Notorious in Nice

by Jianne Carlo

  “Something like that. Carol-Ann’s suing Father for divorce. There’s no prenup, so the bitch is going after half of our assets. And she’ll get it too with the ammo she’s got.”

  “She has a hold over your father?”

  Su-Lin hadn’t even met the woman, but she already actively disliked the twins’ stepmother.

  “Unfortunately, yes.” He patted the back of her hand and shook his head. “We’re getting into some uncharted waters with this conversation, and I risk breaking a few confidences. If you want to know more, ask Terry. He should be the one to tell you the whole sordid tale, not me. How about a bite to eat, and then we’ll wind our way back to the Glory?”

  She glanced down at her churning stomach, surprised Thomas hadn’t noticed the wave of nausea causing her to swallow rapidly. Her eyes fixed on each uneven brick they traversed, Su-Lin took a four-count inhale.

  “Okay, I guess you really don’t want to talk about it. I’ll accept the change of subject, but only if you tell me more about yourself. What do you do?”

  “Corporate law. I bought into a partnership about four years ago. I live in London, near Hampstead Heath. It’s a dull life actually.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true. Do you see your father often?”

  “More in the last year or so. Father is a member of Parliament and spends most of his time holed up with bills and politics.”

  “I take it your stepmother doesn’t live with him?”

  Every mention of his stepmother flattened his mouth.

  “Carol-Ann spends his money and has worked her way into aristocratic circles. She runs with society, winters in Cannes, shops in the Far East. Loves to drop titles. We are the epitome of a dysfunctional family.”

  “How long have your father and Carol-Ann been married?”

  “Fourteen or fifteen years. Why?”

  “Why is she suing for a divorce after all this time?”

  “Rumor has it there’s a man involved. She’s not getting any younger. Maybe she’s feeling the press of time. Who knows? Who cares?”

  “You really hate her, don’t you?”

  “Every single bone in her body. Simply being in the same proximity makes me nauseous. And this conversation’s killing my appetite. Let’s talk about you, you and my little brother. You’re good for him, Su-Lin.”

  Not something she wanted to discuss. Uncertain if they even had a relationship, if Terrence wanted more than sex. Never agile with conversation, having had little experience at parrying uncomfortable topics, she grabbed the first item that came to mind.

  “He told me about your brain tumor and the operation. I’m glad Terrence is going to be with you. Maybe I’ll get to see you when you’re in New York. Aunt Emma and Uncle James want me to go to Hong Kong with them after our cruise is finished, but I think I want to be on my own for a bit.”

  “Forgive me, but haven’t you been on your own your whole life?” His tone gentled the harsh question.

  “I guess that’s true, but I’ve never been free.” Su-Lin hesitated, as even speaking about Annika seemed some sort of betrayal. “Caring for my mother took up most of my time. Between school and my two jobs, it seemed as if I was always fighting to catch up. We never had enough money. Every cent went into food and keeping the house running.”

  “Are you saying that you paid the bills, you supported your mother?”

  He stopped in midstride and stared at her, those gray eyes flashing…what? Disapproval? Incredulity? Both, she decided.

  “Mom stopped doing things after Dad died. Then she stopped speaking. We’d go for weeks without her saying a word. Someone had to keep up appearances.”

  “And no one, no neighbor, no teacher ever suspected what was happening?”

  Thomas looked about to shake her and she edged sideways.

  “I couldn’t let anyone suspect. If anyone found out, I knew they’d put Mom in a home and me into foster care. So, I didn’t break any rules. I did my schoolwork, got good grades, and went to gymnastics practice. I read. I learned Mandarin and Swedish.”

  “It sounds like a stark life.” Thomas’s lips turned down. “No one should have to live like that.”

  “It wasn’t that bad, and now I have my aunt and uncle.” She hugged her arms.

  “What about Terry?”

  “What about him?” Su-Lin’s nails imprinted half U’s on her skin.

  “I’ve seen the way you look at him, Su-Lin. You’re falling in love with Terry, aren’t you?”

  Each word felt like an icicle dagger digging into her chest, and she fired right back.

  “Isn’t the pot calling the kettle black? That guy you sent the map to, you’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

  Shock couldn’t begin to describe the expression on his face. Mouth open, jaws slack, eyebrows almost touching his hairline, Thomas sucked in his cheeks. One hand tunneling through his blond locks, he muttered, “How on earth could you have known?”

  “You wrote his address, and when you were speaking with the proprietor, your finger traced a figure eight over his name, again and again.”

  “You’re scary.”

  “No, I just notice the small things no one else does.”

  Ahead of them, a group of five teenagers dressed in Gypsy costumes lounged against an ancient soot-crusted wall. Each fiddled with different time-battered musical instruments.

  The youngest, a rail-thin prepubescent girl with matted blue-black hair shook a tambourine to a steady, insistent rhythm. Su-Lin halted, arrested by the rage and hunger flashing from eyes so dark, so guarded, light would never be able to penetrate.

  “Hungarian Gypsies,” Thomas murmured.

  “They’re so young and they look half-starved.” She dug into her purse and found some euros, but before she could drop them into the hat lying on the sidewalk in front of the musicians, Thomas stilled her hand.

  “There’s a better way. Wait for me, here. Buy them a meal each. Get something from that deli over there.” He angled his chin to a canopied stall. “I’ll arrange for shoes and new clothes from the shop we just passed. Most of these kids work for adults and never see any of the money they earn. This way, they have a meal in their stomachs and something to keep them warm at night.”

  “I didn’t know Gypsies still existed.”

  “There are Gypsies in almost every country, and their culture and ways haven’t changed much over the centuries. I’ll be back.”

  Unsure of what to buy, Su-Lin ordered hearty-looking sandwiches, pasta salads, some fresh fruit, and juices in cans. When she took the packages of food over to the teenagers, they glared at her with open hostility. The oldest boy, who looked to be about sixteen, growled something and shot a wad of spittle to the ground at her feet.

  Thomas arrived at that moment, and he rattled out a barrage in a language that sounded half French, half German. He pointed to a shadowed alley between two buildings, and the boy, shoulders squared, stomped in that direction. Thomas followed.

  The young girl who’d caught Su-Lin’s attention snatched hungry looks at the food, so she set the parcels down and retreated into the entrance of a clothing shop pretending to browse. Time ticked by and Su-Lin’s curiosity warred with the need to wait and let the girl eat without losing her dignity. She fingered a fake-fur collar and sneaked a glance to where the teenagers had been. Nothing, no hint they had even been there.

  Seconds later, Thomas rounded the corner of the alleyway.

  “What happened? Where’d they go?”

  “Someplace where they can eat and hide the clothes and shoes. The leader, Casmir, is from Hungary via Marseille. They travel with the weather and support themselves playing music, supplemented, I’m certain, by petty thieving and picking tourists’ pockets. The little girl you liked, Adria, managed to relieve me of my watch.” Thomas rubbed his bare wrist. “Pretty smooth operator for an undernourished, illiterate scamp. I didn’t even notice until after they disappeared.”

  Afternoon traffic picked up. Ren
aults and Passats crawled through the narrow streets, while scooters wove precarious paths around the cars, narrowly avoiding pedestrians and making Su-Lin flinch when they backfired.

  “There’s a sunny spot over there, in front of that crepe restaurant. Lunch?”

  “Okay.”

  One hand under her elbow, Thomas guided her to a round table shaded by a white umbrella emblazoned with the red words LA FÉE ABSINTHE over and over, ad infinitum. Su-Lin sat on a warm metal chair and tipped her sunglasses to the top of her head.

  “Are there many Gypsies in France?”

  “There aren’t any official statistics, but you’ll find warnings about them in every major French port, and some Spanish ones. Marseille’s a base for the Roma.” Thomas signaled to a waiter, an aristocratic summons of a flicked wrist.

  “Roma, that’s what they’re called?”

  When he nodded, she asked, “What language did you speak to them?”

  The waiter interrupted their conversation, and after a hasty glance at the menu, they ordered drinks and entrées.

  “Most Gypsies speak Romany, although it’s a misnomer to term it a language. It’s a dialect with more variations than similarities.”

  “How do you know the language? It can’t be part of a normal school curriculum.”

  “Every summer our estate has been home to a band of Gypsies. About ten generations ago, the Earl of Arran gave them rights to use the land around one of our lakes. In return, the Gypsies produce copper art for the lady of the manor. As boys, Terry and I played with the Gypsy children, and we learned some of the dialect.”

  “Shouldn’t those kids be in school?”

  “Legally, yes. But most European governments leave Gypsies out of the loop. Don’t get involved, Su-Lin, it’s a hopeless cause. An eternal circle of poverty, illiteracy, and an early demise.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair. They’re children. They shouldn’t have to live on the streets.”

  The waiter arrived with her tuna niçoise salad and his pissaladière, a white pizza topped with sautéed onions and anchovies. Thomas swore by the confection, but Su-Lin opted for the tamer salad, sliced fresh tuna served with baby potatoes, quartered hard-boiled eggs, black olives, and a handful of capers.

  “What is La Fée Absinthe?” She used her knife to point to the words on the umbrella.

  “It’s an ancient licorice-flavored drink distilled from several herbs, including wormwood. It has a high alcohol content and contains a powerful psychoactive agent called thujone.”

  “Psychoactive? Does that mean it’s addictive?”

  “I’m not certain. I do know it was banned for a while during the early nineteen hundreds and is only now being allowed to be sold commercially. Most people think of it as an aphrodisiac. It’s rumored to be hallucinogenic.”

  “Thomas, would those Gypsy kids have any reason to follow us?” Su-Lin asked. “Don’t look now, but the older boy and the little girl are in the shadows of a shop on the opposite side, two doors down.”

  “What else can they get from us? I gave them most of my cash, and they got my watch.” He searched her neck, ears, and fingers. “You’re not wearing anything of real value.” Using his feet, he shifted the heavy chair to the left and cast an almost-imperceptible, darting glance in the direction she described. “I don’t see them. Are you sure you saw those two? They’re very distinctive.”

  “I could’ve sworn I saw them,” she muttered and wiped her mouth with the linen napkin.

  “I’ll keep an eye out on our way back to the Glory. Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  Every instinct screamed a warning. She had seen those kids, and she knew they were following her. And somewhere deep inside, she would bet any amount of money she’d see them again. Soon.

  They ran into Uncle James and Aunt Emma on the Promenade du Anglais.

  “What did you two get up to?” Su-Lin asked.

  “You’ll never guess who we ran into,” her aunt replied.

  “Probably not, since we don’t know the same people,” Su-Lin said, the hairs on her arms and neck prickling. Her glance darted right and left, but although certain someone watched, she couldn’t pick out any one individual.

  “Sir Geoffrey Stanford. He and Terrence O’Connor own the Glory. He’s joining us for the rest of the cruise. And his friend, Suresh Singh, that Internet billionaire, the young one. He’s in Nice with Geoff. And he’s invited us to a masked ball. An actual masked ball. It’s to launch this charity he’s starting, a literacy program for children based around sporting leagues. Isn’t that exciting?”

  The little girl with the haunting eyes, Adria, flashed across Su-Lin’s pupils, and she had to bite her lower lip to stop words from pouring out. The rest of her aunt’s babble didn’t penetrate. Thoughts raced around her mind, one idea careening into another. Could she start something like that, a gymnastic league for girls? In a haven where they could learn and live?

  How large a trust fund did Uncle James intend to give her?

  In a trance, she allowed her relatives and Thomas to direct her actions, and sometime later, they stepped onto the yacht. By then, Su-Lin had identified what she’d need: a gym, the necessary equipment, and a dorm of some kind. That meant food, laundry. What if she combined senior citizen volunteers with a full-time manager?

  She made it to her cabin on autopilot, eyes unseeing, lost in thought.

  Before the door clicked shut, Terry’s strong arms scooped her against his chest, and she caught a whiff of spicy cigar smoke.

  “I missed you,” she said and looped her arms around his neck, letting her fingers stroll through his hair and resting her cheek against his warm chest. “I spent the day with Thomas. I like him.”

  Scooping her against his chest, Terry captured her mouth and plundered, his tongue insistent, commanding, stroking hers, sliding the length, the width, raising a thousand pin spots at the base of her neck. He raised his head breaking the electrifying contact and kicked the connecting door open.

  All at once, his tension penetrated her nerves and Su-Lin met his eyes, arrested by the turmoil storming there. “What happened?”

  “Later. I need you now.”

  He slid her down his body, and only then did Su-Lin recognize their surroundings, his cabin. She took in the half-empty bottle of scotch standing on the dresser. Lifting on her toes, she ran her fingers along his shoulder blades. No give to his skin, even when her thumb kneaded the cord of one neck. Testing the curve of his shoulder, she met rigid steel. Something or someone had upset him.

  “You need a massage,” she said. “Your muscles are knotted into tight bunches. My dad taught me how to do a special massage. Will you let me relax you?”

  Fingering her ear, his stare bleak, lips clamped together, he shook his head. “Not exactly what I had in mind, darlin’.”

  “Please?” She didn’t give him any quarter, slipping his shirt buttons free and spreading the soft cotton to reveal his wonderful pectorals. When she tugged on his belt buckle, he took over, snapping the supple leather out of linen loops and shrugging off navy khakis. “Do you ever wear underwear?”

  “Not often in civilian life. Are you sure this is what you want?”

  “To give you a massage?” She couldn’t prevent her lips from twitching or one eyebrow from lifting. “You bet. We need a towel, some warm oil, and to block out the sun. Stay right there, don’t move an inch.”

  Su-Lin was panting by the time she finished. Within short shrift, the cabin, darkened by drawn shades, tinkled with medieval meditation music, and soft light from two patchouli-scented candles flickered a soothing ambience. Terry’s nude, magnificent body lay facedown on a thick towel on the carpet, his head propped on a bent elbow.

  Oxygen evaporated from the cabin and an actual pain stabbed her diaphragm at his masculine beauty, at the wonder of him, this Norse god, lain out for her to touch, to pleasure. He was her aphrodisiac. Chanting a silent mantra of thanks to whatever deity had blessed her with him,
Su-Lin sat on her haunches and let her eyes drink in the splendor of his corded muscles, his broad, copper-hued back, the way his blond hair caressed a neck thicker than both her thighs put together.

  Su-Lin rubbed the warm, scented oil along his shoulder blades, not exerting any pressure, simply ensuring a thick, even coating. She hummed when her fingers curled around the cut in his biceps.

  “I love your arms,” she murmured and kissed the tight curve, smelling his arousal, even from there. “And your hands.” She massaged each finger, spending time on the thumb that had brought her so much pleasure. “You have magic in your fingers.”

  His shoulder blades flexed under her hands, all the ridged muscles rippling like a troubled sea. His taut skin warmed with each stroke, and she touched every inch twice, closing her eyes the second time to feel every plane, every angle.

  Dripping oil onto one cupped hand and increasing the heat by rubbing both together, she placed a hot palm on each buttock, and his glutes contracted, his pelvis lifted, and he moaned a low, sexy growl.

  “You’re like a statue of a god. My Norse god.” Su-Lin rained nips and kisses down the center of his luscious ass and had to force herself to remember her goal. Dribbling oil down the crease and along the tops of each large, powerful thigh, she edged into position between his knees.

  Overpowering desire started her exploration. She ran her fingers along his testicles, testing their weight in her hands, her breathing faltered and rose, erratic, uneven, making her light-headed.

  She forced a few deep tai chi inhales with long exhales and finished oiling his long, perfect legs. With quick moves, she removed her clothing and continued the massage. He grunted when she stood on his back, and his head lifted.

  “I won’t hurt you,” she said, and he laid his face down on his elbow again.

  “You’re as light as a pixie,” he mumbled. “You couldn’t hurt me if you tried, darlin’.”

  Feet aligned along the base of his spine, she went into the old Chinese ritual, a standing massage of the back, shoulders, and bottom.

  Terry groaned, something inaudible, and after the first couple of steps, she felt the difference in his muscles. Keeping her weight light, using alternating heels and tiptoes, she worked her way along his back, one inch at a time. His shoulders relaxed before she neared them.