Protecting Isabelle

by Arabella Kingsley

  Trapping her against his body, he opened the bra and allowed it to fall from her breasts to the floor at his feet. Winding his arm around her back to hold her in place for the discipline he was about to apply to her pert bottom, he raised his hand and spanked her soundly until she became still and clung to him seeking his comfort and protection.

  Still true to his word, Christian lifted her in his arms and carried her naked to the bed and put her underneath the covers. Propping up her pillows, he directed her to sit up and back against them making sure her modesty was covered by a single white sheet on the hot July night in Paris. She was an alluring sight, curled up in his bed, naked and helpless, forced to rely on his protection. It made her seem child-like, even though the beautiful Isabelle Mayer was fourteen years older than him, at forty-three.

  Christian sat down on the bed next to her and smoothed his fingers along the curve of her cheek.

  “Do you feel calmer, Isabelle?” he asked her softly.

  He expected retaliation but slowly she nodded through the last of her tears and wiped at them.

  “You are going to sit tucked up in this bed while I make you some tea. Philip said you loved tea and it is good for shock.” He was talking to her as though she were his baby girl and she appeared to be responding to it well. Christian had the overwhelming urge for her to call him Papa. That was how she made him feel. He made a mental note to use the soft comforting parental tone when she was close to losing her temper. She definitely responded well to loving male guidance through discipline in a spanking whether she liked it or not. Isabelle seemed to find his control of her and his parental voice comforting when he exercised his dominance, although she was the type of woman who would be loathe to admit it.

  Her honey-coloured curls settled around her tear-stained face as he stroked them.

  “Then, little girl, I am going to call a friend I have in the police. I will not let him interview you. When he comes, I want you to be sleeping like a good girl.”

  Again to his surprise, she nodded in agreement. Convinced she was calm and settled, he retrieved his mobile and contacted Jean-Francoise.

  When he finished, he made her some tea and he asked her a few more questions.

  “Tell me about the man in your room.”

  Isabelle looked away, tears gathering in her eyes again. She took a gulp of tea. “I was ready to go out. I had a meeting with…”

  She faltered in her speech, clearly not sure if she should tell him.

  “It’s ok, I know everything. I presume you were meeting with Christine Morceau?”

  “Yes, she’s taken all of the evidence we collected against my Cousin Declan’s money laundering through my grandfather’s exclusive car manufacturing business, Mayer Sport. The Deschanels and the Dumonts were also involved. His legitimate business he left to me in the hope that I would do good with it and achieve what he couldn’t, escape from that damn family I got thrown into when my parents died. Even when my father had done all he could to escape it by taking us away. But I suppose Philip will have told you everything. Without it I won’t be able to go to the authorities and the media and bring Declan and the other families down. Declan is determined to get my inheritance, which he sees as rightfully his and the only way he can do it is by controlling me. I don’t intend to give him that option anymore.”

  Christian was both surprised and impressed by the determination in her voice. She would never give up even after all she had been through.

  No wonder Michael Mayer believed in you. He wants you to succeed in dismantling the family business like he and his older brother wanted to. You must drive Declan nuts. You must be the first woman, the first person that has refused to roll over and play dead.

  As soon as Christian looked at her, she lowered her head, still shaking a little. He couldn’t resist pulling the sheet tight around her. He lifted her chin, ever so gently.

  “You are not alone anymore.”

  She nodded.

  “What about the man in your room?”

  “Christine rang and told me she couldn’t go through with meeting me. She was convinced they were watching her. She was terrified for her five-year-old daughter’s safety. She hung up on me when I tried to convince her otherwise, and I decided to go out and see her. The man was there when I opened the door to go out. He was drunk, and he told me that someone in the lobby said I would be able to show him a good time for the right price. I tried to convince him otherwise in polite terms.”

  Christian could imagine her sexy crisp tone.

  She paused, putting her hand to her head as if trying to remember the events accurately.

  “He put his foot through the door when I tried to close it and forced his way in. He grabbed hold of me, groped me and put his hand up my dress.”

  She shivered. Christian felt every muscle in his body tighten.

  “He started kissing me.” Her face twisted. “He got angry because I kept hitting him. He said he’d been told I could give him what he wanted. He said he’d paid my pimp for the pleasure, and he wanted his return. He tried to rape me,” she said blankly. The eerie calmness to her voice was too detached.

  He couldn’t help but feel shocked.

  “So I brought my knee up and caught him right between the legs.”

  Christian laughed. “You mean you kicked him in the balls.”

  She raised one eyebrow at him with slight distaste. It made her look sophisticated and sexy. There were so many hidden layers to this woman, he wondered if he would ever get the chance to uncover even half of them.

  “Balls, the male brain, whatever you want to call them, Mr. Dalban.” Her eyes narrowed, making the green in them deepen. A sarcastic smile of vengeance curled her lips.

  “It’s Christian,” he corrected, ignoring her anger.

  She appeared frustrated, expecting a reaction he wouldn’t give her.

  “Go on.”

  “He was off guard then. He let go of me, and I hit him with a right hook, right in the jaw,” she informed him triumphantly. “I bet he didn’t expect that coming from a woman.”

  “Good.”

  He took her finished cup of tea and rose make her another one.

  “Are you going to finish telling me what happened?”

  “The balcony was the nearest means of escape. He’d locked the door and wouldn’t let me get passed him. So when he was lying on the floor writhing in agony, I escaped out the French windows and clambered over the balconies. Your light wasn’t on, but the door was open, and I stupidly thought I might be able to sneak past and get out through the door.”

  “I was in the bathroom and heard you landing on the balcony and caught you when you came through,” he finished the story for her.

  Within twenty minutes a forensic team was dusting for prints and Jean Francoise, Christian's friend on the Police Force, was interviewing Isabelle, much to her chagrin. The only thing that kept her in the bed was the fact he had taken away her clothes and she was naked beneath it. As the two men hovered over her bed she blushed red pulling the sheets up until they rested around her neck, heightening her vulnerable childlike appearance.

  "Mademoiselle Mayer, I need to ask you a few questions.” Christian watched Isabelle pale when Jean-Françoise started interrogating her. He couldn’t help but notice she was trembling again. She tried to keep still, tried to disguise it. It wasn’t working.

  “Christian, please! No questions, I told you—”

  “Relax, Isabelle. Jean-Françoise can be trusted. This is not Mayer’s handiwork, it isn’t his style."

  Her eyes were far away. Christian gave her a confused look. She knew Declan’s style. He would have knocked the door of her room down and dragged her out by her hair after punching her around for leaving in the first place. That mess in her room had nothing to do with Declan; it wasn’t direct enough.

  “Mademoiselle Mayer, you must help me, this is very familiar to a series of stalkings and murders that have been happening in Paris for twenty years,
” he heard Jean-François demand.

  J. F. – as Jean-Françios preferred was always impatient, demanding as befitting his high rank of Commissaire Principal with The French National Police.

  “This man who has left this…this message to you is dangerous, I need you to tell me everything that happened here tonight.”

  Christian watched Isabelle stare at J. F. with wide fearful eyes and then glance at him. He knew she was wondering if she should mention the sex.

  Shit. J. F. will find out, there’s no hiding.

  He listened to her ask, “Everything?”

  “Everything.”

  She’s looking again, turning red like a teenager. I hope I’m not. The bastard knows, he knows, there’s that stupid grin he always has when he traps someone, when he has them poised ready to confess and divulge their most private secrets.

  Jean-François, you are a bastard.

  Christian didn’t want to brag about this one, not like the rest. He wanted to keep this one secret. It wasn’t another casual fuck, not like all the others. He looked at Jean-Françoise and felt his mouth twist into a scowl. J. F. grinned at him, all knowing.

  Funny, but for that grin and that damn greasy long hair, J. F. could be a passable Gerard Depardieu.

  What the hell do women see in that guy? It must be the French thing.

  Isabelle began to speak, revealing all as Jean-Françoise took a drag on his second cigarette since coming in the door and blew smoke in Isabelle’s direction making her face twist.

  Two hours later Jean-Françoise was making them go through the whole story for the fourth time. Glancing at his watch revealed it was nearly three o’clock in the morning. The summer sun was about to put in an appearance. Isabelle’s eyes drifted close.

  “Jean-Françoise, she needs some rest and so do we all.”

  Bloody hell, the git never backs off when he’s on the scent.

  “Christian tells me that that you were looking for something in your room?”

  Isabelle’s eyes snapped open. J. F. had hit a nerve.

  “Nothing, just some papers detailing my uncle’s will I took from Declan’s study.”

  “Last question, Mademoiselle Mayer, and then I will let you sleep. Christian tells me you said, ‘he’s never gone this far before’ when you saw your room.’ Who is he? Mademoiselle?”

  Small beads of sweat broke out on her brow. She was afraid. Perhaps terrified was a better way to describe the tense appearance to her features. Christian could almost hear her heart beat faster, feel her pulse racing. Her fear was all around him in this room. Isabelle was as white as the sheet she clutched to her chin. J. F. ’s eyebrows rose once and then his face bore a blank expression. Isabelle knew exactly who had created that scene in her room and she was very afraid of the man. He was sure of it.

  Christian heard her voice rasp in her throat. Then she used that haughty, cold, calculated tone she did with him earlier. It must be her defensive mechanism. She was clenching her hands into fists and the knuckles turned white.

  “I was talking about Declan. Who else? How many times am I going to have to tell you? You don’t know what he’s capable of…”

  Oh yes I do, sweetheart, but with any luck you won’t ever have to find out that I do. And he didn’t do this.

  “He will have people do all sorts of things to frighten me, to make me think I am only safe with him.”

  You’re lying sweetheart, lying you’re pretty little arse off. Jean-François knows it too, but he isn’t saying anything, just taking it all in, like he always does until he can corner you.

  “Ok, mademoiselle, we will leave it for tonight.”

  It’s fucking morning, Jean-François; the bloody sun is coming up.

  “Christian, a word with you alone.”

  He followed Jean-Françoise to the door.

  “We will do some forensic tests on what we found in her room.” J. F. took another drag on his cigarette. Christian wanted to yank it out of his mouth and crush it between his fingers.

  “The man who forced his way into her room sounds like that pimp you ran up against protecting that French film star from her dubious past. Remember, Christian?”

  “Yeah. Pierre Lacan. Fucking slippery little eel, into everything from prostitution and rape to the white slave trade.”

  “You never did tell me how you got him to back off.”

  “And I am never going to. Let’s just say I taught him a few simple rules and manners the old-fashioned way.”

  Jean-François laughed.

  “Tell me what results you get from the DNA. But I’m not sure Lacan has the intelligence to plan something elaborate like that. It doesn’t sound like him. He is too stoned most of the time.”

  “Oui. Tread carefully, Christian. I think your Isabelle is in more danger than she is telling you. She’s afraid of something more than Declan Mayer, if that is possible. I must go. I will be in touch.”

  “Yeah thanks.”

  The forensic team left half an hour before. When Jean-François left, the atmosphere in the room felt awkward under the stale smell of his friend’s smoke trail. It was quiet, but the air hummed with tension. He walked over to the bed and looked down at her, resting his hands on his hips.

  “Why did you lie to Jean-Françoise and to me?” he snapped, expecting her to jump to attention just like one of the soldiers that used to be under his command.

  “What do you mean?”

  Haughty again, huh. It’s not going to work this time, honey.

  “You know what I am talking about. You know it wasn’t Declan Mayer. He would just walk in and take you.”

  No response, only fear in her eyes, but her features were hard, defensive. She frustrated the hell out of him.

  Why won’t you just tell me?

  “Isabelle, Mayer is an enemy I can deal with. I know what he is capable of and how he operates. I’ve dealt with his type many times before. They are predictable. But I need to know as much as possible, so I can find out who this stalker is before he catches us off guard and tries to hurt you.”

  Still she was silent and lowered her eyes away from him.

  Damn it.

  “This is not a partnership, Isabelle. I am in charge, and when I ask you for information, I expect you to jump to it,” he commanded.

  Her head jerked back, contorting her beautiful features with anger.

  “What do you think I am? A private in your stupid army you can bully? I took it from Declan because I had no other choice, and even then I used to make it as difficult as I possibly could for him. You are different,” she shouted back at him, raising her voice a level above his own. “I’m leaving.”

  She started to throw the covers off and then remembered she was naked beneath. He grinned and quickly pushed her back down in the bed, tucking the covers around her. He sat down on the bed and held her struggling form with his hands on her bare shoulders.

  “You are not going anywhere. You take one step outside that door without me and Declan Mayer will have you back in captivity before you can blink. I am the only thing preventing that from happening. If you want to succeed in your plan, you will do exactly as I tell you.”

  “I want to do this on my own. I do not need your help.”

  “This is non-negotiable. Do you remember what I said about tying you to the bed?”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “I would dare. At this rate, you will be lucky if I allow you to pee on your own without me watching.”

  He watched the horror spread across her face.

  “If I could I would diaper you. Make you wet into a diaper, baby girl, so you didn’t have to move from the bed,” he told her in a velvet-soft voice.

  “How can you do this to me?”

  “Easily. You need close protection as well as some correction before you get yourself killed, little girl.”

  “I am older than you. Don't—"

  “No matter, you behave like a child and from now on you will be treated like
one until you learn I am in control. Then perhaps I can keep you safe and your life intact. When you want to pee, let me know and I will take you to the bathroom.”

  It was no threat. He meant every word he said. She was going to learn that from now on she would have to be an obedient little girl. He stood watch over her until from sheer exhaustion, she fell asleep.

  He climbed in bed next to her, bringing her to a gentle orgasm. In her sleep, his fierce little tigress was soft and tamed. Maybe he was getting through to her. Christian’s eyes flickered closed and sleep claimed him.

  Chapter 7

  Isabelle took a sip of luke-warm tea that was a funny dishwater colour. It left a soapy taste in her mouth. Her lips twisted with dissatisfaction as she set the cup on the saucer. She glanced at the Rolex watch Declan always insisted she wore. A birthday present. As soon as she got out of this and didn’t need a watch anymore, she was going to stamp on it and smash it into a thousand pieces. Then she would burn the clothes he forced her to wear.

  Inhaling a deep breath, she let it out slowly as she made the effort to control her burning anger at the situation she found herself in. It was a practice she was sick of maintaining. That tight ball of angry frustration between her ribs tightened and twisted. She glanced down at her hand and raised it from the table holding it out flat. There was a slight tremor in it. She picked up her bag to search for the diazepam a doctor gave her and put one of the tablets on her tongue. Thankfully she could feel it working quickly, flooding her insides with relief.

  But her mood lowered further when she wondered if she could do anything about the diazepam.

  Patience girl, patience. Breathe in through your nose, one, two, three, out again, slowly, slowly, do it again and again. Once this is over you will feel well again and you won’t have to take any diazepam or anti-depressants again. I promise, I promise.

  She looked around her. There were white-aproned waiters bustling around tables, serving breakfast. One of them took an order from a group of German businessmen and using English to communicate with them. The place smelt of fresh coffee and tasty breads and pastries. She looked down at her plate and the fluffy sugar topped brioche roll neatly presented. It was all very nice, but she couldn’t eat. Every time she tried, she felt sick, her throat tightened, dried and wanted to repel food.