Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nicolette
I dream I’m in a luxury hotel with Fabien, but there are sirens in the background. I know that someone’s after me. I try to wake him to tell him, but he’s dead asleep and can’t be roused.
“Fabien,” I tell him, shaking him harder. “They found us. They know we took it. Wake up!”
Sirens come on all sides, along with flashing lights. I know before they come that my name and face will be plastered all over the American news. What will Savannah think?
Then my dream becomes a weird juxtaposition of me sleeping and Fabien trying to wake me. I realize as I slowly come to that it wasn’t just a dream. I open one eye to Fabien lying next to me cursing at his phone.
“…will kick their goddamn asses,” he’s muttering under his breath.
“Who?” I murmur sleepily.
“My brother, my cousin, who knows. One of them did this, I know it.”
“Did what?” I push away the cobwebbed memories of my dreams. They’re already fading.
“Set an alarm for every two minutes starting at six.”
I snicker into my pillowcase.
“You think that’s funny?” he asks, but in the darkened room I can’t tell if he’s scowling or smiling.
“Hilarious.”
“Oh yeah?” There’s a dangerous tone to his voice. Uh oh.
Before I know what’s happening, I’m on my back and he’s tickling me. I can’t possibly push him off me, so I kick and scream for him to let me go, and when that doesn’t work, I reach for his neck and give him a lavish lick.
That works. He releases me and grabs at his neck. “Did you just lick me?”
“I considered biting you but didn’t think that would end well for me.”
“Hmph,” he grumbles, but now I can tell that he’s smirking. “You were right. Now pretend you’re still asleep, that stupid alarm ruined my surprise.”
“Ooh, there’s a surprise?” My eyes are already closed and I’m pretending to snore.
I decide right then that I don’t care if he’s scary or dangerous or whatever, this will be the most fun I’ve ever had earning two million dollars.
I lay there for long minutes. “Fabien,” I finally mutter into my pillow. “I have to… use the facilities.”
“Go ahead, use the bathroom then come right back here and go back to sleep.”
“Done.”
I scamper out of bed and marvel at how strange my body feels. My ass should ache because of the spanking he gave me, but the hot oil did wonders. I feel limber and well-rested. The light fragrance of the oil still lingers in the air.
I push open the bathroom door and stop.
I blink.
The bathroom’s been transformed. White candles flicker along the windowsill, nestled on a shining silver tray.
Soft strains of classical music play from hidden speakers.
Beside the massive shower sits a sturdy table laden with the fluffiest, most brilliant white towels I’ve ever seen.
I turn slowly to look at him in wonder. His phone up to his ear, he gives me a wink.
My heart warms. I blow him a kiss and turn back to the bathroom.
I realize all at once what he’s doing. He’s giving me my perfect day.
In France, weddings rarely take place much before four o’clock in the afternoon. If his brother set his first alarm for six o’clock, we have nearly a whole day ahead of us.
I try to remember what I conjured up in my imaginings.
“…good, strong coffee, of course. Then I’d take a nice, long shower, in one of those huge luxury bathrooms with pretty white candles all lit up, scented soaps and lotion and fluffy towels and maybe soft strains of music playing in the bathroom…”
Ah, there it is. On the bottom shelf below the towels, there’s a silver basket filled with amber bottles and scented soaps next to washcloths as delicate and cushy as clouds.
Step one. Nice, long shower.
I washed my hair the night before, so this one’s nothing but luxury wrapped in rose-scented soap and steam. He did tell me to get back to bed, though, so when I remember, I finish up, slather lotion all over my body, then scurry back to bed and dive under the covers.
I don’t remember the last time I felt so pampered. I’m not sure if I’ve ever felt so pampered.
A part of me feels as if I don’t deserve this. I didn’t earn this the hard way. My sister’s back home and though I make sure she’s well provided for, she isn’t living in the lap of luxury like this.
She will, I promise myself. She will.
Fabien’s still on the phone as I half doze, half dream in the comfort of the bed. I reach for my phone and realize I forgot to plug it in last night. I turn to go fetch it and see it next to me sitting on a wireless charger.
I point to Fabien, then point to the phone. He nods.
He remembered to charge my phone?
He’s too much.
If something seems too good—
There’s a knock at the door and I look over at Fabien. He points a finger at me, his phone still up to his ear. “Stay there.”
If breakfast in bed’s up next, wild horses couldn’t drag me from here.
I nod and sit up, covering myself with the duvet. My suspicion’s confirmed with the strong, inviting smell of coffee and pastries. My stomach aches.
“Oh my goodness, I’m starving,” I whisper as he approaches me with a large silver tray.
“Good. You’ll need your appetite for the day I have planned for you.”
I watch him prepare my coffee, then hand it to me before he nestles a wooden bed tray across my lap.
“I’d think you’re buttering me up for sex, but you already know how to play that angle,” I whisper, since he’s still on the phone and I’m about to take a gigantic bite of a croissant the size of my head.
“Shhh,” he mouths, “it’s my mother!”
I nearly choke on my croissant but when he stifles a laugh, I know he’s only teasing me.
I watch him as I eat my breakfast and imagine what we’ll do next. Spying several large white paper bags filled with boxes over near the door, I squint to read them. Rouje. Miaou. Chloé.
When did he possibly have time to buy me clothes?
I’d get dressed in clothes that fit me perfectly but were comfortable…
Finally, he hangs up the phone and sighs.
“Who muz if?”
“That’s neither French nor English. Maybe swallow that bite first.”
“I always swallow,” I say, and stick my tongue out.
“Looking for another spanking so soon?”
“Fabien.” He does know how to make me blush. “I asked who was it on the phone? Am I allowed to ask that, or is that like highly secured information or something?”
“Just Thayer. He knows I have to head back to Corsica, so he’s trying to squeeze in as much work here in Paris as he can before we go back.”
“Ah. Well, I can’t blame him. Thanks for plugging my phone in.”
He bends and kisses my cheek. “Of course.”
Other girls would say that Fabien is… well, maybe perfect.
I wonder if it’s my upbringing in poverty that makes me suspect he’s up to something, that I can’t trust him.
But right now, not only do I feel like I could trust him, I also feel like a girl who could get used to being treated this way.
I know I would never take it for granted, though, no.
“What’s on your mind?” he asks. I can’t tell him. He’ll think I’m crazy or trying to manipulate him.
When I don’t respond right away, he steeples his fingers over his knee. “Something wrong?”
I decide to go for broke. If the man can tell me he’s the head of a damn mob, I can tell him what’s on my mind.
“I was just thinking that any woman who was treated this way might… well, be the luckiest woman alive.” He sits completely still, which makes me start second-guessing myself, but I don’t stop talking.
“I just… well, men don’t do things like this.
Like… breakfast in bed. Remembering the details of a perfect day then making it happen.
And are those clothes for me in those bags? ”
“Of course.”
“I just—well, you’re paying me two million dollars. You could walk out of here and not come back until you needed me again, but you haven’t done that. You’re… massaging my back and buying me nice presents and doing sweet things like kissing my forehead.”
He leans forward with a half-smile and kisses my forehead.
“So?”
“So… I was just thinking it would be nice if this wasn’t just a weekend.” When a frown creases his forehead, I continue in a rush of words. “Don’t think for a minute that I’m not grateful and that I’m trying to change a thing, I’m not, I promise.”
“I know you aren’t. You’re not that kind of woman.”
“I just… was thinking that if a woman was treated this nicely, she just might be convinced that treating her man as well as he treated her was something she was very much interested in.”
“I see.”
I take a bite of scrambled eggs and follow it with another sip of coffee.
“Well, glad we got that out of the way.”
He smiles, but this time it’s almost sad. I feel as if I’ve only unearthed the very surface of who he is. That we need more time to understand each other better. I wonder if there’s anything he could tell me that would make me want to walk away.
Am I that needy? That full of myself that I think I can change a man just by virtue of forgiving whatever darkness lies beneath the surface?
Well, no. I just know that humans are complex creatures.
That we make snap judgments of one another all the time, without really knowing why people behave the way they do, without understanding their motives.
If you’d asked me ten years ago where I’d be today, never in a million years would I have said I’d be a call girl, earning money for my sister’s future.
If you’d asked me a month ago where I’d be, never would I have imagined I’d be in Fabien’s bed in a stately home in Paris about to earn two million dollars.
Life is funny like that.
“You’d better finish that up. You have some… how did you put it… comfortable clothes that fit you perfectly to put on before we head into town.”
“Do you have perfect recall?”
He nods. “Something like that. I remember details.”
“Ah. I suppose that suits the line of work that goes hand in hand with that closet full of disguises, then?”
“It does.”
“It’s an interesting… side job for someone of your stature, though, isn’t it? What do your brothers think? Your mother?”
“Of what?” He’s fully clothed in casual pants and a tee that fits him so perfectly I want to run my hands along his sculpted biceps and pecs.
I decide to go for broke. He hasn’t lied to me, so I won’t lie to him. “That you’re a con artist.”
“Oof. When you put it that way, it sounds terrible.”
“Well then, let’s not talk about my job.”
“Deal. And to answer your question, only my brothers know because I’ve used my specific skill set before. My mother has no idea, and she really prefers to not be involved in any of our business.”
“That’s fair. Not sure I’d want to know what my mafia sons were doing either.”
He snorts.
“Alright, so I know I said on the plane a perfect day included shopping. Well, since we’re here in Paris... I’m thinking that I’d like to modify that a bit. Do we have enough time before the wedding?”
He glances at his phone. “We do.”
“Alright, so instead of shopping, which I could do literally any day and totally will once I make two million dollars, I was thinking that I’d rather give those disguises a go. Maybe we can even call it… practice.”
When he turns to me, there’s a fire in his eyes that stokes my own curiosity. “That’s probably the sexiest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
A warmth of pleasure courses through me at his approval. “Is that right? I’ve said a lot of sexy things, so that’s really something.”
Seconds later, the breakfast lies forgotten and Fabien shows me exactly how he rewards sexy talk.
“I thought…” I say, panting, my body sweat-slicked and so sated I want to crawl under these covers and sleep again, “we had to go.”
“We do,” he says into my ear. “Why aren’t you dressed yet?”
I grin. “Let’s come up with a plan.”