“Lisa! You look knackered! Let me take your bag.”
Mrs. Archer opened the front door.
Lisa kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Mum. Is Abi here?”
“Yes, I am.”
Down the hall, Abi stood with Bella, who had one chubby hand on the wall and one clutched tightly in Abi’s.
“Oh my God. She’s walking!”
Abi glanced down, and her jaw dropped just as Bella let go of her hand and the wall and staggered forward drunkenly. One step, two, her smile as wide as a mile before she fell backwards onto her bottom and let out a wail.
“Oh God! Is she okay?” Mrs. Archer called.
Lisa rushed forward and scooped her up, laughing and trying to jolly her niece out of realising the momentousness of what she’d just done.
“Those are her first steps. She’s been on the verge for days, but she waited for you. Typical!”
Hugging her snuffling niece, Lisa started laughing. “She did. She did. Well done, Bella, waiting for Auntie Lisa to come home.” Bella stared at Lisa through huge, dark brown eyes, shocked into quiet by her aunt’s laughter.
“You are a little star, darling. Thank you for that.”
Lisa felt the touch of a tiny hand on her cheek, which tingled almost painfully. Her stomach lurched with love and pride and then, oh shit, held-back tears stung her eyes. Her cheek under Bella’s fingers was wet.
“Shall I put the kettle on?” asked Mrs. Archer, as Lisa held back her tears.
“I’d love that, Mum.”
Lisa listened to the sounds of their mother bustling about the kitchen and felt more relieved to be home than she ever had, then dismissed the thoughts.
“Are you okay?” Abi’s voice was careful.
Bella was quiet now, twisting a strand of Lisa’s hair around her finger. Lisa looked into Abi’s face but could hardly see for the tears that were pouring down her cheeks and wouldn’t stop. She felt Abi’s hand on her arm.
“Oh, Lisa, what’s the matter, hun? What’s happened?”
“I can’t say… I can’t talk about him.”
“Come into the sitting room.”
They sat side by side on the sofa while Bella made her way around the room by means of the furniture.
“So it is the French heartbreaker?” Abi’s eyes were full of concern. “I knew Olivier wasn’t a business acquaintance. You might be good at hiding your feelings in a press conference, but you can’t fool me.”
“I don’t see how it can work. He’s in France, I’m in New York, for God’s sake.”
“How long are you in the States for?”
“Another four and a half months, and they might ask me to stay on.”
“Four months isn’t long, and then you can decide. There are planes, aren’t there? I hear they can even fly over the Atlantic these days.”
Abi raised an eyebrow. Lisa gulped. “Yes, but…”
“But what? This is my super-efficient, overachieving sister here. The woman who can make CEOs quiver, quell a journalist with a withering look, the queen of the cutting riposte.”
“That’s not me. That’s the Other Lisa.”
“Then what does the Real One want?”
“You know what I want, but we can’t have what we want, can we? Olivier and I, we’re poles apart. You have no idea.”
“I have an idea that you love him, and judging by him turning up here and the way he couldn’t take his freaking eyes off you the whole time, I think he may possibly feel the same way about you. By the way, have I ever told you how much I hated you that afternoon? A divinely hot and disgustingly rich French sex bomb turns up on the doorstep and is so into my sister, I could scream.”
Lisa couldn’t help but smile and rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes and sniffed. God, she was like a teenager again. Olivier had brought her to this: raw and naked, just as he’d promised all those months ago.
“Of course, I want him, but how am I going to make it work? Olivier and I had…” She was about to say an arrangement, but stopped just in time. “We agreed that there would be nothing serious between us because I knew I had to start my new job.”
“You mean he’s only a shag buddy? Lisa, I’m shocked! Can this really be my oh-so-conservative sister? The one who freaked out if her pencils weren’t arranged according to the spectrum? The one who made Mum iron her doll’s clothes and hit the roof when I so much as looked at her favourite lipstick?”
“If you hadn’t noticed, I’m all grown up now, and yes, it’s me. And the reason I thought it was okay to have that kind of fling with Olivier, apart from him being divinely sexy as you put it, was because the last time I took a risk, it cost my job and totally fucked me up!”
There. She’d shocked Abi. Her sister’s mouth was open. She let out a long, slow breath. “Whoa. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make light of what Jody did. He was a shit.”
“He was, but I was also stupid not to realise what might and probably would happen. I have to share some of the responsibility.”
Abi rolled her eyes.
“That’s all over now. I took a risk again with Olivier, though I thought I had everything under control—again—and it’s come back to haunt me. Again. At least I do have my career this time, and I’m not going to risk it for him.”
“Would he want that?”
“No. He wouldn’t. That’s why he left, I think, because he didn’t want to fuck things up for me again, but it’s too late. I have my career, but I don’t have Olivier. You see, Abi, you can’t have it all, can you?”
“I don’t know. I’m stupid enough to hope I could, if I met a man like Olivier who seemed that passionate about me, if I met someone who I thought would be a great father to Bella one day, I might start believing in happy endings. But first you have to make a beginning. Are you going to call him?”
Lisa focused on the raindrops spattering the window. “I don’t know. I might.”
She brushed a trace of wetness from her cheek as Mrs. Archer walked into the sitting room, carrying a tray. “Here you go. Tea for us, and I got some chocolate biscuits. I’ve done a beaker of juice for Bella. Now, what have I missed?”
Lisa was still thinking she might call Olivier when she opened the door of her condo a few days later. A question had been niggling at her. Would Olivier want her to give up her career to be with him? Was she appalled by that, or did the prospect of one man wanting to be with her that much secretly thrill her? Was she just facing the dilemma most successful women did but never admitted to? Wanting a career and wanting to have all the responsibility taken away? That was why she liked being dominated, after all, because it gave her the excuse to abandon all the normal rules of society: moral, sexual, emotional.
In real life, the choices she made every day—every hour—were so complicated compared to simply submitting.
The answer was to compromise. But could either of them? It must have been hours later before she finally fell into a troubled doze, with the thought swirling around her head.
“And so, we’ve gone through the outline strategy I’ve devised for countering possible resistance to our takeover of Westbank National. My PA has e-mailed a detailed proposal to everyone and can provide a hard copy for anyone who would like one. May I suggest we meet again next Monday when we’ve all have had chance to read and discuss?”
Lisa turned away from the screen and threw a confident smile at the people around the table. The presentation seemed to have gone well, and the four male and three female execs around the table had responded very positively, on the whole, to her communications strategy. Not bad, considering. Over their heads, she spotted her PA, Harvey, on the other side of the glass wall, discreetly pointing to his watch. She had another important meeting after a working lunch with a colleague.
“Thank you for your time. I’ll have my PA call yours to schedule the next meeting in our diaries.”
The meeting broke up, the senior exec handing a muted congratulations to Lisa for her presentation, which,
from him, was akin to being handed an Oscar. He’d already hinted that her stay might be extended, even suggesting it could be made permanent. It was a solid, if unexciting company. The salary would be better than anything she could earn in Europe. It was an excellent opportunity, if she wanted to take it. In fact, she’d be crazy not to take it.
Back in the office, Lisa took a few calming breaths while Harvey discreetly concentrated on his PC screen. Thoughts gathered, she crossed to his desk, and he glanced at her over his designer glasses, like a benevolent, hipster uncle.
“Did it go as well as it seemed to from out here?” he asked.
Lisa thought for a second before delivering her verdict. “Yes, I think so. Thanks so much for staying late to help me work on the presentation.”
“No biggie. I never mind working late to help a friend.”
Lisa flushed with pleasure. “I’m a friend, not a boss.”
“Both. You can be tough if you have to, and it’s back to the real world now.” He held up his message pad. “You’ve had six calls while you were in the bear pit.”
Lisa slipped off her jacket and hooked it over the coatstand. “Anything I should know about?”
“Only three that I couldn’t deal with. One from Marilyn Stanford to say she can’t make the lunch meeting today. She’s asked to reschedule until next week.”
“Oh…well, okay. That’s probably good. It gives me more time to prepare for my afternoon meeting.”
“That’s been bumped as well. The comms VP had to fly to Washington urgently.”
“Okayyy. Not so good. I was hoping to thrash out the budget issues for the spring campaign with him. Anyone else decided to throw me over?”
“Not yet, but you did have a personal call from a French guy. Olivier Lemaitre—says he’s a friend of yours.”
She hadn’t thought it possible for a heart to actually skip a beat, but the way her chest tightened and her airway momentarily constricted told her otherwise. Her words came out slowly, like careful steps on stones over a raging stream. “I see. This Olivier. Did he say what he wanted?”
“He asked if you’re free for lunch. He gave me the impression he knew you pretty well. Naturally, I told him I couldn’t give out personal details, but I’d ask you.”
“You mean he’s here in New York?”
“The number was a New York one, so I guess so.” Harvey had a sly smile on his face. “You weren’t expecting to fly over to Paris or wherever he comes from?”
“No. Of course not.” Aware her voice was now sharp, almost shrill, Lisa tried to inject some levity into her tone. “I don’t think even you could arrange a flight that fast. Did he leave a contact number?”
“Of course he did. Do you think I’d forget to take the details of a voice like that? The guy sounds like having melted chocolate trickled down your torso. Does he live up to it in the flesh?”
“I haven’t seen him for a while,” she mumbled and she hadn’t contacted him now, so why was he here in New York? Was it a merely coincidence and he had business in the city, or had he come especially to see her? And if that was true, why?
“Shall I call him and schedule a meeting?”
“Thanks, but I’ll do it myself.” She headed for her office, on legs that were as shaky as the day she’d climbed the staircase to Olivier’s apartment for her interview with him. “And, Harvey, please hold my calls for now.”
Five minutes later, Lisa retrieved her still-warm jacket from the stand and told Harvey she’d be out for the next couple of hours. If he was surprised or curious, he hid it well and simply nodded. Inside, she knew he must be dying to know more about the sexy French guy who had the power to get Miss Iceberg, Lisa Archer, scurrying out of her office for an almost unheard-of, unscheduled—and distinctly non-business—lunch.
“Entrez.”
Lisa lowered her hand and squeezed her fingers tightly into her palm. That voice. Even hearing it again down the phone in her office had made her knickers damp. If Harvey had looked up from his desk through her glass window, he might have seen her grinding her butt into her leather chair, and wondered at the anguish and ecstasy on her face as Olivier answered her call with the words:
“Come to the Intercontinental. Room 556. You have twenty minutes, and it’s strictly a no-panty zone.”
Never had she felt more wanton or guilty as she’d hurried past Harvey and into the executive washroom to shimmy out of her Victoria’s Secret boy shorts. Her heart rate ricocheted as she hurried from the elevator and click-clacked her way over the marble floor, through the security gate in the lobby and into the street. The hotel was two blocks away; twenty minutes had been more than enough time to reach him, as long as she didn’t hesitate.
And now she was here and the door opened to her tentative, nervy push.
He had his back to the window, his body framed by the spiky, surreal Manhattan sky scape, blotting out the hot ball of sun.
“You have something for me?”
“I have something? Oh, you mean. Yes, I do.”
“‘Yes, I do’? What kind of an answer is that?”
“Desole. I meant to say ‘Oui, maître’.”
He held out his hand, and Lisa approached. God, he was beautiful. She literally ached to touch him and be touched but knew the rules too well by now. Without taking her eyes off his face, she opened her handbag and pulled out the lacy shorts from between her Moleskine notebook and iPhone. An iPhone that was now set to silent.
Olivier took her pants and, without changing his expression, crushed them in his palm.
“I can’t believe I’m here. That you’re here,” she murmured. “Why are you here?”
“Now’s not the time for questions. Now’s the time for you to obey.” He tossed her panties onto the bed and stepped closer. “You’re ready for this?”
Lisa lowered her eyes, even though it killed her to tear them from his handsome, arrogant face. The scent of his cologne, his sheer lethal masculinity filled her nose.
“Oui, maître.”
“Then lift up your skirt.”
Lisa grasped the hem of her suit skirt. It was straight, discreetly short and tight, not designed to be hoisted above her waist, but she managed to get it over her thighs, stopping at her stocking tops. She knew full well that Olivier would not be satisfied with such half measures and would be angry at her disobedience.
He might have had the power to drag her from her work with one word, but she controlled what happened next. In her hands lay the power to provoke or disappoint him.
She grasped her skirt firmly in both hands, and stared him out, lifting her chin in defiance.
He held her gaze for a few moments and then gave a soft laugh. “So, I see you have forgotten all that I’ve taught you in so short a time.”
“Maybe I’ve just decided I won’t do as I’m bid so easily.” Her words were jagged with sarcasm, while her insides liquefied.
“Such casual insolence. Perhaps I should leave.”
“No!”
Shit. He held her in the palm of his hand like a dandelion clock. He only had to close his fingers, so softly, to crush her.
“Then show me what I need to see.”
Lisa felt lightheaded with lust for him, even as a tiny part of her still held back. He’d walked out of her life, leaving only a note, and yet here she was, running back to him at the drop of a hat. She shouldn’t have come; she should demand he explain why he was here now except…they both knew that this power game was impossible to resist. She could barely wait for him to touch her, yet the agony was so exquisite, the waiting such wonderful torment that she wanted it to go on and on.
“I’ll count to three.”
“Or what?”
He smiled, and on her next heartbeat, breathed, “Un.”
She pulled up her skirt until the ruckled hem skimmed her pussy.
He raised his hand, palm upwards. “Higher.”
“Olivier…”
“Deux.”
The t
hreat. He hadn’t said the threat. If it was a spanking, she wanted it, she would defy him to the end, but what if he walked away?
Lisa snatched up her skirt, bunching the fabric around her waist. The overchilled air caressed her bared pussy and buttocks.
She thought she saw Olivier swallow. She definitely saw him rock a little, as if he was as unsteady on his feet as she was.
“Bien.”
“What now?” The words rustled out through her parched throat.
“I want to see how much you’ve missed me. You have missed me, haven’t you?”
“No.”
He smiled and stepped forward.
“Take off your skirt, bend over the bed, and we’ll see.”
Still, in her smart work shirt, now damp under the arms and at the small of her back, and in hold-ups and her heeled work pumps, Lisa planted her palms on the quilt. In front of her, the Manhattan skyscrapers shimmered in the afternoon heat.
Behind her, the dark presence of Olivier Lemaitre loomed. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel him with every other sense. He was merely the movement of air in the still room; he was the scent of sharp Parisian cologne and the slow exhalation of breath.
He was a slow, measured trail through her heart as he ran his finger through the rich dew that coated every intimate part of her. Lisa’s buttocks tensed and her clit throbbed. One touch after so many months, and she wanted to leap off the bed.
“So you have missed me.”
“Maybe a little.”
He pushed his finger inside her, and she tightened around it. With his other hand, he teased her clit.
“Only a little?”
She screwed up the quilt in her fingers. “A big little.”
He tsked softly and withdrew his finger. “Stay where you are.”
The rasp of a zip as he undid his jeans. Lisa closed her eyes, her pussy buzzing with desperate need.
He grasped her, fingers resting on her hips, thumbs pressing her buttocks, then his cock nudged at her entrance. The first contact, the blunt, hot cock, thicker than she’d remembered and hotter, made her whimper with joy and shock.
French Blue Page 19
