One Night With a Billionaire - By VickiLewis Thompson Page 0,20

a plane back to reality. In the meantime, she might as well admit that she’d decided to stay here instead of moving to a hotel. First of all she’d have to take time to choose one, and nothing would feel as secure or be located so perfectly.

And there was the possibility that she’d insult Drew if she rejected his hospitality. He’d also worry about her. Causing him any kind of distress would be a poor way to repay his generosity. She was touched that he was concerned about her.

The rest of his proposed program, though—creating the Paris trip of her wildest dreams—was still under consideration. Now that she’d had some sleep, she could think more clearly about it. His analogy about treating a friend to a movie made a good point, but she still couldn’t equate that with four days of an all-expenses-paid luxury tour of Paris.

Maybe they could negotiate a compromise. She didn’t need a private tour of the Louvre, and she’d see the Eiffel Tower on her own. But she’d accept his generous offer of a moonlit cruise of the Seine, because that was an experience to be shared with a friend. If they were on a private yacht it wouldn’t matter what she wore, so her wardrobe wouldn’t be an issue.

Good. She’d solved that thorny problem. And she was still starving. Sliding out of bed, she padded over and picked up several of her books. Maybe reading in bed would take her mind off her stomach.

It didn’t. It seemed that travel books about Paris couldn’t resist talking about the food every other paragraph. Fifteen minutes later, she couldn’t concentrate on the page as hunger gnawed at her. She had at least three hours to go before she could reasonably expect the servants to be in the kitchen preparing breakfast.

But there was a kitchen somewhere on that basement level. Back in her college days, she’d lived in the sorority house with Val and Astrid, and they’d staged many raids on the kitchen in the middle of the night. They’d developed it into an art form. This was a French kitchen, but it couldn’t be all that different.

Taking food without asking wasn’t polite, but she had a stomachache from not eating. She couldn’t imagine three more hours of torture while she waited for the sun to rise and the kitchen to open. Neither could she imagine waking someone and asking them to fix her a snack.

How ironic that she was in Paris, the gourmet capital of the world, and she’d never been hungrier. A careful trip to the kitchen seemed like the sensible course of action and the most considerate of the household. If Drew was prepared to spend hundreds of euros on her, he wouldn’t begrudge her a little bread and cheese.

Putting down her book, she climbed out of bed. The pajamas she’d packed to wear on this trip were practical: cotton lounge pants and a roomy T-shirt. She hadn’t bothered with slippers or a robe, because they’d only have taken up room in her suitcase.

But if she planned to roam around Drew’s house in the middle of the night, she should probably put on a hoodie for modesty’s sake. After doing that, she slowly opened her bedroom door and crept into the hallway. A few stairs creaked on her way down, but this was an old house. It must creak and groan all the time. No one would notice.

Motion-sensitive lights along the baseboards helped her find her way downstairs. In minutes she’d navigated her way to the servants’ floor and located the kitchen. The hum of a refrigerator and the lingering fragrance of cooked food led her through an open door into a space dimly lit by a fluorescent light over the stove.

Once inside, she opened the refrigerator door. Finding a small wedge of cheese and a bottle of Perrier was easy. Searching out where the bread was stored posed more of a challenge, but at last she opened a metal box on the granite counter and hit pay dirt—one full loaf and half of a baguette. Taking the baguette, cheese, and Perrier, she left the kitchen.

***

Thoughts of Melanie had made Drew restless. Knowing she was right down the hall, he tossed and turned. Then a sound penetrated the thin veil of sleep. The stairs creaked.

At first he wondered if Melanie might be going down, but a second later he realized someone was coming up. Was it her? Had she gone down without him hearing and was