by Roxy Reid
It’s a grueling meeting, and the only thing preventing me from zoning out completely is Ella’s hand under the table. If only Father would just let me run this meeting for once, maybe we would actually get somewhere. We’ve had this account for four years, with their lot sitting empty on the corner of a busy Manhattan street for the same amount of time, and I have a feeling the Frenchies are running out of patience. This could be the last meeting, and without this account Banks Industries’ credibility will suffer.
Once Father has presented every proposal, including his piece de resistance, senior architect Joseph’s towering design of glass and concrete that’s as ugly as it is impractical, the room remains quiet for several uncomfortable moments. I can see Monsieur Boucher’s mouth working as he tries to figure out how to express his dissatisfaction in English.
Before he can say anything, I bite the bullet. “We do have one more proposal for you, gentlemen.”
Twenty pairs of eyes swivel in my direction, including Ella, whose face has gone pale. I look at her, offering her an encouraging smile.
My father looks as though I’ve just slapped him. “I wasn’t aware there was another,” he says calmly, though his eyes hold a clear warning.
Ignoring him, I turn to my wife. “Show them,” I say softly, nodding at her.
She’s horrified, but she has no choice now. She reaches into her bag and pulls out her notepad, flipping it to the first page with the color sketch.
“I think the problem,” she begins, drawing in a shaky breath, “with the proposals we’ve shown you before, gentlemen, is that they don’t quite represent the grandeur and prestige of the National Architects Council.” She pushes her notebook into the centre of the table. “I think we need to go back and look at the kinds of buildings that have stood the test of time for decades, even centuries. When I read about this account, I drew this sketch because your work deserves excellence.”
All the men crane their necks to see her sketch, my father among them. “It’s not tall enough, dear,” he says evenly. “Monsieur Boucher has expressed on several occasions they need at least twenty stories.”
“The block adjacent to the empty lot is currently for sale,” Ella points out. “If this building took up both blocks it could be longer rather than tall. It will still stand out. How many new builds are being constructed in a baroque style? This could be revolutionary.”
“But it has to be to code with modern standards, Ella,” Father sputters.
She nods. “Of course it will be, sir. We can incorporate the old and the new. Not all modern builds have to be made entirely of glass and steel.”
Monsieur Boucher has been sitting silently through all this, his fingertips pressed together in front of his face. When he sits forward, the rest of the room goes silent. He drags Ella’s notebook towards him and studies the image for a moment, then looks directly at her. “Bring me a 3D model,” he says, “and I will consider zis proposal.”
“And would you like models of any of our other proposals, Monsieur?” Maximilian asks quickly.
Boucher shakes his head. “No, zat will not be necessary, Maximilian. I thank you for your efforts. I think we should all be getting some lunch, hm?”
The meeting concluded, the blue suits stream out of the room at record speed, leaving Ella and I with my father. He walks around the table and looks at Ella’s sketch, studying it closely, then takes a deep breath. He smiles tightly at Ella. “Well done,” he says. “It is a beautiful sketch. Let’s hope your model holds up.” He goes to leave, and then turns back. “If this works,” he begins, “I have another account I’m going to want your opinion on, the Ford account. Look into it when we get home.” With that, my father is gone.
“The Ford account?” Ella says, finally breathing now that they’re all gone. “As in the headquarters for Ford?”
“That’s the one,” I reply, stunned. I’m supposed to be the lead on that account.
As we leave the boardroom and head to the top floor to take in the view of the city like Ella wanted, a general sense of uneasiness falls over me. I fully expected my father to explode at us when the blue suits left, but what he said instead is blowing my mind a little. I’m not surprised he was impressed by Ella’s work, but I completely undermined him in the meeting. Maybe the yelling match is still to come when it’s just him and me. It wasn’t Ella’s fault, after all.
“This is incredible,” Ella gasps when we step out onto the rooftop deck. The three-sixty degree view of Paris is indeed breathtaking, but I’m having a hard time appreciating it at present.
As my new wife holds my hand and pulls me around the deck, leading me from one side to the other, I begin to realize Ella may be ahead of me in more ways than one, and my stomach sinks at the realization. Falling for her I could handle, maybe. But being one-upped by her? That’s a whole different story.
9
Max
I know Ella can sense I’m in a weird mood as we wander around the Louvre, but she’s either too busy taking in the artwork to ask me about it or she knows what it is and is feeling guilty. We haven’t discussed the meeting at all since we left Montparnasse, and I definitely don’t want to ruin her day in Paris by being sulky. But every time I think of my father taking the Ford account from me and offering it to my wife in the same sentence, I want to punch the nearest wall, old paintings on it or not.
This is actually the most aggravated I have been since Ella agreed to marry me, and while we’ve been getting along great lately, I’m definitely a little irritated by her enthusiasm for every single thing we see in the museum. I’m eager to ditch this place and find the nearest bar.
“How much longer do you wanna stick around this place?” I ask her as we once again circle the room containing the minuscule Mona Lisa. We haven’t gotten a good look at her yet because the place is completely packed with tourists craning to take a picture of the famous painting. This is why I wanted to come here early in the morning, but Ella insisted on coming at peak idiot hour.
Looking up from her brochure, she gives me an odd stare. “There’s still downstairs we haven’t seen,” she says. “All the ancient Egyptian stuff is down there, and Venus de Milo.”
Venus de fucking Milo. “Can we go check that out and then get out of here? You’re never gonna get a good look at her in this mess,” I add, nodding my head towards the writhing mass of people. “You’re not missing much anyway. It’s the size of a legal piece of paper. I don’t know what the big deal is.”
“The painting is bigger than that,” Ella corrects me. I can tell from her tone she’s getting annoyed. “And the big deal is that it’s the Mona Lisa, the most famous, priceless painting in the world, and I’m only feet away from it. Who knows when I’ll get the chance to see it again?”
“I will literally take you back to Paris sometime just to see it if we can leave right now,” I offer hopefully.
She frowns at me and shoves her brochure into her purse. “Okay, what has gotten into you?” she asks, hands on hips. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine,” I snap. “I just hate tourists.”
She rolls her eyes. “Thanks, Max.”
“Not you, of course, obviously,” I groan. “I mean those idiots. Look at them.”
She doesn’t look at them. Instead she walks by me and out of the room. I turn on my heel to follow her, catching up to her in a few strides. “Where are you going?”
“Leaving, since you want to so badly,” she says. “But I will take you up on that return trip. There’s a lot more I want to see here.”
I take her arm to stop her, and pull her around to face me. “Look,” I say with a sigh, “if you want to stay here and see the rest of it, go ahead. I can meet you when you’re done.”
“You’re gonna leave me in the Louvre alone?” she asks skeptically, raising an eyebrow.
“If you don’t feel safe I’ll get Claude to come in with you,” I tell her, thinking how delighted our crotchety old driver would be a
t that prospect. “Or hell, maybe I’ll ask my father. You two can spend some quality time together.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she snaps. When I don’t answer her, she grabs my arm. “Max.”
I shake her off me. “I’ll send Claude to come walk with you, okay? Text me when you’re done and we’ll meet up. Have fun.”
She calls after me as I walk away, but I don’t turn back.
After sending Claude in to find Ella, much to his chagrin, I wander the streets near the Louvre in search of a bar. Why the fucking museum doesn’t have a bar in it is beyond me. There’s a fine dining restaurant there but, of course, it’s packed with tourists.
I finally find one tucked away a few streets over, on one of those narrow cobblestone streets that cars can’t use, and get a seat at the bar. It’s not overly crowded, but at least it seems to only be locals. The dull murmur of French spoken in low tones is somewhat soothing, and I start to relax a bit.
“Peux vous aidez, monsieur?” asks the bartender, a young kid of about nineteen. Can I help you, sir?
“Whiskey,” I say in English. “Neat. S’il vous plait.”
The kid smiles and nods. “Coming right up, sir,” he says. At least I think that’s what he says - honestly I can’t tell with the accent sometimes.
Whiskey in hand, I’m finally at ease. A live band is getting set up in the corner, which I’m not that thrilled about, but at least loud music will discourage conversation. I’m the kind of guy that gets approached in bars, what can I say? Other guys wanna be me, and girls wanna fuck me. Welcome to my life.
One of the band members, a sultry blonde in a red dress that I peg immediately as the lead singer, catches my eye as she sets up a couple of music stands. I look away, downing my drink and asking the bartender for another. Ella and I never discussed extra-marital affairs, but I’m both too tired and too smart to go the ‘ask for forgiveness, not permission’ route.
Deciding this may not be the right bar for me right now, I down my next drink, pay the garçon and head back out to find another, preferably one without blondes in red dresses.
Evidently, I do find another bar. And another. And another. By the time my phone lights up with a text from Ella, I’m a couple sheets to the wind and have forgotten all about my father.
Claude picks me up outside the fourth bar, a rowdy one full of young guys watching a soccer game. Ella gives me a withering look as I collapse onto the seat next to her, laughing. “Hello wifey,” I say with a goofy grin.
She can’t help but smile back at me. “I see you found a bar.”
“Several,” I correct her. I take her hand and kiss it. “Sorry about earlier,” I say quietly. “I was an ass.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” she replies, patting my hand.
We arrive back at our hotel and make our way up to the executive suite, my tipsiness starting to wear off a bit. Once inside I gratefully remove my suit jacket and tie, eager to be out of the stiffness. Ella, who had the foresight to bring a pair of walking shoes with her to the meeting, also gets undressed, warily watching me out of the corner of her eye.
“I’m gonna take a bath,” she says finally, heading into the cavernous bathroom wearing only her underwear.
I can tell she probably wants to be alone, so I flip on the TV as she starts running her bath. Everything is in French, of course, but the sports channel I can figure out well enough. The same soccer game that was playing at the bar is on, and I watch absentmindedly, lounging on the plush blue couch.
The tub stops running and I glance over just in time to see Ella’s blurry naked form through the frosted glass doors, climbing into the tub. I’m reminded of my outburst at the Louvre and feel ashamed. The last thing I want to do is ruin Ella’s time in Paris by being a whiny bitch about my father.
Ella opens her eyes as I silently enter the bathroom, shutting the glass doors softly behind me. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I reply quietly. I take a seat at the vanity opposite the tub and sigh. “I’m sorry.”
“What’s going on with you?” she asks, her voice free of judgment. “Your father really get to you this morning?”
I shrug. “My father’s my father. I just, uh …” I trail off, looking at her. I can only see her head and bare shoulders, her curly hair piled on top of her head to keep from getting wet. She looks lovely like this. Now this is the kinda shit that should be in the Louvre. “I just hate Paris, honestly. It puts me on edge.”
I don’t know why I’m lying to her.
She smiles, and I can’t tell if she believes me. She reaches a hand out to me, tiny droplets of water running down her arm and plopping noiselessly onto the marble floor. I get up and take her hand, kneeling next to the tub. “Forgive me?”
“Of course,” she says. “As long as you’re okay.”
“I’m fine,” I assure her, kissing the back of her hand. “Promise.” Eager for a chance of subject, I press on. “Did you have fun at the Louvre?”
Her eyes light up. “It was incredible, Max. And I actually got a good look at Mona Lisa!”
“That’s great,” I reply as enthusiastically as I can. “Just had to hold out.”
“Exactly.”
We look into each-other’s eyes for a smidge too long, and now I can feel a telltale stirring in my pants. I can barely see her naked body beneath the rippling surface of the water, and all I want to do right now is climb in there and take her. I wonder if she’ll let me?
Testing it out, I kiss her hand again, and then turn it over to kiss her palm, her fingers, the pulse point in her wrist. She sighs at that, which I take as encouragement to continue. I kiss up her arm, leaning further over the tub until I get to her shoulder. At this point I check in with her again. Her eyes have gone dark with desire, and I grin at her wolfishly. “Mind if I join you, mademoiselle?”
“Pas du tout,” she replies breathily. Not at all.
I strip quickly and quietly and step into the tub, sighing in bliss at the perfect temperature she managed to achieve with the water. Just hot enough to not singe the flesh. Perfect.
Ella scooches forward so that I can sit behind her, then leans back against me, her back warm and weightless against my chest. She must have put some essential oils in the water, because it smells delightfully like lavender and something sweet, like honey or apples.
We sit still for a moment in silence, enjoying each-other’s company and the warmth of the bath water. I squeeze her upper arms with my hands, working my way up to her shoulders, where I proceed to knead the tense muscles there. She groans appreciatively as I thoroughly massage her shoulders, her neck and the back of her head, pressing the tender muscles delicately with my thumbs.
“You’re good at this,” she mumbles, her head dipping forward to allow me better access.
I smile, pleased with myself. “You were tense here,” I tell her. “You all right?”
“I was worried about you,” she explains. “That combined with the nerves for the meeting this morning … yeah, I was strung up.”
I work my way as far down her back as I can, smoothing out some knots along her shoulder blades, and then massage her waist and rib cage, purposefully avoiding her breasts. She remains still in anticipation, but her breathing has turned shallow - a dead giveaway of how she’s feeling. No doubt she can feel the evidence of my own arousal pressing into the small of her back, too.
My hands make their way around to her navel and stroke the soft skin there before finally heading north. She gasps when one of my hands gently caresses one of her breasts, thumb brushing lightly over her already erect nipple. Her heavy breathing brings her nipples to the surface of the bathwater, and the light gleams tantalizingly in the water droplets on her skin.
My other hand wanders south, earning another gasp from her when my fingers find her most sensitive spot. She writhes against me and moans, further stimulating my erection. Her hips begin rocking with my ministrations, until she’s making a series of sexy noises
increasing in pitch and volume.
“Please,” she whispers as my pace quickens.
“Please what?” I tease.
She whimpers. “I want it, Max.”
“How do you want it, Ella?”
Her head turns so that she’s looking towards the counter, but she can no longer speak. I’ve been edging her for about two minutes now, but I don’t want her to cum yet.
We both stand and I help her out of the tub, then lift her and carry her over to the counter, where I sit her down, standing between her spread legs. She rubs herself against my erection, eliciting a low groan from me, but I’m not finished with her yet.
She squeaks when I kneel in front of her and begin kissing the sensitive skin of her inner thighs, slowly making my way up. I wait for her breathing to slow down and hitch, and then I go right for it, running my tongue gently up her slit. She cries out in surprise but I don’t let up. I know she isn’t going to last long at this rate, but I have a plan. While she’s distracted I remove a condom from the nearest drawer and unwrap it with one hand, rolling it down onto myself in preparation.
My tongue laps against her clit repeatedly, her quiet screams egging me on to go faster. I know she’s close. Just as I think she’s just about there, I plunge two fingers inside her.
Ella screams as her orgasm breaks over her. As the first waves shake her body, I stand and sheath myself into her quickly, to the hilt. She screams even louder, and I moan feeling the contractions of her orgasm around my cock. I start pumping into her for all I’m worth, the incredible tightness of her making me think I might not last long either. She clings to me, wrapping her legs around my waist and drawing me in closer, her fingernails digging into my shoulders. She rakes her nails down my back and I tilt my head back in pleasure. A noise I’ve never heard myself make before wrenches itself from my throat—a low, animalistic growl that spurs her on to start moving with me, her hips undulating against me as I slide in. It feels amazing, and before I know it I’m about ready to burst.