Gloria's Revenge

GLORIA’S REVENGE

Copyright © 2013 by Nelle L’Amour. All rights reserved.

First Kindle Edition: November 2013

Cover and Formatting:
Streetlight Graphics

This eBook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the original purchaser only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

To my readers. Without you, I couldn’t be a writer.

“Three things cannot be hidden for long—the sun, the moon, and the truth.”

—Isabella S., my fourteen-year-old daughter

Chapter 1

I
couldn’t believe I was in Paris sitting in a cabin on the top of the famous Grande Roue Ferris wheel with Jaime Zander, staring wide-eyed at a magnificent two-stoned diamond ring that he’d just presented to me. I was in shock. We’d known each other for less than a week. My heart was fluttering as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. Seated pantiless on his lap with my long legs draped over his muscular thighs, I was waiting for him to answer my question: “Are you asking me to marry you?”

Jaime’s reaction was as intense as my own. He visibly jerked and blinked his denim blue eyes several times. And then he just gazed at me, hard and deep. A long second passed. With my heart still pounding, I waited with baited breath for his response. The silence of the night air was numbing.

“Gloria…no,” he finally stuttered.

His words hit me with a blow. My face turned fifty shades of red. I felt foolishly embarrassed. It was time to mentally hit the “reset” button.

Except I didn’t know what to say. And it appeared that he didn’t either. Our brains were not communicating with our mouths. After a few moments, he regained his composure and broke the awkward stretch of silence. “It’s a
toi et moi
ring.”

A “you and me” ring
, I said to myself. The lyrics of the Charles Aznavour song that had been playing when we’d arrived at the Ferris wheel floated in my head…
you and me, two hearts merge.
Except he wasn’t giving me his heart. My emotions were a jumble of pain, self-loathing, and confusion.

He lifted the ring from the box. “I found it in an antiques shop on my way to my client. The dealer told me it’s almost a hundred years old. An old sole like you. Do you like it?”

I gazed at the intricate, sparkling ring. “It’s beautiful,” I stammered. It truly was. An Art-Nouveau work of art, the two perfect heart-shaped diamonds kissing each other like lovers.

He grasped my right hand “Gloria, why are you shaking so much?”

“I’m just a little chilled,” I lied, flinging my pashmina shawl across my right shoulder with my free hand. Inside, I was falling apart like a glacier-struck cruise ship. Confession: At this very moment, I hated this man—this man who I thought I loved—for how fucked up he could make me feel.

Without a blink, I watched as he slipped the ring onto my middle finger. It fit perfectly. I should have been thrilled that this man that I’d known for not even a week was giving me such an extravagant gift, but instead I found myself battling tears.
Don’t cry,
Gloria,
the inner me pleaded.
Please don’t cry.

“Thank you,” I managed. Truthfully, I wanted to tear if off my finger and toss it into the Seine.

He planted a warm kiss on my lips. The kiss sent another chill through me, not the good kind.

I pulled away. My thumb nervously rubbed across the smooth surface of the two entwining diamonds. “What is this ring for?”

Jaime coiled a lock of my long, loose hair around his hand and cocked a smile. “Working together. We’re going to make a great team, Gloria.”

So that’s what I was—a client with benefits. A good fuck who made him money. A knife sliced through my heart. I may have foolishly thought I was in love with him, but he was clearly not in love with me.

The big wheel started spinning again, and as it spun back to earth, my emotions spun out of control. I buried my head into his chest, and unbeknownst to him, a tear sunk into his soft leather jacket.

Over the past six days, he had fucked my brains out. I had enjoyed every minute. Now, he was fucking
with
my brain. And I didn’t like it one bit. There was a fine line between losing control and being out of control, and I had just crossed it.

Chapter 2

M
orning couldn’t have come fast enough. Showered and dressed, I was ready to go back to Los Angeles. I needed to get back to work and away from this man who had battered me both emotionally and physically. Taking a break from packing, I glanced at him, still asleep in bed. He looked so peaceful—a sharp contrast to the tense, conflicted me. And oh so beautiful. Sleeping on his back, with the covers draped low on his hips, he offered me a bird’s-eye view of his toned pecs and arms, washboard abs, and that magnificent V that led to the tent beneath the sheets that told me he’d had a hard-on in his sleep. And oh, that gorgeous chiseled face with its kissable dimpled chin. My chest tightened. I had to look away.

Folding up the lingerie that he’d rummaged through and made a mess of yesterday, I silently cursed the soreness between my inner thighs. Not because I found the pain uncomfortable but because I found the memory associated with it unbearable. He had fucked me silly on the Grande Roue, sending me orbiting, and then had put my emotions into a tailspin.

Jaime Fucking Zander had gotten under my skin and then into my bloodstream. And somehow, he’d gotten into my heart. Both my beloved late mentor, Madame Paulette, and good friend, Sandrine, were right. I’d fallen in love with him. Except this complicated, commitment-phobic womanizer, whose name meant “I love” in French, was incapable of loving. I was just one of his many conquests. I glanced down at the ring on my middle finger. Caught in the ray of sunshine that beamed through the French windows of our charming hotel room, its sparkle was blinding. Once again, my thumb involuntarily skimmed over the two magnificent kissing diamond hearts.
Toi et moi.
He probably gave this kind of ring to all his hook-ups. I just wanted to go back to being
moi.
Gloria Long, the cool, confident CEO of Gloria’s Secret, the world’s largest retailer of lingerie. The powerhouse of a woman in control of her life. Yes, heading up a billion dollar, global empire came with its share of challenges and headaches, but it didn’t come with lust and heartbreak. My eyes shot back to Jaime. Damn him! He had made my emotions spin totally out of control. I couldn’t focus on anything but him. Even light packing was an effort.

My unrest was compounded by my fatigue. I was eager for my coffee to arrive. While he had slept like a baby, I’d tossed and turned all night. I didn’t sleep a wink. There was only one good thing about insomnia—you can’t have nightmares—and at least, Boris Borofsky stayed out of my brainwaves. I kept replaying the events of the week in my head. My first encounter with Jaime in the elevator of The Walden in New York. Our swim in the hotel pool and our mind-blowing shower in the men’s locker room. Dinner in his room where he feasted on me. His pitch for my account followed by blindfolding me and fucking me on his conference room table. And then after I caught him heatedly kissing my assistant, Vivien Holden, he followed me to Paris to tell me the truth. That Vivien was his manipulative stepsister and her father, Victor, Gloria’s Secret Chairman of the Board, his abusive stepfather. He had rescued me from Victor’s drunken, sexual assault and from that moment on, we were inseparable. Two lovers who couldn’t get enough of each other.

Jaime Zander had consumed me. The truth: I couldn’t get enough of him. But as I folded the blue chiffon dress that I’d worn last night, I knew in the end I was only going to get hurt. Once a player, always a player. Having won our account with his brilliant BDSM-inspired pitch—
Gloria’s Secret. Let
yourself be carried away
—I now dreaded having to work with him. How should I proceed? There was only one answer: I had to go back—and keep it pure business. One of Madame Paulette’s favorite songs had been Edith Piaf’s “Je ne Regrette Rien.” The intoxicating scent of him was still on my dress and assaulted my senses. Tears stung my eyes. I suddenly regretted everything. Everything that had to do with Jaime Zander.

“Hey, Angel, what are you doing?” a raspy voice from behind me called out. My skin bristled. He was up.

Without turning around to look at him, I said, “Packing. The vacation’s over. I’m going back to LA, and you’re going back to New York.”

I heard him climb out of bed. “Where’d you go last night?” he asked with a sleepy yawn. “I reached for you, but you weren’t there.”

“I went to sleep in the other bed. I had insomnia.”

“Did I keep you up?” His voice was getting closer.

“Yes.” That was a fact. I didn’t elaborate.

As I zipped up my Vuitton overnight case, two strong bare arms slipped under my armpits and wrapped around my breasts. He cupped the full mounds in his palms and massaged them. My tender nipples hardened and elongated beneath his touch. How quickly he could make my core ache. Damn him! I whirled around and faced him. The effect his bedroom eyes, gorgeous stubbled face, and tousled bedhead hair had on me was unraveling me.
Collect yourself, Gloria. Don’t let him do this to you.

“We need to have a serious conversation,” I spluttered, thankful that he was wearing pajama bottoms.

“Seriously?”

His deliberate or not play on words got under my skin.

“Yes.” I hissed the word.

He ran his long fingers through my still loose platinum hair. He was doing everything that got me all riled up. “About what?”

I jerked away. “About
toi et moi.”

He let out that deep, sexy chortle that always undid me. “Your French accent is perfect, Gloria. Just like you.”

I tried hard not to react.
Just tell him what’s on your mind. Not what’s in your heart.

I sucked in a gulp of air. “I think we need to keep our relationship strictly business. There’s too much riding on the line.”

He cocked a brow. “What do you mean by that?”

What I mean is that you’re taking me down a collision course. There’s only disaster at the finish line. I can’t afford to be a wreck.

What I said: “I’m under a lot of pressure to take Gloria’s Secret to the next level. With all the competition springing up, Wall Street is scrutinizing us. There are a lot of people out there who want to see me fail…including Victor.”

His jaw tensed at the mention of his stepfather’s name. “So…”

I jumped right in. “I think you should stop fucking me, and we’ll pretend that none of this happened.”

Jaime knitted his eyebrows as if in deep thought. He spoke sooner than I thought he would. “You’re the client, Gloria. And the client’s needs come first. Except I think your needs are different than what you think.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, echoing his earlier line.

“I. Think. You. Need. Me.”

A tug at my hair accompanied each punctuated word. The way he looked straight into my eyes made my heart patter. I was losing my cool. Several long seconds passed before I responded.

“No, Mr. Zander, what I need is a successful advertising campaign.”
And my
sanity back
. “And by the way, I don’t want to be in it in any shape or form.”

Jaime shrugged his shoulders. “A big mistake, in my humble opinion, Ms. Long. You should learn to trust me. I thought you were doing a great job, but obviously you’ve regressed for some reason.”

Inside me, unexpected sadness mixed with my hormones. It took all I had to keep it together.

“And I think you should take your ring back.” I started to twist it off my finger, but I think because my period was coming, my fingers were swollen from water retention. I couldn’t get it past my knuckle. “Damn it,” I cursed silently.

He tipped my head up by my chin. My pained eyes met darkened pools of blue. I frantically continued to pull at the ring.

“Listen, Gloria, I don’t want the ring back. It’s not returnable.” With his other hand, he squeezed my right hand, trapping my fidgeting fingers and the ring in his fist.

“You can sell it on eBay or pawn it.” I grinded the words between clenched teeth.

His thickly lashed eyelids lowered. He looked wounded. “No, Gloria, I have no time or interest in doing that. And it’ll never fetch the price I paid.”

I suddenly felt bad. He had, beyond doubt, paid an exorbitant amount of money for it. It was a rare antique…unique and special. Two magnificent entwined diamond hearts. Priceless.

“Gloria, I want you to have it.” I stood frozen as he softened his grip around my hand and raised it to his lips. He placed a warm, reverent kiss on the ring, grazing my flesh, and then gazed into my eyes.

“Just accept it as a souvenir from Paris. And the kiss too.”

My heart was beating so loudly I was sure he could hear it. To my relief, there was a loud knock at the door saving me from responding. “That must be the coffee. I’ll go get it.”

Freeing myself, I scurried to the door and opened it. Yes, my coffee. With a cheerful
“bonjour,”
the waiter entered our chamber and set a silver tray with the coffee onto a small round table. After taking care of him, I busied myself pouring two cups of the steamy dark liquid—one for Jaime, the other for me. The smell of the rich caffeine wafted into my nose. I generously poured steamed milk into both cups of the aromatic brew, remembering that he liked his coffee café au lait style like me. As the warm, frothy liquid filled his cup, I reflected on how much I already knew about this man in just a week’s time.

He strode toward me. “Great. Coffee for
toi et moi
.”

Toi et moi
. The words echoed in my head. There was no
toi et moi.
Yet, my core was aching, throbbing. Unwanted tears were verging. I needed to get away from him. “I’ll be right back. I need to use the bathroom.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.” He smiled warmly and took a sip of the steaming coffee.

Inside the bathroom, I sat on the toilet longer than I needed. I finally grabbed a thick wad of toilet paper. I wiped my still throbbing folds and took a look, hoping not to see the first sign of my period. The last thing I needed was to fly home with soaked tampons and cramps. I breathed a soft sigh of relief when I saw no trace of blood. But my heart grew heavy. Jaime’s creamy cum was in my face. The memories of fucking him last night on the Grande Roue flooded my head. Oh my God! That explosive, mind-blowing orgasm. As I relived it, my core morphed into the Eiffel Tower cackling with white lights. How could I live without this man inside me? I was second-guessing my decision to end our intimacy—would it end up being the worst business decision of my life? A tear of despair trickled down my face.

The sound of a phone ringing brought me back to the moment. It was either Jaime’s mobile or mine; we had identical iPhones. When it stopped on the second ring, I knew it was his. I heard him say hello, and then the flush of the toilet and the subsequent running of water to wash my hands blocked out the sound of his voice.

When I stepped back into the bedroom, Jaime was still on the phone. He was pacing and the expression on his face was intense. Avoiding eye contact, he lowered his voice and said, “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you in LA, babe.”

As he ended the call, my heart skipped a beat. “Who were you talking to?”

“Another client.” His voice wavered.

Rage and jealousy crescendoed inside me. “Oh, so do you call all your female clients ‘angel’ or ‘babe’?”

He winked. “Just the ones I find attractive.”

I cringed. I wanted to grab his cell phone and smack him with it. My second-guess thoughts evaporated like water. I had made the right decision. He was a rogue. A player. Except he wasn’t going to play with me. No fucking way.

“Mr. Zander, from now on in please only call me Ms. Long.”

“Is that what I should shout out when you make me come?”

I screwed up my face.
Smartass!

He smirked at me.

Let him smirk. I braided my hair. I was back to being in control.

Wouldn’t you know, our private planes were scheduled to depart at almost the same time. When my driver didn’t show up on time, Jaime offered me a ride in his limo.

“I’ll take a taxi,” I huffed as I stood in front of the hotel with him.

“Bonne chance,
Ms. Long,” he said nonchalantly. “Have you ever tried to catch a cab in Paris morning rush hour traffic?”

I was about to find out. Wearing black leggings, a sweater, and ballet flats, I darted to the edge of the insanely busy Saint-Germain, and started to hail a cab. I jumped up and down, flailing my arms, trying to get one to stop. “Taxi!” I repeatedly shouted on the top of my lungs. I must have looked like some kind of whacked-out ballerina dancing to a symphony of honking horns. One cab after another whooshed by without stopping. I continued with my desperate dance, growing more and more frustrated by the minute. When cab number-I-don’t-know-what zoomed by me, I turned my head and stole a glance at Jaime. He was smirking. The asshole! He was enjoying every minute of my pathetic song-and-dance show. I wrinkled my nose at him. To my utter chagrin, he mock-mimicked me.

Fuck him. It was time to get aggressive. Convinced the cab drivers weren’t seeing me, I stepped deeper into the crazy-with-traffic Paris boulevard.