French Kissing

by Nancy Warren

  “That’s a good start.” She shot him a mischievous glance. “We need him gorgeous.”

  “That goes without saying.”

  Once all the chalk marks were made he was allowed to escape back into the dressing room, where he hauled himself out of the dress shirt and was standing in slacks and an undone Prada belt.

  “Are you decent?” Kimi’s voice came from the other side of the door.

  “Depends who you ask.”

  With a tsk that said she didn’t have time to dawdle, she pushed open the door. When she saw his naked chest she smiled. “Nice,” she said, tapping him on the pec. Her palm was soft and cool. “Exactly as I’d hoped.”

  He could get all puffed up by the compliment, except that she’d said it as impersonally as though he’d been a plastic mannequin she wanted to stick in a store window. But he was flesh and blood and both reacted to her touch. He felt the brush of her skin against his and his blood immediately pumped a little faster. The change room seemed like a very intimate space with the two of them in here and him half-naked. Maybe she caught the direction of his thoughts for she glanced up and their gazes met. He caught the heat of attraction in her eyes and felt the war going on inside her between the bossy fashionista and the warm, exciting woman he knew her to be.

  Then she handed him a pair of sweaters, one black and the other a kind of blue with a pattern in it. They were wool and silk, he found when he peeked at the label, soft to the touch.

  “Try these on,” she said, and disappeared.

  Okay, he thought as she exited, so the bossy fashionista had won this round. The sexy woman in her wanted to come out and play. He’d seen it in her eyes. Maybe having a woman dress him had its moments.

  Especially if it could lead to her undressing him, which at the moment seemed like a very appealing idea.

  4

  “FIND HIM SOMETHING to wear out of the store, will you, Pierre?”

  “But of course, Kimi.”

  “What are you planning to do with my clothes?” Holden asked.

  “Throw them away. Please.”

  He’d been measured, pinned, manhandled and dressed. It was time to assert himself. “But those are my favorite jeans.”

  “You poor misguided man.” She sighed. “I’ll make you a deal. You can keep the jeans if we throw away the blue sweater.”

  “What’s wrong with the blue sweater?”

  “I don’t have time to tell you everything that’s wrong with that sweater. We’re only in Paris for a week.”

  “That sweater is very warm,” he said.

  “That’s the only thing not wrong with it.”

  He squinted his eyes at her, playing for time. There was something decidedly flirtatious about the way she returned his gaze. “You are a very bossy woman.”

  “Darling, if we’re ever in a situation together where we’re in the wilderness and need to survive on berries, believe me, you can be the boss.”

  He handed over his sweater to Pierre but spoke to Kimi. “Don’t forget I also know which berries are the poison kind.”

  She turned to Pierre. “Can you wrap up everything but the sweater and deliver them to the hotel with the rest of his things?”

  “Of course.” He took the sweater and walked into the stockroom as though he were carrying a dead rat. When he returned, he was empty-handed.

  When they left the store, Holden was wearing dress slacks in something he thought was called twill. They were gray in color and over them he wore a black-and-white shirt and the black sweater. He still wore his sneakers, but he had a premonition that he wouldn’t be wearing them for much longer.

  And when their next stop was a shoe store, he knew he’d been right. He didn’t bother arguing. So far, he’d actually liked everything she picked out for him and only used one of his vetoes when she tried to explain that a lavender shirt was not the same as pink.

  He thought it was outrageous to pay those kinds of prices for clothing, though after seeing how everyone else at that party had been dressed last night, he acknowledged he needed help.

  “I only wear comfortable shoes,” he warned her as they walked into a shoe store that looked more like a shrine to rare religious artifacts than a storefront for footwear.

  “Lucky you.”

  “Hey, nobody forces you to wear those crazy ice-pick heels.”

  She shrugged. “We all have our obsessions. You keep your hiking boots. I’ll stick to my heels.”

  “Have you ever even owned a pair of hiking boots, Manhattan? I bet your idea of the wilderness is Coney Island. You’re missing out on one of the greatest experiences in the world.”

  She looked at him, rather amused. “You’d lose your bet. Among other outdoor adventures, I spent a memorable ten days in senior high in a women’s-only survival camp. It included a three-day personal wilderness adventure where we got dropped off in the middle of nowhere, Colorado, each in a different spot. For three days and three very long nights, I had to rely on my wits, scavenge for food and hope to hell nothing worse than mosquitoes ate me.”

  All her friends that summer had gone to dance camps, theater camps. She herself had been accepted to a two-week workshop for budding fashionistas, but her mother had been determined she should balance out her frivolous lifestyle with more serious and presumably useful pursuits. “I know all about camping in the wilderness, my friend, and it is not for me.”

  She loved the way his eyes flickered gold and green when he smiled down at her. “That camp was work. An ordeal.” He shook his head at her. “That’s not how you learn to appreciate nature, by gritting your teeth and eating grubs and berries and shivering alone at night. Your folks should be horsewhipped.”

  “Only my mom. My dad probably wouldn’t know me if he tripped over me.” She hadn’t meant to sound so bitter, so she lightened her tone. “Anyhow, Mom did her best for me. And I bet I can still build a campfire with a bit of broken glass and some dry twigs.”

  “Going out into nature isn’t supposed to be an endurance test. It should be fun.”

  She shuddered. One of the million mosquito bites she’d got on that awful three-day ordeal had become infected. Unfortunately, it was near her eye. Her eye had swelled shut and she’d needed antibiotics. When she’d started school that fall, her senior year, she’d still had some redness and swelling. She’d felt like a freak. “My idea of camping includes valet parking. And room service.”

  “There’s nothing like watching the sun come up over the water, and you look out and watch eagles soaring, and there’s a deer, right there in front of you and you’d swear he was looking at the sunrise just like you are.” He had a nice voice, soothing, so she could almost imagine the moment. The two of them snuggled up watching the sunrise.

  “It’s quiet, so you can hear yourself think and the air is clear enough to breathe. No cell phones, no traffic, no—”

  “No indoor plumbing.”

  He put an arm around her. “One day, when you decide you’re ready, you call me and I’ll take you.”

  “You’ll take me camping?”

  “That’s right. I know a little spot I think would convince even you. We’d hike in, spend a couple of days exploring. If we go at the right time, you see orca whales traveling south. You’d like that.”

  The words whale watching tour flashed through her mind, but she understood he was offering her something that was important to him so she kept her snarky comments to herself. “I’ll think about it,” she said. “But for now, we need to get you some shoes and—I don’t suppose you own cuff links?”

  “At home in my safe-deposit box I have a pair that belonged to my grandfather.” They were gold with pearls on them. And they were staying locked up where Kimi couldn’t get her hands—or his cuffs—near them.

  She gave him the kind of smile old ladies give little kids before patting their cheeks, and then preceded him into the next store on the Rue de Boredom.

  “Oh,” she said, “I’ve also booked you an appointm
ent at my favorite salon for a haircut.” She consulted her watch and looked pleased with herself. “We’re right on schedule.”

  “I suppose I’d be wasting my time if I told you I had a haircut a couple weeks ago?”

  She smiled at him sunnily. “You’re right. You would.”

  After finding himself the proud owner of brogues, loafers and boots, none of which he could ever imagine wearing once this week was over, they finally escaped.

  To the hairdresser.

  Where it took a full hour as Kimi and another of her pet Frenchmen discussed his cheekbones, his jaw, even pulled his hair up to check the shape, size and angle of his ears. They were pronounced excellent. He’d have mentioned how he found them useful for hearing, but decided to save his breath for when they started doing stuff to his hair he didn’t like.

  But, surprisingly, for all the discussion, he ended up looking way more normal than he’d imagined. His hair was shorter, and maybe more shaped, but he hadn’t had to fight off dye, or bits draping strategically over one eye, or strange spiky things, all of which he’d seen in the salon.

  Once out, he thought his ordeal was over and that he’d been amazingly patient.

  “Whew,” he said. “I’m ready for lunch. And then a nap.”

  She laughed at him. “Well, since you’ve been very good, we’ll have lunch sent up to my suite. But we’ve got a stop to make first.”

  He liked the sound of lunch in her suite. But something about her businesslike manner suggested his idea of the two of them alone in her Paris hotel suite, and her idea of same, weren’t going to gibe.

  Sure enough, their next stop was at a huge bookstore that stocked a large selection of books and magazines in every language. Even as he went over to the mag rack to see if they had any outdoor magazines, she was busily filling her arms with one copy of every fashion magazine the place carried, including a couple of French-and Italian-language ones.

  He had a very bad idea in the pit of his stomach that she wasn’t going to be reading them all herself.

  Sure enough, after she’d paid for the booty, they walked back in the sunshine to her hotel.

  “I’ll order lunch while you get started.”

  “Get started?”

  She emptied one of the bags of magazines onto the table in the living room. “Boot camp.”

  “No, please,” he groaned.

  She walked to a fancy desk that could have been used by Napoleon and Josephine and opened the drawer to find a pen and notepad, which she placed beside him.

  “Make notes. I want to know the hot designers, what they’re known for, the colors for this season and next, and I want you to be able to recognize the models. You’ll be expected to know most of them at a glance. If you don’t, you’ll be revealing yourself as a clueless amateur.”

  “Okay, okay. I get it.”

  He grabbed the first magazine on the stack. Flipped it open.

  “I DON’T UNDERSTAND how Rhett could send someone who doesn’t know the first thing about fashion,” she grumbled.

  “I know your purse is Prada,” he snapped.

  “Good. Maybe by the end of the afternoon, you’ll recognize my dress and shoes.”

  It was going to be a very long day.

  And night, it turned out when Her Ladyship informed him that she was attending a magazine editors’ dinner and he didn’t need to bother coming.

  “But—”

  “Get more room service sent up. I’m serious about this boot camp. You’ve got to know your stuff or your cover will be blown the first time you have to work with your newspaper editor.”

  “Okay.” He knew she was right, but of all the worlds he’d had to learn in a hurry, this was the one he had the least interest in. “Look, I’ll take this stuff back to my hotel and keep working. Besides, I’ve got some calls to make.”

  She gave him a suspicious look. “There will be a test.”

  He rose and stepped up to her, maybe a tad closer than strictly necessary. She raised one eyebrow and sent him a cool, blue challenge.

  “Whatever test you have for me,” he said, “I promise you I’ll pass.”

  He had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes widen and her breath jerk in sharply, before he turned on his heel, grabbed his homework and left.

  5

  THE PHONE DRAGGED Holden out of a troubled sleep. He’d been dreaming he was being strangled by a sadistic killer, and the jangling sound of a French telephone with its jarring brrring, brrring had him sitting straight up in bed before he realized that he’d been dreaming of himself in a bow tie. A nightmare if there ever was one.

  He snatched at the receiver. “Yeah.”

  “You had yourself reassigned.” It was Kimi and she sounded pretty pissed about the results of a couple of the calls he’d made last night.

  “I was going to tell you about it myself this morning. How did you find out so fast?”

  She ignored his question. “Why did you do it?”

  “I thought about it, and me working with you makes sense. You already know who I am and you said you’d help me. This way I don’t have to pretend I’m something I’m not, or let that miserable-looking editor get a piece of me.”

  “Think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

  “Above-average intelligence. What are you so pissed about?”

  “I don’t like being railroaded into things without my permission. I don’t like people—” she emphasized the word people so it had the same connotation she’d give vermin “—going behind my back and messing with my career. And Paris during couture week is my career.”

  “You said you’d help me.”

  “Unofficially. But I’m a fashion editor. Not a detective. I have priorities.”

  “Okay, fair enough.” He shoved his hair out of his eyes and wished he’d already had at least one strong cup of coffee inside him before dealing with an irate Kimi. “I didn’t even think of getting myself assigned to you until after I got finished studying and started doing some thinking. It was too late to call you by that time.”

  “You could have waited until morning. Talked to me first in case I had a problem with your brilliant idea.”

  “I could have, but it all needed to be done fast. Plus, we needed your people onside. So, yeah, sorry I didn’t tell you before. I was going to tell you this morning.”

  “My publisher called me with the news. It means I don’t get my own personal handpicked favorite photographer, the one who flies in from Milan specially. He was supposed to meet me here today. They’ve given him another assignment. Instead I get you.” He heard her teeth snap together and was reminded of the time in the backwoods of British Columbia when a cougar had tried to have him for lunch.

  “Don’t you think solving a major international crime ring is more important than your career?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  He tried another tack. “How do you know I’m not a better photographer than your Milan guy?”

  “Let me count the ways. One—he’s photographed every major fashion event of the last three years. I’ve never seen you at a single one. Two—he trained under RichardAvedon.”

  “Wow. Impressive.”

  “You bet your ass it’s impressive. And three—he knows fashion, he understands it. He likes it.” She wound up for the knockout punch. “He wears it.”

  “Look, I get that you’re upset.”

  “Upset doesn’t begin to describe how I feel. Brewster Peacock already has his suspicions about you. If we work together and he takes you down, then he takes me down with you. That man could destroy my future.”

  “Then we’ll make sure he doesn’t get a chance. I’ll get great shots,” he promised rashly.

  “How?”

  “I’m tall. I can see over the heads of most of those little French guys. Your guy from Milan—is he?”

  “Six feet two inches,” she snapped.

  Damn. “Well, I’ve got an inch on him.”

  She let out a breath. “I
f I’m stuck with you I’m stuck with you, but I am not happy that you went behind my back and reorganized yourself onto my staff. I expect you to put as much energy and thought into your photographs for Uptown as you put into the investigation business, understood?”

  “Yeah. Of course. I have my professional pride too, you know.”

  “Good. And if your photos are shit—”

  “They won’t be.”

  He heard her breathing out slowly, as though she was stopping herself from saying more. “Okay. Now, for what you’ll wear today—”

  “Excuse me?” It was his turn to get huffy. “Now you’re telling me what to wear?”

  “Trust me. I’m doing you a favor.” And she gave him explicit instructions on what to wear. He couldn’t decide if he liked the idea of having a professional fashion editor dress him or not. But then he didn’t have a clue what was appropriate for most of these gigs, so he decided to let her have her way at least in this. He’d have to watch her though. She was way too bossy.

  “I’ll pick you up eleven-thirty and we’ll head over to the media lunch sponsored by the fashion council together.”

  Uh-oh. “You should probably give me a schedule of what you need me to do and when. I, uh, can’t make the lunch. I’ll have to catch up with you later.”

  “And why can’t you make the lunch?” she said slowly and evenly.

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “I am stuck with you against my wishes. The only reason I’m not throwing a hissy fit and getting my own photographer is because I am trying to help you do your job. So cut the crap. Who are you meeting?”

  Even though she was mainly acting pissed because she hadn’t been consulted about the change of photographer, he could appreciate that she was in a tough spot. Likely there were some things he wouldn’t be able to tell her over the next week. But telling her about this meeting was a lot better than having to find another cover story. For better or worse, he and Kimi were going to be working together this week. He might as well start trusting her.

  A little.

  “I’m meeting my contact at Interpol. We’re going to exchange information.”