beautiful woman here,” Jean Claude said. He slid his arm around my bare back and pulled me close.
“Certainly. Where is she?” I teased, glancing around us as if looking for another woman.
“Beautiful and humble,” he said. “You are like a breath of fresh air. François was quite taken with you, as I knew he would be.”
I didn’t know what to say. “So your talk with him went well?”
Jean Claude stared into my eyes and then shrugged. “We are coming to terms. What did you think of him?”
“He strikes me as a man who doesn’t hear the word no very often,” I said. I was trying to be circumspect and didn’t mention the hinky vibe he put off.
Jean Claude raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Could you say no to him?”
My first impulse was to say, Hell to the yes—after all, there was nothing that I wanted from him—but tact made me rethink, and I said, “I suppose that would depend upon what he asked of me.”
Jean Claude grinned at me as if my answer was what he’d hoped it would be. I felt like I should be pleased by this, to have made him happy, but something about it felt off.
He kissed my cheek and then put my hand on his elbow. He pulled me in the direction of a stocky, bald man who was waving at him. As we walked, I felt the heat of a hard stare upon my bare back, and I glanced over my shoulder to see François watching us, or more accurately me.
The acquisitive expression on his face was one I’d seen before. It was predatory, the sort of look that reduced a woman to a plaything, an accessory, a toy for his amusement. Men who viewed women this way viewed all women this way. It had nothing to do with how attractive a woman was. His gaze met mine, and he held up his champagne glass and blew a kiss at me. It made me shiver and not in a good way.
I had no opportunity to ask Jean Claude what that was all about as we reached the portly man, who it turned out was on the Council of Paris, representing the sixteenth arrondissement.
And so it went. In a flurry of introductions, we met designers, artists, businessmen, musicians, and even a scientist or two. Everyone who was anyone in Paris at the moment was here to enjoy the hospitality of François Moreau. I ran into him twice more during the evening, and each time, I got the creeper vibe off of him. I felt as if he was circling us, keeping watch, but for what?
Jean Claude made certain I was never without a drink in my hand. I drank the first two glasses of champagne but then began to bluff the rest, turning and setting the glasses down when he wasn’t looking. I couldn’t decide if he was being a solicitous escort or trying to get me drunk. When he pressed the fifth glass on me, I started to get annoyed.
“Drink up, mon chou,” he said. “We have all night ahead of us.”
“Not if I drink this, we don’t,” I said. I went to put the glass down, but he grabbed it and pushed it more forcefully into my hand.
“Chelsea, you need to learn to live a little,” he chided me.
It was the first time I’d felt any criticism coming from him, and I was taken aback that it was in regards to my not wanting to get loaded on champagne. Because a woman sloppily staggering around in a gown was so hot. I frowned.
“I think your definition of living and mine might be different,” I said. My voice was cool as I stared down into my glass, watching the bubbles break the surface.
He ran an exasperated hand through his air. He took my elbow and led me to the corner of the room. He stared at me for a moment, and then a smile, a real charmer’s grin, slowly tipped his lips.
“I’m sorry, ma belle,” he said. He ran his hand up and down my bare arm. “I just want you to enjoy yourself.”
“I am,” I said. Although honestly, I was enjoying him much less now than I had seven years ago. There was something off about him tonight that I couldn’t put my finger on.
Jean Claude turned away. He sipped his champagne and studied the room. I saw an unexpected hardness to his features that I didn’t remember being there before.
“Is everything all