Marrying His Runaway Heiress

by Therese Beharrie

  As Zoe neared Durand Properties, a modern glass building that occupied an entire square block, she ducked into an alleyway. Removing the comfortable shoes she’d been walking in, she opened her bag and extracted the business heels that pulled her outfit together. After the switch, she approached the entrance door, Durand Properties etched into the glass with a distinct script. An intercom system allowed her to announce her arrival, then the latch clicked and she was able to open the door.

  She remembered that Karim Harbi, the man she spoke with on the phone, had told her to check in at the welcome desk before taking the elevator to the fourth floor. The woman who sat behind the counter verified the appointment and pointed her in the right direction.

  When the elevator door opened to the fourth floor, Zoe stepped into a central reception area, the likes of which she had never seen before. People bustled to and fro. All the walls were made of glass, affording panoramic views of the city from every direction. The fourth being the top floor allowed Zoe to see that the slanted roof was made of a reflective type of glass and solar panels that could harness the sun’s heat.

  In the center of the space was a wide staircase with open steps and gray steel railing. Two women descended while engaged in conversation. Off to one side, a long concrete reception desk was staffed by three employees, two women and one man, all stylishly dressed in neutral colors, speaking into headsets. Several seating areas were grouped throughout with blond wood furniture, some with red upholstery, others bare. A cluster of men in suits sat at one talking amongst themselves. Low coffee tables held massive arrangements of red flowers. Abstract stone fountains placed here and there compensated for the lack of artwork given that there were no actual walls other than the glass perimeter. It was, quite simply, the most stunning workspace Zoe had ever encountered.

  “Mademoiselle Gaiman?” a young man greeted her as she was taking in the surroundings. His voice served as a good reminder to make sure her jaw wasn’t hanging open at the impressiveness of it all. “I am Karim.”

  His accent and dark skin suggested he was another young person who had come from somewhere else to Paris with a dream in his pocket.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “If you’ll follow me, Monsieur Durand is ready for you.”

  What did he just say? As it was Karim she had been interacting with so far, Zoe had convinced herself that she’d be having her interview with him. Or with someone in their human resources department. Or someone other than Jules Durand himself.

  “Karim,” she coughed out, “is it typical that Jules Durand is the first to meet with perspective employees?”

  “No, of course, a company of our size has a department devoted to personnel. But this is a special project of a personal nature. Jules will better explain when you meet with him.”

  Heart suddenly thumping against her chest, Zoe cleared her throat. Karim led her to a massive corner office, private by being delineated with its own glass walls. It was as carefully furnished as the reception area. As they approached, Zoe could see a meeting section with a wood table and chairs. There was also an area with two drafting tables, computer banks and shelves that held architectural blueprints. To the side of that, two white leather sofas faced each other with armchairs beside them creating a conversation space. There was a vase of more red flowers on a countertop beside a sink and refrigerator. A treadmill faced outward to the view. The single office in its entirety was large enough to house a family of four. At the stone desk in the center of it all, a man who Zoe recognized to be Jules Durand sat in a high-backed black office chair speaking to someone through an earpiece.

  As she got closer, which for some reason felt like marching toward a firing squad, she could make out the furrows between his eyebrows that she’d taken notice of in those magazine photos of him. They gave him a sort of stern look that was somehow wildly sexy at the same time. In a dark gray suit, white dress shirt and forest green tie, he was as stunning as his office building. His aura, his buzz permeated the air and reached her all the way out in the corridor. This man was over six feet of pure power. Adrenaline pounded through her.

  On impulse, Zoe began forking her fingers through her corkscrew curls in hopes that her hair didn’t look too unkempt. She threw her shoulders back and stood as tall as she could which, given that she was a shorty, wasn’t much.

  Cheering herself on, she had this. She was a hard worker, had done nice designs in the past and deserved a chance to move onto bigger projects. Not to mention that the only way she was going to be able to stay in Paris was if she rose up to the next rung on the career ladder.

  She was going to dazzle this man, regardless of how imposing he was.

  He was going to hire her. No doubt about it.

  Karim pulled open the heavy glass door to the private office and, after Zoe stepped in, took his leave.

  “It’s an honor to meet you, monsieur,” Zoe began as she took an uneven step forward, which made one of her shoe heels wobble. Then she heard a cracking sound. But before she could do anything about it, the heel snapped and buckled under, jerking Zoe Gaiman forward and causing her to fall flat on her face into Jules Durand’s office.

  * * *

  “Are you all right?” Jules dashed from behind his desk to attend to the interviewee who had just, literally, burst into his office. Presenting his arm for the young woman to use for balance as she stood up, he felt a surprising tingle when she wrapped her small fingers around his bicep.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” she quipped dismissively, although nonetheless leveraging all of her weight onto his arm. The portfolio of photos and sketches she had brought along to impress him with was now scattered around her. A quick cheat of a glance told Jules that they were good.

  Once she hoisted herself to a standing position, he took notice that she stood not much more than five feet tall. And she had a wild tangle of hair. Had her fall dislodged a more conservative hairdo? Because, at the moment, it looked like a crazed tree straight out of a Van Gogh painting. A wine-induced hallucination of reddish, no, almost orange spirals pointing toward every angle. It took all of his gentlemanly decorum not to reach out and touch one of her curls, so curious was he to know what they would feel like.

  She retrieved the culprit that was responsible for her dramatic entrance. Indeed, the pointy heel had almost fully separated from the body of her shoe and dangled limply from its infrastructure.

  “Darn it. These are my only...” She decided, flustered, not to finish the sentence. Instead, she slipped the broken shoe back onto her foot and used two hands to smooth down her skirt and jacket before extending her palm for a handshake. “I’m Zoe Gaiman. I hope you can forget what just happened and we can begin the interview over again.” She blew a breath upward, possibly in an attempt to send some errant hairs back to their designated place.

  As he returned her handshake, Jules couldn’t consent to her terms because he had an inkling that he would never forget anything about Zoe Gaiman.

  Her fingers were as soft as he’d imagined they’d be.

  Together, the two of them bent down to gather up the sheets of her portfolio. He gestured for her to take a seat opposite his at the desk. Hobbling on the broken shoe, Zoe made her way to the chair and slid in.

  With a tap on his computer, a photo appeared on his screen, the secondary screen that faced Zoe’s seat and on the large monitor that serviced the seating cluster to his right. In the past few years, Jules had conducted most of his work from his laptop while ensconced in suites of the world’s finest hotels and in Durand Properties satellite offices. Naturally, he’d frequently returned to Paris for meetings and functions. But his highly efficient office here was underutilized. That was about to change, as he’d be basing himself here permanently.

  “The apartment in need of design is in this building,” he explained about the first photo to Zoe. Five years ago, he’d purchased the building, which had
been divided into eight apartments, not knowing at the time that he’d be dedicating one to his parents. “Here are some photos.”

  To her credit, Zoe seemed to have recovered after her visit with his office floor and she studied the slideshow he presented. “There’s an elevator, I take it?” she inquired.

  “Yes. Which is critical. You see, this apartment is for my own parents to inhabit. My father is wheelchair-bound.”

  “Oh, so that’s why Karim said this was a personal project. It looks as if the front entrance to the building has the width to accommodate a wheelchair, but the interior doorways have been widened? That must have been a tight squeeze.”

  “My architects supervised those modifications.” Jules was impressed. Zoe was the third designer he’d interviewed today and neither of the other two had noted that obvious need for wheelchair clearance in the apartment’s doorways.

  He glanced away from the screen to make contact with her sky blue eyes, which had a crystalline shimmer he found very intriguing. She also had an adorable swath of freckles that ran from one cheekbone across her nose to the other. And that hair!

  Women and their attractiveness or lack thereof was of no interest to Jules, so he surprised himself in even taking the time to observe Zoe’s unique beauty.

  “I see from your portfolio pages—” he pointed to what was now a haphazard stack that she’d lain on the spare chair beside her “—that you share my appreciation for blending the old with the new.”

  “Yes, I like to bring in every functional convenience but make the living space warm and stylish at the same time. And I did a course in special-needs accessibility. Let me show you some photos.”

  He peered over while she riffled through her pile. One looked like a guest room converted into an office, the other a classroom. Did she have the proper experience for an entire Paris apartment, especially one for his parents where he knew he’d demand perfection? Zoe showed him an unimpressive access ramp leading to a converted garage with a few grab bars installed here and there. Jules’s contractors had already done the structural modifications on the apartment. Still, at least she said she’d studied accessibility.

  He opened another program on his computer. “Here we have some suggested color combinations for the paint and furnishings in the main living spaces. We can look at the bathroom and kitchen afterward. I assume you’re familiar with this software that automatically generates a primary color scheme with complementary shades for accents.”

  “I don’t use auto-generated color combining.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I wouldn’t want a computer to decide a paint shade to match a sofa color for me. That’s not how I work.”

  With two fingers, she twisted a ringlet that fell over one of her ears. Jules had no way to determine if it was actually out of place. It was nothing short of ludicrous how curious he was about her hair. Although, now it was what was coming out of her mouth that alarmed him.

  “Mademoiselle Gaiman, as you might imagine, Durand Properties employs every bit of technology available that can assist us in our work.”

  “With due respect, Monsieur Durand, computer-aided design is, of course, a marvelous advancement. And the furniture placement programs and whatnot on the market these days are timesaving tools. But I also have to feel a project. In my heart—” she paused to bring her fist to her chest for emphasis “—and in my soul.”

  “I see,” he tittered, surprised at this young woman’s pluck. People usually yessed Jules Durand, too intimidated to disagree. He wasn’t sure whether or not he liked Zoe’s assertiveness. Ever so briefly, his mind flashed on a very private way he might show her with his lips who was the boss.

  He quickly refocused with, “I’m afraid I don’t employ souls. I employ professionals who, in turn, follow industry standards and new developments.”

  “Does the way yellow spring flowers play against the five o’clock sky rely on a digital approval system?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “When the waves of the ocean ebb and flow, creating a natural rhythm that syncs with a shoreline wind. Can your computer software replicate that?”

  Jules was becoming a bit irritated. While there was something mesmerizing about this young woman, he had a job to offer and expected it done his way, and certainly wasn’t going to work with someone who questioned his methods.

  Especially in dealing with this apartment for his parents, Jules wanted the project done quickly, as he expected Agathe and Hugo back in Paris soon and he couldn’t accommodate time-consuming mistakes. He had no leeway for prima donna designers who constantly changed their minds and, for example, repainted several times before being satisfied with their choices.

  He needed his parents securely ensconced, not traipsing all over the earth like vagabonds with his father in a wheelchair. It was ironic that Jules himself had called no place home for years, either, although his time away was well spent amassing a fortune.

  Everyone was going to stay put in Paris. For all the turbulence of his upbringing, with his mother’s abandonments and then returns, and his father’s unstable employment history, Jules would ground them now. He’d become the de facto patriarch.

  “I thank you for coming in, Mademoiselle Gaiman.” He pushed his chair back from the desk, ready to show her to the door. “Obviously, we have an incompatible approach, but I do wish you well.” Oddly, the idea of never seeing Zoe again gave him pause and he hesitated.

  “Wait...” Zoe threw her palms up, trying to halt him before he stood. “If this apartment is for your own parents, don’t you want it to breathe with life? Shouldn’t it be a blanket of comfort? That sings in peaceful harmony. Why don’t you show me the apartment in person? So I can feel it.”

  That was the second time she had mentioned feeling the apartment.

  Jules didn’t do feelings. He didn’t choose properties based on spring flowers. He relied on engineers and architects and inspectors and financial advisors for whom the tools of the trade brought a scientific precision. Jules liked that. There was no room for gamble in his orbit.

  Yet, chance was exactly what was in front of him. He’d get no data collection on how long his parents would live. There was no spreadsheet that could forecast if his mother would finally find serenity within the boundaries of a permanent residence. No analysis would report how good a job Jules would do as their caretaker.

  So the last thing he needed was any further unpredictability. While he respected that Zoe was probably a very creative person, and thought he might contemplate for the rest of his life how hair grew out of someone’s head like that, he had other prospects to meet with. This interview was over.

  “Thank you for your time, Mademoiselle Gaiman.”

  He stood, hoping she’d follow suit. Which she did, but not before shooting a penetrating look at him that made his ribs rattle. Were there tears pooling in those bright blue eyes? “Good luck with the project,” she muttered.

  Jules saw Zoe Gaiman to the door with her tottering on her broken shoe heel all the way.

  Copyright © 2020 by Andrea Bolter

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  ISBN: 9781488065156

  Marrying His Runaway Heiress

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sp; Copyright © 2020 by Therese Beharrie

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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