Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 2) (7 page)

“I scraped my arm,”
I said. “That’s all.”

“I know. But
sometimes things are more than they appear to be.”

Henrik pulled up in
front of Marc’s apartment building, forcing us to leave the
conversation unfinished. When we got upstairs, Marc washed and
dressed my cut, still wearing his suit, his expression somber.

I watched him dab on
antibiotic ointment, unwrap the bandage, and apply it to my wound
with a quiet tenderness. There was nothing he could have done to me,
no kiss or caress, that could have made me feel as cared for as I did
right then.

“Thank you,” I said
when he was finished.

He kissed the back of
my hand. “Come to bed with me,” he said.

First he took off my
clothes, then his. Under the sheets, he held me against him as if
afraid I might vanish.

Though he was hard
against my bare stomach, he didn’t try to make love to me. When I
asked why, he squeezed me very tightly.

“But we are,” he
whispered. “That’s exactly what we’re doing right now.”

It was barely light
outside when Marc kissed me awake. Smiling a sexy half-smile, he
brushed my hair back from my forehead and watched me wake up.

I blinked at him,
amazed that he wasn’t a gorgeous image from a dream. Over a blue
suit he wore a Burberry scarf and a black trench coat that turned his
eyes the color of storm clouds.

“How’s your wrist?”
he whispered.

I stretched out my arm.
The bandage was still firmly in place two inches above my hand. “It’s
fine. I don’t feel a thing.”

“Good.” He stroked
my cheek with the back of his finger. “I’m sorry I overreacted
last night. Can we just forget it?”

I pretended to think
hard. “What happened last night?” I said, and smiled.

Leaning over me, he
kissed my nose. “I was so hot for you this morning, I almost woke
you up. If you didn’t look so beautiful sleeping, I would have.”

A deliciously slow
tingle ran down my side and settled between my legs. “You can’t
come back to bed?” I asked. “It’s only seven.”

“I have a partners
meeting in half an hour, but I’ll be back by six. Why don’t we
have dinner in? I don’t want to see anyone tonight but you.”

“I’d love that,”
I said.

He smiled. “What are
you doing today?”

“Lunch at another
restaurant. Tough life.”

“Pure torture.”

I shook his arm gently.
“Could you meet me around 12:30? I’m going to a place called
Bistro Midi. It just opened last month.”

He traced my ear with
his finger. “I’d love to, but I’ll be lucky to eat lunch at my
desk,” he said. “So much for
la belle vie
in France. We’re starting to take after you
workaholic Americans.”

I sat up and wrapped my
arms around his neck. The sheet dropped from my bare chest into my
lap. “We’re infectious, didn’t you know?”

“I do now,” he
said, sliding cool hands around my breasts and squeezing gently. “I
think I have a fatal case of you, actually. Completely terminal.”

“There
is
a cure, but it requires taking off your clothes and getting into bed
with me.”

“Interesting. We’ll
have to try it when I get home from the office.”

“Speaking of the
office,” I said, trying to sound stern, “if I enter your mind
today you have to banish me immediately. No thinking about anything
but business.”

He kissed me, teasing
his tongue along the edges of my lips. “Not much chance of that,”
he said.

After he left, I lay in
bed trying to hold onto my optimism. I tried to believe that last
night was just a blip, and this morning a sign that Marc had put his
fears behind him. Though I tried believing it until my alarm went off
and it was time to get up, I was no closer to convincing myself it
was true.

Hazily aware of a dark
impulse lurking at the back of my mind, I had fruit and coffee and
took a shower. But when I sat down with my laptop to work, I couldn’t
suppress it anymore.

“Don’t do it,
Sophie,” I whispered, but I was powerless to fight it. Fingers
trembling, I brought up Google and began to type.

Lydia
Forster, Paris, France.

So much for working. So
much for forgetting last night.

If I could just talk to
her. If she could just tell me what had happened with Marc, maybe I
could understand what haunted him and what it all meant. I had a week
to discover if I had a future with him. Figuring it out would mean
using everything at my disposal.

My intentions were
good. My methods – those were another story.

Two Lydia Forsters
lived in Paris. One was a sixty year-old expatriate from California
with a food blog, and the other owned a boutique in a Boho-chic part
of the city.

Just because I was
typing the store’s address into my phone, it didn’t mean I would
go there or try to find her. I could erase it and never look at it
again. I just wouldn’t do it yet.

I dressed in the outfit
Marc had left for me in two sleek silver boxes – sky-high patent
slingbacks, skimpy black lace panties with a frilled edge, and a
stretchy, knee-length dress with ruched sides. The sleeves easily
covered my bandage, making me wonder if he’d chosen the dress for
that reason.

Though I felt much too
sexy to go out in public, I followed Marc’s unspoken order and went
to lunch. I took notes on everything from the china pattern to the
fashionable clientele, but in my imagination I was five Metro stops
away, at the store that may or may not have been owned by Marc’s
ex-lover.

A second glass of wine
made a brief detour across town seem like a perfectly reasonable
idea. I’d go for a glimpse of her, to see if I had the right
person. And because I was going crazy wondering who she was, and why
she still had so much power over Marc.

I paid the bill and got
on the Metro, almost boarding the wrong train but getting to my stop
with the help of an Australian tourist. Back above ground, every
street looked the same – narrow, picturesque, and lined with
elegant stores and cafés. I walked in circles for ten minutes before
spotting a shop with a fluttering awning and a marble bench beside
the door.

Across the front window
was a single word etched in cursive –
Désir.
I had to smile.

I lingered on the
sidewalk feigning interest in the display, a couple of antique
dressmaker mannequins dressed in funnel-collar sweaters. Finally,
heart thrashing against my ribs, I walked inside.

At the counter stood a
woman in her early twenties with bobbed red hair. She seemed to be
the only person in the store. After we exchanged
bonjours
I sifted through a rack of blouses, feeling ridiculous and out of
place.

I was stalking my
dominant lover’s crazy ex-girlfriend and she wasn’t even here.
Meanwhile, I had loads of work stacking up and an editor who wanted
it all in her inbox yesterday. What the hell was I doing? When had I
become so pathetic?

I glanced up just as a
pretty, model-thin woman emerged from a back room. Her oval face was
all red lips and wide green eyes, with a slender, aristocratic nose.
She wore a black silk blouse with ruffled cuffs and a gray skirt
cinched at the waist by a wide belt. Her light brown hair was pulled
into a fashionably loose ponytail that fell to mid-back.

We looked nothing alike
– I was at least three inches shorter and curved where she was
straight – but there was something about her quiet manner that
reminded me of myself.

“Claire,” I heard
her say. “I have to leave early tomorrow. Can you stay until
closing?”

I studied the price tag
on a sequin top. She was British. She was about Marc’s age. It had
to be her.

I drifted toward a
table of carefully-folded t-shirts. The woman I assumed was Lydia
began folding scarves on a shelf a few feet away.

“Excuse me,” I said
before I could stop myself. “You speak English?”

Her mouth turned up in
a good imitation of a smile. “Yes. Can I help you find something?”

“I – I’m not
sure. A fitted blazer? Wool?”

“Certainly,” she
said. “Right over here.”

I followed her to a
rack and stood beside her as she pulled out a few pieces. “This
color would look fabulous with your hair,” she said, holding up a
cobalt blue collarless jacket.

“It’s very pretty,”
I said.

“Are you on holiday
in Paris?”

My heart picked up
speed. “I write for a travel website called
Wanderlust
.
I’m working on a story about the Marquis de Sade.”

Nothing changed on her
face except her eyes, an unmistakable shift in awareness. There was
no doubt now. It was her.

“You’re visiting
historical sites?” she asked, her tone falsely chirpy.

“And talking to his
descendants. I’ve been doing interviews and looking at old
documents.”

She raked hangers back
and forth. “He has living relatives?”

“Yes.” I hesitated,
my mouth dry. “But uh…maybe you knew that already.”

She drew a breath and
let it out in a quick huff. “I did, in fact. I know – I should
say, I
knew
one of
them.”

“Oh? Who?”

“His name is Marc.
Many years ago we were…friends.”

I suddenly wanted to
turn and run. There was nothing I could say without giving everything
away.

“Have you interviewed
him?” she asked, a strange, frantic note in her voice.

“Yes.” I cleared my
throat and glanced up. She stared at me intently.

“And how –” she
began, but stopped as the realization came to her. For a long moment,
neither of us spoke.

“I found a note,” I
said. “A handwritten note. Do you know anything about it?”

Seconds passed. She
frowned as if deciding whether to tell the truth. “My name is
Lydia,” she said, putting out her hand. It felt cold and skeletal
in mine.

“Sophie Quinn.”

She was looking at me
in a new way, evaluating my face, clothes, and body. “Are you free
for a few minutes?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“Let’s go have a
coffee.”

She returned to the
register and said something to the salesgirl, who handed a red
leather tote across the counter. Lydia nodded to me, and I followed
her out to the street.

We walked to a café a
few doors down and ordered. As soon as the waiter walked away, she
smiled tightly.

“You have more than a
business relationship with Marc, don’t you?” Her voice was almost
robotic.

“Yes, I do. It’s
only been a few weeks.”

“Did he buy what
you’re wearing?” she asked, with a cool blink.

My gaze skittered down
to my dress and shoes. “How did you know? Did he buy clothes for
you, too?”

“No, but I recognize
his taste. You’re wearing it, head to toe.”

The waiter brought our
coffees and set them down. Lydia dropped a lump of sugar into her cup
and stirred, rattling my nerves with the clang of her spoon.

“Tell me about the
note,” she said. “How did you find it?”

I gripped my coffee for
dear life. “It was in one of Marc’s books. I came across it when
I was staying at his father’s chateau.”

“What was it doing
there?”

I felt pinned under her
gaze. “Marc kept it,” I said. “I guess he put it in the book
for safekeeping.”

“Which means he found
it in his drawer.”

“He did, a long time
ago. Probably just after you wrote it.”

“I wonder why he
didn’t throw it out,” she said. “All this time I assumed he
had.”

“He said it was a
reminder of the reasons he’s changed.”

She laughed sharply.
“Oh, he’s changed, has he? Is that why you’re here? Because
he’s a perfectly ordinary man who doesn’t hurt anyone?”

I struggled to keep my
voice even. “He stopped for a long time. It started again with me.”

“I’m very sorry for
you, then.”

Her words stung me into
silence. Her face was ashen, her eyebrows straight and low. “I have
a husband and daughter now. It took me years to have anything
resembling a life after my relationship with Marc.”

“But you moved on.
Fell in love and started a family.” I was almost desperate to hear
her say it.

“
Move
on
?” she repeated, as if she’d never heard the phrase.
“How much did he tell you? I mean, how did you find me in the first
place?”

“He told me your name
when he saw the note. It wasn’t hard to track you down you after
that.”

“And what do you
want, reassurance that you’ll be okay if you fall in love with him?
I can’t give you that.”

Anxiety swirled in my
stomach. “Please,” I said. “Can you at least tell me what
happened? He wouldn’t say very much, but I know it still bothers
him.”

Her mouth twitched.
“You really want to hear it?”

“Yes. I do.”

Propping her elbows on
the table, she leaned forward. “Then I’ll be straight. You’ll
never be the same after Marc. I love my family more than anything,
and I still can’t forget him. Sex with my husband will never come
close. That’s just how it is.”

So Marc was a man who
ruined his lovers for anyone else. I didn’t need Lydia to tell me
what I already knew.

But now that I was
here, I was going to get as many answers as I could. “Are you
submissive with your husband?”

She smirked. “I don’t
want to be. He has no idea what I’ve done in my past. I’m sure
he’d laugh if I ever suggested it. I couldn’t do that with
another man, anyway.”

She considered me over
the rim of her cup. “I know you haven’t been with him very long,
but how far has it gone?”

I hesitated, feeling
the prickly heat of embarrassment. “Not far. Bondage. Spanking.
Last night he took me to the M Society.”