Nights in Black Lace

by Noelle Mack

  “I—I’m honored. But also freaked out.”

  “Why?”

  “Women like you don’t fall in love with guys like me. And—and I can’t say I’m completely sure I love you.”

  She gave a very Gallic shrug. “Tant pis, eh? That’s how it goes. Oh, well. You leave tomorrow.”

  He could see tears shimmering in her eyes.

  “But I’m ninety percent sure I do. Love you, I mean.”

  “You are?”

  “And I’m absolutely positive I’m in lust with you, Odette. The lust is no problem at all for me.”

  She fell silent. “Hmm. It could work.”

  “Not if I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  6

  L ucie chose that moment to burst in. “Odette! The worst has happened! You must come quickly!”

  Go fuck Johan, Bryan thought angrily.

  “What is it, Lucie? Is the building on fire?” She got up quickly and went to her assistant.

  “No, of course not!” Lucie didn’t even seem to notice that Bryan was in the room. “Come look on my computer! Merde! I am so angry!”

  Bryan looked around the office. He hadn’t even realized until then that Odette had no computer on her desk or anywhere. No laptop, either. She really was a hands-on designer.

  Odette let Lucie drag her away, casting an alarmed look over her shoulder at Bryan.

  Should he stay here or wait for the women to come back? He settled down for what he hoped would be a short wait. Something major must have happened. Lucie wasn’t the excitable type.

  Half an hour later, they hadn’t returned. He stood, and went out, heading for Lucie’s office. It had to be her office, there were a lot of people clustered around the door and probably more inside, chattering angrily.

  He translated a few key phrases in his mind. Copies made. For sale now. The new line is not out yet. There are not even prototypes. Bryan could see over the heads of the small crowd. Odette was in Lucie’s office, her face illuminated by the faint bluish light coming from the screen.

  She glanced up briefly at Bryan, then issued instructions in a rapid-fire, low voice to key members of her staff. She shooed the others away.

  He didn’t know whether to stay or go. Whatever had happened, it was serious. Odette looked down at the laptop again, hit a few keys, then motioned him over.

  “My latest designs have been copied.”

  “The ones from the runway show? That was less than two days ago.”

  “Not those. Already old news. No, the very latest.” She pointed to the screen. “Look.”

  He leaned in and saw flower-petal undies and a bra on a white plastic dummy with no head, no arms, and no legs.

  “You just did those!”

  “Yes, I know,” she said acidly. “And that’s not all.” She clicked on several thumbnails. Designs he hadn’t seen, just as imaginative, bloomed and faded away.

  “That can’t be. You created that design right on Grischenka.” He stopped for a second. “Wait a minute. Could she—”

  “I had sketched them before I worked with the actual materials. But I keep things like that in my binder.”

  “Not on a computer?”

  “Not until the final stages of design, no. We’ve been hacked before.”

  Bryan shook his head. “So what happens now?”

  “We go after these thieves. File suit for trademark infringement.”

  He nodded, and then something else occurred to him. “But don’t fashions get copied all the time?”

  “Yes,” she said. Exasperation tightened her features. “There actually isn’t that much we can ultimately do. But these designs were meant for my Japanese clients. If they aren’t assured of an exclusive line, they won’t buy.”

  He was getting an idea of why Lucie said the worst had happened. “How much money is involved?”

  “Millions.”

  “If you can’t stop this, will the company go under?”

  “No. But my credibility as a designer who can deliver is going to be very shaky, though.”

  “But you own the company, right? So it’s not like you’re going to get fired and replaced.”

  Odette shook her head and pressed her lips together, fighting back emotions. He knew her well enough by now to read them.

  Fury. Helplessness. Sorrow.

  Hell, she was up against it. And there was nothing he could do to help her.

  “If our earnings drop too low, I might have to sell. And Oh! Oh! Odette could be the object of a hostile takeover. And then, yes—I could be fired.”

  What she was saying was unthinkable. But Bryan knew it could happen.

  “Let’s think this through.” He looked around at the other people in the room, who’d been listening to Odette with solemn expressions. “Just you and me.”

  “You have no expertise in this, Bryan.” She chewed her bottom lip.

  “Maybe that’s good,” he said. “As an outsider…”

  She glanced up at him, understanding what he didn’t want to say. As an outsider, he couldn’t possibly be the culprit. Anyone, including the onlookers, who worked for her, could be the one who’d sold her out.

  “All right. Gaston, Cherie, will you download these and call the legal department?” A man and a woman stepped forward, but Lucie didn’t move away from her desk.

  “I’ll send the link to you and to legal,” Lucie said. “Odette, what do you want me to do?”

  “Just monitor the site for now. Note the keywords and check them on Google at least once an hour. The designs are probably all over the world by now.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That they are worthless, at least to me. Whoever is manufacturing them will get them into stores in countries with no meaningful trademark protection. With my name on the label.”

  “Panty pirates,” Bryan said without thinking.

  Odette slapped him. “That’s not funny!”

  Bryan put a hand to his stinging cheek. “Sorry. Jesus, I really am.”

  She stormed out of the room and he went after her. “Odette, please—”

  The low walls of the cubicles and workstations made it easy to follow her, even though she was moving fast.

  He nodded to the employees who stood up, looking after her curiously and looking at him with narrowed eyes.

  If nothing else, most of her staff was loyal to her, Bryan thought. He didn’t want to run. They’d probably call security and he’d get the bum’s rush to the sidewalk outside the atelier. He heard a door bang in the corridor ahead.

  He smiled politely as he walked a little faster. When he got to her office door, it was shut.

  Not quite, he saw on a second look. She’d banged it so hard, the latch had let go. He put a hand on it and eased it open a little. Christ. If he poked his head in, she might throw something heavy at him.

  “Mind if I come in?” he said from the other side.

  He heard an angry sob being swallowed back and then a somewhat more controlled, “No.”

  “I really am sorry, Odette.”

  “So am I. It’s not your fault, what happened. I lost my temper in front of my staff—I didn’t want to do that.”

  “Can’t be the first time.”

  She looked at him indignantly. “How would you know?”

  “Designer temperament. You have it.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “You happen to be right, but I am the CEO. It’s one thing to lose your temper over creative problems, but not something like this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Those people depend on me. I pay their salaries. Someone is in charge around here and it happens to be me.”

  “I’m sure they understand,” he said soothingly.

  “Maybe.” Her voice was dull. She looked up at the clouds passing over her skyhigh windows. “What am I going to do?”

  “Calm down, first of all. Deep breaths.”

  She tried one, and started to cough.

  “Again.
C’mon.”

  “Fuck off, Bryan!”

  “No. You have to get a grip. Forgive me for getting all California on you, but deep breathing does help.”

  “What’s next?” she snarled. “Sitting in the lotus position? Will that help?”

  “Okay, okay.” He held up in his hands. “Time out. You can calm down later. Maybe frantic is the way to go right now.”

  “Arggghhh!” With a cry of despair, she put her hands over her face.

  Well, he could stay calm and let her vent for a while. She didn’t make any more anguished noises and she was breathing a little more slowly. Through her fingers.

  “Has this ever happened before?”

  “Once. When I first started. But the label was new and not worth copying. We got a cease-and-desist order through our contact at the Ministry of Trade and that was the end of it.”

  “So now what?”

  She rubbed her eyes. “I suck it up, as you Americans say. And hire a detective to find the culprit.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather investigate in-house?”

  Odette snorted. “I don’t have anyone on staff like that. No, someone from outside would be better. There are specialists, although I am sure they are incredibly expensive.”

  “Cheaper than the company going under.”

  “Would you please not point out the obvious?” she asked with a pained expression. “Even if it is true.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I will make some calls and find out who takes cases like these. Paris is still the design capital of the world. I am sure it is a lucrative specialty.”

  She unzipped her purse, looking in an inside pocket for something, and came up with keys. Then she unlocked a drawer in her desk and pulled out a laptop.

  “You do have one. I thought it was kind of weird that you didn’t—”

  She’d opened it before he finished the sentence. “Of course I do,” she said, booting it up. She stared into the screen, but he had the feeling she was aware of every move he made and every breath he took at this charged moment. “Not on the company network and encrypted up the kazoo. What is a kazoo, by the way?”

  “A musical instrument for kids. It honks. And it’s a nasty metaphor for—”

  “I get the idea. Another wonderful American expression.”

  “Whoa,” he said. “Are you in an anti-U.S. mood all of a sudden? Yankee Go Home and all that?”

  “No. I am just being a bitch and taking it out on you.”

  That stopped him. “Thanks for being honest,” he said dryly.

  “I want you to stay longer,” she said, still not looking at him. “You can’t leave tomorrow. I need you here.”

  “Odette, I don’t know the first thing about—corporate espionage or trademark infringement or anything like that.”

  “I need you,” she repeated vehemently.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. He wasn’t sure if he had enough money in his account to cover a ticket change and he was damned if he’d ask her. Even if she offered, he wouldn’t accept.

  Being footloose and fancy-free was just another way of saying you were fucked in the money department.

  Bryan looked around her spare office, thinking that few pieces of furniture in it probably cost around what he made in a year taking assistant gigs in the biology department.

  The university parceled out the jobs to broke grad students like him, but that didn’t mean he could cover his expenses or had an emergency fund.

  Did her problems qualify as an emergency? Hell, yes. But she was the one with the deep pockets, not him.

  More than anything, he wanted to be her knight in shining armor. It was too damn bad he didn’t have a bag of golden ducats hanging off his freaking chain mail. When you wanted to man up, and didn’t have the money to do it, life sucked.

  “Okay. I’m going to leave for a bit,” he said. “Try not to jump out the window, okay?”

  She was clicking away on the laptop, but she looked up. “Are you coming back? Are you staying?”

  “Yes. And yes, I think so. I want to take care of that first. You know how it is with last-minute ticket changes.”

  “Do you need money?”

  “No.”

  Just that she’d asked that question rankled him. Bryan walked through the streets of the neighborhood around her atelier, looking for a cheap place to eat.

  The internet café he’d stopped into before didn’t serve sandwiches, so that was out. He needed protein before he tackled the airline reservation problem. As in round, ground cow slathered in ketchup, topped and bottomed with a toasted bun.

  Where was the diner he’d been to with her?

  Somewhere east of the river and west of his hotel. Meaning he had no idea. And speaking of the hotel, he was going to have to check out of it.

  They could hold his duffel and backpack hostage if they wanted to. He hadn’t brought a laptop or anything of value. Bryan was a big believer in traveling light.

  He’d blown it. Getting involved with a woman like Odette Gaillard meant beaucoup de emotional baggage he wasn’t sure he wanted to claim.

  The sound of running feet behind him made him turn his head to get out of the jogger’s way. But it wasn’t a jogger. It was Marc, Odette’s male assistant.

  “You walk fast,” Marc panted.

  “Yeah, I do. You all right? I didn’t know you were trying to catch up with me.”

  The other man took huge, gulping breaths. “I detest exercise.”

  Marc didn’t look like he needed it. He was lithe and lean, but he was completely out of breath. “Sorry,” Bryan said.

  Marc took a pack of Gauloises out of his pants pocket and fired one up. “Do you mind?”

  “Nah. Smoke one for me.”

  The assistant grinned, holding the end of his cigarette in his teeth, squinting his eyes against the smoke. “Do you believe we French are no longer allowed to smoke wherever we want?” He held the end near his lips with his fingertips and took a deep drag. “First they banned smoking in restaurants and now bars and cafés. It is an outrage.”

  “It’s the way the world is going.”

  “Pah. Me, I believe in liberté, égalité, and tobacco.”

  “Whatever floats your boat, Marc. So why were you chasing after me?”

  The other man eyed a guy who looked just like him, only Latin, and didn’t respond for a second. “My apologies. What a distraction.” He coughed and waved the cigarette he’d taken out of his mouth, making Bryan cough too.

  “It’s okay.”

  “I wanted to make sure,” Marc began again, “that you were not going to disappear. Odette is crushed on you.”

  “Do you mean she has a crush on me or that she is crushed by me?”

  “English is a stupid language,” he sighed. “I mean that she thinks you are hot.”

  “The first, then.”

  Marc threw his half-smoked cigarette into the gutter. “She is not wrong. But I suspect that—ah—perhaps the subject is a delicate one.”

  “Spit it out,” Bryan said, not delicately.

  “You don’t have a dime. Is that the right word? Dimes are the little coins, yes?”

  Bryan thrust his hands in his pockets and walked a little faster. He was, in fact, dimeless. “Uh-huh. Easy to lose.”

  “I thought so.”

  Bryan shot him a look. “Do I look poor to you? I mean, most Americans wear jeans and tops. So do a lot of the French.”

  “Do not get pissy with me,” Marc said severely. “No, it is not your clothes. You have a ragged charm that is interesting.”

  Holy fuck. Never in his life had Bryan heard a line like that. He had to laugh a little. “Thanks.”

  “It is the look in your eyes. That is how I know.”

  Marc wasn’t wrong about him having no money, so Bryan wasn’t going to argue. “Whatever,” he said resignedly. “You’re right, I am pretty much broke. I can’t tell Odette that.”

  “I understand. A man must be
a man. But Odette needs you. When you left the atelier, she burst into tears and cried like a baby.”

  “Oh.” Bryan gave a huge sigh and stopped. “Can we sit here by the quai and talk about this?”

  “Of course.” Marc led the way to the stone wall and jumped down. A group of old fishermen with massive backs and flat caps sat with lines in the water, not speaking. They looked almost like statues, but trails of smoke wafted upward from the cigars wedged in the corners of their mouths.

  “Catch anything?” Bryan asked.

  One of the men grunted and shifted his stumpy cigar to the other side. “Rien. Tant pis.”

  “Nothing. Tough luck. Right.” If he didn’t figure out his money problems, he could join these guys. Mark looked at the silvery-gray river, running on to the next bridge. The Seine had a lot of them.

  He sat next to Marc on a low, projecting wall some distance away from the fishermen, and gave him a rueful smile. “Look, I want to help her, I really do. But I have to have a place to stay, and I’m going to need to hit up a friend in the states for a loan to stay longer.”

  “Wire transfer,” Marc said immediately.

  “What, did you figure all this out while you were running after me?”

  “Oui.”

  Bryan shot him a sideways look. “You really care about Odette, don’t you?”

  “She is the best. She is good to her staff. But if she has the stress, we all have the stress.”

  He nodded. “I can believe it. Nice of you to look after her, dude.”

  Marc gave a shrug and looked out at the river. “She would be angry if she knew I asked you this.”

  “I can keep my mouth shut.”

  “Good. Please do. As to the question of where you can stay, the answer is with me. I have a convertible couch where you can sleep, and my boyfriend is a chef who brings home disgustingly rich food. You will be doing us a favor by eating it. And we have a Chihuahua if you get lonely. We don’t get home until three in the morning, so you will have the place to yourself most of the time. Do you like dogs?”

  Sure, Bryan wanted to say, except for the ones that fit on a Ritz cracker. But he couldn’t turn down free room and board. “Love ’em. I’ll walk the little guy for you.”

  “He walks inside my shoulder bag. Not on the street.”