Honeymoon in Paris (27 page)

I wouldn’t let her win, though. I had to get the hell out of there and find Adeline. “Isabelle, think about your daughters,” I said. “You don’t want to do anything you’d regret. Just untie me and take me to Adeline, and we’ll forget any of this ever happened.”

“Think about my daughters?” she screeched. “That’s what I’ve been doing all along. That’s why I got involved in this business in the first place!” She charged back over to Marcel, squaring her gaze in front of his face. “I didn’t want to support your father’s fancy little prostitution ring, but with my store on the brink of closing, you knew I had no choice but to take your offer. The money from those orders has helped me keep my apartment and has kept food on the table for my girls. And you promised me, Marcel. You promised no one would ever find out. That’s why we agreed to keep our relationship secret. But the secret is out, and now we need to fix it so everything can go back to the way it was
before
Miss Charlotte over here started playing detective.”

“No one else besides Charlotte has any clue you’re involved, Isabelle. You have to trust me on that,” Marcel said, but the doubt in his movie-star eyes told me he knew more than he was letting on.

“Then why did you tell your father it’s all over? And why did you tell him to leave the country?” she hissed. “You would only say those things if you knew we’d been busted.”

Marcel lowered his voice. “
We
haven’t been busted, but my father has. I felt it was only right to give him the chance to leave France before he gets arrested.”

“I see where your loyalty lies,” she huffed. “And what about
Les Bijoux
? What will happen?”

Marcel shook his head. “It’s over, Isabelle. I’m sorry, but it’s over.”

Isabelle’s face froze in panic. “My beautiful lingerie line
and
your father’s precious girls—his so-called
jewels
? All of it?”

“
Oui
. The
prostituées
, the lingerie—everything,” Marcel said, his shameful gaze meeting the floor. “It’s finished.”

Isabelle hurled the envelope across the room, then paced frantically through the aisles of lingerie. “I had the
bijoux
lingerie line tailored specifically for this dirty operation of your father’s, and I just placed a massive order at
your
request. This is my livelihood, Marcel. You know that! What will I do now? How will I support my girls?”

“I’ll help you,
mon amour,
” Marcel said, stopping her with a firm hand on the shoulder. “I won’t let anything happen to you or to your girls. I love you, you know that.”

She shrugged him off of her. “The last time I depended on a man, I was left with nothing. No way to take care of my children, no money, nothing! I’ll never make that mistake again, let alone with someone who’s romping around Paris with a different girl in his bed every week.” Isabelle flicked her angry gaze over to me. “Charlotte’s friend
Fiona
knows all about Marcel’s skills in the bedroom, doesn’t she?”

“What are you talking about?” Marcel asked her.

“In one of our daily gossip sessions, Charlotte so kindly informed me that she discovered her friend Fiona naked in your bed that morning. And it’s funny, because when I showed up unannounced at your apartment that night, you insisted on keeping me in the living room and out on the balcony. You did
not
want me in your bedroom that night, and now I know why.”

So Nicolas hadn’t been lying. It
had
been Marcel and Isabelle kissing on the balcony the night of our champagne-induced memory loss. And the black-and-pink thong I’d spotted on Marcel’s floor—it belonged to Isabelle.

But that still didn’t explain what Fiona was doing naked in Marcel’s bed the next morning.

“You really don’t know how to keep your mouth shut, do you?” Marcel snapped at me.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that Isabelle—my new
friend
—was dating you, because she never told me.” I couldn’t help but let out a little sarcasm. The mess that Isabelle and Marcel had made of their lives was not going to garner any sympathy from me.

“It wasn’t what it looked like,” Marcel said.

“Then what was it?” I asked. “It looked to me like you took advantage of how drunk my friend was to have another meaningless exploit.”

Isabelle crossed her arms and leveled her fuming gaze at Marcel.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Isabelle cut him off. “The truth, Marcel. I want the truth.”

“The truth is that Charlotte’s friends were falling all over me all night. I wasn’t planning to do anything with any of them. I was furious my brother was going to see you in the first place, Charlotte, and the only way I could keep an eye on the situation was to ask you all to stay at my apartment. Nicolas left with your friend Lexi, and I thought the rest of you went to bed in one of the guest rooms. But when I walked into my bedroom, I found Fiona asleep in my bed.
She’d already taken off all her clothes. I tried to wake her up and get her to put them back on, but she just mumbled something about how she likes to sleep in the nude and how she missed some guy named Marc. Only a few minutes later, you showed up at my door, Isabelle.”

“What a convenient story,” Isabelle remarked.

Considering Marcel’s reputation, it did seem farfetched that he would have a naked girl in his bed and not try to sleep with her. And I wouldn’t have pegged Fiona as the type to insist on sleeping in the nude, but for Fiona’s sake, I honestly hoped Marcel was telling the truth. And I hoped I would make it out of there safely so I could tell her.

“What did you mean when you said you needed to ‘keep an eye’ on the situation that night?” I asked Marcel.

“I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough,” Marcel said before taking a step closer to Isabelle and running his thumb down her cheek. “I’m telling you the truth,
mon amour.
I’m in love with you, and I was finished with all of the other women. They are meaningless to me. It’s you I want.”

Oh, these Frenchmen! Do they ever turn off the romance?

Marcel pulled Isabelle into his arms then planted his lips on hers. I’d seen enough of Marcel’s overly dramatic movie kisses. The last thing I felt like doing right now was watching another one from my vantage point as the tied-up, beaten-down hostage.

“Now that we’ve gotten that all worked out,” I interjected, “can you please let me go?”

They held their kiss for another few seconds before Isabelle turned to me with a new fire in her eyes.

“I’m not going to ruin anything for you, Isabelle. I promise,” I assured her. “Until this afternoon, I had no idea you were connected to Marcel or his father in any way. I would never want to hurt your ability to provide for your daughters.”

She walked over to me, slowly shaking her head. “I’m so sorry, Charlotte. But I can’t do that.”

It was then that I noticed the shiny knife she’d pulled out of her pocket.

Oh, God.

“Isabelle, think about what you’re doing here,” I said. “If you hurt me, you’ll lose your girls forever.”

Marcel’s eyes widened when he noticed the knife in her hand.

“Don’t try to stop me, Marcel.” Her voice crackled as she ran a finger over the sharp blade. “I’ll handle this.”

Just as Marcel lunged at her, the sound of shattering glass pierced my ears.

My muscles instinctively tensed, bracing for a blow.

But instead, a troop of black police boots stormed through the racks of lingerie, guns aimed at Isabelle and Marcel, who had tumbled to the floor as Marcel struggled to ply the knife from his crazy girlfriend’s hands.

A deep, steady voice sounded from the lineup. “Drop the knife.”

That couldn’t be…

I lifted my gaze to the man who’d just spoken, but I couldn’t believe it was true. I blinked a few times, thinking it must’ve been the blow to my head that was making me imagine the sight of the handsome, sexy man standing amid all of these armed officers.

But he was as real as the pounding of my heart.

“Luc?” I managed to spit out.

Still dressed in the dark jeans and white-collared shirt he’d left the house in this morning, Luc was the only one of the bunch
not
dressed in a police uniform.

But he did have a gun, and like the others, it was pointed at Isabelle and Marcel.

He nodded at me before repeating his warning. “Drop the knife, Isabelle.”

Isabelle’s hand went limp, the knife clattering to the ground as tears poured down her cheeks. She sobbed into Marcel’s shoulder as
he held her tightly. “It’s over now,
chérie
,” he whispered into her hair. “It’s over.”

I barely heard them going on like the pair of tormented lovers they were as I watched my husband scoop the knife off the ground and rush toward me.

As two of the policemen pried Isabelle off Marcel and cuffed them both, Luc cut the ropes off my wrists and feet.

I was too stunned to ask Luc all of the questions burning on the tip of my tongue, but I did manage to say one word: “Adeline.”

“I have her,” Luc said. “She’s safe.”

I released the breath that had been lodged in my lungs, and it was only once Luc had freed me from the chair that I noticed my entire body was trembling.

Luc wiped the blood from my cheek, then wiped a tear from my eye. “And you are too,
mon amour.
You’re safe now.”

“But… I don’t understand. Are you some sort of undercover cop or something?”

“I’ll explain everything once we get you out of here. I promise.” He wrapped his strong arms around me and pulled me into his chest. And for the first time since this entire scandal had begun, I stopped questioning him, stopped doubting him, and instead placed my trust in my husband and let him hold me tight.

TWENTY-SIX

After a quick trip to the hospital to stitch up the gash on my forehead and to confirm that I did, in fact, have a concussion from the blow I’d been dealt earlier in the black “taxi cab,” Luc drove me back to our apartment where his mother and sister were waiting with Adeline.

The minute we walked in the door, Sandrine wrapped me up in a tight hug while Luc’s mom kissed him on the forehead, then promptly shook him by the shoulders.

“You had us all so scared,” she said in French. “What were you thinking?”

Luc sighed. “
Oui
, I know,
maman
. I will explain everything.”

“Have you known all along what’s been going on, Charlotte?” Luc’s mom asked.

I shook my head, but thought better of it the minute my temples started pounding again.

“
Maman
, I think Charlotte needs to rest,” Sandrine said, ushering me toward the couch.

“I want to see Adeline first,” I said. “Is she asleep already?”

Sandrine nodded. “Yes, we just put her down. She was exhausted, the poor little thing. But thankfully she was only exhausted from playing with Isabelle’s daughters. She had no clue anything bad was going on, and she was only a little confused as to why this strange woman picked her up at the
crèche
. Thank God she’s okay.”

Luc followed me back to Adeline’s room, and when we peeked inside, we found her all curled up under the covers, clutching Luc
Penguin, Charlotte Penguin, and Adeline Penguin tightly to her chest. Thankfully, Brigitte Penguin was nowhere to be found.

I took a careful seat on the edge of Adeline’s bed, stroking her pretty auburn hair as she breathed lightly in and out. Luc sat on the other side of the bed and kissed Adeline on the forehead.

“Luc, what if something had happened to her?” I whispered. “I would never have been able to forgive myself.”

Luc took my hand and smiled at me. “Nothing did happen to her,
mon amour,
and
none
of this was your fault. Now come with me. It’s time for me to tell you the truth about everything.”

I gave Adeline a kiss and silently thanked God that our little girl was okay. She wasn’t only Luc’s daughter anymore, she was mine too. And I would do everything in my power to protect and love her for the rest of my life.

Luc took my hand and led me back into the living room where Sandrine and Michèle were waiting for me with a pillow, an ice pack, two pain pills, and a glass of water. Once they got me all settled in on the couch, the three of us turned to Luc and waited for him to begin.

He sat down in the armchair facing us and, finally, he told all three of the women in his life the full, uncensored truth.

“I guess I’ll have to start from the beginning,” Luc began in French. “In high school, when Dad was convicted of embezzlement and sent to prison, I know you never believed me,
maman
and Sandrine, but I knew he was innocent.”

Luc’s mother crossed her arms and pursed her lips, but thankfully she stayed silent. It was all I could do to force this dazed, pounding head of mine to focus on Luc’s words. If the two of them started arguing, I’d have to leave the room.

“There was just no way a man who had managed our family finances so poorly for so long would have the know-how to commit a financial crime of that magnitude. Plus, they never did trace where
all of that money ended up. It looked as if it was transferred through several offshore accounts—but then, it never turned up.”

Sandrine nodded. “Yes, but I figured Dad had managed
that
money just as poorly as he’d done with our family finances.”

Luc shook his head. “No, that wasn’t the case. I’ll tell you exactly where that money did go, but first let me explain how I found out in the first place. I know you have all thought that I worked in finance for several years in Paris before making a career change to teaching.”

“Clearly we know now that wasn’t the case,” Sandrine said. “So what
have
you been doing?”

I thought back to the image of Luc leading a pack of armed French policemen into the lingerie store before he’d busted both Isabelle and Marcel. I still could hardly wrap my throbbing head around it.

“It was a necessary lie,” Luc conceded. “After college, I trained to be an undercover agent for the government, and my focus was on investigating financial crimes.”