Samira took a deep breath and looked down at the screen, where she was immediately confronted with a nightmare list of paparazzi snaps and tabloid headlines in both French and English.
Her heart sank.
There was a younger Baptiste with shorter hair and glazed eyes, with his arms slung around the shoulders of a couple of his buddies as they half-dragged him out of some club. There was Baptiste looking glamorous as he posed with some willowy, eight-foot-tall blond supermodel outside a movie premier in Cannes. Oh, and this one was fun: Baptiste lounging on a yacht with a bare-breasted woman draped on each side.
Samira paused to rub her aching chest, telling herself she would not feel this kind of crashing disappointment over a guy she just met and barely knew. It wasn’t like he’d ever promised her anything, no matter how earnest he always seemed. It wasn’t like they were soul mates. Baptiste had had a life before he met her. She knew that. Baptiste loved women. Hell, he’d told her that.
So why was she so upset to discover that he was exactly the type of man she’d suspected him to be? Because he was fascinating, smart, handsome, charming, amazing in bed and had whispered a few pretty words in her ear?
You know better than that, Samira.
You didn’t need him anyway, girl. You don’t need the drama.
At least there were no mug shots, she thought glumly, although maybe Melody’s research hadn’t been as thorough as it needed to be.
Ah, but there were tabloid headlines, though. Plenty of headlines. Why not check those out?
My Wild Night With The Partying Playboy, read one.
Mercier Heir Struggles To Protect Billion Dollar Fortune, said another.
The Three-Month Man: How Baptiste Mercier Kept Me And Left Me was the pièce de résistance.
Samira made it through a few lines of that last story before she couldn’t take it anymore. Disgusted and maxed out on all things Baptiste for the day, Samira clicked the phone off and handed it back to Melody without a word.
“So…what’re you going to do?” Melody asked delicately.
“Hell if I know,” Samira said, fiddling with the cream pitcher.
Melody seemed surprised. “Really? I thought you’d use this as the final nail in his coffin to never see him again. Since you already think he’s unsuitable and all.”
“That’s what a smart woman would do, yeah.”
“I just…” Melody floundered, shaking her head and frowning thoughtfully.
Samira looked up. “Just what?”
“I just…there’s something about him, honey. Something about the way he looked at you. It’s crazy intense.”
“It’s those damn green eyes,” Samira said, crossing her arms.
“No, it’s not.”
“Well, then, it’s just lust, dummy. You should know that. It’s not your first rodeo.”
“I’m not sure. Whatever it is, Terrance damn sure never looked at you that way.” Melody sighed, her expression turning dreamy. “I think you should give Baptiste a chance. See how this plays out a little bit. What’ve you got to lose?”
“Pride? Dignity? Self-respect?”
Melody lost the dewy-eyed look and zeroed in on Samira’s face with the kind of keen interest that never boded well for Samira. “What’s really going on here?”
“Nothing,” Samira said quickly. “Let’s order—”
“Spit it out, Sam. Now.”
Samira opened her mouth, struggling to put it into words. “You’re going to think I’m insane.”
Melody flapped a hand. “Oh, don’t worry. I often think poorly of you.”
They both laughed, breaking most of the tension.
Samira rested her elbows on the table, gathered her thoughts and chose her words carefully. “I know I just met him. I barely know anything about him. But I’ve had more fun in the ten minutes I’ve spent with Baptiste than I had the whole time I was with Terrance. Hotter sex. More of a connection.”
Melody’s eyes widened. “And…?”
A shadow loomed over their table, startling them.
“And she’s afraid she’ll fall for me if she lets her guard down,” Baptiste said, his unsmiling gaze fixed on Samira’s face.
16
“Oh, my God.” Samira cried, as disgusted with herself as she was with Baptiste. Her heart should not leap like this. She should not be this unsettled—and this unreasonably happy—to see him again so soon. She looked to Melody. “Please do not tell me that this man is eavesdropping on yet another of our private conversations.”
“You should consider not having these discussions in public all the time.” The heavy amusement in his voice made Samira want to punch him right in his taut abs. “You know how small Journey’s End is. You know how good my hearing is. What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to give me a minute alone to think.” Samira heard the tinge of hysteria in the last word as she tapped her temple with her index finger, but there was nothing she could do about it. “Is that too much to ask?”
She finally looked up at him, her nerves stretched taut, and their gazes connected. He was rumpled this morning, she saw at a glance, the overgrown five o’clock shadow and unruly wavy hair only intensifying his genetic blessings. Today he wore a T-shirt and knit shorts, and his unmitigated masculinity combined with his innate sexiness and sudden concern to produce a cocktail that drove her half out of her mind.
Worst of all?
The hollowed-out look from the sleepless night he’d forced her to share only enhanced the brightness of his eyes, which sparkled like the finest forest-green emeralds Harry Winston had to offer.
His amusement vanished immediately. “What’s wrong, Samira?”
His urgency level moved her. He acted as though he was ready to grab a torch and pitchfork, launch a congressional investigation or form a search party. Whatever it took to make it all better for her.
Samira all but swooned, alerting her to how dire this situation was becoming. If she spent another thirty seconds with this man, there’d be nothing left of her common sense or instincts for self-preservation. Little enough remained as it was.
“Did you pay my credit card bill for me?” she asked helplessly.
He blinked. Hesitated, a ruddy flush seeping up his neck and over the harsh planes of his cheekbones. Glanced at Melody as though he wanted her instructions on managing what was shaping up to be a tricky situation and received only an I can’t help you shrug in return. Finally looked back to Samira.
“Yes.”
Oh, God.
Samira slumped back in her seat, astonished.
The others exchanged an oh, shit look.
Stunned as she was, it took Samira a couple seconds to formulate her next move.
“Melody, can I have a minute with Baptiste, please?”
“Not again,” Melody grumbled, rolling her eyes as she stood and grabbed her bag. “If you two keep this up, I’m going to lose five pounds this week.” She looked at Baptiste and sadly shook her head. “You’re on your own this time, buddy.”
Baptiste nodded grimly, gave her a quick double-kiss as she left, then slid into her seat and faced Samira across the table. Only when he set a new bike helmet in a box down on his seat did she realize he’d had it with him.
“What’s that about?” she asked, pointing to it and buying time to get her act together before they had this conversation. She was in completely uncharted territory, and she needed all the help she could get.
A vague frown made his heavy brows contract.
“I, ah…Daniel and Sean wanted me to ride with them today.”
“Sean?”
“Sean Baldwin. Another of my buddies from Napa.”
He pointed. She saw Daniel and Sean sitting at another table, perusing menus.
“Oh.”
“Samira. What’s wrong?”
So much for trying to get her act together.
She opened her mouth with no real idea where to begin.
“That bill
was nearly eleven thousand dollars, Baptiste.”
He nodded blankly. “Yes? So?”
“So?” She rubbed her temples, wishing she could get her mind around this man and this conversation. “What’re you doing? That’s not pocket change.”
He shrugged.
“But I’m forgetting. It is pocket change to you.”
Another shrug.
“That’s all you’re going to do? Shrug at me?”
“What would you like me to say?”
“Let’s start with how you did it. How about that? I’m assuming you found my statement in your hotel room?”
“Yes.”
“How about returning it?”
“I thought this was better.”
“How did you even manage it this quickly?”
“I called my banker. I’m a good customer, so…”
She could just imagine. When you were worth that kind of money—billions, the article had said! —bankers probably did everything from picking up your dry cleaning to popping open the champagne when you visited the local branch, to keep you happy.
Samira thought of her parents, who had saved and scraped all her life, and for whom eleven thousand dollars was an enormous fortune, and of her friends, many of whom were still up to their eyeballs in student loan debt, and of her own savings account, which was woefully short in the messy wake of her non-wedding.
“So…it’s a loan?” she asked.
He looked vaguely insulted, his expression darkening.
“Of course not. I’m not a bank.”
This dizzying answer only deepened her consternation.
What was the protocol for this? What the hell was she supposed to do now?
Yell at him? Write him a thank-you note? Offer him a blow job and a home-cooked meal?
“Why would you spend that kind of money on a woman you barely know?”
He cocked his head, watching her closely, and she sensed his puzzlement and frustration as well as his desire to get things right.
They both wanted to communicate with each other, but it suddenly didn’t seem that easy. It felt as though she only spoke a few words of French and he only spoke a few words of English, but she’d asked for directions to the Eiffel Tower and he was determined to get her there.
“You needed the money,” he finally said. “I had the money. It’s not a big deal.”
“Not a big—? Of course it’s a big deal! I’m not a charity case.”
“I know you’re not,” he said quickly, looking stricken. “That never crossed my mind.”
“I work hard for everything I have. I pay my own bills the way my parents raised me to. I’ve paid my own bills since I graduated from college.”
“Yes, I understand. I’ve gotten this all wrong. I didn’t mean—”
“Other than my engagement ring, the most extravagant gift I’ve ever received is a five-hundred-dollar leather jacket my ex-fiancé gave me for Christmas.”
He blinked. Hesitated. “I see.”
“I don’t think you do see. I mean…” Geez. She couldn’t even get her thoughts together enough to form a coherent sentence. Was this how things worked in the world of billionaires? Was this how the other half lived? If she accepted the gift, did that make her a prostitute? If she stood on principle and didn’t accept the gift, did that make her too stupid to live? “Thank you, but what’s this supposed to mean? Why would you do this for me? You barely know me.”
He rested his elbows on the table, put his palms together and pressed his lips against his index fingers, studying her as he thought long and hard. She got the impression that, while he wanted to make his position clear, he also didn’t want to reveal too much about something.
At last, he put his hands down and took a deep breath.
“You told me how much you need your job, especially right now, and about your expenses from the almost-wedding. I saw the bill.” He paused. “I like you. Very much. I don’t want you to struggle—”
The S-word, predictably, made her hackles stand on end.
“I just told you I’m not struggling.”
“Forgive me. My words are very clumsy today. I want you to have carefree days of happiness and rainbows. I want your eyes to sparkle. All the time. And no one’s eyes can sparkle when they have a nasty bill hanging over their head. There you have it.”
“Great. And what do you expect from me in return?”
“Nothing.”
She didn’t bother trying to stifle a disbelieving laugh before she lowered her voice.
“Nothing. Right. But if my gratitude made me want to take you back to my place for a blow job, you wouldn’t mind…?”
If she’d expected her crudeness to offend him, she was mistaken. Another of those measured looks followed, but this time a gleam of admiration lit his eyes.
“I plan to do any and everything I can do to get this relationship back on track. On track means we’re in the same bed at night. Don’t look so surprised. Did you expect me to deny it? We’re doing a mating dance, you and I, aren’t we? I’m like the male peacock. I’ve already shown you my feathers.” He gave her a pointed look. “Maybe you’d like to see what else I can do for you.”
She gaped at him, sudden hot outrage making her face and ears burn and gluing her words to her tongue.
So that was what he thought of her.
But she had no one to blame but herself, did she? She was the genius who’d laid on her back and spread her legs within an hour of meeting him.
“I see. Well, thanks for your gift. But no thanks.” Sudden bafflement made her shrill. “I mean, you knew I was coming off a tough breakup. You knew I needed a minute to think things through. Would it really have been that hard for you to be patient and wait, oh, I don’t know, a full week before you went around making grand gestures?”
“Samira. It’s not that I can’t be patient.”
“Well, what the hell is it, then?”
He looked away with an irritable shrug, and she once again had the feeling that he was editing out far more than he was revealing.
“It’s that things between us feel…different.”
Her heart thudded. “Different from what?”
He stared at her again, answering reluctantly.
“Different from the way things have felt in the past. Things between us feel far too important to leave to chance. I won’t sit on my hands and hope things work out in my favor. That’s not who I am. If there’s information I can provide to help you decide to be with me, then I want you to have it.”
“Yeah?” She laughed bitterly. “Well, I know this probably wasn’t your intention, but the information you gave me today was that you’re controlling and you think I’m greedy and materialistic. If a richer man came along and gave me a bigger check, do you think I’d take off with him? And why would you want money to play a role between us, anyway? Don’t you want the woman you’re with to want you for you? Don’t you think you deserve that?”
He flinched.
She waited a couple seconds, but he seemed beyond speech.
“Okay, well, I don’t know what’s going on in your mind right now, but I’m not a gold digger.”
He blinked. Frowned. “I never said that. But my mother always—”
“Your mother?” Wow. Just when she’d thought he couldn’t lob a bigger insult her way. The hits just kept on coming and coming. “The woman you talked about so lovingly last night? Do I look like your mother?”
“No,” he said grimly. “You do not.”
“But you think that little of me.”
“No.”
“Whatever you say. I’ll write you a check,” she said, reaching for her purse.
“What? I don’t want your check.”
“And I don’t want your money,” she snapped.
He ran his hands through his hair, pulling it back from his forehead until it seemed likely he’d rip it out by the roots. Then he dropped his hands and attempted a smile, evidently trying a different tac
tic with the insane woman.
“Samira,” he said soothingly. “Why not pretend you won the lottery and enjoy the money? It’s my pleasure to give it.”
Yeah, she’d been asking herself that same question for the last several minutes. The money could really help her. She could pay off the bill and start saving again. Sleep easier at night. Stop praying so hard for her used car’s long life and happiness.
Yet her pride wouldn’t let her do any of that.
Her pride demanded that she and Baptiste be on absolutely equal footing. She didn’t need the drama sure to follow when you let the man have all the control. How could she keep an objective view of their relationship, whatever it was, if he controlled the unholy trio—
Her thoughts, her body and her finances?
Oh, hell no.
“You may have way more money than me, but I don’t want you to have the upper hand,” she said flatly. “That’s why.”
“What?”
“If I accept this money from you, you’re in charge. I owe you. And if I wanted to tell you to go to hell if you didn’t treat me right, I’d have to think twice about it because we’d no longer be equal. I’d be beholden to you. Dependent on you.”
There was an excruciating pause.
And then a disbelieving laugh from him, capped off by a lingering once-over that was just this side of a leer. He leaned in. Lowered his voice.
“As long as you have me lying awake at night with a knot in my belly, a rock-hard queue and thoughts of your smile and your sweet pussy in my head, ma reine, then you have the upper hand. Trust me.”
Much as his vulgarity made her long to smack the smirk off his face, it also made her entire body respond, from her tightening sex and aching nipples to her ragged breath.
But she could pretend otherwise.
“Wow. I’m all atingle,” she said coolly, reaching into her purse and withdrawing her checkbook with a shaky hand. “I’m not sure about the exchange rates at the moment, but I can look them up…”
“Exchange rates?” His raised voice and startled laugh drew the attention of a couple people at the next table, so he hunkered over the table and lowered his volume again. “Samira, what are you talking about? Are you insane? Keep the money! It’s nothing to me! I spend more on clothes and shoes every month!”
No Ordinary Love Page 16
