The Paris Affair
THE PARIS AFFAIR
KRISTI LEA
SOUL MATE PUBLISHING
New York
THE PARIS AFFAIR
Copyright©2011
KRISTI LEA
Cover Design by Rae Monet, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the priority written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Published in the United States of America by
Soul Mate Publishing
P.O. Box 24
Macedon, New York, 14502
ISBN-13: 978-1-61935-054-0
ISBN-10: 1-61935-054-8
www.SoulMatePublishing.com
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
For Merl, my best friend and true love.
To my mom, thank you for a lifetime of support and encouragement, first in reading books and now in writing them.
Thank you especially to Amanda Berry, Dawn Blankenship, Jeannie Lin, and Shawntelle Madison for your weekly kick in the pants, your lack of sympathy for my complaints, and your honesty, support, and optimism.
She was new to the building and a blonde. Helmut always noticed the blondes. Especially the long-legged ones.
She sat on one of the brown leather armchairs in the corner of the ground-floor Starbucks, calmly sipping steaming liquid with ruby-red plump lips. Kissable lips. Her long legs were crossed primly at the knee, but her skirt had ridden up, revealing a tempting glimpse of shapely thighs. One high-heeled pump dangled from her raised toe, playfully.
Helmut slid his laptop bag to the floor in front of him and surreptitiously studied her as he added sugar and a splash of milk to his coffee. Her hair color looked natural, or else a very expensive salon job. Platinum highlights around her face accentuated a golden tan that was slightly pink around the temples. He could picture her sunning herself on a beach, bikini top unhooked while he massaged tropical-scented oil into her supple skin.
The image sent a jolt of raw lust shooting through his veins, and he gave himself a mental shake. He needed to clean the cobwebs out of his brain, not waste all of his mental power mooning over a woman. No matter how delectable her tongue looked as it tasted her coffee.
Focus, Helmut.
He wondered where she worked and hoped it wasn’t his department. The company had strict policies about “fraternization,” especially when one employee held a position of power over the other. Executives were not allowed to date their secretaries. Not anymore.
Executives and power reminded Helmut of why he was in the office before seven a.m. instead of recovering from his trip. Midnight flights and predawn phone calls did not mix well.
The woman set down her coffee and unfurled the pages of this morning’s
Tribune
. The business section.
Helmut capped his coffee and slipped on a cardboard sleeve. His assistant was already waiting for him upstairs, ready to fill him in on the upheaval in the company hierarchy from the past two days. The bank of elevators was back and to his left.
What the hell. May as well start the day with a little fun. It’s all downhill from here.
Helmut turned right.
He slung his bag back over one shoulder, loosened his tie a touch, setting it slightly askew. He reached his hand up and brushed the hair above his forehead—just where a small streak of gray had appeared over the last year—knocking a strand out of place. Perfect.
Helmut picked up his coffee, hunched his shoulders slightly, and walked over to the blonde, wearing the boyish grin that so many women had been unable to resist.
“Excuse me, miss?”
The blonde looked up, dazzling him with eyes like the Caribbean at dawn. His mouth went dry and he nearly tripped over his next words.
“I wonder if you could help me a minute.”
She sat her cup down on the side table and studied him, her appraisal cool. She was a little older than he had first guessed, probably late twenties or maybe thirty. Her eyes were too knowing and her face too refined to be a college intern or fresh-faced secretary. Even better.
“I am meeting my new boss in a few minutes, and I want to make a good impression. How do I look? Is my tie straight?” Helmut tried to make his voice sound a little helpless, like a bachelor in sore need of a woman’s guidance.
“Your tie is a little crooked.” Her voice was low and smooth, sexy.
Helmut felt a tightening in his groin, and wanted to hear that voice say his name. He reached one hand up to fix his tie, deliberately knocking it off center the other way. “How is this?”
She glanced at her watch, then stood. “Here, allow me.”
Her expression was polite, but her voice held a hint of amusement. As she stepped closer to Helmut, her scent filled his nostrils, light and fruity with a hint of coconut. He held still and as her fingers brushed his lapels, deftly adjusting his tie.
“Much appreciated. My name is Helmut, by the way, Helmut Forrester. And you are?” He reached out his right hand. She gave it a quick, businesslike shake.
Those beautiful blue eyes were wide, and her fingers were cool to the touch. Too cool. He usually knew when a woman was attracted to him, but this time he sensed nerves more than lust. Disappointment hit him in the gut, and lower.
“Claire.” She looked down at her hand, and carefully extracted it from his grasp. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Helmut Forrester, I have to go.”
Helmut watched her walk calmly toward the bank of elevators, her posture confident, hips swaying lightly.
“Geez, Helmut, lighten up. I said I’d have the revenue numbers done today. It’s only eight thirty.” Ben Lackey reclined back in the boardroom chair, juggling a small stress ball.
“Which means I have two hours before I have to stand up before the new CEO and explain them. Is the project even in the black?” Helmut snaked one hand out and caught the lightweight ball mid-flight and set it carefully down on the table.
Ben straightened. “Don’t you trust me? We’ve been friends for what, fifteen years now? What crawled up your ass this morning?”
“I think it started with a five a.m. phone call informing me that Sheffield was retiring, and his kid was taking over the company.”
“Afraid the ‘kid’ will take you down a notch, oh holy CFO?”
Helmut tossed the ball back at his long-time friend.
Ben ducked and it hit the wall behind him with a soft thud. The ball rolled under the table and bumped into the shoe of one of the regional sales directors. The woman picked it up and handed it back to Helmut with a quirked eyebrow.
Ben snickered. “How was Palm Beach?”
“The same as always.” Helmut hadn’t seen so much as a grain of sand. His mother’s house—his childhood home—was in West Palm Beach, thirty minutes from the shore. After she broke her leg last month, Helmut had been pressing his mom to move to a retirement community. Not even assisted living, just a place with a community. Friends. Someone to talk to.
“If all those beach bunnies couldn’t help you unwind...” Ben wagged his eyebrows up and down.
“There wasn’t much time for checking out the ‘local wildlife,’ Ben. Familial responsibility. You wouldn’t understand.” He spent the week alternately chauffeuring her to doctor appointments and standing on one ladder or another, repairing and repainting her house.
“Oh, I totally understand,” said Ben with mock seriousness. “All of the time you spend crunching numbers has deflated your, er, confidence with the ladies.”
“Hmph.” Helmut knew why Ben was egging him on. As the two perennial bachelors of the company, they had always jokingly compared their dating track records. Helmut had hit a dry spot the past six months since his promotion, and he knew Ben couldn’t resist rubbing it in.
“Come on, old man,” Ben continued. “Admit it. Your glory days are long gone. Soon you’ll be scoping out the old folks homes, asking hunched old biddies to rub you down with Vicks Vapo-Rub.”
Helmut twisted his lips into what he hoped passed for a smile. The image would have been funnier if he didn’t have a stack of retirement community brochures still left to unpack from his suitcase. “There was a hot blonde down in the coffee shop this morning who was checking me out. If I hadn’t been in such a rush to cover for your sorry ass in the presentations today, I might have let her ask me out.”
Ben sat up straighter. “Hot blonde? About five-eight? Skirt suit? No pantyhose?”
The boardroom was beginning to fill up with the other high-ranking executives. James Sheffield, the retiring CEO, would be arriving any minute to make the official announcement.
