Chapter 8 - Caroline
Caroline
I was flustered and embarrassed about falling asleep with my head on Rafael’s shoulder, so I jumped out of my seat and ran my hands through my hair. I had been asleep for three hours. Outside the windows of the jet, the sun was rising over the French countryside.
“I… I don’t have anything I need,” I complained. “No change of clothes, not even a toothbrush…”
“Everything is taken care of,” Harrison assured me.
“What do you mean, taken care of?”
But he was already walking away with his phone to his ear.
I wanted to ask Rafael what taken care of meant, but he was standing up and fiddling with his phone. And I was too embarrassed to talk to him.
I checked my emails. It was midnight back home, but I had a few items to reply to that helped take my mind off the situation on the jet.
We landed, then taxied to a private area where two black-tinted SUVs were waiting. Harrison got into the rear car, while Rafael and I were escorted to the lead car.
“He’s taking a private call,” Rafael explained.
I wondered what kind of call was so private that he didn’t want either of us hearing it. A female friend, maybe? It had been months since the tabloids showed Harrison Blackstone with a woman on his arm.
Like a presidential motorcade, the car zipped away the moment the door was closed.
The gray sprawl of the airport gave way to highways laced with traffic and flashes of foreign graffiti on the overpasses.
Then we slipped into the city as though through a dream, the SUV gliding along narrow streets flanked by stone facades.
Wrought-iron balconies were draped in ivy and geraniums, and we passed two couples strolling arm-in-arm, pausing beneath the morning lamplight as if the whole city existed to frame their tenderness.
“First time?” Rafael asked me.
“Am I gawking that hard?” I chuckled. “I came with my parents when I was a teenager, but I didn’t appreciate it. I think I was going through a breakup and spent the whole time pouting.”
“It’s quite the city.”
I turned toward Rafael. “Why did you let me fall asleep on you? Why didn’t you wake me?”
He blinked a few times, embarrassed. “You looked peaceful. I didn’t want to wake you.”
Our car eased to a stop before a grand Haussmann building, the pale stone catching the soft gold of the morning sun.
High above, lace curtains stirred in the breeze from half-open windows.
Rafael hopped out first, sweeping his gaze in every direction, searching for threats, before nodding to me.
The morning air was cool and refreshing after being in a car and plane for the past eight hours.
The city stirred awake around us with the clatter of a distant delivery truck, and the scent of fresh bread drifting from a nearby boulangerie.
Harrison’s SUV pulled up a moment later, and Rafael opened the door for him.
A doorman in a crisp uniform stepped out of the building, his white gloves bright against the dark wood of the double doors.
I paused on the curb, gazing up at the building’s quiet opulence, a private palace of marble and chandeliers waiting to accept Harrison and his retinue.
“Nice place,” I told him. “I’m sure you own homes in London, Beijing, and Prague as well?”
“This one actually belongs to a friend. But she lets me stay here whenever I’m in the city. I do own homes in London and Prague, though.”
“A female friend?” I ventured as we stepped inside.
Harrison rolled his eyes at me. “Are you implying men can’t have platonic female friends?”
“I didn’t mean to imply anything,” I replied casually. “But your defensiveness implies a lot.”
He glared at me, and I couldn’t tell if it was playful or genuine anger.
“Your quarters are that way,” Rafael told me.
My quarters? I had quarters!
A white-gloved attendant led me up an ornate marble staircase with a wrought-iron banister to my rooms (plural!) on the third floor.
I had a sitting room just inside the door, which led into the larger bedroom suite.
There was a second sitting room—which my butler guy referred to as a sunroom—which led out to an open balcony with a sweeping view of the city.
The top of the Eiffel Tower peeked above the building next to ours.
“Surprised the view isn’t better,” I muttered under my breath.
“The view is quite spectacular on the rooftop garden,” the attendant said.
“Oh. Yes. Of course.”
I stepped out on the balcony and savored the smells and sounds of the city. I couldn’t believe I was in New York yesterday, and today I was in Paris!
“Your tailor is here, madam,” the attendant announced.
“My… tailor?”
A pinch-faced French woman with a measuring tape draped around her neck stood in the room, gesturing to two servants who were wheeling in long racks of clothes. Her eyes lit up when she saw me, and she clapped her hands.
“Ah, such good proportions to work with! Hold still, my darling.”
She took my measurements and called them out to a pair of assistants. One took notes while the other sorted through the rack of dresses, skirts, and suits. A tray of food was brought in, with a silver carafe of coffee and an assortment of pastries.
“Here are three excellent options for today’s meeting,” the tailor told me. “Undergarments, socks, and shoes are in the closet. My seamstresses will have more suitable evening options by the end of the day.”
“How many days are we going to be here?” I asked, but she was already herding her assistants out of the room and closing the door behind her.
There were two pantsuits, and a flowing summer dress. As tempting as it was to walk around Paris in the dress, I chose the more conservative of the two suits. The bathroom was every bit as luxurious as the rest of my rooms, and the shower felt absolutely divine.
“You’re looking sharp,” Harrison said when I joined everyone downstairs in one of the many lounges.
Rafael gave me an appraising glance before turning back to his iPhone. For some reason, his approval gave me a little burst of warmth.
“You have a good tailor,” I said.
“I have an excellent tailor,” Harrison corrected. Then he unmuted the conference phone. “Angie. Put me through. Where are we at?”
I realized there was a frantic energy in the room. Three new assistants were setting up computer monitors and a conference phone. I sidled up next to Rafael and asked, “What’s going on?”
“Oil refinery exploded in the Gulf,” he whispered. “It’s sent the commodities market into a tailspin. My advice to you: don’t get in Harrison’s way for the next hour.”
I made myself a plate of pastries and quietly watched the scene unfold.
Harrison spoke reassuringly to whoever was on the other line, then hung up and joined a separate call on the conference phone.
Half a dozen of his top analysts back in New York were on the line, even though it was the middle of the night there.
Seeing Harrison in full CEO mode was something to behold.
There were six computer screens set up in a grid, and he constantly minimized trading windows and opened new ones.
The way he switched around, collecting information in the blink of an eye, happened too quickly for me to even notice what he was looking at.
“Hold the rest of our oil futures,” he said. “But add more to our vertical put spreads as a hedge.”
“You sure you don’t want to get more aggressive?” someone on the conference call asked.
“It’s tempting, and normally I’d say yes, but we’re too close to the end of the quarter. I don’t want to spoil our good earnings numbers.”
“Got it, boss.”
Eventually, he ended the conference call and stepped away from his screens, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s always something.”
He looked up and suddenly remembered I was there.
“Can I trust you in here?” he bluntly asked me. “To not take anything we do out of context to use against us in a future piece?”
“You can trust me,” I replied. I even meant it. I wouldn’t take anything out of context.
Though I still might report on the tactics he used in the middle of a crisis. And a story about the wunderkind Harrison Blackstone slicing up the market after landing in Paris would be a good addition to his biography.
His phone rang. “Talk to me, Wanda. Okay. Yeah, I do like that better. Good call. Let me know if it doesn’t go through.” He hung up and began tapping out an email on his phone.
“Wanda?” I asked Rafael.
“His top analyst. Aside from me, he doesn’t trust anyone more than Wanda.”
“His top analyst is a woman?”
“So what?” Harrison cut in, having heard my comment. “Wanda’s the best in the world at what she does. I don’t give a fuck what is or isn’t between her legs.” The phone returned to his ear. “Sorry about that. Tell Lucien we’ll be there shortly. Had a little crisis over here.”
He shoved the phone in his pocket. “Now it’s time to deal with the second crisis. Let’s go.”
We followed Harrison outside to a waiting SUV. “Crisis?” I whispered to Rafael.
“Our visit with Lucien,” he whispered back. “This isn’t exactly a happy trip.”
I didn’t realize what he meant until we reached our destination, and I actually met the famous Lucien Moreau.