“Especially when you’ve been away from it for a while.”
He gave her a sharp speculative look, and she wondered if she’d overstepped her bounds. But then he shrugged. “Especially when I’ve been away from it for a while,” he acknowledged.
The driver, who had been waiting patiently, caught her gaze in the rearview mirror and asked where they wanted to go.
Demetrios obviously knew enough French to get by, too, because he understood and asked her, “Where do we want to go? Some place that’s not a madhouse, preferably.”
“Are you hungry now?” Anny asked.
“Not really. Just in no mood to deal with paparazzi. Know any place quiet?”
She nodded. “For dinner, yes. A little place in Le Soquet, the old quarter, that is basically off the tourist track.” She looked at him speculatively, an idea forming. “You don’t want to talk to anyone?”
A brow lifted. “I want to talk to you.”
Enchanted, Anny smiled. “Flatterer.” He was amazingly charming. “I was thinking, if you’re really not hungry yet, but you wouldn’t mind talking to a few more kids—not paparazzi, not journalists—just kids who would love to meet you—”
“You have kids?” he said, startled.
Quickly Anny shook her head. “No. I volunteer at a clinic for children and teenagers with spinal injuries and paralysis. I was there this afternoon. And I was having a sort of discussion—well, argument, really, with one of the boys…he’s a teenager—about action heroes.”
Demetrios’s mouth quirked. “You argue about action heroes?”
“Franck will pretty much argue about anything. He likes to argue. And he has opinions.”
“And you do, too?” There was a teasing light in his eye now.
Anny smiled. “I suppose I do,” she admitted. “But I try not to batter people with them. Except for Franck,” she added. “Because it’s all the recreation he gets these days. Anything I say, he takes the opposite view.”
“He must have brothers,” Demetrios said wryly.
But Anny shook her head. “He’s an only child.”
“Even worse.”
“Yes.” Anny thought so, too. She had been an only child herself for twenty years. Her mother had not been able to have more children after Anny, and she’d died when Anny was twelve. Only when her father married Charlise seven years ago had Anny dared to hope for a sibling.
Now she had three little half brothers, Alexandre, Raoul, and David. And even though she was much older—actually old enough to be their mother—she still relished the joy of having brothers.
“Franck makes up for it by arguing with me,” she said. “And I was just thinking, what a coup it would be if I brought you back to the clinic. You obviously know more about action heroes than I do so you could argue with him. Then after, we could have dinner?”
It was presumptuous. He might turn her down cold.
But somehow she wasn’t surprised when he actually sat up straighter and said, “Sounds like a deal. Let’s go.”
The look on Franck’s face when they walked into his room was priceless. His jaw went slack. No sound came out of his mouth at all.
Anny tried not to smile as she turned back toward Demetrios. “I want you to meet a friend of mine,” she said to him. “This is Franck Villiers. Franck, this is—”
“I know who he is.” But Franck still stared in disbelief.
Demetrios stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you,” he said in French.
For a moment, Franck didn’t take it. Then, when he did, he stared at the hand he was shaking as if the sight could convince him that the man with Anny was real.
Slowly he turned an accusing gaze on Anny “You’re going to marry him?”
She jerked. “No!” She felt her cheeks flame.
“You said you had to leave early because you were going to meet your fiancé.”
Oh God, she’d forgotten that.
“He got delayed,” Anny said quickly. “He couldn’t come.” She shot a look at Demetrios.
He raised his brows in silent question, but he simply said to Franck, “So I invited her to dinner instead.”
Franck shoved himself up farther against the pillows and looked at her. “You never said you knew Luke St. Angier. I mean—him,” he corrected himself, cheeks reddening as if he’d embarrassed himself by confusing the man and the role he’d played.
Demetrios didn’t seem to care. “We just met,” he said. “Anny mentioned your discussion. I can’t believe you think MacGyver is smarter than Luke St. Angier.”
Anny almost laughed as Franck’s gaze snapped from Demetrios to her and back again. Then his spine stiffened. “Could Luke St. Angier make a bomb out of a toaster, half a dozen toothpicks and a cigarette lighter?”
“Damn right he could,” Demetrios shot back. “Obviously we need to talk.”
Maybe it was because he, like Anny, treated Franck no differently than he would treat anybody else, maybe it was because he was Luke St. Angier, whatever it was, the next thing Anny knew Demetrios was sitting on the end of Franck’s bed and the two of them were going at it.
They did argue. First about bomb-making, then about scripts and character arcs and story lines. Demetrios was as intent and focused with Franck as he had been with the girls.
Anny had thought they might spend a half an hour there—at most. Franck usually became disgruntled after that long. But not with Demetrios. They were still talking and arguing an hour later. They might have gone on all night if Anny hadn’t finally said, “I hate to break this up, but we have a few more people to see here before we leave.” Franck scowled.
Demetrios stood up and said, “Okay. We can continue this tomorrow.”
Franck stared. “Tomorrow? You mean it?”
“Of course I mean it,” Demetrios assured him. “No one else has cared about Luke that much in years.”
Franck’s eyes shone. He looked over at Anny as they were going out the door and he said something she thought she would never hear him say. “Thanks.”
She thanked Demetrios, too, when they were out in the hall again. “You made his day. You don’t have to come back. I can explain if you don’t.”
He shook his head. “I’m coming back. Now let’s meet the rest of the gang.”
Naturally he charmed them, one and all. And even though many of them didn’t know the famous man who was with Anny, they loved the attention. Just as he had with Franck and with the Italian girls, Demetrios focused on what they were telling him. He talked about toy cars with eight-year-old Fran¸ois. He listened to tales about Olivia’s kitten. He did his “one and only card trick” for several of the older girls. And if they weren’t madly in love with Demetrios Savas when he came into their rooms, they were well on the way by the time he left.
Anny, for all her youthful fantasies about Demetrios Savas, had never really imagined him with children. Now she thought it was a shame he didn’t have his own.
It was past nine-thirty when they finally stepped