Lie For You

by Pippa Summers

  The dancers under the revolving disco lights were less aware of our arrival, though a few moved aside to let us through, most of the women staring open-mouthed at Jean-Luc Ressier, others shooting me curious or envious looks.

  ‘You okay?’ he said in my ear as he found us a spot near the centre of the heaving, pulsating crowd of dancers.

  I shivered, very aware of his arm about my waist. ‘Yes,’ I breathed into his own ear.

  His arm tightened about me. ‘Good,’ Jean-Luc growled, and drew me close as we began to dance.

  Almost immediately, the music changed pace, crashing from a frenetic dance track to a sultry French pop hit with breathy lyrics, as though the DJ had responded to our presence and put on a lovers’ track. I saw Jean-Luc’s glance shift upwards to the DJ’s platform once or twice, and wondered if in fact he had engineered the change in pace. What had he said earlier? I have a business interest in this club. One of my investments. Perhaps the DJ was in his pocket. Or it could simply be coincidence.

  Whichever it was, I was finding it hard to breathe, my arms linked about his neck, our thighs and hips rubbing, his movements slow and sensuous against me.

  I couldn’t believe what was happening.

  I’d been guarding my heart for years, never dating except on rare and usually short-lived occasions, and certainly never behaving in this abandoned way, ignoring the very real attention I attracted from the press whenever I showed too much interest in any one male.

  All that caution, that hard-headed good sense. seemed to have slipped away, pushed to one side by a pressing need to know this man. And not just know him, but to go to bed with him. Which was desperately reckless on one level, and on another, was a purely instinctual response. Judging by the fevered look in his eyes too, there was some kind of chemical attraction between us, nothing that could be helped by either party. Or not after the powerful cocktail I’d knocked back in the VIP lounge.

  I forgot everything, the people around us staring, the flash of camera phones lighting up the darkness, even the two minders watching from the far edge of the dance floor, and concentrated on every delicate micro-move we were making together. Because we had created our own tiny world here on the dance floor, its confines defined by coloured lights and swirls of dry ice. His hands encircled my waist, hot through the thin slinky material, then dropped to my hips. I held him close, my face pressed against his shoulder, breathing in his scent …

  We danced like nothing else mattered, lost in the hypnotic sway of the music and each other’s bodies.

  Until, quite suddenly, I was jerked away from Jean-Luc and thrown backwards, unable to prevent myself colliding with the couples also dancing behind us.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Damian’s voice exploded across my consciousness, shattering my dream-state. ‘Have you lost your mind, Sasha?’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Damian’s shout was like a bucket of cold water dashed in my face.

  All that warm sensual excitement drained away as I stared up into the irate face of my manager, bemused and temporarily too disoriented to recall where I was.

  ‘Damian?’ My stupid tongue refused to work, my pulse racing with shock. I could not understand what had happened. ‘What on earth … ?’

  As I tried to recover my balance, the two hired minders stepped forward to seize me, one on each arm. They began manhandling me, dragging me away from the dance floor, pushing other clubbers out of the way with brutal disinterest and telling me in rough English to calm down and stop being ‘a bitch’.

  I was being removed from the club, I realised.

  This was an intervention.

  Damian hadn’t used an intervention since the bad old days of our wild teenage tours, and then it had always been Lisette who’d acted up and had to be removed from a dangerous situation. Usually drink or drugs-related, but sometimes when she got too friendly with anyone Damian considered inappropriate. She had always been removed without warning, locked up in her hotel room to detox or sleep it off, and then given a stern talking to the next day, being lectured by Damian on the correct behaviour for celebrities in public.

  Now it was me getting the intervention treatment.

  But for what?

  Nothing more than slow dancing with a man in a night club.

  A man Damian had obviously taken in dislike.

  ‘You’re the one that’s insane,’ I shouted back at him. ‘I’ve had enough of this … ’

  But Damian wasn’t listening to me. Or he couldn’t hear me above the pounding music. He had turned to face Jean-Luc Ressier.

  I caught a brief glimpse of Jean-Luc staring after me, fury and disbelief in his face. Then saw Damian confronting him, large and aggressive, his fists raised like a boxer’s, shouting something I couldn’t hear. But I was worried enough to struggle in earnest against my captors.

  Was Damian planning to beat him up?

  Jean-Luc was tall, but lean as whipcord beside Damian, nowhere near my manager’s weight. He could be badly hurt.

  ‘Let me go,’ I snapped at the minders, who simply laughed.

  Then Jean-Luc moved, a swift dark blur in a sea of rising dry ice, and I saw Damian stumble backwards into the dancers, his arms flailing.

  ‘No,’ I shouted, trying to get to them. ‘Stop it. No more fighting.’

  I nearly got myself loose, dragging one arm free. But suddenly Paul was there too, a burly presence, pushing me back towards the waiting minders. His jacket was off, his shirt sleeves rolled up, and his forehead was beaded with perspiration as though he too had been dancing.

  ‘Take her back to the limo,’ he told the minders.

  ‘For God’s sake …’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘This is out of line, Paul.’

  Paying no attention, he started back towards Damian.

  ‘That’s it, you’re sacked,’ I shouted after Paul, breathless with anger now. ‘Do you hear me?’ I struggled again but to no avail. There was a brawny minder on each arm, their fierce grips holding me motionless. ‘How dare you treat me like this?’ I flung at his back. ‘I’m your boss.’

  Paul’s head swung slowly, surprise in his face. But far from being abashed by my reprimand, he smiled unpleasantly, returning to shout in my face, ‘No, actually, Damian’s my boss. And he ordered me to get you out of the club and safely back to the hotel. Which is precisely what I intend to do.’

  But when he turned to leave, he found his way blocked. Club security had shown up at last. And it seemed they had different orders to his. The music sped up again, back to full tempo, and the dancers in front of us shifted sideways, a heaving, sweating mass, supplanted by a row of black-clad bouncers with grim faces. Their leader, a large man with a white bow-tie, snapped a command, and the whole row moved forward, hemming us in against a large central pillar.

  Paul hesitated, uncertain at last.

  ‘Get your bloody hands off me,’ I snarled at the two French minders, who looked around, their faces wary as they assessed the situation, and then released my arms, having finally realised they were outnumbered.

  ‘Merci, monsieur,’ I said to the large man with a gold badge on his chest that said ‘Securité’ and ran back to the dance floor, ignoring Paul’s protest.

  I found more of the security team there too, as though to back up Jean-Luc. Which was not surprising, perhaps, given his financial investment in the club. Ressier would be their top priority in a scrum, not some foreign celebrity and her entourage.

  Damian had got back to his feet, and was rubbing his chin.

  ‘Now get out of my club,’ Jean-Luc told him coldly, and nodded to one of the security detail, who stepped forward and grabbed Damian by his jacket collar.

  Damian swore at the bouncer, knocking his meaty hand away. He glared at Jean-Luc. ‘You’re going to regret this, Ressier.’

  Jean-Luc merely smiled. ‘You want to fight, McDowell?’ He shrugged, crooking his hand to make a beckoning gesture, as though suggesting the t
wo of them should slug it out there and then. ‘I’m okay with that.’

  ‘Don’t,’ I shouted urgently, and saw Jean-Luc shoot an impatient glance in my direction. ‘Please.’

  I wasn’t sure for a moment if he had heard me or not over the loud music. But Jean-Luc gave a curt nod to the bouncer. The man blocked Damian’s way, arms held wide, and then began herding him back to where Paul and the other two were waiting.

  ‘She’s coming with us,’ Damian kept insisting, trying to turn back. At the edge of the dance floor, his gaze sought mine, and he mouthed, ‘Sasha?’

  But I only shook my head.

  He could go to hell, treating me like that. Like I’m his bloody slave, not his client. We were friends, and had been for years, it was true. But that didn’t mean Damian had the right to treat me like he owned me.

  Nobody owned me, I thought angrily. Not Damian, not anyone.

  And nobody ever would.

  I watched without regret as my manager and his personal assistant made their slow and stumbling way to the club entrance under escort. But it didn’t escape my notice that the blonde teen, Cherie, was trailing along in their wake, carrying what looked like Paul’s jacket. One of my fans, sucked into the churning wake that surrounded my celebrity.

  ‘Hey, you okay?’

  I turned, finding Jean-Luc Ressier behind me. I wasn’t sure if I was elated or embarrassed by what had just happened. All I knew was that things couldn’t continue like this between me and Damian. It was time we had it out.

  Tomorrow, I decided. I’d have to speak to Damian about it tomorrow.

  But that still left tonight.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ I shouted, the music loud enough to deafen most normal conversations. ‘I don’t know what came over Damian, why he did that. He’s not usually so over-protective.’

  Jean-Luc leant forward. ‘He did it because he wants you.’

  My gaze widened on his face, surprised by how much he had been able to work out just from watching me and Damian together. But I played for time.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me, Sasha. Don’t try to pretend. It doesn’t suit you.’ He pulled me closer, speaking urgently into my ear. ‘Face it, your manager wants you for himself. That’s been obvious to me from the start. I was getting in the way tonight. So he tried to eliminate me. Remove the threat.’ Jean-Luc’s voice dripped with contempt. ‘Only he didn’t have a clue who he was dealing with.’

  I studied Jean-Luc warily, not sure if I knew who I was dealing with either.

  His gaze narrowed, as though rightly guessing my thoughts. He released me, taking a step back. ‘You want to get out of here?’

  I was immediately suspicious. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I want to kidnap you.’

  I stared at him, my heart thumping in sudden alarm.

  ‘Bad joke, sorry.’ Jean-Luc made a contrite face, shaking his head. ‘Forget I said that. You’re so jumpy, I couldn’t resist.’

  ‘Can you blame me? After what Damian just did?’

  ‘Fair enough.’ He glanced about the night club, a gnawing frustration in his face that I was feeling myself. ‘Look, there are a few things I’d like to say to you. But I can’t hear myself think in here. Let’s go somewhere we can talk without having to yell at each other.’

  I remembered how it had felt to face him across the dinner table in his remote French ranch, his intelligent, sensual gaze leaving me nowhere to hide. The thought of being alone with this man again was terrifying. Yet, at the same time, hugely exciting.

  I knew that I should refuse.

  Damian and Paul would be waiting for me, probably in the stretch-limo out front. If not, they would be back at the hotel soon, with Damian pacing up and down in his adjacent suite, waiting to pounce and interrogate me as soon as I walked past the door.

  Besides, we would be seen leaving together.

  The clubbers had already taken numerous candid shots of me being dragged away in an undignified fashion by minders, and a red-faced Damian McDowell being punched by Jean-Luc Ressier. Social media must be going wild by now. I had felt the constant buzz-buzz-buzz vibrations of my mobile in my little sequinned clutch bag, but had not dared check it yet. In case what I saw appalled me.

  The reality was bad enough without seeing what Instagram and Snapchat was busy making of all this.

  ‘Would you like a coffee, maybe?’ he asked, watching my face. ‘There’s a little place I know nearby. And Benoit has a back door here for discreet emergency exits. No cameras, no paparazzi. Just you, me, and a cup of good Parisian coffee.’ Again, Jean-Luc seemed to have a talent for reading my mind. ‘I promise to take you back to your hotel afterwards.’

  After what, I found myself wondering?

  ‘There’s something I should have told you before,’ he added, perhaps sensing my uncertainty. ‘Something important.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘About Lisette.’

  I stared at him, not understanding. About my sister?

  What the hell?

  ‘Trust me,’ he continued. ‘You’ll want to hear this.’

  My heart rate accelerated at the intense look in his eyes. ‘I’m not sure about that,’ I said, but did not resist when his hand took mine.

  ‘Come on.’ Jean-Luc pulled me close to his side, our hips bumping, and then nodded to the nearest bouncer, who strode ahead, forging a path for us through churning waves of dancers and clubbers, all with their camera phones held aloft. Our faces were lit up by an incessant barrage of flashes. ‘Since he didn’t seem to understand being punched in the nose, let’s give Damian something to really be pissed about.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The ‘little place’ Jean-Luc knew nearby turned out not to be a backstreet Parisian bar, as I had half expected from his casual description, but a members’ only club with soft carpeting, lavish décor and a hushed atmosphere. The man on the door bent almost double when he saw who it was, and led us at once up a huge, ornate marble staircase to an upper room with dark wood panelling and a balcony overlooking a wide Paris boulevard. Drinks were brought, along with a late supper of mussels in white wine and garlic with a side dish of deliciously crisp, golden French fries. The waiter looked at Jean-Luc, poised to serve us, and discreetly disappeared when he shook his head, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Then we were alone.

  I perched on the lush crimson three-seater sofa with ivory piping, and wondered what the hell Damian was doing right now. Going crazy over my absence, probably.

  My phone buzzed again in my clutch bag.

  ‘Black or with cream?’ Jean-Luc asked, pouring hot coffee into two Russian-style coffee glasses with gold rims, set in a delicate metal holder.

  ‘Black, please.’

  The buzzing continued.

  ‘You’re popular tonight.’ His mouth twisted as he handed me the steaming coffee. ‘Why not turn it off?’

  ‘That would entail reading whatever’s on the screen,’ I muttered.

  He studied me, then held out his hand.

  I hesitated, then opened my clutch bag and passed him the mobile. He glanced at the screen, grimaced, then held down the power button to turn it off.

  I took the now-silent phone back with an odd sense of relief. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Hungry?’

  I hadn’t been hungry at all when he ordered the food. But now, with the fragrant scent of garlic mussels in the air, not to mention those gorgeous-smelling fries, I did feel quite peckish.

  ‘Maybe a little,’ I admitted.

  He grinned and handed me a white damask napkin, which I lay carefully in my lap before accepting a side-bowl of mussels and fries.

  ‘Mmm,’ I said, licking my fingers after devouring several mussels, and helping myself to a handful of fries. ‘This is fantastic. And this room … ’ I glanced round at the comfortable, book-lined room, more like a library in a private home than a members’ club. There was a huge gilt mirror over the fireplace, and
framed paintings of ships around the room. Battle scenes, I realised. ‘How long have you been coming here?’

  ‘My father was a member.’ He shrugged. ‘He introduced me to the club when I was twenty. I fell in love with the place immediately. Especially this room.’

  ‘I can see why.’ I removed my jacket, since the room was so warm, and looked at him curiously, catching a wistful note in his voice. ‘Does your father still come here?’

  ‘He died soon after my twenty-first birthday.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He helped himself to a bowl of mussels from the food trolley, and ate them neatly and expertly, somehow managing not to drop any of the garlic sauce on his trousers. Years of experience, I thought, watching him covertly. Perhaps he might not fare so well with a Brummie kebab van, the kind of fare I had grown up with. The thought made me give a little snort of laughter, and he looked my way at once, eyebrows raised. ‘Something funny?’

  ‘Have you ever been to Birmingham?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘You should go sometime. That’s my home town.’

  Jean-Luc finished his mussels and licked sauce from his fingertips, a movement that had me riveted, then dabbed elegantly at his mouth with his napkin.

  ‘In that case, I would love to see it,’ he said seriously, dropping his crumpled napkin onto the trolley and coming to join me on the sofa. ‘With you as my guide, of course.’

  ‘I can’t imagine you in Birmingham.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I laughed. ‘You’d have to go there in order to understand.’

  He moved the soft red cushions that were propped up between us, ostensibly to place them behind him instead, but actually manoeuvring himself closer.

  Our knees bumped.

  OMG.

  His proximity was suddenly alarming, rather than exciting. Jean-Luc Ressier was a charming, attractive man, and close to my own age. It was hard not to feel tempted to go to bed with him. But after years in show business, I knew not to put my trust in superficial qualities like that. Especially when a man was as wealthy and influential as Ressier obviously was. For all I knew, he could be making advances on me because he was like Damian, a man who habitually used sex to control and manipulate any woman who might otherwise tell him to go to hell.