Chapter One #2
His eyes were bloodshot and his breath reeked of beer. One hand held a half-full beer glass, the other settled heavily on her shoulder.
“Hey.” She stepped to the side, searching the crowd for Chevalier.
He stepped with her. “Wanna dance?”
Suddenly furious at the stupid man, the stupid bouncer and her stupid shoes, she shoved her briefcase between them. “Do I look like I want to dance? I’m here on business. If you’ll excuse me.” She stepped to the side again but he matched her step for step.
“You’re cute.”
“And you’re drunk.”
He laughed. “Hell, yeah. Dance with me.” Suddenly his arm was around her waist, dragging her up against him. He pinched her butt and she gasped at the sudden pain.
“Please let go.” She kept her voice calm and tried not to show fear. She was in a nightclub filled with hundreds of people. She was safe. But suddenly she didn’t feel safe.
The man leered at her. “I knew you’d have a fine ass underneath that ugly skirt.”
Ugly skirt? She struggled to pull away but his fingers dug into her shoulders.
“I said let go.” She pushed against him, using her briefcase as a shield and weapon, but it didn’t budge him.
“Aww, come on. Just one dance. I wanna see if your tits are as nice as your ass.”
Her eyes narrowed. She lifted her foot and smashed her heel into his arch, glad for once she had no feeling left in her feet. He grunted and his jovial expression fled on the heels of his anger.
“Bitch.” He hauled her closer. The corner of her briefcase dug into her ribs, causing her to cry out.
Suddenly he was yanked backward. His eyes widened and his beer went flying. Lainie ducked, avoiding the glass and spray of beer. Dancers scurried out of the way, forming a hushed circle. Chevalier held the drunk by the collar.
“Do you know this gentleman?” The full force of Chevalier’s angry gaze landed on her.
She shook her head.
He shoved the man toward a muscular guy with Security emblazoned across his chest. “Find him a ride home. He’s not allowed to return. Ever.”
The man was carted away, sputtering outraged apologies.
Chevalier eyed the quiet crowd. He didn’t need words to convey what his look told them. Such behavior wasn’t tolerated here and anyone with thoughts of misbehaving should leave now. The crowd broke up, no one willing to stare Chevalier down.
His frosty gaze landed on her. He snagged her wrist in a bruising hold. “Come with me.”
He didn’t have to force his way through the crowd like she had earlier. People parted for him. Some tried to talk to him, but one look at his face and they snapped their mouths shut.
Lainie jogged to keep up. Her feet weren’t appreciative of the exercise. What the hell was going on? He acted as if she were the one who caused the scene.
He motioned to someone before pushing open a door with a sign that read Authorized Personnel Only on the front and quickly ushered her into an office. After the noise of the music and the loud conversations, the quiet was disconcerting.
Lainie breathed deep to calm her racing heart. A large glass-and-chrome desk with a very comfortable-looking black, leather chair dominated the room. Tall picture windows looked out over the line of people waiting to get in. Wonderful. He’d probably seen her waiting in line.
Finally she met his penetrating gaze, which was filled with a fury she’d rarely witnessed in a man before.
“Who the hell are you?” he growled.
“If you’re angry about that scene, I’m not the one who caused it. The man you served drinks to until he was too drunk to know better did.”
His eyes were such a light gray they were almost silver. “Ronald says you claim to have an appointment with me. Who are you and who sent you?”
Ronald must be the bouncer who wouldn’t let her in until she paid.
She yanked her wrist free of Chevalier’s tight hold while one very strange thought whispered through her mind.
He had an accent. French if she wasn’t mistaken and it was sexy as hell.
And he’s overbearing as hell. “I don’t claim anything.
I do have an appointment with you. Giselle Blanche sent me. ”
His nostrils flared. She didn’t think it was possible but he seemed even more menacing. “How do you know Giselle Blanche?”
“I work for her.” Unfortunately. But she didn’t say that because she had no idea what his relationship was to Giselle and she was here on business.
“You work for Etienne Lucheux?” he asked.
“Mr. Lucheux owns the company, yes.” She’d never actually met Mr. Lucheux because she reported directly to Giselle.
“Why did he send you here?” He still didn’t sound convinced she was telling the truth and why did he think Lucheux sent her when she’d told him Giselle had?
“I have papers you need to sign.”
Those silver eyes turned hard as granite. “Show me the papers.”
She put her briefcase on his desk and extracted the envelope with shaking hands, biting her tongue to stop herself from telling him where he could put the damn papers. He snatched them out of her grasp. What an arrogant ass!
While he leafed through them, a harsh line drawn between lowered brows, she fumed.
And yet, despite her anger, she had to admit he was good-looking.
Almost breathtakingly handsome with his full head of black hair, a little on the long side but not too much.
And those gray eyes that went from dark to light and back again.
She almost had the feeling they’d met before but that was impossible.
She would have remembered meeting someone like Christien Chevalier.
The muscles in his jaw tightened and he tossed the papers on the desk. They missed and landed on the chair, one sliding to the floor.
“They’re fake. Now why don’t you tell me why you are here?”
Stunned she stared at the lone page on the floor. When she glanced through them while waiting in line she’d thought something was weird, but fake?
“All I know is I was supposed to bring them to you. I was told we had an appointment and all you had to do was sign them and I’d be done.”
“I assure you, Miss…” He raised a brow in inquiry.
“Alexander. Lainie Alexander.”
“Lainie.” Her name sounded foreign and exotic coming from him.
“It’s short for Madelaine.” She didn’t know why she was telling him this. It wasn’t any of his business what her name was.
His perusal of her sharpened until she felt like a bug pinned beneath a microscope.
“Madelaine.”
If Lainie sounded foreign and exotic, Madelaine sounded downright sinful when whispered in that way. Suddenly images of a large bed with navy curtains and soft sheets invaded her mind. She suppressed a shudder of longing that came from nowhere.
“The papers,” she said, more to remind herself than him.
Those granite eyes never left her face. His thoughtful expression made her more nervous than his angry expression did.
“I only make appointments Monday through Wednesday. I would never make an appointment on a Thursday night. Those papers are a ruse.”
Confused and a little frightened, she ran a hand through her hair, forgetting the French twist she’d worked so hard to create. Of course the bobby pins fell out and half her hair tumbled down her back. Great. Wonderful.
She didn’t care anymore.
“Look, Mr. Chevalier—”
“Christien.”
“Excuse me?”
“My name is Christien.”
She breathed through clenched teeth. One minute he was seething in fury and the next he was asking her to call him by his given name.
“Christien. I didn’t make the appointment, my boss did. I have no idea why she would create this…ruse.” What an odd word to use. “If there was an ulterior motive she kept it from me.”
“Madelaine—”
“Don’t call me that.” Her visceral reaction startled her. She’d never particularly liked her name, believing it too different from the Lindsays and Nicoles and Megans in her class, but she’d never disliked someone using it as much as she disliked him using it.
He cocked his head. “Is that not your name?”
“I prefer Lainie.”
“Madelaine. Are you telling me you have no idea why she would send you to do her bidding?”
Her back teeth came together. He totally ignored her polite request to call her by the name she preferred, then insinuated something when he emphasized the you.
As if she weren’t good enough to deliver his papers?
This man was arrogant and she wasn’t sure she liked him very much. “I have no idea, Mr. Chevalier.”
A smile touched his sensuous mouth, gone before he allowed it full rein. She shuddered to think of the devastating impact of his smile should he ever unleash it.
He moved to the edge of his desk and planted his butt on it. His finger tapped the edge of the desk. The silver in his eyes dulled as if his thoughts turned inward. He was thinking something, but whatever it was she wasn’t privy to it. Nor did she think she wanted to be.
He shook his head, straightened and walked with quick, angry strides to the other side of the room. His back to her, he took deep breaths, those wide shoulders rising and falling.
He turned around, piercing her with those steely eyes. “How long have you worked for Lucheux?”
“Three months.” Three very long months. She’d applied for the job after finding an advertisement in the local hometown paper.
To her surprise, Giselle called her right away.
Two phone interviews later, they flew her to Milwaukee for a face-to-face interview.
Once they met, Giselle had been condescending, standoffish and disdainful.
She’d looked at Lainie as if she were looking at a bug smooshed on the sole of her shoe.
Lainie had written off the fabulous opportunity to work for Lucheux Limited, disappointed the chance had slipped through her fingers.
To her shock, she received a call from Giselle later that afternoon offering her the position as assistant to the director of Human Resources and citing a salary that still made Lainie swallow in surprise.