A whoosh of breeze blew Pearl’s thick blonde hair, making it billow behind her like swathes of gold, and in that moment I took her hand and got down on one knee. Her lips quivered into a knowing smile.
“My knight,” she said. “The name Chevalier does you justice.”
Still on one knee, I kissed her hand and said, “Pearl Robinson, will you do me the honor of being my damsel, of sharing the Chevalier name, of being my wife?”
Tears sprang to her eyes and she didn’t answer. Was she about to reject me? I asked again, third time lucky, “Pearl, will you marry me?”
“I thought you’d forgotten, gone back on your word,” she whispered, choking back tears.
I stood up and laid my arms about her shaking shoulders. Note, she still hadn’t bloody well answered my question! “What do you mean?” I said bewildered.
“You asked me to marry you when we were making love and I said ‘Yes,’ and then you didn’t mention it again. I thought you’d changed your mind.”
I laughed. “Oh, Pearl, what am I going to do with you?” And then I put it to her once more, “Pearl Robinson, “Will you marry me, goddamn it?”
She squeezed me close and I smelled the sweetness of her hair, her breath. She leaned back and I kissed her in the hollow of her neck, on her lips, and on the tears that were flowing down her cheeks. “Of course I will, you fool,” she told me with a little laugh, “I’ve wanted to marry you forever.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have a ring,” I said. “Things are a little tight with HookedUp, right now. Do you mind waiting?”
She wrinkled her nose and gazed at me, love dancing in her blue eyes, “I’d be happy with a ring made of tin as long as the world knew that I belonged to you. And as for HookedUp going through a rough patch? I make enough money for us both to live on. We won’t starve, don’t worry.”
You see, that’s why I wanted to marry this girl. She didn’t care about money. She was genuine and true. She did not show even a flicker of disappointment about not being given a ring.
I led her back to our table and poured us both some more champagne. I looked over to the saxophone player and gave him a quiet nod. He began to play Manhattan Serenade, and then the waiter brought out a tall, tiered cake, covered in fresh white lilies.
“Cake?” Pearl exclaimed. “And such a grand one? This beautiful evening has me speechless.”
“It’s not just any cake,” I said with a wink. “Here, I’ll cut you a slice.”
“Really, I’m sure it’s delicious but I don’t think I can eat anything more,” she said, patting her stomach. “Can we do a doggie bag?” she half joked.
“What? And let Rex get his chops all over this masterpiece? Just a small slice,” I insisted, cutting a large chunk.
“Really, I couldn’t, I’m so full…what on earth is that inside…it looks like…Alexandre, what the…?”
I pulled out a small red box from inside her slice of cake, licking the icing from my fingers and wiping the box with a napkin. “Open it,” I said. “Go on, it won’t bite.”
Pearl gingerly took the box and bit her bottom lip in concentration, bracing herself—maybe for a ring made of tin. She looked at me, and then at the box again. She opened it and gasped. It was almost the sort of gasp she made when she came—blown away, as if in shock, as if that sort of thing could never happen to her.
“You like it?” I asked with a sideways grin. How could she not? But then again, after what I’d said about HookedUp being in trouble, she might have imagined this ring was from a Cracker Jack box. It was so flashy, so ridiculously sparkly that it could have been fake.
“Alexandre Chevalier,” she said. “Alexandre Chevalier…what am I going to do with you?”
“You’re going to marry me,” I said.
16
In the next couple of months that followed, I got to know a new facet of Pearl’s nature: her stubbornness.
She was refusing virtually every offer of mine.
“Pearl,” I said, as we strolled through Central Park with Rex, golden orange leaves falling before our feet, “please be reasonable. See sense. I don’t want to do a bloody pre-nup.” I took her by the hand and stood in front of her. She needed to look into my eyes. She wanted to sign this unromantic contract, stating that if we were to ever split up, she would take nothing that wasn’t hers before the wedding.
She sighed and said, “Alexandre, I’m just being practical. You’ve worked so hard for your money.”
“I’ve worked hard so I can share it with someone special, have a family, live a real life. I don’t give a shit about the money itself.”
“Ah, you say that, but what about your fancy classic cars, your house in Provence that needs looking after, your apartment and Rex’s nanny? That stuff doesn’t come for free.”
She was right. I’d gotten so used to having money I didn’t even think about it. “Our apartment,” I corrected her. I laced my fingers through her thick mane and drew her close to my face. “Anyway,” I said with a brooding look in my eye. “I will. Not. Hear. Another. Fucking. Word. About. A. Pre-nup. Is that crystal clear?”
She threw her head back and laughed as Rex jumped up on me, concerned about the raucous I was making. “You see? You’re upsetting Rex when you’re so bossy!”
I walked along, silently brooding. Furious with her stubbornness. I’d have to fuck that out of her later, when we got home from work that evening. Make her acquiesce to my wishes. Worse than the pre-nup nonsense, was the wedding itself. She’d decided to wait until winter—had always, she told me, fantasized about a white wedding. But I knew the real reason. She was testing me. Using our engagement as a trial period to make sure she was doing the right thing. Fair enough, but it did little to ease my anguish….Many a slip twixt cup and lip. Why, I asked myself, couldn’t we just get on with it? She was stalling and I didn’t know the real reason behind her breezy, casual façade.
“White wedding,” I mumbled, knowing, at least, that Sophie had made amends and was paying for a designer wedding gown that was going to cost her a cool seventy grand. “We could get married right here, today. Have a golden wedding—all these autumnal colors—wouldn’t that be beautiful? In the boathouse, right here in the park? I could serenade you in one of those little boats like a Venetian gondola man and sing you that Italian aria. And Rex could be our witness.”
Pearl laughed again and nuzzled her head into the side of my neck. Hmm, she smelled so wonderful; the essence of woman, of sweet, sensual delight. The sort of smell that cannot be described however hard you try. She was sensual, all right, but as stubborn as a wild rose.
She stroked her hand over the bicep of my arm and nipped her bottom lip between her teeth. I could feel my cock flex. Yup, I’d really fuck her good and hard when we got home. I couldn’t wait.
“You know, Alexandre,” she said squeezing my arm, “you must be about the fittest male specimen I have ever laid eyes on.” Then she slapped her hand on her mouth and cried, “No! How can I say that? There is someone, who, I have to admit does have a better body than you. Is even more toned than you. Maybe stronger. I know it’s cruel to be honest…but…” She winced with a pitiful, sympathetic look on her face.
Slam! A wave of jealousy surged through me. I squinted my eyes at her and asked coolly, “Who?” I imagined my leg swinging into this character’s chest and knocking him down flat in one, easy, Taekwondo kick—I’d show him who was stronger.
She burst out laughing again. “So easily roused with envy, aren’t you?”
“Who is this buffed-up character?”
“Well,” she began, “he’s black.”
“A black guy?”
“Black and very beautiful. Younger than you. Loves running. Very active. Friendly. Handsome. Adorable. Actually, it was love at first sight. The second I saw him I knew he was special. Stole my heart, really. Definite competition for you, Alexandre. I mean, I know I shouldn’t be saying this to my own fiancé but it is the truth.”
I finally twigged. I pinched her butt, teasingly. “So wicked, aren’t you? So femme fatale to get me worked up about my own bloody dog! I knelt down and Rex came bounding up to me, skidding along the wet leaves, careening into me like a block of concrete. “Black and beautiful, friendly, adorable and very…” I slapped my hand against his rock-hard thigh muscles, “very compact.”
Pearl knelt down, too. She was dressed for work, wearing a navy blue suit. She kissed me lightly on my nose and whispered, “I love to provoke you, love it when you get just that little bit jealous.”
“What, me? Jealous? Don’t be silly,” I said. “I knew you we’re kidding all along,”—I winked at her— “I’m far too self-assured to let envy get in my way. You’d better get yourself to work, chérie, or you’ll be late. I’ll walk you there.”
We made our way behind the Metropolitan Museum where we could cut through the park to her new office building.
In an attempt, not only to cement Pearl’s career and make her dream come true to work in feature films, but to also keep her under my wing, I’d bought out the company she worked for, Haslit Films, making it part of a new firm, HookedUp Enterprises. It was separate from HookedUp and had nothing to do with Sophie. I designed the deal so that Pearl and her ex boss, Natalie, could be equal partners.
But Pearl wouldn’t accept HookedUp Enterprises as a gift. No. That stubbornness, again. Stubborn as the hook of a woman’s bra on a first date. Pearl would only accept the position as director, working for a salary, refusing a share—just a percentage of future deals, instead. With me as silent partner. No special favors. She even insisted on having a contract drawn up with lawyers. She was the consummate professional—very irritating for me. I could have made her an extremely wealthy woman. But there was no way in this world I was going to convince her to take the profit and call the company her own.
She wanted to earn her riches, herself.
Another thing: she refused to sell her apartment. Just in case. In case of what, I wondered? She was renting it to someone on a one-year lease, while living with me, but would not sell it. It was her nest egg, she explained. I tried to convince her that she could have thousands of nest eggs. All the bloody eggs she could have dreamed of. Enough to make soufflés with. Omelets. But no. She wanted it her way. Financial independence from me, obviously. Just in case. She felt she had to prove herself.
I supposed it was from all those years of being self-sufficient. Two people had died on her: her brother, John, from an overdose, and her mother from cancer. Her surfer-dude dad had abandoned them when she was just a little girl, and Anthony, her other brother, was a self-centered jerk, or had proven himself to be, thus far.
Pearl was used to fending for herself, and however hard I tried to cajole her, to comfort her into believing that I could look after her, and would look after her, she was adamant that she could do it all on her own.
That should have been a warning siren but I just put it down to her pride and a reluctance to change the status quo.
I had told her that I felt more comfortable with ‘a mature woman who had lived, who had suffered knocks and bruises,’ but I was beginning to pay the price; Pearl didn’t trust me a hundred percent, however much in love she was.
All in good time, I told myself as I gazed at her now beside me, her golden hair shimmering in the morning autumnal sun. I needed to be patient. She had a broken wing that had not completely healed.
At that point, I still didn’t know what, or who, had broken that delicate wing.
“Jesus Christ, Pearl,” I groaned as I dragged myself off her; loath to break up yet another incredible session of lovemaking. Fucking? Lovemaking? Both words described what we did best. Really, sex was designed for us. Us together, anyway. With Pearl it was always delicious. Intense. Physically the best I’d ever had. Yes, and that even included Hélène.
I was still hard. “I could go on doing this all day long,” I said, planting a kiss on her lips and letting my eyes celebrate her lithe, curvaceous body, still slightly tanned from summer. She moaned sleepily and took in a long, satisfied breath, her orgasm still lingering.
But I had to catch a plane to London and I was already late, so I tore myself away from her side and went to have a shower. I’d hoped that Pearl would come with me to London, show her the sights, eat in my favorite restaurants. I wished that she could just generally hang out with me on business trips, but she was a career girl and she had her own plans, her own agenda. The fact that Hookedup Enterprises was a toddler learning to walk made Pearl relentlessly busy.
Her brother Anthony was coming to stay for a few nights so I was happy, in that respect, to leave them to their family reunion.
When I sauntered back into the room and saw her lying on the bed like a classical French painter’s odalisque, I stood still and absorbed my view. I never tired of observing Pearl. She had the sort of beauty that was difficult to put into words. Some women can look hard, chiseled, with a look of ambition cut into their jawbone. Pearl’s face struck me as always being so gentle, even though defined. Her nose neat and straight, her cheekbones sweeping up into her perfectly shaped head which was crowned with a thick mane of blonde hair, cut in wavy layers. But it was her eyes that had me mesmerized. Clear and blue, yet the blue would change from a deep ultramarine that almost looked black sometimes, to an almost translucent sky color. Her eyes spoke of innocence and vulnerability: the eyes of a child.
“It’s not too late to change your mind, you know. About coming to London with me,” I cajoled. She was half asleep. I sat on the edge of the bed and whispered a kiss on her shoulder.
Pearl’s eyelids fluttered and I stroked the length of her smooth back, tracing the curve down into her dip and up again over her peachy round buttocks. I could have stared at that ass all day long.
She groaned languidly and parted her legs a touch. Her eyes flicked open and she smiled lazily. Just touching her soft, silky skin and looking at her beautiful face got me hard again. I wanted to fuck her endlessly. Over and over. I leaned down to kiss her, my tongue parting her full lips, and she responded as her tongue met mine. Slowly, teasingly. I groaned into her mouth—an erotic sound of carnal need vibrated through me. I held her jaw with my hands and deepened the kiss, hungry for more, waiting for her to plead for me to ravage her again. Damn that plane, I was feeling uncontrollably horny. Insatiable. I couldn’t get enough of her and felt edgy at the thought of leaving her for just a couple of days. We needed the physical closeness, the frenzied power of orgasms that always hit us simultaneously, that united us.
My eyes scanned down to her hand, flopped by her side, and I took it, feeling her engagement ring between my fingers, mollified that if other men looked at her, at least they’d know she belonged to someone else. To me.
“You’d better go or you’ll miss your plane,” she told me, and I flinched.
“Why are you tormenting me like this? You know I don’t like us being apart?”
“I can’t just leave Anthony alone,” she murmured sleepily.
“Why not? He wouldn’t care; he’d have the run of the place, get the staff darting around for him—he’d love it. I don’t know why you’re going so out of your way for him. He treats you like…” I trailed off—no need, I decided, to point out her brother’s failings.
“He’s been making more effort lately. That’s why he’s coming to visit. Anyway, there’s another reason I can’t go to London: I’ve got that important meeting with Samuel Myers, you know.”
“Sam Myers…the big, fat, Hollywood fish who smokes too many Cuban cigars and calls everyone honey.”
Pearl’s lips curved into a smile. “I know, he’s like a walking cliché from some bad B movie. I want to pitch my buddy movie to him. But I don’t want male leads. I want to see a woman playing at least one of those parts, maybe both, if I can swing it. I’m so fed up of seeing actresses playing just the love interest.”
I squeezed her hand. “Well let’s hope he goes for it. I’m prou
d of you, Pearl, I really am. You’re doing a great job of getting HookedUp Enterprises on its feet.”
My eyes shifted back to the curves of my fiancée’s divine body. I wanted to suggest that another great project would be for her to do a workout video for women over the age of thirty-five; show them that females didn’t have to be in their twenties to be in great shape. With Pearl, herself, as the exercise guru—she was a good model for beauty and health. But I never mentioned age to Pearl because I knew that was a soft spot for her. I didn’t want to draw attention to the fifteen-year age gap between us, mainly because I never even thought about it myself. Except on occasions like this, when she blew me away with how young she looked, and it annoyed me that people pigeonholed anybody by a number.
She took my hand and kissed it. Soon, I thought, I’d be wearing a wedding ring there. “You’ll be late,” she warned me again.
“Such a cool customer, aren’t you? Sending me off like this when all I want to do is get right back into bed with you.” I ran the top of my finger around the dimples in the small of her back again, tracing it over the mound of her behind and into the luscious, moist valley of her wet folds—a place where I’d spent so many wonderful hours of ecstasy and where I intended to visit for the rest of my life.
“What I like, though,” I murmured, my cock rock-hard again, “is when the ice-princess part of you melts.” And I whispered in her ear, my fingers deep inside her, “when I fuck the cool-customer nonsense out of you and you lose all self-control. When you whimper and beg me, and scream my name when you come.” I eased my fingers out of her again. Let her feel what she’d be missing—have her longing for my return. “Have fun in your meeting, chérie. I’ll be keeping tabs on you—just in case you get tempted by sexy Sam.”
She laughed and pushed me off the bed. I walked over to my closet and got dressed, slinging on a T-shirt and jeans—I was really late—and when I turned around, Rex had somehow managed to sneak his way onto the bed. Pearl and I had nicknamed him her ‘French lover.’ I knew he’d be trying to usurp my place when I was gone.
Pearl (The Pearl Series) Page 14