Lucien sighed dramatically. “I told you she was.” He poured bright green syrup into his water and stirred it with a spoon. “Yes, I’m sure he’d be happy to show off his talents. Especially to a beautiful woman.” He leaned over and kissed Ryenne’s cheek.
Ryenne hid her embarrassment by sipping her water. She hadn’t yet figured out how to win over Lucien’s mother, but she didn’t think it would be through overt displays of affection.
A telephone buzzed from somewhere in the house. Françoise sprinted down the hall toward the office.
“Wow, she’s fast,” Ryenne noted.
Lucien waggled his head from side to side. “Well, she is a wolf shifter.”
As if she could forget. She was staying in the heart of a wolf pack, something she would never have imagined possible or desirable before falling for Lucien.
“She doesn’t work on jobs so she gets her exercise here at home,” he explained. “And running in the Bois de Boulogne, of course.”
Françoise returned, hardly even breathing heavily after running in both directions. “It’s for you, Lucien. Someone who was at the café this afternoon.”
Curious, Ryenne followed Lucien to the office but could only hear his side of the conversation and only understood a few words in French. She waited for Lucien’s translation.
When Lucien hung up, his eyebrows drew together. “That was strange. It was a lawyer who appreciated his life being saved by us today. He claims Côtard gave him our number, but Côtard wouldn’t give out our number to just anyone.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I hope you brought a dress. We’ve been invited somewhere fancy for dinner tomorrow night.”
She cocked an eyebrow. No one, not even a rich and grateful French lawyer, could tell Ryenne what to wear. But she had brought a dress, just in case she felt like wearing one. And dinner out in Paris with Lucien was reason enough.
THREE
No fewer than four men of varying ages greeted them inside the restaurant near Montparnasse, each one jockeying for position as if they might earn a tip just for seating the couple.
“Monsieur,” an older man said.
A younger man in the same black and white uniform elbowed his way in front. “Monsieur.”
Lucien ignored them and looked over their heads. “We’re dining with Monsieur Vanier.”
“Ah yes,” a third man said. “Follow me.” He led them to a table in a far corner, away from the hustle and bustle of the entrance.
A skeletally thin man saw them approach and stood. “Monsieur Malraux, Mademoiselle Cavanagh, thank you for indulging me this evening. I’m Yves Vanier.” He shook their hands and gestured for them to sit. “I am so grateful to you for disarming those rogue shifters yesterday and saving so many lives.”
The guy was laying it on a bit thick. Ryenne glanced at the menu and tried not to show any surprise at the prices. Geesh. He must have really thought he had been on the verge of death. Why else would he take two strangers to dinner at such an expensive restaurant?
“It was our pleasure to help.” Lucien was always the diplomat of the two of them. “How lucky we happened to be there.”
Ryenne’s ears perked up. Luck often had nothing to do with it. It couldn’t be coincidence that Fangs disrupted her coffee yesterday.
“Ah, there is someone I wanted you to meet,” Vanier said, glancing up at the approach of a red-haired man of medium height. “My new friends, this is Charles Renardin, a fellow businessman with an appreciation for the kind of character, strength, and quick reflexes you both displayed yesterday.”
Ryenne’s eyes narrowed. Something about Renardin set her nerves jangling. Or was it the fact he and Vanier had conspired together to organize this meeting?
Lucien nudged her leg with his own and she pasted a smile on her face and offered the newcomer a hand to shake.
“It’s a pleasure to meet two such accomplished hunters,” Renardin said. “Have you been working together long?”
“No,” Ryenne said.
“Actually,” Lucien rushed to add, “Ryenne is just visiting for a week. Yesterday’s event was mere chance, not a job.”
“Of course, of course.” Renardin sat in the remaining empty chair at their corner table. A waiter immediately approached and poured wine for all four.
They chatted about inconsequential subjects until they had finished their main courses. When Ryenne’s calm mask slipped, Lucien would remind her with an under-the-table nudge. She couldn’t enjoy the talk of work and family because she kept waiting for the real reason for the invitation.
The plates were cleared, the crumbs scraped from the otherwise immaculate white tablecloth, and their wine glasses topped off when Vanier finally leaned forward. “Charles represents a certain business which is very interested in working with the Malraux family.”
“Ah bon?” Lucien asked, a polite expression on his face.
“What business?” Ryenne asked. “Working with them in what way?”
The two men glanced between Lucien and Ryenne, who sat back, arms crossed, waiting for answers to her questions. Renardin eventually settled his gaze on Lucien. Typical man.
Renardin put his hand on the table and directed his next words to Lucien. “I work with a company representing Mr. Lord.”
Ryenne stood from the table in a rush. “Is this a joke?”
“Shh,” Lucien whispered, his hand on her waist.
The others stared at her, eyes cold. Ryenne felt the entire restaurant holding its breath for her next move.
She leaned down to Lucien. “Don’t shush me. Ever.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry. Will you please sit down? Let’s hear them out.”
She considered arguing. Why should they hear them out? The Fangs were trouble. Criminals. This had clearly been a setup and she wouldn’t allow Lucien to be dragged into whatever business the Fangs had in mind.
But, they wouldn’t know what the Fangs were up to if she didn’t listen. Mr. Lord was becoming a thorn in her side and she wanted to get him out of her life for good. Maybe she could use Renardin to get to Lord.
She nodded and sat. “I’m sorry. You took me by surprise. Someone working with Mr. Lord tried to kill me in Kenya a few months ago.”
“Ah, that is a shame,” Renardin said. “Mr. Lord is very powerful and many people use his name for their own ends. I’m sure that’s all it was.”
Ryenne glanced at Lucien but said nothing. She tried to make herself look open and willing to listen, to encourage Renardin to say all the lovely things that would help her get to Lord and maybe even take down the entire organization.
“Mr. Lord’s company has been watching the Malraux family for some time,” Renardin said, eyes cold and hard. “We are impressed with your business model and reputation and longevity. We’d like to formalize a partnership.”
“Why would you want to work with shifter hunters?” Lucien asked. “Don’t we have opposite goals?”
Lucien had expressed the thoughts in Ryenne’s head. She placed a hand on his thigh in solidarity.
“Not at all,” Renardin said. “There are times when people with your skills could be useful to us.”
Ryenne frowned. A gang of rogues wanted to work with a reputable shifter hunting company. To do what? Knock off the competition? Keep rebel members in line?
“Useful, how?” Lucien asked.
Renardin spread a large hand again on the tablecloth and stared at it. “We’d prefer not to go into details until we have an agreement in place.”
“What kind of agreement?” Ryenne asked. They actually wanted Lucien to agree to something without knowing what it was? These people were demented as well as dangerous.
“We’d like to put Malraux Frères on retainer. Exclusively.”
He couldn’t be serious. Maybe this was a friendly way of putting Lucien’s family out of business. Either that or they really did want the Malraux to take care of Fang dirty work. She glanced at Lucien to gauge his reaction, but his handsome face gave noth
ing away.
“I would need more information to take back to my mother and sisters,” Lucien said after a full minute of silence. “We can’t agree to only work for you without knowing what this entails.”
“Of course, of course. If you’re interested in continuing discussions, I’d like to set up an appointment at my office where I’ll walk you through our ideas. Tonight was only to... feel you out, as they say.” He glanced at Ryenne as if it was only an American expression. And maybe it was.
“Yes, let’s set up an appointment,” Lucien said. “I am very interested in hearing more about your proposition.”
Renardin smiled, the first one he had exhibited since he approached their table. Ryenne wondered if he was a shifter, too, and which animal he shifted into. There was something cunning about him, and slimy, but not like snake man yesterday.
“Wonderful,” Renardin said. “How about next week? Mademoiselle Cavanagh, will you join us?”
“Next week? I’ll already be back home. I have a previous engagement,” she explained.
Renardin nodded but didn’t look too upset that Ryenne wouldn’t be part of the deal.
“You can’t meet sooner?” Lucien asked.
“I’m afraid not. Business will take me out of Paris for the next couple of days.”
Ryenne gave Lucien an almost imperceptible nod.
“Then I look forward to meeting with you next week,” Lucien said with a small smile. He took Ryenne’s hand under the table and rubbed the tops of her fingers with his thumb.
“I’ll have my assistant call tomorrow to set up an appointment.” Renard pushed his chair away from the table and crossed one leg over the other.
Lucien gave him a curt nod and dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his napkin. Ryenne watched with heightened senses, her hand cold now that he’d pulled his own hand away. She liked his play-acting with Renardin. She stroked his thigh under the table and darted glances at him out of the corner of her eye. The idea of the intel it might bring them—and the feel of his hard leg muscles beneath her hand—made her want to be alone with him. Now.
She swallowed and pushed her chair back. “Thank you for dinner.”
Renardin and Vanier stood and shook hands with Lucien. Ryenne turned away before they could offer to kiss her cheeks, and she walked away holding Lucien’s hand.
“How will your mother react to your family doing business with the Fangs?” she whispered, as they wound through the tables.
“I think I’ll wait to tell her until I know more.”
They passed the last table separating them from the restaurant’s exit.
“Salut, Lucien,” a woman’s deep and smoky voice said from behind them.
He whirled around and Ryenne barely kept her balance. “Chantal! You look wonderful.”
They kissed cheeks and Ryenne swallowed. This woman was gorgeous, tall with long honey-colored hair that fell in perfect waves from an almond-shaped face. Her red dress seemed made to get the woman—and her curves—noticed.
Chantal turned to Ryenne with an expectant smile. A clean-shaven man with bristly black hair stared at Ryenne from the table behind Chantal. She would have glared back at him, but the woman seemed to be waiting for something from Ryenne.
“Oh, hi. I’m Ryenne, Lucien’s...” She paused, unsure of what to say, unsure of this woman’s place in Lucien’s life, unsure about her own place.
“Ryenne and I worked together in Kenya and she’s visiting me for a week,” Lucien said in a rush.
Okay, technically correct, but not the whole story.
The woman offered her hand to Ryenne. “Enchantée. I’m Chantal, Lucien’s ex-fiancée.”
FOUR
A fog filled Lucien’s brain. He knew he owed Ryenne some kind of explanation but he couldn’t manage to put more than a couple of words together. He wasn’t even sure how they had taken leave of Chantal and exited the restaurant.
They must have, because now they sped through the dark city in a taxi, Ryenne sullen and quiet beside him.
When they pulled up in front of his house, he paid the driver and helped Ryenne out of the car. Before entering the house, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Ryenne, look, I’m sorry.”
“Who was she, Lucien?”
He sighed. “Chantal and I, as you gathered, were supposed to get married. But then she discovered the truth about me and my family, and she left me.”
“She didn’t know about all of you being wolf shifters?”
“No, and it came as such a surprise to her that she walked out on me only two weeks before our wedding.”
A look of pain crossed Ryenne’s face. “So, you were in love with her?”
“I was.”
“You wanted to marry her?”
“I did. We were very happy, or so I thought. But apparently our love wasn’t strong enough to overcome me being a shifter.”
“There was a time,” Ryenne said, “when I would have understood her state of mind and her decision. I might have walked out on you, too.”
“Would you have? You didn’t. Sure, you fought your attraction to me, but in the end, here we are. We’re together.”
“But it wasn’t easy.”
“Ryenne, you had a history with wolf shifters. Rogue wolves killed your brother and father and destroyed your family. You had a good reason to mistrust me and all wolf shifters. She didn’t. She was just scared.”
Ryenne nodded and put her hands on either side of his face. “Do you still love her?”
He shook his head. “My love for her died the moment she walked away from what we had and what we could have been together. It died because she hadn’t loved or trusted me enough to give us a chance and see what my being a shifter might mean for us. She didn’t take any of our past together into consideration. Didn’t consider what kind of man I was. She was blinded by her fear of something different and how people would treat her, and what it would mean for her.”
Ryenne nodded again. “I’m not afraid of those things.”
“I know.”
They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment as heat built between them. He leaned down and kissed her waiting lips. She responded with her usual energy and passion.
He pulled away. “Let’s not continue this on the sidewalk.”
She laughed, took his hand, and led him into the house. Downstairs was dark. Everyone must have already gone to bed.
They climbed the stairs up to the attic level that, once upon a time, had been the servants’ quarters. By knocking down the walls in several rooms at the front of the house, a bigger room had been created for Lucien. It was more private up here, as the rooms at the back of the house were rarely used, which he’d especially appreciated as a teenager and in his early twenties. He had even figured out a way to come and go through a window at the end of the hall that led onto just enough of a sloped roof that he could swing himself down to the ground without getting hurt.
No one else slept up here, so as soon as they reached the hall, he started kissing Ryenne again. They bumped into the walls a couple of times as passion grew between them, glorying in the feel of each other’s hands and lips and skin.
In his room, he kicked the door shut, threw off his shirt, and pushed Ryenne onto the bed, a little more roughly than he would normally treat her.
She smiled and grabbed him by the hair, pulled his face to hers. Soft lips and cold hands sizzled on his hot skin. Her long legs wrapped around his waist, causing her dress to ride up her warm thighs as his cock strained against his pants.
He couldn’t wait any longer. “Ready?”
She nodded and bit her lip.
Opening his pants, he pulled out his length and gave it a stroke, his gaze boring into Ryenne’s. She wiggled out of her panties and the sight of her smooth flesh inflamed him.
He pushed a finger inside her to make sure she was wet before he thrust into her, harder than usual. Again, she wrapped her legs around his waist and he heaved himself int
o her over and over. He wanted to bite her so bad, to mark her as his. For always.
But he wouldn’t risk turning her.
After he came, she wriggled out from under him, pulled his pants off, and climbed astride him. Luckily, his shifter strength extended to his cock. She rode him until she reached her own climax.
This was one of the things he loved about Ryenne. She took what she wanted from him, when she wanted it. She didn’t pretend, she didn’t play games, she wasn’t afraid to tell him and show him what she wanted.
He’d never had this much passion with Chantal. He had never wanted to bite her, either. How could he even think of his ex in this moment?
He forced his focus back on Ryenne, on the gorgeous woman slumped on top of him, her bones liquid, her skin hot, and he caressed her back until he fell asleep.
***
Lucien spent a typical lazy morning outside in the little garden courtyard with Ryenne.
In the early afternoon, Ryenne excused herself to go upstairs and call her best friend and business partner, Gavin, who was freaking out about the wedding of his ex on Saturday. “I need to calm him down,” she explained, kissing Lucien’s head and leaving him alone in the courtyard.
Maman was in the office finishing up a client proposal with Dany and Guy, based on their observations from their visit to the Zénith the day before, and Lucien was cleaning up the lunch dishes in the kitchen, when there was a knock on the door. He went to answer it.
A man of medium height with red hair stood rigidly on the stoop, glancing over his shoulder. His expression turned haughty when he turned to Lucien.
“Monsieur Renardin, what are you doing here? I thought you were leaving town today.”
“Please, call me Charles,” Renardin said. “I am leaving, later on, but just wanted to stop by—”
Maman joined them in the hall.
“Madame Malraux, it is such a pleasure to meet you. I am so glad we’re going to be working together.”
“Ah bon? Who are you?” She looked between the newcomer and Lucien.
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