Until You (19 page)

"Did I tell you Hoyt—my stepfather—is going to become an ambassador?"

"So?"

Miranda sighed. "So, ambassadors are like Caesar's wife. You know, above reproach."

"Ah, I begin to see. Your Mr. O'Neil thinks someone intends to use this to blackmail your mother and stepfather?"

"I guess."

Jean-Phillipe put his feet up on the table, too, and crossed them at the ankles.

"It is possible, I suppose. Has he spoken with the animal you married?"

"I don't know. When you come right down to it, I don't know anything except that Eva got a note, my apartment got taken apart, and, as always, it's somehow going to end up being all my fault."

"I am going to speak with your Mr. O'Neil and ask him some questions."

"Jean-Phillipe, please, he is not
my
Mr. O'Neil. And I don't want you to talk to him. I don't want you to get involved in this at all. It's liable to get messy."

"I am not afraid, Miranda."

"I know that," she said gently. She smiled and took his hand in hers. "Don't worry about me. Honestly, I'll be fine."

"You will telephone Eva and question her? Make certain the man, O'Neil, is who he claims?"

"Yes. I promise."

"It is also time to move from that apartment of yours. I have tried and tried to tell you, the neighborhood has charm but it can also be dangerous."

It was an old argument, one they'd had many times. When they'd met—when he'd rescued her from a dark Paris street—Jean-Phillipe had lived in a tiny attic apartment in the Marais and she had lived there with him until she'd begun earning enough money modeling to take a small place of her own.

They had both moved since then, she to a comfortable apartment off the Rue de Rivoli, Jean-Phillipe to this elegant location near the Arc de Triomphe. He kept trying to convince her to move nearby but Miranda was happy where she was—or she had been, until last night.

And she would be, again. No one was going to force her out of her home.

"I told you, there's a new lock on my door."

"Locks do not impress me."

"Please, let's not quarrel." Miranda got to her feet and dug her bare toes into the velvety Aubusson carpet that covered the living room floor. "Is this the rug we bought at the flea market last week?"

"You are trying to change the subject!"

"You're darned right I am. I don't want to think about last night anymore, or about Eva or Conor O'Neil." Her smile was quick and beseeching. "Let's talk about something else."

Jean-Phillipe sighed. How could he deny anything to this woman he loved most in the entire world? He got up, ruffled her hair and went to the fireplace where kindling lay neatly on the hearth.

"You know," he said, as he put a match to it, "that is the first thing I remember noticing about you,
cherie,
that despite your perfect schoolgirl French and your even more perfect schoolgirl clothes, you could not wait to walk around barefoot. 'The child is an American barbarian,' I said to myself, 'and her face is dirty but still, she shows promise.' "

Miranda smiled. She bent down, planted a quick kiss on the top of his head, then made her way to the wooden wine-rack built into the half-wall that separated the living room from the kitchen. "Red or white?"

"Red for me, always, but if you prefer..."

"Red's fine."

She chose a bottle, deftly uncorked it and poured two glasses. Jean-Phillipe made a face as she handed him a glass and sat down beside him on the carpet.

"This is a vintage bordeaux, Miranda. You are supposed to let it breathe."

"Really?" she said, flashing an impish grin. "Well, what do American barbarians know about letting wine breathe?" She took a slow sip. "Mmm, that's nice."

"Yes." He leaned back and smiled. "The studio sent over a case."

"Ah, the price of fame. Little girls oohing and ahhing, terrific
vin rouge,
an apartment fit for a king..."

"A prince,
cherie.
Until I succeed in my first Hollywood movie, I will not be a king."

"It's really that important to you?"

"You think I am silly, yes?"

"No. I'd never think anything about you was silly. I just don't see why it should matter so much."

"Who knows? Perhaps it is simply my actor's ego. Or perhaps I wish to prove that even one such as I can do whatever he sets his mind to."

Miranda put her hand lightly over his. "You mustn't say things like that."

"You are good for me,
cherie.
You always have been."

"As you have been, for me."

Jean-Phillipe smiled. "I think your fondness for me dates back to that long-ago evening when you realized your sacrifice would be unnecessary."

"You know it goes further back than that." Miranda laughed. "Was I that obvious?"

"About offering to martyr yourself by sleeping with me? Oh yes, you were as transparent as glass. Even after eight years, I can clearly recall the look of relief on your face when I turned you down."

She smiled, reached for the bottle of wine and refilled both their glasses.

"I didn't know how else to repay you. If you hadn't rescued me that night..."

"Who could have done less? There you stood, a poor waif stranded on the street-corner of life with the rain beating down on your head, soaked to the skin and looking as if you had lost your last friend."

"I'll never forget how I felt when you came up to me and said, 'Here, child, take this money and buy yourself a meal.' " She looked at him. "What made you do that? So many people had just walked by."

"Who knows? Perhaps it was that sad look in your eyes, or the way your shoulders were hunched against the chill." He chuckled. "On the other hand, it may have been that you reminded me of a half-drowned kitten I rescued when I was a boy. I have always been, how do you say, a sucker for orphaned animals."

"That was me, all right." Miranda's voice hardened. "Orphaned."

"You chose not to return home with your mother,
n'est-ce pas?"

"Sure. The same way you chose to live your life the way you do." Sighing, she reached for his hand. "Never mind all that. I'm just trying to tell you what it meant to me, that you bought me supper, took me home and let me sleep on the sofa."

"Alors,"
he said, and shuddered, "with the mice that used to steal the stuffing from the cushions to keep you company. That apartment was not like this one, eh?"

Miranda laughed. "No. It was not like this one at all."

"Still, you improved it while you lived with me. I remember coming home to rooms that were clean, to freshly ironed shirts and hot meals."

"I remember shorting out your vacuum cleaner and scorching your shirts. And to this day, I think it's a miracle my cooking didn't kill you!"

He chuckled. "What is it you Americans say,
cherie?
It was the thought that counted."

"I knew it wasn't enough. You'd done so much." She hesitated. "That was why I offered to sleep with you. It was all I had to give."

"Oui."
He put down his glass, rolled onto his back and folded his hands under his head. "Truly, it was a generous offer. I was touched."

"But you're right. I was relieved when you turned me down. Very relieved." Miranda put down her wine and stretched out beside him on her belly, her chin propped on her hands. "But it wasn't because of anything about you, Jean-Phillipe. You know that, don't you?"

"Miranda, little one, this was all a long time ago."

"I know, but we've never really talked about it. And I want to be sure you understand. You mean everything to me. I just didn't want to do—to do that with anyone."

"And nothing much has changed in eight years, hmm?"

Miranda sat up again. She picked up her glass and looked down into it. The firelight, reflected in the deep ruby of the wine, gleamed hot and golden.

"No," she said softly, "it hasn't."

"I have never asked you about it. I always thought, if you wished to discuss it, you would do so. But I knew, in my heart."

"That's okay. I don't mind you asking."

"I shall ask, then. You still feel nothing when you are with a man?"

"I am never with a man." She smiled, but her eyes were dark. "Not the way you mean."

Jean-Phillipe reached up and stroked a strand of hair back from her cheek.

"It is a dangerous game you play,
cherie,"
he said, very softly.

"What game?"

"The one you play with men."

"I do not play games with men."

"You tease, Miranda. You torment. You snap your lashes and say, 'are you man enough to take me' and then, when a man accepts the challenge..."

"It's
bat,"
she said sharply.

"Cherie?"

"A woman
bats
her lashes, she doesn't
snap
them. And I can't help it if men come to the wrong conclusions. It only proves that they're all pigs. They deserve learning that not every woman is fool enough to believe their lies."

Jean-Phillipe sat up and looked directly at her. "There is a word in French," he said softly. "It is not a nice word, but it is a word men use to describe a woman who teases. They say she is
une allumeuse.
I do not know how to translate this word into English."

Color burned in Miranda's cheeks. "You don't have to. I'm sure I can figure out the English equivalent." Her chin rose in defiance. "I'm who I am, that's all. If men choose to misinterpret, that's their problem, not mine."

"This man. O'Neil."

"What about him?"

"Does he choose to misinterpret, too?"

Miranda rose to her feet. "I have no idea what you're getting at."

"That performance yesterday, at the Louvre. That was for him, was it not?"

"What performance?"

"Miranda, cherie..."

"Don't give me that, 'Miranda,
cherie,'
business with the long-suffering sigh and the little smile. It wasn't a performance. I was just glad to see you."

"Of course." Jean-Phillipe narrowed his eyes. "That is why you clung to me like a squid."

"Like an octopus. Dammit, if you're going to speak English, get it right."

"Is not a squid an octopus?"

"No. Yes. I mean..." Miranda looked at Jean-Phillipe. His face was a study in innocence but his eyes were filled with laughter. "You're impossible," she said, but the tension had left her and she was smiling, too.

"As are you, Miranda." He stood up. "And now that your good mood has returned, I shall risk ruining it by asking again that you move nearer to me."

"No."

"I am concerned for you,
cherie."

"I'm concerned for me, too, but there's nothing to worry about. I told you, O'Neil sent over a guy who installed the kind of lock that would keep a bank safe."

"And you can truly return to that apartment after what happened?"

"I can," she said, not adding that first she'd throw out the bedding and then she'd scrub the place down with disinfectant. "And I will."

Jean-Phillipe put his arm around her and drew her close.

"You are still the most stubborn female a man ever had the misfortune to know."

His tone was stern but she knew that he was smiling, and he was holding her as gently as if she were the sister he'd never had. Miranda hugged him, then leaned back in his arms.

"I have a wonderful idea."

"Yes?"

"Let's go shopping. We'll buy a bunch of extravagant, fattening things, come back here and make a wonderful lunch."

He kissed her forehead. "Fauchon's?"

"Fauchon's, definitely."

"We will buy oysters. And
foie gras.
And very ripe brie and champagne," he said, draping her coat around her shoulders and grabbing his own. "Everything that is extravagant and fattening."

Laughing, they made their way downstairs to the street. A light snow had begun to fall, adding magic to-the boulevard and to the brightly lit Arc de Triomphe just ahead.

"It sounds decadent," Miranda said.

"Everything pleasurable in life is decadent. Besides, we are celebrating."

"We are?"

"Of course. We shall raise our glasses and wish a short and most unhappy future for the
trou de balle
who violated your privacy."

"The what?" Miranda said, laughing.

"Ah, even after so many years, your French needs work." Jean-Phillipe grinned. "I called him an asshole. It is not a polite term, in your language or mine. And then, we shall drink to my current film, which wraps by the week's end."

"That's wonderful!"

"What is wonderful is that everyone predicts it will be a great success."

"Why is it I can almost hear the word
but
at the end of that sentence?"