The Laws of Seduction: A French Kiss Novel

by Jones, Gwen

  “I know,” he said. “I’ve thought of that, too. I’m assuming she thinks my getting arrested has somehow lessened the imperative of the situation.” He met her gaze with renewed fervor. “It hasn’t. Not by a long shot.”

  “No doubt.” She took another sip and another bite, preparing herself for what she knew she had to say. “That’s why I think you need to hit her in her soft spot. Play on her”—she sipped more coffee—“feelings for you.”

  His eyes didn’t leave hers. “Seems we’re thinking along the same lines. I thought perhaps we could meet in a room at the hotel. The same suite we always met in.” He broke off a piece of biscuit, toying with it between his fingers. “That’ll mean something to her. Should lessen her suspicions. Especially when she realizes I put my bail in jeopardy just to get to her.”

  “I think she’ll find that quite romantic,” she said after a moment.

  He paused as well. “How do you feel about it?”

  “Why should I feel anything? You already told me—you do what you need to do.”

  He dolloped apple butter atop the biscuit, his face passive. “Whatever it takes, right?”

  Why was he doing this to her? Why was he always doing this to her? She leaned into him, calling his bluff. “Rex, if you feel you need to have sex with her to get what you need, then go for it. Don’t inject me into the situation. I hold no illusions about what’s between us.”

  He dropped the biscuit into his mouth. “What is between us?”

  “Your cock,” she said, wanting to bruise him. “I suppose that’s it.”

  “Really?” He trained his eyes on hers, languidly sympathetic. “Is that all, belle?”

  She could see now why he was so successful. All he had to do was unleash that soothing baritone and he could defuse any situation, no matter how volatile. At least it worked that way with her. But there was one it hadn’t quite worked on, and she’d do well to remember that’s why she was here. And what she was hired for.

  “No, of course not.” She sighed, shaking her head. “You really are quite the bastard, aren’t you?”

  “It’s what you find so attractive about me, isn’t it?” His mouth crooked ever so slightly, but his smile was as brilliant as ever. “I aim to please.”

  “I think you have the pleasing part down to a science, at least as far as I’m concerned—ah, here’s the eggs.”

  A few bites later, Rex said, “You know damn well as I do I’m not going to have sex with her, Charlotte. I wouldn’t have even . . .” His gaze caught hers before it arrowed back to his plate. “Even if you and I hadn’t gotten together.” He looked up, using his fork to make a point. “And don’t go making any more of your cogent observations. The fact is, if Lilith is in love with me as you say, it’s of her own invention. As far as I’m concerned, it was just business. I never gave her any reason to think more of it than what it was.”

  She shoved potatoes around her plate. “And what was it?”

  He shrugged. “Mutual masturbation.”

  “Oh.” She went to take a bite of poached egg, then returned it to the plate. “You do that with all your business associates?”

  “Only the female ones,” he said. Then his mouth crooked. “But then again, I’m pretty good at fucking the male ones, too.” He leaned in. “Except they never know it.”

  Charlotte set down her fork. “Rex, I—”

  “Charlotte.” He slid his hand over hers. “If you don’t know by now what we have between us is different, then there’s nothing I can say to convince you. Chérie, we both have a sexual past. Mine is spectacularly colorful, and there’s nothing I can do to change that.”

  “Not asking you to,” she said. “Nor will I apologize for mine. All I’m saying is just do what you have to do and don’t let this”—she flipped her hand between them—“stand in your way to getting it done.” She sipped her coffee, looking askance.

  He regarded her, knifing eggs onto his fork. “You do that a lot, you know.”

  “Do what?” She had no idea.

  “This flipping thing with your hand.” He demonstrated, waggling his between them. “When you don’t want to say something aloud. You wave your hand instead.”

  “Seriously? Like for what?”

  “As in the word you don’t want to call us.”

  “Oh?” She pressed her hand into her lap. “What word is that?”

  “Les amoureux.” He leaned forward, his eyes smoldering. “Lovers.” He lifted her palm to his mouth, kissing it.

  “Rex!” She yanked her hand back. “Don’t go all French on me now, jeez,” she said, quickly sipping her coffee.

  He answered en français, “I’d like to go French all over you right now, right on this table, right in front of all these . . .” He flipped his own hand. “Whatever they are.” He laughed, low and throatily. “Wouldn’t that shoot the apple butter right out of their quintessentially American asses?”

  Charlotte slammed her cup down, coffee nearly shooting from her quintessentially American nose.

  AT A LITTLE past ten Rex pulled off the gridlocked interstate and into the vehicular hell known as Washington, D.C.

  “Well, that wasn’t too bad,” he said, the city of white looming in the distance. “We’re only an hour or so off schedule.”

  “Not too bad for D.C.,” Charlotte remarked. “I was stuck on the exit ramp once for two hours.”

  “Oh?” Rex was instantly curious. “Have much occasion to come down to D.C.?”

  “I used to. Not so much anymore.” She flipped down the visor mirror, pulling a lipstick from her purse. “I used to date a D.C. lawyer. Worked for the State Department. We both went to Rutgers Law but I never knew him at the time. Hooked up with him at our ten-year reunion.” She glided the lipstick over her lips, then pressed them together, snapping the cap back on. She shot him a glance. “What a dick he was.”

  They pulled up to a light, the corners thick with tourists and government workers. “Was he the one that messed with your head?”

  She propped her chin in her hand, looking out the window. “He was one of them, that’s for sure. The only good he ever did me was introducing me to Trent Webster.”

  Websters. Rex fumed. He thought it best to keep his opinions to himself about that family, the sons, at least.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “what’s plan B if you can’t get a room at the Hay?”

  “I already have a room.”

  “You do? Oh.” She seemed put off. “I didn’t see you call.”

  “I didn’t.” The light changed and he still had to wait for a couple of tourists wearing shocking blue tricorns to cross. “My staff always reserves the same suite at the Hay whenever I’m in the U.S.”

  “Seriously? On the off chance you’ll decide to go there?”

  “Don’t be too impressed. It’s extremely hard to get a hotel room in D.C., especially during the workweek and when Congress is in session. And for the past year I’ve been coming down here every trip, ever since the bill was introduced.”

  Charlotte considered that. “It’s a pretty important bill, isn’t it?”

  “Damned important. Mercier wants to start using the new larger container ships, but we can’t if the harbor isn’t dredged in Elizabeth. These new ships use solar power and half the fuel. They’re crucial to our future bottom line.”

  “Because the U.S. really needs more cheap clothing and shitty small appliances. And fast, too,” Charlotte opined.

  Rex raised a brow. “The ships sails both ways, you know.” Christ, she was a prickly woman.

  They went a couple more blocks, then hit another light, idling again. He glanced over to his passenger who was trying to smooth that wild tangle of curly hair. Not that he thought she needed to. It looked just fine to him. Even better when she was under him, her hair spreading across his pillow, those long, lus
cious legs wrapped around him.

  “Stop staring at my legs and get going,” she said. “The light’s changed.”

  “I wasn’t staring at your legs,” he said, accelerating.

  “Yes, you were. I caught you.”

  “Then you were fantasizing. I was staring at your breasts.”

  She laughed. “That’s even worse.”

  “Perhaps, but it’s in an entirely different direction. If you’re going to accuse me of staring you should at least be precise about it.”

  She turned to him, amazed. “That’s the first entirely reasonable justification I’ve ever heard for ogling. Bravo.”

  “Merci.” He turned off the street and toward a portico, idling off to the side. “Well look at this. Here we are.”

  “How convenient. Hey, why’d you stop here?”

  He turned to Charlotte, his hand at the door. “I’d like to remain as unobtrusive as possible. Since the suite has a standing reservation, I’ll call right now and get your name listed on it. Just pick up the key and I’ll meet you inside.”

  “You mean you want me to check in? As what? Your paramour?”

  “Charlotte. Remember your place. As part of my legal team, of course. Paramours check in after seven p.m.” He opened the door, leaning over for a quick kiss before he slipped out of the car.

  Having Charlotte get the key afforded Rex time to answer his phone that had been vibrating in his pocket for at least a half hour. Not that he didn’t trust Charlotte. In fact, after this morning, he was starting to find her opinion more and more important to him. But she was still straddling a fine line between lawyer and lover, and he didn’t want to put her in a position where she’d have to make a choice between the two. He took out his phone as he crossed the street toward Lafayette Square, calling the hotel before he retrieved its message. Marcel. He dialed.

  He picked up on the first ring. “Ciao. I take it you made it to D.C.?”

  “As a matter of fact I did. Thanks for the car.”

  “Just make sure it’s back in the same slot by tomorrow morning, five a.m. By the way, I have some bad news for you.”

  Rex sighed. Just what he needed. “What?”

  “Seems someone found your phone and hacked it.”

  Enculé de ta mère. “Not entirely surprising. Do you know where it is?”

  “The last location is Philadelphia. Any files on there I should be worried about?”

  “All of them. But don’t worry, I had Lee encrypt them.” The year previous, Rex had hired the former Chinese hacker, considered the best in that shadowy business.

  “He’s the one who found out about it.”

  “That’s why we pay him so well. But I have more sensitive material to worry about than a just bunch of spreadsheets. Like the kind that could save my ass.”

  Marcel paused. “I think you’re about to tell me something you neglected to earlier.”

  Should he? He went with his gut. “I had my phone on record practically the whole time I was at the fund-raiser. When I was talking to Lilith. And when I was with—”

  “The girl?”

  Rex sighed. “Yes.”

  “Hm.” Marcel took a few moments to digest that. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier—no, don’t answer that. I already know. Because you think you know this business better than me. You think you know it better than anyone. Because you’re a smug, secretive son of a bitch. Because you think you’re my goddamned mother. I already have one of those and that’s one too many, you self-righteous bastard.”

  “Speaking of your mother—”

  “What about my mother?”

  Oh, he’d hit a soft spot there. Or rather a festering wound. Marcel hadn’t forgotten how Viviane had tried to sell his birthright away, and Rex doubted if he ever would. “I think I saw her last night outside Charlotte’s house.”

  “She’s tailing you?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Son of a bitch. What the hell does that mean?”

  “That she may be at it again,” Rex said.

  He took another few moments to ruminate on that, and Rex couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. “You gave me a lot of shit to think about,” Marcel finally said. “I’ll get back to you.”

  “Then I’d better go do what I came down here for.”

  “You do that. Ciao.”

  Merde. He slipped the phone into his inner pocket. It was a good thing he put two hundred dollars on it, or by now he’d soon be dropping quarters in a pay phone. He turned from the park, heading back to the hotel.

  They’d both been the arbiters of each other’s bad news, he and Marcel, giving each other an equally shitty day. Now he had to think about his phone being hacked. Christ—how could he have let this whole thing happen in the first place? The light changed and he trotted across the street. It happened because he got sloppy, thinking with his dard instead of just doing what he had to do, then going back to Marseille. But no, he let his ego get in the way. Let some pretty young thing stroke it as if that would keep the gray out of his hair or his kilometer under four minutes. He laughed to himself, the smug, secretive son of a bitch that he was. Might as well tell the clock to stop ticking.

  Pretty presumptuous of him to think he could stop it. He was now forty, after all—forty. Hardly old, but not so young anymore either. Certainly old enough to know better. Because as rich as he was, sooner or later the girls would stop looking, and he’d either end up with a string of gold-diggers or face his decline as a lecherous old man.

  Quite a future to look forward to. And with this charge, he was already well on his way to greet it. He entered the hotel, going straight to the elevator. After all this time, he could find the suite in the dark. It occurred to him dark was something he ought to get used to, as soon he’d be spending a lot of time in it, alone.

  He grabbed his forehead. Jesus—where the hell were these thoughts coming from? He couldn’t let what happened throw him off his game. If he let it get to him, if he gave up, he could never get back on top again, and he fought and clawed too hard and too long to get where he was and lose everything. He was Rex Renaud, for Christ’s sake. Sought after, lusted after, envied and imitated. Suave and sophisticated, an international icon of business, a born leader of men. He needed to remember that. And something else.

  It was all a lie. Right down to his roots.

  He was the original manufactured man.

  What was he really—the son of farmers? No, even that was too lofty. Of grape pickers, of people who never owned the fruits of their labors, though they always worked as hard as if they had. And it wasn’t any different now with Marcel. Rex was still a grape picker, only with shinier packaging. I’ll get back to you. Simple truths were in that simple statement. Marcel was the born leader of men. Rex was the born follower. And there was nothing he could ever do to change it. The elevator opened and he went to the suite and knocked. When the door opened, she was behind it.

  “Well, hello there,” she said, leaning into it.

  Charlotte. Mon Dieu. Charlotte. The only bright light in this whole fiasco. Ma belle Charlotte. The Parisienne, born into the bar. And who was he? The grape picker, born to follow. He shut the door behind them, taking her in his arms.

  “Charlotte,” he said, smoothing her hair, sliding her coat from her shoulders. It fell to the floor as his mouth fell to hers. “Charlotte,” he said, whispering it.

  He didn’t deserve her either. But oh God how he wanted her. Wanted it all. Wanted everything he never had a right to.

  “I’m right here,” she said, her arms around him inside his jacket. “What the matter? What happened? You seem upset.”

  “Crisis of conscience,” he said, kissing her neck, her ear. “I just talked to Marcel. Someone found my phone and hacked it.”

  “Oh. Damn,” she said. “But still. I get the cr
isis part, but where does the conscience come in?”

  I don’t have one. He held her out and looked at her, really looked at her. She was so beautiful, she made his chest ache. “I want to show you something, all right?”

  “Sure,” she said, eyeing him warily. “What is it?”

  He let her go, and took her hand instead. “Come here.”

  They left the big living room and went into the bedroom just off it. On the side was a credenza. Solid cherry, about a meter and a half high, brass knobs on the doors. It was where he’d keep his wallet at night. Keys, if he had them. His portfolio. His watch. And jewelry, if he chose to wear it.

  “This,” he said, pointing to it.

  “It’s a . . . what do you call it—a credenza,” she said.

  “Oui, that’s what it’s called.”

  She stared at him, mystified. “And . . . ?”

  He didn’t answer. He just kissed her. Tilted her against it and kissed her with everything in him. “Charlotte,” he said.

  “What?” she whispered back, breathless, with as much longing as he had in him.

  “Charlotte,” he said, biting, nipping her neck, his hand sliding up her leg until he reached her panties. “Je veux baiser. Je veux te ramoner grave. Tout de suite.”

  “Okay.” She arched her neck as he turned her around, lifting her dress. “Okay, okay. Just let me . . .”

  “Non—now.” He kissed her neck, her ear. “Charlotte, let me . . .” He unzipped, opening himself.

  “Okay. Okay.” She bunched her dress around her and almost immediately he slid her panties down her legs and off.

  “Charlotte.” His hands on her hips, he tilted her up and drove himself in.

  “My—God,” she murmured, moaning from the impact, grasping on to the credenza to keep herself upright. “Oh Rex—Rex, that’s so . . . ah . . .”

  He pounded her mercilessly and without interval. She turned her head so he could kiss her, but he just looked away. There was nothing affectionate about what he was doing, just a long, hard, impersonal fornication against the credenza. In less than a minute he was gasping, ready to come.