Lost in conversation, before we knew it, the pilot advised us we were about to touch down in twenty minutes. I glanced out the windows. It was early evening and the sun was setting behind the Eiffel Tower.
“It’s amazing,” I exclaimed.
“First time in France?”
“First time out of the US.”
“Really?”
“Is that so strange?” I said challengingly. “Or are you so completely disconnected from ordinary peoples’ lives?”
“Alice, I get the feeling there is nothing ordinary about you at all.”
Despite myself, I felt a hot flush at the easy charm of this new upgraded version of Michael Maddox. He excused himself to freshen up. Ten minutes later he reappeared, clean shaven, dressed in a neatly pressed tuxedo and smelling of a gorgeous sandalwood based aftershave cologne I couldn’t place.
“Will I do?” he asked.
I bit my lip and nodded. “Acceptable, Mister Maddox.”
He scowled. “Michael, please.”
I couldn’t resist kissing his cheek and removing my lipstick with a tissue. As I pulled away our eyes met and lingered for a moment too long.
Sui Lee told us to fasten our seat belts and a couple of minutes later the plane landed.
The jet taxied to a hangar where we were met by a limousine. As the door opens and a set of air-stairs lowered I looked out into the sunset.
“No customs and immigration?” I asked.
He smiled. “Welcome to my world. Such things are always pre cleared.”
“And you’re just a regular ordinary guy, huh?”
He gave me an easy smile, a little too smugly arrogant.
I shrugged and followed him to the limousine. To my surprise, our hostesses, Rosa and Sui Lee joined us.
Michael seemed oblivious to the dirty looks that Rosa and Sui Lee shot me on the ride to central Paris. The journey took half an hour, but seemed much longer.
My first view of the River Seine from my window was a shock. It was frozen.
Michael leaned over to gaze through my side window.
“First time since the eighteen fifties, the Seine has completely frozen,” he said.
Our hotel was on the Rue De Rivoli, near the Seine.
Once inside, it was like stepping back in time.
“They’ve adopted the lavish style of Louis XVII,” Michael explained. “With a twist of modern unfussy flourishes here and there. The rooms are the same.”
Upon our arrival the manager fussed over Michael. He led us to the elevator and insisted on accompanying us. He seemed to regard me with the famous French acceptance that nothing was his business unless invited to be.
He led us to a suite of elegant rooms. The bedroom was dominated by a four poster bed with a midnight blue canopy. Again in the ornate Louis XVII king of France’s ostentatious style.
It suddenly dawned on me that there was only one bedroom.
I waited for the manager to leave then asked, “Where are you sleeping?”
Michael tried that prefect smile on me. “I thought we’d share?”
“Think again, Mister.”
He laughed. “My bedroom is next door. But Rosa and Sui Lee have the other bedrooms in the suite.”
Michael walked to a set of double doors. He unlocked them and opened them up to an equally stylish room. He disappeared inside.
From my bedroom I stepped out onto a private terrace balcony on the seventh floor. Snow covered the huge private terrace of some two thousand six hundred square feet, high above Parisian rooftops.
“You have ten minutes,” Michael called out.
I couldn’t fail but be impressed by the breath taking, magnificence of the three hundred and sixty degree view of the Eiffel Tower to the Grand Palais or the Notre Dame to the Musée d’Orsay, from the Opéra Garnier to the Sacré Coeur or from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde. I wished it was the elegant hotel’s view that brought me into the freezing air. I shivered, hating the cold. I kicked off my heels. My feet were so unused to them. I tiptoed through the snow in my bare feet to the terrace wall overlooking the Tuileries Garden below.
I leaned against the weathered green zinc of the wall. So far I’d failed to find out anything of importance. With Rosa and Sui Lee staying in such close proximity it was going to be more difficult than I imagined.
I felt a shadow cast over me. I spun around and caught Michael’s intense expression.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Did I startle you?”
“I was just thinking.”
“Oh yes? What about?”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if it was just the two of us?”
“It is just the two of us.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Ah... Should I give Rosa and Sui Lee the evening off?”
I smiled and stroked my hair. He seemed to be fascinated by every tiny inflexion of my movement as I stood there shivering.
“Consider it done,” he said. “Really, if you’re ready, we ought to go. They’re waiting for us.”
Who?”
He flushed visibly uncomfortable. “Oh, just a few likeminded folks.”
He offered his arm and I took it. “I’m ready,” I said.
He glanced at my feet and smiled. “Indeed?”
I glanced down at my bare feet. “Would we shock your friends if I arrived bare foot?”
“I’d like to see that.”
“Not tonight.”
“Allow me,” he said, bending to one knee and retrieving my heels. He took one ankle and slid it neatly and expertly into my shoe. There was a jolt of electricity from his fingers, and I could tell he felt it too.
“Now you’re ready.”
But for what I wondered.
THIRTEEN
Alice’s Journal
“Just a quiet little dinner with a few friends, Alice,” Michael said. “Then we’ll have a chance to get to know each other a little, I promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Michael.”
The small gathering of friends turned out to be a large room in the hotel filled with hundreds of expensively dressed people. As we walked to our table, everyone stood and clapped.
Michael seemed to take it in his stride.
We were led to a table at the front of the room. Sat at the table were Rosa and Sui Lee. Both were dressed in evening gowns and looked from Michael to me and back again like a pair of cats on heat licking cream from their paws.
As Michael pulled out my chair for me, he leaned in and whispered, “Hope you don’t mind their company. This evening is going to be a little too heavy going, so I thought a little fun later would be in order. Hope you don’t mind?”
By fun I assumed he was referring to a threesome with his air hostess pals. Over and over I silently told myself it was no concern of mine. I don’t know why it bothered me that my client was clearly a superficial playboy.
The lights dimmed and a movie was projected on a large screen. The voiceover spent twenty minutes eulogizing about the amazing work done by charities that could not have existed were it not for the fabulous donation of over a billion dollars by no less than Michael Maddox.
The movie ended and I recognized the man in a tuxedo as he took to a podium. It was Jonathan Barret.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here tonight to honor a great man and someone I am proud to call a friend. A man who has tirelessly poured a significant portion of his wealth into the Maddox Foundation for Disease Control. Dedicated to eradicating all disease from the common cold to the most malignant cancers, by cure and vaccination. The international man of the year award goes to Michael Maddox.”
“Your idea of a little gathering of friends?” I asked.
Michael grinned and rolled his eyes at me.
He weaved between the tables of champagne and caviar. Where I expected all eyes to be on him I soon discovered that everyone seated on nearby tables began staring at our table. Where I expected to overhear gossiping commen
ts about Michael’s playboy lifestyle, instead I heard people mention me.
“It’s impossible. She can’t be her,” said an old woman weighed down by her oversized diamond necklace.
The old man sat next to her nodded and stared at me.
“Uncanny, isn’t it?”
Michael took to the stage and hugged Barret as he accepted his award of jagged crystal and gold in the shape of a man reaching for a star. He stooped to the microphone on the rostrum.
“Thank you, my friends. And by friends I mean people with large wallets.”
The audience laughed at the apparent in-joke.
“For some years now,” Michael said, “I have pestered, bullied and in some cases blackmailed...”
He paused for the laughter.
“All of you contribute to what I believe is a project not just dear to my heart, but an absolute number one priority to the progress of our civilization. Some of you have given generously without detailed knowledge of what we do at the Maddox foundation. For that I am grateful for your trust. Others amongst you have given simply to get me out of your hair.”
He smiled, prompting more laughter. He had the crowd in the palm of his hand.
“For those without the time, or inclination to immerse themselves in the details of what we do, I shall spare you the boring parts. But I must say this: we hope to collect every D.N.A. sequence. All the unique building blocks of life. The code unique to each and every one of us and analyze with the Maddox super computer processing power to unravel the exact cause of each and every disease known to the world.”
He paused graciously to allow for more applause.
“So, with that science lesson mercifully over with, I can announce tonight that the Maddox Foundation has successfully collected and analyzed the D.N.A. of one billion people. We are far down the road to inevitable eradication of all previously incurable diseases. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a testament to your generosity and your trust in me.”
He received a standing ovation. With that he leapt off the stage and waded slowly through the crowd. Many of whom slowed him down by wanting to shake his hand. Or in the case of most of the women in the audience, kiss him. But curiously, all while this took place, he never removed his intense gaze from me.
By the time Michael joined me at our table I felt electrified in his presence and I couldn’t quite explain why.
Without intending to I felt compelled to lean over and kiss his full lips. Instantly, I felt a frisson of electricity. A spark between our lips.
We both jolted.
Which promoted laughter for those stood closest to us. His eyes smiled in a questioning sort of way. Egged on it seemed by the whistling crowd he swept me up in his arms, arcing my back slightly and kissed me passionately on the lips.
I felt my head swim as I felt my body merge with his. The kiss seemed to last forever. Or at least part of me wished it did so.
At last his lips parted from mine and as I took a breath it felt like the sweetest breath of air I’d taken in my life. I fussed with my hair, avoiding his eyes.
A jazz band erupted into life and broke the awkwardness that emerged between us. He touched my shoulder and asked me to dance.
My dance moves were non-existent. As he led me to the small dance area in the middle of the room, I desperately tried to remember the few moves that Mai and Charity had instructed me with.
When we reached the dance area, Michael took me by the hands and expertly guided me around the room as I desperately clung to him like a rag doll.
“Why is everyone looking at us?” I asked him.
“Are they?”
Wow, how conceited are you, Mister? “You’re telling me you’re so used to the attention you don’t notice it anymore?”
He laughed. “Is that so bad? I am one of the world’s most eligible bachelors.”
I shook my head.
He frowned, “You disagree?”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“I just can’t seem to get a handle on you, Michael.”
“A handle? What am I a sociology thesis?”
“You should be.”
“And what would be the premise?”
“Well... The contradictions of an enigmatic billionaire.”
His eyes sparkled and he smiled. “I am a contraction am I? How so?”
“For example: why does an emotionally superficial billionaire playboy hire escorts and have threesomes with his female staff and then giveaway a billion dollars to charities?”
“Perhaps I am not what I appear? Maybe I’m just a country boy at heart and all this is an illusion. If we have time I’d love to take you to where I grew up as a boy.”
“That’s the first real thing you’ve said since I met you.”
“So I intrigue you?”
“You could have any woman in the world, practically. Why are you single?”
“Perhaps I like it that way.”
“No man wants to be lonely.”
“Surrounded by all these friends I’m lonely am I?” he asked defiantly.
“Tell me more about your childhood.”
“I come from Provence in the south. You know it?”
I shook my head.
“It is beautiful,” he said. “A mountainous region famous for being the hardest stage in the legendary Tour De France.”
“The bicycle race?”
“See, you do know something of my homeland,” he teased.
“What else?”
“The region is most famous for its fields of lavender. Miles of straight rows of purple from June through August. I would love to show you one day.”
“A shame it’s late September.”
“Ah, but this year was a late summer. Another week or two before the harvest, I think.”
More couples joined us on the dance floor. As the floor filled up with dancers, it became uncomfortably clear they were all staring at me.
“Do they know I’m an escort?” I asked Michael.
“I would think not.”
“Then why are they all staring at me?”
He smiled. “Because you are with me.”
I shook my head. “It’s more than that.”
“Of course, Alice, you are a beautiful woman.”
“I overheard two people discussing me.”
His eyes narrowed and the light in those eyes grew more intense. “Don’t listen to such nonsense.”
“Wait. You haven’t heard what they said, yet.”
“I don’t need to.”
He abruptly stopped dancing and I stumbled. He caught me and held me close to his chest. I could fell his thundering heart.
“It’s time to go,” he said.
“Already?”
“I’m not in the mood for crowds.”
With that he glanced over to his table and grabbed my hand, leading me out of the reception room and to the elevators.
Hurrying after him I said, “You do realize I’m not going to sleep with you tonight?”
Inside the elevator he held the doors for Rosa and Sui Lee. The two women held hands. As the doors closed they embraced each other and began to kiss. Michael smiled, enjoying the show.
He turned to me and said, “You can watch if you like or do as you wish.”
I don’t know why I felt so angry at his arrogantly dismissive attitude.
When the elevator doors opened I stormed off to my room and left them behind. I was angry at him, but also at myself. Yet again I’d failed to get close enough to him to even begin to figure out how to accomplish my mission.
As I entered my bedroom and slumped on the ridiculously comfortable bed I knew I’d have to do something unexpected. I just wasn’t sure exactly what that was yet.
The logical assumption was to go through his belongings while he slept and hope to find clues as to where he kept the formula. But from the sex noises emanating through the walls, I didn’t think there was much prospect of him sleeping that n
ight.
What do I do next?
I got the idea of spying on them. To use an app on my cell phone to record their pillow talk and hopefully catch a word or phrase that would indicate where the formula was hidden.
I crept along the dimly lit corridor, keeping to the shadows, until I came to Michael’s bedroom door. It was half open as if in invitation.
Pressing my back hard against the wall and hoping the shadows had engulfed me, I held my breath and I watched the three of them in the bed they shared.
Michael was in profile to me standing naked at the edge of the four poster bed. The muscles on his broad shoulders glistened with fresh perspiration. Beads trickled slowly down his back to a small red mark on his lower back and made my rapidly drying throat ache.
Rosa was on the bed. She was prostrate before him on all fours. He held Rosa’s hips with his large masculine hands as he thrust deep into her pussy. His manicured fingernails scratched her slender buttocks as his long fingers probed her anus with slow circling and teasing movements.
It seemed to set alight a fire in her quivering buttocks that she acknowledged with long, low moans. Her sex noises merged with his grunts and together seemed to slither across the carpet and out into the hallway. Their sounds of sensual yearning engulfed my chest like a boa-constrictor snake. I couldn’t breathe.
Sui Lee squirmed naked on her back and bit into her glossy lower lip. She caressed her own long slender legs where her black silk stockings were held by the hooks of her garter belt as she wrapped her legs around Rosa’s face. Rosa moved her lips and tongue over Sui Lee’s trembling pussy. Sui Lee cried out as if desperately yearning for orgasmic release.
Sui Lee’s steely gaze and urgent, grasping fingers ran through Rosa’s untamed ringlets. Sealing her fate as lost in the moment as the smooth skin over her sharp, sculptured cheek bones contorted with pleasure.
Both women panted and moaned as Michael’s firm buttocks repeatedly clenched and relaxed with each thrust. Again the mark on his lower back caught my eyes. Like needle marks of a very recent and unhealed tattoo. But there was no ink that I could see.
So perhaps laser treatment to remove a tattoo. In which case it might be an important clue to the secrets of his personality and perhaps even to his darkest secrets.
A voice in the back of my mind told me it was somehow important. If only I could get a closer view of it. I thumbed the screen of my cell phone and lowered the brightness.
Sorority Secrets (Campus Love and Murder Sorority Eyes Romance Book 2) Page 4