by Aubrey Dark
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Clint said. “You know, Jake kidnapped his girlfriend the day after he met her.”
“He what?”
“That’s what he told me. He didn’t want her to be out so late working, so he got his guys to pick her up at work and tie her up and bring her to him.”
“That’s fucked up,” I said, pushing upward. All I wanted was to have Steph again in my arms. I remembered the way she touched me, the way her lips moved gently under mine.
The bar lifted. My muscles screamed. My thoughts went to pieces. Clint waited until I’d dropped the bar back down with a loud clang before speaking again.
“Yeah, well, she fell in love with him, didn’t she?”
“I guess.”
“Some chicks are into that fucked up shit.”
“I don’t think Steph is like that,” I said.
“What do you think she’s into?”
I shook my head. If I knew what made her pull back, I would be able to get around it. But it made no sense. Why wouldn’t she want to fool around with me? And what girl would turn down a trip to Paris?
“I don’t know,” I said. My palms were beginning to sweat. I wiped them on my towel and rested my hands back on the bars.
“Come on. You can get any girl to fall for you,” Clint said.
“I’m not sure about this one.”
“You don’t think she’s into you?”
“It’s not that.” I gripped the bar hard, ready to lift, but Clint leaned forward onto the weights.
“Too much of a challenge?”
“She’s—hey, look. I could sleep with her if I wanted to, okay?”
“Sure. Sure you could.”
“I’m trying to be a gentleman about it.”
“I bet you a hundred bucks you can’t get into her pants by the end of the week.”
I sighed. Clint was always ready to bet on things. And I was usually willing to go along. This time, though, something had me hesitating. I had never wanted someone as badly as I wanted Steph. I didn’t know why I was being so nervous. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t falling for my normal charms. She must have noticed that I wanted her. Girls never wanted desperate guys.
“What, are you too scared to bet on it?” Clint asked.
I locked my hands around the bar.
“I don’t know why you really want to lose a hundred dollars.” I lifted the weight off the supports. Steel creaked under my back.
“Oh, she’s that easy? That much of a sure thing?”
“She’s not easy,” I snapped, anger making me pump the bar down and up quickly. “I just know I could get her in bed if I really tried, is all.”
“Then bet me the hundred bucks.”
“A hundred—why are we even betting money on this? You wipe your ass with hundred dollar bills.”
“It’s not the money,” Clint said. The toothpick in between his lips flicked down as he grinned upside-down at me. “It’s the principle of the thing.”
“The principle? What exactly is the principle?”
“I’m trying to help you get laid.”
“Thanks for the help. I don’t need it. Did you get with both those chicks you brought to the party?”
Clint got a weird look in his eyes and shook his head.
“Nah,” he said. “Those chicks were basic. Who’s that other one of her friends who was there? Rachel?”
“I don’t remember. Belle?”“Fuck no, Belle is toxic. No, the girl’s friend. I think it was Rachel.”
There it was. That weird look again.
“Sure,” I said. “Whatever. Can we do another set already?”
“How about this?” Clint asked, ignoring me. “I bet I can get with that Rachel chick before you get with Steph.”
I shook my head and wiped my hands off again.
“You’re too much of a gambler, Clint.”
“Hell yeah. Does that mean you’ll do it?”
“Of course I’m going to do it. Just not because of your stupid bet.”
“Awesome.”
“I need time. I’m not going to rush into things.”
“Great,” Clint said, shifting his weight back on his feet. “You’ve got a week.”
“No bet. I’m going to Paris this week, Clint.”
“Whatever. You can pay me the hundred bucks now, if you want to admit you can’t get her.”
I clenched my jaw.
“There’s no bet,” I said. “And I could have her any time I want.”
“Sure,” Clint said, grinning in disbelief. “I guess we’ll see.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “We’ll see.”
I wasn’t about to let Clint score any points. On principle. And Steph was attracted to me, I could tell that much. I could make it work. I was going to make it work.
Now, I just had to figure out how to make it work halfway around the world.
Chapter Seven
Steph
“Hey!” I said, pinning the phone to my ear as I rubbed off the last traces of chipped nail polish. “Is it too early to call you?”
“No, it’s fine,” Lacey said. Her voice told me that I had probably called too early. “I’m awake.”
“How’s Paris? What have you seen so far?”
I couldn’t stop the questions gushing out of me. Lacey filled me on her trip, and I drank it in. But even though I tried to keep my attention focused on Lacey and Jake, my mind kept drifting back to Lucas.
Finally, I couldn’t stand not telling her any more.
“Guess what happened,” I said.
“What is it?”
“Lucas Black. You know, Jake’s friend?”
“Yeah,” Lacey said. “I remember.”
I hid my enthusiasm under a guise of professionalism. As I spoke, I let my thoughts wander over Lucas Black’s face. His sharp jaw, his hair all gold in the soft light.
“He asked me to cater a party for him!” I said brightly. “I’m doing a cake and also a bunch of cupcakes. He wants them individually done for each of the guests. It’s probably the biggest catering thing I’ve ever done. Isn’t that exciting!”
“That’s pretty awesome,” Lacey said. There was a touch of envy in her voice, but it was a friendly envy. We all wanted our friends to do well for themselves. “You’re doing such a good job with that bakery.”
“Lucas is over in Paris, right?” I asked. I hoped she couldn’t tell how nervous I was. “Have you seen him?”
There was a silence on the other end. Uh-oh. Maybe she knew something I didn’t know about Lucas Black. Maybe she knew about how far I’d gone with him. Too far.
I pulled myself together and spoke into the phone.
“Lacey? Lacey, are you there?”
“Sorry,” she said, and I couldn’t tell if her strange pauses were because of the bad connection or because she had just woken up.
I waited for her to say more. Eventually, she did.
“It’s just that Jake was gone when I woke up this morning.”
“And?” I said.
“And it’s supermodel day. Today is when he meets everyone at the magazine. All of the models, the magazine editors, everything. They’re planning the next big advertising push.”
“So you’re jealous.”
“Is that bad?”
I almost laughed aloud. As different as we were, Lacey and I were almost twins when it came to our emotions sometimes. I could hear her insecurities coming out of her just like mine were coming out.
“No, it’s not bad. It’s normal. But you trust him, don’t you? I mean, it’s just business.”
Business. That’s what I’d told myself when I let Lucas Black walk me up the stairs back to my apartment. I’d known where it was going, though.
I knew that Lucas Black was no angel.
“Yeah,” she was saying. “I’m just being silly. I think. It’s strange here. I don’t know.”
I lay back on the bed to chat for a while longer. Finally, I told Lacey I’d need to talk
to Lucas soon.
“About the cupcakes,” I added.
“Oh, sure. That’s why you need to talk to him.”
“What?” I asked, my blood pumping. “I’m serious.”
“You wouldn’t want to talk to him about anything else… like his sexy blue eyes?”
“What?!”
Oh, God. As soon as she brought up his eyes, I saw them as clear as day. And it was like day, the sky blue days of summer. I imagined lying down in the middle of a field of daisies. Lucas next to me, his eyes reflecting the clear blue sky.
“You’re adorable when you have a crush on a guy, Steph,” Lacey said.
I frowned. I wasn’t going to let my stupid desires win out this time. Lucas Black was strictly off-limits.
“I don’t! This is just business.”
“Uh-huh, right. Just business. I saw the way he was looking at you during Jake’s going away dinner.”
The way he was looking at me? I thought that she would point out the way I gawked at him like a lovestruck teenager with a crush on the teacher.
“He wasn’t looking at me! He had a date with him!” I said, more emphatically than I really needed to.
“Right.”
“Just business,” I repeated.
“I gotta go, okay?” Lacey said abruptly. I got the sense that her mind had shifted to something else. “Talk to you later?”
“Sure, babe,” I said. “Love ya!”
“Love you too.”
She hung up, and I wondered what Paris was like and whether it was colder there than in New York. I wondered if they had cupcake stores in Paris. They probably had baguette stores. Lucas Black was probably there, buying a baguette and sharing it with three impossibly slim and beautiful French women, laughing and smoking cigarettes and breaking my heart.
I mashed my head into my pillow. He wasn’t mine. Therefore, he wasn’t mine to be jealous of. Then why did my whole body insist on aching at the slightest mention of him?
I wished that Lucas Black had never kissed me.
And in my secret heart, I wished that he would kiss me again and again and never stop.
Chapter Eight
Lucas
I thought about kissing Steph the entire flight to Paris. Her soft lips, the way her curves fit perfectly into my hands…
Even my work couldn’t pull my mind off of her. Normally, I loved visiting Europe and seeing the new faces that I was going to be shooting for our partner magazines. New, young pretty faces. But this time, no amount of work could save me. I was in the middle of the photo studio, surrounded by beautiful women. And the one woman I wanted wasn’t there.
“Lucas!”
I turned to see Jake waving at me from across the room. Behind him, a row of supermodels waiting for their shoots perked their heads up. Another billionaire to flirt with. God, I hated gold diggers.
“Jake,” I said, abandoning my camera and walking over to him. We clasped hands and he beamed at me. I knew there was something going on with him. “What’s up?”
“I’m going to propose to her.”
“I knew it!” I said. “I knew it. Didn’t I say that before you left?”
“You called it. Don’t tell anyone, though,” Jake said. “I don’t want her to hear about it before I get it all set up.”
“So you already have a plan?” I asked, pretending to care more than I actually did. Marriage proposals were just another way for guys to spend a lot of time and effort impressing girls. I mean, Jake seemed to really like this girl, so I hoped it would turn out okay, but still.
“I’m flying her family out,” he was saying.
I snapped back to attention. I had a great idea.
“How about her friend?” I asked.
“Her friend?”
“Steph.”
“The cupcake lady? What about her?”
“You should fly her out too.” Then I could have another shot at her. She hadn’t wanted to come to Paris with me, but she would want to come for her best friend’s proposal, wouldn’t she? It was a perfect idea.
Jake leveled his eyes at me.
“You’re not serious.”
“Why not? It would be nice for her, wouldn’t it, to have her friend there—”
“Don’t even pretend like you want her to come along for anything other than the real reason.”
“What? What real reason?”
“You want to get your claws into Steph.”
“Claws? I have no claws.”
“That’s right. More like talons. You’ll pick her up and drop her right off the edge of a cliff.”
“
“I haven’t even picked her up yet,” I protested. I didn’t mention that it was because she had turned me down. I was sure that, given another chance, I could convince her to let her defenses down enough to enjoy a non-serious night with me.
“So you want me to fly her out so you can wine and dine her into submitting to your charms?” Jake asked, skeptical.
“I’ll fly her out myself,” I said, smiling. “I just want you to give me a good excuse to do it.”
I was never nervous when speaking to a girl. But just thinking about hearing her voice made something inside my gut tingle. When Steph picked up the phone, I had to swallow the lump in my throat before speaking.
“Hey, Steph?” I said.
“Lucas?”
“Hey, I’m here in Paris.”
“Yeah?”
I could hear the resistance in her voice already. But I had the perfect lure. No girl would want to miss out on her best friend’s proposal, especially if it was in Paris. I tried to act nonchalant.
“Well, I was talking with Jake, and he wants you to fly out to Paris.”
“Jake does? Why?” I could hear her confusion.
“It’s a secret.”
“A secret—is this something to do with Lacey?”
God, she was smart. It was perfect, really. I had her hooked.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Maybe?”
“Yes. You’re right, okay? Anyway, he’s flying out her family from Iowa and he wants you there, too. He’s going to throw a party to celebrate, uh, the secret thing.”
“Her family?” Her voice rose one octave. “What’s going on, Lucas? Is he proposing?”
“Don’t tell!” I shushed her. “You can’t tell her. It’s a secret.”
“Yeah? Way to keep it a secret,” she said.
“Hey, I tried.”
“Remind me never to give you any classified information.”
“So you’ll come?” I asked.
“I don’t have the money to hop over to Paris on a moment’s notice.”
“I’ll fly you out.”
“You will?”
“I have a private jet at LaGuardia. You can take it over. It’s much faster than flying commercial.”
There was a pause. My stomach did a little flip. Why was I so hung up on this girl? I vowed to myself that if she came out to Paris, I would have her for a night. All night. I would get her out of my system. That was all I needed.
“Can I fly out there for one night and fly back the next morning?”
“Sure,” I said. All I needed was one night.
“And this is for real? This isn’t something you made up to get me to come out to Paris—”
“Why would I do that? You want to talk to Jake? I can put him on the phone if you want to talk to him—”
“I—no. No, it’s okay. Sure.”
“You’ll fly out here?”
“Sure.” Her voice was tense. I could almost see her looking around the bakery, the mental checklist popping up bullet points for everything that had to get done before she left to come to Paris. But she was going to come to Paris!
“Great,” I said, before she could change her mind. “I’ll text you the flight info and I’ll see you when you get to France!”
I hung up and gave a quick fist pump. I don’t know if it was just because she was more of a challenge tha
n the other girls, but it gave me a thrill to know that I was going to get a shot to win her over.
It was Paris, the city of love. How could she resist?
Chapter Nine
Steph
The jet plane was totally empty except for me, the pilot, and the flight attendant. I stared out the window at the Atlantic Ocean dropping away below and ticked off the checklist that I’d left for Andy.
Cupcakes for all twelve of the coffee shops. Two birthday cakes that had to be iced and delivered. Three sheet cakes for the corporate gig I’d landed. The health inspector was supposed to be showing up sometime this month; I hoped it wouldn’t be on the one day I was gone.
I couldn’t believe that Jake was going to propose to Lacey. That had to be the reason he was flying her whole family out. I had to say, I was a little bit jealous. Lacey had always asked me for tips on dating. I’d been the savvy one, the experienced one. And now she had a boyfriend, and he was going to propose to her.
I shouldn’t have been jealous, but this was insane. She had only been dating him for what? A month?
I wonder how long it would take Lucas to propose.
Insane. Absolutely insane. Lucas was a bachelor for life. And anyway, I wasn’t going to get involved with him.
The flight attendant was dressed in the absolute cutest pencil skirt, a sleek charcoal wool fabric that wrapped snugly around her waist. When she came back to my seat to bring me a glass of champagne, I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
“A present from Mr. Black,” she said. Her expression was politely blank, and I smiled back with an equally fake look.
Of course. Lucas had probably fucked her, along with every other woman he had working for him. That was what billionaires did, right? At least, that kind of billionaire.
I spent the rest of the flight going through the customized designs I’d created for Lucas’s party and sketching out some new ideas. It was a great theme—black and white—and the hours flew by as I worked through my plan for the presentation.
When the plane banked, I blinked hard. The sky outside the window was gray. Had I fallen asleep?
I peered out over the plane’s wing. We were going through clouds, and then—
The Eiffel Tower! It stuck out from a sea of gray buildings sprawling across the ground. The lines of the main roads were arranged in a spoked circle. The Eiffel Tower wasn’t quite at the center, though, it was set apart a little ways.
