Fierce (Not Quite a Billionaire)

by Rosalind James

  Sure enough, the driver slowed fifteen minutes later and pulled into another entryway, but such a different one. The French flags flying over stone columns topped with gilt, a stately edifice of warm stone rising above them, and all around us, everything that most said Paris. The Avenue de l’Opéra, the heart of the city. And the Hôtel du Louvre.

  I didn’t have time to stand around and gawk. I slid out of the car, waited while the driver retrieved my suitcase, and fumbled in my bag for the appropriate French tip.

  “Non, Madame,” he said with a waving-off gesture that had to be Hemi’s influence again, and I stepped forward to encounter a splendidly uniformed doorman, infinitely more magnificent than the plebeian specimen at the former hotel, and a soaring lobby, all white marble floors, ornately carved furniture upholstered with velvet, glittering chandeliers, and black marble columns.

  Black-suited clerks, so urbane and discreet they were more like headwaiters, stood behind a reception desk of polished wood. No standing in line this time. Straight to the desk. “I’m Hope Sinclair,” I said, trying for an assurance I didn’t feel, trying to pretend that I knew what was coming next.

  A few taps of computer keys, directions to the elevators, and the next part of the scavenger hunt was on. And if I’d worried, somewhere in the back of my mind, that Hemi would simply have installed me in his own hotel room as if that were my only choice, I’d been wrong,

  “Oh, boy,” I breathed as the door closed softly behind me. “No fair.”

  I guessed this was what they meant by “Empire furnishings.” Soft rose carpeting, a plush couch and side chairs in the same hue, and sweeps of red draperies framing floor-to-ceiling windows, set against gold walls hung with light sconces. On the coffee table? A vase of lavender roses, of course, and a basket of fruit on the square dining table. And, through a doorway, a king-sized bed covered with crisp white linens and huge, fluffy pillows, with a magnificent chandelier overhead.

  The whole thing was a giant boudoir, and I felt sexier just standing in it. And if this had been a scavenger hunt, I’d surely won the prize.

  And then, of course, my phone rang. Did the man have spies everywhere?

  “You know,” I said when I’d pressed the button, “just a room would have totally worked on me.”

  I could hear the smile in his voice when he answered. “Am I playing dirty again?”

  “You know you are.” I sat down on my velvet tufted boudoir couch and sighed with satisfaction. “I’m trying to keep my deeply held principles in mind, but it’s getting harder and harder. I’m just saying.”

  “Nah,” he said, “I have faith in you. Don’t pike out on me now. I’m counting on a bit more resistance here.”

  “Mm.” I leaned back and turned my head to the side so I could see out the window. “You’d better be spending some time with me, then, and being your most arrogant self, too. I’m sure you can manage to say something to annoy me if you put your mind to it. Do you have more to do, or do we really get to explore together?”

  “We really get to explore together. I’ll come take you for a coffee first, shall I?”

  I sighed. “Yes, please.”

  “I’ll let you get settled, then, and meet you in twenty minutes in the lobby. That do you?”

  “You know,” I said, “if I keep saying, ‘yes, please,’ it’s going to get to be a bad habit.”

  I heard a soft chuckle as he hung up, and I unpacked and tried to think stern thoughts about being sure, and making rational decisions, and not being swayed by externals, and pretty much failed completely.

  When I came out of the elevator and Hemi rose from another rose-patterned armchair set under a huge black marble column, I failed again. He was dressed in his usual tailored black jacket and trousers, but his white shirt was open an extra button to reveal a tantalizing triangle of bronzed flesh. And the gleam in his eyes as he came toward me told me that he liked how I looked, too.

  I got a big hand on my shoulder, a kiss on my cheek, a subtle whiff of male cologne, and an impression of hard man, and that was all. And if I swayed into him a little to try to get more, I’m not telling.

  “You look very beautiful,” he told me. “Very sweet and sexy. Very…” He smiled. “Young.”

  “I could tell you how you look,” I told him, “but my room is so pink and red and velvety, I think I’d better get a little distance first, or I might embarrass myself.”

  He took my hand, threaded his fingers through mine, and I enjoyed the feeling of being swallowed up in him. “Right,” he said. “We wouldn’t want that, eh. Coffee.”

  He walked me around the corner to the Café Louise, and we sat at a little table on the sidewalk surrounded by twining archways of trained greenery, drank creamy café au lait and ate croissants that dissolved into a hundred buttery flakes as soon as we bit into them, and watched fashionable Paris walking by. One of those magical moments, and I experienced a pleasant sort of vertigo, of being so intensely here, and yet aware that I was here, as if I were watching myself from above.

  “I’d think this would be a good place for ideas,” I said, taking another sip of coffee from a porcelain cup and nearly purring at the taste, at the perfection of the moment. “Paris, I mean. Wandering around here. Although I’m not sure I’d ever get any work done.”

  “Mm. For ideas, I do better outdoors,” he said. “Near the sea, or in the bush. That’s where I see everything. Patterns. Textures. Color. Especially if there’s nobody around. In the quiet, when I can let my mind go.”

  “Oh.” I considered. “I can imagine that. At least I think I can. I’ve never been anyplace where there’s nobody around.”

  He looked a little startled. “Never?”

  “Nope. The ocean? That would be Coney Island. The bush? I guess you mean, like the woods? I haven’t been anywhere much more remote than Central Park. Do you want to know something really embarrassing, since I’m pretty much the Little Match Girl here? This trip was the first time I’ve been in an airplane.”

  “How can anyone not have been on an airplane?” He looked truly shocked at the thought.

  I shrugged. “I’ll bet I’m not the only person in the world who hasn’t, though. Have I mentioned this sister of mine?”

  “Karen, and your mum. Reckon I see why there haven’t been any flights in your life. First time in a suite as well?”

  That one got a pretty good smile out of me. “You could say so, yes. I’m trying not to let you turn my head, but it’s a serious effort. If you buy me some more wine tonight…” I sighed. “And look at me the way you do? I could be in real trouble.”

  “We’re meant to be conversing,” he said severely, “so I’m going to ignore that and just say that I’m considering myself lucky that you had a passport.”

  “You should. You could conclude from that that I’m a hopeful dreamer, or you could suspect that I’m a realist whose boss was going to do a shoot in Mexico once, so I got all prepared and then didn’t get taken along after all. I’ll let you decide which option is more likely. And now here I am in Paris. It’s really very exciting. You could have put me up at the youth hostel and I’d probably have been plenty thrilled. Sure you don’t want to re-think? It’s still early in the day. You could get your money back.”

  “Nah,” he said. “I’m too much of a Kiwi to sneer at youth hostels, but the way I remember it, they’ve got bunkrooms.”

  “I suspect you’re right. And my bathtub has spa jets and red candles around the rim. Just mentioning, in case you didn’t know, which I suspect you did. In case you’re interested. So what are we doing today?”

  He sighed. “Going to have to do something about you, aren’t I? Where did all this sauciness come from?”

  “I can’t imagine.” It actually was a surprise. I was keyed up, yes, but in a good way. Feeling reckless and free so far from home, light years away from my real life. I was teetering on the edge, my wings spread, ready to take off and soar, and I was scared, but I couldn’t wait. And
teasing Hemi? That, I was discovering, was a pure pleasure. “Maybe you made me feel too powerful, with my suite and all,” I suggested. “Maybe you’re being too nice to me.”

  “Hmm. Maybe I am. I can do something about that, too. Eventually.” He gave me another of those looks he specialized in, dark and intense, like he had a secret he wasn’t sharing, and the tingle of awareness went straight down my body. “And meanwhile,” he went on, forcing me to come back to myself with a jerk, “what would you think about the Musée d’Orsay? The Impressionist museum.” He must have seen my eyes light up. “Yeh. Thought that might work for you. We could do the Louvre, of course, but…”

  “No!” I burst out, and he smiled a little. “Please,” I added more quietly, even though I had to laugh. “I’d love that.”

  “We’ll walk through the Tuileries, shall we?” he asked.

  “Oh, let’s.”

  After that, I almost forgot to look at Hemi, because there was so much else to look at. The statues and fountains of the garden of the Tuileries, and, all too soon, the soaring majesty that was the former train station turned museum. And everything in it. Wandering from room to room, drunk on color and light and brushstrokes, and, when I began to flag, Hemi taking me out for a salad and another coffee to restore myself, then going back to look at paintings with me again, seeming to understand my need to gorge myself on the experience, to drink everything in.

  Finally, I sighed, and he said, “Tired, eh. We’ll walk back, shall we, and I’ll get a bit of work done, and you can use that spa tub of yours, maybe have a wee nap as well before we go to dinner.”

  “Oh,” I said, “you’re playing my song. It’s been a long week. We’re going to dinner?”

  “We are. I’m going to take you someplace beautiful, watch you eat delicious things, watch the way you drink wine, and think about how much I enjoy watching you have new experiences. That’s my plan.”

  “Is that what you’ve been doing today?” I asked as he retrieved my jacket from the coat check and helped me put it on.

  “Reckon it is,” he said. “And it hasn’t been bad at all.”

  My heart began to beat a little harder when he stepped into the elevator with me back at the hotel and pushed the button for the third floor. And it began to pound when he got off the elevator with me and walked silently beside me to my door.

  I pulled the keycard from my purse and swiped it, and he put a hand out and held the door open above me. I hesitated, half in and half out, looking back at him where he—well, loomed over me.

  “Eight-thirty,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the lobby. And we’ll get to work on that sauciness of yours.” And then, before I knew it, he hauled back and slapped me on the butt.

  He did. He spanked me, after he’d refused to even kiss me. I gasped and jumped, and he just looked at me, said, “Can’t wait,” let go of the door, and walked away.

  Way to set a girl up.

  A Wild Swan

  I wondered when I’d last taken an entire weekend off. Well, not an entire one, because I did put in a few hours before I turned off my laptop and left the room for a workout in the hotel gym.

  I didn’t do too badly at staying focused, either—at least until I was showering. Once I was in there, though, I couldn’t help but wonder if Hope had lit her candles and turned on the jets for her own bath, if she’d found the foaming bath oil I’d made sure would be laid out for her, because I’d had a feeling she’d love bubble baths.

  The exhibit we’d seen in the museum today didn’t help. L’Intimité du Bain. The Intimacy of the Bath. Women undressing, their transparent white shifts falling down around their lush bodies. Women sitting on the edges of curving porcelain tubs, testing the water with a languid hand, or sitting down to brush out their long hair with a towel pooling around their hips. Women in all their glory, naked, glowing, and sensual, and Hope hadn’t turned away with a blush. She’d looked, and she’d enjoyed.

  And then there had been the one that had made her stop and draw in her breath. A woman viewed from behind at her dressing table, the perfect hourglass of her back like the voluptuous body of a cello, gazing into the mirror while she lifted both graceful hands to her hair. The candlelight soft on her white skin and the rich mass of dark hair piled on top of her head, a secret smile on her face.

  “Beautiful,” Hope had sighed.

  “Yeh,” I’d said, my voice coming out a bit husky. “Makes you feel her lover’s standing behind her, in the doorway, maybe. She’s seen him, and she’s letting him look, because she knows he wants to. Every fella’s got a bit of the voyeur in him, eh.”

  “Does he?”

  “Oh, yeh. Every man wants to watch.”

  Just like I was watching Hope that evening as she walked toward me from the lift, dressed in a metallic gray beaded evening sweater closed with a row of tiny jet buttons, a full black skirt, and the shoes I’d bought her. Her fair hair was soft and tousled, and I could all but see the pupils dilating in the eyes she’d made up tonight to look huge and smoky.

  Her lips, though, she’d kept nude, exactly the way I loved them best. As I continued to watch her, they parted, and I could almost hear the uneven breath she’d be taking. She could’ve been in one of those paintings, just risen from tangled sheets, as if, in another moment, she’d be lifting those slim, softly curved arms to pull me down with her, to take me back with her again into the dark, sweet, secret places.

  As she walked toward me, her eyes on mine, I knew we were both remembering that painting. That she knew I’d been imagining her in her bath, and that I’d wished I could’ve watched.

  “Beautiful,” I told her when she arrived.

  “Is it right?” The delicate color stained her cheeks. “I borrowed it from my roommate before she left. In...in case.”

  “It’s perfect.” I reached to brush her hair away from her cheek, leaned down, and murmured in her ear, “Were you thinking about me when you chose the sweater that buttoned down the front?”

  I did hear her intake of breath this time, and when she whispered, “Yes,” I felt the jolt run straight from her body into mine.

  “But first,” I said, straightening up, “because we’re working with anticipation here, we’ll walk through Paris, and we’ll drink wine, and I’ll show you someplace beautiful. Someplace that’s one of my own favorites.”

  She enjoyed the walk through the elegant shopping district of the narrow Rue St. Honoré, loved window-shopping and talking about what we were seeing, and she loved the restaurant, too. I could tell, because Hope couldn’t disguise her feelings if she tried.

  I’d brought her to Le 1728, the former home of the Marquis de Lafayette, with its individually decorated salons reflecting the opulence of the nineteenth century, the elegance of a bygone age. The maître d’ led us up the huge carved staircase to a small salon on the upper floor, where we were seated in lavender chairs in a corner, beside tall windows hung with extravagant lavender velvet draperies looking onto the golden lights of a Paris night.

  Time slowed beside the fire crackling in the huge marble fireplace, the soft light of the chandeliers enhanced by the candlelight gleaming against the hardwood paneling and carved ceilings. I sat, ate perfectly prepared food presented with painstaking attention to detail, and watched Hope enjoying her own dinner, saw the sparkle in her eye and the curve of her lips that told me how much spirit she hid behind her innocent appearance.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, taking another forkful of red mullet and humming a little with pleasure at the taste. “That’s not good enough to say, but it’s the best I have. It’s like being a princess, you know? Like there really are such things as fairy tales, even though we both know it’s not true. Or at least that it’s all right to pretend, for one night.”

  “Maybe there are some enchantments that work,” I suggested. “Could be we just need to find the right ones. No fairy tales that touch that spot for you? Nothing more…realistic, maybe, that you can believe in?”


  “Maybe,” she said, looking at me under her lashes. “But we got in trouble the last time we talked about fairy tales.”

  “Ah,” I said with satisfaction. “So there is one. Go on, then.”

  “You don’t want to hear me tell you a fairy tale.”

  “I’m Maori. We like stories.” I leaned back a bit in my chair and smiled at her. “Entertain me.”

  “If I tell you mine,” she said, the sauciness peeping out again, “will you tell me yours?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Not good enough. But all right, Mr. One-Way Street. My favorite is The Wild Swans. I won’t tell you the whole story, but—”

  “No,” I interrupted. “The whole story. Telling stories is what we do.”

  She looked at me for another long moment, seemed to make up her mind, and finally began to speak. Haltingly at first, as if she expected me to break in and tell her it was enough, to get to the point. But as she went on, staring into the crackling flames of the fireplace, her voice took on a dreamy quality, a faint singsong that settled into place somewhere deep within me. Familiar, and new. The sound of the voice I wanted to hear most, reciting a favorite legend.

  “Once upon a time,” she said, “there was a king who had twelve children. Eleven sons and one daughter, his youngest child. His wife died—probably from having twelve children—and he married again. The new stepmother was a witch, because they always are, and she was jealous of the children, and of the king’s love for them, especially his love for his daughter. So she enchanted them. The sons, she turned to birds. At the setting of the sun, they were men. But when the first rays of day broke over the horizon, they became wild swans. And as for the daughter? The queen tried to kill her, but Elisa—the princess—was so good that the enchantment didn’t work. See, goodness again. But this time, it works for me. You’ll see why.”