It was so bluntly rejecting, I had no response. He said nothing more for twenty kilometers. Finally, in a voice brimming with forced cheer, he said, “Looking forward to your holiday?”
I wasn’t even remotely looking forward to it, but pretended I was. Churches, canals, exploring an amazing city in early fall – I should have been giddy with excitement. For half my life I’d wanted to go on a trip like this, and suddenly I didn’t care about it at all. All I wanted was to feel what I’d felt with Marc last night.
“You said you had a room reserved in Paris for the night,” he said.
“I do. At the Hotel du Fort.”
“I have a corporate account at one of the best hotels in the city. You’re more than welcome to stay there, completely complimentary. They have a beautiful suite overlooking the Eiffel Tower. I called earlier to make sure it would be free if you wanted it. The staff will take perfect care of you.”
First he’d rejected me, and now I was his charity case. Tempting as it sounded to stay at a first-class hotel, I wouldn’t humiliate myself twice in twelve hours. I’d rather suffer in the cut-rate chain my company was paying for.
“That’s very generous, Marc, but I have a colleague staying nearby. We’re having dinner later.” It sounded like the blatant lie it was, but Marc didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he didn’t care.
“If you change your mind the room will be waiting for you.”
“I appreciate that. Thanks.”
We didn’t speak again until a few miles outside the city, when he asked for the address where I was staying. “You’ll spend some vacation time here, won’t you?” he said. “You can’t come all this way and not see Paris.”
“I’ll be here for a few days doing research at the end of the trip, then I’ll fly home,” I said.
“If you need a tour guide, let me know.” I wasn’t sure if he meant that he’d be my guide, or that he knew one I could hire. Afraid of the answer, I didn’t ask.
As we drove down broad, leafy avenues and tiny cobblestone streets, I was vaguely aware that Paris was incredibly beautiful. If I were going to spend the night with Marc – or had never met him – I’d be stunned by the lamp-lined bridges and massive monuments, all familiar from photographs but much more spectacular in person. Now they just seemed like something passing by on a distant movie screen.
Marc pulled up to the entrance to my hotel and opened his door. “Wait here,” he said. After giving the bellhop my suitcase, he got back in the car, pulled out of the drop-off zone, and idled at the corner.
“You’ve got my number and Eleanor’s if you have any more questions,” he said, turning to me.
This was it. We’d never see each other again. I’d sworn I wouldn’t have a one-night stand, but I’d done it anyway. Colossally stupid.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll send you a copy of the article when it’s finished.”
“I can’t wait to read it.”
Facing him, I felt almost sick. One night together and he’d captured me completely. I didn’t know how I would touch another man. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to.
“What we did…” he began. His voice faltered and he took a long breath. “It’s consumed me for the last twelve hours.”
“Me, too,” I said, flooded with relief at his show of emotion.
“It’ll stay with me a long time.”
“But I don’t understand. Why do you –”
He shook his head. “It’s because we connect, Sophie. Do you see that? You have no idea how this affects me. What I want to do to you – I can’t allow it to happen. It shouldn’t even enter my mind.”
“You just sat next to me for hours and didn’t touch me once.”
“Because I need to shield you from who I am. You don’t realize where it can lead. What the next step would be.”
I wanted to mention the note, which lay hidden in the bag at my feet. What had Marc done to the woman who’d written it? She’d probably been young and inexperienced, scared off by his passion. She couldn’t possibly have wanted him the way I did.
“Show me where it leads,” I said, hating the pleading tone in my voice.
“No, Sophie. I won’t do that to you.” His eyes burned like hot steel in the hazy afternoon light.
“I want you to,” I said.
“I know.”
I waited for him to change his mind and beg me not to go, but he didn’t. I refused to embarrass myself by sitting here one second more. “All right,” I said. “It’s your decision.”
As I reached for the door handle, I felt his strong hands circle my waist. Then his mouth was against the back of my neck, biting me just hard enough to tinge pleasure with pain. I leaned against him, feeling his hands on my breasts, my thighs, pressing between my legs. His breath was quick and warm in my ear.
“Do you see what you’ve done?” He took my hand and pulled it behind me, pressing my palm to his massive erection.
“Let’s go to my room,” I said, more shameless than I’d ever been.
“Don’t, Sophie,” he said.
“But –”
“I can’t.”
There had to be something I could say that would stay in his mind after I was gone. I couldn’t stand the idea that he’d fuck me, then forget me.
“I’ve never come with a man,” I whispered. It was a secret I’d never admitted to anyone, and it was all I had left.
“What?” he said in a low growl.
“I’ve never come with a –”
“Never?” His voice was dark and filled with danger, just as it had been last night.
“No,” I said. “You would have been the first.”
I kissed him quickly, then got out of the car and walked into the hotel without looking back.
CHAPTER NINE
After showering and picking at a room service salad, I climbed into the king-size bed and pulled the sheet over my head. There was no call, no knock at the door. The pipes groaned in the walls and the air vent delivered a steady dose of second-hand smoke from other rooms. I was just as obsessed with Marc here as I would have been at the hotel he’d suggested, but at least there I’d have been miserable in style.
When I finally got to sleep I was restless. I woke up before the alarm to a gray dawn edging around the drapes. The city was dazzling out my window but I kept the curtains drawn until it was time to leave for the train station. I couldn’t bear to see something so beautiful while I felt so sad and empty.
It might be years before I could hear the word “Paris” without my heart sinking. Whenever I saw a man with gray eyes or wavy dark hair, I’d remember the last forty-eight hours and every mistake I’d made. All I’d had to do was spend the night at the chateau in my own room, but I hadn’t been able to manage something so basic. Then I’d begged Marc to come into my hotel with me, as if I hadn’t mortified myself enough already. I should be glad I was getting out of the country for five days, considering the walking disaster I’d been since landing on French soil.
Trudging through tasks, I packed and took a cab to the train station. I stood among the confused tourists in front of the departures board, almost hoping I’d somehow missed the train to Amsterdam. No such luck. Resisting the urge to go back to my hotel and crawl into bed, I found the right track and got to my seat twenty minutes early.
I took out my laptop and started writing as the train began to move. I would knock out my article and put it behind me, along with my feelings for Marc. This wasn’t the time to brood over what might have been. I was young, single, and traveling through Europe, and I had a choice: I could spend my vacation sulking, or have a good time despite the permanent pit in my stomach. I had planned this trip to help me escape from Trevor, and I’d be damned if another man would ruin it.
As if my mood had preceded me, it was drizzling in Amsterdam. I took a taxi to my hotel, a narrow, three-story bed and breakfast overlooking one of the larger canals. From my little room on the top floor, I could see the gray water churni
ng at a fast clip past moored houseboats. The trees hung gold and green over streets lined with bicycles. It was still early in the day, so I took my umbrella and went out, wandering from canal to canal, eating lunch in a sandwich shop, and taking photographs of a store window filled with huge wheels of cheese.
On my way back to the hotel, I accidentally crossed through the red light district. Girls in string bikinis and thigh-high stockings sat on stools in picture windows, smoking and talking with each other, their feet buckled into platform shoes at least six inches high. One of them held a whip in her lap, a clear invitation to any man who wanted to use it, or have it used on him.
Was this the vague “next step” Marc had referred to? Violence? Humiliation? I’d never even imagined indulging in fetishes, but after one night with Marc, I had a glimmer of what might be possible with the right man.
I turned away, hardly recognizing my own thoughts. Who was I turning into? One night with Marc and I felt like a different person. He’d said he wanted to shield me from who he was, but it was too late for that. I couldn’t undo what he’d done to me. And more than that, I didn’t want to.
I only wanted him to do it to me again.
While in Amsterdam, I did my best to act like a happy single woman on a journey of self-discovery. I went to the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh Museum, and a sprawling flea market packed with vintage clothes and vinyl records. On a sunny afternoon, I took a tour boat through the canals and let an older Italian man buy me a glass of wine. I probably could have taken him back to my room, but couldn’t stomach the thought of him touching me. In just a few days, Marc had branded himself on my soul in a way Trevor hadn’t in two years.
Whenever I looked at another man, no matter how attractive, the old deadness returned, that black hole where desire should have been – and was, for one brief night.
I’d just come back from breakfast in the hotel dining room when my phone rang. Though it was an unfamiliar number, I answered anyway. “Sophie Quinn.”
“Sophie, it’s Eleanor Brayden. I hope I’m not disturbing you on your holiday.”
At the sound of her voice, I began trembling. “Not at all. How are you?”
“Well, I’m terribly sorry is how I am. I should have called two days ago to thank you for coming to see us.” Her way of speaking was so like Marc’s that I felt a pang in my chest.
“I should be thanking you,” I said, cordial but detached. I was well on my way to being over her brother, and there was no reason to be nervous or too friendly.
“Marc told me you had quite a visit at the chateau, with Robert from next door misbehaving and my father drinking a bit too much. I hope you at least got to spend time in the library.”
“I did, and it was wonderful.”
“I’m happy to hear it. Anyway, I’m still in Paris and I understand you’ll be back soon.”
“In three days, on the five o’clock train into Gare du Nord.”
“Good. If you haven’t been to Chateau de Vincennes where Sade was imprisoned, I’d like to take you. We can’t go inside the asylum because it’s still a mental hospital all these centuries later, but the prison is worth a visit.”
If I’d never met Marc, would I say yes? Absolutely. “You’re sure it’s no trouble?”
“Not at all. Just call me when you’re back in town.”
“I will. Thank you.”
I hung up and stared at the phone in my hand. A call from Eleanor meant nothing. Marc had not asked her to do it and hadn’t called me himself. I would not read anything into it.
Still, I couldn’t help but think about my upcoming meeting with her. Did Marc know about it? Would he come with us? He’d told her about our night at the chateau – had she heard that he’d ravished me for hours under his chandelier?
Just the thought made my stomach turn. Maybe Marc did this a lot, toyed with women he’d just met, making them feel beautiful and special before he cut them off, claiming he couldn’t control himself.
What a seductive line it was. I hoped he hadn’t told his sister how easily I’d fallen for it.
The next few days crawled by in a haze of hushed museums, eating tours, and tiny shops I couldn’t afford but could not stay out of. The hours slowly wound down – forty-one to go, then thirty, then eighteen. All at once time seemed to hurtle away, sweeping me onto a train, into a window seat, and back across the steeple-dotted countryside to Paris.
Just outside the city, it occurred to me that Marc might not be there at all. He could be out of town on business, or on holiday with another woman who liked to be fucked standing up in the dress she’d just worn to dinner. In Amsterdam I’d managed to con myself with a lot of self-talk about independence and moving on, but in harsh reality I’d been clinging to the chance that I’d see him again.
The train station was gusty and cold. I walked beside the tracks, dragging my wobbly suitcase, my legs covered with goose bumps under black wool tights. At the end of the platform, bored-looking chauffeurs held up signs scrawled in French, German, and English names. One chauffeur was much taller than the others, with an angular face and deeply lined forehead. I glanced at his sign as I approached and stopped still, causing a minor pile-up of luggage and travelers behind me.
“Excuse me,” I said, stepping into his line of sight.
“Sophie Quinn?” he said in a tangled accent.
“Yes. Who sent you? Eleanor Brayden?”
He exposed large white teeth, less a smile than a sneer. I repeated the question but got the same blank look. “My name? Henrik,” he said. He reached down and took my suitcase, hoisting it to his shoulder.
“What are you – wait a minute!” I scrambled to keep up with him, almost getting caught in his lanky stride. “Where are we going? Who are you?”
Shrugging, he kept on, finally stepping aside to usher me through an exit. He opened an umbrella over my head just as raindrops began to pelt the sidewalk.
“Here,” he said, opening the rear door of a long black car parked at the curb. It would be ridiculous to get in, and in any other circumstances, in any other country, I wouldn’t have. There was at least a small chance that I was being kidnapped by this giant man, who stood watching me with an expression of patient perplexity. But how would a kidnapper have known my name? Only Eleanor knew when I was getting to Paris. At the first sign of stormy weather, she must have sent a driver to spare me the torture of finding a taxi at rush hour. There was no other explanation.
“I’m staying at the Hotel du Fort,” I said as I slid into the deep leather seat. “On Rue de la Bourse?” My French accent was appalling. Henrik nodded with all the comprehension of a brick wall. When he started the engine, the doors automatically locked with a click that sounded disturbingly final.
We sat in traffic for half an hour. A Plexiglas divider prevented me from asking questions or trying to escape, a thought that flickered through my mind more than once. The GPS on my phone showed that we were getting farther and farther from my hotel. All I could do was hope that he knew a different route.
Eventually we turned off the main boulevard into a hilly neighborhood with wet cobblestone streets. Henrik parked in front of a simple limestone building and got out.
“Is this where Eleanor lives?” I asked when he opened my door. He gave a little chuckle, apparently unable to believe I was still trying to communicate.
Instead of ringing the buzzer, he produced a key and let us inside. At the end of a lobby with a black and white checkered floor was an elevator, a small steel cage that swayed when I stepped in. We rose slowly past a stairwell – one floor, two floors, jerking to a stop at four, the top level. There was a short hallway and a single door with a brass knocker. Henrik used a second key to open the lock, then looked at me expectantly.
“I should just – go in?” I asked.
He nodded, understanding my tone if not my words.
I went inside and he followed with my suitcase. I was in an elegant marble foyer, narrow but high-ceilinged wi
th a simple wrought iron chandelier.
“Okay,” Henrik said.
“Okay? What does that mean?”
He smiled, this time with a touch of sadness. “You wait.”
“Wait? Wait for what?”
He bent toward me in farewell, then took the keys and shut the door. I heard a bolt slide into place. I had the urge to try the door to see if it would open, but was afraid he might be standing on the other side listening.
Leaving my suitcase behind, I walked into the living room. “Eleanor?” I said. “Is anyone here?”
There was no answer, just the spatter of raindrops against the windows. The hardwood floors were black, the walls pale gray and hung with photographs of stark rural landscapes. There were no bookcases or clutter of any kind. The sofa was dark green velvet and very modern, with chrome feet and square cushions. I peeked into the glittering stainless steel kitchen, hoping to see a note on the counter or some other sign of life, but there was only a fruit bowl filled with apples.
Calling Eleanor’s name twice more, I walked from kitchen to bedroom to bathroom. All were decorated in the same refined, simple style. The master bedroom had deep brown walls with white moldings and beige silk drapes that fell to the floor. Even the vases of flowers looked flawless, with barely-opened red blooms. There were no clothes in the closet, only two extra pillows stacked neatly on the top shelf.
This was not Eleanor’s apartment.
There would be some sign of her husband and children – a toy, a jacket on a hook, a pair of shoes in the closet.
One of the nightstand drawers was locked, but the other opened with a slight tug of my finger. Inside was a single book. It was a hardcover, its dust jacket removed. I picked it up and looked at the spine.
Little Birds, Anais Nin. It was a copy of an erotic book I’d seen in the closet at the chateau.
I lowered myself into a chair and shut my eyes. I’d suspected from the start that the car and driver were Marc’s, but hadn’t let myself believe it. Now that I knew I felt only a deep, unsettled confusion. He’d made it clear that he couldn’t see me again. What had changed in the days since I’d been gone? When would he get here, and what would happen once he did?
Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 1) Page 9
