The Temptress

by C. J. Fallowfield

  ‘Thank you for my beautiful roses, all five bouquets,’ I called, not really sure what else to say, he’d just blasted in here, taken over, kissed me into a frenzy, made me come and now he was leaving? ‘And the romantic words in the cards.’

  ‘For the right woman I have many sides, Lulu McQueen, I can’t wait for you to discover them all,’ he replied with a wink and just as fast as he’d entered my world, he was gone. I waited a while, just clinging to the desk, unsure of how steady my legs would be. I gave it a few minutes, then carefully tucked my blouse back into my skirt and unsteadily made my way to the sofa, reaching for the card tucked into the gorgeous roses.

  I reached up to touch my lips, as my eyes stung with tears I wasn’t prepared to shed here in the office. I’d crossed far too many lines already. I looked up quickly as I heard the door open, to see Violet enter with a large deli bag in her hand.

  ‘Are you ok? He just left.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I nodded, giving her a smile to reassure her, as I quickly tucked the private card back in its envelope. ‘Why are you here, you were supposed to be out?’

  ‘I was worried about leaving you with him, so I had the deli deliver lunch for us both. I can eat back at my desk, but if you want some company I can stay.’

  ‘Sure,’ I smiled. ‘Anything to distract me from what just happened. I’m so sorry you missed your nooner.’

  ‘Please,’ she laughed with a flick of her wrist. ‘I can have hot sex whenever I want, living with my stud muffin. You don’t get to have it very often, but from the colour on your cheeks and the sparkle in your eyes, I’m thinking someone totally stole my nooner idea.’

  ‘No,’ I protested, feeling my cheeks heat up even more, as I rummaged for my sandwich, with a suddenly ravenous appetite.

  ‘Hmmm, fine I’ll say no more, but you’re not fooling anyone. You really like this guy and I can see why. Gorgeous looking, tall, well built, sexy, charming, romantic and seriously domineering.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I sighed as I took a bite of my sandwich. She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

  ‘She’s here and her creepy sidekick’s with her,’ Violet announced over the intercom. ‘They’re on their way up in the lift.’

  ‘Ok thanks. Just bring them straight down,’ I confirmed, activating the recording equipment. I’d already copied the one of Luc and I and deleted it from the company servers. I didn’t need the staff listening to me coming in my office, or that conversation. I clenched and released my hands a few times, they were shaking. Mrs. Le Grand may well be a horrible woman, but what I’d just done with her husband was inexcusable. Marriage vows should be sacred, no matter how unhappy either party may be. I threw my shoulders back and quickly re-arranged my hair as I pulled myself together, ready to do battle. Violet knocked and opened the door, Mrs. Le Grand sweeping in, with no thank you to her. I felt my stomach roil, she had on the most sickly smelling lavender perfume that clashed with the lovely scent of my roses. We stood still for a second, appraising each other. Her hair had been pinned up, making her harsh features even more severe. What had Luc been thinking marrying this woman? No money could surely ever compensate him for the lack of love or passion for the last five years?

  ‘Miss McQueen,’ she stated coldly.

  ‘Mrs. Le Grand,’ I replied, as I gestured to the sofas, aware that Raul had slunk in behind her. ‘I won’t offer you a drink as you made your distaste for our coffee quite clear on your last visit.’

  ‘I have distaste for many English things,’ she replied, with a look at me that spoke volumes of her absolute dislike of me too. Good, it seemed we could stop pretending. I took a seat and waited as she slapped Raul’s hands when he tried to remove her vulgar floor length brown fur coat.

  ‘Non, this will be a short meeting,’ she bit as she glared at him, before taking a seat opposite me. ‘You have good news for me, Miss McQueen?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ I replied.

  ‘You have me fly all the way from Paris for nothing?’ she hissed, narrowing her eyes at me.

  ‘No. I felt that what I had to say warranted an explanation in person. You were very generous with your offer, too generous, but I’m afraid that I can’t fulfil the contract and it’s null and void. If you want evidence of your husband having an affair, you will have to find someone else to provide that to you. I’m not able to assist.’

  ‘And what exactly makes you think that you’re in a position to negotiate here?’ she smirked.

  ‘I don’t think it’s co-incidence that you chose me, Mrs. Le Grand. You were already aware that your husband and I have history, which means that any photos I secured of our meeting in the bar that night will not help your cause. If it came out that we had sexual history and you were paying me to bring him to his knees, it would simply look like the case of two vindictive and money obsessed women trying to ruin a man. Besides, I have found no evidence of him having an affair to date. There’ll be no charge to you, but this is where our relationship ends.’

  ‘I see,’ she smirked as she slowly and carefully peeled off her expensive looking leather gloves. ‘Maybe you haven’t considered the fact that I simply paid you to see if my husband was having an affair, then was mortified to discover that not only did you have a sexual history, that you neglected to mention to me when I secured your services, but you tempted him into kissing you that very same night. I could be viewed as the injured party here, Miss McQueen.’ She snapped her fingers and Raul opened an envelope and stepped around to drop photos onto the coffee table, of Luc and I in our embrace outside the hotel. I swallowed hard. Damn it! I’d been so thrown by it being him, that I hadn’t been vigilant enough to notice that someone else was watching us.

  ‘You deliberately withheld who he was from me, you arranged a last minute meeting, sending me in unprepared without a photograph. Had I have known, I’d never have accepted.’ I bit back.

  ‘And where is your proof?’ she laughed. ‘It is your word against the upset wife from a highly respected family, a wife who has proof of you overstepping your brief and I’ll warrant that these flowers in your office can be traced back to him.’

  ‘I don’t appreciate your insinuations.’

  ‘And I don’t appreciate a putain kissing my husband, a husband who has never strayed in all our years of marriage,’ she hissed, throwing daggers in my direction as I tried not to react to her calling me a whore and took some deep calming breaths. I had the recording of our first meeting, I was recording this meeting, but they were last resorts if she backed me into a corner that there was no other way out of. It could end my business if all of this came out and I had no doubt that she knew that, she’d planned this with the very intention of blackmailing me. ‘I could publish these pictures now and expose you and your underhand tactics, but that isn’t enough. I want my husband to pay for what he has put me through. For five years I have lived in your shadow, for no one could compare to his precious “Lulu.” I’ve had to endure his sly glances at that photograph of you that he carries in his wallet, hear your name rolling off his lips when he’s fallen asleep in the lounge or his home office. You have stolen a part of my life from me, Miss McQueen.’

  ‘That’s not my fault,’ I objected.

  ‘You think I care? You think that this eases my burden to hear this?’ she snapped. ‘Non! You may technically have been absent for the last six years of his life, but you are to blame for the state of my marriage.’ She threw her head back, looking down her nose at me in contempt and suddenly I saw it. That tiny glimmer of hurt in her eyes that she was trying desperately to conceal, making me gasp as the cobwebs were blown from my eyes.

  ‘You’re in love with him,’ I whispered, suddenly feeling sorry for her. ‘That’s what this is all about. You love a man who doesn’t love you in return and you’re taking that out on me, somehow thinking I’m to blame in all of this and using that with the intention of hurting him in the process.’

  ‘Love? You speak nonsense,�
� she snapped back, rising suddenly to her feet.

  ‘I don’t think I do,’ I replied, standing to face her. ‘I spent one day and night with him, six years ago and I’ve never forgotten him. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live with such a charismatic, handsome and sexually alluring man for five years, to be his wife and to not hold his attention.’

  ‘I didn’t come here for your pity,’ she bit, as she thrust her head forwards, her glare piercing in its attack.

  ‘Then what did you come for? I’m not going to be some pawn in whatever game you’re playing, no matter what amount of money you think will buy my compliance.’

  ‘You think you have a choice,’ she laughed. ‘I don’t. I have thrown countless attractive women in his path and yet he resists. He will only break for you, of this I am certain. If I am to be backed into a corner, then so shall you be. You have two options, Miss McQueen. Fuck my husband and bring me evidence of this when I return to meet with you next week and I will pay you handsomely, as agreed. Refuse and I expose you, as the old lover who abused her entrusted position as head of her agency. You’ll not only lose your fee but quite possibly any future clients. What woman wants to pay for discrete entrapment and have her hand in that exposed? No one will trust you when I am finished with you.’

  ‘That’s no choice at all,’ I uttered, horrified. ‘Why are you so hateful?’

  ‘I am not as cruel as you would make me out to be, I am prepared to accept pictures or recordings of you in the act where your face is not shown. Bring enough stills to prove this and you’ll receive your fee. Refuse and I have no choice but to ruin both of your reputations in the process.’

  ‘I won’t be forced into sleeping with your husband and no amount of money will change my mind. He doesn’t deserve this, he’s been faithful to you!’

  ‘Then you have a difficult choice. It is time to decide what is more important to you. Two million pounds and the ability to continue your business, or the welfare of my husband? I will give you another week to make up your mind, when I return to see you I shall expect an answer.’

  ‘Then if all you have is a dark, murky picture of a kiss between two old lovers, I’ll take my chances, expose me,’ I countered, folding my arms across my chest, determined not to back down to her. I had proof of what she was trying to do, it would be ugly to be dragged through the papers, but she’d come off looking worse when they heard that she was blackmailing me, with the sole intention of hurting her husband.

  ‘You continue to underestimate me,’ she purred, unexpected excitement in her tone as she stepped towards me and reached out to pinch the fabric of my blouse between her fingers. I slapped her hand away as I glared at her. ‘He has been here today, I can smell him all over you. A slight nudge in the right direction will have him falling into your bed so fast and I’m sure that you have not forgotten what a skilled lover he is. Surely opening your legs again for him is a small price to pay for a secure financial future? I will return in a week for your answer, if you have not provided me with the proof, then I have one card left up my sleeve that I am sure will convince you. Trust me, you are out of your league in this game. Make a choice, his reputation or yours.’ She gave me a triumphant smile, as if my compliance was a done deal, then turned on her heels and stalked towards the door, Raul throwing a smirk over his shoulder at me.

  I sank down onto the sofa with my head in my hands. This was so fucked up! I’d worked too hard at my business to have it dragged through the mud, but Luc didn’t deserve this either. I looked at the photographs on the table in front of me, they were clear enough to be obvious it was me, given I was missing my blonde wig. How could I have missed someone watching? Dad had taught me better than that. I’d been lulled into a false sense of security, thinking I was the one doing the observing that night. I looked up as I heard a knock at the door.

  ‘Lulu? It’s Violet. Can I come in?’

  ‘Of course,’ I called, quickly turning the photos over.

  ‘She makes my skin crawl,’ she announced as she stepped inside. ‘Are you ok?’

  ‘I will be, it’s just been an eventful few hours.’

  ‘What can I do to help?’ she offered.

  ‘Honestly, I’d love a coffee, then could you hold all calls and interruptions, I need to think about how I’m going to handle this.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ she nodded and disappeared. I pulled off my heels and tucked my legs up on the sofa as I grabbed a cushion to hug to my chest. I needed to focus. She’d been one step ahead of me from the get-go and that wasn’t continuing, I needed to call for some help. ‘Here you are,’ Violet called, startling me from my thoughts as she set my coffee in front of me and another chocolate caramel square. ‘You will let me know if there’s anything else I can do?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ I smiled gratefully. ‘I’m sure there will be, but I just need to think this through first.’

  ‘Ok,’ she nodded, giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze and pulling the door behind her. I nursed my coffee, taking occasional sips as my mind raced through what needed to be done first. I grabbed my iPad and sent some messages, pulling in some favours, then returned to my desk to ask Henry, Mike and Violet to come in and see me, pulling my heels back on and sitting back down to wait for them. They all gathered and looked at me expectantly.

  ‘Henry, did we clone Luc’s room card key last week?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, I have a copy in my office, ready for when we go in to remove the equipment.’

  ‘I’ll need that please. Violet, I need you to speak to Hilda to put together a new disguise for me, one I’ve not used at The Domville before, that will ensure I’m not recognised if I’m caught on film, can you go and organise that for me immediately? I’ll need to take it with me when I leave in about half an hour.’

  ‘Of course,’ she nodded, jumped up and disappeared.

  ‘Mike, do you have plans tonight?’

  ‘No, what do you need?’

  ‘I think that I may have someone watching me. I need to go home, I promised Tristan I’d be home to give him dinner and put him to bed tonight, but I don’t want to risk being followed. Can you lose a tail?’

  ‘Please,’ he scoffed. ‘Walk in the park.’

  ‘If that’s the case I could do with you getting me home, then taking me to The Domville and collecting me later, somehow getting my car back to my house at some stage in the evening too. Would that be ok? It would mean a lot of hanging about waiting.’

  ‘Not a problem, though I’ll need assistance with your car.’

  ‘I can help,’ offered Henry, ‘as long as no evasive tactics are required.’

  ‘Then if Mike can drive my car home and you meet him there in the van to bring him back here, so he can come and pick me up in the Merc from the hotel when I’m done.’

  ‘Damn it,’ Henry muttered. ‘Why do I get the crappy van and he gets the sports car?’

  ‘Because I don’t drive like a granny in a three wheeler,’ Mike chuckled. ‘You stick to your expertise, I’ll stick to mine.’

  ‘I’ll be ready in half an hour Mike, see you down there,’ I nodded with a smile.

  ‘Ok,’ he confirmed as he left.

  ‘So, I take it you have more for me to do?’ Henry asked.

  ‘I’ll need that key card, I’ll be going in to remove all of our equipment, but I have a feeling that his wife is more crafty than I thought. I think she may have surveillance of her own in there. I’ll need a scanner to check the room for audio or visual devices myself, but I can’t afford to be seen, even if I’m disguised. Do you have anything that will interfere with signals to prevent me being shown up on anyone else’s too until I dismantle them?’

  ‘I do,’ he nodded. ‘I’d better check with Hilda that wearing a hat will go with what she has planned.’

  ‘I don’t think a hat will cut it, Henry,’ I frowned.

  ‘Trust me, one with this gadgetry in the brim will, it will cast a light over your face, invisible to the naked
eye, but one that will be blinding on camera, all they’ll see is your body and a bright whiteness where your face should be.’

  ‘Impressive,’ I nodded.

  ‘I know, wish I’d invented it,’ he sighed. ‘Just make sure you don’t lose the hat it’s an expensive piece of kit.’

  ‘I have Ian checking Luc’s phone and laptop as well, to see if we’re the only ones with backdoor access.’

  ‘You’re dropping the case then?’

  ‘I am,’ I nodded firmly. ‘She’s confessed he’s been faithful and given my … connection to him, I won’t be the one to bring him down. He’s expecting to meet me in the bar at seven-thirty. I can’t afford to approach him in case she has someone watching him there. She knows he won’t leave with anyone else and I can’t ring him to tell him in case she has his phone bugged.’

  ‘Ring the barman, tell him to pass on a message.’

  ‘Too risky involving someone else, this woman has deep pockets, I don’t know who she’s paid off in the hotel.’