“What was it Oscar Wilde said about ties?” Sarah murmured, eyeing the expensive neckwear.
“Beats me.”
“Something about a well-tied tie being the first serious step in a man’s life. Of course, that was back when it took them hours to achieve the perfect crease in their cravat.”
“Glad those days are gone. Speaking of gone... The car’s waiting.” He bowed and swept a hand toward the door. “Shall we go, ma chérie?”
Her look of surprise brought a smug grin.
“I had some time after my meeting so I pulled up a few phrases on Google Translate. How’s the accent?”
“Well...”
“That bad, huh?”
“I’ve heard worse.”
But not much worse. Hiding a smile, she picked up her clutch and led the way to the door.
“How did the meeting go, by the way?”
“We’re making progress. Enough that my chief of production and a team of our corporate attorneys are in the air as we speak. We still need to hammer out a few details, but we’re close.”
“You must be making progress if you’re bringing in a whole team.”
Sarah refused to acknowledge the twinge that gave her. She hadn’t really expected to share much of Paris with Dev. He was here on business. And she was here to make sure that business didn’t get derailed by the wife of his prospective partner. She reminded herself of that fact as the limo glided through the lamp-lit streets.
* * *
Jean-Jacques Girault and his wife greeted them at the door to their magnificent town house. Once inside the palatial foyer, the two couples engaged in the obligatory cheek-kissing. Madame Girault behaved herself as she congratulated her guests on their engagement, but Dev stuck close to his fiancée just in case.
The exchange gave Sarah time to assess her hostess. The blonde had to be in her mid-fifties, but she had the lithe build and graceful carriage of a ballerina...which she used to be, she informed Sarah with a nod toward the portrait holding place of honor in the palatial foyer. The larger-than-life-size oil depicted a much younger Elise Girault costumed as Odile, the evil black swan in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.
“I loved dancing that part.” With a smile as wicked as the one she wore in the portrait, Madame Girault hooked an arm in Sarah’s and led her through a set of open double doors into a high-ceilinged salon. “Being bad is so much more fun than being good, yes?”
“Unless, as happens to Odile in some versions of Swan Lake, being bad gets you an arrow through the heart.”
The older woman’s laugh burst out, as loud and booming as a cannon. “Aha! You are warning me, I think, to keep my hands off your so-handsome Devon.”
“If the ballet slipper fits...”
Her laugh foghorned again, noisy and raucous and totally infectious. Sarah found herself grinning as Madame Girault spoke over her shoulder.
“I like her, Devon.”
She pronounced it Dee-vón, with the accent on the last syllable.
“I was prepared not to, you understand, as I want you for myself. Perhaps we can arrange a ménage à trois, yes?”
With her back to Dev, Sarah missed his reaction to the suggestion. She would have bet it wasn’t as benign as Monsieur Girault’s.
“Elise, my pet. You’ll shock our guests with these little jokes of yours.”
The look his wife gave Sarah brimmed with mischief and the unmistakable message that she was not joking.
* * *
Much to Sarah’s surprise, she enjoyed the evening. Elise Girault didn’t try to be anything but herself. She was at times sophisticated, at other times outrageous, but she didn’t cross the line Sarah had drawn in the sand. Or in this case, in the near-priceless nineteenth-century Aubusson carpet woven in green-and-gold florals.
The Giraults and their guests took cocktails in the salon and dinner in an exquisitely paneled dining room with windows overlooking the Seine. The lively conversation ranged from their hostess’s years at the Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris to Sarah’s work at Beguile to, inevitably, the megabusiness of aircraft manufacturing. The glimpse into a world she’d had no previous exposure to fascinated Sarah, but Elise tolerated it only until the last course was cleared.
“Enough, Jean-Jacques!”
Pushing away from the table, she rose. Her husband and guests followed suit.
“We will take coffee and dessert in the petite salon. And you,” she said, claiming Dev’s arm, “will tell me what convinced this delightful woman to marry you. It was the story in Beguile, yes?” Her wicked smile returning, she threw Sarah an arch look. “The truth, now. Is his derriere as delicious as it looked in your magazine?”
Her husband shook his head. “Be good, Elise.”
“I am, mon cher. Sooo good.”
* * *
“I’m good, Dee-vón.” Grinning, Sarah batted her lashes as the Hôtel Verneuil’s elevator whisked them upward. “Sooo good.”
Amused, Dev folded his arms and leaned his shoulders against the cage. She wasn’t tipsy—she’d restricted her alcoholic intake to one aperitif, a single glass of wine and a few sips of brandy—but she was looser than he’d yet seen her.
He liked her this way. Her green eyes sparkling. Her hair windblown and brushing her shoulders. Her tuxedo jacket providing intermittent and thoroughly tantalizing glimpses of creamy breasts.
Liked, hell. He wanted to devour her whole.
“You were certainly good tonight,” he agreed. “Especially when Elise tried to pump you for details about our sex life. I still don’t know how you managed to give the impression of torrid heat when all you did was arch a brow.”
“Ah, yes. The regal lift. It’s one of Grandmama’s best weapons, along with the chin tilt and the small sniff.”
She demonstrated all three and had him grinning while he walked her to her door.
“Elise may be harder to fend off when she and I have lunch tomorrow,” Sarah warned as she extracted the key card from her purse. “I may need to improvise.”
His pulse jumping, Dev took the key and slid it into the electronic lock. The lock snicked, the door opened and he made his move.
“No reason you should have to improvise.”
She turned, her expression at once wary and disbelieving. “Are you suggesting we go to bed together to satisfy Elise Girault’s prurient curiosity?”
“No, ma’am.” He bent and brushed his lips across hers. “I’m suggesting we go to bed together to satisfy ours.”
Her jaw sagged. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, ma’am,” he said again, half laughing, wholly serious.
She snapped her mouth shut, but the fact that she didn’t stalk inside and slam the door in his face set Dev’s pulse jumping again.
“Maybe,” she said slowly, her eyes locked with his, “we could go a little way down that road. Just far enough to provide Elise with a few juicy details.”
That was all the invitation he needed. Scooping her into his arms, he strode into the room and kicked the door shut. The maid had left the lamps on and turned down the duvet on the bed. Much as Dev ached to vector