French Kiss

  “Not really. I just couldn’t sleep last night thinking about work.” Lies, lies.

  “Go back home and sleep for a while. We don’t have to see the Thompsons until eleven. And for that one, you’d better be on your toes. The wife has a fucking clipboard.”

  Nicky grimaced. “Rich wives have too much time on their hands.”

  “Tell me about it. That’s all I see. Junior Martha Stewarts, with attitude. But I mean it. You look like hell. I’m not leaving until tomorrow. Go home and sleep.”

  “I would if I could, okay? It’s not going to happen.”

  “Get a massage at Josie’s. You’ll look more rested.”

  “Since when do you care if I looked rested or not?”

  “I never had to before.”

  “You’re just going to have to put up with what you see,” Nicky muttered, knowing damned well she wouldn’t be able to sleep, no matter what.

  “Suit yourself. It’s your company.”

  “Thank you,” she tardy said.

  “Oooo, bitchy.” Buddy grinned. “Here’s where I could say something chauvinistic, if you know what I mean.”

  Nicky snorted. “Men have such a simple way of looking at life.”

  “It might help.”

  “Could we change the subject? Before I fire you for sexual harassment.”

  “Gotcha. Subject closed.” Not that Buddy was worried about being fired, but Nicky looked fretful, and he didn’t want to make her life any more difficult. They got along. They spoke their minds, but they both knew when to pull back. And this was one of those times. “So what’s first on the agenda?”

  “The Thompsons and whatever else you have scheduled. And we should check out Jordi Patrick’s, too.” Not that she wanted to, but she couldn’t be a wuss.

  “We’re stalled there right now. The lumber we need for the decks is on back order. So that one can wait.”

  There was a God! She could feel her entire body relax. “Okay, then,” she said, brightly. “That one’s on hold for the time being.”

  Pancakes didn’t help, a fourth cup of espresso didn’t help, even being left alone after Vernie and Jordi went shopping only made him more restless. Christ, he felt like he’d taken a dose of Spanish fly. His mind was relentlessly one-track, focused on a single thought. He was going crazy.

  He even thought of calling some of the women he knew and inviting them over to be his sex surrogates for the woman he really wanted. But he couldn’t even bring himself to call. He didn’t want some other woman. He wanted her.

  He was screwed.

  But there was no way he was going to enter into a relationship.

  No way, no how.

  Especially after knowing Nicky for less time than it takes a banana to ripen.

  Christ, this craving was lunatic.

  Get a grip.

  Part of the reason he’d attained his success was due to his practical, hardworking, no illusions attitude. Those traits sustained him now in his hour of need, and forcing himself back into the studio, he sat down and got to work.

  Funny how in the best of all possible worlds, work is both a passion and an avocation. With the sun shining into his studio, reminding him of new beginnings and better times, before long, he was lost in the music he loved.

  Nicky also found herself thoroughly occupied that day— overseeing the thousand and one details integral to an architectural firm with eight projects under construction. She and Buddy surveyed two partially finished tree houses before meeting the Thompsons at eleven.

  The interview didn’t start out well, when Mrs. Thompson said, “I don’t usually like to work with women, but you come highly recommended. I prefer working with men. They’re more detail-oriented, and I’m a detail person.”

  Detail this. Nicky felt like saying, “I don’t usually work with jerks.” But she held her tongue and managed to say instead, “Why don’t we see how things go? You don’t have to make up your mind today.”

  Luckily, Buddy was smooth as silk during the interview, because short of sleep and already on the defensive, Nicky found it difficult not to snap off the officious Mrs. Thompson’s head on about ten occasions. The lady with the clipboard felt that she knew more about designing tree houses than Nicky, and she didn’t mind saying so.

  “You were good, boss,” Buddy said afterward in the car. “I could see the steam coming out of your ears, but you didn’t blow up.”

  “Nerves of steel and the obvious fact that Mr. Thompson is going to be the one making the decisions. If we had to deal exclusively with his wife, I would have turned down the job.”

  “That’s just because you’re on edge this morning. You never turn down a job.”

  Buddy was right. She’d been too poor too recently to even think about turning away work. “I’d better go home early and take a nap,” she said.

  “Good idea.”

  Now what would really be a good idea was if she could go and take a nap with the very talented-in-the-sack Johnny Patrick. Since that wasn’t going to happen, she’d have to settle for a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and one of the chocolate bars she’d brought back from France.

  A completely inadequate compromise.

  Really, not even a compromise.

  Just a totally inadequate act of sublimation.

  And as if she wasn’t agitated enough, she’d no more than walked into her house than the phone rang.

  Shit, it was her sister.

  After not returning her countless calls, Nicky had no choice but to pick up or take the chance of having the local cops show up at her door. Her mom had done that once when she hadn’t been able to get hold of her for five days. Her family had figured she’d been lying in a pool of her own blood after being murdered by some crazed killer.

  The simple fact was that there was no crime in Black Duck, unless egging cars on Halloween counted. So her mom, particularly, viewed any large city as highly dangerous and rife with crime, no matter how many times Nicky had explained to her how her tree-lined neighborhood was safe as can be.

  But apparently, she didn’t sound upbeat enough when she answered the phone, because she’d no more than said, “Hello,” and her sister immediately asked, “What’s wrong? We’ve been worried about you. Are you okay?”

  Her sister’s voice had taken on a anxious note at the end, and for the briefest of moments Nicky debated telling her the truth: that her life was in no way okay. That she was down in the dumps because she might be in love with a guy who didn’t even know what the word meant. And even worse, if someone explained what it meant to him, he’d fucking die laughing. “I’m just tired,” she said instead, lying through her teeth—not about being tired. About why she was tired.

  “Just because you’re tired doesn’t explain why you haven’t answered your phone for days,” her sister, Belle, noted, with the cunning of a detective. “I’ll have you know Mom almost called out the gendarmes.”

  How about that for Freudian, when she’d actually been in gendarme country for the past few days, Nicky nervously observed. Was it a sign that she should tell at least part of the truth? Was God trying to tell her something? “Actually, I’ve been out of the country for a couple days,” she offered, figuring she couldn’t afford to anger any gods with the shaky state of her nerves. She didn’t need any more bad karma. Particularly from her family.

  “Where in the world were you?” A wholly breathless query, each word punctuated with alarm.

  “It was strictly business,” Nicky said, lying like a rug. “I’m building a tree house for a family and they wanted me to see some stuff over in France.”

  “Who’s building tree houses in France for God’s sake?”

  Okay, she should have thought that one through better. Belle knew as well as she did that her architectural speciality was extremely rare. “It wasn’t precisely a tree house, just a site and stuff that they wanted to show me.”

  “Where was that?”

  Oh, God, she was just digging herself a deeper ho
le. “Out in the country west of Paris. No place you’d know. How are Mom and Dad? How’re the baby and Ed?”

  “They’re fine. Everyone’s fine. So you’re not going to tell me, your only sister, what you did?” Belle challenged. “I know when you’re bullshitting. Spit it out. Where in hell were you?”

  “I don’t have to tell you.” Nicky grumbled, resorting to a defense more appropriate to a six-year-old. So she was tired, her brain wasn’t clicking on all ten cylinders.

  “Then I’ll tell Mom you won’t tell me where you went, because it was too dangerous and you were almost kidnapped and—”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything, and you know it,” Nicky doggedly muttered, figuring she’d stick with her stone-wall approach. “Mom’s not going to do anything now that I’m back home anyway.”

  “Then how about you tell me because you sound really, really sad,” her sister coaxed, the sympathy in her tone genuine. “I won’t tell anyone, Nick. You know I won’t. And if you want,” she added, sweetening the pot, “I’ll give you the gossip on Jenny Grogin. That will cheer you up for sure.”

  “Tell me about that first.” The sisters knew each other’s soft spots; they were extremely close, even though they didn’t see as much of each other as they once had.

  “Well, for starters,” Belle declared, “she’s mixed up with some married judge, if you can believe it. And believe it. It’s true—Eva heard about it from a reliable source.”

  “No shit. Miss Goody Two-Shoes who does everything by the book is doing it with a married judge?”

  “It gets better. The judge’s wife is out for blood, and all the guy’s money, too. So Jenny’s straight-to-the-top career path, that’s been planned and executed down to every last detail, could take a detour or at least be stalled for a while. Although, this is Washington, D.C., we’re talking about, where scandal and corruption are routine, so who knows? But I thought you’d like to know Miss Goody Two-Shoes might have stepped into some shit.”

  Nicky laughed. “You were right. That’s damned interesting news. Keep me posted on the gory details.”

  “Don’t worry. Eva Monteil has her ear to the ground, and you know she can practically see through buildings, too. So if Jenny tells her mother anything more—however edited it might be—Eva will know about it.”

  “And in turn, the world.”

  “You got that right. Now spill your guts, sis, and I’ll tell you not to worry, and you can quit being sad.”

  She and Belle had always offered each other that blanket assurance of perpetual happiness that solved nothing, but nevertheless made them feel better. “It’s not a problem precisely,” Nicky began. “I know better than to ask for the moon or expect Cinderella endings to relationships, but I’m sorta bummed out ’cause I’m missing someone. That’s all.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “You might know of him. If you read the tabloids.”

  “You’re kidding! You know some celebrity?”

  Nicky went on to explain how she’d been asked to design a tree house for Jordi Patrick and all the events that had unfolded in the last few days. “So even though I know better than to expect anything but a fond farewell from someone like Johnny Patrick,” she finished, “it still leaves me—unhappy—I guess would be the right word.”

  “You sound unhappy all right,” Belle agreed. “And the guy’s fucking unbelievably gorgeous, of course. Who wouldn’t fall for him. Christ, he was the Sexiest Man Alive for a thousand obvious reasons! It’s not as though you can just ignore a man like that.”

  “Are you being helpful? I don’t think so.”

  “Sorry. But, wow, you’ve got to admit, he’s a major player. Not that it matters when your heart is broken, I know. But consider, sis, how many women even have the chance to live the kind of life you lived the last few days. That’s something to remember. And you know what they say about time healing everything. You know that’s true. Look how you had to talk to that therapist after Theo left. And now you don’t even think about him. You haven’t even mentioned his name in I don’t know how long. In a few months, the name Johnny Patrick won’t mean a thing to you, either.”

  Nicky sighed. “You’re making sense. Thanks. I knew as much, but it helps when someone else points out the obvious.” And while she was talking to Belle, she almost believed that everything would work out just fine. She almost thought she might be able to get over Johnny in a few days or at the most—a few weeks.

  But the moment she hung up the phone, she burst into tears. Fucking tears! She couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t even cried when Theo left, except when she’d found out he’d cleared out her checking account.

  Jeez, if she was crying about this, she had to face facts. There wasn’t any simple solution to her wretchedness and her even more serious state of sexual deprivation.

  It was definitely time for a punt play.

  Walking into her kitchen, she selected one of the larger chocolate bars she’d brought back from Nice, moved to the freezer, took out a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, found a spoon, and retired to her bedroom with her temporary solace.

  Stripping off her work clothes, she put on comfort clothes— her Simpsons T-shirt she’d had since college and a pair of shorts from probably high school. Piling up the pillows on her bed, she arranged the chocolate bar and ice cream within easy reach, picked up her TV remote, and prepared to escape from her world of suffering and woe.

  Now if only they’d make a new season of Entourage in the next five minutes, her life would be much improved.

  Short of that miracle of technology occurring, she scrolled through her TiVo list and settled on reruns of the Daily Show.

  She was in the mood for fake news to go, with her fake sense of acceptance that she could live without ever having sex with Johnny Patrick again.

  And laughing was supposed to be good for depression.

  Everyone knew that.

  Thirty-one

  While the two most sex-starved people in Berkeley were struggling to put their lives back in sync, Yuri was bundling a protesting Lisa Jordan onto his jet in L.A.

  “I don’t know why I have to go with you! I gave you the ring back and told you what I did with the box for Christ’s sake! Let go of me you damned brute!” she screamed, trying to shake off his bruising grip on her arm. “Let go!”

  “Once I have that box back, you can go wherever the hell you want,” Yuri muttered, pushing her down in a seat. “But until then, you’re staying with me. I don’t care how much you bitch. Buckle yourself in. We’re taking off.”

  Under threat of violence, Lisa Jordan had admitted to taking the ring, but swore she’d only done it as a lark and had planned to give it back. That Yuri had come looking for the ring hadn’t necessarily surprised her, although she’d only taken one little ring from all that jewelry in the safe. (And truthfully, she’d been hoping he’d overlook it.) But she was surprised he was interested in the empty box. Not that she was about to ask him why, when he was so pissed. But it was strange.

  But strange or not, right now, she was really hoping that box was still in Johnny’s little playmate’s purse where she’d dropped it.

  She’d never seen Yuri so furious.

  He’d actually let Raf put a gun to her head. She tried to cry her way out of it at first. When that hadn’t worked, she faked fainting. Unfortunately, when she’d opened her eyes again, the gun was still there.

  At that point, she’d understood the seriousness of her predicament and had handed over the ring and given them Nicky’s first name. “I can’t remember her last name,” she’d said, “but she builds tree houses. That’s all I know, I swear.”

  Yuri nodded at Raf. He put his weapon away and after making a few calls to their offshore office, which had an efficient staff, they soon had Nicky’s business and home addresses.

  They were offered satellite photos of both locations as well.

  Google and GPS in action.

  You can imagine Nicky’s surpris
e at being wakened at dawn by a rough whisper and the feel of cold metal on her forehead. Was this a nightmare? And then the unmistakable voice of the movie star who had awed the world in at least ten wildly acclaimcd films, said, “That’s her. She has your ring box.”

  Nicky opened her eyes and said in as calm a voice as possible with her heart beating at warp speed. “What box?”

  “One that belongs to me,” a tall, dark-haired man with Asiatic eyes said, gruffly.

  “You must be mistaken. The only ring box I own has Barbie on the lid.”

  “She’s funny,” Raf drawled. “And she’s got great tits, too.”

  His tone of voice was really scary, although up against the gun at her head, Nicky wasn’t sure which was more terrifying. “I’m going to sit up now. Don’t shoot,” she said, preferring not to be lying down with a strange man looking at her like that.

  “Keep your dick in your pants, Raf,” the tall man muttered. “We have more important things to do. Now, where the fuck is the ring box?” he growled.

  Nicky tried to display a certain calm reason, but the name Raf was coming up CODE red in her mind. Wasn’t he one of Lisa Jordan’s undesirable—as in bad guy—companions in Paris? “I wish I could help you,” she said, gently, like a hostage negotiator on TV might in order to deflect hostility. “But I don’t have whatever it is you want.”

  “Unless she threw it away, she has it,” Lisa declared. “I put it in her purse.”

  Nicky’s brain was racing, trying to figure out what the hell was going on—why these people had broken into her house (not technically, because she didn’t lock her doors) and what the hell they were talking about.

  What ring box?

  But the I put it in her purse phrase finally broke through all the, confusion in her mind.

  Bingo.

  All that fiddling Lisa did with her purse in the limo before she came up with a cigarette and lighter. And her own green tote bag had been on the floor, too. Okay, now she got the picture. These must have been the men Lisa was running from, and—just a wild guess—she’d taken something she shouldn’t have. “My purse is downstairs,” Nicky quickly offered. It was still on the chair where she’d dropped it when she’d come home, her tote bag too big to use for everyday. “I haven’t unpacked it. If there’s a box in there, feel free to take it.”