Page 14 of My One Week Husband
Of course.
Cole is indeed leaned back, almost horizontal in his chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him.
“Please rib me. I’ve missed that,” Cole says, as dry and deadpan as he’s always been.
Cole looks the part of a classy tourist in the early evening, decked out in slacks and a sharp polo, enjoying his glass of red wine in the City of Lights. He rises and drops air kisses on my cheeks.
“So good to see you,” I say.
He smiles. “It’s always good to see you, Scarlett. You’re our better third. But I wish I could say the same thing about this cad.”
Cole claps Daniel on the back, and the Englishman laughs, flashing that fantastic smile. It makes him seem like the most lighthearted man in the world—wearing a permanent vacation grin.
I’ve learned, though, that smile is his mask. The free-and-easy way he has isn’t the whole truth.
While I don’t know the details of his family—he doesn’t share that with me—I do know he’s lost both his parents. I know, too, that the scar on his hand has taken something away as well.
But he keeps that to himself as well.
And I don’t pry. It’s not in my nature.
Secrets have a way of coming to light on their own, I’ve learned. Sooner or later, you open a drawer, unlock a cupboard, and they tumble free.
I take a seat, and Daniel and Cole follow, the three of us settling in at the small round table as Parisians scurry by on the sidewalk, muttering into their cell phones, the smattering of plans for dates, for rendezvous, for affairs, even, floating past my ears.
“You always love seeing me,” Daniel says to Cole. “You can’t stay away. Why else would you come all the way from Las Vegas to Paris?”
Cole taps his chin. “Let’s see. I believe I’m here with my fiancée for a crazy little thing called a vacation.”
Daniel adopts a shocked expression, complete with the head jerk and jaw drop. “I didn’t know you knew how to take a holiday.”
Cole stares daggers at Daniel. “I know how to vacation just fine. Sage and I even went on a bike tour through Tuscany, visiting wineries, before we came here.”
“Bikes and vino. Sign me up,” Daniel says as the waiter swings by and asks if we’d like a drink.
Daniel orders a red, then asks if I want my usual chardonnay. He winks like he did earlier in the day when we pretended to be married.
Cole chuckles, almost to himself. “You two are like a married couple.”
“Funny you should say that,” Daniel begins, then meets my gaze. “Want to tell him?”
Our American partner sits up straighter. “You went to the South of France and got hitched?”
I scoff. “No, we simply pretended to be husband and wife this morning when we checked out another property. Which is one of the things we wanted to chat with you about. So, thank you, Cole, for taking an evening out of your vacation to meet with us.”
“Business doesn’t wait,” he says. “Besides, Sage is meeting with a friend who started a business running off-the-beaten-path tours of Paris. They’re roaming F. Scott Fitzgerald’s old haunts as we speak.” He lowers his voice. “If she likes it, we might partner with the tour company, add it to our exclusive tours at our Rue de Rivoli property.”
A smile takes over my face. “Oui, oui, and more oui.”
Cole smiles. “I thought you might like that.”
“I love it. I take it Sage doesn’t have any plans to expand here?” I ask. Cole’s fiancée is our rival in Vegas. She owns the hotel across the Strip from ours, as well as other properties around the world, but none in Europe.
“She doesn’t mind, since this city is still ours. The whole continent, in fact. So let’s talk about expanding our dominance in Europe.”
“Yes, now that we’ve stolen you away from your vacation with your fantastic fiancée, why don’t we dive right into our devilishly brilliant plans?” I say, rubbing my palms together. I can’t help it. Business excites me. Deals thrill me. The chase of a new acquisition turns me on.
Business and Paris and beauty—those are the cornerstones of my life. After I learned the truth about my marriage, these have been the things seeing me through.
“Yes, what do we think about the Avignon property? Is it the beginning of a new line of boutique hotels?” Cole asks, a glint in his eyes.
Daniel quirks his lips up into a grin. “Actually, we think the Aix-en-Provence one could be the start. We took a little detour out that way this morning.”
Cole shoots him a look that says tell me more. “And what did you do there?”
We almost kissed.
I don’t say that, of course.
Instead, I chime in, “We came across a rather lovely property that we think could be a perfect acquisition target. We’ve been looking for a chain of boutiques to invest in.”
