‘Do I?’
‘I got your sister out of the car. She was badly injured. I cradled her head in my lap, held her hand as she died.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Look at me,’ I whispered.
Slowly, reluctantly, his eyes opened, and I gazed into them.
They were the same dark eyes that had met mine across my sister’s limp body. Eyes conflicted with terrible pain and accusation that night. Tormented by the knowledge of his wife’s death, I realise now.
‘Don’t be sorry,’ I told him, then added, ‘And thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For saving my life.’ I drew a deep breath, and my voice grew stronger. ‘And trying to save Lisette’s. For staying with her at the end. I never thanked you properly.’
His smile was bitter. ‘Trust me, there’s no need for thanks.’
‘Well, I’m grateful. You didn’t need to help. Your wife had just died. And you were hurt. Most people would have concentrated on that loss, not left her to help someone else.’
‘I needed to do something. To be useful.’
I nodded, understanding.
‘That’s how I’ve felt every day since I got back on my feet,’ I said.
His gaze returned to mine, intense, brooding. ‘Except I wasn’t particularly useful, was I? The other guy who came to help, some passer-by on his way home from a late shift, he got you out. He was the one who saved your life.’ His mouth thinned to a straight line. ‘I wasn’t able to save your sister.’
‘But you tried. And that’s what matters.’
There was a short silence.
I stood up, deliberately moving away from him, suddenly aware of a very real danger that I was going to mistake mutual sympathy for desire. Though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to go to bed with Jean-Luc Ressier. Because I did want him. And I was pretty sure he wanted me back.
But right now everything felt wrong. Off balance, somehow.
‘I should go back to the hotel.’ My eye fell on the ornate gold clock on the wall opposite. ‘Oh my God, it’s so late.’
My shock was genuine. It was nearly half past one in the morning. Far later than I had planned to stay out. Damian would be going out of his mind, I thought, not entirely unhappy about that. He wasn’t my minder, but he did take his role as my manager very seriously. And he’d behaved badly tonight.
‘Is that going to be a problem?’
‘Only because I’m meant to be out at your place tomorrow afternoon. For pre-show rehearsals. And I’ll need some sleep.’ I shot him a wry glance. ‘Eight hours works best for me before a concert. And city hotels are so noisy, I’ll be lucky to get five at this rate.’
‘So come back to La Retraite,’ he said easily, and stood up too. ‘We’re in the middle of the countryside there. I can practically guarantee you eight hours’ sleep. And Zena would be delighted to see you at breakfast.’
La Retraite.
I was staring, I realised, seeing his brows rise, and hurriedly shut my mouth. That was the name of his chateau, I thought belatedly, still reeling from the suggestion that I should spend the whole night with him. Though he called it a ‘ranch’ rather than a chateau. Like an American might.
‘No need to look at me like that,’ he said into the odd silence that followed. ‘I wasn’t inviting you back to mine for a night of wild sex.’ He paused, and his eyes seemed to darken. ‘Unless you’re interested, that is?’
‘You think a lot of yourself, don’t you, Monsieur Ressier?’
His smile was dry. ‘Not at all.’ He reached for my jacket and held it out so I could slip my arms back into the sleeves. ‘In fact, I haven’t been much for dating since … Since I lost Eva.’ Another silence followed that telling remark, and then he gave a short laugh. ‘No time at first, what with trying to help Zena through her bereavement. And then later, I found I’d fallen out of the habit. So I didn’t bother getting back into it.’
‘Are you telling me you haven’t dated a woman for five years?’
‘I suppose I am, yes.’
Incredulous, I looked round at him. But he wasn’t smiling.
‘Well, that’s … ’
His face closed up, and he did not push it but merely steered me to the door. ‘Look, forget I said that, okay? I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Or put any pressure on you.’ He took out his phone as we walked down towards the reception area. ‘I can have the car here in five minutes. My driver will take you back to the Meurice.’
He made the call, saying two or three words in French down the phone, very terse, before hanging up.
‘I’ll walk you up to your floor, if you like.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘I hit McDowell pretty hard at the club. And it’s obvious he has a temper.’ He was frowning as we reached the front entrance to the club. ‘I’d rather see you safe to your room.’
I managed a faint smile. ‘I’m a big girl. I’ll be fine on my own.’
Jean-Luc shrugged. But it was obvious he was concerned.
I felt a little concerned myself at the thought of what I might find back at the hotel. An irate Damian, perhaps, nursing a bruised face after Jean-Luc hit him. Plus, a thousand unflattering photos splashed across social media.
I only hoped Damian wouldn’t be stupid enough to try and press charges of assault against the billionaire Frenchman. It wouldn’t look good for any of us, especially on the eve of this charity concert. Better to pretend it had been a stunt to raise awareness, or perhaps a misunderstanding between friends that had now been cleared up. But I was sure Damian wouldn’t be irresponsible enough to blow this episode out of proportion, anyway. It wasn’t his style.
‘Votre voiture, Monsieur Ressier,’ the doorman said in hushed tones, ushering us out into the cool night through chrome-edged revolving doors. He touched his powder-blue pillbox hat, nodding to the long sleek car drawn up at the kerb. ‘Bonne nuit, monsieur, mademoiselle.’
The club stood on a slight slope, the street winding away downwards before us. Across the city, I could see the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower, and the river, still dotted with a few brightly lit bateaux mooches, even at this early hour of the morning.
The driver, in a peaked cap, opened the passenger door for me, and I slipped inside, followed by Jean-Luc.
As our knees brushed, our thighs pushing together, I saw his gaze flash to my face, and knew I was not wrong. He wanted me too. There was a hungry look in his face, almost feverish, and I understood exactly how he felt. Because I was hot inside too. Hot and greedy for love. But my head was beginning to cool, and I was finally back to straight thinking after the dizzying confessions of the last hour.
There was still Damian to face tonight, and the French press tomorrow, no doubt, and then the charity concert itself …
Jean-Luc saw my expression, and shifted away slightly to give me space. ‘To the Hotel Meurice,’ he told the waiting driver. ‘Then back home.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
By the time I walked past Damian’s door, it was a quarter past two in the morning. I was relieved to see the door closed. But as I tiptoed past to my own suite, which was the next door along, right at the far end of the plush white-gold hotel corridor, I heard something that made me stop dead.
It was laughter.
High-pitched feminine laughter. But laughter on the verge of tears.
And it was coming from Damian’s room.
I turned on my heel and snuck back a few steps, then, after glancing up and down the empty corridor, I laid my ear to his hotel door.
‘Come back here, Cherie,’ I heard a man say in a drunken voice, also laughing, then the sound of footsteps, a crash, and more hysterical cries.
Cherie.
I froze where I stood, feeling numb with shock.
That was the name of my young fan.
The teenage girl in the club.
For God’s sake …
How old was Cherie? The girl had claimed to be eig
hteen when I asked, but I hadn’t believed her. Not a word of it. Even with the heavy make-up, the glam club wear, and the air of brittle sophistication, Cherie had been sixteen at the most. Possibly younger.
What if she was only fifteen?
Fuelled by sudden panic, I banged on the door with my fist. ‘Damian?’ I called through the wood panel. ‘Open the door, would you? I need to speak to you.’
I kept my voice as low as possible, not keen on alerting anyone else to this potentially fraught situation. For all I knew, there could be paparazzi hanging out in the hotel, hoping for precisely this kind of golden photo opportunity.
There was silence inside the room.
I rapped on the door with my knuckles and leant closer. ‘Come on, it’s Sasha.’ I was determined not to leave before he opened the door. There was a chance he wasn’t aware of her age. But then again, knowing Damian as I did, the taboo of underage seduction would probably be what had attracted him. He had always claimed to have waited until Lisette was eighteen before going to bed with her. But I’d been her sister, and I knew better. ‘I know you’re there. Now let me in.’
The door jerked open violently, and I stepped back, surprised.
Only it wasn’t Damian in the doorway.
It was his assistant, Paul.
Paul leered at me, obviously drunk, wearing a pair of loose red boxer shorts and nothing else. ‘Hello, Sasha, darling.’ The sarcasm in his voice wasn’t lost on me, especially when he made an exaggerated bowing gesture, flourishing his hand. ‘The princess of pop has arrived. To cut off our heads, I s’pose. You look pissed off as usual.’ He hiccupped, weaving slightly as he straightened, and made a face. ‘Oh fuckity dear.’
I pushed past him impatiently. ‘Where is she?’
‘Where’s who?’ Paul was slurring his words. ‘Dunno what you mean.’
The sitting room of the suite was empty, and I could see Damian through the open door into his bedroom, hurriedly dressing. It was obvious that he too hadn’t been wearing much when I knocked at the door either.
He came out of his room, also swaying as though drunk, tying the belt of a dark blue silk dressing-gown about his waist.
‘Sasha,’ he said thickly, ‘what can I do for you?’ Damian looked me up and down. ‘Finished banging the life out of Ressier, have you?’
I folded my arms across my chest, head up, glaring at him.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Oh yeah, I forgot. It’s none of my b-b-business,’ he said unsteadily, with a vague gesture that was obviously intended to be a shrug. But his eyes were red-rimmed, burning with hatred and anger. ‘You can fuck whoever you want, darling. Like Lisette always did. Just don’t blame me when it all goes tits-up.’
I was disgusted with the way he was speaking to me. And speaking about my dead sister with such contempt. But there was no point allowing him to distract me from the real matter at hand by getting me started on some other trail of recriminations. Damian was an arch-manipulator. I knew his tricks of old, and I was not going to fall for them.
Not this time.
‘Where is she?’ I repeated, my voice ice-cold.
‘Where’s who?’
‘That girl, Cherie. The fan from the club.’
Damian raised his eyebrows. ‘No idea who you’re talking about.’
‘I’m talking about the kid who followed you and Paul so adoringly out to the limo when you got thrown out of the club tonight.’
He sniffed, a vague defiance in the sound, and I realised for the first time that it was not just champagne he’d been guzzling tonight. I looked back at the glass coffee table, disbelieving, seeing champagne bottles, glasses, food wrappers, half-eaten pizzas, and the obvious remnants of drug use. …
‘What the hell have you been using tonight, Damian?’
In response, he swore at me.
It was clear I wasn’t going to get a rational response from him.
‘Whatever else you’ve done, I hope you haven’t given drugs to that unfortunate girl.’ I stooped over the table, picking up a small packet of white powder. ‘What in God’s name is this?’ I threw it at him, and the packet spilt, splashing white powder across his silk dressing-gown like sugar, speckling his bare chest underneath. The look of dismay on his face might almost have been comical if I had not been so bloody furious with him. ‘Is it cocaine? Please tell me you’re not that stupid?’
I turned to stare at Paul, who also sniffed, backing away as he wiped his nose with the back of one shaky hand.
‘What’s wrong with you two?’ I demanded. ‘Doing cocaine in a foreign hotel? You could be arrested, thrown in a French jail, your faces all over the papers, and for what? A few bloody hours’ high?’
Nobody said anything, which confirmed my suspicions.
In the silence, I heard someone crying.
I strode to the bathroom on my high heels and flung the door open. ‘Who’s there?’ I said, as though I needed to ask.
It was Cherie, of course.
She was sitting on the closed toilet seat, huddled up and trembling, nothing on her top half and only panties on her bottom half. It was clear from her dazed expression that she had been drinking, and possibly taking drugs too. God knows what would have happened if I hadn’t arrived when I did.
‘Oh God.’ I passed her a large white bath towel so she could cover herself up. ‘Come on, let me take you to my suite while we get this sorted out.’
The teenage girl peered up at me, tears rolling down her cheeks, and whispered, ‘J’suis desolée, Sasha.’
I’m sorry.
‘You have nothing to be sorry about,’ I told her firmly, though I was not feeling very charitable towards anyone ‘But it’s time to go. Can you walk?’
She nodded, and stumbled off the toilet into my arms.
‘That’s it, I’ve got you.’ I wrapped the large towel about her narrow frame, making sure she was suitably covered up, and then helped her out of the bathroom.
I found Damian outside the bathroom door, blocking our path out of the suite. He was alone. Paul, it seemed, had already taken his clothes and disappeared. Gone back to his own room, like the coward he was.
I looked at my manager with cold fury. ‘Get out of my way.’
‘Calm down, Sasha. It’s not how it looks.’
I glanced over my shoulder at the coffee table. All traces of drug paraphernalia were gone. Even the remains of the pizza and the empty champagne bottles had been tidied away, so the table looked clear.
Over the back of the sofa, something glittered. Silver-blue. There was a handbag with it too. Also silver-blue, a perfect match. Cherie had taste, for sure.
‘Pass me her dress,’ I told him. ‘And her bag.’
Damian hesitated, then went to fetch them. He handed the dress and bag over to me with barely a glance for the girl he and Paul had tried to molest.
‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ he said unevenly.
‘How’s that?’
‘She came up here willingly,’ he said. ‘And it was fine until you turned up. We weren’t doing anything she didn’t want us to do.’
‘Is that why she was crying?’
He shrugged. ‘You know girls that age. Always changing their minds.’
God Almighty.
‘She’s a child, Damian. Listen to yourself.’
He shook his head. ‘She’s over sixteen, she told us that. Ask her yourself.’
Cherie said nothing, staring rigidly at the floor, not at him. But she looked very white about the mouth, like she was planning to throw up.
‘I doubt she’s a day over fifteen,’ I said angrily, and pushed past him, keeping the nervous girl on my other side. ‘You’re fired.’
‘What?’
‘You’re sickening, Damian McDowell, and I’ve had enough of you.’ I got her to the door, and opened it, pushing her through after a quick glance to check nobody was outside. But the corridor was empty. ‘As of tomorrow, you’re no longer my manager.’
‘Watch me.’
‘It’s not legal. You’re under contract to me.’
‘Not legal?’ I whirled, glaring at him. ‘You planning to sue me for breach of contract, Damian? That’s rich, coming from you. Though actually, yes, I’d rather like you to take me to court. It would give me a chance to say a lot of things I’ve kept quiet about over the years. Like Lisette.’
‘Lisette?’ His brows knotted together. ‘What the hell do you mean?’
‘You know what it means, don’t act innocent. I was there the first time you seduced her, and that was definitely before she was sixteen years old.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ His face turned icy. ‘You want to play hard ball, is that it? Don’t push me, Sasha. Or you’ll be sorry.’
‘Me? Sorry?’ I laughed wildly. ‘I can’t be sorrier than I am now, having let you push me around for years like you own me.’
‘You let me push you around precisely because I do own you. Because there are things I could tell the world about you too, Sasha.’ His cold gaze met mine. The threat in his eyes felt very real, even though I had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Things that could get you into serious trouble with the police.’
‘Whatever.’ I shook my head in disbelief. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong. You, on the other hand, slept with my sister while she was underage.’
His jaw tightened. ‘Prove it.’
‘I don’t need to prove it. I only need to tweet it.’
‘For God’s sake,’ he said, all the colour draining from his face, ‘keep your voice down, would you? Come back in here where we can talk properly.’
‘I’m not going anywhere with you ever again.’
Damian’s face contorted at that. He made a sudden grab for my arm, and dragged me back over the threshold for a moment. I struggled, and he squeezed even harder, cruel fingers biting into the flesh of my upper arm.
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