Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 2) (15 page)

“What did you think?”
he asked when we got back in the car.

I lowered my window and
stared out, too dispirited to answer.

“Sophie?”

“I don’t have a
personal opinion,” I said. “I’m just the writer along for the
ride.”

For a long moment, the
only sound was the idling of the car. “You really believe that?”

I shrugged. “What
else am I here for? If I mention you and your company in not just one
but two articles, it’s more publicity for you. Isn’t that the
whole point of having me along?”

As I said the words, I
knew they’d only push him away. I wanted a reaction, a fight,
anything but the indifference he’d given me all day.

“I’m doing you a
favor,” he said, his tone clipped. “You’re writing about this
experience for your website, as I remember.”

“A favor?” I said,
whipping my head around to look at him. “I’m perfectly capable of
speaking to real estate agents and interviewing buyers myself. In
fact, that’s what I’d planned to do before you convinced me
otherwise.”

“Okay, then. If you
don’t want to be here with me you’re free to leave. I can drive
you to the train station or another hotel. It’s up to you.”

We glared at each other
across the gear shift. There was so much heat between us the air
almost crackled. I glanced down for less than a second and drew in a
quick, surprised breath.

Our conflict excited
him. I could see the rigid proof in his jeans and the heavy rise and
fall of his chest. If he couldn’t let himself tie me up and spank
me, he could get off on a struggle of wills.

“I’m sorry,” I
said, glancing away as if I hadn’t seen. “That wasn’t fair.”

I expected him to start
driving but he went on staring at me, his expression gradually
softening. “Is it Trevor? I know it’s only been a few days. If
I’ve been thoughtless I hope you’ll forgive me. I’m not sure
how to handle it, honestly.”

“Neither am I,” I
said. “It changed everything between us. I mean, you and me.”

“It illuminated
everything,” Marc said. “That’s different.”

He started the engine,
his curved, sexy lips pressed in a firm line. Aroused or not, he
wouldn’t change his mind that easily. A man who’d denied his
deepest urges for almost a decade could deny them another two days,
or as long as it took me to finish my research and board a plane for
New York.

If I was going to lure
the real Marc back to me, I would have to try much, much harder.

After dressing and
putting on makeup, I took one last look in the antique mirror above
the sink.

Red lip stain. Black
liner on my upper lids. Smoky eyeshadow that brought out a trace of
green in my eyes. I was one part femme fatale and one part innocent
gamine, a combination I hoped would wreak havoc on Marc’s
self-control.

I dressed in pink silk
panties and sheer thigh-high stockings and the ruched jersey dress
Marc had given me the week before. It was so beautiful, I couldn’t
let it shrivel up in my suitcase after wearing it only once. And if
it made him notice me for even a second, it was worth the time I’d
spent ironing it.

“What’s the
occasion?” he asked when I joined him in the hotel dining room. His
smile was stiff, as if he hadn’t prepared to see me in seductive
clothes with my nipples showing through the thin fabric.

“It’s a pretty
dress,” I said, allowing the maître d’ to push in my chair. “Why
waste it?”

“Good question.”
Marc opened his menu and held it up in front of his face.

I sat squinting at the
black leather cover, vacillating between stinging disappointment and
the impulse to smack the menu out of his hands. I hadn’t gone to
all the trouble of getting ready for nothing.

Since Marc wasn’t
going to pay attention to me, surely it was okay to be friendly with
our blonde, high-cheekboned, broad-shouldered waiter, who introduced
himself as Julien. I’d seen him from across the terrace at lunch,
not dreaming that he might be helpful to me later on.

If Marc was as aloof as
he seemed, then a little flirting shouldn’t bother him. If it was
an act, then his jealousy would flare like a bottle rocket before
dessert.

Every time Julien came
to the table, I talked to him. I asked about the food, the crystal,
and the history of the hotel. Tossing my head back, I crossed my bare
leg, giving him a clear view of my thigh and sinfully high sandal. He
locked his eyes to mine and ran the tip of his tongue over his full
top lip.

Still, Marc said
nothing.

No matter how hard I
tried to provoke a response, he just watched me with one eyebrow
raised as if confused by my sudden personality change.

“Talkative tonight,
aren’t you?” he said, after Julien disappeared into the kitchen.

“I’m being nice,
that’s all.” I reached for the bottle of Bordeaux and topped off
my already-full glass.

“Keep that up and
you’ll have a hell of a hangover,” he said, watching me guzzle
two big swallows.

“I have a high
tolerance for wine,” I lied. What did it matter how I felt in the
morning? I was going to be unhappy anyway. Would a splitting headache
make any difference?

As he signed the bill I
got up, almost tipping back my chair.

“Careful, don’t
fall,” he said.

His voice was amused
with a hint of pity. Maybe he could tell it was all a pathetic game,
or he just didn’t care anymore. I knew one thing for sure – if he
was this blasé after two hours of being baited, I wasn’t going far
enough.

On my way back from the
ladies’ room, I glanced through a window and saw Julien in the
garden by himself, smoking a cigarette. Without a second thought I
went through the crowded lounge and out an open French door, stepping
onto the terrace with a light click of my heels.

“You’ve abandoned
your post,” I said, and frowned at myself. That was my best attempt
at a pick-up line? Sad.

He blew out a plume of
smoke and ground his cigarette under his shoe. “Sorry,” he said,
waving the air in front of his face. “I’m trying to quit.”

“Bad habits are hard
to give up,” I said. I swayed a little and took a step toward him,
holding his arm to steady myself. “How old are you, Julien? You
look about twenty.”

He lowered his eyes.
“I’m twenty-two.”

“Really?” I said,
struggling to sound interested. “I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true.”

I was trying to think
of something else flirtatious to say when I heard a sharp hiss behind
me. “What’s that?” I said, turning around and making myself
dizzy. Marc stood just outside the door, arms crossed over his chest.

“Uh oh,” I said,
though I couldn’t help smiling. At last I’d roused the
hibernating beast.

“Sophie?” Marc
said. “A word?”

I rolled my eyes and
gave Julien a smile. “Don’t go anywhere,” I whispered. “I’ll
be right back.”

Placing one foot
carefully in front of the other, I went across the terrace. “What
do you want?” I asked.

Marc yanked me inside
by my wrist. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

“Lost my what? I
don’t know what you mean.”

“That idiot waiter is
barely out of nappies. One would think you had no standards at all.”

“He’s old enough,”
I said, trying hard not to slur. “Twenty-two, to be exact.”

“He told you that?”

“Yeah. A second ago.
I asked.”

Marc grabbed my arm.
“Upstairs. Now.”

“Hey!” I said. “Let
me go. You can’t tell me what to do.”

“The hell I can’t,”
he said, his grip tightening. “I’m not going to let you embarrass
yourself in public like a common tart.”

“Why not? You never
cared about embarrassing me before, making me kneel down in the
middle of a restaurant in Paris.”

“You’re drunk.”

“So? What does it
matter to you?”

He looked down at me,
his eyes scorching. “You’re right. Do exactly as you like.” He
dropped my arm and stalked back to the dining room.

Straightening the
shoulders of my dress, I couldn’t help feeling triumphant. After
two hours of concerted effort, I’d cracked his façade. At least I
could still make him feel something, even if it was only fury.
Anything was better than being ignored.

I was too tipsy to make
it upstairs by myself and the idea of going to bed alone was
intolerable, so I walked back across the terrace. Julien was sitting
with his ankles crossed on a low stone wall.

He smiled when he saw
me. “Everything okay?”

“Absolutely. No
problem at all.”

“He’s your
boyfriend?”

“Nope,” I said.
“More like a really domineering older brother.”

“He’s gone now?”

“Completely. For
good. Not coming back ever.”

A single cricket began
to sing from a row of round hedges. “It’s almost like summer
tonight,” Julien said. “You want to see the garden?”

He put out his hand and
I took it. Sandals crunching gravel, I weaved beside him down the
pathway between luxuriant beds of flowers. I could smell his scent,
dark tobacco combined with a vaguely stomach-turning cologne.

The hotel suddenly
seemed a long way away. All I could think about was Marc in his room
asleep, or poring over real estate materials. If he was thinking of
me at all, he was imagining the relief he’d feel after he ditched
the American drama queen at the airport.

When Julien hugged me
near the lavender, I couldn’t resist. My legs were too unsteady,
and I had to grab him to keep from falling backward. I patted his
back lightly, not feeling the slightest arousal or attraction.

It occurred to me that
this might not even be happening. Maybe I was in a drunken doze in my
room and it was all an incredibly realistic delusion.

“I hope for this all
night,” Julien said. He lowered his head for a kiss, his mouth
opening like a sinkhole.

“Oh, no,” I
muttered, turning my head away. “Yuck.”

His lips were an inch
from my cheek when he suddenly jerked back. Out of the darkness Marc
had appeared, his face demonic. Gripping Julien by the back of the
neck, he shoved him into a large rosemary bush.

“Oh, my God!” I
shrieked. Julien scrambled to his feet, fists raised, gravel spinning
out from under his shoes.

Marc rolled his eyes.
“Don’t be an ass. Though that may be more than you can manage.”

Chest heaving, Julien
glared at him but dropped his hands. He swore fiercely in French and
kicked a stone bordering a row of herbs.

“I’m sorry!” I
called to Julien, but he was already tramping off across the grass.

I turned to Marc, my
cheeks flaming from wine and embarrassment. “What are you doing
here?” I said, the words sticking to my tongue. “I thought you
went to bed. You said I could –”

“I came down to save
you from yourself,” he growled, pulling me up the path by my elbow.
“Apparently I barely made it in time.”

“You were inside
watching me?” I asked, my anger only partially exaggerated.

“Watching you do
something insanely stupid, yes. This is not the way to deal with
what’s happening between us. I can’t believe I have to tell you
that.”

I stumbled over the
threshold into the lounge. Half the people at the bar turned to
stare. “So you care now? You hardly looked at me all night.”

Marc’s fingers bit
into my arm. “How would you know? You couldn’t take your eyes off
the waiter.”

“Damnit – let go,”
I said, trying to squirm away. “You’re hurting me.”

“Am I? I know the
feeling well.”

“
You
know the feeling?” I said as he hauled me through the empty
restaurant and up the stairs. “We’re not even together anymore.
You’ve made that pretty obvious, sticking me in a separate room.”

“I wanted to give you
space.”

“And I have plenty of
that now, don’t I? So much space I don’t know what to do with it
all.”

He squinted at me, his
gaze dark and bitter. “Why are you acting this way? You think I
like seeing you move on to your next conquest in front of me? You did
it with that imbecile Robert at my father’s house, too. No wonder
the bastard was all over you. You practically seduced him across the
table.”

“I was trying to make
you jealous,” I said as he dragged me down a hallway.

“Oh!” he laughed.
“Is that what this waiter thing is about, too? More manipulation
and dishonesty? You know, things might be very different if you’d
been straight with me.”

He opened the door to
his room and pushed me inside. There were papers scattered across the
desk, shirts slung over chair backs.

“Tell me this,” he
said, slamming the door, “if I hadn’t come out just now, would
you be fucking that kid in a back room somewhere? On your knees
sucking him off?”

I sat clumsily on the
edge of the bed, hoping the room would stop revolving if I stayed
still. “I’m trying to figure out why you care.”

Marc stood in front of
me, his face red and his hands clenched. Gradually, his color drained
and he looked very tired. “Then you don’t know me very well,”
he said.

He went into the
bathroom and closed the door. I lay back, watching the ceiling spin
until I was too sick to keep my eyes open. I turned on my side and
clung to the bed like a raft in a storm, knowing that I’d made
everything worse, and that nothing I could do would make it better.

“I love you, Marc,”
I whispered into the comforter.

The bathroom door opened – or
maybe the sound was coming from inside my aching head. I tried to sit
up but a wave of drowsiness swept over me. A moment later, I was
asleep.

When I woke, the room
was dark.

There was a sheet over
me. It was four in the morning by the ticking bedside clock. Marc lay
on the other side of the mattress taking slow, deep breaths.