Carnal in Cannes (5 page)

“Monsieur Ford, may we finish it now?” Martine couldn"t get her tongue around the word; the thought of this man, any man, touching her skin made her want to gag. If they did it now, fast, if she could close her eyes and block out his invading flesh, maybe she would survive.

“Sugar.” The way he said the word, drawing out the
r$, making it warm and
sweet so it shrouded her soul with comfort, had her mesmerized. “I can tell you’re
scared out of your mind. Your voice shakes, your fingers tremble, and the pulse at
your throat”—he touched a forefinger to the throbbing vein—“is beating faster than a
rabbit cornered by a pack of coyotes.”

“If you did it quickly, right now—”

He clamped a hand over her mouth and shook his head. “No, not like that.

Come,” he said. “Let’s go back to the main suite. Okay, so coconut ice cream’s your
favorite food, and you love chocolat.” He pronounced the word in the French way.

“What kind of entrée do you like?”

“$Pardon moi
?” Her mind spun, and she couldn"t collect her wayward thoughts.

“What do you want to eat?”

“We eat before?” The food would taste so much better if she didn"t have to worry.

“Yes.” He didn"t elaborate.

Did she have a choice? She willed her mind to function while allowing Harrison to lead her through the penthouse suite into the main bedroom. The king-size bed made her lungs stammer. Harrison caught the direction of her gaze, and he frowned and stated, “Fresh air. Let"s step onto the balcony for a while. It looks like it"s going to be a spectacular sunset.”

Her disjointed thoughts came up with only inane words. “Father Baptiste said the Japanese applaud each sunrise and each sunset because one will never resemble another. Each is unique.”

20

Jianne Carlo

Harrison pried open the sliding glass doors and pulled the leading string for the peach drapes. Clean, cool air flowed across Martine"s shoulders, and she inhaled, relishing the tang of Mediterranean brine, the purity of the aroma. She shoved her hands into the robe"s front pockets, and the dangling tote bumped her thigh.

“Unfortunately we have to spend the night here. I"ll see if we can dine outside.”

Touching a forefinger to her shoulder blade, he dropped a room-service leather-bound volume onto a wrought-iron circular table. “Take a look at the menu. Let me know what you want.”

She swore her heart stopped, refused to supply nourishment to organs. Her brain had certainly arrested, going into full shutdown mode. Willing her lungs to fill with oxygen, Martine withdrew one hand from the terry pocket and traced the letters carved into the room service"s green menu cover with her fingers. “I eat any and everything, Monsieur. S"il vous plait, please, order for the both of us.”

“I"m not sure I"ll be able to muster coconut ice cream,” he said, and his lopsided grin tugged at her rib cage. She knew he tried to soothe her rattled nerves and yearned to thank him for the small mercy. Instead, she flattened her lips and resolved to be mute for the next few minutes.

“Martine?”

“Monsieur?”

The sun dipped below the horizon and shadows dimpled the wide balcony.

“Harry, Martine. Call me Harry or Harrison.”

Harrison Indiana Ford. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. When she"d learned his name and told the Bandoleer"s wife, the woman had rented the trilogy for her, and they"d watched it together. Even thinking his name, the Bandoleer, caused Martine to shiver, the criminal overlord"s reputation for cruelty and vengeance hadn"t matched the mystery of his sobriquet, yet his wife had befriended Martine, and the woman clearly adored her husband.

“I saw
Star Wars
,” she volunteered.

“My namesake. My mama was a big fan.”

“Your nose—it broke, non?” She said the first words that came into her mind.

The only feature on his face not perfect, the slight crook in the bridge of his nose, made her lungs work harder, and she liked him the better for the slight mar.

Martine"s back met the balcony"s rough finish as twin thoughts stunned her barely functioning brain. She liked him. Worse, she trusted him.

“I should like to shower,” she stated, the declaration a bargain for time. Time to garner her defenses, time to recover from his heady charm, time to build a wall he couldn"t penetrate, not even with the crooked, rueful smile he flashed at her.

“Of course,” he retorted. “I"ll do the same and order dinner. I"ll buzz you.”

When she frowned he added, “There are phones in each room. I"ll call you when dinner arrives. Would you like me to show you the way to your suite?”

Mediterranean Mambo: Carnal in Cannes

21

“Non, no,” she mumbled. “I can find my own way.”

She watched him walk away, struck by the grace of his long limbs. In no time at all she found the room she"d been assigned, hurried into the spacious room, and closed and locked the bedroom door. Martine rested her head on the solid oak and let her purse fall to one side. She squeezed her eyes shut, and her mind shattered, the need for pretense, for the mask she always assumed, vanishing more with each draft the paddle ceiling fan wrought from the stuffy air of the heavily perfumed room.

Had they guessed what she"d done?

Did her guilt shine like a lighthouse torch highlighting treacherous rocks?

Martine covered her face with her hands.

I’m as bad as Jean-Claude Fournier.

I did what I had to.

Shaking her head, she gritted her teeth and shed the robe she wore, but not before emptying the pockets of the rolls and bananas she"d stolen from the opulent baskets strewn throughout the main suite. Carefully, she opened the drawer of a bedside table and laid the fruit and yeasty sesame-seed-crusted bread onto a tissue already containing a heap of pilfered strawberries. Unable to resist, she popped one ruby treat into her mouth and bit into it.

She closed her eyes and savored the wonderful sweet and tart taste.

It shamed her, this habit of secreting food and stealing soap and other necessities when she no longer had to. But her mind could not control the need nestled deep inside. Stealing was a sin, she knew, but the knowledge did her no good, didn"t decrease the impulsive concealing of food at every opportunity. Would hunger ever leave her? How many times had she gone to bed with a stomach that seemed to eat at her body parts, her insides growling and contracting with cramps that made her want to die?

I am in France. I will never be hungry again.

Blowing out a long, long sigh, she stared at the drawer, at the fruits and the bread, and a muscle in her face twitched.
So be it. I am a child born of poverty and
hunger. I will survive.

But I will no longer take soap or tissues
. She raised her head to stare at the ceiling to seal the vow.

In one hour she had to become a wife. Walking to the bathroom she inhaled deeply and tried to muster her tangling fears into a corner. Sex, after all, was simply that. A man and a woman joined. A physical bonding. Her feelings did not matter, could not matter. She would have sex with him. She would have a child for him. Her knees buckled, and she had to grip the door frame for support.

What idiocy made me think I could give up my own child?

22

Jianne Carlo

C’est la vie. I made my own bed, and I will lie in it. I will fornicate with this
man. I will have my child, but I will keep it. She will not know the circumstances of
her birth.

A smile played at the corners of her lips.

Because she is wanted, my child, and she will never, never, ever know poverty.

Martine straightened; she squared her shoulders.

I have done the impossible. I fled Haiti. I did not sell myself on the streets.

She refused to let how she"d sold herself form as a thought.

I am marrying a rich man. I will be his wife in less than an hour. And I will
have a million euros.

Glancing at the oak-engraved molding rimming the room"s ceiling, she won the silent debate that had been bustling in her brain since Harry mentioned the figure he"d been prepared to pay.

A whore’s price does not matter, Lord Jesus. I would be a fool to take only a
hundred thousand euros when I can have a million.

The matter settled, she turned the knob on the bathroom wall and adjusted the water temperature.

When she"d run away from Jean-Claude the first time, the only way to keep clean had been to bathe in the rain. The days in Haiti were so hot and humid that when the rains came, the drops stung and chilled. And she"d dared not come out during the day, so after the rain when the winds picked up, the cold ate through her skin and settled in her chest, her whole body trembled, and her teeth chattered so loudly she"d feared recapture.

Non, do not go there, Martine. You are here now.

Hot showers. She grinned in anticipation, goose bumps forming on her forearms. A luxury she"d only dreamed of, warm water and steam, and from now on, for twelve long months, she would have only hot showers.

Her mind played over all the delicious pleasures she"d encountered since arriving in Marseille. Chocolat, strawberries, whipped cream, food—endless, wonderful, sumptuous food. Tonight she would lie in sheets made of butter. When she"d touched the magnificent cotton linen earlier, the sheer pleasure had almost done her in. That people lived like this, taking these blissful delights for granted, never served to amaze her.
Tonight I fornicate, I sell myself, but I sleep in butter.

And I will not be hungry.

Life could be worse.

Mediterranean Mambo: Carnal in Cannes

23

Chapter Three

Harrison Indiana Ford stared unseeingly at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He was a married man as of forty-five minutes ago.

An army of lawyers hadn"t been able to prevent his arranged marriage, hadn"t been able to stop the ridiculous exams required both before and after he fucked Martine, hadn"t been able to prove that the will Delora had produced a scant month ago was false.

Trouble was Daddy wrote a new will at the drop of a hat. The fact that the one Delora produced had been witnessed by Judge Kinky Wilson, a descendant of one of founding members of the Petroleum Club of Houston and a scion of Texas good-ole-boy society, had made the task of proving the will false virtually impossible in the time provided.

Marriage. Not something he had ever aspired to.

Prime her hard and fast, and get the fucking over and done with.

He didn"t believe his own thoughts.

No way in hell would St. Pete cooperate.

Not if his stepmother had installed cameras and bugs.

Nah, his dick was too ornery when it came to the stepmother who"d broken Harry in, in the biblical sense, before marrying his daddy.

Three of his buddies had reconnoitered the Carlton Cannes penthouse suite.

The ex-SEALs had found two cameras and three microphones. The SEALs had removed the devices and declared the room clean.

So why is the back of my neck doing that sniper-in-the-vicinity god-awful
tingle?

His gaze fell to his suddenly half-hard dick, and he snorted.

Shee-it.

Good old St. Pete wasn"t having any problems visualizing Martine Bellamy beneath him, her butter-soft café-latte skin touching his, those Lady Godiva thighs wrapped around his waist, her dusky voice moaning in that sexy French accent.

Fully engorged now, balls aching, he straightened, belted the burgundy silk bathrobe, tilted his worn brown Stetson left and back, checked his reflection in the mirror, and wondered for the kazillionth time how his mother had known he"d grow up to look like the pretty-boy version of his famous actor namesake, save for the broken nose.

24

Jianne Carlo

Martine had certainly noted that mar.

The corners of his mouth curled into a sneer, and he flipped himself the finger.

Spitting out a string of expletives, he inhaled and then opened the door.

The Carlton Cannes"s penthouse suite, named for Sean Connery, oozed tasteful seduction and elegance, boasted a mansion-size square footage. A sunset riot of orange, yellow, and blue flames rumbaed in the fireplace that dominated the far wall. Piped music—he recognized the tune, “Bolero”—served as background for the rhythmical snaps, crackles, and hisses of the gas-fired blaze. The odorous taint of sweet pine burning floated on the soft swishing of the paddle fan doing a slow Rio Grande curl in the center of the ornate oak-paneled ceiling.

Room service had delivered their canapés and a bottle of champagne, but night had fallen, and the temperature on the balcony had dropped precipitously. Dinner would take place inside walls and ceilings, which probably had eyes and ears fit for a meeting between the pope and president.

A laden cart stood to the side of an intimate table for two decorated with fine china, sparkling crystal, sterling silver cutlery, and a scattering of miniature vases filled with delicate white flowers framed by emerald leaves.

Money could buy anything—a virgin, marriage, and the perfect setting for conceiving an heir.

Close your eyes, and you"d never know an army of chefs, craftsmen, architects, and electricians had created the illusion of fiery warmth, luxury, and coziness.