6. Luc
LUC
“Cancel the call with Nils Marchand and get Arturo to take the CEO of Villiers to dinner tonight.” As the front door closes, the hallway light dips. I drop my wallet on the console, my gaze meeting my assistant’s in the entrance antique Rococo mirror.
“You want your financial director to take Bernard & Marchand’s biggest competitor out to dinner?”
“Somewhere public,” I confirm. “Somewhere expensive. Gigi Rigalatto,” I suggest.
“But you hate that place.”
“I’m not eating there.” Because I neither want to see nor be seen.
“You’re looking to tank the deal.” Jacques’s brow furrows, and his tone carries more than a hint of accusation. I don’t bother to answer as I turn away, my footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. “I thought you wanted their brand under the du Beaumont umbrella?”
“I’ve changed my mind,” I reply. I’m just not ready to tell him so. Men reveal themselves remarkably quickly when they’re denied something they believe they’re owed. And Nils revealed enough last night to tank the deal himself.
The way he handled himself—the way he wouldn’t take no for an answer makes my blood boil. He made the girl, the woman, uncomfortable. And, apparently, that is where my capacity for compromise ends.
I force my mind way because I shouldn’t have been there. Then I wouldn’t have seen him, and I wouldn’t now be walking away from a hotel chain I’ve had in my sights for eighteen months.
For several years, I’d enjoyed the rare luxury of entering an Ardeo room without being du Beaumont—the acquisitions, the headlines, the money all coming before me.
I’m not a father or a widower there. I’m not a target or a threat.
I’m just a body, one that delivers and receives pleasure.
After not visiting for so many months, of all the people I might have encountered there last night, Nils Marchand is the last I’d hoped to see. It was fucking inconvenient.
Nils knows precisely who I am, and worse, I know considerably more about him than I did a day ago. It feels personal, and I don’t enjoy admitting that.
My decision is nothing to do with the girl. The girl I’d gone to the basement looking for, but only to make sure she was safe. She looked so out of place. Beautiful and good. She might as well have been skipping through the place with a basket, asking for directions to her grandmother’s house.
And I hadn’t expected to find her so… enthralled. The catch in her breath. The delicate shiver that rippled through her and her whispered exclamation that dissolved into something perilously like a moan. The feel of her beneath my hands and the way her nails bit into my skin as though—
I tear my mind away. “Where are the children?”
“With the new nanny.”
My steps continue. “Her background check?”
“Preliminaries show she’s as clean as a whistle.
Criminal, driving, credit, and employment history are all stellar.
Emmy wasn’t kidding when she said they’d been friends forever because they were in kindergarten together.
In fact, until they were eighteen, they went to the same school, with the exception of one term when—”
“I don’t need to know her life story.” Just that my children will be safe.
“—the girl, Primrose,” he continues regardless, “her family decided to pay Emmy’s private school fees. They also paid her Norland tuition fees.”
“The new girl is also a Norland graduate?”
“Nope, she didn’t graduate from a fancy London nanny college.” I halt and begin to turn at the unhappy news. “She graduated from UCL. Second time around at least, because her first undergrad degree was from Durham University where she earned a—”
“Excellent, a career student,” I retort.
His expression twists. “Turns out, becoming a doctor requires a lot of education.”
“What?”
He shrugs. “She just graduated.”
“Then why…”
“And she has a job at a prestigious London hospital starting in September.”
“Why would she agree to this?” I begin to move again. Down a half dozen marble steps, I make my way to the kitchen.
“Friendship,” Jacques says as though explaining an unfamiliar concept. “Respect. And because Emmy always puts the family first.”
“Except in this instance,” I bristle. Unfairly, I know.
“Cold, Luc. Stone fucking cold.”
“The timing is inconvenient,” I mutter.
“Not as inconvenient as it was to her dad, I’ll bet,” he responds.
I pivot with a glare.
“I mean, I can’t think of a time a heart attack would be convenient, can you?”
“I’m sure we all wish him a speedy recovery.” While I expect all of my employees to put their jobs first and pay them a premium to do so, I’m being an asshole. Worse, I can’t seem to stop myself.
The girl or the hotel chain? Or the fact that I didn’t get off last night?
A little from column A, B, and C most likely.
“That’s very true.”
“And a return to our status quo as soon as possible.”
“I never really liked their music.”
Disregarding that, I continue to the kitchen where Zoe stands at the stove stirring a pot of something that makes my stomach contract in hunger.
“Where is Madeline?” I demand, though I assume she’s overseeing the new nanny. I expected to find all four of them here.
The chef, pivots at my voice. “There was an emergency,” Zoe begins. “Madeline’s granddaughter…” But the rest of her answer trails off under the weight of my angry stare.
“Where are the children?” My insides contract again but not with appetite this time.
“With the new nanny. In the garden, I think.”
“Alone?” I growl, pivoting away. “Outside, with the nanny we know nothing about?” I demand of Jacques.
“Within the property boundaries with the nanny whose background check—”
“Is still in the preliminary stages,” I snap because not even Jacques is that good. “Get out of my way.” I brush by him, making for the garden.
“Madeline’s daughter had an accident.” His voice follows me out onto the terrace. “She left under an hour ago to look after her granddaughter.”
“You should’ve said,” I snap, not bothering to turn.
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“You’re fired.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Pack your bags,” I snarl, stepping into the blinding sunlight. I automatically shade my eyes, scanning the grounds as I try to ignore the knot forming in my stomach. It’s a large garden by Paris standards, which is to say it’s not much bigger than a couple of tennis courts.
“Before you make a complete ass of yourself, remember that you trust Emmy implicitly. And she trusts her friend with her livelihood. Hell, probably with her life. Plus, the woman is a fucking a doctor, Luc.”
“Doctors are susceptible to the same temptations,” I mutter. “Money is—”
My words halt as Sylvie ’s muffled scream cuts through the air. My heart seizes, my next reaction purely instinctive, as pivot I break into a run.
“Merde.” Following the sounds of her anguish, I race across the terrace, swinging around the balustrade of the outdoor staircase. The soles of my shoes almost slip against the marble steps as I sprint in the direction of her distress. The basement.
She shrieks again, the sound quickly followed by an angry bellow. Felix.
I call my son’s name in a blind panic. He shouts out again, but I can’t process as my quads work like pistons and my lungs like bellows.
Mon dieu. Please keep them safe.
“I’m coming!” I shout, yanking on the doors and…
I halt at the sight of Felix and almost skid on the wet tile. He’s wearing his swimming shorts, and his hair is wet.
“Watch and weep, losers!” he crows from the far end of the pool. At the other end, Sylvie begins up an angry chant.
“Cheater, cheater, nev-a, nev-a beat-er!” Her bare arms pump angrily, her displeasure drowned out by her brother’s bellow as he cannonballs into the azure pool.
The pool. They’re at the fucking pool.
“Tu triches!” With a squeal of frustration, Sylvie swings around. “He is cheating! Primrose, it was not his turn. Tell him, please!”
My gaze moves to the figure behind my daughter. Medium height and curvy, her honey blond waves haphazardly escaping a hair clip as she bends over the padded lounger to rummage in a large cloth bag.
“Cheaters never win,” the woman answers distractedly.
I give my head a shake because her ass is entirely too distracting clad—barely contained—in a pair of tiny red bikini bottoms. Fear relinquishes its hold on my gut, the sensation morphing and stirring to an inappropriate one.
It’s a base reaction, an animal one. A reaction that’s hardly surprising thanks to the woman’s outfit, which is more appropriate for the beaches of
San-Tropez than swimming with small children.
Small children under her charge.
“But he is winning.” Sylvie scrunches her hands into tiny fists. “And he is cheating!”
“Only if you let him.” Something about the woman’s voice seems familiar. “Where is that… ah, got it!” She pivots, a wide smile on her pretty face.
I think I must be seeing things.
“Now, let’s pop this adorbs little swimming cap on your adorbs little head. Even if it is a bit like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted,” she almost mutters under her breath.
“We don’t have horses in Paris,” my daughter scoffs. “Primrose, what is adorbs?”
“Adorbs is short for adorable. Tu es trop adorable,” she adds, attempting to wrestle my daughter into her swimming cap. “There must be a learning curve to this, right?” Her eyes suddenly lift, and her words halt.
My heart follows both those actions. And in the same sequence.
I’m not seeing things as her face, heart-shaped and angelic, blanches, and her rosebud lips fall softly open for the second time in our very short acquaintance. The first being right before she tipped on her toes to kiss me last night.
My hands clench by my sides as I recall the vivid feel of her.
The full softness of her breasts and the soft brush of her breath as I’d kissed her neck.
She’d looked so out of place, like Little Red Riding Hood lost in the forest full of wolves.
Though she wore no red cloak, just red lipstick on lush lips.
The minute I’d set eyes on her, I’d wanted to kiss her.
But I’d sensed she wasn’t for me. That she wasn’t in the right place.
“How are you… here?” She gives her head a tiny shake, and my heart suddenly jerks to life, shock and attraction giving way to something much hotter.
Red-hot seething anger.
She’s looks young. Far too young. To be so calculating.
“Papa, you’re here!” Sylvie begins to run toward me across the wet tile.
“Sylvie, wait!” the temptress calls as my daughter comes careening toward me.
“Attends!” Wait I call out as her little body slams against mine, her wet arms flung around the backs of my legs.
“Come and swim, Papa. Please. Please?”
“What is going on here?” I demand, though it’s difficult to be dignified as Sylvie begins to climb up my legs.
“Papa, we’re swimming, And Felix cheated in the cannonball competition. You should come and show him who the real winner is.”
“I did not cheat!” my son calls from the middle of the pool. “You’re just a bad loser and a bad swimmer.”
“Tais-toi!” she yells back. Shut up.
“You are!” The pair transition to insults in French.
Meanwhile, the woman standing at the other side of the pool appears to come back to herself with a jolt. “You’re… you. You must be.” She plasters her hand to her mouth for a beat, eyes wide above it. Eyes of gray-blue as I recall.
She looks like she’s swallowed a brick. A hot brick, judging by the color in her cheeks. She’s a good actress, I’ll give her that much. But she would need to be to have gotten this far.
Last night, though. There was nothing fake in the noises she made. The way her fingers tightened in my hair as she came on my face.
Fuck. Fuck!
“Engeleesh only.” Sylvie sticks out her tongue, and my children’s squabbling brings me back to the moment and this nightmarish situation. “Papa, this Emmy’s friend, Primrose. She is here to help look after us, but she does not want us to call her nounou.”
Nounou. The nanny. Jesus, no.
“She only speaks English,” my daughter continues. Her brow pulls down so far it leaves a shelf over her eyes as she turns to her brother again. “So speaking in French makes you a rude idiot!”
“I can speak a little bit of…” Her words trail off as I glower.
The knot in my guts deepens. She speaks French? Fuck.
“Schoolgirl stuff mostly,” she adds with an uncomfortable-looking shrug.
The knot loosens immediately. The kind of things I whispered to her last night won’t be found in any curriculum.
“I know you’re an idiot,” my son crows, dragging my attention his way.
“I said you are an idiot!” Sylvie yells in my ear. “A big stupid idiot!”
“You are the one who wanted ice cream for breakfast.” Felix dives under the water.
“I did not. I did not. I did not!” Her final bellow coincides with Felix breaking the water.
“Enough!” I yell, then regret it immediately as Sylvie stiffens. I set her down on the ground. “Felix, get out of the pool,” I command, employing a little tone regulation.
“C’est des conneries.” I ignore my son’s muttered curse as he slaps the water’s surface.
“You shouted.” My daughter turns her reproaching gaze my way.
“Yes, I did.” I brush her damp hair from her forehead.
“You never shout.” Tears brim at her lids.
“Everyone shouts sometimes.” I can feel my blood bubbling, and my cock is confused. “Go and shower. Get dressed, then we’ll eat ice cream together.”
“Before dinner?” She eyes me suspiciously.
“Of course, if you don’t want to…”
“No—yes. Last one to get dressed is a loser!” She peels away as Felix clambers out of the pool after her.
“No running on the tile,” Jacques says from behind. I’d forgotten he was here. “I’ll go…” Behind me, his shoes scuffle. I hear the door closes. And now we’re alone, staring at each other over the pool.
“Bloody hell,” the woman mutters, pushing a wayward lock from her face.
“You,” I command, pointing an angry finger her way. I’m angry that she’s here. Angry with my warring children. But most of all, I’m angry at my body’s continued reaction to her. “My office. Now.”