Marietta Hotels 2:
AN ENGAGEMENT IN PARIS
Rachell Nichole
www.loose-id.com
Marietta Hotels 2: An Engagement in Paris
Copyright © June 2013 by Rachell Nichole
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eISBN 9781623002022
Editor: Serena Stokes
Cover Artist: Valerie Tibbs
Published in the United States of America
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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning
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Dedication
Pour l’amour dans les rues de Paris.
Acknowledgments
A big, wonderful thank-you to my editor, Serena, who helped me tremendously with this book and put up with the roller coaster my life and this book were on the past year! I would also like to thank the rest of the staff at Loose Id for their ongoing support and dedication to helping me get you the best book possible.
And a few words of thanks to all my traveling companions while in Paris: Mairan, Allison, Andrea, Rachael, Toufik, and Mom, and to all my French teachers, without whom this book wouldn’t have been possible. Many years of study and travel went into the research for such a beautiful, detailed setting. It took me a long time to finally set a book in the City of Light that I fell in love with long before I ever saw it in person.
Here’s to Seine boat tours and kisses at the base of the Eiffel Tower.
Chapter One
Last June
Pregnant? How the hell could she be pregnant? No way. These stupid French baby tests must be wrong, or maybe her French had suddenly left her and she couldn’t read the directions, because there was no way Mandy Lachlan could be pregnant. She was barely getting her shit together. She couldn’t be responsible for someone else’s life.
She’d only known Julien a few months. How could she have been so stupid? She’d let herself get caught up in the romance of a Paris fling. Damn Julien for seducing her. And damn her for letting him.
Mandy dropped her head into her hands, tears running down her face. What was she going to do? She liked Julien, the cocky twenty-year-old who’d swaggered into her class half an hour late and expected his cute smile and the sexy flop of dirty-blond hair would excuse him. Surely his high cheekbones, baby face, and bright green eyes had gotten him out of many sticky situations. She’d kicked him out immediately.
She still wasn’t sure what had made her do it. Perhaps it was his overall attitude. Or maybe because it was her first day teaching in a foreign country and she wanted to establish herself as a tough professor. But most likely, she’d done it because she’d been so irrationally attracted to him from the minute he stepped into the classroom.
Over the past few months, that hadn’t changed at all. He’d dropped her class, and as soon as she signed the paperwork, he’d asked her out. What idiocy had caused her to say yes, she still wasn’t sure. And now here she was, alone in her apartment and wondering what in the world she was going to do. She couldn’t tell Julien they were going to have a baby. Not yet. Maybe not ever. He’d freak.
Resigning herself to breaking up with him, Mandy wrapped up the pregnancy test and hid it in the bottom of the bathroom garbage can. She wiped away the tears and took a deep breath. Maybe one day she could love Julien, but she wasn’t going to let him throw his future away because she’d been stupid enough to get pregnant. Damn those birth control pills: 99.9 percent effective, and she had to be the .1 percent, damn it.
He was young and French. He’d get over her ending their fling. Because that was all it had been. It couldn’t be any more than that. She didn’t do serious relationships. Especially not with someone eight years her junior.
Mandy was so not ready to be a mother, but she didn’t really have a choice now.
The familiar creak of her apartment door announced Julien’s arrival. Mandy gulped in air, trying to calm her stampeding heart and jangled nerves. This wasn’t the first time she’d broken up with someone. So why did the thought fill her with such dread?
“MA BELLE,” JULIEN Chevalier called as he closed the door behind him and set the small bag of groceries on the counter. He loved that Mandy let him stay here. That she was letting him make this small Parisian apartment of hers into their home. They hadn’t been together long, but it was enough time for him to be sure. His African American goddess was the best thing to ever happen to him. He loved her. Head over heels was the English expression. There wasn’t really an equivalent idiom en français, except perhaps follement amoureux—crazily in love.
“Oui?” his beauty asked, emerging from the bedroom.
Julien paused to admire the sight of her coming toward him. A soft pink tank top hugged her curves, showing him a delicious expanse of ebony cleavage. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think her breasts had grown. They looked fuller and more delectable each time he caught a glimpse of them. She’d pulled her shoulder-length black hair back into a ponytail at the base of her neck, leaving the long line of dark skin from her chin to her collarbone exposed for his viewing pleasure.
She smiled, but it didn’t hold the same welcoming warmth it usually did. Mandy had astounded him from day one with her ability to live in the moment. He loved the passion she brought with her everywhere she went, both in and out of the bedroom. He would have loved to take a class with her, to see that passion in action at the Sorbonne, but one did not date one’s professor. Today the hurricane force that was his lover seemed diminished, and he wanted to know why.
As soon as he’d set his sights on seducing the hard-assed firecracker, he’d known he would have to drop her class. No one had ever proved so immune to his charms. She’d kicked him out of the lecture hall, verbally destroying him in perfectly pronounced French, with a few choice words and phrases in English. He’d fallen in love with her right then.
Julien walked across the space that separated them and wrapped his arms around his belle, Mandy. He kissed her cheek softly in greeting. “How was your day?” he asked.
“Bien.”
It didn’t sound as if her day had gone well, but he’d learned quickly that she would tell him something when she damned well pleased and not a moment before. He could try to weasel it out of her all he wanted, but it wouldn’t do him much good. Instead, he traced small
designs on the soft fabric of her shirt and kissed his way down her exposed neck.
“Bon. Well, I brought stuff home from the market to make duck à l’orange. It’ll be ready soon,” Julien said between light flicks of his tongue.
He loved the way they could switch back and forth between English and French with fluid ease. Normally they spoke a mix of Franglais, as Mandy called it.
“Okay. I’ll get out of your way. Let me know if you need anything.”
Mandy pulled away from his touch, apparently in no mood for his seduction techniques. She never remained aloof for long, but he would let her think she’d won this time, at least until dinner was over. Tonight was the night.
Chapter Two
“I love you. Ma belle, je t’aime,” Julien said.
Mandy stopped breathing. No. Not tonight. He could not tell her he loved her the night she had resolved to break up with him.
She stared at Julien across the small table in her kitchen and took a deep breath. Maybe she could postpone telling him. Maybe he would be excited about the baby instead of terrified like she was. He flicked his thumb across the back of her hand, eliciting a soft moan from her, despite her rising anxiety.
“That’s all you have to say?” He smiled.
He knew the way her body reacted to even his slightest touch. It had been hard enough to pull away from him in the kitchen and escape into the living room for a few more minutes of privacy while he cooked dinner. Through their delicious meal, Mandy had still been trying to find the right thing to say, and the way to say it. But now he went and did this.
“Julien, I—” She didn’t know if she could admit she might love him too. It had only been four months. How could he possibly think he loved her? And how could she be entertaining the idea that she felt the same? It was too soon. Too intense. The way it had been right from the start with him. But that was fine, because it was just a fling, she reminded herself. He’d been the only selfish thing Mandy had done for herself, besides moving to France.
Julien’s smile faltered. “Ma belle?”
Oh, God. For the first time, Julien’s green eyes held doubt. Her cocky young stud was gone, replaced by this uncertain young man. She couldn’t tell him she wanted out. But she couldn’t tell him about the baby either.
“I love you too,” she whispered. As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized they were true. At least she didn’t have to feel bad about that. She fought the urge to hold her hands over her belly, wondering just how long she could keep the secret from him.
It wasn’t fair. He deserved to know. But she was so mixed up about how she felt. She had to figure out what she wanted before she asked him what he wanted.
THANK GOD. JULIEN smiled and brought Mandy’s hand to his lips, kissing her palm, then tracing her love line with his tongue. When she moaned, he flicked his tongue against her skin again. Her breath hitched, and her amber eyes darkened to a deep bronze. He loved watching her response to his touch. Loved knowing he made her body react like this to him. She might be eight years older than him, but she didn’t usually hold it against him. And on those occasions when she made him feel too immature, he comforted himself with the knowledge that she would turn to liquid heat in his hands, beneath his body, in his mouth.
Even when she took complete control in the bedroom, he felt needed, cherished. Mandy let him tug her gently to her feet and lead her from the room. She’d refused wine at dinner, which wasn’t exactly odd for her, since she’d just started drinking it after moving to Paris, but she had been unusually quiet. He was determined to be patient, to let her come to him in time with whatever bothered her.
They walked down the short hallway to the bedroom they’d been sharing for two months, pretty much every moment they weren’t at the university. She’d looked so shocked when he’d made his declaration, he’d half expected her not to respond at all. But hearing Mandy tell him she loved him too had been worth the wait. He hadn’t told her sooner, knowing it would scare her off.
Julien released her hand, and Mandy licked her bottom lip. She climbed onto the bed, leaning back and watching him as he slowly undressed. Nibbling on the pad of her thumb, Mandy twirled the finger of her other hand, signaling for Julien to turn around. He could feel her hot gaze on every inch of his skin as he showed off for her. God, he loved it when she treated him like her very own boy toy in the bedroom.
“Very nice,” she said.
He turned to face her once again and crawled onto the bed, holding himself inches above her. Leaning down to kiss her, he let his body slide into the cradle of hers. Mandy wrapped her arms around his torso, her legs circling his waist. Julien thrust his bare cock against the soft fabric of her cotton shorts.
When he licked along the seam of her tan-and-pink lips, she opened willingly to him. He slipped his tongue inside, plundering. Determined to show her the truth of his words, he forced his body under control. He ran his hands in light caresses over her until she groaned his name.
She pushed him away and sat up, yanking off her clothes, and he laughed.
“Well, someone’s eager.”
She stuck out her tongue in an appropriately Mandy gesture. “Horny. Now shut up and make love to me,” she ordered, grabbing a fistful of his hair and pulling his lips to hers. She nibbled his bottom lip, pulling it into her mouth and sucking gently. He moaned, turning with her still wrapped around him and lying on his back.
“Yes, ma’am,” he whispered against her mouth.
Mandy followed him down, delivering hot, wet kisses to his jawline and neck. She straddled his body, her hands tunneling into his hair and tugging against his scalp. He jerked with the sensation and angled himself toward her entrance. Mandy trailed her fingers down the sides of his face to his shoulders and sat up, inching down the length of him. Pinning him to the bed with her hands at his shoulders, she rode him hard. The feel of her bare skin against his made him wild. After those first few times, they’d gotten tested, Mandy had gone on the pill, and they’d done away with the condoms.
With each thrust of her hips, pleasure shot through him. He brought his hands up to cup her breasts. She hissed, and her sheath clenched around him.
“Damn,” she said, gasping.
“Hmm?” He couldn’t make actual words form.
“Nothing…just really sensitive.”
He rubbed one nipple, and she cried out.
“Do that again,” she said.
Watching her face closely to gauge her reaction, he flicked her taut peak with the tip of his short fingernail. Mandy screamed and slammed her body down on his. He shuddered. If she didn’t come soon, he was liable to leave her in the dust. She lifted herself almost completely off his shaft and shifted forward, thrusting her breasts more fully into his palms. He played with her nipples, merciless now that he knew how sensitive she was.
She’d never responded this way to nipple stimulation before, but he wasn’t going to question it.
“Julien,” she keened, spasming out of control.
He left her nipples in favor of gripping her solid dark hips and thrusting up hard into her pulsing sheath until he found his release.
Chapter Three
One month later
“I’m pregnant.” Mandy blurted the words, unable to keep them contained another second. Shit.
Julien’s eyes lit up. “Not exactly the response I was hoping for, but I’ll take it.”
She’d just about managed to come up with enough courage to tell him she was pregnant tonight, but Julien, in his ever-endearing way to screw up her plans, now knelt before her with an engagement ring in his hand. He looked surprisingly pleased by the news she’d dreaded telling him every day for the past four weeks. Had he known? Her tongue tasted like ash as she assessed his face. He looked happy but not shocked. And suddenly it made sense. He knew. That was why he’d proposed.
“Just to be clear, that wasn’t a no, was it?”
She shook her head.
“But it wasn’t a yes
either.”
She wasn’t sure. If he’d asked her just because of the baby, how could she say yes? She should be sure about something like this before she agreed. Marriage was a big deal. And it was forever in her book. No way would she rush into it. Julien deserved more from her than a maybe, but she didn’t know what to say.
She bit her lip, and he sighed, taking her hand in his. “I love you, Mandy. And I am so, so happy we’re going to have a baby.” He kissed her hand and set the opened ring box on the table beside her. “But let’s take this one step at a time.”
How was it he knew exactly what to say to her? Maybe he hadn’t known about the baby after all. Did it matter? If he loved her, truly loved her, it shouldn’t matter if he knew before he popped the question. She looped her hair behind her ear with her free hand, unsure if she could trust his love. Unsure if she trusted her own feelings.
“Okay,” she said, barely able to speak through her dry throat and desert mouth.
He stood up and released her hand to reclaim his seat. “So, how long have you known you were pregnant?”
“Almost four weeks.”
He pressed his lips into a thin line, his low eyebrows drawing closer together. Guilt swirled within her, and she knew she’d hurt him by keeping such a secret. She just hadn’t been able to worry about what he would say and what she felt all at once. It had taken her the bulk of the past month to realize that while she might be terrified at the prospect of motherhood, she wasn’t going to abandon her baby. It was clear Julien wasn’t in any hurry to leave either, judging by the gold engagement ring.
“I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. It’s just that I never planned on this.”
“On what? Getting pregnant?”
“Any of it. Finding you, falling for you—that was hard enough for me to adjust to. I was supposed to be here living my life and figuring out what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be. Mother and wife were not at the top of my list.”
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