The Curvy Waitress and the Billionaire French Count (He Wanted Me Pregnant!) (2 page)

I swallowed.
Fine
really didn’t cover the look he’d just given me.

Don’t be stupid,
I told myself.
He’s not interested in you!
He probably had a thousand twig-like blonde French
mademoiselles
hurling themselves at him. I knew that. So why was my heart pounding?

We stepped out of the cool, air-conditioned diner and onto the oven-hot street.

***

Being noticed in New York takes some doing. Everyone here is so jaded that a giant, fire-breathing lizard would barely get a glance as long as it didn’t cut into the line at the coffee stand. But a curvy, blushing, slightly out of breath waitress in full 1950s get-up, towed along behind a gorgeous Frenchman? That’ll do it every time. And I knew every person we passed was thinking the same thing:
What’s he doing with her? Why isn’t he with some svelte little thing, with an ass he could cup in one hand?

What the hell am I doing?!
I’d somehow signed myself up to be a translator at some business meeting. Okay, in theory
anything
was better than working at the diner for an afternoon, but…was it, really? At least at the diner I knew where I stood. In an office I was going to be out of place even in a suit, let alone dressed as a waitress.

“So…this meeting. It’s not anything big or important, is it?” I asked. My rusty language skills were slowly starting to flow; it was beginning to seem natural to speak in French. Which was a good thing, because it seemed as if he didn’t speak a word of English.

He did another of those Gallic shrugs, his broad shoulders rising as if it didn’t really matter either way. “No, I don’t think so. I’m only meeting them to buy something.” I felt blissful relief soak through me. I must have missed something in the translation. It wasn’t a business thing at all. He just wanted me to translate in a shop. That was fine. I could
do
shopping. “What are we buying?” I asked brightly.

“A company.”

Oh. My stomach tightened in terror.

We turned off the street and into a huge, glass-fronted skyscraper. Erard led me straight across a marble-floored lobby and into an elevator and then, quite suddenly, the hubbub of the street was gone and we were alone.

Alone, and very close together. There was maybe a foot separating us. There wasn’t really any need for us to be that close, given that the elevator could happily have accommodated an elephant, but I had absolutely no desire to move. I kept shooting little looks across at him as he watched the numbers climb on the floor display. He looked utterly focused and yet completely relaxed at the same time, as if he really cared about what he was doing but wasn’t about to let it phase him.

Meanwhile, with every floor we climbed my stomach sank lower into my feet. If he wasn’t kidding about buying a company, then I was utterly, utterly out of my depth. What if I made a mistake and cost him millions? I was completely out of place in the world of business. I’d had to drop out of college when I fell behind on my bills. I didn’t have a degree. I didn’t even have a
suit.

“Nervous?” Erard asked in French, and I realized he was looking at me.

I gulped and nodded.

“You’ll do fine,” he told me, with a confidence that almost made me believe him.

The doors opened.

If anything, the top floor was even more luxuriously appointed than the lobby. The floor was so brightly polished it almost hurt my eyes, and everyone was strutting around in designer suits. The women, who looked at me in complete bewilderment, were all in heels at least four inches high. It looked like the sort of place where people really did buy and sell companies…which meant Erard probably hadn’t been kidding.

Erard led me straight across the corridor. In front of us, two huge wooden doors that looked as if King Kong might be imprisoned behind them. He marched in without knocking, pushing the doors wide.

Oh. My. God. I was flying.

The meeting room was double height, the ceiling maybe twenty feet above me. Somewhere vaguely behind me, I remembered that there was a door and a corridor, but they were forgotten because all around me was…
sky.

We were in one corner of the very top floor of the skyscraper and two entire walls were glass. It felt as if the floor was floating in mid air, fifty stories up.

“Tell them I’m sorry,” Erard said. “My translator was injured in an accident, and you have kindly stepped in as a replacement.”

My eyes were still locked on the view. I could see Central Park. I could see cars and buses and tiny dots that must be people. I finally looked at Erard. “Hmm?” I asked, my eyes wide.

He smiled at me, amused.

It clicked that he’d asked me to say something and I mentally rewound. I became aware of the other people in the room, eight of them, all gathered around a conference table, some of them still getting to their feet.
They all stood up when we walked in,
I realized.
No, when
he
walked in.
Who
was
this guy?

I translated what Erard had said into English and everyone nodded apologetically and offered their understanding and hopes for a speedy recovery. Erard sat down at the head of the table and indicated that I should sit next to him. I sank into the plush leather chair, casting worried glances at the other people at the table. There were five men and three women and every one of them was dressed in a suit that cost at least a month of my rent. They were all desperately trying to look nonchalant, but I kept catching them glancing at me, mystified.
What’s a waitress doing at our meeting?

I was wondering the same thing. I only knew that, every time I looked at Erard, at those lips and cheekbones, strong and elegant at the same time, I knew that I would happily walk into a biker bar if it meant being close to him.

He’s not interested in you,
I told myself again.

“Please remind them that this is just an introductory meeting to discuss terms,” Erard said in French. “Nothing is binding. Nothing is absolute.” His voice slowed as he looked at me. “We’re just…getting to know one another.”

I held his gaze for a moment longer than was necessary and then quickly nodded and went to translate. “Wait,” I asked. “I don’t know your name. What do I call you?”

He grinned. “Vannier. Erard Vannier.” He was sitting back in his chair, as lazily relaxed as if he was lounging around at home. His eyes gave something that I almost would have said was a twinkle, if I hadn’t known better. Guys didn’t twinkle their eyes at me, especially not ones like him.

I cleared my throat. “Mr. Vannier says….” I began. I saw his smile widen and wondered why. I plunged on and the meeting began.

The first few minutes were terrifying. I barely had time to look at Erard, because most of the talking was done by the others and I had to laser-focus on them, making sure I didn’t miss a word. Then I’d spin and repeat what they’d said to Erard, and he’d nod and smile and think for a second and then trot out a short reply.

On about the tenth exchange, I caught a glimpse of his reflection in the shiny surface of someone’s laptop lid. I could see him quite clearly, sitting next to me, but he wasn’t looking where I was, down the table towards the others. He was looking to his side. He was looking at me.

I swallowed and felt the heat rise in my face. No, not my face…my whole damn body. And it wasn’t the same kind of embarrassed heat I usually got when someone stared at me. This was coming from somewhere deeper inside, somewhere right at the core of me.

I turned to Erard to translate for him and he smiled so patiently and indulgently and goddamn gorgeously that I mistook
décennie
(ten days) for
décade
and told him the negotiations would take about ten years to complete. His smile broadened for a second, but he didn’t call me on it and I was very grateful for that.

After a while, it started to get easier. I could feel long-disused cogs starting to turn in my brain, dusty vocabulary being trundled out of the archives and into the sunlight. My initial fear burned away and I started to relax a little. I even began to enjoy myself.
I can do this,
I realized, amazed.
And this is so much better than working at the diner.
Listening to Erard’s words was like bathing in honey—I would have closed my eyes, I enjoyed it so much, if that wouldn’t have made me look even weirder. I actually forgot he was speaking to me in French, the translation began to flow so easily.

That’s when Erard threw me the first curveball. “Tell them yes on the media department but there’ll need to be concessions on their side when it comes to purchasing. Also, I want to delicately lick your breasts until you come.”

I got as far as translating
concessions
before the end of the sentence registered in my brain. My head snapped back to Erard as if on a spring.

He was grinning at me. And not in a teasing, evil way. In a teasing, sexy way. As if he actually meant it.

My whole body seemed to vibrate, as if someone had strummed me like a guitar string. The heat flashed through my body, soaking into every part of me. I swallowed and gaped and then translated just the first sentence.

“None of them speak French,” Erard told me.

I looked around at the eight other people at the table. No one looked shocked or amazed at what he’d said…but would they? What if they did understand and were just hiding it?

My mouth moved, but no words came out.

“Have I offended you?” asked Erard. “That was not my intention.”

Yes,
I thought automatically.
Of course you have! You can’t just say something like that to a woman!

“I meant what I said,” Erard told me.

The heat roiled and swelled inside me. I closed my eyes for a second.
He’s just taunting you,
I thought.
No one’s interested in a woman who looks like you. He’s kidding.

I opened my eyes and met his gaze.
Oh God.
He wasn’t kidding.

I swallowed. I looked helplessly at him, my eyes wide. In my mind, his head was right there, his hair against the side of my neck, those soft, strong lips at the sensitive skin of my breasts.
Until you come,
he’d said.
God.

He gave me another of
those
smiles and, this time, those eyes definitely
did
twinkle.
At me.

“Tell me not to do it again,” he said, “And I won’t. Or just ask them whether they’d consider opening up their distribution pipeline to us.”

My heart thumped once. Twice. Three times.

I turned to the rest of the table. “Mr. Vannier asks, ‘Would you consider opening up your distribution pipeline?’” I said.

I could feel Erard’s eyes on me but I didn’t dare look at him. I focused on the answers the others were giving, but it didn’t stop my mind from screaming at me:
What have I done?!
I could feel the arousal throbbing through me, twice as strong as before. But none of this made sense! Guys like him weren’t interested in girls like me!

I translated the answers back to Erard. He nodded, watching me carefully. I realized I was leaning forward in my seat, desperate to know whether he was going to throw in another comment. He stared at me for a long time. The others probably thought he was thinking on their answers, but I had a strong suspicion that he didn’t care about them at all.

“Tell them that is mostly acceptable, but they need to rethink their branding. And….”

I held my breath.

“…that we need to discuss merging administration.”

I turned to translate, my head spinning. Suddenly, it was all business. What was he doing?

Everything was normal for another few minutes, and then, “Ask them whether they’d consider moving their Swiss office,” he said. “And tell me, are your breasts as gorgeous underneath that uniform as I imagine?”

I flushed and stammered my way through the translation and then cast a couple of quick glances his way. Yep, he actually did seem to be waiting for an answer. My eyes whipped around the other people at the table. What if one of them
did
speak French?

I took a deep breath. “I don’t know,” I told him. “I don’t know what you’re imagining.”

“Then you leave me no choice,” he said. “I’ll have to get you naked and find out.”

He gave me another one of those dazzling, maddening smiles. How could he be so
calm?!
I was caught halfway between panic and a swirling, building heat.

This is insane. He’s rich and hot. Why would he want me?
God, right there at the table, two of the three women were definitely giving him the eye, and they had legs up to their armpits and tight, slender bodies that fitted neatly into their beautifully-cut designer jackets. I had—I looked down—breasts that attracted far too much attention and an ass squeezed into a hideous waitress uniform. He wouldn’t pick me over them. I shouldn’t even be on his radar. So why was this happening?