Scent of a Woman

by Joanne Rock

  How could one phone call change your life so irrevocably?

  “I’m coming to Paris, Marcel.” She checked her watch, surprised to notice her hand shook ever so slightly. “I can be at your house in a few hours if the flight schedules are favorable. I want to see you and I want to see the books.”

  Thankfully, she had some reserved funds of her own to use for a flight. Although, maybe she should start being more frugal if the business needed an influx of her personal cash. Dear God, there were too many things to think about.

  Not waiting for her brother’s answer, Danielle disconnected the call and phoned the airline to change her return ticket.

  Because if there was any way to save Les Rêves, even if it cost her every penny of her own cash, she would do it in a minute. And if not, well, if her business was going down in flames, she wanted to at least be there when it happened.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ADAM HAD BEEN WAITING fifteen minutes for Danielle when he figured he’d better go back to his room and grab his cell phone. He’d wanted to leave the phone on the ship so they wouldn’t be interrupted. It hadn’t occurred to him she might stand him up.

  Now, clicking through his messages in his suite, he came to one from her that she’d left him almost half an hour ago.

  “Adam.” A-dam. There was a lot of background noise in the call, making her soft accent difficult to hear. “I am catching a plane to Paris. Marcel called and—I have to go. I will catch up with the boat in Marseilles, maybe. I am not sure. I am sorry and—I’m sorry.”

  The staticky call disconnected abruptly, leaving him to wonder what in the hell had happened. She’d just taken off for Paris without seeing him in person to say goodbye? It had to be something serious. He had his meeting tomorrow with Ahmed—the deal-making meeting that had been his main goal for the trip—so he couldn’t chase after a sexy Frenchwoman to Paris.

  But what if it meant he’d never see her again? She hadn’t sounded all that certain she’d finish the cruise. The thought blindsided him.

  He’d given other women the slip without thinking twice about it. But having Danielle up and disappear on him was another matter altogether. His brother’s words about Danielle being as much of a pampered heiress as Jessica came back to taunt him now.

  Damn it.

  If Joe was here, he’d probably also tell Adam to quit being so competitive. He didn’t have to chase Danielle to Paris just to prove he could. Just to show her he wasn’t as dispensable as the other guys she dated.

  But then, Adam wasn’t Joe. And Adam didn’t have to make the same choices as his brother.

  With that justification he was comfortable picking up the phone to tell the family’s pilot to meet him in Portofino. The jet was still in Europe waiting for Joe to finish his business there. Adam’s competitive streak was an infinitely more convenient excuse for what he was about to do than what he feared might be the real reason.

  He was falling ass-backward for a socialite perfumer who seemed to be beating him at all the games he knew best.

  But then maybe he was addicted to competition. One thing was certain: Adam didn’t plan to let Danielle get away without acknowledging the winner in this game—both professional and personal.

  IN HER FANCIFUL imaginings, Danielle floated like a ghost through the house where she’d grown up. She was here, in the Chevalier family’s Paris home, walking the maze of halls she had ridden her scooter through as a child. Yet somehow she felt detached from it all, surreal, as if suddenly realizing what a fragile grip she had on security was forcing her to disassociate with all the things she might lose as a result. And while Marcel lived in the home that had been willed to them jointly, Danielle had always known it was here, waiting for her to return to its overrun gardens and views of the Seine on holidays and the occasional weekend.

  Sliding back into her seat at the massive country kitchen table, she gripped her newly warmed cup of coffee and stared at the numbers in Marcel’s ledgers, trying in vain to find a way out of the nightmare. She didn’t need a degree in accounting to see the way the company’s assets had been slowly depleted even before Gunther had stolen her perfume recipe. Marcel’s bad investments had already started to leak Les Rêves of its profits by then.

  “Dani?” His voice called to her from a few rooms away but she didn’t answer. Couldn’t muster the necessary calm spirit to talk to him when she battled so much anger at his deception.

  He’d manipulated her feelings of guilt so skillfully these past couple of years, harping on her poor judgment in trusting Gunther as if that had put the biggest financial burden on them. Danielle could see for herself now that the trouble went deeper. Gunther’s white-collar theft had shaken Marcel because her brother knew it would reveal his deception all the sooner.

  “I’m in the kitchen,” she called back, not wishing to fight over something that couldn’t be undone.

  But then, she wouldn’t hide from it, either.

  “There’s someone here to see you.”

  Surprised, she rose from her seat, curious to see who would be here. No one knew she was in town. Except for—

  “Gunther?”

  Her jaw fell open at the sight of the man suddenly standing in her brother’s kitchen, her brain unable to comprehend his presence in this house after all the other nasty surprises she’d received today.

  “It’s nice to see you, Danielle.” Her former lover looked every inch the international playboy in a dark suit jacket over a black silk shirt. His boots possessed a sheen so bright she could probably check her makeup in them. But what struck her as most ostentatious and silly were the fingerless driving gloves encasing his tanned, smooth hands.

  Mon Dieu, but she missed Adam and his straightforward approach to everything in life. He’d called himself a WYSIWYG guy—what you see is what you get.

  Too bad no one else in Danielle’s life seemed to abide by that credo.

  “Please tell me you did not dress like such a pretty boy when we dated.” She sat back in her chair, seeing no need to give this man a greeting. “Marcel, you may see him out.”

  She did not know why her brother had let him in to begin with.

  “Dani.” Her brother spoke quietly. “He may be able to help.”

  She whipped her head up to glance at her brother. He stood pale and thin next to Gunther’s too-slick good looks.

  “What?” She slapped the ledger closed. “My ears must be deceiving me since you have made it a point to paint this man to be the devil himself in every conversation we have had the last two years.”

  She ignored Gunther’s attempt to protest, his presence a non-factor as far as she was concerned. He did not warrant a second glance, let alone any more of her time, when her life was threatening to fall apart.

  “Gunther’s family has approached us about possibly buying out the company,” Marcel explained. His dark eyes, inherited from their father, were somber.

  Anger ripped loose the restraint on her tongue and she could not remember ever feeling so much animosity for her brother. Where was his sense of honor? His family loyalty?

  Perhaps being with Adam this week had reminded her that honorable men existed. She did not have to be grateful for Marcel’s grudging help with Les Rêves when he’d never embraced the business. She could work with someone else who would respect her and respect the company’s goals.

  “He approached us, Marcel? Or did he perhaps approach you, the only one who had an inkling that the company was falling to pieces and might need financial help?” Her heart ached that her own brother could do this to her. “How dare you bring this traitor into the house the very day you unveil three years’ worth of mismanagement and deception on your part?”

  Gunther whistled softly between his teeth. “You always were the fiery one, Danielle.”

  Fighting the urge to slug him, Danielle kept her focus on her brother, whose betrayal hurt far worse than Gunther’s ever had.

  “I will not sell the company. Not today. No
t tomorrow. Not ever.” She spoke slowly so that both men could understand. With shaking hands, she went to the coffeepot and carried it to the table to refill her cup.

  In the ensuing moment of silence she heard a distant pounding on the front door.

  “And who might this be? The tax collector? Someone to drag us off to debtors’ prison?” She brushed past her brother and tore through the house, determination firing her steps along with a well-deserved bit of fury. “Well, you can all go because I am not admitting defeat.”

  Crossing the marble tiles of the blue-and-white foyer her mother had designed with so much care, Danielle prepared to tear into whoever else Marcel had invited to this premature funeral for the business she loved.

  She flung open the door, rebuff dying on her lips as the latest visitor came into sight.

  “It cannot be.”

  Danielle stepped back from the man who had made love to her the night before. The man who had insistently pursued her despite her fears that he could betray her the same way Gunther had.

  “I assure you it can be.” He wore cargo shorts and a T-shirt that smelled like the ship’s laundry detergent. His smile tweaked her insides, melting a fraction of her anger for an instant before she spotted his convertible Mercedes coupe in the driveway and remembered why he must be here, too.

  Money. Hadn’t Marcel told her specifically to make contact with the Prestige Scents representative on board Alexandra’s Dream? Adam was a potential buyer.

  “You have come a long way for nothing.” Her heart ached with fresh hurt that did not have anything to do with business and everything to do with her feelings for Adam. “No matter what my brother might have told you, Les Rêves is not for sale.”

  “Who is this?” Marcel’s voice drifted over her shoulder and she turned to find that he and Gunther had followed her into the foyer.

  “Wait a minute.” Adam shook his head and stepped inside the house, uninvited. “What are you talking about?”

  He directed the question to Danielle, ignoring Marcel.

  “I’ve already negotiated a fair price.” Gunther had spoken French earlier, but now he switched to English. He moved closer to stand next to Danielle, practically barring the way into the house with his body. “You can’t just come waltzing in here now with some bogus offer to drive up my price.”

  Danielle spun on her heel to face him. His cologne grated her senses and she wondered if she’d ever be able to use musk in a man’s fragrance again.

  If she was fortunate enough to stay in the business, damn it.

  “You have no right to be in this house, Gunther.”

  “Marcel invited me to discuss business—”

  “Unfortunately, Marcel no longer has a say in the business or in this house since he has frittered away all of his inheritance.” She wondered if there was fire shooting out of her ears yet. If there wasn’t now, she felt certain it would begin soon. “Get out and do not darken the doorstep ever again or I will call the police. Comprenez-vous?”

  The expression on his face contained a frightening amount of rage, making her glad for a moment that Adam was here. Even if he wanted to buy her business out from under her, she still felt certain he would never allow some jet-set Euro-trash perfumer to slug her in her own home. There was a core sense of honor in him that Gunther lacked.

  “You heard her.” Adam’s voice was low and threatening, his words a complement to Danielle’s sending Gunther out of the house and into the night.

  “Danielle—” Adam began.

  “I cannot.” She had all she could do to hold herself together emotionally right now. Her brother’s betrayal, her whole future called into question, Adam’s arrival for reasons she hadn’t yet discerned…it was all too much. “Please. You will both excuse me. I do not wish to talk.”

  Taking what few scraps of her pride she had left, she headed for the stairs to seek out her old bedroom and figure out what to do now that her whole life had imploded.

  “ARE YOU GOING to run now, too?”

  Marcel Chevalier’s question stopped Adam as he walked down the front steps to leave the house, Paris and Danielle behind.

  He might be falling for her, but if she didn’t want to talk to him, he wasn’t going to make things tougher for her. She was obviously facing some kind of business crisis he didn’t know anything about.

  And didn’t it suck to realize how little of her life she’d shared with him? Maybe they had been living a freaking fairy tale on board the ship and the shine would wear off their feelings once they were back in the real world. Hell, it already seemed to be happening for her.

  Turning on his heel, he faced Danielle’s brother, a slight man with dark eyes and light brown hair, his only resemblance to his sister in the shape of his face.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Adam glanced down at his feet. “Doesn’t look to me like I’m running anywhere.”

  “You’re leaving. It’s the same thing.” Marcel folded his arms defensively across his chest and propped a shoulder against a polished grandfather clock a good foot taller than him.

  “Not quite.” Adam didn’t want to argue with this guy. Now that he looked closer, Danielle’s brother seemed ready to fall apart. “Is what Danielle said true? Did you piss away your part of the inheritance?”

  He stood outside in the last rays of sunlight on a long summer day. It had to be nine o’clock by now and the outdoor lights had flipped on a few minutes ago even though it wasn’t fully dark yet. The houses in this part of town—technically the outskirts of the city, according to Adam’s pilot—were not mammoth mansions, but everything about them said old money, from the Greek revival stone architecture to the landscaping and the cast-iron light fixtures hanging over the terrace area.

  “Oui. Danielle only just found out about the money.” Marcel pushed away from the clock and peered behind him at the staircase where Danielle had disappeared, then he followed Adam outside onto the terrace. “Maybe I should sell this house and invest the profits in the company. I don’t know. But I couldn’t make any more decisions without consulting her.”

  Adam wondered what exactly had happened, but wasn’t sure how much he should push. Danielle had seemed pissed that her brother had confided in Gunther.

  How unreal was that? Her old boyfriend had been here with her when Adam showed up, a circumstance that might have given him pause with other women, but he hadn’t felt a second’s worth of jealousy because he trusted her. Understood her better after a handful of days together than he’d understood other women after year-long relationships.

  “I don’t get it. You ripped off your own business?” So much for not pushing. Adam wanted to be able to put the pieces together. If Danielle was checking out on him this week anyhow, he wanted to at least know what had happened.

  “I made a few bad investments with company money in an effort to offset some of our setbacks.”

  “Bad investments?” Adam stepped back from the terrace and looked up at the second floor. A light was on in a room with a small balcony and he wondered if Danielle was in there.

  Marcel shrugged, threading his finger through some vines covered with small pink flowers.

  “At first it was a land deal that turned sour. Then there was the organic flower farm that I thought would be a nice fit and turned out to be a scam.”

  Adam didn’t comment, figuring the guy must realize how naive he’d been to commit his dollars to projects he hadn’t thoroughly researched first. Adam knew a guy back home who had lost the family fortune the same way, investing his money before he’d done his homework. The guy had lost his house, his company, his family. Everything.

  “So Les Rêves’s assets are…gone?” He couldn’t imagine what the news had done to Danielle. Thinking about her sitting alone upstairs grappling with that news made him angry at her brother.

  “Not completely. We are financially devastated, perhaps, but not devoid of assets.” Marcel released the pink flowers, knocking two to the ground
without noticing. “I just wanted to make her aware of the situation before she took on additional commitments for Les Rêves. I thought we’d be able to handle the production for the Dubai retail account if she lands it. God knows we need it. But the more I looked at the books, the more I worried maybe I should tell her first so she might consider an offer to just sell the business outright. I had hoped she would simply take the offer from Panache.”

  The look of wary hopefulness in the guy’s eyes told Adam how far out of touch with reality Marcel remained.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Adam yanked on a wrought-iron chair and dropped into it, bowled over by how blind a person could be. “Didn’t you hear her a minute ago? She’ll never sell the business. She doesn’t care about salvaging any money out of this. She cares about saving a company that means the world to her because it represents a passion she shared with her mother.”

  “So you won’t make an offer for the business?”

  “No offense, man, but you might want to back out of her business before you make things even worse. She deserves to be able to figure out where to go from here on her own.”

  Adam shook his head. He half wished he wouldn’t win the International Markets account now. Except that Danielle wouldn’t appreciate winning a bid he rigged. And he couldn’t be the kind of guy that sold out his own family the way Marcel had.

  Damn it.

  If he bought Les Rêves, Danielle would be as devastated as her finances. But if he won the Dubai account with Ahmed, he’d essentially be running her out of business anyway.

  “In that case, maybe it’s best I leave.” Marcel pulled a set of keys out of his pocket.

  “Why? So you can run out on her now, too?” Adam tossed the same accusation in Marcel’s face that the guy had launched at him earlier.

  “She doesn’t want me here.” Marcel tossed the keys in the air so they glinted in the porch light.

  “I’m sorry to say that’s one thing we seem to have in common.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN