The place is gigantic, a beautiful, high-ceilinged room with hardwood floors and tasteful furniture. There are massive French doors that lead out to a 10 by 20-foot stone balcony and a stunning, picture-perfect postcard view of Paris.
Aside from Grant’s palatial penthouse in NYC, it’s probably the most beautiful apartment I’ve ever been in.
It’s also the messiest apartment I’ve ever been in this side of college. There are empty wine bottles, stained wine glasses, plates with traces of food, and overflowing ashtrays on every spare surface. The place smells like a smoker’s patio at a heavily crowded bar.
The most interesting thing, though, is the huge bank of television monitors and computer screens that take up the far wall of the apartment. There are over 40 views of the hallway outside the door, the stairwell, the elevator, the lobby, various halls, and the streets surrounding the building.
This guy knew we were coming from a mile away. And I mean that (almost) literally.
“Eve,” Grant says, “let me introduce Jean-Paul Du– ”
“No last names, no last names!” the man interrupts in irritation. He has a heavy accent – no lahst nemz! – and pads past me without so much as a look in my direction.
“Fine,” Grant says, clearly annoyed at the reception. “JP was one of my… mentors, you might say.”
“Malheureusement pour moi,” Jean-Paul mutters.
I don’t need to understand French to know he’s ruing the day he met Grant right about now.
Grant continues with the introduction. “Jean-Paul, this is Eve. No last name,” he adds drily.
“Mrm,” JP grunts as he picks up a remote. The biggest screen in his wall of monitors erupts into a television newscast. “This is you, no?”
There is aerial footage of a couple of Coast Guard-looking boats and dive teams in choppy water. The screen cuts to cell-phone footage of a plane crashing into the English Channel. Whoever filmed it was right on the water’s edge, and got a spectacular show despite the early morning darkness.
“Oh my God,” I say, my hand flying to my mouth.
“Wow,” Grant says, impressed. “Somebody was in the right place at the right time.” Then he whispers to me, “Remind me later, we still need to wire that money to Mike.”
“So it is you,” Jean-Paul hmphs, and lets out a string of what I can only assume are elaborate French curses, ending with “Fucking shit,” though it sounds more like Fuckeeng sheet.
Grant is annoyed. “Look, I wouldn’t have contacted you if it wasn’t an emergency.”
“Yes, yes, I can see!” the Frenchman says, and presses another button on the remote. Apparently he DVR’d the program, because it fast forwards until Grant and my picture appear onscreen – along with a bunch of French text at the bottom. The only word that stands out is INTERPOL.
Oh my God.
Apparently those cops at the airport actually were cops.
“And so you come to me,” Jean-Paul seethes. “Merci beaucoup.”
“Look, I saved your ass on the Monte Carlo heist – ”
“Mon Dieu!” Jean-Paul cries out, and throws his arms in the air. “‘The Monte Carlo heist, the Monte Carlo heist’ – will I never hear the end? I will be dead and in my grave and you will still be talking about the fucking Monte Carlo heist!”
“You have no idea what I’m up against, JP!”
“Oh, alors, enlighten me, s’il te plaît,” Jean-Paul snaps as he slumps down at the dining room table and fires up a cigarette.
Grant spends the next five minutes detailing everything. Epicurus, the two women, the art gallery, the raid on the skyscraper, ditching the plane in the English Channel.
The plight of the two imprisoned women doesn’t move JP. Nor do our troubles make him any more sympathetic to our cause. Instead, by the end of the story, JP’s head is on the table, forehead down, in a scene of utter dejection.
“Ugghh, putain d’merde,” he moans.
That’s the second time he’s said ‘putain d’merde’ in the last five minutes. I’m guessing it’s not exactly a happy phrase.
“I need your help,” Grant says, his tone insistent.
Jean-Paul lifts his head and snaps, “I do not need this right now, Grant! This is not the best of times, you know?”
“Why, what’s up?”
“I have other business I am attending! I cannot drop everything just because you are a stupid asshole who sticks his nose where he should not!”
“What, are you on another job right now?”
“Of course I am on another job!” JP explodes. “We are not all of us billionaires! Some of us have to work for a fucking living!”
That part about ‘work for a fucking living’ is pretty funny coming from a thief – but, whatever.
“I’ll pay you,” Grant says.
“You had better fucking pay me,” JP mutters as he lights another cigarette.
“What was your expected take on the job?”
“Two million, easy. After this, I retire.”
“Still dreaming of French Polynesia, huh?”
“I will not be dreaming anymore after this job.”
“Forget the job. I’ll pay you five.”
That gets JP’s attention. “Five million?”
“Yes.”
JP thinks for a second. “Ten.”
Damn, is everybody a haggler? First Mike, then this guy –
“Six,” Grant says.
JP narrows his eyes. “Fifteen.”
“What the fuck?” I say angrily.
“Eve,” Grant warns me.
“He’s going the wrong way!”
“No, madmoiselle, I am going the correct way,” JP opines. “Grant never bargains. Jamais.”
I frown and look at Grant. “But you bargained with Mike – ”
“Eve, shut up,” Grant whispers.
“Aha,” JP says happily, and gestures with his cigarette. “You see? If he is bargaining, I think you are up the shit tree.”
“That’s not the right expression,” I snap.
He puffs on his cigarette. “Well, with fifteen million, perhaps I can buy the appropriate one.”
Grant shakes his head. “Eight, and don’t push your luck.”
“A fucking billionaire, and he is worried about eight million,” Jean-Paul mutters, then launches back into negotiating mode. “With my job, I make three million – ”
“You said two,” I interrupt.
JP ignores me. “ – but if I am caught, I go to jail. Not so good. With you, if I am caught – kkkrkk,” he says, drawing his finger across his throat. “Very not so good.”
Grant scowls. “Nine million dollars, that’s my final offer.”
“Euros,” JP says.
“Euros?! We’re talking about dollars, not euros – ”
“I am in France. I am talking of euros,” JP says.
“That’s ten million U.S. – ”
“Done,” JP says, and slaps the table. “Ten million U.S., accepté.”
Grant narrows his eyes at him. “Sneaky.”
JP just smiles. “That is why you came to me, no?”
“I assume you and Dom are not a package deal.”
Dom?
The name conjures up an image of a muscled bald guy with tattoos and a bad attitude.
Jean-Paul waves one hand dismissively. “No no no, I negotiate pour moi, c’est tout.”
“When’s Dom getting here?”
JP shrugs. “Soon, I think.”
“‘Soon’? Did you make the call or not?”
“Putain – calme-toi, I made the fucking call!”
“Who’s Dom?” I ask.
JP starts to answer, but Grant cuts him off. “Somebody JP and I used to work with.”
The Frenchman looks at Grant quizzically, then points at me. “You, uh… you do what?”
“I’m a hacker.”
“Computers?”
It sounds more like Com-pyoo-tairs?
“Yes.”
I frown. “What?”
“Euh…” he mutters, then makes two fists and clops them together twice.
I frown even more. “Are you asking if we’re involved romantically?”
He puffs on the cigarette. “That is one way of putting it, oui.”
I get a little riled up. “Not that it’s any of your business – but yes, we are.”
JP grins at Grant like You dirty dog, you, and starts to chuckle. “Ah heu heu heu heu…”
“What?” I ask, mystified.
“Nothing,” Grant says, and gives JP an irritated glance out of the corner of his eye.
“What?!” I ask again. Grant’s not revealing anything, so I look at the Frenchman.
JP gives an exaggerated shrug and an expression like, What do you expect from ME? and then very conspicuously looks away.
“What are you not telling me?” I ask Grant angrily.
“Nothing,” he says. “It’s just that Dom is… well…”
“Ah heu heu heu heu,” JP starts chuckling again.
“Somebody better tell me what the hell is going on, right now,” I snap.
There is a loud knock knock knock at the door.
“You will see, I think,” JP says, then goes over to the door and begins unlocking the chains.
“You remember how you asked me where I learned French?” Grant says.
“Yeah?”
“I picked it up from… uh, hanging out with Dom.”
JP opens the door, and a woman – one of the most beautiful I have ever seen in my life – runs into the room. Literally runs. Then she physically leaps into Grant’s arms and starts sucking his face off.
I stand there in utter, horrified shock.
I get it now: Dom.
As in Dominique.
14
Grant hastily pushes the woman away. He doesn’t reciprocate the kiss, either; I’ll give him that much. I’m about to go nuclear on his ass, but I’ll give him points for trying to keep up appearances.
The woman is obviously irritated that he’s distancing himself, and starts rattling off French phrases like machine gun fire. “Qu’est-ce que c’est? Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas?”
Grant sweeps his arm out towards me. “Dominique, this is Eve – ”
“No last names,” I interrupt, annoyed as hell.
“Ah heu heu heu heu…” JP chuckles from over by the door.
Dominique turns and looks at me for the first time. ‘Glares at me disdainfully’ is more like it. The sheer magnitude of haughty contempt on display is pretty spectacular. If I weren’t so pissed off at her, I might be intimidated.
She’s absolutely breathtaking. I hate her, but I can’t deny reality. Tousled auburn hair, dark blue eyes, a spectacular pout. Tall, lithe, graceful – a dancer’s build. She’s wearing a silk scarf tight around her neck, paired with a silver locket, a curve-hugging top, and black pants. She exudes the casual, offhand sophistication and glamour that the French and Italians do so well. The only incongruous thing about her is the athletic shoes she’s wearing, though they’re jet black and feminine enough to pass.
There is a French actress named Emmanuelle Béart. These days, she’s – well, she’s still attractive, despite some very obvious plastic surgery. But back in the 90’s, she was stunning. Your average American would only know her from starring opposite Tom Cruise in the first Mission: Impossible, though she’s been in a slew of French films before and since.
That’s who this chick looks like: a French movie star in the prime of her beauty.
And apparently she was once… ‘involved’ with Grant.
“I already know your last name, Mademoiselle Saunders,” Dominique says frostily, in the loveliest French-accented English I’ve ever heard in my life – which, given how she and Grant used to sleep together, sounds like fingernails across a chalkboard to me.
She immediately turns toward Grant and launches into rapid-fire French again – and tries worming her way back into his embrace.
He keeps her at arm’s length. “Dom, cut it out. We’ve got to talk business.”
She frowns and asks something in French.
“Because Eve only speaks English,” he replies.
She glances at me again briefly. I swear to God, as she turns back to Grant, she does a little flounce and a supercilious ‘hmph’ at the same time.
You… little… BITCH.
“I also ‘speak’ C, C++, Java, Bash, Python, Perl, LISP, assembly, and about a dozen others, but I wouldn’t expect you to know any of those,” I say, rattling off all the programming languages I use regularly for hacking.
Dominique looks at me with disdain and loathing, like I just farted at a fancy soireé.
JP walks by to retrieve his pack of smokes. “Insecure, perhaps?” he mutters under his breath.
“Shut up,” I snap at him.
Dominique turns back to Grant and starts in on the French again.
“English, Dom,” he insists. “English.”
She pouts for a second. I want to punch her in her perfect little face.
“Why are you here in Paris?” she asks, pronouncing it Pair-EE. “What is this I have seen on the television?”
Once again, Grant launches into his story. But where Jean-Paul was unmoving stone, Dominique fairly swoons. When Grant tells her about the two women he saved, she looks like she’s about to cry and jump his bones at the same time.
“You are so brave, mon amour,” she murmurs as she places her hand on his jacket lapel.
Oh barf, I think, though I don’t actually say it out loud.
Grant finishes up the story and closes with, “Which is why we need your help.”
“I will do anything, just to be close to you again, mon cher,” she purrs.
This time I say it out loud. “Oh BARF.”
She glances over at me like I farted again, then asks Grant something in French.
JP stifles a snicker.
Grant sighs. “Dom – don’t, okay?”
“What did she say?” I ask Grant.
“Nothing,” he says wearily.
I whirl around on JP. “What did she say?!”
“Uhhh… she says, why you are making sounds like a dog.”
I turn back to Dominique. “I said another word for VOMIT. I wasn’t barking.”
“She knows this,” Jean-Paul adds helpfully. “I believe she said it so she could use the word française for, um, how you say – bitch.”
“JP!” Grant snaps.
“Hey, she asks a question, no?” Jean-Paul protests mischievously.
Dominique just looks at me sideways and gives a knowing little smile.
You… fucking… WHORE.
I walk over to Grant, snag his arm, and tug insistently. “Can we talk for a minute?”
He resists. “I really think we should – ”
I yank as hard as I can. He gives in, following me to an open bedroom door.
“Do not have an excess of fun,” Jean-Paul calls naughtily after us.
Dominique says something in French to Grant.
“SHUT UP,” I yell at her, and slam the door closed.
15
“What the fuck, Grant?” I whisper angrily.
Grant gives me an amused grin. “Well, well, well. Somebody’s jealous.”
Now I want to punch him in his perfect little face.
“I’m not jealous,” I protest, a little too heatedly.
“Look, you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“I’m not worried,” I protest again, way too heatedly.
And I’m not, I tell myself. Why would I be worried? I don’t have any right to be worried. We’re not married. He hasn’t promised me anything. He doesn’t owe me anything. We haven’t even talked about what ‘this’ – our relationship, if you can call it that – is. I’m not his girlfriend, he’s not my boyfriend. We can sleep with whomever we want.
I d
on’t voice any of that aloud, though – especially not that last sentence.
Still, the thought of him and Dominique together, naked in bed, is enough to tie my stomach into knots.
It’s kind of funny, in a fucked-up sort of way. A few hours ago I was telling myself I wasn’t in love with Grant, that I couldn’t fall in love with him, that I had to distance myself to keep my heart safe – and now I’m ready to get in a catfight with some slut from his past.
I don’t normally use the word ‘slut,’ by the way. But I really, really, really want to call that bitch in the other room the worst word I can, and I never, ever use the ‘c’ word. So ‘slut’ it is.
I try to remind myself that I don’t care, I’m footloose and fancy free, I could sleep with JP if I wanted –
Oh, God, YUCK.
I try to erase that thought from my brain.
Not that he’s ugly, mind you – just that he’s not Grant. Nowhere near him, in fact.
While I’ve been lost in my own private, tortured reverie, Grant has continued talking. “Trust me, there’s nothing between us.”
“Maybe on your side,” I harrumph.
“Whatever. She’s just like that.”
“What, slutty?”
Grant gives me a disappointed look. “Really? Really.”
I have a little inward twinge. I hate, hate, hate when men slut-shame, and here I am using the word as a weapon.
Even if it fits.
“Okay – trampy?” I suggest. “Vastly inappropriate? Obnoxiously forward? Sexually predatory?”
“Flirtatious. Besides, she and I used to date.” My anger and hurt must show on my face, because he hastily adds, “But we haven’t for years.”
“And yet you took the first opportunity you had to look her up when we’re on the run? That’s interesting.”
I’d meant for that to come out with a kind of mild irony. Instead, the words have a bitter, sarcastic core dipped in jealous venom.
Grant crosses his arms and looks at me sternly.
I sigh. He’s right, I’m being ridiculous.
Buuuut…
“Why do we need her?” I ask, trying to regain my vantage point as the sane, sensible woman I used to be just five minutes ago, before she walked into the room.
“Because Dom’s an amazing tightrope walker and gymnast. She’s like the best female performers in Cirque de Soleil – strong, agile, incredibly flexible.”
The Billionaire's Redemption (The Billionaire's Kiss, Book Five): (A Billionaire Alpha Romance) Page 5
