Lie to Me: A Contemporary Billionaire BWWM Romance

by Mia Caldwell

  Just for long enough that he could win the bet.

  And the bet was all that mattered.

  Chapter Seven

  The final week of Zoe’s training had been set aside for the most important element - the thing on which her impersonation of Vanessa Reese hung: Wine. And of course it was not just wine that she had to learn about, it was specifically French wine, Jourdan’s wine in particular, and there was only one place to go to learn about that.

  “Have you been to France before?” asked Nick, as they settled into their seats on the plane.

  “Been to Paris with Vanessa a couple of times,” said Zoe.

  “Ah, Paris,” smiled Nick, reminiscing to himself. “The most romantic city on earth.”

  “You’ve clearly never been there with Vanessa Reese,” said Zoe, darkly.

  “I guess trips with your boss aren’t really that romantic.”

  Zoe shook her head. When your boss was Vanessa Reese, the ambient romance in a city could be sucked out of it. Zoe could have found herself reclining with a handsome troubadour in a candlelit gondola, gliding down a Venetian canal, as her companion serenaded her, accompanying himself on the guitar – but if she had been there with Vanessa, then the overall trip would still not have been romantic. Other bosses might have been different, they might not have exert such a horrid and pervasive influence as Vanessa did, never giving her employees a moment to themselves, but Zoe wouldn’t really know. Then again, Zoe imagined that Nick would not be the sort of boss to drain the romance from a city.

  As the thought entered her mind she found heat rising in her body. She did not mean that coming to Paris with Nick was romantic! Of course she did not mean that. She merely meant that if she was to meet someone handsome in Paris, someone whom she liked and who she felt some connection to – then Nick would not ruin it for her the way that Vanessa would have.

  She tried to stop feeling guilty for her thoughts as she glanced furtively at Nick, seated beside her. He was handsome. And she did – after a fashion – like him. She was liking him more every day. And there had been that night at her parents when it had seemed, if only for a moment (and a drunken one at that) that there might have been some connection between them.

  But, she reminded herself, he could also be a massive jerk. Not to mention self-involved, and he was a playboy with a string of women waiting for his attention. And, on top of that, he had shown no interest in Zoe herself whatsoever. Why she was even giving any thought to this subject was quite beyond her. It was all silly nonsense. She was letting her imagination run away with her. Just because he was a good-looking man with a few decent qualities did not mean she was interested in him romantically. After all, he had plenty enough bad qualities to balance out the good.

  Just because she was thinking about this now (just to pass the time really) did not mean that she would ever act on it. The brain went in some funny and meaningless directions when you gave it rein and sometimes it was fun just to let it go and see where it might end up. It was like dreaming really; all sorts of weird stuff showed up but it didn’t mean anything, not really. Just because you dreamed about a man didn’t mean that you liked him any more than the next man.

  Even if the dream was a certain type of dream – it didn’t necessarily mean anything.

  Even if, in the dream, you might find the man looking down at you with fire in his eyes, kissing you as you have never been kissed before. It didn’t mean anything.

  Nor did it mean anything if, in the dream, the man went on to gently undo the buttons of your blouse, kissing at the soft, willing body beneath – his for the taking – while you lay beneath him, writhing at his electric touch as his fingers caressed ever nearer to their ultimate goal, before he pulled back and removed his pants to reveal…

  “Zoe?”

  Zoe nearly jumped out of her skin at the voice in her ear. “I… Yeah?... Something… What?”

  Nick looked concerned. “Are you okay? You don’t look well.”

  “I…” Zoe could feel the heat throughout her body, and the circumstances, being put on the spot like this, particularly by Nick himself, seemed likely to make things worse rather than better. “I’m just going to pop to the bathroom quickly.”

  She unbuckled her seatbelt and raced for the bathroom.

  A stewardess held out her hand and approached her. “Hi. You need to remain seated until the pilot has turned off the seatbelt lights. I’m afraid I’ll have to stop you.”

  Zoe closed her eyes. “Sorry.” She mumbled as she regained her seat, trying not to feel Nick’s arm rubbing against hers as she sat beside him.

  Mortified with embarrassment, Zoe pretended to sleep for most of the rest of the flight. But her mind seemed determined to undermine her, as her thoughts wound their circuitous way back to the same place, and the same man. By the time they landed, Zoe was looking forward to a cold shower and a change of clothes, she was feeling really quite uncomfortable.

  “You don’t travel well, do you?” commented Nick as they disembarked.

  “Some days worse than others,” Zoe admitted, regretting more than ever that she hadn’t packed her vibrator for this trip.

  She tried not to look at Nick as they grabbed a cab to take them to their hotel.

  They would spend only one night here in Paris (romance capital of the world) before moving on tomorrow into the wine regions so Zoe could learn more about vineyards and about the geography of France, and so she could practice her French and try to lose that distracting accent. They pulled up outside their hotel.

  “What do you think?” It might have been Zoe’s imagination but she thought she caught a tone in his voice that suggested he was trying to impress her by splashing his cash. Zoe was not that type of girl. Never in her life had she been impressed by money, or by men who flaunted it to win her affection. She didn’t care how much their suit cost or who hand-stitched their shoes, she didn’t care how big their car was or how fast it went (it was all overcompensating anyway), she didn’t care what they spent on dinner or how hard it was to get into the restaurant, she didn’t care about any of it. On the other hand, it was pretty hard not to be impressed by the hotel outside of which they had just pulled up.

  “We’re staying here?”

  “Just for one night.”

  “So this is isn’t the palace of the King of France.”

  “There is no King of France.”

  “I know, I’m exaggerating to make a point.” And it was a point worth making. It was not just that the building was big, it was that it was grand. In fact, it was Grand. It had pillars and turrets, and finials, and other architectural swirls and squiggles that Zoe could not put names to. It had men outside in burgundy uniforms who hurried forward to open car doors and carry bags, not because they expected to get a tip, but as if their lives depended on it. The doors were fitted with brass, so highly polished that it looked like gold, and the deep red carpet that sprawled out to beckon them through the door was so deep pile that walking across it was like wading through cotton wool.

  “I’ve got a room here?” Zoe still felt the need to clarify this point.

  “Of course not,” said Nick, dismissively, insulted at the thought. “You’ve got a suite.”

  “A suite?”

  “Several rooms.”

  “I know what a suite is!”

  As it turned out, Zoe had thought that she had known what a suite was, but apparently she had been misinformed.

  “This is all mine?” she asked the uniformed bellboy who had shown her up.

  “Oui, Mademoiselle,” the man said, politely.

  “All mine?” She probably sounded like an idiot, but now that Nick was off in his own room and not there to hear her, she didn’t really care.

  The bellboy shrugged. “The hotel would like it back at the end of your stay, but until then, oui, Mademoiselle.” He spoke perfect English with a very attractive French accent and Zoe realized that she had not seen one unappealing man working here yet. Back home
, service organizations preferred to hire pretty girls for men to leer at, here the situation seemed to be reversed.

  Zoe decided that was a huge improvement.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mademoiselle?” the bellboy asked in deep, sensual tones that made Zoe wonder - if she were to ask for what was on her mind, what might the result be?

  “No thank you,” she said, only a little regretfully.

  “You may ring for me,” the bellboy said as he nodded his assent, “If you have need of me. Or for my colleagues, should you require more than one.”

  As he exited, Zoe tried very hard not to stare at the seat of his tight pants. No wonder Paris was called the city of love, the people here probably couldn’t ask for directions to the bathroom without it sounding like a proposition.

  The cold shower was now more needed than ever and Zoe took a long one until she felt the tension drain out of her. She then relaxed in the room for a bit before getting dressed for dinner. She had agreed to meet Nick just before eight.

  The knock at the door came at seven fifty and Zoe opened it to reveal Nick, resplendent in black tie and dinner jacket – he looked as if he had been born to wear the get up. He looked her up and down and Zoe felt sure that the look of wide-eyed wonder on his face was genuine.

  “Wow. You look absolutely incredible.”

  “Thank you.” The dress was one of the stupidly expensive ones Nick had bought her during their shopping spree and, while she might not have admitted it out loud, Zoe had chosen it because it was by far the sexiest of the dresses they had bought. She was not quite sure how it did what it did to her body, but boy, did it do something!

  Nick held out his arm. “Shall we go?”

  Despite herself, Zoe had been looking forward to this evening and to spending a bit more casual time with Nick, but Nick seemed to have other ideas. He was not one to let an opportunity to teach pass him by.

  “You order,” he said, passing her the menu.

  Zoe stared. “I don’t know what any of this is.”

  “You said you could speak French – can’t you read it?”

  “Of course I can,” Zoe snapped back. “But if this was in English then it still might as well be in Greek!”

  “What?”

  Zoe sighed. “If you read out just these descriptions, without telling me they were from a menu, then I wouldn’t have even guessed that you were talking about food. Why can’t they just say what something is? Why write a novel just to describe sliced ham?”

  Zoe had expected Nick to roll his eyes about her shameful ignorance of quality food, but instead he just smiled.

  “Try the wine list.”

  Truth be told, and it was something that Zoe hadn’t really had the courage to bring up yet, given the nature of her assignment, Zoe was not really a wine connoisseur. In fact, she was not really a wine drinker. In Zoe’s town there were only four types of a wine; there was red and white of course, and they could be divided again into wine that comes out of a box, and the ‘good’ stuff that came in a glass bottle. Those were the only distinctions she knew. She was aware that such things as Shiraz, Chardonnay, and Prosecco existed, but had no idea what they meant beyond the fact that they were gaining increasing popularity as girls’ names.

  She picked up the wine list with trepidation. She had read books that were shorter than this. The names and descriptions flooded over her in a tide of curly handwriting and florid descriptions about body, depth, sweetness, dryness and on into more perplexing words: toasty, crispy, impudent, savage. How the hell could a drink be savage? Or crispy for that matter? Or how could something wet be called dry? It was a mystery to her.

  She scanned the list hopefully in search of a wine with a little thumbs up sign or perhaps a smiley face next to it, denoting that it tasted good (a factor that all the descriptions seemed to ignore!). But such prosaic concerns as how the drink tasted were clearly beneath this list. Zoe realized that she was starting to imbue the list itself with human qualities – she considered it to be looking down on her with a sneer– but if a wine could be impudent then surely a wine list could be snobby? In desperation she looked for a price, reasoning that the most expensive was the best and Nick could probably afford it. But the list included no prices, working on the basis that if you had to ask, you couldn’t afford it.

  On reflection, and very aware that Nick was waiting for her to make a choice, Zoe reasoned that, since these were all wines, then they must all be at worst drinkable – a place like this was hardly going to stock inferior wine. Therefore, it mattered very little what she actually ordered, it was all wine, it was all of a good enough quality – she could just pick one at random. Besides, she knew how this worked, she had been to restaurants in New York with Vanessa and with the more ambitious of the men she had dated since leaving home – you made your selection and, regardless of what you picked, the wine waiter said ‘excellent choice’, because customer service was more important and he cared about his tip.

  The wine waiter approached, looking down his nose like a cartoon stereotype. “’Ave you made your selection?” His accent was stronger than that of the bellboy, and less sensual. He definitely had a sneer.

  “A bottle of this please,” said Zoe, pointing – she was not yet prepared to negotiate the minefield of actually saying the name.

  The waiter looked at the list, then back to Zoe, and shook his head somberly. “Non, Mademoiselle. Non.”

  “No?”

  “Non.”

  Apparently the system in France worked slightly differently to the one in the good old US of A. In France the wine waiters were there to prevent you from making a terrible, life-shattering choice and to shame you for even considering it.

  “Okkkay,” said Zoe, starting to look at the list once more, wondering how many random selections she could make before finding one the waiter liked (and wondering why him liking it was any sort of a big deal!).

  “Non.” The waiter snatched the wine list from her hands as if her touching it affronted his finely honed sensibilities. “You are – ‘ow do you say? – ‘orribly ignorant.” He passed the wine list to Nick. “Please, Monsieur.” His voice had taken on a plaintive tone, desperate for Nick to end the torture that Zoe’s poor selection had inflicted upon his unprepared body.

  Nick selected a wine and the waiter’s lip twitched in moderated approval. “Satisfactory choice, Monsieur.”

  Apparently Nick had room for improvement as well, but he would do.

  “What a jackass!” hissed Zoe, as soon as the man was out of earshot.

  “They take wine very seriously here,” said Nick.

  “Doesn’t mean you have to be a dick about it.”

  “This is the world you have to fit into.” He spread his hands before him with a shrug.

  Zoe nodded in glum acknowledgement. “I think I’ve got to tell you something, and I hope you won’t think any less of me for it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Zoe took a deep breath. “I don’t know the first thing about wine. I think it all tastes the same, pretty disgusting, and, frankly, as long as it gets you drunk, who the hell cares?”

  There was a crash and a thud from behind Zoe. She turned to see their waiter, passed out on the floor, clutching his heart, the shattered remains of a ‘satisfactory’ bottle of wine around him.

  “Some people care,” said Nick. “When you’re around Monsieur Jourdan, you might want to keep those opinions to yourself.”

  While, privately, Zoe remained sure that her own opinion on the relative importance of wine – that it did not remotely matter - was correct, it was obviously important for the sake of this important mission that she not only keep such opinions to herself, but also that she cultivate some better understanding of the stuff. To that end, they were to spend the remainder of Zoe’s period of training at a vineyard in the South, and they set out early the next morning in a car that Nick kept at his family’s Parisian house (of course the Rothbergers had a Parisian ho
use).

  “For the record,” said Zoe, staring at the car, “this impresses me more than the hotel, the wine, the whole rest of it. If you’d wanted to sell me on the sophisticated lifestyle, you definitely should have started with the car.”

  Nick smiled and shook his head. “Chicks dig the car.” He patted it lovingly.

  It was a great a car.

  Not one of the modern hyper-cars, all horsepower and flared wheel arches, not even a modern a super-car, but a Ferrari Daytona from the days when the South of France was the playground for stars who were not just rich and popular, but also cool. There was nothing, nor could there ever be anything, that was even half as cool, as driving in a Ferrari Daytona with the top down through the South of France on a sunny day, especially if you were as handsome as Nick Rothberger and had a beautiful girl on your arm (Zoe wondered if she would do). It didn’t matter if you had money, connections or a rambling chateau, you had the car, you had the girl (sort of) – that was enough. You can’t put a price on cool.

  There were quicker ways to get from Paris to wine country, but there could not be any better ones. Cars had never really interested Zoe before – she was aware of them as a practicality and her Dad had taught her basic automotive engineering, enough to change a flat tire, she was aware that some looked better than others but had never really considered that a measure of their worth. But if you have never cruised through the French countryside in a Ferrari Daytona, then you don’t know what real driving is. You also don’t know what real envy is.

  To her surprise, Zoe found that she quite enjoyed being envied by everyone else on the road, perhaps because that envy came with surprisingly little malice. If you drove past people in a Porsche or even in an Aston Martin, then they would hate you for having that car while they toddled along in a Hyundai. But in a Ferrari Daytona, the people might have envied you, but they couldn’t hate you, because you brightened their day just by driving past. You couldn’t look at a Ferrari Daytona without smiling.