by Alix Nichols
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2016
A Kindle Scout selection
Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
About the Author
Chapter One
Rock Bottom
~ ~ ~
A Woman’s Guide to Perfection
Guideline # 1
The Perfect Woman doesn’t do one-night stands.
Rationale: One-night stands (ONS) are always disappointing, often hazardous, and invariably awkward.
A word of caution: If you are a frequent ONSer, shut this book right now and give it to someone who may benefit from it. You will never be a Perfect Woman. Ever.
Permissible exception: A prolonged dry spell between boyfriends or a highly stressful life event.
Damage control: (a) make sure the sex is safe, (b) make sure your person is safe, (c) leave or kick him or her out before breakfast, (d) wash your body squeaky clean, (e) scrub the memory of the episode from your brain.
Pitfalls to avoid: (a) giving him or her your phone number, (b) telling your best friend about it, (c) thinking that a one-night stand could ever lead to a relationship.
~ ~ ~
Amanda stared at the typed letter. Neatly strung words zoomed in and out of focus as their meaning sank in. Mademoiselle Roussel . . . I regret to inform you . . . with immediate effect.
She swallowed hard and slipped the letter into her purse.
Most of her colleagues would cheer at the news. They’d rush into each other’s offices and say, “Did you hear? Viper Tongue got the sack! Serves her right.” Some of them might send around an e-mail invite for a celebratory drink. Others would just shrug and say good riddance.
Would anyone feel sorry for her? She furrowed her brow. Karine would. And maybe Paul from accounting. Perhaps even Sylvie from marketing, unless she was on meds again and not feeling anything at all.
But none of it really mattered.
What did matter was that the end of the world was upon her. Her personal, localized Armageddon had arrived in an innocent-looking envelope with the Energie NordSud logo on it.
Amanda grabbed her handbag and marched out the door. Keeping her back as straight as she could, she strode through the hallway, down the marble staircase, and out the main entrance.
Eyes on the gate, one foot in front of the other.
She nodded to the security guard and passed through the turnstile.
“Mademoiselle Roussel?” the guard asked, looking at his computer screen and then at her.
“Yes?”
“I must collect your access card.”
“I’ll come back next week to gather my things,” she said as flatly as she could, handing him her card.
He nodded. “We’ll let you in. Just make sure your visit is supervised by Monsieur Barre.”
“Of course.”
Amanda turned on her heel and marched away, hoping the guard hadn’t seen her grimace. Truth was she’d rather donate her fine glass paperweight and Bodum French press to the company than ask Julien Barre—the bastard who’d fired her—to allow her to clean out her desk.
And have him breathe down her neck while she was doing it.
In the métro car, Amanda’s eyebrows rose at the number of vacant seats before she remembered it was only three in the afternoon—the earliest she’d left the office in four years. As the train stations passed before her eyes, a plan formed in her mind. She’d get home and locate her father’s Swiss Army knife. Then she’d down a few shots of vodka, return to the office, kill Julien, and kill herself.
It sounded like an excellent plan.
Twenty minutes later, she pushed open the door to her apartment and went straight to the minibar, praying she hadn’t imagined the bottle of vodka hiding behind her expensive wines.
Bingo!
There it was—cold to the touch and as real as the sharp pain in her heart.
She filled a glass with the transparent liquid and drained it. The beverage burned her tongue. Amanda yelled out a battle cry, jumped up and down a few times while punching the air, and poured herself another glass. She set it on the coffee table and retrieved a tub of chocolate ice cream from the freezer. With her glass in one hand and the ice cream in the other, she kicked off her shoes and settled into her creamy leather sofa—the one she’d bought on credit, like almost everything else in her stylish little apartment.
By the time she finished her second glass, Amanda’s diabolical plan had begun to lose its appeal. Julien Barre deserved to die, for sure, but murder was a messy business.
And suicide—even more so.
She pictured herself on the floor, blood gushing from her punctured stomach and trickling from her mouth.
Ugh.
Besides, what if she failed to finish Julien off? Or herself? After all, the biggest creature she’d ever assassinated had been a cockroach. The act had been so disgusting it gave her nightmares for weeks.
Fine. No killing.
But then what? She couldn’t just sit here and do nothing—she was a fighter. Amanda clenched her fists and willed her vodka-soaked gray matter to hatch up a plan B. As soon as her brain obliged, she stomped to the bedroom and dug her crimson femme fatale lipstick from her makeup case. She shoved her most elegant evening gown, a tee, and a pair of panties into an overnight bag and rushed out of her apartment.
Plan B was insane, but it was carnage-free.
A few meters down the street, Amanda withdrew as much cash as the ATM would give her, and hailed a cab.
“Where to, madame?” the driver asked as she slumped into the backseat.
“Gare Saint-Lazare, please.” She pulled out her phone and added on an impulse, “I’m going to Deauville.”
“A beach weekend?” He smiled into the mirror.
“Nope. A night of gambling at the casino,” she said, flashing him her brightest smile.
The driver’s eyebrows shot up before he returned his gaze to the road. He didn’t offer a comment.
Amanda sat back and tapped “blackjack rules” into the search engine on her phone.
She had three hours to master the game.
* * *
By the time Amanda stepped into her hotel room, it was getting dark. She switched on the lights and surveyed her room.
Nice.
It had better be, considering the price she was paying for it. Royal Barrière was one of the town’s best hotels, as grand and expensive as its name suggested. Was this reasonable? Certainly not. But tonight wasn’t about reasonable. It was about winning big.
Besides, the thought of staying in a seedy hotel gave her goose bumps. She was no longer a discount-eligible, backpack-carrying student. She was twenty-eight—too old for seedy hotels. And, thankfully, not yet broke enough. Mind you, if everything wen
t according to plan tonight, she wouldn’t be broke at all.
The plan was simple, as all genius ideas were: exploit her beginner’s luck.
Amanda was a gambling virgin, so new she still had her price tags. She’d never set foot in a casino or tried a slot machine. She’d never even played cards with friends.
Seeing as she had no friends.
She shook her head, brushing that thought away.
I do have friends. A whole bunch of them—because four counted as a bunch, right? And it was four more than she’d had ten years ago in her fat-padded, acne-decorated teens. Thank God, those days were gone. Now she was as slim, peach-skinned, and honey-blonde as the next self-respecting Parisian it girl. And, most importantly, she’d become the picture-perfect young lady her mother could parade in front of her friends.
As for Amanda’s own friends, there was Karine, the PA from work who qualified thanks to the number of bitching sessions they’d shared over the years. Then there was Jeanne, a bartender, and Jeanne’s fiancé, Mat, both of whom happened to be best friends with Amanda’s ex. And finally, Patrick, business partner of said ex.
Amanda frowned at the annoying realization that three of her four friends were the legacy of her ex-boyfriend Rob.
Note to self: diversify my social circle.
She donned her strappy gown and refreshed her makeup. Then she grabbed her Chanel purse with her ID, cash, and the cocktail voucher the concierge had given her and headed to the famed Deauville Casino that adjoined her hotel.
Ten minutes into the game, Amanda began to suspect that her two-hour crash course on the train might have been insufficient. But it didn’t matter because her beginner’s luck should kick in any moment now.
She surveyed the players at her table to divert her mind from worrying.
What a motley crew!
Across from her sat an elderly Spanish couple. They wore matching T-shirts and smiled simultaneously, flashing their dentures. Next to them, two forty-something British women spoke to each other in an incomprehensible English dialect. A middle-aged Frenchman with greasy hair and darting eyes sat beside them. Amanda’s neighbor to the left was a surgically enhanced bimbo of unknown provenance doused with a nauseating perfume and clad in a dress that was three sizes too small.
But the most remarkable person at the table was Amanda’s neighbor to the right, whom she’d nicknamed Obsidian Eyes. In his late twenties, tall, swarthy, well built, and well dressed, the man was easy on the eyes. He wore a faux casual linen suit and played with the easy confidence of someone who knew what he was doing.
Amanda began to fidget with the strap of her watch, annoyed that the table blocked her view of his footwear. So many things could go wrong with the shoes! They could be synthetic or patent leather, have rubber soles, be coated in dirt or dust, sport pointy toes or toes that were too rounded . . . The list of potential offenses was long, and every one of them was unforgivable even with mitigating circumstances.
She was a bit of shoe fetishist.
Well, maybe a lot.
Overtaken by curiosity, Amanda discreetly pushed a card to the edge of the table until it fell to the floor. She bent down to pick it up and checked out the hunk’s shoes so she could add him to her huge “discard” pile. But, to her surprise, Obsidian Eyes wore fine leather loafers that were flawless.
Probably Italian.
Handmade, without a doubt.
She sat up and studied his face again, perplexed. He had such fine eyes—intelligent and framed with extra thick lashes. The man was undeniably handsome, but not in a classic European way. Come to think of it, handsome wasn’t the adjective she’d use to describe him. It didn’t do him justice. It was too common, too weak. . . while he was kind of stunning.
His complexion and features held a touch of something exotic, faintly alien—something that kept her stealing glances at him whenever he turned his attention to his cards. Was it his wavy, jet-black hair, mesmerizing eyes, or chiseled jawline? Or maybe his exquisite eyebrows that made her think of a raven’s wings? Whatever that je ne sais quoi was, it made him look more than ordinary. And hot.
The man was a blazing wildfire on legs.
As if his looks weren’t enough, Obsidian Eyes played exceptionally well. Forty minutes into the game, his stacks of colorful chips had doubled while everyone else’s—including Amanda’s—had melted away.
That thought snapped her back into reality. Panicked, Amanda raised her eyes to the high ceiling of the casino.
Please, I can’t lose.
She was gambling with her meager savings—half of it, to be exact. If the Supreme Being above intended to activate her beginner’s luck, now was the time.
“Newbie?” Obsidian Eyes asked, his gaze never shifting from the deck in the dealer’s hands.
He spoke French like a native. A slight Midi accent, maybe? A bit like Jeanne’s, but less pronounced.
Amanda looked around, unsure whom he was talking to.
Obsidian Eyes finally lifted his gaze from the cards and gave her a panty-dropping smile.
She arched an eyebrow. “Does it show?”
“Mhmm.”
Ooh, that smile again.
The dealer held up a card for her, and she started reaching for it when she noticed Obsidian Eyes give a quick shake of his head. She pulled back.
And won the hand.
“Thank you,” she mouthed to her unexpected mentor.
He gave her a small nod.
She followed his discreet instructions for two more hands and won both. The evening was beginning to look up.
The dealer bowed and ceded his place to a good-looking young woman with sleek auburn hair smoothed back into the world’s tightest bun.
She greeted the players and began to shuffle the cards.
Obsidian Eyes turned to Amanda. “Why blackjack? Beginners usually prefer the slots or roulette.”
“I don’t know . . .Too passive for me, I guess.”
He nodded. “I avoid them, too.”
“So you know what I mean.”
“Yes. But that’s not my only reason.”
She cocked her head. “No?”
“The slots are twice as costly to players than the table games, and with roulette, too much depends on chance.”
Amanda smirked. “Isn’t that the case with all the games?”
“Not blackjack, if played right.”
“Let me guess—you play it right.”
He glanced at the dealer, who was engrossed in shuffling cards. “I know a trick or two.”
One of the Brits stage-whispered to the other, “I hope he’ll show me some of his tricks tonight.” She paused before adding even louder, “In my room.”
Both women burst out laughing.
Obsidian Eyes shifted uncomfortably and looked down at his hands, pretending he hadn’t heard the saucy remark.
The man with greasy hair whispered something to the plastic bimbo.
She didn’t acknowledge him. The woman was too busy multitasking. With her chest heaving, she stared at Obsidian Eyes and stroked her neck. Every five seconds she licked her lips and then pouted.
But the black-eyed hunk was oblivious to her onslaught. He turned to Amanda again. “I’m taking a break to stretch my legs.”
“Er . . . OK.”
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I have a bad feeling about this dealer.”
“Oh.” She pushed her chips closer together like he had done and stood. “I’ll do the same, then.”
“What brings you to Deauville Casino tonight?” he asked as they strolled between the tables and observed the goings-on.
After a second’s hesitation, she said, “I’m writing a book about gamblers.”
“Participant observation, huh?”
Her eyebrows rose. “What do you know about participant observation?”
“Yeah, well, I need something to help me sleep when I get to my room at three in the morning.” He shrugged. “Reading a few pages of Tri
stes Tropiques works better than any sleeping pill I’ve tried.”
She giggled. “I’m passionate about cultural anthropology, but I could never finish that book.”
“I like psychology books better,” he said. “They’re fun to read, and the info in them is useful in my trade.”
“Oh?”
He nodded. “Especially books like Cialdini’s Influence and the ones on how to read body language.”
“I see.”
“Hey, how about a glass of champagne on the terrace after I’ve won my target amount?” He gave her an innocent smile. A little too innocent.
“I have a cocktail voucher,” she blurted before she could stop herself.
Did I just accept his invitation?
Oh, well. What harm could a drink do?
His face contorted in exaggerated disgust. “Trust me, you don’t want their free cocktail unless you’re a gustative masochist.”
She put her hands on her hips. “I was given a free voucher, and I intend to use it.”
“OK, OK. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She tilted her head to the side. “You said ‘my target amount’ earlier. Are you that good?”
“In all modesty . . . yes. But my target amount is also reasonable. And I have a spending threshold, too. When I reach it before I’ve won my target amount, I always stop.”
“How very rational for a gambler!”
“I’m full of surprises, in case you haven’t noticed.” He gave her an appreciative look. “And I suspect that so are you, ma belle.”
“When did I become your belle?”
“Oh, it’s just a placeholder until you tell me your name.”
Should I?
“So, what’s your name, ma belle?”
“Am . . . elie. And yours?”
“Kes.”
“What kind of name is Kes?”
“A Gypsy name.”
“Like, a real Traveler Gypsy?”
“As authentic as they come.”
“Ah.” She raised her chin. “That explains it.”
“Explains what, Amelie?”
“That you make me think of Tarzan.”
“Really?”
“Not that you aren’t dashing in your suit, but you look like someone who was born to ride horses bare-chested.”