“What is it, cara?”
“Nothing. Really. I was just—I was just thinking of the last time I saw Paris.”
He smiled; his hand lifted to her face and cupped her cheek.
“Isn’t that a line from an old song?”
She wanted to turn her face and kiss his hand. It felt so right against her skin. Warm. Comforting. And wasn’t it crazy that his touch could be comforting when only hours ago it had been exciting?
Wasn’t it more than crazy that a man she hardly knew should have the power to affect her this way?
“Emily. Tell me what you are thinking.”
His voice was low. Thick. She looked at him and felt it again, that rush of electric excitement.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, because suddenly lying was impossible. “That’s the problem, Marco. I don’t know what I’m thinking.”
He made a sound halfway between a groan and a growl. Slowly, he lowered his head to hers and kissed her.
It was a soft, brief kiss, the simple whisper of his mouth against hers. She could have turned away.
But she didn’t.
She let the kiss go on and on.
In the end, it was Marco who took his lips from hers.
His eyes were the color of the night.
And she thought, oh God, I could fall into those deep, dark pools and drown.
******
They made the rest of the drive into the city in silence.
Say something, Marco told himself.
An excellent idea—but what should he say? Should he apologize for kissing her? No. How could he do that when, dammit, he didn’t regret that kiss, didn’t regret any of the kisses they’d shared?
That last kiss, especially. The sweetness of it. The tenderness.
No apologies—even though kissing her was a mistake.
He’d meant what he’d told her in his office. He did not mix pleasure with business. Not ever. A business dinner, no matter how elegant, was all about business. A game of tennis or golf played with a rival was business. Every decision of his adult life had been made with business in mind, even before he’d had his own business to run.
It was how he had gotten to where he was today.
Emotion was emotion. Logic was logic. A man who mixed the two was a man asking for trouble.
Another lesson learned from his brief marriage.
Marco shifted his weight as the Bentley entered the city.
Sex. Desire. Those were provable things. They were measurable. They had their place, and it was not the office.
Back to square one.
He had made a mistake, hiring a woman he found desirable.
It was too late to do anything about it now. He needed Emily’s services on this trip, but as soon as they got back to New York…
“We’re here, sir.”
The Bentley had pulled into the semicircular drive of the hotel. His hotel. La Boîte à Bijoux.
He smiled.
If there was anything it was safe to be emotional about, it was a building like this.
******
Emily had spent the trip from the airport telling herself that she should quit her job before it all blew up in her face.
She’d worried about being in over her head as far as the responsibilities of it were concerned. What she hadn’t considered was that she was in over her head in terms of—what could she call it except her libido?
She wanted a job, not an affair. She was bad enough at keeping jobs; she could never keep a man. Not that she’d ever tried, but a man like this…? She wasn’t cut out for one night stands or one-week stands or however long the Marco Santinis of this world could be expected to find a woman… what had called her? An interesting puzzle.
If he only knew.
There really wasn’t anything puzzling about this. Pared down to basics? She wanted to sleep with the boss.
In other words, it was time to go home.
Only one problem.
She’d agreed to work for him for six months. Was that an oral contract? Even if it was, she could break it… and that led to the second problem.
Where was she going to get the money to fly home?
Dammit, this was the borrow-to-pay-the-rent thing all over again. She couldn’t turn to her brothers, couldn’t go to her sisters...
“Emily.”
Could she stick it out for just a couple of days? They wouldn’t be here very long…
“Emily.”
She blinked. The car had stopped. The door was open. Marco was standing outside, holding out his hand.
“We’ve arrived,” he said.
She nodded. Pushed her hair back from her face. Took his hand because it was the polite thing to do and…
And, where were they?
She hadn’t really thought about it but if she had, she’d have figured they’d be staying at the George V or the Plaza Athénée. Where else would a man like Marco Santini stay than in one of the city’s famous hotels?
This building wasn’t a hotel she’d ever seen before. She reminded herself that she hadn’t been in Paris in a very long time.
A semicircular drive. A building made of gray stone. Bright blue awnings. Flower boxes filled with yellow chrysanthemums. And a doorman who beamed from ear to ear as they approached a set of wide brass doors.
“Monsieur Santini! Bienvenue!”
Marco ginned. “Bonjour, Cristoffe. Comment allez vous?”
“Bien, monsieur, très bien.”
Marco put his hand lightly in the small of Emily’s back.
“Cristoffe, c’est Madame Madison. Elle est mon aide. Emily, this is Cristoffe. He is—”
“Bonjour, Cristoffe,” Emily said, and she and the delighted doorman chatted in French while he opened the doors to a lobby that was as charming as it was handsome, done in polished wood and gleaming marble floors.
The staff greeted Marco like an old friend; he introduced her and everyone nodded and smiled and shook her hand before a bellman led them to a cage of brightly polished brass, the kind of elevator she’d always associated with Paris.
It took them to the tenth floor.
The doors opened directly onto the lounge of their suite.
The bellman who’d accompanied them assured them that their luggage would arrive shortly. Marco thanked him politely, discreetly handed over a tip that made the man’s smile even wider, and waved him out.
“Well?” Marco said, once they were alone, “what do you think?”
What did she think? Emily walked slowly through the lounge, skating one finger over an ormolu clock, brushing her hand lightly across the back of a beautiful Louis XIII chair. He didn’t know it, of course, but she’d been in a lot of upscale, elegant hotel suites—and this outshone them all.
“I think—I think this is absolutely beautiful. What’s the name of the hotel?”
“La Boîte à Bijoux.”
“The Jewel Box. Oh, that’s perfect!”
He nodded, his gaze wary, his answering smile hesitant.
“Is it new?”
“It went up four years ago.”
She walked to a pair of French doors that gave onto a small terrace enclosed by window boxes filled with more bright yellow chrysanthemums. A pair of wicker chairs were drawn up to a round table topped by a glass-enclosed candle and a small vase that held yellow roses and tulips.
Beyond, the Eiffel Tower rose against a perfect blue sky.
Emily stepped onto the terrace. She turned toward him, her face bright with pleasure. “What a wonderful place!”
His smile became a little more certain.
“The terraces are my favorite part. There are two more, one off the master bedroom and another off the dining room. Because of the way the suite was constructed, there’s a 360 degree view of Paris. The tower. The Arc de Triomphe. The Palais Royale…” He gave a small laugh. “Listen to me. I sound like a travelogue.”
“You sound like a man who understands how lucky people are to stay in
such a beautiful suite. I can imagine who does stay in it. Kings. Princes. Presidents.”
“Actually,” he said, color creeping into his face, “I am its only occupant. The suite is mine.”
“Really?”
Marco smiled. How little it took to make her happy, he thought, and heard himself say what he had surely not intended to say.
“Actually, the entire hotel is mine. I built it.”
Her eyes widened. With shock? No, he realized. With delight.
“I designed it, too,” he said because, what the hell, why not go for the bottom line?
“You mean the furnishings?”
“Dio, not that! Did I want armchairs? Slipper chairs? What does a slipper have to do with a chair?” Emily laughed and he laughed along with her. “What I designed was the building. It was an easy step. I’d become more and more interested in the planning of structures, not just putting them up, so when I started thinking about expanding my company, I decided to take a deep breath and—”
“And?”
And, what? What was he doing?
The details were surely boring to anyone but him
The hotel had begun as a one-shot, a practical way to establish his corporate name in the commercial heart of a great European city, but somewhere along the way, he’d found himself taking an interest in it that went beyond schematics and cost projections.
Now, he had other boutique hotels on the drawing board. The industry knew about MS Enterprises’ new venture, but he’d kept the depth of his involvement private.
A man made himself vulnerable if he made the mistake of letting people know more than was necessary about him.
“And?” Emily said again.
Marco cleared his throat.
“And, I’m pleased with how things turned out.”
She laughed. “Come on, Marco. Pleased? You must be delighted.”
“Well,” he said cautiously, “well, yes. I guess you could say that.”
“Absolutely, you could say that.” She threw her head back, drew in a long breath of air. “I’d forgotten the smell of Paris,” she said softly. “Old, wonderful, so lovely.”
Lovely, indeed.
Her sculpted profile. The graceful line of her throat. The glint of sunlight streaking her hair, not loose as he would have wished it but at least only barely constrained today in a flowing ponytail.
Desire twisted inside him. Hunger. And something more.
The feeling stunned him. He caught his breath.
Then he caught his sanity.
“We’re running late.”
Emily looked at him. The expression of delight on her face faded. He wanted to take back his gruff words, wanted to tell her that he wasn’t angry, that he was, Dio, that he was a man standing on some kind of precipice.
Instead, he looked at his watch as if it held the answers to all the mysteries of the universe.
“Very late,” he said, even more gruffly. “The bedrooms are down the hall. The one with the pale pink walls will be yours.”
He’d hurt her by being so abrupt; he could see it in her eyes.
“The clothes I mentioned… they’ll be in your dressing room.”
“I’ll need things from my suitcase.”
“It will be here shortly, but as I already told you, what you will wear this evening is in your dressing room.”
So much for her eyes showing hurt. What they showed now was anger. Good. He could deal with her anger. It was her other emotions that were a problem.
“Thank you for making all these decisions without consulting me.”
“We had this discussion on the plane. There was no need to consult you. I provide you with a clothing allowance, remember?”
“But not with your choice of clothing. You remember that in the future.”
Oh yes, she was definitely angry. That flash of fire in her eyes. That tilt to her chin. It made him want to go to her and pull her into his arms, kiss her until she clung to him, until neither of them could tell where he ended and she began.
Her door slammed. She was good at slamming doors, he thought, and almost laughed.
Instead, as slowly as if he were a man twice his age, Marco sank into a chair and put his head in his hands.
He had made a mistake. Forget the old bromide about never missing business with pleasure.
Even more true was what he’d realized from the start. Emily didn’t belong in his life. Perhaps it was more accurate to say that he didn’t belong in hers.
What had just happened, her open show of joy at something as simple as the terrace instead of asking endless questions about where they were dining, how many Michelin stars it would have, the name of the celebrity chef, the famous people they might see…
How could such an innocent survive in his world? How could the superficiality of it not affect her?
Yes, he wanted to take her to bed. And he could do it. The cold truth was that he knew women, knew how to read the little signals they gave.
Emily melted against him when he took her in his arms.
She sighed when he kissed her.
The sweet little whimpers she’d made during those few moments on the plane when he’d touched her breasts…
He could have her on her back in less time than it took to think about doing it.
She would be sweet and she would be shy; she would learn what he wanted from her, what he wanted to do to her, what he wanted her to do to him. She would learn, and turn to flame, and their affair would be like none he’d ever known.
And then he would end it.
He was man meant for mistresses.
Emily was a woman meant for one man, one love, forever.
Marco shot to his feet, paced to the terrace, stepped onto it and stared out over the soot-stained old chimney pots of Paris.
He had been wrong to hire her. To bring her here.
He would send her home.
As far as an assistant was concerned… he could manage. He could contact the offices he had in Milan. Surely, they had someone on staff who could fly here and do the job. Or he could contact a French employment agency and hire a temp. Neither solution would be ideal; he had no way of knowing if Milan or an agency would send him someone who was competent but the truth was, he still didn’t know the degree of Emily’s competence, either.
He only knew that he had to put her out of his life, the sooner the better.
Marco checked his watch again.
It was too late to telephone Milan, too late to seek out an employment agency. And he had a dinner engagement in, Cristo, in forty five minutes.
Quickly, he walked down the hall.
His bedroom adjoined hers.
He stepped inside, slammed the door—hell, one good slam deserved another—peeled off his shirt, toed off his mocs, yanked off his jeans and boxers.
His tux—well, one of his tuxes—was hanging in the dressing room. He kept hotel suites in several cities, each stocked with whatever clothes he might need. Life was simpler that way. More efficient. It was a plan he had worked out years ago.
He strode into the bathroom, turned on the multiple sprays in the glass-enclosed shower.
Emily, on the other hand, would have two gowns to choose from. Which would she pick? He’d made arranging for the clothes sound easy. In actual fact, he’d spent almost an hour on the phone, first with the concierge, then with the personal shopper she’d contacted at a shop on the Rue de Rivoli.
“I want a dress. No. Two dresses. Also shoes, handbags, whatever is necessary, delivered to my suite,” he’d said briskly.
But briskness had turned to confusion in a heartbeat. Did monsieur want morning dresses? Afternoon dresses? Or did he want gowns for the evening? Colors? Fabrics? And the shoes. Pumps? Sandals? Strappy sandals?
Strappy sandals? What in hell were strappy sandals?
The consultant had explained. She had also explained heel height. And, she’d added, would monsieur wish undergarments as well? Yes? Of what type? Lace? Silk
? Full bras? Demi bras? Waist cincher corsets? Thongs? Bikinis? Panty hose? Thigh-high hose?
“Thongs,” he heard himself say. “Bras to match the thongs. Lace. Silk…”
He’d fallen silent.
“Monsieur? Are you there?”
No. He wasn’t. He was in a place he wasn’t supposed to be, and he’d opened his eyes, rubbed his hand over his forehead.
“Whatever you think is appropriate,” he’d said gruffly.
Then he’d ended the call, his body one hard, endless knot of sexual frustration, his head filled with images of Emily in stilettos, a silk thong, sheer stockings.
And nothing else.
The same image was in his head now. Her bathroom adjoined his. He could hear the water in her shower beating against the marble floor. Another picture replaced the one in his head.
Emily, naked.
Beautiful.
High, tip-tilted breasts. Slender waist. Hips just right for his hands to grasp as he brought her body into hot contact with his.
And her face. That exquisite face. Blue eyes, liquid with desire as they met his. Rosy lips, parting as he brought his mouth to hers.
He saw himself draw her closer. Felt the silkiness of her nipples against his chest, the press of her pelvis against his belly.
His hands were in her hair, all that dark gold spilling over his fingers.
Her arms were around his neck as she lifted herself to him.
He groaned again, head falling back as he all but heard her cry of pleasure as he entered her, filled her, felt her heat close around him…
“Merda!”
Marco shuddered. His eyes flew open.
He had just disgraced himself in a way he had not done since he was a boy.
Shaken, he quickly turned all five shower heads to cold. Gasping, he lifted his face to the icy spray.
Tomorrow, first thing, he would make the necessary arrangements for a new assistant and then he would send Emily home. No. He would send her home, then make the calls. That way, he would not leave himself any possible reason to keep her here. He would pay her a month’s salary. Two months’.
The only thing he had to do was get through tonight.
Surely, he thought as he shut off the water and reached for a bath sheet, surely he was man enough to do that.
Emily: Sex and Sensibility Page 12
