The Rich Shall Inherit (61 page)

“That is what my time is for—to be wasted by handsome young men.” Simone smiled at him, unable to resist the urge to flirt. “And your name is?”

“I am Greg Konstant.”

“Perhaps we shall see you again, Mr. Konstant?”

“I’m afraid not, I’m leaving for New York tomorrow. I shall never come back. There are too many sad memories here for me.”

“It’s a pity,” Simone said as he shook hands and said good-bye, “that you find Paris
triste.”

Poppy was standing by the fire, a glass of brandy clutched in her hand, and she stared apprehensively at Simone. “Well?” she whispered.

“Mr. Greg Konstant is handsome, he is a gentleman, and I have no doubt he is rich. He’s everything you should have, Poppy, and I have the feeling that he must have been yours for the taking.”

Poppy gulped the brandy, her hand still shaking. “Once upon a time, Simone, just like in all the best storybooks. But not now. Not ever.” And then she sank into the sofa and burst into tears.

Veronique watched Greg intently as he walked back to the bar. He was not the sort of man who usually patronized Numéro Seize and he was a puzzle. He was handsome, and she had no doubts about his masculinity, but yet he hadn’t shown the slightest interest in her—well … maybe just once when she’d caught that long, assessing glance, but it had gone no further. His friend Charlie was a type she knew well, jolly, a little drunk, generous and straightforward;
he was out for a good time in Paris with a pretty girl. Charlie didn’t really need her specialized services. But Greg Konstant was another matter.

“I want champagne and dancing and singing,” Charlie cried loudly. “Bring on the dancing girls.”

“You
shall have your own special dancing girl,” Veronique told him, “and I promise you will never have had an experience like this. Wait here while I arrange it.”

She told Watkins to bring Charlie two bottles of champagne—nonvintage—because as a connoisseur she hated to see good wine wasted on a drunk, and to find Villette.

Charlie gazed bemusedly as Villette drifted across the room toward him. She was wearing a floating red chiffon dress, her long blond hair flowed past her shoulders to her waist, and her honey-colored flesh gleamed in the lamplight. Veronique whispered in his ear, “Villette will dance for you as no one has ever danced before. Go with her, Charlie, she will be your Salome.”

Stumbling a little, Charlie linked his arm with Villette’s and walked toward the stairs, a bottle of champagne clutched in one hand.

Veronique turned her attention to Greg. He was staring down into a glass of Scotch, lost in his own somber thoughts.
“You
seem a million miles away,” she said touching his arm.

“I wish I were,” he said bitterly. “I return here every year, and every year I realize that I’m just wasting my time.”

“Then why do you do it?” she asked, puzzled. “What are you searching for?”

“It’s not
what
I’m searching for, but
who,”
he said, draining the Scotch.

Taking his hand, she said, “It’s bad to drink alone, you know. Why not come with me to the little salon, it’ll be quiet in there. We can talk.”

Greg stared at her. She was tall, lissome, lovely; her skin was soft and her amber-striped blond hair sleek as a tabby cat’s. Her soft lips were parted and her hooded eyes gazed deeply into his. She was very desirable. But she wasn’t the woman he wanted.

“That doesn’t matter,” she said, reading his mind, “it’s just that sometimes it’s easier for a man to talk to another woman, about the woman he loves.”

It was true, he realized suddenly. There was no one else he could talk to about Poppy. Angel and the rest of his family had simply dismissed her from their lives. It was tempting to be able to talk
freely at last, to tell someone how he loved her, how he’d been so desperately sure that one day he’d find her again.

The little salon was quiet. A low fire glowed in the grate and there were pools of light and shadow thrown by the green glass lamps. “Come sit by me,” Veronique said, patting a deep sofa invitingly. A waiter placed a bottle of Scotch on the low table in front of them and then disappeared discreetly. Apart from another couple, deep in conversation at the far end of the salon, they were alone.

“You
are searching for something,” she murmured, curling her feet under her and propping her head on her hand. “Tell me what … and why.” Her hooded caramel eyes probed his sympathetically.

“My search is over,” Greg said abruptly. “I’ve lost the girl I loved. She’s just disappeared, no one knows where, or why. God knows I’ve
tried
to find her,” he cried despairingly,
“believe me, I’ve tried.”
He gulped down the whiskey to ease his pain. “She haunts me, Veronique. Her face is always there in the crowd—and yet it isn’t. It’s never
her.
People tell me I’m crazy to come back year after year, simply to wander the streets, hoping that I’ll see her. And maybe I am. But you see, I still love her.”

“And now you’re mourning a lost dream,” Veronique whispered understandingly. “Tell me what she was like. Was she very young? Was she beautiful? What is it about her that haunts you, Greg? Is it your memories of the past? Or of what might have been?”

“I remember her when we were young, out riding on the ranch,” he said, his eyes staring into space as though he could see her there. “Her long red hair is flying in the wind because I’ve stolen her ribbon—such wild, curling hair, but it feels so soft when I touch it. And her eyes are such a bright, bright blue and she always has this sort of arrogant, almost
insolent
, look. She is long-limbed and lean and graceful. I met her when she was seven years old and I knew even then she was the girl I’d marry. All I had to do was wait for her to grow up. She’s so
innocent
, Veronique. What they say about her having bad blood, like her father, can’t be true … I refuse to believe it!” He drained his glass and poured another.

Véronique’s hand was resting sympathetically on his arm, her fingers were long and tapering and her nails buffed to a pearly pink. “Don’t let anyone change your dream,” she whispered, leaning closer, “let her stay as she was.”

“I don’t even know what she would look like now,” Greg said broodingly, “I haven’t seen her in so many years—she was just eighteen then.”

“Then she would no longer be a girl,” Veronique said in her low,
husky voice, “now she would be a woman … the woman you were waiting for her to become …” Her hooded eyes glittered hypnotically in the shadowy room and as she leaned closer Greg smelled her scent—a smooth, green, ferny aroma of woodland flowers.

“She would be the sort of woman who’d want
you
as much as you wanted her, Greg, wouldn’t she?
You
knew that, even when she was growing up. You told yourself she would be passionate, you imagined her in your arms, that slender body, those long lovely limbs entwined with yours …”

“Oh, God,” he groaned despairingly, “I wanted her so … I dreamed how it would be on our wedding night, how innocently passionate she would be. She would make love to me as naturally as an animal in the woods because there was no dishonesty about her … no false modesty. She would have given me her body the way she gave everything … totally.”

“Poor Greg,” Veronique murmured huskily, but a little smile played around her mouth. At last, she had what she’d been probing for.

A noisy group pushed past the salon’s doors, laughing and chatting as they took a seat by the fire, calling for more drinks. Uncurling herself from the sofa in a single graceful dancer’s movement, Veronique held out her hand. “Come with me,” she said huskily, “we can talk some more. I want to hear about your dreams, the private world in your head …”

They entered the small, caged elevator, designed to hold just two people and lined in soft amber velvet, which led directly from the salon to the third floor, and as the golden gates closed smoothly shut behind them, it seemed to Greg that he lost touch with the real world. Upstairs at Numéro Seize was fantasy in all its forms.

“You
must understand,” Veronique said huskily as they walked hand in hand down the silent, softly carpeted corridor, “that on the third floor at Numéro Seize, we make dreams come true, and I am here to help you find exactly what you want.”

She unlocked a door, and taking his hand she whispered, “Come inside, Greg, come with me, I want to help you to find exactly what it is you want… exactly
who
you need …”

Hypnotized, he let her draw him into the lamp-lit room. A four-poster bed that looked as though it belonged in a Jacobean manor house dominated the pretty room. The high wooden headboard was black with age and intricately carved with roses and unicorns and heraldic medallions, and curtains of a gauzy peach-colored silk waited to enclose the bed’s occupants into their private world.

“You must be exhausted,” Veronique murmured. “Let me take off your jacket. And why don’t you sit here, in this comfortable chair, while I get you a drink.”

Greg leaned back and closed his eyes, loosening his tie and listening to the soft rustle of her dress as she moved around the room. Soon he felt her light touch on his knee. She was kneeling at his feet and the lamplight painted the curve of her breasts a warm cream. “This is for you,” she said, handing him a pale, cloudy drink. He glanced at her inquiringly and she said, “Trust me, it will make you feel better. Drink it quickly, and then sit back and listen to me.

“There,” she said with a small satisfied sigh as he drained the glass, “now let me take off your shoes. I want you to relax while I tell you what wonderful things can happen here, on the third floor of Numéro Seize.” She took off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt, and then, standing behind him, she began to massage his neck. Her fingers were cool and firm as she circled the tense muscles, leaning close so that she could whisper in his ear. Again he was aware of her delicious scent, like woodland ferns and mossy flowers.

“This is a room of dreams,” she murmured, “we are far away from the real world, far from all the worries, far from the past … far from the future. We are just here, now, together …. The woman you are searching for is here in this room, that lovely, vibrant girl with her long limbs, her soft silken skin, her wild red hair, her youth, her innocence …”

Her hands moved down his back, circling and massaging, and suddenly Greg felt weightless, he was floating on a pleasant sea of well-being. All he was aware of in the world were those soft hands on his naked flesh and her husky hypnotic voice murmuring into his ear.

“My darling,” she murmured as her hands moved across his chest, circling his nipples until he ached with sudden sharp pangs of desire, “this is the land of dreams come true,” she whispered, “this is where we grant your heart’s desire.” She came to kneel between his legs, and he heard her sigh with pleasure as she said, “Such a hard young body, Greg, so strong and tanned. But of course you are an outdoorsman, you love the wide-open spaces. You love riding with your dream girl and watching her wild red hair flying in the wind … Come, let me kiss you,” she said, her mouth hovering teasingly over his. And she sighed again with pleasure, running the tip of her warm tongue across his lips, tasting him. And then she kissed him, and it seemed his entire life force was merging with hers in a great
surge of passion. She freed her breasts from her dress as he put his arms around her, crushing her even closer, not allowing her to take her mouth from his. “Delicious,” she whispered, “wonderful … I can’t wait …” And then suddenly she slid from his knee and was gone. “I’ll be back,” she whispered as she disappeared through another door.

Greg just lay there, unwilling even to move. His limbs felt heavy and every nerve ending tingled with pleasure. He had no idea how long Veronique was gone, he just knew he would have waited forever …

“Come, Greg,” she called from the bed, “come to me … I’m waiting for you.”

The gauzy peach silk hangings were drawn and he pulled them back eagerly. She was lying against the pillows wearing a simple white nightdress fastened with tiny blue ribbons across her breasts. But was it Veronique?

“I promised I could make your dreams come true, Greg,” she whispered, stretching luxuriously and spreading her hair across the satin pillows. “I am your dream, Greg, your lost dream. Look! Just look at this wild red hair. Isn’t this the hair of your true love?”

He gasped, leaning forward like a drunken man to touch a glossy red strand, letting it fall through his fingers wonderingly.

“Look at this face,” she murmured, smiling at him, “isn’t this the face of your dreams?”

He peered closer, her face blurring with his memory of Poppy.

“It’s our wedding night, my darling,” she murmured, “the night we’ve both waited for, for so long. There’s no need any longer to hold back your passion. And no need for me to hold back mine. You always knew I would love you as naturally as an animal in the forest, because I am as innocent as one. Isn’t that true, Greg? Isn’t that the way I am? I’ve come back to get you, Greg, and tonight we are together. This is our honeymoon. Come into bed now, and love me, my darling.”

Her husky voice seemed to have taken on Poppy’s familiar sweet tones as he took the hand she held out to him and slid into bed beside her.

“Dear, darling Greg,” she murmured, her voice girlish and excited as she kissed his cheek. She leaned across him to draw the silken curtain, shutting them into their own private peach-colored world where all that mattered was a big feather bed and their two bodies, hot with desire.

“I’ve always wanted you, Greg,” she whispered, unfastening the
blue ribbons over her breasts, “but I’m just a girl, I know nothing.
You
must teach me how. Let me learn, so that afterward I can make love to you properly.”

“Oh, my darling,” he cried, his face alight with love. “I’ve waited so long …” His mouth sought her breast, and she sighed girlishly.

“Oh, Greg,” she said, “I feel wonderful, I want you to do more … I want you to touch me …”

His lips traveled slowly across her body and she trembled eagerly, parting her legs as his mouth came closer. “Oh, Greg, oh, my darling,” she murmured, “I had no idea I would feel like this, ah, Greg … !” She arched her back in response to his urgent mouth, moaning with delight. Her head thrashed from side to side and she clutched the satin sheets with anguished fingers, screaming her pleasure. “Ah, Greg,” she whispered at the shuddering climax. He knelt over her, bursting with his passion. “Now I know what it means to be a bride …” she whispered, “your bride, Greg, you are my only one, the only man I’ve ever wanted … love me, Greg, oh, please, love me now … I can’t wait…”