The Laws of Seduction: A French Kiss Novel (5 page)

BOOK: The Laws of Seduction: A French Kiss Novel
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He turned, regarding her. “
Ma cher avocate
, if you so fear my turning into a sex fiend the moment you and I occupy the same enclosed space, then by all means, wait near an opened window. I’m sure your screaming is pure poetry.” He pressed the up button for the elevator. “For Christ’s sake, what are you going to do when we get to your house and we’re really alone?”

She didn’t reply, watching the floor indicator instead. “Where was that fund-raiser last night?”

“The ballroom. On the second floor.”

She looked at him. “Take me there.”

He had no idea what she was about. “All right.”

The fund-raiser had run late into the night, and the staff was still shuffling tables and setting up for the next reception. As they stood in the doorway Charlotte said, “How crowded was it last night?”

“Packed to the jowls,” Rex said. “Took us quite a while to squeeze through the crowd to get out.”

“When you left to go . . . ?” She let the obvious simply hang there.

“Yes,” he said.

“Take me to it.”

As they walked across the ballroom he became inordinately aware of her beside him, the way her hips shifted beneath her skirt, the clip-clop of her heels across the parquet flooring. It stuck him how different she seemed alongside him than that girl did from the night before, so much more natural, unlike how he had felt chasing down the scent of rut.
How foolish I’d been
, he thought.

“It’s through here to the right,” he said, holding open the exit door for her.

She slipped past him, then halted almost immediately. “Oh,” she said.

Bright yellow and black tape X’ed the door with “CRIME SCENE—DO NOT ENTER,” the knob and moldings still white from the fingerprint dusting.

Rex shook out his handkerchief and tried the doorknob. “It’s locked.”

“As I figured it would be. Yet our coming was inevitable, wasn’t it?” She laughed, a short harsh burst of irony. “They say the perp always returns to the scene of the crime.”

He hadn’t seen the point in coming, and he sure didn’t want to pursue it any further. He knew he had enemies, but he didn’t understand why they had followed him here. “Are you through?” he said, turning to the elevator bank. “Or would you like to see me squirm some more?”

She regarded him a moment. “No, I’ve had enough. Let’s go.”

A few silent minutes later they were at his suite, Rex surprised when his key card actually opened it. But then again, suspected felon or not, wealth did have its perks. She followed him inside to a sitting room.

“Can you give me a few minutes?” he said, setting down her briefcase. “I need to decontaminate myself after a night in that cell.”

“Go ahead,” she said, positioning herself on the sofa and crossing those long, creamy legs. Suddenly he found it almost unfathomable how he could have thought someone so much younger could look better than what he saw right in front of him. “But can I ask you a question first?”

“Sure,” he said, further loosening his collar, something he would have done long ago if he didn’t look so ridiculous already. “What is it?”

“It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while now.” She seemed to ponder it a bit more. “Why is it that when older women go after younger men they’re called cougars, but older men are almost expected to trade up for younger women?”

“I don’t know,” he said, removing his cuff links. “I’ve always appreciated experience.”

“Yet you left the congresswoman for the little lobbyist.” She looked askance. “Huh.”

“Let’s get one thing straight,” he said, going to her. “There was never any love lost between me and Lilith.”

“Yes, I know. It was strictly business.” She spread her arms across the back of the sofa. “Or so you said.”

He huffed, yanking off his jacket. “I’ll be in the shower,” he said, closing the French doors to the bedroom.

“Damnable woman,” he muttered
en français.
He ripped off his clothes, leaving a trail of them to the bathroom, knowing there’d be no housemaids to pick up after him like at home. Maybe he’d gotten used to too many things he shouldn’t have these past thirty years. Maybe he should try to remember what it was like before. Didn’t matter, he knew, as he stepped in the shower. He broke his back to get where he was. He soaped his face, grabbing his razor. Just like he’d break his back to stay there as well.

After he shrugged into his jacket he returned to the sitting room, still tying his tie when suddenly he stopped short. There was Charlotte lying on her side atop the sofa, her clasped hands tucked under her chin, dead asleep. It was a sight that shot straight to his core, and he would have drawn the curtains and left her there had her eyes not popped open. She sat up, her hair tumbling down around her.

“Oh,” she said, red-faced and yawning, “I think I fell asleep.”

“I think you did, too,” he said, finishing his Windsor knot. “Would you like to go lie down on the bed for a little while?”

She stared at him as if he’d just proposed a leap out the window. “No,” she said pointedly, standing. “If I’m going to do any sleeping I’ll do it in my own bed, thank you.” She eyed him up and down. “Are you ready?”

“Just let me grab my bags,” he said, leaving a hundred-dollar bill for the maid.

As they rode the elevator down, as he settled his bill, increasingly Rex became aware of her, so much that even the smallest things, like signing his name and retrieving his wallet, became distractions. How would he ever spend the week with her? Perhaps it wasn’t so much Charlotte who was disorienting, as how the little things she had said made him inordinately mindful of himself and his position. She had no idea what he had lost and how hard he had fought to get where he was, though he thought that maybe one day he would tell her. But at the moment he hardly found her perspective endearing. So when they finally hit the sidewalk it was with some relief he found a bit of secondhand familiarity parked at the curb. Julie Knott’s Channel 8 News van.

“And where do you think you’re going?” said her cameraman, Denny O’Brien, as he rolled down the driver’s side window.

“That would be my house,” Charlotte said. “Hey, is Julie in there?”

“Yes,” Julie said, her monstrously pregnant belly hardly allowing her to swivel toward them from the passenger seat. “Oh hello, Rex. Sorry about what happened last night, but I do love how the family keeps feeding me copy.”

“As well as how it keeps you in maternity clothes,” Charlotte said, gaping at her enormous belly. “Jesus, Julie, ovulate much?”

She laughed. “Not lately. But I’ll tell you, when they start coming in pairs, it’s time to stop.” The TV reporter winced as she adjusted herself in the seat. “So Charlotte, what the hell are you doing here? I came for Rex’s story, but yours is a hell of a lot better. Jump in and let me give you a ride while you tell me all about it.”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you,” Charlotte said. “We can take a cab.”

“Not on your life,” Julie pressed. “Or would you rather someone outside the family gets ahold of both your stories, and who’ll be sorry then?”

Rex tapped Charlotte’s arm. “Better get in,” he said, and reluctantly, she did. The inside of the news van was so crammed with production equipment there was hardly room enough for her and Rex to squish themselves into the jump seats.

“So Rex,” Julie said, struggling to turn to face him, “
ça va, mon ami
. Andy assures me you may be a conniver and an opportunist, but a ravisher of women, you’re not.”

“How gracious of him,” Rex opined, his knees nearly hitting his chin.

“Then what’s the story?” Julie asked. “Come on, I’m having a drought here.”

Rex knew in order to control this story he had to own it, and the only way to do that was to feed his version directly to Marcel Mercier’s sister-in-law. Even though she usually did the lighter side of the news, he was well aware that was hardly why she was here.

“I didn’t have sex with that woman,” he said.

“Gee, where have I heard that before?” Julie said. “But we’re not exactly talking a tryst. We’re talking assault.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Which I’m sure you hardly think me capable.”

“So naturally, she’s lying,” Julie said. “Now why would she do that?”

“I don’t know.” He wished he did. “But I’ll be sure to let you know when I find out.”

“Of course,” Julie said, “but for now, we need to do better than that.”

“Where’re we going?” Denny asked. “I’m guessing not the Four Seasons.”

“We’re going to my house,” Charlotte said. “Turn up Fourth Street.”

“On the other hand . . .” Julie’s face lit. “Now
there’s
a story more like I’m used to. Why would the biggest feminist in town be playing for the other team? And for an alleged felon, no less?”

“I resent that,” Rex said.

“No offense intended,” Julie said. “But I only think in tabloid headlines. So Charlotte, give me an exclusive. Why did you decide to lawyer for this man? Especially if it means risking the wrath of your supporters who will obviously see it as a betrayal?”

“Then it’ll be they who’re the real opponents of equality,” Charlotte said. “I fight for justice on both sides of the gender line. It’s as simple as that.”

“What a headline. I love it!” Julie said, her eyes lighting. “Why this is even better than the twelve-year-old who chews nails. Imagine the two of you, double-teaming it. Like Susan B. Anthony and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.”

“It’s hardly like that,” Charlotte said, her eyes narrowing.

Julie looked to Rex. “You must be paying her a boatload of money. Get it?” She prodded his knee. “A boatload!”

He regarded her blandly. “
Très amusant
.”

“The next block,” Charlotte said to Denny. “That one with the blue door.”

Denny pulled to the curb, Charlotte practically leaping out. Julie looked to her from the window. “So no joke—you’re really and honestly his
lawyer
?”

It’s a good thing she’s a woman and Marcel’s sister-in-law
, Rex couldn’t help thinking. Because if Julie were a man, he wouldn’t be responsible for what he’d do next. “Didn’t she just say that?”

The reporter slowly shook her head. “It’s just too bizarre.
Too
bizarre.” She shrugged. “Well then,
au revoir
! And don’t forget to keep me posted.”

Charlotte sighed, looking to Rex as the van pulled away. “We are so fucked.”

 

Chapter Five

Potent Potables

R
EX LOOKED TOWARD
the house. “You have anything to drink inside?”

Charlotte turned from the stoop, key at the lock. “Coffee or tea?”

Was she joking? “I said a
drink.

“What do you expect, absinthe?” She glanced at her phone. “It’s ten a.m.”

“Which makes it four in Paris and already too late for a champagne lunch.”

“Champagne? As if we’ve anything to celebrate.”

“Which is why we’ll make it scotch. Do you have any?”

That pert little nose lifted. “What would you say to a Balvenie forty-year-old single malt?”

“I’d say what are we still doing on the sidewalk?”
Mon Dieu
, she was a surprising woman. “Take me to it.”

The inside of Charlotte’s closeted row house was a marked difference from Rex’s airy little waterfront home on Vallon des Auffes in Marseille. Instead of pastel shades and sun-washed tile, there were velvet curtains and a worn-looking sofa against dark paneling, the living room’s faded green carpeting bleeding into a dining room that didn’t appear to ever host a meal, its table cluttered with books, papers, mail, and a laptop. Charlotte shifted around equally overflowing chairs to a sideboard housing a rather interesting rye and malt collection, gleaming glassware beside it. Apparently, she took her liquor seriously, which pleased Rex to no end.

“I know it’s messy, but believe it or not, someone comes and spruces up all the essential parts every Tuesday.” Then she winced. “At least they used to.” She poured two fingers into each glass.

“So you’re joining me, I see,” he said.

“With as much sleep as I got last night? I suppose it’s barely the shank of the evening after all. Ice?” she asked, retreating into the kitchen. When he declined she added, “Oh you Europeans. You like everything at room temperature.”

“While you Americans”—he heard the clink of two cubes hit her glass—“like everything frozen.”

“Not everything,” she said, handing him a glass. “
Santé
.”


Santé
,” he said, clinking hers. He took a sip as well, savoring the smoke as it warmed his throat. “Ah, very nice.”

She smiled over the rim of her tumbler. “Yes, isn’t it.”

He came around the side, regarding her. “You surprise me. It’s the rare woman who appreciates a good scotch.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said, her mouth crooking ever so slightly.

A shaft of sunlight through the window caught a streak of red in her hair. “As it was intended.”

She flipped her hand toward the living room. “Shall we?”

Rex waited until she sat on the sofa before joining her on a chair opposite. She leaned against the arm, crossing those impossible legs. “So . . .” he said, savoring another swallow.

“So . . .” She took a demure sip as a few moments of silence yawned between them. “Perhaps this would be a good time to discuss the elephant in the room.”

“Oh, right.” He looked around. “A rather big fucker it is, too.”

“Freaking huge. Sucks all the air out of the place, doesn’t it?”

“I think it needs a name. Why don’t we call it . . .” He thought a moment. “Rex.”

“T-Rex,” she said, her eyes widening. “It’s that ginormous.”

“It is.” He swirled his scotch, glanced into his glass. “Charlotte, I do appreciate what you’re doing.” Maybe he even felt a bit sorry for forcing her into it. “I don’t think I would’ve enjoyed being jailed at the consulate any more than I enjoyed my stay with the city police. Thank you.”

“Oh don’t worry,” she readily assured him. “
I’m
going to enjoy being a millionaire.”

That’s what he got for going soft. “Don’t order the Bentley yet,
ma chérie.
You still have to get me out of this.”

“And I will. At least I’ll do my best. But you have to be straight with me. Because the minute you start taking me for granted I’m out the door.”

“I’d have to be insane to do that,” he said.

Her eyes flashed to his. “Yeah, well.” She sniffed. “Just so you know.”

“I won’t forget.”

“Good.” She took another sip, smiling cordially, but then the elephant returned, the air nearly vibrating around it. After a moment she said, “Perhaps you should continue where you left off. What happened after the police burst in.”

“And ruin our scotch?
Non
. Perhaps we should first get to know each other a little better.”

Again her eyes flashed to his. This time with heat. Not that it was an invitation. Not yet anyway. “And we will. After you tell me what happened.”

He always operated on the principle to only divulge information on a need-to-know basis, and with Charlotte, he needed to know her a bit more. But since she was his attorney, she certainly had a point. “Well, the first thing I did was shut off my phone.”

“Why?”

“I was still recording, remember? And aside from the fact I didn’t want them to know that, I didn’t want to get myself on tape saying anything they could hold against me.”

“Sound reasoning,” she said. “But who were you really protecting yourself from? The police, or . . .” She met his gaze. “Who was behind the door?”

He took a sip of scotch. “Good catch,
avocate
.”

“Who was it?” She leaned closer. “Tell me.”

Her eyes told him she had already guessed. “It was Lilith.”

“She followed you.”


Oui
.”

“Well, it doesn’t take a detective to figure out why,” Charlotte said. “
Ou un génie non plus
.”

“You know, I’ve been wondering—
où avez-tu appris à parler si bien le français?

She laughed, swirling her drink. “
Qu’est-il arrivé à l’anglais seulement?

Although nearly perfect, her American-accented
français
heated him as thoroughly as the scotch. “All right . . . where did you learn to speak French so well?”

“I ought to ask you the same thing about your English.”

“I asked you first,” he said, watching her throat as she swallowed.
A very nice throat
.

“But if you want any more of that scotch you’ll be a good little detainee and do as I say.”

“You have me there.” He loosened the top button of his collar. “I took my first English lessons in primary school, but I polished it on both sides of the Atlantic. At Cambridge, where I got my undergraduate degree, then for my MBA at Harvard—”


In
Cambridge,” Charlotte finished. “My, my, Mr. Renaud. That’s rather redundant of you, isn’t it?”

“Doing something well once is worth doing again, don’t you think?” he said. “And the name’s Rex, by the way.”

“Rex . . . yes . . .” she said, sliding a leg under her, her face flushing slightly. She brushed a few loose curls from her eyes. “Rex it is.”

“Now you,” he said. “Where did you learn to
parlez vous
?”

“Ah-ah!” She waggled her finger. “
Pas de français
, Monsieur—er, Rex.” Apparently the scotch was going to her head. “Phew . . .” She laughed slightly, holding the glass against her cheek. “Apparently the scotch is going to my head.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

She fanned herself. “Oh? It’s going to your head as well?”

“The scotch?” He shook his head slowly. “Oh
non
.”

She took another sip, her fanning speeding up.

“Perhaps we should have some breakfast,” Rex offered.
Perhaps I could eat it off your belly.
“But first, answer my question.”

Charlotte set the glass on an end table. “Well, if you must know, I’ve been speaking it since birth. Honed at my grandmother’s knee.”

“Oh? Was she French?”


Oui
—the Frenchiest.
Ma grand-mère était une Parisienne
.”

“Really? From Paris?” Which explained Charlotte’s snobbery. Parisians were like New Yorkers. Everyone and everything outside their immediate orbit were
les beaufs
—trash—not so much a matter of money as style, of which the denizens of Paris thought themselves the official arbiters. As far as Rex was concerned, he was definitely one of
les costume-cravate
—the suits and ties, corporate entities who only cared about making money. Which, he had to admit, wasn’t too far from the truth.

Until now. Since the night before, making money seemed to have lost a bit of its imperative. He looked to the
avocate
across from him. Since . . .

“She was a war bride,” Charlotte continued. “My grandfather was one of the first American soldiers who marched into Paris after liberation. She ran out in the street and threw herself into his arms. He didn’t let go.”

“How romantic,” Rex opined. “So she came back with him after the war?”

“Yes. They were married in Paris, and they lived there for two years after, as my grandfather wound down the war and, I guess, set up the peace. My mother was born there, and she lives there now. Went back for good when I was still in high school.”

“So you have dual citizenship,” Rex deduced.

“I do,” she said. “I go to visit my mother and the rest of the family at least a couple times a year. As a matter of fact, my aunt wants to leave me her apartment in Saint Germain des Pres.”

“The Left Bank?” He
was
impressed. “
Très chic
.”

“I suppose, though she’s had it forever. But don’t get me wrong.” She used her glass for emphasis. “For all my French roots, I’m American to the core. The only left bank that means anything to me is here in Philly, as it’s only on the left when you’re looking from Jersey.”

“New Jersey?” He laughed. “Are you seriously trying to compare that industrial wasteland to
Paris
?”

“You really ought to get away from those container terminals a bit more,” she said, taking umbrage. “Off the flyover, it’s really quite a beautiful state.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said dryly.

“You should because it’s true. That’s where I was born and where my grandparents came back to live.” She took another sip, looking away. “And where my grandfather was killed.”


Je suis tellement désolé.


Merci
, but I never knew him. It happened before I was born. He was an executive at a steel mill up the river in Roebling. Just as my mother was entering college, he was killed in an industrial accident.”

All at once Rex felt his jaw tighten and spasm, the fingernails of his right hand digging into the chair’s frayed fabric. He bolted upright. “Would you mind if I poured myself a bit more?” he asked, taking one last gulp.

“No,” she said, peering at him. “Go right ahead. Though you’re the one who said we should have something to eat.”

“Just a bit more,” he said, already at the sideboard, his hand shaking as he tilted the bottle over the glass. “It’s just that good.”

“Well . . . thanks,” she said, a bit warily. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”

He sucked three-quarters of it back before he even set the bottle down, relishing the heat as it sank into his stomach. He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, relieved he was out of her sightline. After a moment he felt better, setting the bottle back. He rejoined her.

“So it seems your mother left you for Paris when you were still a schoolgirl,” he said as he found his seat again. “Mind if I ask why?” When she seemed taken aback, he shook his head. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”

“No, it’s okay,” she said. “I’m just a little surprised you’d ask. I guess you can say she left because of a broken heart.” She looked into her glass, swirling the ice a bit. “My father left her for another woman.”

“I see,” Rex said quietly.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, looking up with accusation. “You’re thinking—oh, those Americans. So prickly when it comes to relationships. But it wasn’t like that. My mother was oh-so-very French in her sensibilities. She would’ve overlooked his having a mistress. But it went beyond that. When he chose this other woman over her, he threw back in my mother’s face everything she was about.” She drained her glass, then, staring at it, jiggled the ice. “I think I’m going to need more of this myself.”

“Do you think you should?” Rex asked.

The look she gave him brooked no discussion.

“Well, all right,” he conceded.

Charlotte went to the sideboard and poured herself a bit more, topping off the little that was left in her glass. In all actuality, Rex thought she needed the trip to the sideboard more to ponder whether to continue, and it struck him how much that little gesture showed what they had in common. She returned to the sofa, facing him directly.

“My father was a lawyer, as was my mother. As was her grandfather, as I am.” She laughed a bit. “I guess you can say law’s the family business. My grandmother’s family had quite a successful corporate law firm in Paris, where she was a legal secretary. But then the war came, and they lost everything. And after she married my grandfather and came back here, she took on the traditional role for American women at the time, which was being a housewife and raising a family, even though she had all this experience behind her. Then my grandfather was killed, just as my mother was about to enter college, so she went back to work as a legal secretary. And then she received a large sum in compensation from the steel company.”

“A settlement,” Rex said, taking a swallow of scotch.

“That allowed my mother to return to college and go on to law school,” Charlotte said. “By this time my
grand-mère
was working for the district attorney’s office, where she became acquainted with a pretty cocky up-and-coming defense attorney by the name of Jake Andreko.”

“Your father,” Rex said.

Charlotte’s brow knit in anger. “Yes.” She took another sip, belting it back. “Look, I’ll cut to the chase as we should be talking about your case, not about my family skeletons. Eventually my mother graduated and passed the bar, and all during that time my father was pursuing her, so the day the letter arrived saying she passed the bar was the same day they got engaged. They had a huge church wedding and a honeymoon in Venice, after which Mom went to work for Jake’s firm which was, by that time, pretty successful. See, she was killing it in the corp law department, as this was the glory days of arbitrage, and Mom was as ruthless as they got. So while she raked it in representing companies eating each other alive, the firm got richer and richer and the ’rents couldn’t live life large enough. Until I threw a wrench in the picture.”

BOOK: The Laws of Seduction: A French Kiss Novel
7.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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