by Cassia Leo
She smiled at him. “Well, hello. I’m Georgiana Johnson. You can call me Georgie.”
He reached for Lizzy’s bag. “I am Dieter Schwarz. Ms. Reagan Stone sent me to collect you from the airport.”
It was like Rae knew just what Georgie liked: male.
And tall.
Dieter Schwarz turned sideways, and his profile slanted in and down from barrel chest to his tight waistline.
Oh, yeah. Georgie could just hole up in a hotel room with him for two days and never notice the world going by outside.
She glanced down at Lizzy, who had perked up a little in the presence of such a strapping specimen.
Lizzy said, “Thanks. Nice to meet you. I’m Lizzy. Have we met?”
Dieter tilted his head, and the sunlight from the skylight above them glinted on his golden hair. “I think not. I work for a mutual friend of ours in a private capacity.”
Georgie loved his accent, half the throaty growl of German, half the sexy sibilance of French.
Lizzy snapped her fingers and pointed at him. ‘You’re one of The Dom’s mysterious Men in Black that we all speculate about all the time.”
Dieter frowned, a lovely little crease between his intelligent gray eyes. “We had hoped to be less obtrusive. This way, please.”
He handed off their bags to another buff guy who was sandy-haired and dark-eyed, also built like an inverted pyramid and like he had ridges of muscle under that closely cut suit.
Dieter said, “This is my associate, Friedhelm Vonlanthen.”
Georgie looked between the two of them, trying to decide which one to hit on.
A smorgasbord of testosterone.
A buffet of male flesh.
Maybe Georgie could get both of them into her bed. She’d never done that before.
The manly men strode ahead of Lizzy and Georgie, their suit coats swaying just enough to occasionally reveal a glimpse of their strong butts in very nice suit trousers.
At least she wouldn’t be thinking about Russian mobs, lack of a job, or revelations of identity anymore.
Not until these guys sat down, anyway.
Sadly, they eventually reached a black SUV, and Dieter held the door for Georgie. She let her fingers linger on his warm, strong hand just a little as she clambered into the back seat.
Hans drove them through the streets of Paris, the window boxes a riot of springtime flowers, and the traffic careening through the lanes as they approached the Etoile, the starburst intersection that circled the Arc de Triomphe at the head of the Champs-Élysées.
Georgie gazed out the window a moment, images streaming through her head of the several times that she had taken this route, and nostalgia stole over her for her childhood, and her parents, and her brother, and innocence.
Dieter the Meatier turned to Hot-As-Fried-Ham Friedhelm (she was still working on that one,) and said, “When we get back to Schloss Southwestern, Gretchen and I will have you over for supper.”
“Yes, and how is your lovely wife?” Friedhelm asked.
“She is busy taking care of the incorrigible toddler-girl and very angry that I am traveling yet again this week. And how is your lovely friend?”
“Much the same,” Friedhelm said, shaking his head. “Vivienne is very angry at the proposed move, also.”
Dieter asked, “Who is the mysterious woman that Hans is spending his time with? He never brings her around to meet the Welfenlegion.”
“I couldn’t say,” Friedhelm said, “but he has managed to stay at Schloss Southwestern every time we travel.”
For Georgie, it was like a light bulb above their heads had blown out. Dieter’s hair flattened to dishwater dull, and Friedhelm’s features sharpened until his hawklike nose looked cruel.
Dieter turned to address them in the back seat, cranking himself like his overbulked muscles interfered with his flexibility. The sun caught in his eyes, and his gray irises turned eerily colorless. He said, “We will be at the hotel soon,” in a hoarse rasp.
“Thank you.” Georgie opened up her laptop and started typing a paper that was due next week at school.
So they would be at the hotel soon. She would be at least marginally safe there. She could just hide in her hotel room, evidently alone.
The SUV turned off the Champs-Élysées onto a smaller side street, one still lined with blooming windowboxes and planters along the side of the road..
A magnificent white building loomed behind the manicured trees. The SUV pulled over to the curb. The golden scrollwork on glass read, George V.
Lizzy stuck her elbow in Georgie’s ribs and crowed, “Hey! The Georgie the Fifth! Get it? Georgie?”
She blinked hard. “They’re staying at the George Vee.” Her insane giggle caught in her throat. “Of course they are.”
Georgie closed her laptop, thanked the security men, and stepped out of the SUV into the unforgiving French sunshine.
Surely the staff had changed a couple times in the intervening six or seven years since she had been here, and they wouldn’t remember her if she kept her head down. Rae probably hadn’t put the room in Georgie’s name, and besides, they couldn’t have a record of a Georgiana Johnson.
Of course, if Rae was at the George Vee, Flicka was probably around, too.
Georgie tucked her chin to her chest, right above her thudding heart, and blazed through the lobby. Her rollie suitcase bounced behind her as she wove through a mist of the bright scent of thousands of white roses and green hydrangeas arranged in stacked vases until a bellhop accosted her, took her bag, handed her a keycard, and led her to the elevator.
She kept her face down, staring at the dark blue rug and the golden veins in the marble floor.
GEORGIANA JOHNSON AND WULFRAM VON HANNOVER
Georgie
The concierge minced out of the plush elevator and led Georgie and Lizzy to the door of a huge suite, the Empire Suite, where Georgie and her parents had stayed when she was fourteen. A security man in a black suit, yet another one, opened the front door for them, and they walked into the foyer.
The rooms spread out before them, rolling all the way to the windows that overlooked the buildings of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. Flower-scented air billowed in the open windows, thrown wide over the rooftops and traffic far down below.
Georgie kept her eyes down, staring at the royal blue and gold carpeting under her feet until Rae emerged from the master bedroom, ran over, and hugged them both around the neck.
Okay, she had delivered Lizzy to safety. Georgie could go now.
Instead, she wound an arm around Rae’s waist and looked over her shoulder at the Empire Suite.
Her mother had held dinner and cocktail parties at the inlaid dining table that seated ten. The upholstery stitched on the chairs seemed a few shades of darker blue than it used to be. Maybe they had had to replace it after spills or someone was sick on it after too much to drink. The chandelier that caught the Parisian morning sunlight above it glittered with more diamond-like crystals than nine years ago, it seemed. Her father had almost knocked that alabaster bust of Napoleon off its pedestal when he staggered into it, drunk.
The buttery, baked-bread scent of croissants filled the whole room.
Rae leaned down to talk to Lizzy. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Lizzy told her. “I’m fine.”
Rae grabbed Lizzy’s hands, dropping Georgie’s, and said, “Georgie told me about what happened, and I’ve never forgiven myself for not hauling you out of The Devilhouse and out of the clutches of that Dommy-Dom guy. What happened?”
“Later,” Lizzy told her. “First things, first. Thanks for the free trip to Paris, Rae-Rae.”
“Yeah, well, about that. Um, breakfast?” She gestured to a table with food, lots of food, Parisian food like croissants and fruit and coffee.
Of course, there were croissants at the George Vee. Georgie wanted to sob, but she walked toward the breakfast table without moving a muscle on her face.
Lizzy dodged around
Georgie and Rae and sprinted to the table like she was a scampering bunny rabbit. She was already buttering a croissant while Rae and Georgie were still walking over and tore into it. “Oh, miGod. So good,” she said, spraying flakes.
Rae and Georgie sat down at the other two spots.
“What, not watching your carbs?” Georgie asked, staring at the moon-shaped pastries.
Lizzy held out a croissant. French butter was smeared over the end. “Try this. It’s so good.”
Georgie snagged a red apple from the dish in the center of the table. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat pastry before.”
Lizzy stuffed the croissant tail in her mouth and said while chewing, “I like pizza now, too.”
Georgie was just cutting into her apple, but the knife dropped out of her hand. “I cannot count how many times I ordered a large pizza just to offer you a slice, and you never—”
“Hey, guys.” Rae’s guilty-as-original-sin expression looked like she was about to break some bad news.
Georgie cringed at the thought of more bad news.
Rae said, “I appreciate you jumping on a plane on short notice.”
“Yeah, sure,” Lizzy said, smearing thick butter on the other side of her croissant. Flakes drifted to the plate, and the baked scent filled the air around Georgie.
Rae said, “Um, I need to tell y’all something.”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Georgie reached over and took Rae’s hand, determined to stay stoic. “Are you okay? This isn’t a Make-A-Wish trip, is it?”
“Oh, no. I’m fine. No problem, there. I’m just not sure—” Rae looked out the windows, over at the Eiffel Tower, like she wanted to turn to dust and float away. She said, “It’s about Wulf.”
A wolf? Georgie didn’t get it.
Lizzy asked, “Who?”
“Wulf,” Rae said. “That’s The Dom’s name, his real name.”
Lizzy’s jaw dropped open like she wanted the flies to get in. She crowed, “No way! His name is Wulf. Get it?” She elbowed Georgie, and Georgie scrambled after the apple slice that went shooting out of her hand. “Wulf? Like he names all the sub guys dog names? There’s Irish Setter, and Cairn Terrier, and Mutt. Oh my God! I cannot believe he does that! That’s so psycho!”
Rae blinked her huge, brown eyes. “I guess he did. Jeez, some psych major I am, huh?”
Georgie leaned in. Even she could see that Rae was winding up for a long story. “That’s not all, though. What’s up?”
Rae looked at her lap, a classic move of misdirection. She said, “We’re getting married this morning.”
Lizzy laughed. “You’re marrying The Dom? What kind of crazy pre-nup did that come with? Like, are you sharing him with other girls?” Lizzy’s mouth dropped open again, and her pale blue eyes grew on her tiny face. “When you say we’re getting married, you didn’t mean that we are all marrying him, right? That isn’t why Georgie and I are here, right? ‘Cause we are not down with that. At least, I’m not. I am so not.”
Oh, Lord. Had Lizzy really repeated that? That girl had no freaking filter.
“No!” Rae’s big, brown eyes widened even more, an appropriate response, this time. “Good God, no! Just me. Nothing out of the ordinary, other than he asked me last night and I said yes and then he said now and it’s all very, very sudden. Why would you think such a thing? Georgie? Where would she get such an idea?”
Georgie sat up very straight, very prim, and held her apple slice out to the side like a nonchalant cigarette. “I’m sure I have no idea.”
She ignored Lizzy’s gaping. She really should grow a filter someday.
“It’s weird that it’s so soon, right?” Rae asked. “Is this some European thing? Do they just up and get married without an engagement? I mean, the very next day?”
“So, you’re marrying him this morning?” Georgie glanced at Lizzy and prayed that she had grown that filter in the last couple seconds. Surely Lizzy wouldn’t declare her undying love for The Dom right here, right now, to their friend who was going to marry him.
Lizzy grinned and shoved her croissant in her mouth.
Looked like Lizzy was okay. At least Georgie could stand down on that front.
“Yep,” Rae said. “That’s it. I just wanted you guys here at my wedding, as bridesmaids, not as sister wives. Jeez, that’s weird by my family’s standards.”
The confused expression on Rae’s face was priceless. Maybe Georgie needed to pile on just a little. “Well, you know, it’s not completely insane. This is The Dom that we’re talking about.”
“No, it’s not The Dom,” Rae said, picking up her knife to smear more butter to her croissant. “It’s Wulf. Just Wulf.”
Memory tickled the back of Georgie’s neck, but she wasn’t sure what it was.
Wulf.
That was familiar somehow, but she hadn’t ever known The Dom’s name.
“Oh, yeah. He’s different now.” Lizzy tore off a big bite of her croissant.
“I don’t think he ever really was The Dom,” Rae said. “At least, that’s my working hypothesis. He’s just really good at compartmentalizing, when he needs to.”
“Oooo,” Lizzy said. “Psychology.”
Something, Georgie thought. Something about the name Wulf. She stared at the George Vee croissants on the plate, not quite reaching for the rich pastry that smelled like her childhood in this very suite.
Rae swallowed a bite of her croissant. “God, these are good.”
Yeah, they were good. The croissants and the suite were confusing her. The name Wulf didn’t have anything to do with those. Something else.
“So, he loves you?” Lizzy asked Rae. “At least some of his compartments do, anyway?”
Rae nodded. “I mean, I think so. He said so.” Her sigh sounded like an admission of guilt. “You were right, Georgie. I’m so twitterpated. It’s been tearing me up. I’m sorry, Lizzy. I know how you feel about him, and I’m so sorry. If you want me to put you back on a plane home, or if you don’t want to go to the wedding—”
Lizzy jumped up, ran around the table, and threw her arms around Rae. Rae’s brown eyes bugged out a little at Lizzy’s display of emotion, but she hugged her back.
Lizzy chortled, “I am so happy for you. You found love, and you’re marrying the love of your life. That’s amazing, and I know you’ll be happy.”
Rae said, “I’m so glad. I wanted you guys here more than anyone else, but I was so afraid that you’d be all broken up about it,” Rae said. Relief made her voice breathy. “There’s a little more to it than just that, but if y’all are okay with it, then everything’s going to be fine.”
Georgie smiled at her, shoving all those wisps of memory to the back of her head. They probably weren’t important anyway. “Of course we’re happy for you. Do you need someone to look over a pre-nup? I could call someone, like Professor Chen, who represented Lizzy for that contract.”
Rae looked perplexed. “Wulf didn’t mention a pre-nup. It probably slipped his mind. I’ll just ask him.”
Wulf.
The name echoed in Georgie’s head like boots stomping in a corridor.
Maybe she had heard The Dom’s name at some point in the past and was just putting it together now.
Surely that was it.
Rae and Lizzy nattered on about lawyers, and the name Wulf echoed around and around in Georgie’s head, looking to latch onto something.
Rae finally said to both of them, “Wait here just a minute. There’s some other stuff about Wulf that we should discuss, but I need to ask him about that pre-nup.”
Wulf, like a far-off thunderclap, rumbled around the room.
Rae folded her napkin beside her plate. “Excuse me.”
Georgie needed to concentrate on the here-and-now. She sipped her coffee as Rae sidled back to the master bedroom.
When Rae closed the door to the bedroom behind herself, Georgie grabbed Lizzy’s hand. “So you’re okay.”
“I am so okay. Between Theo and Manni
x, I don’t even want to think about The Dom,” she whispered. Her light blue eyes were crinkled with laughter, not lined with weepy tears, thank God.
From behind the closed door of the bedroom, a man laughed, a deep, rolling peal of good humor.
Georgie nearly dropped her apple slice. “Was that The Dom?”
“The Dom doesn’t laugh,” Lizzy said. “He occasionally allows a cold smile, but he never laughs.”
Everything about this day was unsettling. “That was weird.”
Lizzy said, “Maybe he’s happy.”
Such a facile comment, yet maybe true. Georgie had often thought that she sensed that something sad lurked behind The Dom’s cold demeanor. “Yeah, maybe he is.”
A black cat jumped up into the fourth chair at the table, and its whiskery face looked over the bone china plate at them.
Lizzy jumped back in her chair. “Holy cow!”
“Hey!” Georgie said, peering at the cat. “Is that Blackie? The cat that was hanging around The Devilhouse a few months ago?”
The cat regarded them with solemn yellow eyes, gazing at Lizzy’s leftover butter pat smeared on the edge of her plate.
The bedroom door clicked and opened. From inside, The Dom’s bass voice said, “Of course not. Do you want a pre-nuptial contract?”
Rae’s chuckle was brighter in timbre, nearly giggly. “Yeah, sure. But I warn you, my family doesn’t believe in divorce. We believe in cast iron skillets and branding irons.”
Georgie couldn’t believe that Rae had said that. She cracked up, and Lizzy laughed with her.
Rae came back, shutting the bedroom door behind her, and sat at the table. “Oh, Brunhilde,” Rae said, speaking to the cat, as if the cat understood her. “We didn’t get any sausage today. I’m sorry.”
The cat sighed and wandered off.
Lizzy asked, “That was the cat from The Devilhouse?”
Rae picked up her croissant again. “Yeah. Wulf takes her everywhere he travels. She pines when he leaves her at home.”
Georgie choked on her coffee. The Dom had bonded with the stray cat that had been wandering around The Devilhouse, and now he was spoiling the heck out of it. That was so weird.