Kitabı oku: «Modern Romance June 2019 Books 5-8», sayfa 10

“Something tells me I’m not needed,” Gabriel said twenty minutes in and rose to leave. “We’ll go for dinner in three hours.” He glanced to the couturier. “And return in the morning for another fitting.”

“Parfait. Merci, monsieur.” Her smile was calm, but the way people were bustling told Luli how big a deal this was. How big a deal Gabriel was.

The women took her measurements while showing her unfinished pieces that only needed hemming or minimal tailoring so she could take them immediately.

“You’ll be up all night,” Luli murmured to one of the seamstresses.

The young woman moved quickly, but not fast enough for her boss who kept crying, “Vite! Vite!”

“I’m sorry to put you through this,” Luli added.

“Pas de problème. Monsieur Dean is a treasured client. It’s our honor to provide your trousseau.” She clamped her teeth on a pin between words. “Do you know where he’s taking you for dinner? We should choose that dress next, so I can work on the alterations while you have your hair and makeup done. It must be fabulous. The world will be watching.”

She would be presented publicly as his wife, Luli realized with a hard thump in her heart.

She still didn’t know what their marriage meant. He had remained silent on the topic of their sleeping together after her confession before they left Singapore. They had spent the flight talking about the features of his laptop and some investments she thought she should unload, since their value had peaked and would likely begin to dwindle as the news of his takeover sank in. He had approved it, allowing her to continue ensuring the cogs of Mae’s business kept turning while he chewed his way through the wiring into her accounts himself.

They had dozed in their recliners at different times, neither of them seeking the comfort of the bed. He hadn’t invited her to join him there, at least. She hadn’t known how to circle back to whether he wanted her there.

She wished she knew what he was thinking, now that she had confessed her virginity. She wished she had experience to draw on! Had he kissed her because he found her attractive? Or merely because she had signed a paper that allowed him conjugal rights? She met all the criteria for typical standards of modern beauty, but perhaps that only made her objectively attractive and didn’t translate into someone who was actually desirable.

She reminded herself again that he had done her a favor in cutting things short. Along with youth and beauty, one of the few things she possessed that was hers to give or barter was her virginity. She had presumed it might have value to certain men, but Gabriel didn’t seem to be one of them.

And yet he must like sex and women. She stood where other women must have stood, buying clothing charged to him. Gabriel was a treasured client.

How strange to hate women she had never met, but she did. Instantly and bitterly.

Jealousy is a sign of insecurity and low self-esteem, she could hear her mother cautioning her. But this wasn’t a case where Luli could size up her competition and see how many of their qualities she possessed then make adjustments to outshine them.

She could only make the most of what she had—and gritted her teeth in determination, intending to.

“This one,” she said of the dress she tried on a few minutes later.

From the back, it was a one-shouldered evening dress in cranberry silk with a filmy chiffon skirt, except half of the skirt was ivory. The front was more dramatic, with its silk bodice fitted to her breasts and the bottom of the dress made of shiny silk and cut to miniskirt height. The chiffon of the overskirt was belted in the pink-red silk, but its ruffled edges opened as she walked, delicate as fairy wings.

“You have a good eye and the ideal figure for Madame’s creations,” her seamstress gushed.

Luli accepted tall silver shoes with a pop of merlot on the sole then moved to the styling room. Her hair was blown out and her nails buffed and polished. A cosmetician applied cleansers, toners, moisturizer, antioxidants and foundation. When the woman reached for her color palette, Luli said, “I’ll do it.”

It had been years, but her muscle memory for liquid eyeliner and blending hues to contour her bone structure served her well.

Even so, when she stood dressed and ready in front of the mirror, she saw a stranger. Not because it had been so long since she had seen herself stage ready, but because she was no longer fourteen. Being twenty-two shouldn’t have made such a difference when she had been acting like an adult as an adolescent, but it did. Rather than looking like a girl playing dress up, she looked like a woman. A confident, self-possessed, beautiful woman.

Act like you believe it, she silently told the apprehensive face in the mirror.

“Monsieur Dean has arrived,” her seamstress came in to advise her. “Ooh, là là! He will faint. I may.” She fanned her face.

“Thank you,” Luli said, accepting the compliment graciously, as her mother had taught her to do. Anything less would suggest she believed herself inferior in some way.

Luli gave herself a final scrutiny, adjusted her posture and ensured she stood as tall as she was able. Then she thought back to the puppy she had played with as a child. She didn’t recall whom it had belonged to, but the memory was one she had always used to awaken a feeling of happiness within her. It was the happiest she’d ever felt.

She faltered. Had she really not had a happy moment since then?

“Perhaps you would like to carry this instead?” the seamstress said, offering a Cleopatra clutch in black alligator skin with an ornate silver clasp.

Luli had kept her wallet in her line of sight the entire time she’d been here, terrified that if it disappeared, she would. She used the excuse of changing purses to check again that her precious identification was still in her possession. She handed off the empty wallet to the woman who promised to bag it with the items going to the car.

Emotion threatened to swamp her afresh as she absorbed what Gabriel had given her with a few legal documents. Options. Possibility. The gift of existence was greater than any haute couture dress or designer handbag or limitless credit card.

It was a miracle.

She did have a more recent memory of happiness, she realized. This. As she snapped the clutch closed and turned its tiny lock, she let the glow of gratitude toward him seep through her until joy shone from her smile and radiated from her demeanor.

With every ounce of grace she had ever possessed, she walked to the reception lounge.

* * *

Gabriel turned from instructing the couturier to box up as much as possible by morning so they could take it on the jet with them—and all the air was punched from his lungs.

A goddess approached in an unhurried gait that rocked her hips. Her skirt wafted back from her mile-long legs and her breasts bounced lightly above a long, slender waist. Her hair slithered in loose ribbons of caramel with glints of cool platinum against the warm gold of her bare shoulders and upper chest.

Her face was an angel’s, luminous and pure. Aside from the dramatic lines that accented her eyes and gave them a hint of tilt, she wore little makeup. Or wore it so well, it was barely noticeable. Her lashes were naturally long and thick. He’d studied them while she had slept on the plane. Her succulent lips were accentuated with a delicate pink and shone with gloss. Her smile was one of exultation. Whatever she was celebrating, he decided she was entitled to it.

He couldn’t fault her in that moment for one damned thing.

She halted before she reached him, struck a pose, pivoted to show the back of the dress. It lifted and floated back down before she pivoted again and continued toward him with a playful sparkle in her eye.

The entire move had been executed so smoothly, he chuckled with enjoyment.

“Maximum points for first impression, I hope. Otherwise we start again.” She met his gaze without shyness, smiling, utterly composed.

She was sexy as hell.

Virgin, he reminded himself, yet the only thing that kept him from ravishing her on the spot was their rapt audience.

She was waiting for his judgment, he realized, as she continued looking at him and he noted tension creep in around her smile. The flutter of her pulse in her throat grew more rapid, exactly as it had been when she had quietly challenged him in his grandmother’s office.

“You broke the scale.” He brought her hand to his mouth, wanting to place his lips in far more intimate places than her soft knuckle. “And good thing because I’m too hungry to wait while you start again. This is for you.”

He gently splayed out her hand and threaded the ring onto her finger.

It was a performance for their audience and she gasped with appropriate amazement at the fifteen-carat marquise-cut blue diamond. Its split shank was coated in white diamonds to set off the rare color of the center stone.

The women around them squealed with excitement.

“I don’t know what to say,” Luli said faintly.

“Thank you?” he suggested dryly, and did what was expected, taking her into his arms for a kiss.

Her arms went around his neck and her heart pounded so hard he felt it against his chest, teasing his own to come race with hers. He kept the kiss light, not wanting to ruin her lipstick, but her lips clung shyly to his and she slid her lashes down with awareness as he released her.

He groaned inwardly. Virgin she might be, but her response to his touch was the most erotic thing he’d ever experienced.

“Good night, ladies. Your extra effort won’t go unrewarded,” he said with a nod.

Voices wished them a lovely evening and he escorted her to the car, for once anticipating the entrance they would make. Women invariably wanted to be seen with him, whether it was an innocent business meeting or a lengthy, more intimate association. He found the quest for attention tiresome, but accepted it.

With Luli, however, he was already smiling inwardly at the stir she would cause. He usually only felt this sense of excitement when one of his personal projects went to market—a niche app or something else he had poured himself into developing.

He was swelling with pride, he realized, but not of ownership. He didn’t take credit for this transformation or even for the discovery of her.

No, he was simply proud to be with a woman who shone brighter than the midday sun.

CHAPTER SIX

THE RESTAURANT WAS a converted house in the Sixth Arrondissement, once owned by an art dealer. It brimmed with impressionist paintings and priceless objets d’art. A murmur went through the diners in the main lounge and piano bar as they were shown through to an atrium with only one table that was obviously reserved for the most illustrious customers.

A small fountain and an abundance of ferns provided a modicum of privacy, but the glass walls and ceiling provided none. Luli didn’t care who looked at them. She was too busy taking in the fat moon above the glittering Eiffel Tower.

“I’ve wanted to come to Paris since I first understood what it was. I can’t believe I’m here,” Luli said, trying not to betray her complete awe.

“We’ll come back soon. I have to get back to some meetings I left when you texted about my grandmother.”

“Was that a flash?” She looked toward the fountain.

“Outside? Yes.”

“No, from—”

A jewel-bedecked customer had crept to the fountain and held a smartphone in the air space behind the streaming water, aiming it at them. One of the servers in a black vest and long white apron hurried to draw the woman away.

“Ignore it,” Gabriel said. “My security team will address it.”

She couldn’t. Glints of light were popping against the wall of shrubbery beyond the atrium’s walls and on the rooftop of the adjacent building.

“I used to dream of being so famous everyone would want my photo. It’s quite intrusive, isn’t it? How do you stand it?”

“Honestly, I’m not of much interest to the paparazzi unless I’m with a woman. Even then, it very much depends on who she is. I met with a married actress a couple of times, years ago. She was researching a part. It was completely innocuous, but she was of a mind that any publicity was good publicity. She tipped off photographers every time and the entertainment sites made it into something it wasn’t. The movie did well at the box office and on the award circuit. Perhaps her strategy had some weight.” He told her whom it had been. She was quite famous, but old enough to be his mother.

Their wine was delivered and poured. Luli didn’t know where to look. Outside at the cameras? At the craning necks in the main part of the restaurant? Looking at Gabriel would only get her tangled up in his gaze.

“I suppose your connection to your grandmother makes you news right now,” she murmured, studying the ornate silver stem and the patterns etched into the tulip-shaped red bowl of her one-of-a-kind handcrafted wineglass—or so their server had informed her.

“My grandmother’s connection to me affects people who have business dealings with Chen Enterprises. I’m already so rich. No one could care less that I just got richer.”

“But you said the paparazzi only pay attention to you if the woman you’re with is famous. They don’t know who I am.”

“Exactly.” One corner of his mouth went up in a cynical curl. “The waitstaff is going to make a bundle in tips from people wanting your name. Joke’s on them. I didn’t offer it.”

“They wouldn’t recognize it anyway. I’m nobody.”

The waiter brought an amuse-bouche—a spoon that held a deviled quail’s egg on a mushroom cap with a glazed baby carrot next to it.

“It seems silly that anyone would care,” she continued. “I’m as guilty as the next person for following celebrity gossip. Your grandmother subscribed to overseas magazines and I love royal wedding photos and the like, but—oh.”

“You’ve arrived. Welcome.” His lingering smile held gentle mockery. “Yes, everyone is trying to be the first to report on my marriage. More pointedly, to whom.”

“I suppose that is news.” She was. She sobered as she recalled how attentive the couturier and her staff had been. “Was there someone else they expected? Are you with someone?” She should have asked that several kisses ago.

“Only you,” he said dryly. “A press release goes out at midnight explaining I’ve been quietly courting my grandmother’s business manager and we’ve made it official.”

“No one is going to believe that. Or that I’m a business manager.” She thought of the butler trying to throw her out on her ear, first chance he got.

“It doesn’t matter what they believe, only what I know. While you were playing dress up, I accessed the backup files and ran some reports for my edification. You make a lot of small adjustments that make a big difference. You do, in fact, manage her business affairs.”

“Mae liked me to be vigilant.”

“But you did much of it electronically. I saw the scripts you inserted to alert you when something falls outside your parameter sets. You’ve been playing with my back end for a while.”

She had, but he didn’t need to make it sound so suggestive.

Their plates were exchanged. A light shell of something that might have been egg white had been quick fried into a lacy web and bent into a basket while warm. It held a leg of squab, a half dozen bright green peas and a dollop of what she learned was whipped turnip. A smear of chili sauce framed it and violets were sprinkled for decoration.

“If you’ve gone that far,” she said, hand going to the clutch in her lap. “You’re able to restore from backup and lock me out.”

“I could. But I refuse to take the easy way. I won’t let you get the better of me.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

“I’m competitive, not sexist.”

“How did you learn to code?” She snapped a strand from the basket and discovered it was made of sharp cheese, rich and salty against her tongue.

“My grade school had three afterschool clubs—computers, arts and athletics. I didn’t want to go home, so I had to pick one. I can speak on a stage if I have to, but I have no talent for performing or other creative pursuits. I was decent in track and field, but have no interest in team sports. The isolation of a computer screen, however, was my dream habitat.”

“Why didn’t you want to go home?”

“My father was a drunk and not fun to be around.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”