She laughs and flips open a notebook I hadn’t noticed sitting on the table. Using her manicured nail, she points to a page. “Based on Tessa Savage’s business acumen, she could be successfully running her own corporation. She’s the biggest thing in business that never happened.”
I laugh. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means he respects you and thinks you’re crazy for not running your own enterprise.”
“I do run my own enterprise. Savage Business Solutions.”
“But you’re a sole proprietor. You have no staff.”
I eat my cheese, wondering what Noelle really wants from this interview. As far as the business world is concerned, I’m really not that interesting. “I have an assistant in New York and a long list of professionals I contract work out to when needed.”
“Why don’t you expand?”
“I do perfectly well on my own. Expanding isn’t necessary.”
“Where’s your home base, then? New York?”
I tap my chest. “It’s right here.”
She tilts her head to one side, studying me. “I don’t understand.”
“I travel all over the world for work, so my home is wherever I am.”
“But,” she squints at me. “Where do you keep your things?”
“I don’t really keep things.”
She sits back in her chair. By now, I’m used to the response. In a world focused on material possessions, having none makes me a bit of an anomaly. Or, as one friend put it, a freak.
“So you just travel from place to place? No home, no commitments?” She chews the side of her lip and doesn’t meet my eyes.
Aha. So, this is what the interview is about. She doesn’t care about what I do for a living, she wants to write about my personal life. The proof is in her next question.
“What about friends? Lovers?”
“Relationships. That’s a completely different thing. I’d much rather get attached to people than to things.”
Noelle looks at me strangely. “How do you maintain relationships if you’re always moving?”
“I’ve learned how to form friendships quickly and to keep them from a distance. It’s easy to keep in touch these days. When you don’t have a lot of things to worry about, it’s much easier to focus on relationships.”
“Do you have a special relationship at the moment?” She chews on the end of her pen and the glint of steel in her gaze is back.
“I thought this interview was supposed to be about being a modern business woman. Not my personal life.”
“Oh, come on, Ms. Savage. Our readers are women. They want to know about how you balance it all. Work, lovers, relationships, travel.” Noelle taps her pen against her lips. “So...are you? In a relationship, that is?”
Wow. Nice segue. She is good.
“I don’t care to discuss my personal life.”
"Look, I know our readers. I know what they want."
"What do they want?"
"They want something different. They want to read about women who call the shots. Who know what they want and aren't ashamed to ask for it. Whether it's in business or...relationships."
"Why me?"
She smiles and there is no innocence in it whatsoever. "How many lovers do you have?” Her smile tells me I’ve been conned.
“None of your business.”
Narrowing her gaze, she asks, “So, would it be correct to say you’ve got a lover in every port?”
I roll my eyes. “No.” I laugh at how gullible I am to be taken in by her innocent pretense. The girl wants details. Instead, I say, “Believe me, there are times when choosing to be with no one is the best option.”
“Really?” She taps her fingers on the tabletop. “Interesting you say that because—”
“Mademoiselle Savage?”
“Yes.” I look up eagerly at the man standing beside the table wearing a dark suit jacket and black shirt. I do not care who he is but I am so thankful for him interrupting us. I am not liking the way this conversations is going.
“This is for you.”
“Excuse me?"
The man hands me an envelope. It’s beautiful with the texture of heavy silk. It’s got a wax seal like some medieval correspondence. I'm so curious I want to open it right away but not in front of Noelle.
I go to put it away and Noelle says, “You’re not going to open it?”
“I’ll open it later.”
“You receive a mysterious envelope while dining out in Paris and you’re not going to open it? Are you kidding me?”
“This is not typical.”
“So open it.”
I lean over and stop the recording. “Only if this is off the record. This,” I hold up the envelope, “is not part of the story. Not even the arrival of it. Is that clear?”
I expect a look of regret but that is not the expression on Noelle’s features. Curiosity? No. That’s not it either.
I break the seal and open the flap. Inside is a heavy card with beautiful gold illumination. Noelle leans forward to get a better look. She manages to read the swirly logo upside down before I do.
"Oh my God. You've been invited to Eden." Her words are matter-of-fact.
“What?”
“Eden. Wow.”
“What’s Eden?”
“It’s a resort island. By invitation only. Totally exclusive."
“Never heard of it."
“It’s owned by...” She puts a hand to her mouth. Hiding something. A smile? “He’s some mysterious billionaire. No one knows who. Everyone’s talking about him...it.”
“Really?” I look at the invitation again, flip it over and find detailed instructions on the back for how to get to the island.
Flipping it back over, I’m about to read the invitation when it slips from my grasp and flutters to the ground. When I go to pick it up, a wind gust picks it up and steals it from me, carrying it toward the busy Rue Voltaire. I jump out of my seat, trying to catch it before it flies out onto the street, but I’m too late. The wind carries it, spinning it so that it pirouettes between cars and busses before disappearing on the other side.
“Well, that’s that.”
Noelle is staring open-mouthed. “You can’t just leave it.”
I shrug. “I’m not in the mood for a tropical holiday.”
“It’s not just a tropical resort. The island is magic—” She stops talking mid-sentence as she notices me pulling my wallet out of my bag and paying the bill. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”
“I’ve got a flight to catch. This interview is over.”
“Wait.” She stands. “We’ve barely started. I have a bunch more questions.”
“Maybe some other time.” I wave and head off down the street.
Chapter Seven
I had planned to stay the night in Paris, to go out to one of my favorite restaurants and then take an early morning flight to New York, but for some reason I’m not in the mood. Strangely, I don’t feel like being alone tonight. Yet, I also don’t feel like calling anyone up. It’s a weird place to be.
A transatlantic flight is the answer. So now I’m sitting in the waiting area outside my gate, about to board when I get a call from one of my very favorite people in the world, Wade Messing.
“Tessa Savage,” he drawls. The phone crackles. It’s a bad connection and I miss the second half of his sentence.
“What did you say?”
“I said we were just talking about you.”
“Oh? Good things, I hope.”
“Always. Connor wants to know if you got our invitation.”
“The invitation?”
“Yes. Things have changed and we weren’t sure where to find you so we sent out a couple of invitations—” the phone beeps in my ear and then goes dead.
I go to phone back, but my battery is completely drained.
Damn.
There’s no time to plug it in because my flight is called and boarding begins fo
r first class. Yes, okay, Tessa Savage is a princess when she flies. Believe me, you’d fly first class too if you could afford it and you flew as much as I do. Airports are not fun and they are getting less and less fun every year.
The complications and annoyances of flying aside, at least the mystery of where the invitation came from is solved. It came from Wade and Connor. That’s interesting. I wonder what’s going on. Oh! I bet I know. They’ve probably ditched all their wedding plans and have decided to elope at some tropical resort.
Though I have a really hard time picturing my best friends—the Marlboro Man look-alike and his badass boyfriend—getting married anywhere other than their ranch, I can’t say I blame them. Weddings can be a bitch to plan.
At least that mystery is solved. After stowing my things and accepting the mimosa the flight attendant offers me, I close my eyes and drift off into a semi-doze. Why my mind wanders to Christophe, I don’t know.
Okay, I’m such a liar.
Of course I know why it drifts off to Christophe.
There’s something about the man that intrigues me. Whether it’s all an act or whether he really is deeper and more interesting than I’d originally thought, I don’t know, but I am intrigued—grudgingly intrigued.
I can hear his voice—his deep, sexy accent—in my head, describing how he would remove my clothes.
The daydream begins with the conversation in the Buddha Bar but suddenly (as in all good dreams and daydreams) we are no longer in the private room but in a lushly appointed penthouse suite that is very similar to the one I shared with Talal.
Christophe hands me a glass of scotch and then turns me toward a mirror.
“Watch,” he whispers very close to my ear.
Standing behind me, he begins to undo the buttons on my shirt. One by one. Slowly. His fingers graze the newly exposed skin, first the hollow at the base of my throat, then the hollow between my breasts until finally he reaches the hollow of my belly button.
“Smell the alcohol. Breathe in deeply.”
As I do this, he untucks my blouse from my skirt and somehow the whisper of silk from beneath my waistband skims my skin in such a wonderfully sensual way, I catch my breath as tingling feathers of pleasure radiate over my belly and up my back.
Taking the glass from my hand, he slides the blouse off my shoulders and arms and drops it to the floor.
“Look at yourself.”
I do. Kind of. I look at where his hand is resting at my waist, moving gently against my skin. I gaze up the length of my body and past to meet his gaze in the mirror. His eyes have a soft, sensual look to them as they briefly meet mine and then return to my body.
“Some men would treat a woman as an object,” he says, running his hand up my side, barely over my bra and then to my shoulder. Sweeping my hair back, he comes in lower. “I understand that.” Though his breath is hot in my ear, I stiffen. Yes, even in my imaginings I am affronted by Christophe’s blatantly sexist remark.
“You are a beautiful thing to behold.” He strokes my throat. “The old me would want to possess you. Own you.” His grip tightens about my neck. “The more you tried to deny me, the more I would have wanted you.” His hand slides down my bare back to my skirt. He bunches it in his fist, rubbing me hard from behind. “God, I would have enjoyed making you submit.”
I try to pull away, no matter how hot he’s making me. No matter that this is my fantasy, my imaginings...I think.
Though it feels like something else completely. It feels as if my mind is going in other, unexpected directions, like I’m watching a movie that I don’t know the ending to.
His hand releases my skirt and comes around to cup my breast, gently squeezing, holding me in place. “But men who see women only as objects are missing the most beautiful part.” He dips a finger into the glass of scotch and paints the side of my neck.
He breathes in deeply before gently licking the alcohol from my skin. Lapping, nipping, sucking.
“I knew you would pair well with this Glenfiddich. So delicious.”
There is something so erotic about watching him kiss and lick my neck, I am almost willing to forgive his arrogance. Almost.
“What is the most beautiful part?” I ask.
He turns me toward him, tilting my chin up to him. “Your soul.”
The plane jerks beneath me and the seatbelt light comes on. One of the flight attendants comes over the intercom to ask passengers to return to their seats as we experience turbulence.
I’ve had my phone charging and I check the time on it. I nearly drop it out of shock—we are five hours into the eight and a half hour flight.
What?
How is that even possible? I just closed my eyes!
However, I have no time to worry about it because the plane lurches and the attendant comes on sounding much more distressed, demanding everyone get back to their seats and buckle up.
I’ve experienced turbulence before. This is something else. Something more. This is mayhem. This is imminent death. We are a toy plane in a giant’s clothes dryer and are being tossed around losing all concept of up and down. My ears plug, some baby (I think it’s a baby) shrieks from back in the economy seats and loose items roll from the back to front (which means the nose is down and that does NOT comfort me!) and then back again.
The man across the aisle pulls out one of those bags from the seat pocket in front of him and vomits. I’d pull out one too except that I can’t seem to let go of the arm rests. My knuckles turn white from gripping and all thoughts have left me—there is no flashing of ‘the life and times of Tessa Savage’ through my mind’s eye—as I prepare for my demise.
Correction. There is only one thing on my mind. An image. A man’s face...
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. There is a very large storm system that is affecting a good part of the eastern seaboard. All flights into New York, Washington, and south are cancelled. We are being directed to land in Miami.”
The groans from the passengers are cut off by another massive jolt to the airplane.
Someone screams.
No one complains after that.
It’s another twenty minutes (that feels like a lifetime) before the madness stops. The remaining flight is subdued and the flight crew runs out of alcohol.
When the plane finally touches down, we break into applause. The woman beside me is weeping silently and I give her a wobbly smile to let her know I’m feeling pretty much the same way.
When we finally get to our gate, I’m among the first to disembark. I feel as if I’m exiting the plane into a fog, as if I don’t quite believe that I’m alive and that this long barren tunnel is the one that will take me to the other side (and I’m not talking baggage claim).
“Ms. Savage?”
“Yes?”
An official looking person is waiting for me outside the gate. “I’m from the airport authority. This way please.”
She leads me through the terminal and past customs, nodding to the official at the gate as we pass through.
“What’s going on?” I’m so confused and disorientated, I have no idea what to do except to follow the woman. Did they find something in my bag? Did something happen to Talal? Am I suspected of being a terrorist because I was seen with a prominent Middle Eastern man?
Oh God. I don’t think I can handle a run in with Immigration. Not after no sleep and the flight from hell.
She takes me through a door marked “Officials Only”, down a hall, down some steps and then out onto the tarmac. There’s a black, unmarked sedan waiting for me.
Stopping beside the car, she turns to me and says, “Passport please.”
Still confused and totally discombobulated, I hand over my passport without question, which she scans with a handheld device before passing it back to me, smiling. “Have a nice day.”
If it wasn’t for the driver of the car getting out and opening the door of the sedan for me, I’d probably have stood on the tarmac in a con
fused fog for an indeterminate amount of time. However, just the sight of him holding the door knocks a bit of self-preservation into me. I’m not about to get into an unmarked car with a stranger, not after barely surviving a transatlantic flight. I can just imagine the headline.
Woman Survives Flight, Murdered Minutes After Landing
“Who are you? What’s going on? Where are you taking me?”
“To the marina terminal. The plane is waiting.”
“The plane? What plane?”
“The one to take you to your final destination.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“My instructions are to pick you up and take you to the terminal. That’s all I know. When you get there you can ask more questions.”
This sounds reasonable. Or does it? I don’t know. I’m still so fucking confused and numb from my near death experience, I don’t know if it’s shock or what. I just know that my brain is not firing on all synapses but somewhere in my cerebral cortex is my fight or flight instinct and I still don’t like the idea of getting into a car with someone I don’t know, heading for an unknown destination.
We take a service road that brings us to another part of the airport altogether. There’s a smaller tower here with small hangars adjacent to a canal.
He pulls up to a newer looking hangar and pulls up to the dock where a small float plane is tethered.
A woman comes from around the side of the plane. She’s wearing khaki shorts and a black shirt. Mirrored sunglasses hide her eyes.
She strides toward me, hand out, all no-nonsense. “Tessa. Good to see you again. Not sure if you remember me. I’m Joely. I’ll be your pilot.”
Okay. First of all, of course I don’t remember her. Why would I remember her and I say as much. “No. I don’t think we’ve met. I don’t know you. And I am certainly not going anywhere with you.”
Joely smiles secretively which bring me to my second, and more important, point...there is no way in hell I’m getting into a plane with someone who looks barely a day over sixteen years old as pilot. Are you kidding me?
She raises the sunglasses to the top of her head and says, “Sure you are.”
She fondly pats the puddle jumper we’re standing beside as if it’s an old family pet not a flimsy-looking piece of machinery. Which is my third and probably most salient point; I am NOT getting into a puddle jumper to fly off to some unknown destination. No way. Not after the flight I just endured. “Look, I have no idea what’s going on. But this...” I motion dismissively to the plane. “Is not happening.”
[Invitation to Eden 24.0] How to Tempt a Tycoon Page 6