Modern Romance June 2019 Books 5-8. Andie Brock
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he reminded himself, yet the only thing that kept him from ravishing her on the spot was their rapt audience.
She was waiting for his judgment, he realized, as she continued looking at him and he noted tension creep in around her smile. The flutter of her pulse in her throat grew more rapid, exactly as it had been when she had quietly challenged him in his grandmother’s office.
“You broke the scale.” He brought her hand to his mouth, wanting to place his lips in far more intimate places than her soft knuckle. “And good thing because I’m too hungry to wait while you start again. This is for you.”
He gently splayed out her hand and threaded the ring onto her finger.
It was a performance for their audience and she gasped with appropriate amazement at the fifteen-carat marquise-cut blue diamond. Its split shank was coated in white diamonds to set off the rare color of the center stone.
The women around them squealed with excitement.
“I don’t know what to say,” Luli said faintly.
“Thank you?” he suggested dryly, and did what was expected, taking her into his arms for a kiss.
Her arms went around his neck and her heart pounded so hard he felt it against his chest, teasing his own to come race with hers. He kept the kiss light, not wanting to ruin her lipstick, but her lips clung shyly to his and she slid her lashes down with awareness as he released her.
He groaned inwardly. Virgin she might be, but her response to his touch was the most erotic thing he’d ever experienced.
“Good night, ladies. Your extra effort won’t go unrewarded,” he said with a nod.
Voices wished them a lovely evening and he escorted her to the car, for once anticipating the entrance they would make. Women invariably wanted to be seen with him, whether it was an innocent business meeting or a lengthy, more intimate association. He found the quest for attention tiresome, but accepted it.
With Luli, however, he was already smiling inwardly at the stir she would cause. He usually only felt this sense of excitement when one of his personal projects went to market—a niche app or something else he had poured himself into developing.
He was swelling with pride, he realized, but not of ownership. He didn’t take credit for this transformation or even for the discovery of her.
No, he was simply proud to be with a woman who shone brighter than the midday sun.
THE RESTAURANT WAS a converted house in the Sixth Arrondissement, once owned by an art dealer. It brimmed with impressionist paintings and priceless objets d’art. A murmur went through the diners in the main lounge and piano bar as they were shown through to an atrium with only one table that was obviously reserved for the most illustrious customers.
A small fountain and an abundance of ferns provided a modicum of privacy, but the glass walls and ceiling provided none. Luli didn’t care who looked at them. She was too busy taking in the fat moon above the glittering Eiffel Tower.
“I’ve wanted to come to Paris since I first understood what it was. I can’t believe I’m here,” Luli said, trying not to betray her complete awe.
“We’ll come back soon. I have to get back to some meetings I left when you texted about my grandmother.”
“Was that a flash?” She looked toward the fountain.
“Outside? Yes.”
“No, from—”
A jewel-bedecked customer had crept to the fountain and held a smartphone in the air space behind the streaming water, aiming it at them. One of the servers in a black vest and long white apron hurried to draw the woman away.
“Ignore it,” Gabriel said. “My security team will address it.”
She couldn’t. Glints of light were popping against the wall of shrubbery beyond the atrium’s walls and on the rooftop of the adjacent building.
“I used to dream of being so famous everyone would want my photo. It’s quite intrusive, isn’t it? How do you stand it?”
“Honestly, I’m not of much interest to the paparazzi unless I’m with a woman. Even then, it very much depends on who she is. I met with a married actress a couple of times, years ago. She was researching a part. It was completely innocuous, but she was of a mind that any publicity was good publicity. She tipped off photographers every time and the entertainment sites made it into something it wasn’t. The movie did well at the box office and on the award circuit. Perhaps her strategy had some weight.” He told her whom it had been. She was quite famous, but old enough to be his mother.
Their wine was delivered and poured. Luli didn’t know where to look. Outside at the cameras? At the craning necks in the main part of the restaurant? Looking at Gabriel would only get her tangled up in his gaze.
“I suppose your connection to your grandmother makes you news right now,” she murmured, studying the ornate silver stem and the patterns etched into the tulip-shaped red bowl of her one-of-a-kind handcrafted wineglass—or so their server had informed her.
“My grandmother’s connection to me affects people who have business dealings with Chen Enterprises. I’m already so rich. No one could care less that I just got richer.”
“But you said the paparazzi only pay attention to you if the woman you’re with is famous. They don’t know who I am.”
“Exactly.” One corner of his mouth went up in a cynical curl. “The waitstaff is going to make a bundle in tips from people wanting your name. Joke’s on them. I didn’t offer it.”
“They wouldn’t recognize it anyway. I’m nobody.”
The waiter brought an amuse-bouche—a spoon that held a deviled quail’s egg on a mushroom cap with a glazed baby carrot next to it.
“It seems silly that anyone would care,” she continued. “I’m as guilty as the next person for following celebrity gossip. Your grandmother subscribed to overseas magazines and I love royal wedding photos and the like, but—oh.”
“You’ve arrived. Welcome.” His lingering smile held gentle mockery. “Yes, everyone is trying to be the first to report on my marriage. More pointedly, to whom.”
“I suppose that is news.” She was. She sobered as she recalled how attentive the couturier and her staff had been. “Was there someone else they expected? Are you with someone?” She should have asked that several kisses ago.
“Only you,” he said dryly. “A press release goes out at midnight explaining I’ve been quietly courting my grandmother’s business manager and we’ve made it official.”
“No one is going to believe that. Or that I’m a business manager.” She thought of the butler trying to throw her out on her ear, first chance he got.
“It doesn’t matter what they believe, only what I know. While you were playing dress up, I accessed the backup files and ran some reports for my edification. You make a lot of small adjustments that make a big difference. You do, in fact, manage her business affairs.”
“Mae liked me to be vigilant.”
“But you did much of it electronically. I saw the scripts you inserted to alert you when something falls outside your parameter sets. You’ve been playing with my back end for a while.”
She had, but he didn’t need to make it sound so suggestive.
Their plates were exchanged. A light shell of something that might have been egg white had been quick fried into a lacy web and bent into a basket while warm. It held a leg of squab, a half dozen bright green peas and a dollop of what she learned was whipped