There was still some tension left between us from a few nights before when I had broken down in tears, but I tried my best not to bring anything that happened that night back to attention. I figured that I would wait until we were back in California to go over the contract again with him. Maybe I would have a clearer mind by then. Maybe the romantic illusion of being in Paris clouded my better judgment of falling in love with a guy like Victor.
As we walked out of the hotel, I was beginning to feel a little bit more apprehensive. He made it clear to me that this was my “debut” at his side. If it went well then I would be expected to be at his side at social events more often. If it ended up badly, well, I didn’t even want to think of how furious he would be if I embarrassed him in front of these important people.
The party was held at a chateau on the outskirts of Paris. There were already a ton of people there when we showed up; many of them lingered outside by a large fountain with a stone sculpture of the goddess Venus at the very top, pouring water out of the vase.
I stopped to admire it. “I knew you’d like that,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper. “But don’t act so slack-jawed at everything, like you’ve just walked out of some backroad country. Act like you belong here with everyone else.”
“I will,” I said, not sure whether or not to fall back to calling him “Sir” rather than “Victor”. At times I felt like he chose to forget our little moment of lovemaking that night.
As we began our path up the steps to the white, French home, an elderly gentleman with a much younger looking woman walked up to us, stopping us along the way. “Why Mr. Draper, it’s been a while! You’re looking more and more like your father each day!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Victor grit his teeth before turning towards the old man. Uh oh, this couldn’t be good. I watched in the background with interest. “Ian Monaghan!” Victor exclaimed, his voice sounding tight. “It’s been a while. How have you been?”
“Well, you know. It’s tough being so far away from home, especially when I’m stuck in the wettest, coldest part of the UK. Scotland is like hell frozen over. It’ll be good when I move my company to someplace warmer.”
The young woman hit the man playfully on the arm. “Mr. Monaghan, have you forgotten that I’m from Scotland?” she said teasingly.
“Nope, not at all,” Ian said, giving me a wink. I suddenly felt uncomfortable. “Who’s this lovely woman you got here, Draper?”
“This is Dove. She’s been an acquaintance of mine for a while now. Dove, this is Ian Monaghan, CEO of OceanBlue Airways.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I told the man politely. To my surprise, he reached out, took my hand and kissed the top of it lightly.
“The pleasure’s all mine,” he said. I jumped as two strong hands squeezed my shoulders. I felt Victor’s body looming just behind mine.
“Ian, you sleazebag,” the woman said, pulling him away from me. I let out a breath of relief as Victor’s grip on me lessened.
“It’s a bit cold out so we’re going to head in,” Victor said as he started to turn away from the peculiar couple. “Perhaps I’ll see you later on then.” His voice was strained.
Ian gave us a small salute as he and the woman continued up the steps to the house.
“Ugh,” Victor muttered to himself.
For a moment it seemed like he had forgotten I was still standing there. “Are you alright?” I asked hesitantly.
“I loathe that man. He used to work for my company while my father was still alive. He was one of the people who trained me when I first started working there. He would suck up to my father while at the same time belittling me in front of him in the hopes that my father would give him the company some day.” Victor clenched and unclenched his fists before finding my hand to hold. We started walking up the steps again. “Thankfully my father was smart enough to see through his deceit and ended up firing him. He now works for a sad airline company with terrible services located in the middle of nowhere. And now he’s got himself a gold digger too, it looks like.”
“Karma’s a bitch,” I said. I wasn’t sure where I heard those words before, but it seemed appropriate for the situation.
Victor surprised me by laughing. “Yeah, it is.” He squeezed my hand.
After mingling with a handful of people, whose names I had already forgotten, Victor pulled me into a corner. He looked quickly over my head and cursed over my breath. “What happened...?” I began to ask, but he cut me short.
“Could you get some champagne for the two of us, Dove?”
I opened my mouth to ask another question, but suddenly thought better of it. I was back to being his submissive. There wasn’t anywhere in the contract that told me I could question my Dominant. “Yes, Sir,” I said quietly.
I walked through a throng of people to get to the bar, and the entire time I was praying that none of them would want to stop me and ask questions. Too late. A middle aged man was idling around the bar, and seemed to welcome my presence as I walked up next to him. “May I have two glasses of champagne,” I asked the bartender shyly. Fortunately for me, the bartender spoke enough English to know what I requested. The middle aged man held his own glass of champagne; he leaned into my line of sight and gave me a small wave with the glass still in his hand.
“I haven’t seen you around here before,” he said to me jovially. I could tell the alcohol he was drinking was starting to get to his head. I began to look for my escape.
“Oh, uh... I’m with Victor Draper.”
The man’s eyebrows rose at the mention of Victor’s name. “Oh, I see. Victor has got himself a new one to carry around. Not so bad looking either.” Did he know I was still standing there listening to him, or did he think he was talking to himself? I made a move to walk away from him, but he put an arm out, stopping me. “What’s your name?”
“D-dove.” The bartender had already given me my drinks and I was now standing there awkwardly, not knowing how to end the conversation at all.
“Dove,” the man’s breath reeked of vodka as he leaned closer to me. “And what is it you do, Dove?”
What do I do? I fuck Victor Draper, I wanted to tell him. That would at least make him stop talking. “I’m an artist. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to be taking these drinks back to Victor.” Before the drunken man got too close, I was able to shimmy around him. I quickly walked back through the crowd, not looking back, hoping that he didn’t have the nerve to follow me back towards Victor.
When I returned with the drinks, I glanced behind me, relieved to see I had not been followed. I turned back to Victor who was a little further down the room and noticed a woman standing next to him. She was very pretty, wearing a short, blood red dress that showed off her long, smooth legs. The color of her dress contrasted beautifully with her dark hair that draped like wet paint over her slim shoulders. She had her hand on Victor’s arm in a familiar gesture, as the two of them seemed to be deep in conversation. I stood a few steps away, suddenly feeling incredibly awkward and not really sure how to approach them, or if Victor even wanted me to.
After a few seconds, the woman noticed me. She walked over and took a glass of champagne from my hand. Did she think I was one of the servers? My face turned red, but I didn’t protest. Wordlessly, I handed the other glass to Victor. To my surprise, he wrapped an arm possessively around my waist and pulled me close to my side, forcing the woman to back up a bit to give us some room. “This is Annabel Harris,” he told me. “Annabel, this is Dove.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” I told Annabel, trying to keep my voice from sounding too wary. It was the first time since that night at the dinner party at Victor’s party that I saw another woman act familiar around Victor. I already wasn’t too fond of her.
The woman raised an eyebrow at me, assessing me from head to toe. Okay, so now I knew she didn’t like me either. Fantastic.
“Anyway,” she said, turning her body back towards Victor as tho
ugh she was trying to leave me out of their conversation. She gave Victor a sly smile and completely ignored me.
“What was it you wanted to tell me, Annabel,” Victor’s voice was cautious.
“Oh, you’re going to hate me for this, Vic, but I thought I should warn you.”
Vic? I grinded my teeth down hard.
“Warn me about what?” He sounded as though he were coaxing a small child. Perhaps he didn’t have any high standards for her either.
“I wanted to show you a certain someone who had just arrived a few minutes ago.” She pointed to a tall woman in another group on the other side of the room.
Sure, she could’ve been pointing to any of those people talking in the group, but I knew it had to have been her. She was tall, and had light blonde hair that was braided and pinned around the crown of her head like a halo. She wore a shapeless pale cream dress that stopped just above her knees in a 1920s flapper style. She was absolutely, completely, and utterly a beautiful woman and the sight of her cherubic red lips and wide blue eyes was enough to make feel envious and awestruck. She looked like an actress from one of those black and white silent movies.
“Wow, she’s gorgeous,” I couldn’t keep myself from muttering.
“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it Victor.” Annabel couldn’t mask the glee from her voice.
When Victor turned to the direction the woman was pointing, his grip on me suddenly tightened. I had to hold back from yelping in pain. Victor cursed profusely under his breath. Before I could say anything he turned, steering me straight towards the exit. “We’re leaving.”
“Why?” I was practically stumbling down the stairs of the chateau to try to keep up with his pace.
“I don’t want to be in the same room as that woman.”
Curiosity got the better of me. I glanced back at the beautiful, tall woman who was gradually fading off in the distance behind us. “Who is she?” I asked.
“My ex-wife.”
Chapter Twelve
Victor guided me across the ballroom toward the entrance to the chateau in a flurry of quick steps, his hand steering at my lower back. All around us, small groups of well-dressed people were mingling, champagne flutes in hand. It was hard to miss her and impossible to ignore her. She stood above most of the room—she was nearly as tall as Victor in her heels—and her radiant blonde hair hovered over a perfect hourglass-shaped body. She wore an elegant cream dress with intricate bead work all around, and a beautiful blue pendant hung around her neck to top the outfit off. Every male gaze in the room converged on her presence.
So that was Victor’s ex-wife.
The jewels around my neck that had made me feel so gorgeous moments earlier now felt heavy and fraudulent. I felt like a phoney next to this woman, who oozed class and beauty in a way foreign not just to me, but to almost everyone else in the room. If that was the past I was competing with in Victor’s heart, I was doomed to fail. My heart sank like a stone just looking at her.
Victor dragged me out of the chateau and into the cool night air toward the limo parked in the circular drive out front. Shuffling so quickly in heels was beginning to make my feet hurt. I was tempted to take my shoes off and walk in my bare feet at this rate, but we were almost to the vehicle.
Questions swarmed my mind. Who was she? What had happened? The fierce look on Victor’s face told me that he didn’t want to talk about it. I bit my lip as I thought about his ex-wife, with her beautiful, classy appearance and perfect demeanor. She had held herself with absolute confidence at the party. An unsettling feeling coiled in my stomach as I thought about my jealousy. I had just entered this high-society world and here his ex-wife looked like she owned it.
It didn’t surprise me that he had been with other women in his life. The expert way he made love to me was proof enough of that. And with his fashion sense, good looks, and irresistibly attractive "don't mess with me" attitude, it would be crazy for women not to be attracted to him. It was just the fact that it had to be this woman. She was too perfect. I thought of our lessons in manners in the restaurant. I’m sure she didn’t need that. She probably taught him some things.
We got to the limo and, without a word, Victor opened the door and hopped in, not even waiting for the driver to open it for him. I followed close behind. He reached over me to pull the door shut as soon as I sat down.
After a few moments, he realized the driver was not in the front seat. He lunged over to the other side of the limo and and threw the door open to peek his head out. “What’s the problem?” he barked. The anger in his voice startled me; I froze in my seat as though he would turn towards me and breathe fire. His stormy blue eyes were blazing as his jaw ground tightly.
The limo driver’s eyes peered up over the opened car door. “I am sorry, monsieur,” he said in a heavy French accent. “The front left tire is flat. You must wait until I install a spare.”
Victor closed his eyes and inhaled sharply, then exhaled and sat back in his seat. When he opened his eyes, they were fixed dead in front of him, seemingly boring a hole through the car’s front seat. I didn’t even think of speaking.
“I am fixing it right now, monsieur. It will take just a little bit more time. I am sorry.” With that, the door closed.
A moment later, I heard someone tapping on Victor’s side of the car. Victor exhaled sharply again and glanced out the window.
“Victor, is that you?” a voice outside asked. It was small and sweet.
Victor grimaced before turning his head towards the window and lowering it a crack. “Evelyn,” he said pleasantly. He glanced at me. “Stay here,” he whispered.
He got out, and I craned my neck around just in time to see him hug the same gorgeous, blonde woman I had seen earlier. She was standing next to a young man around my age. He was slightly shorter than Victor with dark brown hair and pretty green eyes. The smile on his face looked plastered on and perfect.
“What brings you to France?” Evelyn asked, still holding on to Victor’s hand. Victor pulled it away firmly and smiled.
“Last minute trip. Business and pleasure, of course. I had some things to take care of in Paris."
Yeah, like making me his proper plaything. I was more than a little bit jealous knowing that this woman had past connections with Victor. Even if they weren’t married anymore, they would still have a bond, a history together. I didn’t just not have a history with Victor, I didn’t have much of a history at all. Not that I could remember, at least. Or cared to. What was Victor like when they were married?
“I don’t think I ever properly introduced you to Timothy,” Evelyn said. Two dimples appeared on her cheeks as she smiled. She was such a natural, I couldn’t even tell how much she was faking this cordiality. If at all. “Timothy, this is Victor Draper.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Draper,” Timothy said. Victor nodded and gave his hand a solid shake. I thought of Victor’s powerful hands and wondered just how firm that shake was. A cell phone rang, and Timothy reached into his tuxedo jacket’s inner pocket. “Excuse me,” he said politely. He walked back toward the chateau.
Victor watched Timothy walk for a moment until he was out of earshot. “So, you got married again.”
Evelyn glanced down at the diamond ring on her finger and smiled. “He’s a good man. He treats me well.”
Victor shifted his weight and leaned against the door, his back blocking my view of Evelyn and her view of me. So he didn't have plans to introduce me to her. I knew he didn’t have an obligation to, but I still felt tears beginning to well up and had to fight them back. If he saw me crying, it would further the distance he had been carefully maintaining. I couldn’t let him see how much this hurt.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said flatly.
“We should go out to lunch while you’re here.” Her voice was still so sweet.
“That won’t work this trip. I’m flying out tomorrow. Maybe some other time.”
“Victor,” she said, “are you avoiding me?�
�� I could hear the first note of unpleasantness in her voice. “Despite what happened, I don't want any bad blood between us.”
“Evelyn, of course I’m not avoiding you. The past is the past.” His voice had an edge I had never heard before. The control in every syllable was off-putting. “You put it in a box, lock it up, and forget it.”
“Forget it? We had so many great times, we loved each other!”
He shrugged against the glass of the limo door. “Never crosses my mind.”
“So that’s it.” Her voice drained of any personality at all. “Like it never happened?”
“Doesn’t matter. There’s always another pretty young thing.”
Was that what I was? Another in a series of pretty young things for Victor’s pleasure? Was that how he looked at Evelyn? I couldn’t imagine how anyone could compartmentalize like that. Except me, I guess. My past was a locked box. But that was different, I couldn’t open mine.
Before Evelyn could reply, the limo driver walked up to Victor. “The tire is fixed monsieur; we can leave any time.”
“I’m leaving, Evelyn. Good to see you.”
A pause. “Likewise,” she said, coolly. I heard heels tapping quickly away and I turned in time to watch her heading in the direction of the chateau, probably for more champagne.
The door opened and Victor slid back into the passenger seat. He let out a long breath. I stared at him silently as he massaged his temples.
I stared at him like that for a couple minutes, but he wouldn’t look back at me. Finally, he broke. “Her name is Evelyn.” He still wouldn’t meet my eyes. “We were married for a few years.”
“What happened?”
He finally turned his head so that I could see his profile. His lips were set in a stern line before he spoke. “She left me. I was working too much, not paying attention to her. Looks like she’s found someone who will.” He stared at a patch of the leather seat next to him for a few seconds, then turned his eyes back to the front of the limo.
Billionaire Erotic Romance Boxed Set: 7 Steamy Full-Length Novels Page 75