Hot and Bothered

by Liz Maverick

  We know what we know, oui?

  Chapter Three

  Jack Marchand is not in bed with me, which is entirely my fault was my first thought when I woke up. I lay there, staring up at the swirls in the rococo-style plaster decorating the ceiling. He’d asked to take me to a swanky Parisian gala, and I turned him down. But I had my pride, and I was done. I’d gone and kissed him out of my system and cleverly managed to engineer an orgasm without providing one in return. Anna was right, and I’d gotten the closure I needed and now I could really just put that episode behind me. I probably wouldn’t see him or any of the Marchands for another ten years. In ten years, I think I’d be willing to fuck him pretty readily. Yeah, I was pretty sure I’d have completely forgiven him by then. Maybe I’d even have forgotten the details. In ten years you can fuck him without reservation, I promised myself. Should I make a reservation? I giggled.

  The door slammed.

  I sat up in bed. Anna’s party was kind of a rager at the end there. There might be some poor drunk guest who needed help getting home or a bucket or something.

  I stuck my hair in a ponytail and threw on some leggings and a cashmere hoodie and headed for the living room. Anna was sitting on the carpet looking like melted ice cream in her crushed party dress and rat’s nest hair, surrounded by wrapping paper and what appeared to be some pretty good birthday loot. She’d been sleeping using a Ferragamo dust bag as a pillow, the red satin evening bag it was supposed to be protecting sitting on the coffee table like a decorative sculpture. The rest of the apartment was quiet, and I didn’t see any bodies lying around.

  “I heard the door.” I said.

  “Jack’s gone,” Anna said, blinking confusedly in the shard of sunlight that slipped between the curtains.

  I think I seized up a little, what with all that relief and disappointment shooting through me so suddenly, fighting each other in an ecosystem weakened by way too much alcohol. He was here all night? Jack stayed the night? We could have had drunken French monkey sex all night? Stop it, Cass. Stop! You didn’t want him joining the sisterhood of your pants, remember? “I’m so conflicted,” was all I actually said aloud.

  Anna opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a garbled little huff. “Gone,” she finally managed.

  I nodded. “Did you sleep?”

  “Some point. I think. Great party.”

  I relaxed a little. “So you had a good time?”

  Anna nodded vigorously and then moved her face around like she was trying and failing to inspire her tongue to behave. Suddenly, her throat cleared and she babbled, “Yeah, I need a croissant. Like, seriously. A big, buttery, Parisian-perfect croissant. He’s absolutely right.”

  “Who’s right?”

  The doorbell rang. “That’ll be Jack,” Anna said.

  “Oh, dear God, he’s back? I thought you said he was gone as in gone for good.”

  “He’s gone for breakfast.”

  Buzzzzz.

  Neither of us made a move to answer the bell. “Did you sleep with him?” Anna asked. “He refused to discuss it. Said he’d learned his lesson. And then said he had just the thing for this—” she gestured over the ruins of her makeup and hair “—and said he was going to Mulot.”

  “Really. Wow,” was all I could muster because I suddenly remembered the ruins of my makeup and hair.

  Buzzzzz.

  “Do you ever answer the door?” my sister asked. “Just curious. It’s like you never want to let anybody in.” Anna lurched across the living room and struck out wildly at the intercom. After a couple of swats went wide, she hit the buzzer, blew a puff of frizzled hair out of her face and opened the door, and in came Jack looking pretty shameless in his walk-of-shame clothes. I regretted my devil-may-care attitude toward my own morning-after appearance, but wasn’t about to let on my self-esteem was sagging as much as the bags under my eyes.

  “Bonjour,” he said, kissing Anna on both cheeks and handing her a large plastic Mulot bag. “The best croissants in Paris. Should do the trick.” He handed me a second bag and said, “Sweets for the sweet, from light-of-the-day Jack to you.”

  I knew what they were without looking. Mulot made brilliant croissant and absolutely divine French macarons. Jack had introduced me to macarons in high school, and he knew how much I adored them. For some reason this gift only made me more contrary, probably because it was so perfect, and he seemed so perfect and I couldn’t help thinking that perfect was also exactly how it had felt way back when before things went wrong. I mean, it’s all croissants and macarons until suddenly it’s not. Which was why I less than graciously narrowed my eyes and said, “I’m not sure it counts if you stayed overnight.”

  “It counts if I leave and come back. Which is what I did. I left. And I came back,” he said pointedly, pointing, in fact, at the door. “I came back with croissant for your sister,” he added, pressing the issue for brownie points. “It would be a shame if she did not recover from her hangover quickly enough to attend the gala with Christian.”

  Anna was going? I gave her stink-eye behind his back, and she produced a quavering smile that was a cross between nauseated and guilty. “Yeah. A shame,” I said.

  “I think you should come with me to the gala. We did discuss the possibility of rewriting history,” he said gently. “And if we’re going to rewrite history, we need to have something new to write about.”

  Silence fell over the apartment as I considered his words. If by rewriting history, he meant he planned to bring me lots of French pastries over the next week, well, I could probably rise to the occasion. If by rewriting history he meant we were going to make slightly different mistakes with only slightly dissimilar, disappointing and embarrassing outcomes, I was not on board.

  “Rewrite history with me, Cassandra,” he said, the fire in his eyes burning into my damaged soul. I thought about it. I was thinking about it. I could think about it all day, just staring into those beautiful eyes…

  “Um, do you need a pen for that, Jack?” Anna said idiotically when the silence had stretched beyond what anyone would consider normal, and Jack had stared at me with what had to be at least half his arsenal of enticing expressions unaware that they’d started to work on me halfway through his first one.

  Jack and I looked at poor, bleary, hungover Anna and then at each other, and just like we’d gone in the way-back machine and knew what the other was thinking, we burst into hysterical laughter. Oh, God. The old connection was really still there, the one that made talking almost as much fun as putting our hands all over each other. I wanted to trust him with my heart again, but I just couldn’t. The fallout of high school had literally changed me. Sure, it wasn’t the same now that we were grown-ups, and I could do what I wanted with Jack without worrying about my reputation, but he’d broken something in me. He’d messed with my innocence. I had to protect myself.

  “Come with me to the gala,” Jack said after we’d pulled ourselves together.

  “No,” I said. “If you want to be friends, let’s just start there.”

  He was silent for a moment, and I thought well, I guess that’s that when he said, “Fine. I’ll take you to see the project I’m working on and then we’ll have lunch. I’d like your opinion.”

  “What project?”

  “Le Fleur de Lys by the Place Vendôme.”

  “That’s a hotel,” I said flatly.

  Anna snorted into her croissant.

  Jack raised an eyebrow at my sister. “Would I really proposition her in front of you?” He blinked, a look of exaggerated innocence on his face when he added, “I want to buy the chain, and judging by what she’s done with this apartment, I should definitely take advantage of her.”

  Anna giggled.

  “Sorry, my English is not good.”

  I made a face that called him on his bullshit. “Stop flirting.”

  Jack grinned and said, “Take advantage of your opinion on what—if anything—you’d change about the interiors.” He ge
stured to the interior of the apartment. “It’s fantastique.”

  “Thanks.” The guy wants to buy a hotel chain. These things happen in his world. If you tell him you want to be friends and he listens and says he wants your friendly opinion instead of your body, you should have the courtesy to do him the favor of giving him said opinion, even if the favor needs to take place at a hotel. You’ll just keep sex out of it. Of course, the parts of my body that had just been reminded last night what was possible in a bathroom were already considering a mutiny over the potential of having an entire hotel room at their disposal.

  The sound of laughter from the opposite side of the apartment pierced the air. A door from one of the back bedrooms opened, and Jack’s brothers stepped out with Irina sandwiched between them, which was pretty much how I guessed they’d spent the night. I looked at Anna, who was poking through the bag of croissants, considering a second. I looked at Jack, who was grinning at me. I looked back at Irina and the other two Marchands coming down the hall.

  That would have been a really attractive orgy was the first thing that popped into my mind. Oh, stop, Cass. Just stop. I really needed to drink less. I still couldn’t think straight. Which was probably why when Jack cleared his throat and said, “Here comes my ride. So what will it be, Cassandra? Another ten years until we meet again? Or will you come to the hotel today?”

  I picked the hotel.

  Chapter Four

  Place Vendôme was on the opposite side of the Seine from the apartment. I left early and took a metro to Tuileries so I could pass through the massive gardens plus check out the windows of some of the world’s best shopping. I badly needed fresh air and time to think. My sister was hanging out with Irina; at least she was being entertained, and I was free to breathe a little on my own.

  Fashion was less bohemian on the Right Bank. Heels higher, jewelry flashier, shopping bags and logos more plentiful. Cartier, Hermès, Chanel, Lavin and more, all right here. I could buy some of it if I wanted to. But you still need an awful lot of money for buying a Chanel bag to feel like buying a cup of coffee, and I generally didn’t go in for splurging much unless Anna was around to enjoy it, I truly needed something or it was a very special occasion. I’d be saving for a rainy day for the rest of my life, no matter how much money I made. It was just how I was built. I never wanted to rely on someone else for my survival because you could never really trust anyone else to stick around. I knew Anna and Christian were just friends, but the mercenary part of me hoped traveling in the same circles as the Marchands introduced her to a rich man who could fall in love with her, because Anna didn’t think too much about rainy days. I’d bailed her out of a pretty desperate credit card debt nightmare once, and I didn’t think she’d have the nerve to ask me again.

  My practiced eye swept the lobby as I stepped into the Fleur de Lys, one of four incredibly decadent expensive hotels in a small, exclusive chain. Update the uniforms, refresh the velvet upholstery…well, keep the color but maybe try a lighter fabric, keep the wood…needs a good cleaning, though…

  “Bonjour.”

  Jack. Jack with wingtips instead of sneakers. On duty. Businessman Jack, holding a bound report. I smiled to myself. Definitely here for the brain, not the body. I had no right to lament this fact, but when we did the kiss-kiss, I had the opportunity to inappropriately linger near his body, which bore the faint scent of a spicy aftershave that wasn’t very businesslike at all. We broke the embrace at the same time, our eyes locking, my heart pounding, but Jack quickly cleared the muzzy look from his eyes and stepped back. He handed me the report, which turned out to be his business plan. “I thought we could take a look at the ballroom first. I’d like to know what you think it would take to make it feel…oh, I don’t know…”

  “Fresh? Alive?” I suggested.

  A gruff voice behind us said, “Jacques.”

  Jack cursed softly in French, a particularly vulgar word the Marchand boys taught everyone to say in high school and then said, “I wasn’t expecting him for an hour.”

  I turned to face the unmistakable visage of Jack’s father. Still handsome as an older version of his boys and very formal. I took in the details. A beautiful navy suit with a dress shirt gleaming so white I wondered if he took a new one out of the package every morning. A pair of simple, square, monogrammed cufflinks decorated his wrists, and a super-thin tie bar enameled with the three stripes of the national flag held the silk firmly against his shirt. His dress shoes looked identical to Jack’s; probably bespoke, from the same cobbler.

  “You’re early,” Jack said.

  In French, Monsieur Marchand answered, “This was more convenient.” His dark gaze flicked to me and moved up and down. Some high school part of my brain blanched under his inspection, wishing I was carrying something more upmarket than the French everywoman’s Longchamp tote and had dressed up a little more instead of opting for skinny black capris and a gray-striped linen cropped blazer over a gauzy cotton blouse designed to give Jack the impression that I wasn’t trying too hard.

  “You want to discuss business with me?” the elder Marchand went on. “Then this isn’t the time to be whoring around. You know how I feel about these American girls you and your brothers play with,” he added, still in French.

  C’est un douchebag. He’d pegged me as American in half a second from my appearance, vaguely embarrassing. That said, the best thing about being an American with a working knowledge of a foreign language is being underestimated and understanding more than they think you understand.

  “Cassandra, this is my father, Jean-Luc Marchand. Papa, may I introduce Cassandra Hagen? She speaks a little French,” Jack added tightly. His words were polite, but I could see rebellion in his eyes. He raised his palm to the small of my back. Like he was protecting me…maybe even claiming me in front of his dad. The heat of his hand burned through the thin cotton and linen.

  “Je suis désolé,” Jack’s father said to me lazily, not actually looking particularly désolé. “It was a figure of speech.” He turned back to Jack and spoke quickly using complicated versions of otherwise simple words, successfully cutting me out of much of the conversation. I held my ground. Jack’s hand fell away, and I could have walked away to give them privacy but then, they could have walked away from me.

  “I am unconvinced,” said the older Marchand, slowing down to let his speech patterns back into my orbit. He pretended to be studying the room, but I caught his eye glancing at the gilded clock above the concierge.

  Jack shook his head. “We’ve been through this. It’s a great investment.” His tone was too mild, too measured, given the tension coming off him in waves.

  “It’s a bad match for our portfolio.”

  “No, it’s actually—”

  “It’s frivolous. You want a place for you and your brothers to take girls?” his father asked. He struck Jack upside the head with the flat of his palm. I sucked in a shocked breath. “If you want to impress me, this isn’t it.” And then, “But feel free to buy it. If you can.”

  Jack’s right hand made a fist, instinctively jerking forward for a tiny moment before he caught himself up and jammed his hand in his pocket.

  His father’s blow was a quick strike, probably more symbolic than painful, and I think it stunned me as much as Jack. Embarrassment for Jack scorched my face.

  Monsieur Marchand turned back on his way out the door, and once more looked me up and down like a horse at a state fair. “This girl…I don’t think so. You know what you have to do.”

  He doesn’t have to do anything, since we’re not doing anything, I thought a bit regretfully right before I silently cursed myself for not grabbing my gorgeous Chloé bag on the way out of the house.

  Jack ran his hand through his hair where his father had left it standing half on end, forcing a smile, but I could see the hurt in his eyes. He didn’t speak for a moment, that right fist coming out of his pocket, fingers rubbing together as if he was still contemplating answering his dad’s bl
ow with one of his own. “I am so sorry for what he said. There is nothing in this world that pleases him more than expressing his displeasure.”

  I shrugged that off, way more upset by seeing Jack struck by his father than by an insult from a man who didn’t even know me. Which was kind of interesting given that Jack himself was partially responsible for giving me such thick skin. “Sit down for a minute,” I said, pressing him into a club chair covered with sumptuous velvet and taking a seat next to him.

  He looked like a downcast prince. The side of his face was still red, and he rubbed the mark absently, saying, “I thought this could be the project.” After a moment, he grabbed my hand. “Hey, let’s go spend some money.”

  I knew that phrase well. It was one of Anna’s favorites. It was also a way to medicate. I liked the way our hands looked linked together. I liked the warmth of his palm against mine. Hell, I liked the idea of committing retail therapy in Paris with a rich man’s money. Who wouldn’t? But I shook my head and dug my heels into the ground, shoving the business plan into my bag. “Wait a minute. What just happened here? Talk to me.”

  Jack’s eyes narrowed, and he pulled his hand away. Clearly he wanted me to help him chase his problems away, but if I wasn’t running from my problems anymore, I wasn’t going to let him off so easy, either. “Humiliant,” he muttered, but didn’t go on.

  “Talk to me, Jack.”

  He stared at me for a minute, and then the hard edges along his jaw softened, and he nodded before making a show of surveying the portrait directly in his line of sight. He crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t look at me as he started to talk. “He must control us. He cannot let go. Yes, there is a lot of money, but he parcels it out like a child’s allowance. I cannot move, cannot breathe.” He pinched the space between his eyes. “I’ve wanted to do something independently for a long time, but I must borrow from my father to launch the project and, as you saw, that offer is beginning to look like a trap. This is certainly not the first project I’ve brought to his attention, but it is without a doubt, the best. My brothers and I have combed the financials…” He made a sound of disgust and waved it away. “What does it matter?”