by Roxy Reid
“Oh yeah?” I ask, setting her notebook aside and giving her my full attention, my hands resting on her thigh. “What’s that?”
She launches herself at me and, room service forgotten, we proceed to devour each other.
The boardroom at Montparnasse is full of the usual blue-suits—that is, old guys who all look the same. White hair, wrinkles around their brows and mouths from a lifetime of frowning, and varying shades of blue suits. Except for me, of course. And Ella.
I always opt for a different colored suit at these meetings for the sole purpose of standing out. Today I’ve gone with slate grey, much to my father’s annoyance. Ella looks radiant in a black suit of her own, with that sea-foam green blouse I love and a pair of sexy black pumps. I’m somehow going to have to get through this meeting without sweeping everything away and taking her on the table, like they do in the movies. Well, the naughty movies maybe.
Being with Ella has been so odd, and not in the way I thought it would be. I feel a strange sense of relief whenever she walks into a room, like everything will be okay as long as she’s there. I won’t dare admit that I’m possibly smitten with her, but I can acknowledge that since being with her I’ve felt more relaxed than ever. Even all my family drama hasn’t felt like such a burden now that she is a part of it.
Of course, there’s the added bonus that she’s an exceptional lover. I remember that from our first night together, and she hasn’t disappointed me since in that regard.
Coming back to earth, I shake my head to clear my lascivious daydreams. Time to focus.
Once everyone is assembled and the conference call set up, the meeting begins. Father starts us off, sitting at the head of the table as usual. “Welcome to the Banks Industries annual summit meeting,” he says grandly. “Thank you all for being here, and thanks to those who couldn’t be here but have called in.
“Now, before we begin I would like to take a moment to introduce my new daughter-in-law. As some of you know, my son Max was married just yesterday, and he and his new wife have graciously joined us this morning. Please welcome Ella Banks.”
Her face goes beet red as all the men in the room officially acknowledge her. Not that they hadn’t noticed her already, I think with a grimace. I’m not sure whether Father introduced her so that the men all know she is my wife, therefore staving off any advances towards her, or if he did it to … ugh. Keep her in her place, for lack of a better explanation. The latter seems like the more likely option, given that it’s my father at the helm. Prick.
“Now, of course we are here today to discuss the upcoming Colossus Tower to be built in New York City to accommodate your new American branch,” Father continues, now addressing the men in the room. “Since our last meeting we have come up with multiple proposals for you, which I will present over the course of today. Our top architects have been working on this file for several months now, and I strongly believe that this will be the day that finally kick starts construction.”
“You say zis every time, Maximilian,” says Monsieur Boucher, the head of the National Architects Council, in his heavily accented English. “I hope for your sake your belief is well-placed today.”
My father smiles without missing a beat. “I know it has taken us some time to find an option that is grand enough for your business, Monsieur Boucher. We appreciate your patience and your trust in us. Good things come to those who wait, so they say.”
Ella squeezes my knee under the table, and I shoot her a sidelong glance. It’s strangely satisfying to see my father in the hot seat for once.
As Maximilian presents each architect’s proposal, starting with the weakest and building up to the one I know he thinks is the strongest, Ella keeps her hand on my knee, gently running her fingers up and down the inseam of my pants. I don’t dare look at her while she does this, but I am hyper-aware of every movement she makes out of the corner of my eye.
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 at 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 voi
ce 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.