Dating Game

by Danielle Steel

  “What do you do tomorrow, Paris?” he asked when she dropped him off.

  “I work,” she said ruefully. But it had been a nice day. “What are you doing?” She was going to invite him to the office, to show him around, but he said he was going to Los Angeles in the morning. He was going to drive the van. “Will you come back?”

  “Je ne sais pas. I don't know. If I come back, I call … je t'appellerai.”

  “D'accord,” she said, and he smiled.

  “Sois sage,” he said as he looked at her, and she looked puzzled. “It means be very good behaved. You know, be a good girl.” It was odd, Paris realized, when she was with him, she didn't feel the difference in their age. She wondered if it was like that between Richard and Meg. But this was ridiculous. Jean-Pierre was fifteen years younger than she. And he was only there for a minute. It was fine to drive around with him for a day, playing tourist, but she couldn't think of him as a romantic possibility. And he probably wouldn't come back anyway. He kissed her on both cheeks, and hopped out of the car, and she waved as she drove away. When she glanced in the rearview mirror, he was standing outside the hotel, watching her.

  And all that night, she was haunted by him. All she could think about were the things they had talked about, and the expressive look on his face. And the French words he had taught her seemed to dance in her head. She was still feeling dazed the next day, as though she had taken a drug and was hung over. Being with him was some kind of strange aphrodisiac she couldn't have explained to anyone. He was such a powerful presence, in an almost sexual way. She could suddenly understand for the first time in her life why older women had affairs with younger men. But that wasn't going to happen to her.

  She and Bix worked on a number of projects, and she was aware of a sense of malaise all day, as though some part of her were causing her body to be too big for her skin. She felt raw and uncomfortable all day. And it was crazy, but she actually missed him. She was determined not to give in to it, and she didn't call him on the cell phone he had rented, although he had given her the number. She went to bed early that night, and worked hard again the next day.

  She felt better by Wednesday, and Meg called that night about their Thanksgiving plans. They were going to be with their father that year, and with her for Christmas. She never asked Meg how Rachel was doing with her pregnancy, because she didn't want to know. She had never asked if Peter was happy about it, if it was an accident, or planned. She couldn't bear to think of any of it, and Meg very discreetly never volunteered anything her mother didn't ask. She sensed just how painful it was for her, particularly since she was alone.

  On Thursday as she drove home from the office at eight o'clock, her cell phone rang. She assumed it was either Bix or Meg. No one else ever called her on her cell. She was just pulling up in front of her house as she answered, and as she did, she saw him sitting there. It was Jean-Pierre both calling her, and sitting on her front steps.

  “Où es tu?” he said in French, and she knew what it meant. It meant “Where are you?” She stopped the car, and smiled at him, embarrassingly pleased that he was there.

  “I'm right here,” she answered, and got out of her car with the phone in her hand. She walked up the steps, and was going to kiss him on both cheeks, but he took her in his arms and kissed her searingly on the mouth. And she responded before she could stop herself. She never wanted it to stop, and didn't want him to go. It was as though she was being swept away on a tidal wave of sensuality, and for a moment she felt crazed. She had no idea what she was doing, why, or with whom. She hardly knew him, but all she did know was that she didn't want it to stop.

  “I miss you so much,” he said simply, looking like a boy again, although he acted like a man, in all the important ways. “So I come back from Los Angeles. I go to Santa Barbara yesterday. Like Bordeaux. Very beautiful, and very small. Too quiet.”

  “I think so too,” she agreed, and her heart pounded as she let them both into her house. He had gotten the address when he called her office and said he had proofs to show her. He followed her inside and looked around, nodding approval, as he took off his leather jacket. It looked as though it had been through the wars. “Would you like dinner?” she asked as he smiled and nodded, and went to look at the view, and then, while she was cooking, he took photographs of her. “Don't, I look terrible,” she said, brushing a lock of hair off her face. All she had was soup she had heated, cold chicken and salad she made for them, and she poured them each a glass of wine, while he put on some music. He seemed very much at home, and he came to kiss her from time to time while she organized dinner for them. It was harder and harder to keep her mind on what she was doing.

  They sat down at the kitchen table, and talked about music. He had very sophisticated tastes, and was very knowledgeable about classical music. He said his mother had been an artist, and his father a conductor. And his sister was a doctor in Paris. A heart surgeon. He had an interesting background. He asked her what she had studied in school, and she told him economics, and he said he had studied political science.

  “Sciences Po,” he said, as though he expected her to know it. “It is a very good school. And you? You did more high studies?” She knew what he meant.

  “Graduate school. I have an MBA.” He didn't understand, and she said it was a very respected business degree, and he nodded.

  “I understand. We have a very good school for that. HÉC. It is like Harvard Business School for us. I don't need that to take photographs,” he said, and laughed. And after they ate, he kissed her again, and she had to fight back a wave of passion that seemed to overwhelm her. This was crazy. She couldn't just let animal instinct overpower her. Nothing like this had ever happened to her, and she finally looked at him in dismay.

  “Jean-Pierre, what are we doing? We don't know each other. This is crazy.”

  “Sometimes crazy is good, no? I think yes. I am crazy to you.”

  “For you, or about you.”

  “Yes, that.”

  “I feel that way too, but in a few days you'll leave, or sooner, and we'll be sorry if we do something foolish.”

  He touched his heart and shook his head. “No, then I will always remember you. Here.”

  “Me too. But maybe later we will be sorry.” She was worried about what they were doing or might do. He was nearly impossible to resist.

  “Why sorry?”

  “Because the heart can be very easily hurt. And we don't know each other,” she said sensibly, but he disagreed.

  “I know you very much. I know many thing about you. Where you go to school, your children, your work, your marriage, your tristesse … your sadness…you have lose very much… sometimes we must find,” he said as he remembered something he wanted to share with her. “You know the book, The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry? There it say, ‘On ne voit l'essen-tiel qu'avec le coeur ’ … you only see the important thing in life with the heart … not the eyes. Or the head. It is a very wonderful book.”

  “I read it to my children. It is very sad. The little prince dies in the end.” She looked touched. She loved the book.

  “Yes, but he live forever in the stars.” He was pleased that she knew the book. It told him that she was a very special woman, as much so as he had thought. He had seen it in her eyes when he took photographs of her. “You must always see with the heart. And after, you will live forever in the stars.” It was a lovely thought, and it touched her.

  They spent hours talking that night, and although she sensed that he would have liked to stay, he didn't ask her and she didn't offer. He didn't want to press her, and spoil what they had.

  The next day he called her and then showed up at the office, and Bix looked surprised when he walked in.

  “Are you still here, Jean-Pierre?” Bix asked with a smile of welcome. “I thought you left on Sunday or Monday.”

  “I did. I go to Los Angeles.” He made it sound like a French city, and Bix smiled. “And then I come back yesterday
.”

  “How long will you be here?”

  “Maybe a few week,” he said as Paris came out of her office and saw him. And something passed between them, as they looked at each other, like an electrical current of industrial voltage. Neither said anything, but Bix saw it immediately. He invited Jean-Pierre to stay for lunch, and the three of them ate sandwiches and drank cappuccinos in the room where they made presentations to clients. And afterward Jean-Pierre thanked them and left. He said he was going to visit Berkeley. He never said anything obvious to Paris, but he managed to communicate to her without words that he would see her later. And after he left, Bix stared at her.

  “Am I imagining things, or is there something going on between you two?” He looked stunned, and turned to Paris, as she hesitated.

  “No, there isn't really. We spent the day together on Sunday. I took him to Sausalito and Sonoma. And he dropped by last night. I'm not that foolish.” Though it was sorely tempting, and she knew that if he stayed much longer, it would get harder and harder to resist him. But however attracted to him she was, she had managed to keep her resolve so far.

  “I would be,” Bix said, looking at her. “That foolish, I mean. Hell, Paris, he's adorable, and you don't owe anyone any explanations.”

  “Yes, I do. I owe myself one. He's a kid. He's fifteen years younger than I am.”

  “It doesn't look that way. You look like a kid yourself, and he's older than he looks. Hell, if he were giving me looks like that, I'd grab him. He's a hottie.”

  “You sound like my children.” Paris laughed, and she couldn't disagree with him. But having an affair with Jean-Pierre would be total self-indulgence, no matter how attractive she found him. And she did. Very.

  “I think you ought to kidnap him, and chain him to your bedpost before he goes back to Paris,” Bix said warmly, and Paris laughed.

  “Is that what you did with Steven?” she teased him.

  “I didn't have to. He did that with me. Well, not really,” Bix admitted. “But we were very attracted to each other pretty quickly. You two looked like you were going to set the room on fire with those looks. I could hardly eat my lunch. I thought he was going to grab you and throw you on the table.” He would have liked to, but Paris had tried to maintain appearances, at least for Bix. “Are you seeing him tonight?”

  “I might,” she said, and Bix looked as though he approved, and when he commented on it again before she left, she scolded him for being a libertine.

  “Why not, darling? You only live once. And I'd hate to miss a night with him, if I had the chance.” But she knew perfectly well he wouldn't have traded anyone on the planet for Steven. They were crazy about each other.

  As she drove up in front of her house that night, Jean-Pierre was sitting on the steps again, looking very relaxed, eating an apple, and reading a magazine. The van was in her driveway. And he looked up with pleasure the minute he saw her. She had known him at that point for exactly eight days, and she knew more about him than many people she had known for years. But it still didn't justify the attraction she felt for him. What was happening between them was all about chemistry and hormones and pheromones. It was totally out of their control, except that Paris was trying to do everything she could to keep a harness and muzzle on her feelings.

  “I don't have much in the fridge,” she said as they walked into the house together. And before she could say another word, he took her handbag and briefcase from her and set them down. He closed the front door with his foot, and kissed her so passionately it took her breath away. She had to fight to catch her breath when he stopped. She had never been kissed like that in her entire life, not even by him the night before.

  “I am going crazy, Paris,” he said desperately, and then kissed her again, and as he did, he took off her coat and dropped it on the floor, and then her blouse, and her bra, and she did nothing to stop him. She didn't want to. All she wanted was what he was doing. And as he continued undressing her, she began undressing him. She unbuttoned his shirt, undid his belt buckle, and unzipped his trousers. And within seconds, they were both standing naked, and glued to each other in the front hall. And without a word, he swept her into his powerful young arms, and carried her up the steps to her bedroom, as though he had done it a thousand times before. He deposited her on her bed, and looked at her for a long moment, and then gave a soft almost animal moan, as he began kissing her everywhere, and touching her, and making her writhe with pleasure, and she turned to return the favor to him. She put all of him that she could into her mouth, and his head arched back, and the beautiful young head with the spiky hair was thrown backward, as she did all she could to bring him pleasure, and then finally he got on the bed with her, and made love to her as she had never been made love to before. It was a tidal wave that neither could stop, and it seemed to go on for hours, and when she lay in his arms finally afterward, he ran a hand through her long silky hair and told her that he loved her. And although they barely knew each other, she believed him.

  “Je t'aime,” he whispered hoarsely, and then began kissing her again. He couldn't keep his lips or his hands off of her, or keep his body away from her, and she couldn't keep hers away from him. It was many hours later when they finally fell asleep in each other's arms, and when they woke at sunrise, they made love again, but more quietly this time. It was a night Paris knew she would never forget, and that she would remember for the rest of her life. She was totally under the spell of Jean-Pierre.

  Chapter 25

  Fortunately the first days of Paris and Jean-Pierre's love affair began over a weekend, because they never got dressed or out of bed for nearly forty-eight hours. All she wanted was to be with him. They ordered pizza on Saturday, and made peanut butter sandwiches, which he said were disgusting and then ate two of them. All he wanted to satisfy him was Paris. They were luxuriating in her bathtub on Sunday night, when the phone rang and it was Meg.

  Paris talked to her for a few minutes, and didn't tell her anything, and Jean-Pierre understood immediately, and didn't say a word while she was on the phone. And he did the same again when Wim called half an hour later.

  She didn't ask Jean-Pierre what they were going to do, because they weren't going to do anything. He was going to be there as long as he was there, and they would enjoy it for what it was. A brief and blissfully torrid interlude. She had never done anything like it, but she didn't expect anything more. She wasn't going to try to make it into something it wasn't, or extort promises from him, or offer them. She asked no questions, expected no answers. Whatever time they shared with each other was a gift, however brief. She wanted nothing more. And she assumed that he didn't either.

  But as she left for work on Monday morning, she asked him what he was going to do all day, and he looked vague.

  “I must see a magazine. Someone tell me about it in Paris. I am curious what they do.”

  “Will you be here tonight when I come home?”

  “I try.” He smiled at her, and then kissed her. He still had his hotel room but hadn't been there in three days. They hadn't put on clothes since they'd come through the door on Friday. They'd been living in bathrobes and towels, and walking around naked much of the time. She had no sense of modesty with him, and they couldn't get enough of each other's bodies. Before she left, she handed him a set of spare keys, and showed him how to work the alarm. She had no qualms about letting him roam around her house when she wasn't there. She trusted him completely, not only with her house, but with herself. She felt totally at ease with him.

  “Merci, mon amour,” he said, thanking her for the keys. “À tout à l'heure.” See you later, he said, as he blew her a kiss when she left, and he went out only minutes after she did.

  “How was your weekend?” Bix asked as she came into the office, and she looked vague as she hung up her jacket.

  “It was fine. How was yours?”

  “Don't give me that,” he said, he knew her too well. “Is Jean-Pierre still here?”

 
“I think so,” she said innocently, and he saw nothing in her eyes this time. She was so tired, she could hardly keep them open.

  And when she went home that night, he was there, and had already started cooking dinner for her. He had made a roast leg of lamb and string beans, bought cheese and a baguette. It was a delicious dinner, and she asked him about the magazine he'd gone to see as they ate.

  “How was it?” she asked as they devoured the gigot. They were both starving, neither of them had had a decent meal in three days.

  “Interesting,” he said. “It is very small, but they do very good work. It is new.”

  “Are you going to do some work for them?” He nodded and looked at her, and over the bread and cheese he asked her an honest question.

  “Paris, do you want me to stay, or go? Will it make too complicate for you if I stay for one month or two?”

  She looked at him long and hard, and was honest with him. “I'd like you to stay.” She was stunned by her own words, but it was how she felt.

  He beamed at her, he was ready to do whatever she wanted, for as long as he could. “Then I stay. My visa is for six months. But I go whenever you say.” It was a pact between them, and entirely comfortable for her. No one knew he was there, and their nights and weekends belonged to them.

  Meg was too busy to come up from Los Angeles these days, and Wim had midterms and was busy with his friends. They had a month together, before Meg volunteered to come to spend a night with her before she left for Thanksgiving in the East. Jean-Pierre had long since given up his hotel room, but he told her he'd be happy to leave for the night when Meg came.

  “That might be a good idea,” Paris agreed. She didn't want to shock her daughter unduly, and she had no idea what she was going to say, if anything.

  Meg arrived on the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, and Wim came over to spend the night as well. Paris loved having both of her children there, and she cooked them a delicious dinner, which was more than she'd done so far for Jean-Pierre. And both Wim and Meg were flying to New York in the morning. Richard was staying in Los Angeles with his daughter.