo, I didn’t think about the time difference. Were you in bed?”

“Almost,” Dev muttered.

Sarah made a shushing motion with her free hand but it was too late. Alexis picked up the scent like a bloodhound.

“Is that Hunter? He’s with you?”

“Yes. We just got in from a late dinner.”

Not a lie, exactly. Not the whole truth, either. There were some things her boss simply didn’t need to know.

“Good,” Alexis was saying. “He can look over the JPEGs I just emailed you from the photo shoot at Cartier. I marked the one we’re going to use with the blurb about your engagement.”

“We’ll take a look at them and get back to you.”

“Tonight, kiddo. I want the story in this month’s issue.”

“Okay.” Sighing, Sarah closed the flaps of her jacket and fastened the top button one-handed. “Shoot me the blurb, too.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s only a few lines.”

The too-bland assurance set off an internal alarm.

“Send it, Alexis.”

“All right, all right. But I want it back tonight, too.”

She cut the connection, and Sarah sank back onto the cushions. Dev sat in his corner, one arm stretched across the sofa back. His shirttails hung open and his belt had somehow come unbuckled. He looked more than willing to pick up where they’d left off, but Sarah’s common sense had kicked in. Or rather her sense of self-preservation.

“Saved by the bell,” she said with an attempt at lightness. “At least now I won’t have to improvise when Elise starts digging for details.”

The phone pinged in her hand, signaling the arrival of a text message.

“That’s the blurb Alexis wants to run with the pictures from Cartier. I’ll pull it up with the photos so you can review them.”

“No need.” Dev pushed off the sofa, stuffed in his shirt and buckled his belt. “I trust you on this one.”

“I’ll make sure there are no naked body parts showing,” she promised solemnly.

“You do that, and I’ll make sure we’re not interrupted next time.”

“Next time?”

He dropped a quick kiss on her nose and grabbed his discarded suit coat.

“Oui, ma chérie,” he said in his truly execrable French. “Next time.”