Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Nicolette
“You saw nothing?”
Fabien’s brother Lyam, the spitting image of his mother harshened with masculine features, sits nursing some kind of drink with ice I can smell from halfway across the room. It’s ten o’clock in the morning, but something tells me the Gerard brothers don’t care for things like societal norms.
Lovely.
Fabien paces the room. He’s barely looked my way since we got back, though he held me as if I’d fall to pieces if he let me go.
I can’t let that mean anything to me.
It doesn’t.
Thayer sits next to Lyam, scowling at his brothers as he pieces things together. None of them have looked at me since we got back.
I stare into my own mug of black tea gone cold. It feels oddly symbolic, as if my own heated expectations have chilled, left to be discarded.
I put the cup down.
“I didn’t say that,” Lyam replies tersely. “I said I didn’t see faces. I don’t know names. I saw uniforms of the gendarmerie without question.”
Someone knocks on the door.
“Who is it?” If Fabien could punch someone in the throat with his voice, he just did it.
Jesus, these men run hot.
“It’s me, Gwen!”
I give her credit for not withering.
“Come in,” he snaps.
I stand, my cold tea forgotten, as my friends enter the room — Gwen, accompanied by Cosette.
“Nicolette!” We meet each other halfway and I give Cosette a huge hug.
Fabien walks over to us. It’s hard to believe that only minutes ago, he was about to commit murder with his bare hands. “Cosette. How are you?” He reaches for her arm and touches her so gently my throat gets all tight.
He doesn’t want you. He doesn’t care for you. You’re nothing but a hire to him.
“I’m good, Monsieur,” she says quietly. “Thank you so much for all you did.”
Gwen clears her throat. “Monsieur, I need to talk with you.”
“Privately?”
“I… believe so?” She looks to Thayer and Lyam as if she doesn’t know who they are.
Fabien nods, brushes Cosette’s arm as he passes, then joins Gwen for a whispered conversation. I look to Thayer, who only stares back in stony silence, and Lyam, who cocks his head to the side.
“And who are you?”
How do I introduce myself? Who am I?
“Nicolette.” It’s all I tell him.
“Pleased to meet you, Nicolette,” Lyam says. Ah, so he’s the family charmer. “And you… work here?”
“She’s with Fabien,” Thayer snaps.
Lyam rolls his eyes. “Obviously.”
Yeah, I’m not getting in the middle of this testosterone war.
“Not for long,” I tell them, at the exact moment Fabien joins us with Gwen. He pretends as if I’m not even here as he looks at his brothers. If he heard what I just said, he has no reaction at all.
“Gwen, to her credit, did some research,” he begins. “Lyam, we have to catch you up, but it’s pertinent to what’s happened. You met Nicolette?”
“I did.”
“The night we met, she was assaulted by one of our patrons.”
Lyam blinks in surprise. “You were here? On the premises?”
Fabien nods.
“Shit,” Lyam mutters under his breath. “Bold as hell then. And you found out and did what any of us would do.”
Fabien cuts his eyes at Gwen and Cosette, but nods. “Yes. Gwen did some research. We thought he was only a regular old patron, no one of note. A tourist here on business. But the information was easy to find. On further reflection? It was too easy to find.”
Thayer curses. “He wasn’t a fucking tourist. Who’d you kill, brother?”
The way they say it, as if it’s just a regular old task they check off a to-do list.
“He gave us a false name, false information. He was a Parisian officer.”
Lyam groans.
“So he didn’t want us to find that out?”
“Maybe. Or he was working with someone and wanted to keep undercover.”
Thayer blows out a stream of breath and shakes his head. “In short, this is a lot bigger than we thought, isn’t it?”
“Exactly.”
Thayer looks at Gwen. “You’ll come with me to L’Ambassade. We’ll offer competitive wages and bonuses for the women that sign on with us and a generous severance package for those that don’t.”
“Are you asking me?” Gwen says warily.
Thayer suddenly looks exactly like Fabien. He speaks through gritted teeth. “Please.”
Gwen lifts her chin haughtily. “Well, then. Fine, yes, I’ll do that.”
A muscle twitches in Thayer’s jaw. “Our offers will extend to you as well, of course.”
Gwen inclines her head. “Why thank you. How very generous. I’m not sure if anything that smacks of master/slave is something I’d be very good at, but I’ll take it into consideration.”
Cosette blinks. “Oh, my. I’m gone one day long…”
Lyam laughs out loud and stands. “I know the feeling. Looks like the rest of us have some work to do. Have we met?”
Cosette shakes her head. “I work here. Monsieur posted bail when I was arrested.”
Lyam clicks his tongue. “Jesus, brothers, we have some catching up to do.”
“Tonight,” Fabien says, dismissing him. “Nicolette and I have to finalize our arrangement.”
I’m a little stunned. His brother was taken hostage, and he wants to send him on his way and talk to me first? I will never understand the way a man’s mind works. Or, more accurately, Fabien’s.
Gwen looks over at me. “Are you alright?” she asks, completely ignoring the way Fabien’s eyes shoot fire at her.
“Of course,” I say. “I’ll join you in a minute.” I sigh. “They aren’t the only ones who have catching up to do.”
The door closes with a bang.
We’re alone.
I feel him breathing behind me like a raging bull.
I need to remember why I was so angry with him. I need to remember what he did.
“Come here.”
I snap my gaze to his.
“I don’t do what you tell me anymore, Monsieur Gerard. We’re not in The Underground now.”
“Oh, I am aware,” he says as he leans against the arm of the sofa. “So you want me to give you your money. Complete our agreement. Then you’ll be on your way.”
And I’ll never see you again.
I hate the way my eyes well despite my bravest attempts to stay calm.
“Yes.” Thank God it’s only one syllable, because I’m confident I’d never be able to keep my voice under control with more than that.
No. No, I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to be separated. I want to stay here with you.
Where I belong.
I hate the thought of him being with someone else. I hate the thought of me being with anyone else. We maybe had an agreement.
“So you were only doing this for the money?” he says.
It feels like a slap across the face.
“Why else would I do it?” My voice catches at the end.
“Lots of reasons, Nicolette,” Fabien whispers.
No. Not my name. If he uses my name…
I shake my head. I can’t be with him. We can’t be a couple.
We’re as different as two people could be. If I’m sunshine, he’s rain clouds, dark and cold and angry.
But together, we’re sun breaking through clouds after a storm.
No, no, no.
I can’t compromise my principles. I can’t turn my back on myself. I owe it to my sister to come back to her.
“I’ll let you go when your time is up,” Fabien says, walking toward me in a way that makes me take an involuntary step back. “Under one condition.”
“You don’t have a choice,” I say with my chin held high. “I fulfilled my end of the agreement. Now you have to fulfill yours.”
He reaches me. Our toes touch. I lift my head so I can look in his eyes without breaking eye contact.
“That’s what you think,” he whispers, before he reaches for my neck and wraps his fingers around the back, like he owns me.
Owns me.
“But remember how we met, Nicolette. Remember who I am. Remember what I’ve done.” How could I forget?
He killed the man that assaulted me. Why would I think he’d let me go?
“Are you threatening me?”
When he doesn’t respond, I try another angle. “You said I’d be paid two million dollars.”
It was too much to hope for. Too much money for too little work. I don’t know why I was so na?ve as to think he’d actually pay me that much money—
“Check your bank account.”
I hold his gaze for long seconds before I pull out my phone. Open the app.
Then stare at the largest balance in the history of ever sitting in my bank account.
I think to myself, there are millionaires that own less money than that.
“Ah, right,” I say, attempting to fuel my words with an aloof attitude but sounding like a grouchy child who just woke up from her nap. “You had access to my bank account.”
No response.
“Well.” I turn away from him. I feel as if my feet are frozen in place. I can’t even lift them.
I have the money.
And wasn’t that all this was about?
I have to get to Savannah…
I have to… talk to Gwen and Cosette…
The list of things I “have” to do is dwindling. I look up at him.
“You said there was… one condition,” I whisper.
Give me a reason to stay.
“One more time.”
My heart skips. I lick my suddenly dry lips and swallow. “One more time… what?”
“Let me make love to you. I’ll make love to you before our time is up.”
It’s the least I can do, I reason, as if I need to convince myself this is right. I do owe him this.
But a part of me wants one more time.
One more time to be held.
One more time to be kissed.
One more time to be ravaged by the beast.
“You can leave,” he says. “Every penny’s in your account. La Maison is closed and you, like the rest, will have the opportunity to take a severance package or work at Thayer’s establishment. But I have one more hour with you.”
I glance at the time and realize with a sudden jolt that he’s right.
He’s right.
What will he do with that hour?
“Alright, then. I’m a woman of my word. I told you I would fulfill my end. So let’s do this.”
I start stripping out of my clothes as he unfastens the first button of his shirt.
“Let’s go.”
The coherent part of my brain reminds me this is not a wise move.
The primal part of my brain’s having a party.
And a part of me wonders. Is it true I can’t be with him? Or truer that I can’t not be with him?
I’m a sex worker. I do this for a living. I am very good at having sex without emotional attachment.
I’m not sure what he wants to show me right now, but he can have. At. It.
I yank off my top and throw it over my shoulder as he slides his arms—his gorgeous, tanned, very muscular arms—out of his shirt sleeves.
Fucking show-off.
“Leave the rest for me.”