Gabrielle steps out.
Now that I can look at her fully, not just a slice of a face in the doorway, she looks nothing like the girl I remember. Her strange eyes now have a captivating beauty; her gangly limbs and awkwardness have turned into sleek arms and legs, moving with grace and purpose in her rust-colored dress with kimono sleeves. Her pale blonde hair is half–tied back, spilling over her shoulders. On her feet, simple slides, and in her hands she carries a black clutch that looks well made, though certainly nothing like the Dumont label.
“Nice dress,” I tell her.
She raises a brow and closes the door behind her. “You’ll take that back when you know where it’s from.”
“Where?”
“H and M.”
I laugh. “I guess what I’m trying to say is you look nice. And just because fashion is my job doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the work that the chain stores do.”
“Even though they rip off labels like Dumont on a daily basis?”
I bite my lip and smile. “Imitation is just a form of flattery, my little sprite.”
She grumbles. “Can you try and make it through lunch without insulting me?” She starts walking down the hall, and my eyes take a moment to pause on her extremely shapely ass. She must have been doing squats for the last eight years or something.
“How am I insulting you?” I say, catching up with her. I’m six feet tall and have long legs and she’s got to be at least six inches shorter than me, but she’s awfully quick.
She presses the elevator call button and folds her arms, staring straight ahead at the closed doors. “Your little sprite? Please. How demeaning can you be?”
“Oh, I can be extremely demeaning.”
A hint of a smile ghosts her lips.
Her lips.
Not sure I even noticed them until now, all pouting and full and wet, like she’s been using them for something she shouldn’t.
Stay focused, I remind myself. It’s a very strange feeling to keep myself in check. Not sure I like it. Usually I let myself do and say what I want without consequences. But I have a feeling that Gabrielle will take any opportunity to call the whole thing off, and for reasons I don’t completely understand, I need to have lunch with her. I need to convince her.
I’m not even sure of what.
“You do know what a sprite is, don’t you?” I tell her, hoping she’ll see it as a compliment.
“A tiny winged creature of the supernatural, closely related to plant life, as imbued with the natural world as possible,” she says, like she just riffled through a dictionary in her head.
“And you take that as an insult?”
“I take issue with the words ‘my’ and ‘little,’ since I am not little in any way and I’m most certainly not yours.” She pauses. “I can deal with being a sprite, especially since they’re harmless . . . until they’re threatened.”
She gives me a warning look as the elevator doors open, revealing an elderly couple dressed to the nines. I give them a polite nod and gesture to Gabrielle to go in first. I may be all those things she mentioned, but I do know my manners when it counts.
Elevators are small in Europe, and this hotel is no exception. I’m nearly pressed right up against Gabrielle’s back. Her hair smells like honey, and it’s just as alluring. I have to close my eyes and breathe in deep through my nose to keep from reaching out and seeing if her hair is as soft and silky as it looks, but that only makes things worse. The blood in my veins starts to run hot and fast, my cock increasingly stiff.
After what feels like an eternity, the doors open, and we step out into the lobby. It feels like I can breathe again.
We pass by the front desks, where Aurelie is watching us carefully. Now that she sees what Gabrielle looks like, perhaps that accounts for the suspicious expression on her face. Though Gabrielle is walking ahead of me, head high, like she doesn’t know me at all.
“Where are we going?” Gabrielle asks me once we’re out on the street, her eyes scanning her surroundings like she’s unsure of where she is and needs to be on alert.
“Anywhere you’d like,” I tell her. “My driver is around the corner.”
“I’d rather not get in the car with you.”
Ouch.
“What do you think is going to happen?” I ask curiously, taking a step closer to her.
She stiffens up and keeps her attention on the road. She nods across the street. “There’s a café. That will do.”
She’s avoiding my question but still I look. It’s a total tourist trap, the kind that serves escargots and croque monsieurs to unsuspecting travelers who think that is what real Parisian cuisine is. I wouldn’t be caught dead in there.
Which is probably why she picked it. She knows that.
She’s staring at me now with a look of challenge in her eyes, which only confirms it.
“No problem,” I tell her. I look both ways to cross the street and try to take her arm, but she deftly escapes my grasp and trots ahead of me, her sandals smacking the pavement as she goes.
I guess the bright side of eating in a place like this is that the tourists who frequent it have no idea who I am and therefore can’t judge me for being here. They probably just think I’m some ridiculously handsome Frenchman on a date with a lady.
A lady who hates me, but I think in time I’ll win her over. The Dumonts are persistent, if nothing else.
We take a booth in the corner, and the waiter tosses some menus at us with disdain.
Gabrielle gives him an unimpressed look in return, takes her menu, and peers at it. “I’d forgotten how the service was in Paris.”
“Compared to where?”
“Everywhere else,” she says, watching as the waiter does the same to a few other tables, rarely speaking or looking at the customers.
“Is that a bad thing?” I ask. “Why should a waiter spend his time pretending to be your friend? You don’t tip here. There’s no money involved in it.”
“So you think people should only be nice if money is involved.”
I give her a look that says, Oh come on. “Look who you’re dealing with here.”
“Dealing with is one way to put it,” she mutters under her breath.
I flag down the waiter and order myself an espresso in French, which seems to take the waiter by surprise. Doesn’t make him any friendlier, though, but I respect that.
After Gabrielle orders a cappuccino, I fold my hands together on the table and say to her, “How about we put the fact that you don’t like me, for whatever poorly formed reason, to the side and pretend like we’re long-lost friends. Fill me in on what you’ve been doing.”
“I thought you don’t pretend if there’s no money involved.”
I can’t help but smirk. “I think I really like you, you know that?”
She rolls her eyes and tucks a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. It’s then that I catch a glimpse of her left hand. A ring on her wedding finger.
Normally that doesn’t bother me. I was married once, and those vows didn’t mean a thing in the end. Maybe not even in the beginning. But there’s a hot poker in my stomach at the thought of Gabrielle with someone. She seems too free-spirited for that, though I obviously don’t know her at all.