Paris Was The Place I Met My Billionaire Lover (My Sweet Billionaire Love Story Series) (13 page)

Harrison looked at her with a tender smile.  He seemed to know that she was lying.  But he seemed so pleased with the honor of her lie, the measure of her character, that all the lies she’d ever told combined could not tarnish the sterling beauty of this particular lie.  He’d never been prouder of his lying daughter.

And for Caitlyn, pride was also something she was finding easier and easier to grasp.  Before, she now realized, she’d lacked pride because she hadn’t earned it.  No wonder she was unhappy with who she was and who she was becoming, a flip little brat, a lost soul.  Now she knew who she was becoming; an honest person, a hard-working, truly caring person who could understand her own needs and still put the needs of others ahead of her.  She was a person who knew right from wrong, who valued truth, whose character had been proven through trial.  She was responsible for her own happiness, and further she realized that she was responsible for the happiness of others as well, and that was even more important.

Caitlyn was her father’s daughter after all, and that filled her with a pride she’d never known before but would never betray or abandon. 

But some things didn’t change, and it seemed never would.

It was several hours into the dead of night before Caitlyn noticed the man standing in her room, still and silent in the shadows behind the shaft of moonlight streaming in through the window.  Caitlyn looked up from the bed, her heart beating faster.  Yet there was a certain calm  that came over her, in spite of the danger, the shock.  For some reason she could neither understand nor quite believe, she wasn’t afraid.

“Julien, is that you?”

The voice was low, grainy, unfamiliar, steeped in a French accent.  “No.  I am he whom you have come to find.”

Caitlyn shook her head, squinting in the darkness, unable to pierce the confusion of her half-conscious mind.  “I don’t understand?  Dad?  Prof. Daniels?”

After a tense silence, he answered, “No.”

“Then who?”  The darkness offered no reply.  “I dreamt of you, in Paris.”

“
Oui. 
To dream is to live, and to live is to dream.”  Caitlyn’s heart found the terror that had eluded its inspiration, and now it beat at twice the rate, blood pulsing through her veins like an unending bullet train.  “And in these dreams, Paris never loses, child.”

“I’m not anybody’s child, not anymore.  Who are you?” Caitlyn shouted, the clang of her own voice cutting through the silent darkness and bringing greater clarity, louder sounds, a crisper cut to the chill in the room, her dewy skin speckled with goosebumps.

The answer echoed in the back of her head even as she hovered in that cloudy state between dreaming and wakefulness, between nightmare and realization.

I am hope.

Caitlyn looked around the quiet, dark room, alone in the panting aftermath of a shattered sleep.  No man stood before her, no threats to linger at this tender, birthing moment of her new adventure.

I am hope.

Caitlyn dropped her head back down into the pillow, let out a deep sigh, and hoped her exhausted body and mind would drink up as much sleep as they could.

It was going to be hell.

The next day, Caitlyn Haliwell was daydreaming again.  Another translucent reflection of her face hovered in the glass window pain a few inches to her left.  Her soft features once again lacked emotion.  Her eyes and lips were empty, hollow in that pallid reflection.  Her blonde hair dangled disinterested over her smooth forehead. 

She always chose this seat, because of the view it gave her of the world outside the little classroom; expansive, open, free.

Alive with possibilities.

But Caitlyn could handle her life as it was, something she couldn’t do before.  She’d find someone to love again, somebody within reach that was as exciting to her heart, her body and soul, somebody who could make her happy even if he couldn’t necessarily offer the same breadth of experience.
Not a lot of international art thieves in Northridge
, Caitlyn had to admit to herself. 
But there are good men with good jobs and stable lives.

Julien’s own words rang in the back of her head, banging against the inside of her skull and in the chambers of her empty heart:
For every champion in love, there are a thousand faceless failures, alone in the night, lonely in the shadows.

Where is he now?
Caitlyn had to wonder.  She’d already begun to slip away from him, their phone calls dribbling down to only a few per week, their conversations shorter and shorter. 
Is he making love to somebody else?
Caitlyn asked herself.
Is she prettier than I am?  Smarter?  More worldly?  More worthy?  What’s the difference?  If she’s not, the next one will be, or the one after that.  Dad was right, I shouldn’t have hoped such a situation would work out.  I was just one of a dozen or probably several dozens of girls.  To think that such a man would be willing to throw it all away for some L.A. college girl is bad enough, but to sit here daydreaming about him more and more as time goes by is even worse.

Grow up, Caitlyn,
she urged herself. 
Get on with your life; not a fantasy version of it, but a blue-plate no-frills life that you’re lucky to have and always were.  The rest is pure fantasy and you know it.  It’s too late for all that now, kiddo, you had your time in Fantasyland, and now it’s time to drive home, put the little girl to bed and get on with paying the bills and keeping up with the Joneses.

She was drifting off more and more, and she knew it.  None of the professors at CSUN were half as good as Prof. Daniels and even he couldn’t hold her attention back then; he’d have had an even harder time of it now.

“Which is what Marie-Antoinette actually meant when she said that famous quote,” her history professor said, adding, “isn’t that true, Miss Haliwell?”

The room went silent as all eyes turned to Caitlyn, staring out the window.  She turned to face the awkward anticipation in the room.  Caitlyn cleared her throat and said, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

Her professor smiled, confident, arrogant.  As if knowing the answer, he asked, “Am I boring you, Miss Haliwell?”

“Um, I’m sorry, but...” after a tiny pause, Caitlyn added, “you
are
boring me, yes.”

The professor stood motionless, mouth agape, the entire class sharing his shock.  “I beg your pardon?” he managed to say.

Caitlyn stood, slid her book into her bag, slug it over her shoulder and stepped out of the room, surrounded by complete silence.  She heard the room erupt into a surprised murmur as she stepped into the hallway, but was long past caring what any of them had to say.  She valued the truth and she was going to speak it now and forever more, no matter what.

Halfway across the quad, a familiar voice crept up behind her.  “Are you heartbroken now that you and Julien broke up?”

Caitlyn turned to see the familiar paparazzo walking up, his camera on his shoulder.

“You again?  Why don’t you go chase an ambulance?”

“What’s wrong, don’t you want to be famous?”

“No, I want to be left alone!”

“Okay, no problem,” the paparazzo said, keeping up behind her.  “But, are you brokenhearted now that you broke up with Julien?”

“Don’t you get it?  Nobody cares about this,” Caitlyn said.  “I’m not news and I’m not a pubic figure and if you don’t leave me alone I’m going to sue you, TMZ; my father’s a lawyer, y’know.”

“But they
do
care,” the paparazzo said, “it’s all over the internet. Don’t you get it?  You’re a national obsession in France!  You
are
news, whether you like it or not.”

Caitlyn stopped, her body frozen in thought, her brain working so hard that the rest of her body nearly shut down.

“So, you’re heartbroken, right?” the paparazzo asked.

But Caitlyn couldn’t answer; she could only stand, and think, and plan, and scheme.

And smile.

“Hey, are you smiling?” the paparazzo asked.  “Are you the one who ended things?  That’d be great!”  His words trailed off as Caitlyn’s imagination reeled and rocked, a thousand pieces of thought in a genius puzzle quickly falling into place.  “So, you’re the one who ended things...”

Caitlyn turned and walked even faster toward her car, the paparazzo barely keeping up behind her.  “C’mon, give me something!  You’re heartbroken, right?  If you’re the one who ended things and you’re still heartbroken, that’d be awesome!”

Caitlyn couldn’t get back the house quickly enough, ducking and snaking through traffic on her way to the windy suburban streets, her mind was racing with ideas, details, notions and concepts that were each a tiny fragment of the whole; the who, what, were, when, why and how that would solve all her problems in one glorious swoop of genius.

When she got home, she raced across the house, wanting to scream out for her father but not wanted to alarm him, all things considered.  When she found him in the den, he looked up with a look of faint surprise and concern.

“Sweetheart, are you all right?”

Caitlyn could hardly contain herself.  But she knew she’d have to if what she was about to say would make any sense at all.  “Can I have a minute.”

“I’m your father, Caitlyn, I always have time for you; you know that.”

Caitlyn hurried to the chair next to him. “As a father, I know that.  But right now I’d like to speak to you... as an entertainment attorney.”

Harrison looked at her with new intrigue.  She’d never shown an interest in his line of work before.  He folded his glasses and listened.

“It’s a weekly show, half-hour, like History’s Mysteries, but centered around artwork; great art heists, cursed paintings, the truth behind the Mona Lisa, that kind of thing.   we’ll shoot re-enactments here in LA, interviews on location, Julien hosts.”

Harrison allowed his imagination to follow where Caitlyn was leading him, nodding with instant recognition of her train of thought.  “Julien?  Yes, I like it, with the notoriety, his natural good looks and charisma, he could be a huge star.”

“Right?  And it could only help him if he never needs to get back into museum security.”

“Museum security?  He’ll be a millionaire before the first episode airs,” Harrison said.  “There are rights and resources here you can’t imagine.  Also, a book deal, a movie, who knows?”

“Are you sure you can handle it?” Caitlyn asked.  “I’d want you to be our lawyer, of course.”

Harrison smiles, pulling her in for a tight hug.  “Maybe I’ll pair down my practice, specialize.  After we get you a deal, you’ll have plenty of affairs to look after.”  Off her look, he corrected himself with, “Business affairs, sweetheart.”

“This will free Julien up to move out here, we can do some of that traveling he was talking about and still have stable careers.”

“It really is a stroke of genius,” Harrison said, hugging her again.  “I am so proud of you, Caitlyn.  You’re amazing.”  A tense silence passed before Harrison raised a finger to his lips and said, “Hold on, there’s still one piece of the puzzle missing.”

Six months later, Julien stood in front of the Louvre, strolling toward the camera, Caitlyn and the rest of the crew watching from off-camera.

“The
Mona Lisa
,” Julien intoned in a wry and dramatic reading, his handsome face turned to a furrowed and rugged mask of masculinity, “the most celebrated painting of all time.  But who is the subject of this enigmatic portrait, what keys does it hold to solving the secrets of mankind’s past?  And what portents does it hold for our future?  I am Julien Cherierre, join me for an intimate evening with one of history’s great beauties on
Art of Darkness.
..”

After a few seconds, a director said, “Aaaand..... cut.  Print.”

A flurry of activity followed as Julien stepped out of frame to Caitlyn, waiting with open arms.  She wrapped them around him and they kissed, deep and long and loving; as though thirty crew members weren’t there, all of them gawking like a bunch of horny teens.

“How’d I do?” Julien asked.

“Ask you director,” Caitlyn said with a wry grin.

“All right then, how is the director doing?”

“Let me ask my star.”  They kiss again, ignoring the bustle of crew and camera and lights and craft service  Pulling away, Caitlyn said, “I’d say we’ve got a huge hit on our hands.”  She turned to face the others, calling, “Wrap it up, folks, we’re going home.”

“One more thing,” Julien said, already sinking to one knee in front of Caitlyn, “while we’re still in Paris.”
             
By the time she turned, he already had the ring box open. 

They clinked their flutes again and drained them, Julien reaching for the bottle. “
Maîtresse, embrasse-moi, baise-moi, serre-moi
,” he said, the French words rolling from his grainy throat.  “
Haleine contre haleine, échauffe-moi la vie / Mille et mille baisers donne-moi je te prie / Amour veut tout sans nombre, amour n'a point de loi.
”

She smiled, sanguine in the sultry silence that wrapped around the echoing of those wondrous words so fresh in her memory.  She didn’t need to ask for a translation; she didn’t need to say a thing.  She was reading his mind now, sensing his thoughts, feeling the vibrations of his body as a ripple of pleasure passed through her; up from her hips to her heart, pounding behind her chest, and down to her curling toes.