do this for three blocks, essentially taking two left turns and going around in a circle back toward where I started.
I don’t look back, not until I get to the end, because I know if I do and he’s still there, it means he’s there for me.
But eventually I have to know.
I stop beside an oak tree just outside of a little café with a few tables on the street, people packed in shoulder to shoulder, smoking and watching the day go by. At least I feel safe.
I look back, and for a moment, I think I see him. At the back of a row of Japanese tourists, just the hint of a newsboy cap.
BEEP.
My phone lights up, scaring the shit out of me, and I quickly glance down to see it’s a text from Olivier. I breathe a sigh of relief just seeing his name and look back up, expecting to see that man again, closer.
But there’s no one there at all now, just a pigeon walking back and forth, cooing, following the tourists.
“You’re being paranoid,” I scold myself, wishing that I hadn’t put so much pressure on my ankle. It’s throbbing again. Or maybe it’s the memory of being attacked on the streets of Nice.
I calm my heart rate and take a better look at Olivier’s text:
Meet me tonight at Hôtel Rouge Royale. Seven pm. Room 508. Wear something nice . . . or nothing at all.
Though I’m smiling, I’m a little hurt that this means I won’t see Olivier until this evening. But a quick Google search brings up the hotel. It’s swanky as fuck—and, of course, one of Olivier’s.
Well, at least this gives me something to do now.
Screw the Picasso museum. I’m going lingerie shopping.
At six forty-five I enter the opulent lobby of the Hôtel Rouge Royale and stride inside like I know where I’m going. I turn a few heads, but, thankfully, it’s not because I look like I don’t belong there.
Olivier made sure of that.
After getting his text, I did go shopping for tonight.
Of course, on my budget all the shopping was to be done at H&M. I couldn’t even afford Zara.
And I could only get a black lace bra and nothing else.
But when I went back to his apartment to get ready, I was in for a major shock.
He’d gone shopping for me.
Laid out on his massive bed was a burgundy balconette bra, all intricate lace and boning, coupled with a matching thong and stockings with garters. Naturally, they were all in my size, as was the pair of black patent kitten-heel Louboutins next to them.
As was the Dumont label black trench coat, folded neatly at the end of the bed with the note on it: Pour ce soir.
For this evening.
He wants me to wear the trench coat and nothing else underneath except for the lingerie.
At least, I hope that’s what he wants, because that’s what I’m wearing right now as I stride as confidently as possible toward the elevators. I feel like everyone can tell I’m practically naked underneath and am going up to have a wild tryst with someone.
But if they can tell, they certainly don’t care. That’s the French for you—they’re pretty good at minding their own business, especially when it comes to sex, and I have no doubt that this hotel, with its use of red satin curtains and velvet sofas and black marble floors, is a total fuckfest location.
The thought of that sends a thrill through me as I step inside the tiny elevator and ride it to the fifth floor. The old Sadie thought blow jobs were the ultimate in dirty sex. The new Sadie thinks nothing of wearing lingerie under a trench coat to meet her secret French lover for a forbidden tryst.
Okay, I don’t think nothing of it.
Actually, I’m kind of nervous.
As intimate as we have been every night, this is still all so new to me, and Olivier is always full of surprises. It speaks volumes about how I’ve changed that I’m willing to go along with whatever he has planned.
When I get to the fifth floor, I walk slowly down the velvet-lined hallways, marveling at how lucky I am to be here, that the man I’m meeting for hot sex is the same man who owns this hotel. The same man who picked out my lingerie.
The same man who put me in these horrible shoes.
Ouch. Even though they’re kitten heels, and I’m sure he thought he was being sensible not putting me in