Gramercy Nights (The Argo Press Trilogy Book 1) (31 page)

New York is amazing, but Europe is different.

One day, I think. I envy Sebastian’s international upbringing, the fact that this is part of his world. To me, Europe is a far away dream. To Sebastian, it’s home. He belongs here just as much as I belong in suburban America.

I stop for lunch at a small café, taking a table outside beneath a heat lamp. Even in the sun it’s a little too chilly to be sitting outside, but after two amazing days hiding out in the hotel, it’s nice to people watch.

It’s a little after five when I stumble back to the hotel. My feet are killing me and all I want to do is collapse into bed but when I get to our hotel room, I find Sebastian and Megan sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace. Megan has her legs tucked under her and she looks like a delicate bird.

She pushes her glasses up her nose and gives me a warm smile. I’d been hoping to catch Sebastian alone and I try to hide my disappointment.

“I’m going to take a bath,” I say, heading towards the bathroom. I can’t wait to take my shoes off and sink into a hot bath.

“If you have a minute later, I’d love to talk to you about the foreword you wrote,” Megan says and I just nod my head. I’m too exhausted to even be worried about what she thought.

I’m running a bath when I hear a light tapping on the door and then Sebastian comes in. He’s wearing a cream cable knit sweater with jeans and his dark hair is an unruly mess. He looks amazing. But then again, it’s Sebastian. He always looks amazing.

He dips his head, kissing me as his arms come around my waist. “I missed you.”

“Hmm, I was only gone a few hours,” I murmur, letting my eyes close.

“Too long,” he grunts as he begins unbuttoning my jeans. I know where this is heading and I push his hands away.

“Megan’s here.”

“She can wait.”

“Sebastian.”

He groans. “Fine.”

I laugh at the barely contained frustration in his voice. “How was your day?” I ask, sitting down on the edge of the tub and Sebastian comes to sit in front of me. He unties my shoes, slipping them from my feet.

“It was fine. Long. Megan is a bloody slave driver,” he grumbles.

I sigh with relief when he begins massaging the soles of my aching feet with his strong, capable hands. A girl could seriously get used to this kind of treatment. “We should be finishing up soon at least, though if Megan got her way, I think we’d work through the night. Luckily for me there’s a reception downstairs later.”

I let out a weary sigh. I’d sort of hoped to spend the night in our room, eating room service, but Sebastian has already explained that the parties are nearly as important as the meetings themselves and our hotel is the place to be.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

I make a face. “Nice try. If you’re going, I’m going. I’ll feel better after a bath. I guess I didn’t realize how much the jetlag had gotten to me.”

He gives me a quick kiss. “Good. There is no way I’d be able to concentrate if you were up here. Today was bad enough. Don’t get mad, but I got you a cell phone. I hated not being able to call you today. Not knowing where you were.”

I cock my head but when I don’t say anything, he adds, “I have back to back meetings all week. I want you to be able to reach me.”

“Fine. Now off with you before Megan thinks I’m having my way with you.”

Sebastian grins before slipping out of the room.

I find Sebastian lounging, alone, on the couch, wearing a pair of dark dress pants and a white collared shirt. He looks elegant and relax.

It’s really not fair for someone to look so damned good all the time.

I’m wearing a crimson and gold brocade print dress that skims the floor and a pair of treacherous heels, and given the way Sebastian’s eyes freely roam my body, I’d say he approves.

In the crowded elevator, I feel Sebastian’s hand cup my ass and I nearly jump.

“As great as this dress looks on you, I think it will look even better on the floor later,” he whispers in a voice so quiet only I can hear him.

I glare up at him. We cannot get out of this elevator soon enough.

I let out a sigh of relief when the door chimes open and people spill into the lobby. Sebastian puts his hand on my low back.

The reception is being held at the hotel bar. Excited voices fill the air, ice cubes knocking against glass, different languages melding together. It feels like everyone turns to look at us and I blush, reminding myself that I belong here just as much as everyone else. Well, maybe not as much as everyone else, but I still belong here. This is my world now. Sebastian leads us effortlessly through the crowded room, greeting people as we go, to the long mahogany bar. All he has to do is glance at the bartender and suddenly he’s in front of us and Sebastian is ordering in his allegedly barely passable German.

He hands me a champagne flute and takes the whiskey for himself.

“Prost,” he says, lifting his glass.

“Prost.”

Icy cold champagne explodes on my tongue, crisp and refreshing and perfectly dry. It doesn’t’ take long for people to start approaching Sebastian. Everyone seems to know him and he switches easily between English, French, Spanish and German, which means about half the time, I have no idea what’s being said, so I bob my head, following along where I can and trying not to inhale my champagne just for something to do. Whenever my glass empties, Sebastian seems to wave his hand and like magic, another appears.

This is worse than going to events with Connor, I realize and I have to remind myself that for Sebastian, this is work. And watching him, watching the way people respond to him, I can tell he’s good at it. The only problem is, I’m bored. I’ve never been good at standing around, nodding and smiling. I get fidgety. And when I get fidgety, I tend to drink more than I should. So when I spot Megan, sitting on a couch across the room, I excuse myself. Sebastian looks like he’s about to say something, but the man we’re with asks him a question in German and his attention is once again pulled away from me.

Megan pats the space next to her on the sofa, giving me a warm smile that turns into a laugh when I let out a loud sigh of relief. Why I keep insisting on wearing heels that make my feet hurt is beyond me.

“Having fun?”

“I’m not really good at these sorts of things,” I say with a shrug.

Megan lets out a throaty laugh. “No one is. Why do you think everyone’s getting sloshed?” She glances at the empty glass in my hand. “Speaking of which…” She taps the man standing beside the sofa and asks him something quickly in German and he just nods and saunters off towards the bar. Moments later, he returns with a glass of champagne in each hand.

“To lavish expense accounts.” Megan raises her glass, winking deviously at me.

“And they say publishing is dead,” I joke.

“Oh, don’t let this fool you. It’s not what it used to be. But it’ll do. I was meaning to tell you earlier, I read your foreword,” she says and I grimace, which only makes Megan laugh. “It’s perfect.”

There were a lot of responses I expected from Megan. Perfect was never one of them.

“Really?”

She nods. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

I know she’s just being polite, that this is what you say, but the truth is, it’s also the reason I don’t like talking about it. I can’t handle the way people look at me. The pity in their eyes. The sudden hesitancy. Like suddenly, I need to be treated with kid gloves.

“It needs to be tightened up a little, but it’s good. Really good. Well done,” she says, lifting her glass to me and I just smile weakly. “Okay, enough of that,” Megan says, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you see that man over there.”

I turn and notice the tall, grey haired man standing across the room.

“Thomas Crenshaw. Heads a big publishing house in London. And the woman with her hands all over him? Definitely not his wife.”

I laugh.

“He’s notorious. Can’t keep his hands to himself. Everyone knows. Including the wife. She puts up with it. You should see their house in Belgravia. It’s like a museum. And that,” she points to a voluptuous woman in a low cut red dress, “is Ada Baumann. She has probably slept with half the people in this room. Women included.”

“How do you know all this?”

Megan takes a small sip of her drink. “It’s a small world. I know Ada from when I was living in Berlin. She’s a character. Frighteningly intelligent. The notches on her bedpost read like the who’s who of the intellectual elite.”

I stare at Megan and she just laughs. “It was a very long time ago. What’s the point of youth if you can’t misspend it?”

“Words to live by.”

“And that,” she says, pointing to a tall man in a leather jacket who’s facing the bar, “is Malcolm Renault.”

I feel my breath catch. “We’ve met.”

“Really?” I can hear the unspoken questions in that single word.

“Sebastian introduced us.”

Megan’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise but she doesn’t ask. Instead, she says, “He’s been working on his latest novel for years. Everyone thinks it’s not going to happen.”

“Then why would Sebastian sign him?”

Megan sighs and drains her glass. “Misplaced loyalty? I really don’t know. They go way back and I think Sebastian just hopes that Malcolm hasn’t squandered all his talents.”

“What do you think?” I ask, my eyes locked on Malcolm. I watch as Ada sidles up to him, placing her hand on his bicep.

“Doesn’t matter what I think at this point.” Megan laughs all of a sudden and I turn back to her. “Not this again. Ada has been trying to get him into bed for years,” she says, shaking her head.

“I thought he’d sleep with anyone.”

“He prefers his women younger and more impressionable.” I note the bitterness in Megan’s voice and I wonder what transpired between them. It’s not hard to tell there’s a story there. “Anyway, I need another drink. Want anything?”

“Just the bathroom.”

She points off to our right before disappearing towards the bar.

The champagne is going to my head and I’m thankful to get out of the packed bar for a minute. I splash cold water on my face and stare at myself in the mirror, reminding myself that I belong here. Reminding myself that at the end of the night, I’ll be back up in the glorious cocoon of that hotel bed, with Sebastian next to me.

It’s that thought that gets me out of the bathroom. As I’m rounding the corner, trying to get back to the bar, I walk straight into a hard wall of muscle.

“I thought I spotted you.”

When I look up, Malcolm Renault is towering over me, a cocky grin on his face. I smile back shyly.

“Fancy a smoke?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Of course not, you’re American. Oh come on, keep me company at least. I’m dreadfully bored.” He grabs my hand, not waiting for my response, and drags me towards the patio. I shoot one last glance back at the bar and catch a glimpse of Sebastian, deep in conversation with Ada.

I don’t want to be jealous, but the truth is, I can’t help it.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Malcolm leans back, one foot resting on the stone pillar behind him, and pulls a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, offering them to me once again. When I decline, he shrugs and lights up, inhaling deeply before releasing a thick cloud of smoke. “That’s better.”

All around us, lights twinkle in the cool night air and I feel like I’ve been transported to a different world, one where fairytales come true. I try not to think about Sebastian inside, talking to Ada. I saw the way she looked at him. Like she wanted to eat him alive.

I wonder if they’ve slept together. From what Megan said, he’s definitely her type.

No, I definitely don’t want to think about that.

Malcolm blows out a thin stream of smoke before focusing his clear blue eyes on me. “I feel like I should apologize,” he says slowly.

“For what?”

“My behavior at dinner. You caught me on a bad day.”

“You were an asshole,” I say, surprised by my honesty.

Malcolm stares at me then laughs. “Yes, I suppose I was,” he says, rubbing his jaw. “In any case, there’s no excuse. I’m truly sorry. Won’t happen again.” I’m surprised by Malcolm’s apology and he gives me a sheepish grin. “Try not to tell anyone I said that, will you? Don’t want to tarnish my reputation.”

I laugh. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

His blue eyes burn into me. Eventually, he gives a faint nod. “So, Sebastian brought you, did he?”

“He did. Surprised?”

“Honestly? Yes.”

I don’t know what to do with his response so I kept quiet, looking out across the patio. It’s quiet out here. A welcome change from the craziness inside. I’ve never been one for wild parties or large crowds.

“How do you like Frankfurt? Is it everything you dreamed of and more?”

“I haven’t gotten a chance to see much.”

“Sebastian keeping you tied to the bed?” He laughs, cutting me off before I have a chance to protest. “You haven’t missed anything, love. Frankfurt has to be the most insipid city in Europe.”