Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Fabien
Nicolette is absolutely perfect for me. She’s absolutely perfect, period. I don’t care that she looks like she was painted into being by a master artist. It’s so much more than that.
I have held nothing back, and yet she has taken it all in stride like we were created for each other.
Our room is only paces from the closet, but she’s stark naked, her clothes in tatters on the floor.
“If only I had something to change into,” she says with a smile. “We will have to find something that actually makes me look like me.”
We decide on a robe and slippers. “We’re just coming back from the sauna,” I tell her.
“Can that be a real thing?” she asks.
“Absolutely.”
So I find a robe, too, and we make our way down to the workout room and shower before we get in the sauna. This leads us to the massage room, and I have a lot of fun with hot oil.
“I like your mother, your brother, too. Your grandmother…”
“She’s a raptor.”
“You might say that,” she says with a wince. “Why is she so wound up?”
“She was the heiress to the largest inheritance in Parisian history. Her parents held her to high standards. They never expected anything short of perfection. That is no excuse, but that’s the reasoning. Tell me about your grandparents.”
I pour warmed oil into the palm of my hand and spread it across her lower back.
She sighs in contentment. “My mother’s mother was a schoolteacher.
She taught until she was seventy-five and retired kicking and screaming.
My grandfather was the principal and retired the same year.
They were the bedrock of their small town and major proponents of education. French immigrants.”
“Ah. Is that what brought you here?”
“Yes, partly.”
“And your sister?”
She smiles. I rub the warmed oil over her shoulders.
“Her name’s Savannah. She’s nerdy as hell and adorable, reads like a book a day and writes constantly. She started reading when she was four years old and never stopped.”
“Does she want to be a published author?”
“Someday, but she’s only nineteen and says she isn’t good enough yet. I’m honestly not sure if she’ll ever feel that she’s good enough.”
“I understand. Self-doubt is a vicious thing.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “It is. Now my turn.”
“Alright.” I assume she’s going to ask me a question, but instead she pushes herself up and tugs her robe on, stands, and pours warmed oil into her hand.
“Go on, then. Lay down, please.”
Well this is a first. I lay myself belly down on the table while she stands beside me.
The first feel of her small hands expertly massaging oil along my shoulders makes me groan in pleasure.
“Goddamn, that feels good.”
“Mhm,” she says softly. “I’m glad. It’s about time someone took care of you.”
How does she know that I’m the one always running the show? Somehow, she knows I never let anyone take care of me.
I don’t respond.
“I can tell by the worry lines on your brow,” she says softly. Her lips brush against my forehead. “The tension in your shoulders. The tightness in your back.”
Slowly, the strain seeps out of my body while she kneads the knots out of my muscles.
“You’re good at this,” I murmur, half asleep. “How do you know how to do this?”
“Oh, it’s just a skill I picked up along the way, I guess. Comes with the whole sex worker thing, you know.”
She won’t ever touch another man again.
“Ah, there it is. See how you tense your muscles up like that when I make even a passing reference to another man?”
“Go ahead, keep teasing me, see where that lands you.”
I love the sweet sound of her giggle. “No, I think I’m good for now, but thanks.”
For long minutes, she massages me in silence. The faintest sound of running water lulls me to near sleep.
“Is that white noise?”
My eyes are closed. “Yeah. It plays during massages.”
“Ah.”
The sudden obnoxious blare of my phone cuts through the stillness like the scream of a siren.
“Motherfucker,” I mutter under my breath. With a sigh, I sit up and pull my robe back on. “We should get back to the room anyway, there’s a full day ahead of us tomorrow.”
I take the call. Thayer.
“Hey. There’s been an arrest at La Maison.” He fills me in on the details.
“This couldn’t wait until the morning?” It’s not out of the ordinary for one of our clients to be picked up. Some of the men who frequent our establishment don’t always have the best behavior. “So, it was only a client.” I stifle a yawn.
“Not a client, Fabien.”
I’m suddenly wide awake. “Who was it?”
“One of the new girls. Seems there was an officer following her. Set her up. Made an appointment as one of the clients, then arrested her.”
La Maison itself is nearly bulletproof. Ostensibly, we’re merely a bed and breakfast. But if one girl was arrested…
“I’ll take care of it.” I make a few calls to post bail and get my lawyer on board.
“We’ll have to fly back to Corsica immediately following the wedding.” I tell Nicolette what happened. She doesn’t know the girl but is obviously concerned.
“So he went after the worker, not the client,” she says, shaking her head. “Unbelievable.” I can tell she’s as angry as I am.
“Do we have to wait until after the wedding to go?”
“I’m sorry, but yes.” She doesn’t know how loyalty works in a family like mine. “But I promise we’ll go straight back afterward. We’ll leave as soon as possible.”
We make our way back to our room in robes. I can hear my brother outside with my cousins, thankfully all occupying each other for now.
I have no interest in anyone but me seeing Nicolette in a robe.
“Is she alright?” Nicolette asks when she comes back into the room after showering.
“She’s heading home now. I called in some favors.” I shake my head. “But I don’t like that this happened.”
“Is it a warning?”
“Could be.” I draw her over to me. “But you don’t need to worry about that now. You won’t be going back to work, not if I can help it.” I kiss her cheek. “Let’s get some rest.” I take her robe off and drape it over a chair by my desk. “You won’t need that tonight.”
I watch her climb into bed. Her eyes have already begun to shut. “Thank you,” she whispers.
“For what?” I ask, genuinely curious. I climb into bed beside her and drape my arm over her. She fits against me as if she were carved here, her naked body as soft as silk, her hair still damp on the pillow.
“For caring enough to go back,” she says on a yawn. What she doesn’t know is that her gratitude says more about her than it does about me.
“I take care of the people I care about,” I tell her as I tuck the blanket around her. I kiss her bare shoulder and realize she’s already fast asleep.