CHAPTER NINE
MATTHEW stood in the customs line at Orly Airport and told himself to calm down.
He’d been telling himself the same thing for the past twenty minutes. Unfortunately, the message didn’t seem to be getting through.
His plane was late, the line was long, there was an infant screaming somewhere up ahead..
It was fair to say he was not in a good mood.
Of all things for Joey to have done, he thought grimly. To have approved CHIC’s idiotically expensive, incredibly foolish scheme. What had his brother been thinking? CHIC, in Paris. Paris, of all places. From his brother’s description, half the damn staff had flown over. A makeup guy. A hairdresser. A writer, a photographer, a stylist…
“Of course, first class,” Joey had said, as if Matthew were crazy to ask. “What were we supposed to do? Fly Susannah and the four sexiest in first and the CHIC bunch in steerage?”
Susannah and the four sexiest. Matthew folded his arms and glowered. It sounded like a 1970s band, for heaven’s sake. What a ridiculous promotion. What a dumb idea. What a senseless, silly, sorry, super-expensive excuse for boosting sales.
“Bah,” Matthew muttered, as the line inched forward.
And he had nobody to blame but himself. He should have stayed with his gut instinct and shut CHIC down, or at the very least, he should have gone with what had made him as successful as he was. He was a man who knew how to delegate authority, but he also was known for keeping a close eye on new projects. That was what he should have done with CHIC, instead of handing its supervision to Joe, who probably knew as much about publishing as he knew about crocheting.
The bottom line was that Joey had let what should have been a simple promotion gimmick get out of hand. And now he’d have to pay the price for his brother’s carelessness.
The sexiest men alive. Matthew snorted. What nonsense! What drivel! Sexy restaurants, okay. Sexy hotels, sure But sexy males? Living, breathing, sexy males?
“Stupid,” he muttered, as the line shuffled forward.
Undeniably stupid. What had Joey been thinking of? Spending all that money. Sending Susannah to Paris with all those people.
Sending her there with four guys women all around the world probably dreamed of, when the only man Susannah ought to be dreaming of was—
“Monsieur?”
Matthew blinked. The French customs inspector was motioning him forward.
“Yes,” Matthew said briskly, and stepped to the counter.
The sooner he cleared customs, the sooner he could be in the city. Then it was simply a matter of going to Le Grand Palais, setting the overreaching Miss Madison back on her heels and firmly pointing her and her hangers-on in the direction of home.
If those guys were really sexy, they could damned well be sexy over the conference table at the CHIC offices in New York. And he’d be there, too, to keep an eye on things.
The customs agent flipped open Matthew’s passport.
“Welcome to France, monsieur. How long will you be with us?”
“No more than a day. Two, at the most.”
“And is your trip a matter of business or pleasure, monsieur?”
Matthew’s mouth thinned. “Business.”
What other reason could he possibly have?
“Enjoy your stay, monsieur.”
Matthew pocketed his passport. “I’m sure I will,” he said grimly.
And he would. In fact, the thought of clipping Susannah’s wings was enough to put a smile on his face for the first time in hours.
* * *
He made a brief stop at his hotel, a small, wonderfully old, quietly elegant place where the concierge knew him by name. A shower, a shave, a change of clothes, and he was on his way.
It was a perfect day—warm and sunny, with a soft breeze stirring the waters of the Seine. He decided to walk to Le Grand Palais. Paris was one of his favorite cities. Strolling the Champs Elysées and then l’Avenue Montaigne invariably soothed and refreshed his soul.
Not today.
The sights that usually made him smile—couples strolling arm in arm, lovers exchanging kisses—irritated the hell out of him. Couldn’t people curb their displays? Why be so damned public about these things? Behave yourself, he wanted to snarl at the boy and girl locked in passionate embrace on a park bench.
Sanity returned with a rush. There was no reason to take his bad mood out on strangers—a bad mood due entirely to Joe’s incompetence and Susannah’s extravagance. Well, he’d take the situation in hand. There was nothing like the boss showing up in person to teach an insolent employee a lesson.
He marched through the lobby of Le Grand Palais, oblivious to the magnificent nineteenth-century decor. He’d phoned Joey from the plane, and his brother had provided the details Susannah’s suite was on the eighth floor. The Sexiests had their suites there, too.
“That way, nobody has to wear out the carpet, going back and forth from one suite to the other,” Joey had said cheerfully.
“How thoughtful,” Matthew had said coldly.
All the way up in the elevator, he thought about the look he would see on Susannah’s face when she opened the door and found him standing there, the way she’d gasp when she realized that he wasn’t going to let her play at being a Parisian courtesan on his time and at his expense.
It was time to establish exactly who was boss.
He stepped from the elevator, walked to the door of Susannah’s suite and knocked Then he folded his arms, settled his expression into one of cool disdain, and waited.
* * *
Susannah heard the knock at the door and tried hard not to shout hallelujah.
Thank you, she said silently to fate in the form of room service.
“One minute,” she called gaily, and then she looked at her four companions. “Gentlemen? There’s someone at the door.”
Nobody heard her. Well, why would they? The underwear model, the rocker, the writer and the actor were all talking at once. They’d been doing that for the past two hours, and Susannah’s head was spinning—especially since the travel agent who’d booked CHIC into Le Grand Palais had omitted one word from his description of the suite.
Magnificent, he’d said. Exquisite. Rococo.
It was all that. Unfortunately, it was also…
“Cozy,” Claire had called it.
But the stylist deserved points for accuracy. “Whoa,” she’d said, “this place gives me claustrophobia.”
She was right.
Susannah was sharing a ten-by-twelve-foot sitting room with four impressively sized men, all of them handsome and all of them determined to stake a claim on her interest. She’d invited them for coffee so they could get to know each other and establish some sort of rapport.
It hadn’t worked. The Sexiests weren’t interested in rapport, they were interested in self-promotion, and that made them interested in her. She could almost read their minds.
If I can convince this woman that I’m the sexiest guy alive, each man was thinking, my asking price will go sky-high.
She’d been trying to look attentive and she supposed it was working, because the Sexiests were still babbling away, but she couldn’t help wondering what they’d say if they knew all she was thinking about was how she’d managed to get herself into this mess.
Four men, one weekend, one cramped but elegant sitting room.
If this was what it was like to be the center of so much masculine attention, she could definitely do without it.
Alejandro, the underwear model, told her she had beautiful eyes.
Bart, the actor, said she was his soul mate.
Zeke, the rocker, promised that she would be the inspiration for his next song.
Stefan, the writer, assured her that he was going to dedicate his next novel to her
And through it all, Susannah kept smiling, smiling and reminding herself that a weekend was only two days long even if the past half hour had felt like half a century.
If only the room were larger. If only she’d suggested meeting in the hotel’s lounge. If only the sofa weren’t built for midgets.
She sat in its elegant center, tucked between Alejandro with his hot, dark, dangerous smile, and Bart, with his inch-long lashes At her feet sat Zeke, gazing at her soulfully and humming snatches of his newest hit. Stefan lounged against the wall, occasionally stroking his black, shoulder-length curls and throwing her sizzling glances.
The knock at the door had come just in time. All she had to do was manage to extricate herself from between Alejandro and Bart.
“The door,” she said again, and struggled to her feet
The Sexiests stood up, too, and purred her name in chorus.
It was at just that moment that Matthew, standing in the corridor, lost patience. How many times did a man have to knock before he was granted admittance? His eyes narrowed. Especially when he was the one paying for the hotel room.
He put his hand on the knob. It turned, the door swung open, and he saw Susannah for the first time in more than two weeks.
His first thought was that something was wrong with his heart. Why should it suddenly be going up and down in his chest? That was not what hearts were supposed to do, and it couldn’t have a damn thing to do with the fact that no, Susannah wasn’t as beautiful as he’d remembered…
She was more beautiful.
His second thought was that there was something wrong with not just his heart but his vision How else to explain. the fact that the room of this pay-off the-national-debt-in-a-month suite was so damned tiny? On second glance, it wasn’t his vision. The room was small, all right, but what made it seem even smaller was all the muscle that filled it.
Susannah was standing in front of a Lilliputian-size couch, flanked by a pair of giants, one dark, one fair. Another guy stood maybe a couple of feet way. He had curls—curls?—hanging to his shoulders. And there was a dude out in front who looked like an ad for steroids.
“Matthew?” Susannah breathed, and just for a heartbeat, for one infinitesimal second, he thought he saw her eyes fill with joy.
But he was wrong. It wasn’t joy, it was shock. Of course, he thought coldly. She would be shocked. She had no reason to think he’d come along to shut down her weekend in paradise.
“Matthew,” she said, “what on earth are you doing here?”
She stepped forward, her boy toys in lockstep with her.
“Yeah,” the one with the curls said. “Susie Q? Didn’t you say there were just four of us?”
“Yes. Yes, I did. This man isn’t—he’s not—”
“You heard the lady,” Zeke said. “So, what are you doin’ here, man?”
“I’m sorry,” Matthew said pleasantly, “I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”
“Zeke. Zeke McCool.”
Matthew smiled. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?” he said even more pleasantly. He could see that Curly was not happy. For that matter, neither were the two giants or the guy on steroids. They all looked as if they wanted a piece of him.
His smile curled into something that would have done a tiger proud. Considering his mood, what this foursome wanted sounded just fine.
“Matthew,” Susannah said, her voice rising, “I asked you a question. What are you doing here?”
Matthew smiled at her. She blanched. Amazing how rewarding it was to know that a smile could cause that.
“I’m here to check on my investment, Madison. Why else?”
“What’s he talking about?” Giant One asked suspiciously. “Susannah, you said there would only be four of us.”
“There are. Four of us. Four of you.” Susannah licked her lips. Matthew’s appearance, so unexpected, so unwanted, so—so magnificent, seemed to have obliterated her ability to think straight.
“Is this man your friend?”
“No. No, he’s not my friend—”
“I’m her employer,” Matthew said, looking around the room, smiling his toothy smile at each boy toy in turn. He could practically picture the adrenaline pumping through his veins. “The man who pays the bills Anything else you guys want to know?”
Alejandro stepped forward. So did the others. Oh, yeah, Matthew thought. He grinned, bounced once on his toes and moved farther into the room.
Holy hell, thought Susannah, and leaped between the Sexiests and her boss.
“Now, stop this,” she demanded. “Matthew, what’s going on here?”
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” he said, his eyes never leaving the faces of the boy toys. “I’ll tell you exactly what’s going on, Madison. I found out about your little party—”
“My what?”
“Oh, give me a break! Save that innocent look for my brother, okay? Your fun and games weekend. Your bacchanalia. Your sexy guys party.”
“Bacchanalia?” she asked. “Party?”
“You heard me. And after I chewed Joe out for being jerk enough to let you talk him into this—”
“Into what?”
“This,” Matthew said, waving his hand so that it took in the room and the glowering quartet of muscle “That’s why I’m here, Madison I flew here to—”
To what?
The torrent of words dried to a trickle, then stopped. Matthew felt a sick feeling welling in his throat. The four muscled hunks were looking at him as if he’d escaped from someplace that specialized in padded walls. Susannah was staring at him as if padded walls wouldn’t be enough. And he was starting to think they were right.
Why did I come here? he thought furiously. Why?
“I came here,” he said, “to, ah, to…”
Damnation. For the first time in his life, Matthew found himself wishing the ground would open under his feet and swallow him whole Susannah and the Sexiests were waiting for his answer, and he didn’t have any. Why had he come here? It was not just a good question, it was the only question.
Susannah had told him she was going to run three issues of CHIC. Three special issues. She’d spice them up. Sex them up. Catch the attention of the advertisers and the readers. And he’d said go for it. He’d said he’d back her all the way. Then he’d handed the job to Joe and told his brother to give CHIC, and Susannah, whatever they needed.
Susannah’s first issue had hit the stands, and it was a success. Now she had two more to go, and they’d sell even better. Susannah knew it. Joey knew it. Dammit, even he knew it.
Matthew frowned.
What was he doing here, then? He’d told Joe it was because of the cost of the Paris weekend, but who was he kidding? The money was a drop in the bucket, compared to what Romano Inc. spent in a day. Besides, it took money to make money.
The writer, the photographer, the whole bunch of people had nothing to do with his anger. Susannah could have had Eddie from the mail room tag along and he wouldn’t have blinked. He hadn’t come because of the people she’d brought here or because of the trip’s price tag.
Matthew puffed out his breath.
He’d come because of Susannah. Because, dammit, if any man was going to take her to the world’s most romantic city, it wasn’t going to be this—this assemblage of over-hormoned hunks, this gaggle of Greek gods.
This sad little knot of confused guys who’d been flown here to be interviewed and photographed and, instead, were watching a man make a complete ass of himself in front of a woman he’d run from.
“Matthew?” Susannah said again, and he sighed, pasted what he hoped was a smile on his lips and said the only thing he could think of, that he’d flown to Paris because Joey had urged him to.
“Your brother asked you to come?”
“Yes. Ah…” Ah, what? “Ah, Joey said—he said that he trusted your judgment completely but that—that for something this big, he really thought it would be best to have your publisher on hand, just in case.”
He held his breath, waiting for her to ask, in case of what? But she didn’t. Maybe she was still too angry to think logically. And she was angry. He could see
it. Her face was flushed, her eyes were bright, her hands were planted on her hips. She looked angry and annoyed…
And lovely. So lovely. Why had he walked away from her that night? Why hadn’t he realized there was only one way for the fire between them to burn itself out?
“You said…” Susannah cocked her head, as if to pin him with a glance. “You said this was a party. A—”
“A bacchanalia, whatever that is,” the guy with the steroid problem said helpfully.
“Uh, yeah.” Matthew nodded and told himself he’d only lose ground if he gave in to temptation, grabbed Steroid by the collar and tossed him into the hall. “Yeah, I did. But I was just quoting Joe.”
Susannah stared at him. “Your brother told you this was a party?”
“No,” he said quickly, “no, of course not. He said—he said this wasn’t going to be a party. He said you’d insisted you didn’t need any help with this project.” Was it true? And, if it wasn’t, could he confuse the issue enough to make it sound true? “He said you were just kidding yourself if you really thought you could do the interviews, the photos, the whole bit in just two days. So I figured I’d fly over to, ah, to offer my help.”
“Your help,” Susannah said.
“Exactly. I can pitch in. Assist. Offer my expertise.”
“On what?”
Matthew frowned. The woman was a font of excellent, if unanswerable, questions.
“All right, Susannah I’ll tell it to you straight.”
“I wish you would.”
“I’m, uh, I’m trying not to hurt your feelings but the thing is, you’ve taken on a hell of a responsibility here.” Yes. Yes, he was on the right track now. Matthew opened his jacket, thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers and strolled into the room. He could hear the hunks shifting their weight behind him, turning so they could watch his every move. “A hell of a responsibility,” he said, and swung to face the little group. Joe, he thought, forgive me. “And Joe and I have some concerns.”
Susannah dug her hands into her pockets, too.
“Concerns?”
“Yes. This project is really important to the magazine. You’re on a tight deadline And you’re new to this. I’m sure you can understand that Joe and I discussed this and decided we’d feel better if one of us were on-site with you in Paris.”
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