Beauty & Her Billionaire Boss

by Barbara Wallace

  “So what is your next move, Madame Detective?” he asked her.

  “Give the information to Patience so they can track John Allen down, I suppose.”

  “You don’t sound very excited about the prospect.”

  In a strange way, she wasn’t. “I’ll miss playing detective,” she said. “The past couple days have been a nice break in my routine.” That included the unexpected time she spent with him. Having finished her favor for Patience, life would go back to normal. Normal and lonely.

  “You don’t have to stop.”

  She laughed. “You know another piece of art that needs to be tracked down?”

  “No, but the search for this one is not complete.”

  True. Bernard’s information could be woefully out of date. “Guess I should make a phone call or two to make sure my lead pans out.” She added the detective lingo on purpose, just because it was fun to use.

  “And if need be, travel to England to inspect the canvas.”

  “Now that might be going a little too far.” Piper could see herself now, knocking on John Allen’s door and asking if she could inspect his nude portrait.

  “Why? Do you not want a chance to see the painting up close?”

  “Sure, but... Would you?”

  “For a chance to discover a lost painting, I’d go anywhere. I’ve traveled farther for far less.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll start with a few phone calls,” Piper replied.

  Just then, the car arrived, pulling to the curb with the soft beep of the horn. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Michel said as he hurried to open the passenger door.

  The switch from bright sunlight to the car’s interior temporary plunged Piper into darkness, making her blink several times before she could properly see her surroundings. Today was the first time she’d ever ridden in a limousine, and while she told herself the experience was no different from riding in a cab, it was. For one thing, cabs didn’t have supple seats that molded to your body. And they definitely didn’t smell like leather and spicy aftershave. Yesterday’s decision to ride the Métro had definitely been the right one. In fact, she inhaled deeply, she wondered if she shouldn’t have made the same decision this afternoon.

  The car itself was not nearly as fancy as she expected. On TV, the limousines always had skylights and crystal decanters. Frederic went for a sleek simplicity. All the more impressive, really. Reminded her of how quality food didn’t need a lot of trimmings to taste impressive. Frederic didn’t need trimmings, either.

  If only she didn’t feel so jittery. She’d love to blame the feeling on being out of her element, but that wouldn’t explain why the sensation didn’t fully grip her until she lost herself in Frederic’s gray eyes. Or why the quiet determination in his voice just now turned her insides upside down.

  Frederic slipped into the seat beside her and the driver shut the door, sealing them together in the dimness. If only he weren’t so tall and broad-shouldered. A smaller man would take up less space. His body heat wouldn’t cross the distance to buffet her body. It turned the air thick.

  Piper smoothed her skirt. The yellow was suddenly way too bright for the space. “Thank you again for arranging the meeting with Bernard,” she said.

  “You already thanked me twice on the trip here. There’s no need to do it again.”

  “I’m excited the trip was successful, is all.” Not to mention talking eased her tension and thank you was the only thing she could think of. “I feel like I owe you something. After all, you did give up part of your afternoon to help me. You could have let me deal with Bernard on my own.”

  He laughed, teeth white in the shadows. “If I had, you would still be leaving messages on his machine.”

  True enough. Bernard was a character. “We have a name for guys like him back home.”

  “There are names for guys like him everywhere,” Frederic replied. “And again, I was glad to help. I’m as intrigued by this painting as you are. It’s been a while since I’ve played art detective myself. If this painting is as good as Bernard believes, it will be quite the discovery.”

  Piper thought of his comment from earlier, about traveling farther for less. “Do you miss it? Tracking down art?”

  “Yes, but what can you do?” He shrugged. “Life is what it is. It’s not as though I can change anything, is it?”

  “I guess not.” Remembering his wistful expression at the gallery, Piper couldn’t help wondering if he was as Zen about his circumstances as he sounded. If she were losing her sight, she would be railing against the universe. She certainly wouldn’t talk about it as matter-of-factly as he did.

  She turned to steal a look at him, only to find he was looking back at her with that unnaturally intense gaze of his.

  “I’m glad helping me didn’t keep you from anything important,” she said, jumping back to the original conversation. Her attention returned to her lap and the imaginary wrinkles she needed to smooth away.

  Leather crinkled as Frederic shifted, too.

  “Definitely not,” he replied. “The only thing on my schedule is tonight’s meeting of the Société pour la Conservation Artistique. We have a speaker coming to discuss new methods of varnish repair.”

  “Really.” Piper didn’t have a clue what that meant. “Sounds...”

  “Tedious? Sleep-inducing?” He chuckled, cutting off any chance of her arguing otherwise. “I understand. I’m sure I would feel the same way about a lecture on flaky pastry. What about you? What are your plans for the evening?”

  “You mean other than looking up John Allen on the internet? Nothing unusual. Do the cleaning I missed today, stream a little American television on my computer...”

  “You should go out.”

  Piper shook her head. Clearly he was only saying that to be polite. They both knew she had no social life. The suggestion was as silly as her suggesting he stick around the house more. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not? Surely your culinary school friends...”

  It was instinctive. As soon as he mentioned the word friends, she stiffened. “Culinary school isn’t the kind of place where you make friends,” she said. No sense hiding the reaction. “It’s too competitive.”

  “You’re surprised?”

  “No. And yes.” She struggled to explain. If the never-ending competition was the only problem, school wouldn’t be so bad. “I guess I hoped that even with the competition, people would be friendlier. Supportive.

  “Naive, I know,” she added before he could say it. “I should have realized, school is school. Some things don’t change.”

  “I don’t understand. What does being at school have to do with anything?”

  Of course he wouldn’t understand. How could he?

  “Were you popular in school?” she asked.

  She watched as he contemplated the question. That he had to stop and think was almost an answer in itself. “I never paid attention to whether I was or not.”

  Bet he was, then. People who were well-liked never paid attention.

  “And you were not popular?”

  “I was chubby, poor and being raised by my sister.” Who stripped for a living, she added silently. “Plus I caught lice in fifth grade. You can guess where that put me on the popularity scale.”

  “Where were your parents?”

  “My mom died when I was little.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Happens.”

  Piper hated the sympathy in his voice. Pity parties were one thing, but to have others feeling pity for her...that only made her pathetic. “Needless to say, I was always a bit of an outsider.”

  Frederic nodded, attention on the space in front of him. “Personally, I always found being on my own to be the easier path,” he said. “Being involved only mea
ns more drama.”

  “Oh, there was drama anyway.” She didn’t mean to say anything aloud, the words just came out, so when he frowned, she did her best to play the comment off. “I mean, you know how kids can get.”

  She should have known he wouldn’t let her get away with it. “What did they do?” he asked.

  “Do? Nothing really. They mostly said stuff.” Hey, Piper, I got twenty bucks. Think your sister will give me a lap dance? She winced at the memory. “That’s how school works. Once you get a reputation, you’re stuck with it. I learned to suck it up over time.”

  “Suck it up?”

  “Cope,” she said, translating the slang.

  “Ah. I know what that is like.”

  Of course he would. He had his own issues, and they were far more serious than being teased in school. In a way it was funny, how they were both more alone than not. Piper wasn’t sure why, but that made her like him all the more.

  A very dangerous feeling.

  “I’m making it sound worse than it was,” she told him, hoping to break the spell. “To be honest, I don’t know why I brought high school up in the first place. We were talking about culinary school, which is supposed to be competitive, right? People are fighting for their livelihoods.

  “Besides...” She went back to examining imaginary wrinkles. “It’s not like I came to Paris to make friends.”

  Frederic leaned forward and knocked on the glass that divided them from the driver. “Michel,” he said. “Would you pull over at the next stoplight?”

  “Are you getting out?” They must have arrived at his meeting. That she knew he had a prior engagement didn’t stop her stomach from dropping with insecurity.

  “No,” Frederic replied, “we are.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THAT WAS POSSIBLY one of the weakest lies Frederic had ever heard, and Frederic had heard a lot of them. Did not come here to make friends, indeed.

  He slid his hand along the door panel until his fingers curved around the handle. Blasted poor lighting made seeing details difficult. “We are going to see Paris,” he said, letting daylight in.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This is the second time you’ve mentioned Paris disappointing you. I refuse to let you think my city is cold and unfriendly.”

  Stepping onto the sidewalk, he motioned for her to do the same before scanning his surroundings to determine his location. Took only a moment before he managed to spy the Louvre’s familiar Pyramide to his left. Perfect.

  “We’re going to walk a bit,” he told Michel. “I will call you when we’re ready to go home.”

  “What about your meeting?” Piper had joined him on the sidewalk. Her dress was ridiculously bright, much like the sun-filled sidewalk. The color filled his view every time he looked in her direction. He liked it. It was like looking into sunlight. It was not a color that should be lonely.

  He stepped back so he could see more of her face. “The society will live without me. Defending our city’s honor is far more important.”

  “You really don’t have to do this.”

  “Don’t I?” He started down the sidewalk, forcing her to catch up.

  “But I thought you said Americans have unrealistic expectations about Paris.”

  “Yes, but that was before.”

  “Before what?”

  Before he heard her trying so hard to sound casual about her loneliness. Perhaps it was the resignation in her voice, as though she didn’t expect to have better. A tone that sounded suspiciously like the voices from his childhood. Don’t complain. Don’t need. The lessons he’d learned hurt when he heard them applied to someone else.

  Or perhaps it was simply because he himself had only so long to appreciate his surroundings. Either way, he was suddenly gripped with the urge to show her more.

  “Before I realized you spent your evenings inside streaming American television,” he told her.

  “I watch French shows, too.”

  He shot her a look. “Paris is a city meant to be experienced, not watched from the sidelines like a spectator. No wonder you have been disappointed. I bet you took one of those double-decker tour buses as well.”

  “What’s wrong with that? You get to see all the important landmarks in one trip.”

  “Would you enjoy a gourmet meal in one bite?”

  Her resulting silence told him she didn’t have a counterargument. Smiling to himself, Frederic continued walking, his focus on the sidewalk unfolding in front of him. The click-clack of Piper’s heels on the concrete made a pleasant rhythm for counting out steps.

  “If we’re going to the Louvre, I’ve already been,” she said when they passed a street sign. “The bus stopped there. I even went in and waited in line to see the Mona Lisa.”

  It was amusing, the way she insisted on defending her tour. “I’m glad. I hope you saw some of the other great works as well. We are not going to the Louvre, however.”

  “Where are we going, then?”

  “You will see.”

  Based on her exasperated sigh, Frederic could only imagine her expression. She probably rolled her eyes dramatically the way one of his students might.

  “Don’t you like surprises?” he asked.

  “Only when I know what they are.”

  “Well, this time you’ll simply have to trust me.”

  Having reached a cross street, he turned his head. They stood too close for him to see her entire face, but in scanning, he saw that she was worrying her bottom lip. The pink flesh was pinched tight beneath her teeth.

  “It’s nothing bad, I promise,” he told her. Then, because he could not stand to see that lip gnawed red, he reached out and cupped her cheek. Instantly, her lips parted with a tiny gasp of surprise. He lifted his eyes to meet hers. “Trust me.”

  “I—I do.”

  Frederic could feel curve of her earlobe teasing his fingertips. Without thinking, he brushed his little finger along the patch behind her ear. The skin beneath his hand was still cool from the car’s air-conditioning and smooth as satin.

  Her jaw muscle pulsed against his palm, making him realize what he was doing. “Good,” he said, pulling his hand back. “Because we’re almost there.”

  Resisting a suddenly inexplicable urge to grab her hand, he started across the street.

  * * *

  There turned out to be the Musée de l’Orangerie in the Jardin des Tuileries, a smaller museum a block away from the Louvre. Piper gasped as she stepped through the vestibule. The room she entered was all white, with soft light that turned the color smooth as cream. A beautiful canvas of a room created specifically for one purpose. To display the panels that covered its walls.

  “Monet’s Nymphéas,” Frederic said. “As it was meant to be displayed.”

  The water lilies. Piper stepped toward the center of the room. A sea of color surrounded her. Blues, greens, purples. She was swimming in them.

  “This is way better than a poster,” she whispered. The room called for sounds no louder.

  “I had a feeling you would like it.”

  “Like it? It’s amazing.”

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  His breath tickled her ear, causing Piper to brush at the sensation. In doing so, her fingers accidently traced the same spot Frederic had touched when he cupped her cheek. Goose bumps danced across her skin. She rubbed her arms, chasing them away.

  “I read about this museum when I was planning my trip.” She forgot about it, though, once she realized visiting museums on her own wasn’t much fun.

  “It’s one of my favorite places,” Frederic told her.

  Piper went back to studying the panels filling the room. They were larger than the painting she’d seen in Boston. These paintings loome
d over her, dwarfing their surroundings with their magnitude.

  “That’s because they are murals,” Frederic replied when she said as much. “This building was built specifically to house them.”

  “They’re immense. I wonder how long it took to paint each panel?”

  “I am guessing a very long time.”

  “Is that your expert opinion?”

  “It is indeed.” His grin was warm and endearing. If they were different people, Piper might think he was flirting.

  Being late afternoon, most of the tourists had already filed through, leaving the two of them with the room to themselves. Frederic took a seat on the benches in the center of the room. “Monet has always been my favorite of the Impressionists,” he said. “Did you know he painted over two hundred and fifty versions of his lily pond? Many of them he painted while he had cataracts. You can tell which ones because they have red in them.”

  “Is that why you like him?”

  “You mean, do I feel some sort of affinity for him because we both have bad eyes?” He shrugged. “Never thought much about it. But now that you ask, I suppose I do have a unique appreciation for what he accomplished.”

  Piper joined him on the bench, her legs stretched in the opposite direction from his. “Did you ever think of becoming an artist?” All the art talk the past couple days had made her curious. His interest in art history had to start somewhere. Was it the backup for a different goal? It would be nice to know if someone else stumbled while chasing a dream.

  It was hard to picture Frederic failing at anything, though...

  “I dabbled a little when I was younger. I’m not sure you’d call the results art.”

  “Worse than the painting Bernard tried to sell you?”

  God, she liked his laugh. It sounded so rich and throaty, even when soft. “Don’t let Bernard hear you say that,” he said. “And yes, it was worse. For the record, the Biskup was not a bad painting.”