Nights In Black Lace (7 page)

Odette felt her stomach sink. “What is it?”

“My mother was a dressmaker. Didn't I tell you that?”

“If you did, I don't remember it,” she said cautiously.

“Not hot couture or whatever you call it.”

“
Haute
couture.”

“Whatever. She made prom dresses and bridal gowns and things like that. We got by.”

Odette had to ask. “What happened to your father?”

“He took off to grow pot in Mendocino. Never paid a nickel of child support and never sent a postcard. I didn't know him, so I didn't miss him. No, it was just me and Mom.”

Odette couldn't resist. “Her style sense did not rub off on you.”

“I'm a guy. What do you want from me?”

“I don't know.” She patted his bare chest, feeling suddenly wistful. “But naked, you are
magnifique
. And not very many people can say that. Which is why clothing designers make so much money sometimes.”

“Yeah, well, never mind that,” he said cheerfully. “You French are very interested in everyone's family. Madame Arelquin asked me the same question about my father.”

“And did you give her the same answer?”

“I said he was a hippie and let it go at that.”

“What did she say?”

Bryan grinned as he tried to remember it exactly. “She looked very sad. She said it was too bad that my
maman
had to marry an eepee and not a nice bankaire.”

“That sounds like her.”

“Anyway, my mother would be thrilled with a virtual tour of a real Paris fashion house.”

Odette knew she had just painted herself in a corner. “But they are very secretive. No one is allowed to see a collection before it is shown. Designs are knocked off within hours in countries where labor is cheap.”

“I can imagine,” he said easily. “Well, it was just a thought.”

“I'll see what I can do,” she said. There must be a way to get him in somewhere else. Not that the nearly naked fitting models who hung around Oh! Oh! Odette catching up on gossip and knitting would care if a stranger strolled through.

And what had he said? That they were too skinny for him? Odette was finding more and more reasons to fall for him.

He sighed with happiness. “Guess I'd better get going.” He pushed back the covers and got up, fluffing his stuff. “Mind if I take a shower?”

“Of course not. So long as I can join you.”

“All right. You get it going and I'll be right there.”

It was as good an opportunity as any to end a conversation that was likely to trip her up. Odette headed for the bathroom, and set out scented soaps and great big towels.

With the water running, she couldn't hear anything, and came out to look for him.

Completely naked and unselfconscious, Bryan was looking at the art in her hallway. He looked without much interest at the graffiti-influenced Basquiat painting that she'd bought in New York, and then moved from framed photograph to photograph, studying the images.

“These are by Henri Cartier-Bresson.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. She was surprised that he would know that, and a little ashamed of herself for being surprised. He was educated and not uncultured. But the photographer's signatures on the original prints were small and not that easy to read, and only one image was well-known. The others were lesser works that showed men and women, not posed, at a moment of connection—or coming apart.

She was curious to know what he thought of them—not all were pretty and a few were heartbreaking. Odette had bought them when the great photographer died because each one spoke to her in silence and she saw something new each time she looked at them.

And now Bryan, this man she scarcely knew, was looking at them in the quiet of the morning. She felt suddenly frightened, as if he were looking into her heart. His own silence upset her, but she scolded herself for it.

He was entitled to look at them—that was why she had put them on the walls. And yet, no one but him ever had.

“Someone said Cartier-Bresson photographs the moment after the last word is spoken,” Odette said at last.

“Someone got that right.”

He came back to bed, the strong planes of his body outlined by the morning light and softened by the opaque shadows it cast at the same time. She'd peeked outside the bathroom window. It was going to rain. No wonder they'd slept so peacefully. She always did on rainy days.

It couldn't just be him.

O
dette had called in and found out she had to go to work. Bryan was on his own. The day had dawned overcast, according to the pictogram on the front page of a French newspaper he'd glanced at when he'd left her neighborhood, not that he'd noticed that under the covers with her. Her shutters had been closed while they had breakfast in bed.

And the weather was going to get worse. The unmoving clouds were only getting darker. He didn't want to go back to his depressing hotel and he couldn't just camp out at her place like he was moving in. Uncool, no matter what country you were in.

And, he thought ruefully, she hadn't begged him to stay. But they'd made plans to meet up in the evening at a place called Chez Prune on the Canal St. Martin.

She'd said his outfit was fine. She'd even bestowed a pair of men's underwear on him, a prototype pair of briefs that were comfortable but
really
brief.

Even wearing the rest of yesterday's clothes, he wasn't too disgusting. She'd scrubbed him thoroughly and playfully in the shower and they'd had a squeaky-clean quickie on the gigantic bathmat. Her bathroom alone was about as big as his Newport Beach studio apartment.

He had a feeling that was unusual in Paris, which was a really pricey place to live. Her neighborhood seemed more quiet than expensive, but he was no judge of that.

The buildings breathed distinction that had to do with their age, he guessed. He'd glanced at the plaque and seen 1656, then a lot of historical information in French he hadn't stopped to read.

Her place was nice, though. He liked the eclectic mix of things and her style in general. She was in the right business, he thought, feeling a little more cheerful. His mom would love Odette.

Yeah. He told himself to get real. His mom was never going to meet Odette. He had two days, more or less, to share with a hot French chick who was more than nice to him and was wild, really wild, in the sack.

Why couldn't he just be grateful for that? His days of being dumbstruck by puppy love were behind him, and he was—would be, he corrected himself—looking for something more.

The real deal. Whatever the hell that was. Sure could be easy to confuse red-hot sex with it. He went on his way, walking easily over cobblestone streets that were probably ancient.

He ought to bone up on French history, impress her a little.
Vive la France
and all that.

It was a great city and he wished he had more time. Sure, he could always fly back and look her up—speaking of that, he ought to check his flight.

And his e-mail. Maybe the interviewer from
Bonjour Paris
had forwarded the jpegs. It would be cool if Odette appeared in them somewhere. He'd love a memento like that. How We Met.

He scowled at his corny impulse to commemorate a relationship that was going to be over soon. But he went into the first internet café he saw.

He could use more coffee.

A few minutes later, he had a thick cup of zhoe, as the girl behind the counter, who'd worked as an au pair in Chicago, called it. And it was damn good zhoe, too. Hot and strong.

He booted up the computer in the corner, where he could look out on the street if he wanted to, and be left alone. He pulled up his Hotmail traveling account, and waited idly while the new messages loaded.

The attachment icon showed next to one from
Bonjour Paris.
Aww. She'd come through, or the bald photographer in bad-ass black leather had.

He clicked and clicked but he couldn't get the attachment to open. Bryan swore under his breath. He couldn't even figure out a different program to open them with.

Fuck.

He scrolled the other messages. Nothing from the universities he'd applied to, nothing from friends. Just the usual weird shit that had escaped the spam filter, offers to extend his dick and the like.

Odette did a fine job of that, he thought with a grin. He blew on his coffee and shifted his leg to hide the I-heart-Odette hard-on he was getting, in case the counter girl looked his way.

Bryan decided to check out the
Bonjour Paris
website. There had to be photos on it, and the lingerie show had looked like a big deal. Maybe there wouldn't be any of him, but then again, he told himself smugly, he had been the winner of a quote-unquote coveted front-row seat.

He was just sitting here. Might as well take an ego trip.

The site downloaded quickly and photos of the leggy babes in underwear and their fine feathers came up first. Then the headline.
Oh! Oh! Odette!
Bryan sat up straight, forgetting all about his coffee. He couldn't read the text in French that well, but a few facts jumped out at him from what he suspected was breathless gush. Odette Gaillard, youngest CEO in France. Odette Gaillard, ex-model. Odette Gaillard, multimillionaire. Odette Gaillard, bad girl gone good.

She wasn't a stylist. She owned the fucking business. She was a self-made woman, not even thirty, obviously talented, and an A-list guest all over the world. She had to know dozens of rich guys and movie stars. What did she see in him? Why hadn't she told him who she really was?

She must not have wanted him to know any of that. She must have been looking for a fast fling when she'd seen him, and told her assistants to keep away while she tried her luck.

He had to admit that doing it that way leveled the playing field some. He'd gone with her because he thought she was hot. And really nice. And the thrift-store outfit had fooled him.

Wherever she got those crazy clothes, they were not from a thrift store. Or a flea market. They were designer items made to look like thrift store duds.

Bryan wanted to bang his fist on the counter. Instead he just sat there staring at underwear models like a perv, not even seeing them, until he realized the girl at the counter was giving him a disgusted look.

He clicked out of the site. His mind was whirling. Okay, so now what? They were going to meet tonight, and what would he do if she kept on pretending she was just a poor little stylist?

With an amazing apartment in an exclusive
arrondissement,
you dickbrain.

He sighed and looked it up online.

Yes indeed, Odette's quiet neighborhood was populated by tech-biz billionaires who kept models for pets. And freaky sheiks who had been sent off to France by their exasperated families with suitcases full of petrodollars. Her neighborhood didn't breathe distinction or age, it breathed money. As in mega-money.

Her concept furniture, rose-embedded Lucite armchair and all, had probably cost a fortune and so did the original photographic prints signed by the greatest master of the art.

Henri Cartier-Bresson
was
his favorite photographer. Odette must have thought he was making that up, along with his degree in marine biology. Not like he could sit around and talk ocean currents with her, right?

Good thing he hadn't commented on the oddball paintings on the wall—she would have laughed.

Did he get to ask questions from here on in? Now that he thought of it, she'd deflected quite a few so expertly he hadn't known she was shining him on.

Bryan looked down at his Newport Beach tank and neoprene jacket. Clothes made the man. She must have taken him for a studly surfer, and figured he had the brains of a boogie board. But he couldn't forget the way she'd looked at him, clothed and naked…like he meant something to her.

Yeah. Sure he did. A fresh entry in her Filofax under
M
for
Men.
No, make that
H
for
Hommes
. Beach boy, American, subspecies, California. How many stars would she give him for the sex? One for each of their three days. Over and out.

Bryan was crushed just thinking about it. He turned around when he heard the clatter of cups and realized that the first girl was going off her shift, and a new one was just starting. Serious-looking, thick glasses, and was that a copy of Simone de Beauvoir's essays she'd just set on the counter?

Yup. She would make a point of ignoring him.

Bryan opened up the
Bonjour Paris
website again, looking for more photos. Hell. There he was, grinning like a fool. That witchy interviewer had practically stuck the mike up his nose while he answered questions he only half-understood.

Smile and wave. He was waving to his mom. But he didn't look too bright doing it. He photographed okay. No wonder the rich and powerful Odette Gaillard had mistaken him for a California gigolo with sand in his flip-flops. Weird that she'd wanted him anyway.

Christ. Was his name in the captions? What if the graduate admissions officers looked him up on Google and laughed their fucking heads off? No, he hadn't broken any laws or revealed any personal parts, but if they had to chose between Joe Nerd and Beach Blanket Bozo, all other things being equal, they would chose Joe Nerd and not him.

He scrolled through all the photos and peered at the text. The interviewer had spelled Bryan as Brian and Bachman as Backmann. He was safe. He really couldn't be angry with Odette. She'd had no way of knowing anything about him, and she'd only wanted to protect herself. That was understandable.

And she'd wanted him, gone out of her way to talk to him. Something he found even more flattering. Being taken for a boy toy by a hot, sophisticated Frenchwoman wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to him.

He didn't have to mention the encounter when he e-mailed his mother. Gloria Bachman would be thrilled to hear that he'd won a ticket to an honest-to-God runway show. He'd send her the link to the website; she'd enjoy the pictures. She was that kind of mother. No matter what he got himself into, his mom kept right on thinking he walked on water.

Now, if there was some way he could take her on a virtual tour of a Paris fashion house…Odette could help with that.

No, he wasn't going to guilt-trip her into it. Bryan had no idea how to even tell her that he knew who she really was.

The more he thought about it, the more he remembered how she'd looked when she came up to him at the back of the showroom, ignoring all the craziness onstage, and the glamorous crowd.

Almost like she didn't want to be there either.

No one had recognized her when they'd gone clubbing—she'd blended into the raffish crowd like she belonged anywhere she wanted to be, drinking and dancing and living it up.

And after they'd ended up at her place, she'd really let down her hair. He would never, ever forget how they hit the heights of lust and came down again—or afterward. Odette had cuddled up to him like a stray cat who'd just found a friend.

It was strange, considering who she was, but he wouldn't have changed a thing about their first encounter.

Bryan wondered if she would confess before Friday. Fuck it. He didn't care. Rule one: life didn't follow the rules.

He glanced at the street outside. The city looked rainwashed and sad, its workaday aspect revealed in the hurrying passers-by shielding themselves with umbrellas or folded newspapers. He wondered where Odette was and what she was doing.

 

Odette had entered her atelier later than usual, dressed more soberly than usual. She couldn't wear sunglasses, not on a rainy day, and hide from the inquisitive stares. What had happened between her and Bryan Bachman was nobody's business but hers.

But gossip traveled fast. She'd made herself conspicuous by disappearing and not taking the customary bow at the show's grand finale
.
Well, she wasn't going to take any questions about it.

“
Bonjour,
” she said to no one in particular, playing the role of lady boss as she strode by workstations cluttered with projects in various stages of development.

Marc popped his head out of his office to wink at her, but he didn't say a word. Odette breathed a sigh of relief.

“The show went well, Madame.” Lucie bustled up before Odette could disappear into her own sanctuary. “Today the Japanese buyers are coming in. Their Harajuku flagship store is placing a big order.”

Odette gave a start. She'd forgotten about the meeting. That order ran into the millions. The Japanese loved French designer goods.

“Do they want the line we showed?”

Lucie sniffed. “Of course not. They insist on exclusivity.”

“Then we will use the new patterns as templates and tweak the fabrics and trim,” Odette sighed. “There is no time to create a completely exclusive line for them, not if we are to meet our loan obligations. We need that order, Lucie.”

Making millions meant borrowing millions. Her personal fortune was secure, apart from what she'd plowed back into the company, but the banks insisted on growth projections that she could not guarantee. Fashion was a risky business, even with a popular brand sold worldwide.

“Yes, we do.” Lucie made a few notes on her clipboard and bustled elsewhere.