“Yes, sir,” the front desk said, but the woman’s voice didn’t give him that little frisson when she saidSir. “I’ll have a guard posted at your door tomorrow morning at six. As it’s a Sunday night, I’m sorry that I can’t have someone there sooner. Your floor is already restricted to keycards only.”
“Thank you.” He hung up. Six o’clock was only a few hours away.
Damn, he wished Arthur’s clothes had weapons hidden in them, as they should’ve had. Weren’t the lethal toys the whole point of being a British spy in Her Majesty’s Secret Service?
A few minutes later, Dree emerged from the bathroom, looking fresh as though she’d washed her face, and she briskly skipped over to where he stood. “Hey there. What’s on the agenda for the rest of the evening?”
Maxence took one look at her swollen, pink eyelids and delicate blood vessels on the tip of her nose. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing! Look, this ex-boyfriend thing is making me a little crazy. I got some texts that were asking me about him and what went wrong with the relationship. I don’t want to discuss it with them or with you. I had a fantastic time going to the Eiffel Tower this evening. Well, you know,before.I just want to have a great night, and whatever happens tomorrow, we’ll deal with it then.”
A rush of air filled Max’s lungs. “Yes,tonight.That’s all we know we have, anyway, right?”
She squinted at him, frowning. “What do you mean?”
He surveyed the room: gold and cream walls, mirrors on the support column that reflected the city lights from the window, blue-patterned carpet, the sound of traffic far below the window, the scent of the pastel pink and cream roses on the coffee table. “Carpe diem. Memento mori.Live for the moment and each day as if it is your last because death will take us all.”
Dree raised her sandy eyebrows. “Right.Okay.You’re in a cheerful mood. So, what do you want to do to me first,Sir?”
Her brazen acknowledgment that this evening was a transaction slapped him in the face. Most prostitutes, the real ones anyway, glossed over that part of the financial part of the relationship for the fantasy of it. There was The Girlfriend Experience, The Stranger Fantasy, or different ones for more rarified tastes.
In a moment, for perhaps the only moment in his life, Maxence wasn’t in the mood.
It was so unexpected that Max clutched his temples and groaned. By all the saints and especially Saint Augustine, had God finally granted him chastity?
Not right now, for the love of God, not right now!
Dree reached forward, hooking her fingers in the waistband of his trousers.
Maxence stumbled back, slapping at her hands.
This wasn’t a gift. It was a goddamncurse.
“Sir, are you all right?” Her sweet blue eyes were getting bigger.
Dree had said she wanted Max to lie about everything. Okay, he would. “I’m concerned about our security tonight.”
Although, that wasn’t entirely a lie. Max was concerned, but that wasn’t why he currently wanted to keep his pants on.
“Oh.” She looked at the window that showed Paris spread out below the hotel like a sparkling carpet of light below their feet. “That wasn’tjustsomeone you didn’t want to talk to tonight.”
“No,” he said. “Do you want me to tell you more?”
She shook her head. “Not unless you want to.”
He didn’t. Due to who he was and what he was, Max had been the object of so many people’s fetishes over the years, no matter what he did. Just standing there with her, incognito, was a relief, and yet that meant he couldn’t explain his need for security to her.
“Is it about the inheritance?” She glanced around the well-appointed suite at the Four Seasons, Paris. “Because it kind of looks like you have plenty of money.”
“I don’t want the inheritance,” he said.
“Then, they’re just being dicks about it?”
Maxence laughed. “Yes, they are being giant dicks about it.”
“Look, if you don’t want to see those people or whatever, why don’t we just hole up here in the hotel for a few days?” she asked him. “We don’t have to order that over-priced room service. We can get food delivered from wherever, and we can catch up on movies on the television. I’ll bet theyevenhaveHBO.”
He laughed again and rested his hands on his knees. “Yes, I think it’s quite possible that theyevenhave HBO. But, your bucket list. There were several more items on it that you should do while you’re here in Paris.”
