Lucien (21 page)

She smoothed her thumb across the stubble on his cheek. “When you find a woman who complements you—completes you—it will happen. You’ll respect her, care for her… tell her everything. She’ll be the first one you call with good news and with whom you share your burdens. She’ll accept you as you are. Faults and all.”

Luc turned his face into her hand, kissing her palm. “I have no faults.”

Elise smiled. “And when you realize that you can survive without her, but with her… you can live? Then you’ll know.”

“Is that all?”

“Oh no, there’s more. Much, much more. But you’ll have to figure out the rest on your own.” Elise patted his cheek. “Don’t worry, Lucien. You’ve got good instincts. When you find her, you’ll know. Until then….” Elise leaned forward and pushed Luc back on the floor. “I have something I need to discuss with you.”

“And what is that,” he asked on a laugh.

“You work too much.” She jerked his shirt out his pants. “And you wear too many clothes. Off with this.”

“I love a woman who knows what she wants.” Luc lay back holding his arms out to the sides. “Take what you want. All I ask is that you be gentle.”

“Gentle?” Elise straddled him and grinned down at him. “I’ll be gentle later. Much later. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.”

“Do what?”

“This.” Elise gripped the fronts of his shirt then yanked them apart. Buttons flew through the air and she cackled with delight. “You can take it out of my wages.”

Luc groaned and reached for her, cupping her head and drawing her down to him. “That one was on me. And so is the next one and… the one after that and….”

Elise carried her bowl of ice cream into the living room and sat down on the couch. Luc moved his arm and she snuggled closer, using one hand to pull the throw blanket over her legs.

“What kind of ice cream is that?”

“French vanilla with strawberries. Wanna bite?” She held up a spoonful and he took it. Elise picked up the book she’d left resting on the back of the couch and set the bowl in her lap while she searched for her page.

Half way down the page, Luc took the bowl from her lap. “Open wide.” He touched an ice creamed berry to her lips.

“Mmm. Thank you.”

Elise turned the page and Luc sighed. Three sentences later, the spoon tapped thoughtfully against the bowl. “Luc?”

“Hmm?” Tap, tap, tap.

Elise closed the book, holding her place with her forefinger. “Is something wrong?”

“This.” He nodded at the papers in his lap. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“What’s wrong with it?” She recognized the pages as the spreadsheets he’d been adding and re-adding all week long.

Luc picked up the calculator and showed her the number. “This doesn’t match that.”

Elise pursed her lips. “Fifty thousand and some change. Wow, that’s a lot. Is there a page missing?”

“Not that I can tell.” He pointed to the page numbers. “According to that, all of them are here.”

“I see. A missing column?”

He shook his head. “The last column has the line-item totals.”

“Hmm.” Elise frowned. “How many times have you added it up?”

“In the past hour? Four times.”

“Oh. And the numbers were the same every time?”

“Yes.”

Elise shrugged and opened up her book. “Then the page is wrong. You don’t make fifty thousand dollar mistakes.”

“I don’t,” he asked, amusement lacing his voice.

“No, you don’t.” Elise tilted her head back and was rewarded with a vanilla flavored kiss. “Have you cross referenced all of those figures?”

“Yes.”

“And…?”

“And the only entry which doesn’t match is the Supply column. Even after you went through and inventoried everything, I still couldn’t match it all up. It came nowhere near being close.”

Elise sucked in her bottom lip. “Um, Luc?” She knew she’d forgotten to mention something about the supply room.

“Hmm?”

“I sort of, um, didn’t put a couple of things on the inventory.”

Luc tensed beside her. “What things?”

“Well,” she began somewhat sheepishly. “There were these dresses.”

Luc slowly turned his head towards her. “What dresses?”

“Cocktail dresses.” Elise set aside the book. “You should have seen them. Absolutely beautiful, but big enough to hold three of me. One of them had a slit up to my neck.”

“You tried them on?”

She waved his comment aside. “Don’t be silly. I didn’t try it on. I just held it up.”

“In the supply room?” Luc appeared thoughtful for a moment. “What else was in there?”

“Not much. The biggest black leather couch I’ve ever seen.” Elise paused, remembering something else. “It was the most peculiar thing. Someone stored a case of erasers underneath the couch. Which didn’t make any sense since whoever did the purchasing only order two boxes of pencils.”

“A case of erasers,” Luc repeated in a daze. “Underneath a big, black leather couch.”

“Yep. One case of Olde English Rubbers.”

Luc frowned. “And a case of rubbers?”

“Erasers,” Elise explained. “I almost thought the same thing until I remembered that the English call erasers, ‘rubbers’.” She smirked. “They also call sex, ‘shagging’. Which really confused me, I thought it was a form of dancing. That put a whole new spin on shagging the night away at the beach.” Elise giggled. “Wouldn’t it be kind of funny if the case was really filled with condoms?”

Luc set the ice cream on the side table. “Go put some clothes on.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to take a look at that store room.” Luc reached for the phone and hesitated. “How many dresses were there?”

“About five. Why?”

Luc shook his head and dialed. “I’ll let you know when I know.” He put the phone up to his ear. “Ben, what do you know about cocktail dresses? Yeah, well, my wife informs me that there are a few in the store room. Uh-huh. My thoughts exactly. We’ll meet you there in a few.” He hung up and laughed. “A whole case. Ben’s gonna love this.”

Elise laughed as Luc held up a scarlet red cocktail dress. “Oh, Lucien, it is you.” The sequin covered fabric drifted and floated in the breeze of the air conditioner, brushing against Luc’s jean clad legs.

Luc squinted and shook his head. “Mmm, I don’t think so.”

Ben snickered. “This one looks more your size.” He held up an electric blue gown with a slit clear up to the waist. The fabric rustled as Ben pressed the dress to Luc’s chest. “It’s your lucky day, Luc. Blue is definitely your color.”

Luc pressed the red dress against Ben. “What d’ya think, Elise? Is this dress all Benny or what?”

Elise doubled over in a fit of the giggles. “I should’ve brought a camera.”

Luc chuckled. “How much do you think these dresses cost?”

Ben flipped over the back and showed Luc the designer’s tag stitched into the inside fabric. “I don’t know, but we can find out. If not from the designer, then your mother will know.”

Luc glanced over at Elise. “Would you mind asking mother? I would, but…,” he trailed off, eyeing the dress with disdain. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin describing these monstrosities.”

Elise wrapped her arms around Luc’s waist and leaned into him. “I’ll call her tomorrow. Do you think we can take the blue one home? It really is your color and—”

“Forget it. I don’t do sequins.” Luc tossed the dress to Ben. “Take a look under the couch.” He pulled Elise close and maneuvered them over to where Ben crouched beside the couch, sliding out a box.

Ben lifted the lid and reached into the box. “These look useful.” He pulled out a box of latex gloves and plopped them down on the couch. Ben donned a pair of gloves and smirked. “Elise did you go through this box during your inventory?”

“No. What’s in there?”

“This and that.” Ben pulled items out of the box one by one and laid them on the couch. “A few glossy magazines, a bottle of baby oil, several boxes of—damn, I should have double gloved.”

Elise leaned forward. “Why? What is it?”

Luc shook with laughter. “A vibrator.”

“Which can stay in the box,” Ben murmured. “Ho! What’s this? Pictures?” He cackled evilly. “Well, well, well. This is quite a surprise.”

“Anybody we know,” Luc asked.

Ben held up the photo. “Check out who’s wearing your dress.”

Elise took one look at the photo and gasped. “Oh my.”

“Who’s the woman with him,” Luc asked.

“That,” Ben thumped the picture with a latex covered finger, “is his secretary.”

“Oh my,” Elise breathed. “She’s wearing chaps.”

“Nice whip.” Ben clicked his tongue, muttering, “For shame, Bingley. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to leave incriminating evidence lying around?”

“I wonder if Junior knows his father likes to play dress up,” Luc asked with a wicked smirk.

“Probably not,” Ben answered, distracted. He flung a box of condoms on the couch. “Ah, just what I was hoping for.” He pulled out a stack of receipts and waved them in the air triumphantly. “This ought to reconcile the books. One dress from La Femme Petite for two thousand and some change. One set of chaps at… man, they got ripped off. A receipt for…,” Ben trailed off, looking up at the ceiling. He grinned and pointed to the four corners of the room. “Hooks. Bingley Senior doesn’t play around.”

Luc squeezed her close. “I shouldn’t have left you alone in here. Look at all those toys.”

Elise turned crimson and swatted at him. “Oh, stop. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look Bingley Senior in the eye again.”

Luc chuckled. “You won’t have to if those receipts account for the missing fifty thousand.”

Ben flipped through the receipts. “I won’t be sure until later, but… I’d bet this will cover all of the money.” He smiled. “This beats the hell out of what I originally thought.”

Luc grimaced. “I wasn’t looking forward to hunting down an embezzler.”

“I’ll just go make a copy of these and we’ll get the hell out of here.” Ben left the room, whistling.

Luc turned her in his arms and caught her chin, lifting her face for a kiss. “You just saved us a lot of work, darlin’. Again.”

Elise sighed and blushed with pleasure. “You are most welcome.” She snuggled closer and rested her cheek over his heart. “Again.”   

“If all goes well, Ben will sign the contract in a couple of days.” Luc paused as if unsure how to proceed. “If he does… how do you feel about moving down here?”