“I meant I’d be happy to rub your back or get you a sandwich,” I said. “Whoring myself out to your friends wasn’t on my list.” I stepped away from him and shook my head. “Find someone else.”
His brown eyes went dark, and he grabbed my elbow. “You’re wearing my dress. Did you think there was no price attached to it?”
chapter seventeen
PRICE?” I REPEATED. Fury hot enough to scorch the earth consumed me.
The sheer arrogance, the gall, the nerve of this guy. I had half a mind to rip the dress right off my body and throw it at him, except then I’d be mostly naked, and there was no dignity in that, plus the temperature would be dropping into the forties tonight, so it was a bit too chilly for that much exposure.
Instead, an image of Darby O’Shea pole dancing in Finn’s Hollow flitted through my mind, and I thought about how she hadn’t settled for less than she was worth. When her man had done her wrong, she’d cut him loose. Determined to follow her example, I took a step back, stared Jean Claude right in the eye, and with a flick of my wrist, flung the contents of my glass right in his face.
Jean Claude sputtered, the champagne dripping down his shocked expression, as the people around us stared in startled amusement. It was gloriously satisfying.
“Don’t contact me—ever again,” I hissed. With that, I made the dramatic exit of a lifetime. Head held high and back straight, I stormed through the room. People scrambled to get out of my way, and the butler scurried to open the door for me as if he was afraid I’d kick it down.
I strode from the mansion, not knowing where I was or how I was going to get home. I didn’t care. I would rather swim in the Seine than have anything to do with Jean Claude Bisset ever again. As far as I was concerned, he was dead to me.
I was furious with him, with myself, with all the stupid Cinderella daydreams I’d had about the two of us. I felt like a complete and utter idiot. Tears welled up, but I refused to let them fall. It was a struggle, but I had a more pressing problem that tears wouldn’t solve. I had to get the hell out of here.
“Mademoiselle,” a man’s voice called, and I glanced up to see the driver who had brought me here, smoking a cigarette as he stood under a tree beside his parked car. “Ça va?”
How was I? Not good. Not by a long shot. But here was the light of escape, shining brightly before me.
“Indisposé,” I said. I heaved a sigh, touched my fingers to my forehead, and winced, not knowing how to say headache in French.
“Ah,” the man said. He ground his cigarette out beneath his heel and opened the back door for me. Gesturing for me to sit, he said in stilted English, “I take you back.”
I gave him the brightest smile I could manage. “Merci beaucoup.”
The return seemed much shorter than the drive to the party. I glanced at my phone and noted it was only a little past nine. The night was still young, but not for me. I was going to take a long shower and wash away the entire disgusting evening.
The driver opened the door for me right outside my apartment. I wasn’t sure what to pay him. When I fumbled with my purse, he said, “Non non.”
I glanced up, and the kindness in his face almost did me in. “Thank you.”
He looked at me closely, and I had the feeling he knew exactly how my evening had gone wrong. With a sympathetic sigh, he said, “Mieux vaut être seul que mal accompagné.”
While my French was not up to a concise translation, I got the gist, which was that it was better to be alone than in poor company. True that. I stood and watched as his taillights disappeared. What a night. I hated that it had ended this way.
On a whim, I walked down the street. I realized I was hungry and wanted to eat something positively French, like steak tartare, escargot, confit de canard, or coq au vin. I felt as if my trip to Paris had been contaminated and I needed to get the magic of my quest back since I couldn’t leave, not with the dinner with Severin happening tomorrow night. Too bad. I’d have given anything to be on the next plane headed to Italy and Marcellino.
He was the only one of the three whom I’d maintained contact with over the years. Before I left the States, I’d sent him a brief email telling him that I planned to be in Italy in the near future and would love to see him. To my delight and surprise, he’d written back with an open invitation to stay in one of the cottages on the vineyard grounds. I had happily accepted. Now it seemed as if fate had been pushing me to Italy all along. I didn’t know if Severin was still planning to go to Italy, but I would find out at dinner, and if he was, well, that was just more proof that maybe what I sought was in the last place I’d been before I’d been called home.
A brasserie was up ahead. I could smell beef, garlic, and rosemary in the air. It lured me in as if it had hooked right into my belly. There was outside seating under a string of light bulbs and several heaters. I saw a couple of open tables and hoped I wasn’t too late to score one for myself. Then I saw a man sitting alone reading a book. Jason.
I thought about turning around and running to my apartment to hide, but why? My night had been an epic catastrophe, but it wasn’t my fault. Honestly, I could use a friend right now. Since I didn’t have one in the city—or the country, for that matter—Knightley would have to do.
I entered the brasserie and found the hostess. I’d noted Jason’s wineglass was almost empty, so I arranged to have another sent from me. I slipped into a seat a few tables behind him with my own glass and waited.
The waitress brought his drink, and Jason looked up in surprise. I got a kick out of watching him look for who had sent the wine. The waitress placed the glass on the table and helped him out by gesturing to me. Jason turned around, and I gave him a little finger wave, the same one he had sent me from his balcony that afternoon.
A smile of genuine delight curved his lips and warmed his eyes. He stood and gestured for me to join him. I rose from my seat and crossed the restaurant to him. I could feel his eyes on me, but I had no idea what he was thinking; the dim lighting made it impossible to see the subtle nuances of his expression. I stopped right in front of him and glanced up.
“I’m not interrupting you, am I?”
“No, not at all.” He pulled out a chair for me, and I sat down, letting him push me in just a bit. He resumed his seat and said, “Thanks for the wine.”
“You’re welcome.” I held up my glass in a silent toast and took a sip. He did the same.
When I didn’t say anything more, Jason leaned back in his seat and asked, “Want to talk about it?”
“Not really, no,” I said. “Let’s just say some people are not exactly as you remember them.”
Jason nodded. He looked like he wanted to ask a million questions, but he didn’t. “I’m sorry.”
“No need,” I said. “I’m fine. I was just looking to get something to eat when I spotted this brasserie and then I saw you, and I thought you could recommend something from the menu.”
“Excusez-moi.” Jason raised his arm and waved to the waitress who had just brought the wine. Then in perfect French, he ordered. “Elle aimerait la bouillabaisse, s’il vous plaît.”
The waitress nodded, glancing between us with a small smile.
I was stunned. “You speak French? How did I not know this?”
He looked chagrined. “I speak one sentence of French. That was it, and I jazzed it up by saying she instead of I. Madame LeBlanc, my long-suffering French teacher, would be so proud. In fact, I was so relieved when this brasserie had the one thing I know how to pronounce on their menu, bouillabaisse, that I hunkered down and stayed put.”
I laughed. “Well played, Knightley.”
“Is seafood stew all right with you? I can testify that it was excellent,” he said. He gestured to his empty bowl.
“It’s perfect,” I said. And it was—something very French, exactly what I’d been looking for. I sipped my wine.
The cool night air swept over my skin, and I pulled on my wrap, draping it around my shoulders. I was surprised to find that the silence between us didn’t feel strained or awkward. In fact, it was comfortable.
Jason drank his wine as he watched the people walk by. Some were eagerly headed out for a night of revelry, while others looked as if they were headed home. The waitress brought the stew with a warm loaf of fresh bread. I offered to share with Jason, but he shook his head, saying he was full.
“Have you been in touch with Aidan tonight?” I asked.
“Yes, I let him know that you were on top of things and we needn’t have worried. You would have gotten your phone back in time to meet with Severin,” he said. “Aidan said, ‘Of course she is,’ as if he wasn’t the one freaking out about your not being in touch. Honestly, I think he was worried about you, not the dinner with Severin.”
“Really? Doesn’t that seem out of character for a guy who is all live and let live?”
“A bit, but he has started treatment, so he might be feeling powerless and more anxious than usual.”
“That makes sense. Have there been any more incidents with the Quarter Thief?” I asked.
Jason informed me that the thief had struck again, this time taking a quarter of a chocolate chip cookie Michelle had been saving for herself. What was even more mysterious was that she had left the cookie wrapped in a napkin on her desk in her office, which she kept locked, and when she unwrapped the cookie, a quarter of it was missing.
I ate with gusto, listening to the gossip. The seafood was perfection, filling me up and warding off the cool evening temperatures. The lobster stock was enhanced with saffron and fennel, and when I finished eating the muscles and scallops, I wanted to drink the remaining broth. Instead, I broke off chunks of bread and swabbed up the remainder.
“How did the Quarter Thief get into her office?” I asked.
“No one knows, but Michelle is on a rampage. She’s installed an extra lock on her door, and this was after she bought her own refrigerator to keep her food in her office.”
I chewed the last of my bread. “Do you think the Quarter Thief is actually just trying to drive her crazy?”
“That’s a solid theory, Martin,” he said. “I was thinking the same thing myself.”
“I’m not sure if I want to applaud them or not. That sort of evil genius deserves respect, and yet I’m afraid of crossing them.”
He laughed. “I’m going with respect. With any luck, they’ll drive her out, and her HR reign of terror will end.”
I studied him over my glass. “You know who it is, don’t you?”
He blinked, the picture of innocence.
“Tell me,” I demanded.
“You tell me first,” he said.
“But I don’t know who it is,” I said.
“Not that,” he said. “Tell me what happened tonight.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Why do you care?”
“I want to know if I need to go punch someone.”
“No, you don’t,” I said. “I can take care of myself.”
“Well, I know that, Martin,” he said. “Still, you’re my colleague—no, that’s not right anymore. You’re my friend.” He looked at me. There was a sincerity in his gaze when he said, “We’re friends. I don’t generally stand by when my friends get hurt.”
“I wasn’t hurt,” I said, oddly touched that he considered me a friend. I fingered my dangling earring.
“You’re fidgeting like you always do when you’re upset.”
Self-consciously I dropped my hand. How had he caught on to that? I didn’t think anyone else in my life knew that I fidgeted when I was anxious. Trying to lighten the moment, I smiled at him and repeated his previous words to me back to him. “So what you’re saying is you’ve noticed me.”
His gaze met mine with an unexpected intensity. “Yeah, I’ve noticed you.”
I glanced away, abruptly feeling overwarm, and it wasn’t the wine. “Truly, I’m not upset.”
He made a scoffing noise, which mercifully broke the tension between us.
Relieved, I looked back at him and added, “Fine, I might have been a little angry, but no tears were spilled in the making of this disaster of an evening.”
“Disaster? Okay, now you have to tell me what happened,” he said. “It’s simply cruel not to at this point.”
“Okay,” I said. I took a deep breath and then gave him the abridged version of the evening. I kept it as emotionless as possible, but it was hard to hide my disgust. “Can you believe he actually thought I’d fluff up some rich old man for him? So gross! Can I pick ’em or what?”
Knightley didn’t return my smile. Instead, he looked coldly furious. “I don’t suppose you have the address of this party?”
“No, why?”
“Because I feel a sudden need to go pummel a skeevy fashion designer.”
“Stop,” I said. “I don’t know what is going on with Jean Claude, but I left and I am fine. There is no pummeling required.”
“Chelsea.” He said my first name, and it caught me off guard. Had he ever called me that before? I couldn’t remember. I liked the way it sounded in his deep voice. “There is most definitely a beatdown required here, and quite possibly a crippling. This guy was trying to trade you like pork bellies to some noxious billionaire—”
“Pork bellies?” I interrupted. “That’s the commodity you’re comparing me to?”
“What?” he asked. He looked very earnest. “It’s bacon. That’s better than gold.”
I laughed, which I suspected was his intent. “I’d prefer gold.”
“Either way, it was a dick move, and he deserves to have a can of whoop ass unloaded on him.”
“Maybe,” I said. Still, I didn’t want to dwell on it. “Can we not talk about it anymore? It makes me feel stupid and icky.”
“There’s no need for you to feel that way. Him, on the other hand . . .” Jason scowled.
“Also, you’re supposed to tell me who you think the Quarter Thief is,” I said.
“Fair enough,” he said. “I think it’s Bill Listrum.”
“Bill?” I asked. “But he’s sixty-seven years old and the sweetest man alive. It can’t be him.”
“He also got passed over for the promotion Michelle got, and he’s been reporting to her for three years, which has to be unpleasant,” he said. “He’s about to retire. He has nothing to lose.”
“All right, I can see where that makes sense, but Bill?” I shook my head. It couldn’t be. Then again, I hadn’t proved to be such a stellar judge of character, now had I? “I give your theory a solid maybe.”
“I’ll take it. More importantly, what should we do now that your evening is free?”
“Climb into bed and pretend today never happened.”
“Non non,” he protested in a perfect French accent, which made me smile. “Look at you. You’re stunning. You can’t go hide in your room. You need to get back on the saddle.”
“Ugh, why is it always a saddle? Saddles bruise your butt bones. Why can’t it be ‘you need to get back in the bubble bath, little lady’?”
He laughed. “Have it your way, but you and me are going out on the town.”
“What? But I’m not—” I was going to say I wasn’t dressed, but that was clearly not the case.
“Exactly,” he said. He rose to his feet. “Sit here and enjoy your wine. I’m going to change, and then we are hitting the City of Light, baby.”
Oh boy.
chapter eighteen
HIS SUIT MIGHT not have been French, but it fit the man spectacularly. Navy blue, it conformed to his broad shoulders and tapered down to his narrow waist. He wore a white dress shirt beneath it, no tie, matching navy slacks, and dark-brown dress shoes—no Converse sneakers. Shocker! Then again, sinc
e he’d rushed here to take my place at the dinner with Severin, it made sense that he’d brought his most professional attire.
Truly, the man looked divine. I supposed he’d always been this handsome, even back when I detested him, but now I knew him outside the office and could appreciate that there was more to Jason Knightley than I’d previously acknowledged.
I watched him walk across the patio toward me and felt my spirits lift. I was in Paris, and I had a handsome and, more importantly, nice man to escort me about town. Really, what more could a girl want?
Well, not to have been made a complete fool of, but at least I’d gotten out before I found myself in an untenable situation. And I’d had the great satisfaction of dousing Jean Claude in champagne. That helped.
“Okay, you were smiling, and then your expression slid into a deep dark frown. What happened between me standing over there and arriving here?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Please.” He shook his head. “Your WTF line is so deep”—he paused to gently poke the skin between my eyebrows—“I could go rappelling in there.”
I immediately stopped frowning. “Better?”
“Much,” he said. He held out a hand and helped me to my feet. “Come on—we’re running short on time.”
“I thought we had all night,” I said.
“Not for our first event,” he said. “In fact, we are cutting it very, very close.”
He had already paid the bill, and we hurried from the brasserie with Jason keeping my hand in his. He got to the curb, raised his free hand to his mouth, and let out a piercing whistle. A taxi appeared as if out of nowhere. Jason opened the door and none too gently pushed me in.
“Eiffel Tower, s’il vous plaît,” he said.
“Oh, that’s a great idea,” I said. “But we need tickets to go up, and I doubt there are any available.”
He pulled two tickets out of his suit pocket. My eyes went wide. “What?”
“The couple who had the apartment before me had to leave town unexpectedly. They left the tickets with Zoe, and she offered them to me, for a price, when I rented the place. I had thought I’d be going alone, but then you appeared.” He glanced at the time-stamped ticket. “Plus, we get champagne at the bar on the top.”
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