says before taking a long sip, his eyes never leaving mine.
Great. Nothing I want more than the world’s sexiest man watching me intently as I stuff my face with food.
“But this must have cost a fortune,” I tell him in between the most delicate bites I can muster.
“It’s fine.”
I give him a loaded look. “It’s not fine. You put me up in a hotel room with a goddamn sea view and its own terrace and Jacuzzi, you order me everything on the breakfast menu, and then I proceed to spill coffee all over the bed. This is going to be a hell of a bill for you.”
Not that I could really do much to offset it with my dwindling savings, but it doesn’t feel right that he’s forking out for all this, no matter how much money he appears to have.
He finishes his espresso and stares down at the empty cup, seeming to ponder something, perhaps the bill. His dark brows come together, and somehow he looks even sexier.
Suddenly he gets up, takes the espresso cup and saucer, and walks over to the tiled part of the floor. Then he raises them in the air before throwing them down on the tiles, where they smash into pieces.
I let out a yelp, spilling my coffee again, this time all over myself.
“What the fuck?” I cry out. “What are you doing?”
“You know Alfred Hitchcock?” he asks, staring at the broken pieces scattered on the tiles.
It’s scary that I know exactly what he’s about to say. “Yes. He used to smash his china on the floor every single day because it made him feel better.”
He stares at me for a moment, brows raised. “You impress me, Sadie.”
“Well, I love the man’s films, but he himself was actually a monster.”
“Quite true. Shows how monsters lurk within even the most respected people.”
What on earth is he talking about?
“So this is what you do, just break things in hotel rooms? Do you want to get kicked out? Are you living out your nineties Johnny Depp fantasies?”
I mean, he kind of has the facial hair going.
“Sometimes this helps,” he says.
“Helps what?”
Do I want to know?
He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll have someone come clean it up.”
He strides over to the phone and dials. He speaks in French and then hangs up. “Marcel will be up soon.”
The way he’s just doing what he pleases and ordering people around makes me think he’s more of a permanent guest. “Do you, like, live here or something?”
“Sometimes,” he says, his dark gaze wandering to the sea view and the billowing curtains. “Only when I want some sunshine and a change of pace.”
“Where do you normally live?” I ask before munching on a piece of bacon. As much as his theatrics with the china shocked me, I can’t deny how damn hungry I am.
“I have an apartment in Paris,” he says. “Properties in Bordeaux, Cannes, Lyon, Biarritz. No, wait, we just sold that one.”
“We?” I repeat. I ignore the fact that he just rattled off a list of properties and focus on the we. My God, does Olivier have a wife?
I never notice wedding rings, but at second glance, he doesn’t have one. Still, that doesn’t seem to mean much in Europe.
“Well, the company,” he explains.
“What company?”
“My company,” he says just as there is a knock at the door.
He walks over and opens it, and Marcel enters the room.
“Monsieur Dumont?” Marcel asks him questioningly.
Olivier just points to the mess on the ground, and Marcel starts to clean it up.
“S’il vous plaît. Merci, Marcel.”
I’m not sure if I should keep asking him questions while Marcel is here, but everything about this has gotten so weird.
“What, uh, what company?” I prod. I can’t help it.
Olivier walks over to the bedside table and tosses me the hotel’s notepad so that it lands right beside me.
I pick it up with my greasy bacon fingers. There are two things on it that make me gasp.
One is that the hotel I’m staying at is the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, and even I know that this is where all the world’s celebs and royals stay. I can’t believe this, of all places, is where I am.
The other is that above the name of the hotel is a logo that says, “The Dumont Collective.”
Dumont.
As in . . . Olivier Dumont?
I glance up at him sharply. “Is this your hotel?”
He nods with just a touch of a smile on his full lips. “Oui, madame.”
And now it all makes sense, everything sliding into