Discretion

by Halle, Karina

I gesture to the room. “For one, I can’t afford this place.”

  He seems to fight the urge to roll his eyes. “Quite obviously, you don’t have to worry about that.”

  “I don’t want to take your charity.”

  “Charity implies that I’m helping you out of my selfless heart. I assure you that I have a very selfish reason for wanting you to stay.”

  Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.

  “Because you want to sleep with me.”

  Ugh. I said it.

  He grins, and once again my world tilts on its axis. “I never said that. I won’t say that you’re wrong, but perhaps a better way of putting it is that I’d like to get to know you.”

  “I’m sure you have many people you’d like to get to know.”

  “Not particularly.”

  Okay, I’ve already blurted out what should have been filtered, and I don’t want to get all insecure and whatnot right now with him, but honestly, I have no idea what this guy could even want with me. I’m not some model; I’m not French; I’m not rich. I’m anything but those things, and yet this guy wants to spend time with me and get to know me? He has no idea how boring I actually am.

  “You don’t seem to believe me,” he says with a shrug. “I’m not sure what to say to that. All I know is that you don’t have to be anywhere. You’ve already missed your train. You’re going to need to take it easy for the next few days with your ankle, and I hardly think you should travel in your condition. So why not make things easier on your health and your heart by just staying here?”

  Heart?

  He reads the confusion on my face and explains, “Stress affects your heart. You’ve been stressed. I can tell. Not just because of the terrible thing that happened to you last night, but other things as well. Let your heart beat freely for a while, nothing weighing it down, nothing holding it back.” He gestures to the doors and the bright-blue sky outside. “Out there is the sea. The waves come in, the waves go out. Slip into its rhythm for a while.”

  It all sounds so tempting and nearly too good to be true—which is why I think I need to keep my guard up, despite all the poetic things that keep pouring out of Olivier’s mouth.

  God, that mouth.

  I tear my eyes away from his face.

  “Have you seen the movie Vertigo?” I ask him.

  He blinks at me. “Of course. You just saw me smash the cup. I’ve seen everything Hitchcock has done.”

  “Then you probably won’t blame me for thinking you’re getting a little Jimmy Stewart with my Kim Novak.”

  “Because I think you’re a ghost?”

  “Because she jumped into San Francisco Bay, and he saved her life. And what was the line he used? ‘The Chinese say that once you’ve saved a person’s life, you’re responsible for it forever.’ So, as he said, you’re committed.”

  He folds his arms across his chest, amused again. “Actually, the Chinese have no such saying. It was invented for the film. And if I do recall, last night you acted like you were never in much danger at all.”

  He’s right, and I feel awful for it.

  “Well, let’s just say I was in shock. But I mean it when I say I do owe you my life. I’m trying to just ignore what happened but—”

  “Don’t ignore it. Never ignore trauma. It will only traumatize you from the inside out. You had quite the ordeal, and it’s going to take you some time to come to terms with that. So you might as well come to terms with it here. With me.”

  My God, he’s persistent. I can’t believe I’m putting up as much of a struggle as I am. My friend Chantal would be hitting me upside the head right now if she knew how stubborn I was being, especially since she’s been harping on me to just find some hot European guy and sleep with him as a giant “fuck you” to Tom.

  But that’s not in my nature. I didn’t have any boyfriends in high school. I lost my virginity at seventeen with my best guy friend, just to get it over with. I’m uncomfortable and shy with men, especially with anything sexual, since Tom has been my world for so long.

  And yet, here I am feeling a level of familiarity and comfort with Olivier that I haven’t felt with anyone before. Not with a stranger, anyway.

  It probably has everything to do with the fact that he saved you, I tell myself.

  But so what?

  Why not just go for it for once, even if it’s against my nature?

  I glance at him and really take in his face, pushing past all those handsome barriers that take my breath away to really get a feel for who he is. It’s in the curve of his lips, the warmth of his eyes. And, yeah, the fact that he’s probably a billionaire.

  “Okay,” I say softly.

  “Okay?” he repeats, brows raised.

  I nod and bite back the grin on my face.

  “I’ll stay,” I tell him, then add quickly, “but only until I’m better, and even if I’m not, I’m not missing my plane back home. I’ve got school; I’ve got my mother; I’ve got . . . a life I need to get back to.”

  “But that doesn’t mean you can’t live another life until then,” he says, like he already knows this isn’t something Sadie Reynolds normally does.

  Another me, another life.

  Just for a bit.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  OLIVIER

  I don’t think I’ve ever met any girl so stubborn before, though that’s probably part of the reason why I’m so taken with Sadie. As callous as it sounds, I’m used to snapping my fingers and having a lineup of women at the ready, so the fact that now she knows who I am and still needs extra convincing to stay makes her an even more enticing challenge.

  But I don’t want to come on stronger than I already have. After she agreed to stay, I decided to let her have some time alone while I took care of some business.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t my usual business. It was a text from my sister, Seraphine, wondering if I wanted to meet for a drink in Paris tonight. I’m fairly close with her and see her at least once a week when I’m in town, but I know tonight she would be talking about business. Our father’s business. With Paris Fashion Week around the corner and the fall releases coming up, she does everything she can to try to rope me into that side of things.

  I wasn’t lying when I told Sadie that I wasn’t interested in that part of the Dumont brand. I’m quite happy being a hotelier, rather than worrying about the changes that happen with the label several times a year. It’s cutthroat, stressful, and far too complicated when you combine everyone in my family who has their fingers in the pie.

  I also know that I would be good at it. I would be very good at it. I know that my father wishes for nothing more than for me to follow in his footsteps, and I’ve spent the last ten years trying to distance myself in every single way possible. Not because I necessarily want to—because I have to.

  What puts me in even more of a tough spot is that I know Seraphine needs me on her side. It’s always been her and my father versus Pascal, Blaise, and Gautier. It’s been more unbalanced than it should be, and I only have myself to blame.

  But my sister and father don’t know the truth. They don’t know what I did; they don’t know what I signed. They don’t know that the end is coming near, and I’ll have to give up my shares of the company to Gautier, or the world will know of my indiscretion. They only know the lie, and I’ve got to do everything in my power to keep that lie alive.

  It’s almost noon when I return to the villa to check on Sadie. Naturally, I’m not empty-handed—I’ve got two cold bottles of Dumont champagne nestled in a gilded ice bucket. Even though neither of us has had lunch yet, I think we both deserve a little something to ease into the day.

  I knock on her door and call her name softly, and when she doesn’t answer, I use my key card to unlock it. I have to admit, I do feel like I’m overstepping my boundaries a little by doing this.

  “Sadie,” I call out, slowly opening the door. I peer inside and see her bed neatly made, the trays of food stacked beside the door. I sho
uld have reminded her that she could call Marcel at any time, and he would have dealt with it.

  One of the doors to the deck is open, and I can see Sadie outside, sitting on one of the lounge chairs. She’s wearing a plain black tank top and denim shorts, her hair pulled back into a messy bun as she leans over and fidgets with the bandages around her ankle.

  “Good afternoon,” I say to her, and she jumps a little at the sound of my voice, her eyes landing on me. She smiles when she meets my gaze, and her demeanor grows more impressed when she sees the champagne.

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” she says sheepishly.

  I cross the deck and pull up the lounge chair beside her, placing the bucket on the small teak table between us.

  “I guess I’m used to sneaking around,” I tell her.

  “I bet you are,” she comments, but despite the knowing tone of her voice, there’s no malice in her eyes.

  “I’m the youngest,” I explain. “While my father was always occupied with my brother or sister, I was the one climbing out of my window. Sometimes I’d go right through the front door. No one would notice.”

  “Oh, see, I would have thought that maybe you would have had to sneak your women around,” she says.

  I cock my brow. “Women?”

  The corner of her lips twist into a smile, making something in her eyes dance mischievously. It’s a look I want to see more of. “I may have spent the last few hours Googling the hell out of you.”

  I roll my eyes and sigh. “Mon Dieu.” There’s no telling what information she’s managed to unearth in that time. I hardly know what’s being said about me. Even with my public persona of being a serial dater, I still manage to keep things about my personal life fairly discreet. If I’m photographed with a different girl every week—or every night—that doesn’t matter much to me. I know people will never know just how I feel about any of them. The only thing I really talk about with the press is my hotels. I don’t comment on the Dumont line at all, leaving all that to my sister and father.

  But the more private I am, the more the press tends to run wild with rumors. They have to print something, after all, and if any of my cousins happen to have a slow news day, the media often turns on me.

  “Well, rest assured, I don’t believe everything that people say,” Sadie says. “Especially when it contradicts what I’ve seen so far.”

  “It comes with the territory,” I admit and then gesture to the champagne. “I guess me bringing you some champagne is no surprise.”

  “Oh, believe me, everything is still a giant surprise,” she says, looking around with big eyes. “I’ve wanted to pinch myself a few times to find out if I’m dreaming or not. Luckily, my ankle has taken on that role quite well.”

  I glance down at it. “Does it hurt? Did you take off the bandage?”

  She shakes her head. “I attempted to, and then I worried I wouldn’t know how to wrap it up perfectly.”

  “Do you mind if I take a look?”

  “And you’re a doctor now?”

  I grin and get to my feet. “You didn’t read that about me?” I joke. “Stay there. I’ll get something for the pain first.”

  I disappear back into the room, pluck two champagne glasses from the cabinet, and come back out with them. “Here we go.”

  I expect her to tell me she doesn’t want any, but instead, her eyes never leave me as I pop the champagne cork and send it sailing over the balcony railing.

  “You probably won’t be too shocked, but I’ve never had Dumont champagne before,” she says as I carefully pour her a glass. “Or Dumont anything, for that matter.”

  That’s going to change, I think to myself, and when she meets my eyes, I swear I see a flash of heat burn behind them, as if she knows exactly what I’m thinking.

  I pour myself a glass and hold it up to hers, clearing my throat before I say, “Here’s to being in the right place at the right time.”

  She gives me a loaded look. “I think it’s more wrong place at the wrong time, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes, but I was thinking about me.”

  She scoffs, lets out a dry laugh. “Okay, well then I’m toasting to how lucky I am that it was you, of all people, who happened to save me. I doubt I would have ever experienced a place like this otherwise.”

  “Santé! You never know,” I tell her as I clink my glass against hers. “Perhaps we would have found each other some other way.”

  Her eyes flash at that, and I know perhaps I’m being a little presumptuous, but I’ve found it impossible to be anything but that around her. I take a sip of my drink, and when she pauses with hers, I tip up the bottom of her glass so that she finishes most of it in one go.

  “For the pain,” I remind her.

  She smiles, licking her lips in a way that nearly undoes me. “That’s what the painkillers are for. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were getting me drunk.”

  “Drunk?” I repeat. “No. We don’t get drunk here in France. We get happy. Now, let me take a look at your foot.”

  I put my glass on the table and sit down beside her on the lounger, gently taking her calf in my hands and placing her ankle over my thighs. Her breath hitches, and she tenses as she moves back to accommodate me. I give her a reassuring glance, reading the trepidation on her face. “I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

  “How can you be so sure?” she asks after a beat, and there’s a weight to her words, as if she’s talking about something else.

  I don’t let my mind go there. Instead, I slowly and carefully start to unwrap the bandages around her ankle. I obviously have no medical training, but Seraphine used to do ballet, and I have memories of my mother helping her with her feet on particularly rough days.

  Sadie gasps when I pull apart the final wrap, but her ankle isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It’s just puffy and swollen, with very light bruising.

  “It looks fine,” I tell her.

  “It’s not fine,” she says. “It looks gangrenous.”

  I laugh. “It isn’t gangrenous. It’s just inflamed. Another few days of plenty of rest and keeping your weight off it, and you should be fine. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “Well, no. But you have to wrap it back up, so there’s always another chance.”

  I can’t help but grin. She can be so prickly. I nod at her drink. “Pour yourself another glass and drink up.”

  “Back to getting me drunk.”

  “I’ll join you in a second.”

  And I’m not lying. With the same care as when I took off her bandage, I wrap her ankle back up. “Not too tight?” I ask, her ankles still resting across my thighs.

  “I’m impressed,” she says, taking a sip of her drink. “Just as I’m impressed by this champagne, this hotel, you, and everything else that you happen to touch in some way or form.”

  “Well, I’m glad I can impress you by the things I do and not by the things you’ve read about me.”

  “Oh, believe me, I was still impressed. Even by the blatant lies. I had no idea you had a secret baby with the princess of Monaco.” She pauses, narrowing her eyes. “Unless . . .”

  “Blatant lie,” I tell her. “Though I do think my cousin has had a few dalliances with her.”

  “Which one?”

  “You know about them?” I practically bristle.

  “It’s hard to do research on Olivier Dumont without learning about the rest of his family.”

  “What did you learn?” I ask carefully.

  She shrugs. “A lot, but who knows what’s true and what isn’t? Your family does seem to be at odds with each other, though. They seem so different from one another, your father and your uncle.”

  “How so?” I ask. Of course, I know the truth, but I’m always curious to see how we appear to others, particularly to people from outside of France who weren’t brought up with my father and uncle dominating the news from time to time.

  “The gossip sites like to paint you like you’re in a family
feud. There’s the so-called good side with you and your sister and brother and parents. And then there’s your uncle and aunt and their sons. The so-called bad side. Though sometimes they just called them progressive, so I guess ‘bad’ is just a relative term. So to speak.”

  She has no idea. “You’re right. They are more progressive,” I admit. “My father has always believed in running everything Dumont the same way that our grandfather did. He sees only harm in changing things to fit with the times.”

  She stares at me inquisitively, which makes me want to drink. I quickly finish my glass. “And what do you believe?” she asks. “Do you agree with your father?”

  I nod. “I do. I adapt in my own way when it comes to my side of the business. My hotels will always have an old-world feel about them in terms of service and location, the things people think of when they think of a place like this. But obviously I adapt, like all hotels do. The online marketing world to individuals is everything. Using Instagram, social media. If I didn’t adapt and utilize them, I couldn’t sustain the momentum.”

  “And your father? He doesn’t even have an online store.”

  “Well, the products are online. He just doesn’t let you buy them that way. You have to go into a store.”

  “You don’t think that’s inconvenient?”

  I’ve heard this argument so many times, and I know every way it can pan out. “It may be inconvenient, but it keeps the brand from becoming cheap and fast fashion.”

  She bursts out laughing. “Cheap? I looked at your handbags. They’re five thousand dollars.”

  “So is Chanel, and you don’t see anyone balking at the price.”

  “Oh, I’m balking at that too. It’s ridiculous. My whole trip here cost half that much.”

  She’s got a point. For once I’m at a loss for words.

  “Look,” she says after a moment. “I don’t mean to, you know, insult you or your father. I’m sure it’s all worth it. It’s just a totally different world, and it’s one I doubt I’ll ever understand. Our worlds couldn’t be further apart.”

  “And yet here we are. You and me. Sitting on the deck of my villa at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, drinking champagne. It looks like our worlds have collided very well.”