Peach (55 page)

Noel watched as Peach, seated at the desk of the president of US Auto, signed the document with a flourish, looking up to smile for the photographers. She looked wonderful in a tailored jacket and a blue buttondown silk shirt with a striped silk tie—a feminine joke on their executive uniform.
Paul Lawrence added his signature and shook hands with Peach for the photographers.

It was done. De Courmont was now an autonomous division of US Auto and Noel was the youngest president of a major automobile company in the industry’s history. Then why did he feel no elation? This was the day he had achieved everything he had set out for. What was wrong? He stared broodingly at Peach. He’d used her to get what he wanted, manipulated de Courmont’s poor financial situation to gain his own—and US Auto’s advantage. But that was only good business. Wasn’t it? At the back of it all hadn’t there been the memory of Peach at that Boston party, and her wide smile accompanying her lethal words as she told the world he was Noel Maddox, the charity orphan? Hadn’t there been a streak of vindictiveness behind his plotting? A desire for the orphan kid to get his own back on the beautiful little rich girl?

“Noel,” called Paul, “come over here and give these boys a picture of de Courmont’s new president.”

Noel took his place beside Peach, feeling her eyes on him. He’d forbidden her to wear low-heeled shoes when she was with him unless they suited the occasion and today she seemed especially tall and slender with her hair swept up and the high blue suede pumps.

“You look tired,” Peach said to him at lunch afterwards.

“I’m all right,” he replied curtly. “I just hate all these publicity jamborees.” Noel glanced around the crowded dining room and the busy buffet. “I’m an engineer not a partygoer.”

The smile died on her face.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m a bit tired. It’s been a long haul.”

“We de Courmonts have worn you out,” she commented.

“More than that,” he apologised. “I think the past twenty years just caught up to me.”

After lunch he sent her back to the hotel to rest, promising to pick her up at seven-thirty for the reception for the press and the dealers and the unveiling of the new de Courmont “Duke”.

He was there promptly waiting in the lobby for her rather than going up to her suite and he made no comment on the Valentino gold velvet dress, hurrying her into the limousine as though they were late.

Peach gazed at his silent profile, puzzled. What could be wrong? Was he regretting becoming de Courmont’s president already? Maybe he didn’t want to live part of his time in France? Or maybe he didn’t want to see her any more now he had the company?

The hall was decorated with French and American flags and red, white and blue flowers. Standing between Paul Lawrence and Noel with the chairman and vice-chairman of the company flanking them, Peach shook hands with US Auto executives and their wives, and with dealers and their wives, smiling at each one, greeting them by name as she read the little badges on their lapels. Then, with the photographers banked in front of her and Noel and Paul on either side, she pulled the velvet cord, drawing back the regal purple curtain and unveiling the fibreglass shell of the new car.

“My grandfather, the Duc de Courmont, would have been proud to lend his title to this wonderful new car,” she said, smiling charmingly.

The night that was the beginning of a new era for de Courmont seemed like an eternity and Peach was glad when Noel finally said that it was time to leave. Detroit’s streets were quiet as they drove back and impulsively Peach took
Noel’s hand. “I’m sorry if today hasn’t been what you wanted,” she said quietly.

“Today was exactly what I thought it would be,” he replied, turning to look at her. Her lids drooped tiredly over her blue eyes, making them look shadowy and mysterious, and in the muted light of the car her mouth looked very soft and vulnerable. He wanted very much to kiss it … to kiss her eyes … to tell her everything was all right … that he would look after her …

The limousine stopped at the canopy of a tall apartment building and as the smartly uniformed doorman helped her from the car Noel said, “I thought we might go to my apartment for a nightcap. It’s a bit more private than your hotel and I feel as though we’ve been in the public eye enough today.”

He put his arm around her as they hurried from the freezing night air through the lobby and into the elevator.

“There’s only one button?” said Peach, puzzled.

Noel smiled. “It’s a private elevator to the penthouse.”

“Do you know something,” she said as they zoomed silently upwards, “that’s the first time you’ve smiled tonight. You didn’t even smile for the photographers. You looked stern and businesslike—but I suppose it’ll frighten away the competition.”

“We’ll be the beast and the beauty,” Noel said. “Because in that column of molten light you call a dress you look very beautiful, Peach de Courmont.”

The elevator bounced gently to a stop and as the doors slid back he said to her, folding her in his arms, “And would the beast turn into a prince if he kissed her?”

Her lips were cool from the freezing night air and they trembled slightly as he kissed her. He could smell her scent and feel the softness of her cheek and the smooth lines of her body as he held her close.

Their eyes met as he drew away and taking her hand he said to her, “Come with me. You showed me your world, now I want to show you mine.”

Trailing her sable coat she wandered through the white airy spaces of his apartment, liking its subdued monochrome decor and the subtle lighting. She stood in front of the Lichtenstein, captivated by its wit, and lingered over the Marie Laurencin, saying it made her feel at home. She admired the Kandinsky and the Mondrian and ran her hand over a smoothly carved marble sculpture. And all the time she was thinking of his mouth on hers and her body was tingling from remembered contact with his.

“Come here,” called Noel, “I want you to see this.”

He was standing by the long sweep of windows gazing out across the twinkling lights of the city below. “There it is,” he said, “Detroit. Motor City. That’s
my
territory, Peach. I fought my way up from those freezing, lonely streets—all the way up to this penthouse. And to president of the company where I once worked on the assembly line.”

Peach knew she would never understand what Noel had been through. How could she? She had never known poverty or loneliness, never needed to claw her way to the top. There was a dark side to Noel that only he was permitted to view. “It’s a job only you are qualified for,” she said gently. “Without you there would be no de Courmont, Noel, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He looked at her with those hungry eyes, searching to see if she were speaking about the company or herself.

“I mean it, Noel,” said Peach softly.

The sable coat dropped to the floor as he swept her into his arms, crushing her to him desperately. “Oh God,” he said, “I’ve waited so long to tell you I love you. I’ve wanted to tell you I can’t live without you, that I need you.”

“Then why?” whispered Peach. “Why didn’t you … I was just waiting.”

“I couldn’t have borne it if you’d rejected me,” he groaned, “and besides …”

“Besides?” Peach held his face between her hands, smiling at him.

“Besides, I didn’t want to take advantage of you,” admitted Noel, “I didn’t want anyone to say I’d seduced Peach de Courmont in order to gain control of her company.”

“But I would have
given
it to you, Noel,” Peach laughed. “I would have given it to you on a silver platter, along with myself.”

His kiss crushed the words from her lips and when kissing was no longer enough, he took her hand and led her into his bedroom. Beneath the smiling eyes of the brass orphanage angels he slid the supple sheath of panne-velvet from her breasts, kissing them gently. And then he took off her high golden slippers, waiting while she removed her stockings. Then he kissed her toes and her instep and the inside of her thigh where it was softest. Peach unbuttoned his shirt, sliding her hands inside, loving the way his hard-muscled body felt, breathing the fragrance of his skin. And then she lay back, watching and waiting as he undressed.

“There’s no need for kisses to transform you,” she told him quietly. “You are beautiful.”

But he went on kissing her, running his tongue along her nipples, and along the curve of her breasts, down the golden groove of her belly, touching his way gently through the mound of russet hair. And she ached for his touch, moaning her pleasure, calling his name. As his body entered hers Peach wrapped herself around him, gripping him to her in a frenzy of passion.

And, as his love spilled into her, Noel cried out in triumph.

“I’m taking you away from all this,” said Noel teasingly as she awoke.

“Don’t,” Peach murmured burrowing deeper into his arms, “I love it here.”

“Too many people, too many telephones, too much business,” he murmured between kisses. “I’ve got a hideaway just meant for the two of us.”

“A hideaway?” Peach pushed back her hair and looked interested.

“Come on, drink up your coffee and get dressed. We’ll pick up some clothes from your hotel and we’re off.”

Peach sipped her coffee, smiling at him.

“I can’t wait for you to see this place,” Noel said.

“Would a few minutes more make any difference, or half an hour—or whatever?” she asked setting down the cup and lying back naked in the tumbled sheets.

“We’ve been making love all night,” he said laughing.

“I remember,” Peach murmured holding out her hand to him.

Noel grinned as he grabbed her to him, “You’re too distracting, too tempting, too delicious.”

“And you are beautiful,” said Peach, running her fingers along his smoothly muscled back. “Oh God you’re so beautiful.” She lay beneath him, feeling the power of his body on hers, her eyes locked in his deep passionate glance, and then he was kissing her again, and again, and his body was so wonderful she didn’t want to let him go from her—ever.

“I love you,” she cried in the heat of their passion, “oh I love you!”

And afterwards as he lay by her side, Noel said, “I love you, Peach de Courmont.”

The road to the cabin by the lake had been swept clear by snow ploughs, and banks of crystalline snow as high as the car shimmered in the sunlight beneath a cloudless sky, as they sped north with Noel at the wheel.

“But where are we going?” demanded Peach, not really caring as long as she was with him.

“Wait and see,” replied Noel.

Realising they had forgotten about breakfast and they’d had no dinner the night before, they stopped at a country inn and ate snacks of pancakes with fresh maple syrup, and Peach held Noel’s hand, reluctant to let go of him for a minute.

Peach slept the last hour of their two hundred-mile journey, the roughness of Noel’s plaid wool shirt making a small red patch on her cheek where it rested against him.

“Open up your eyes and see what God will send you,” said Noel mis-quoting a childish rhyme.

The lake stretched before her, glimmering green near the shore and deep blue into the distance. Snow swept to its edges, tipping a million soaring Christmas trees with white, and the redwood A-frame house rested solidly in its folds, blue-grey smoke spiralling from its chimney.

Hand in hand they climbed the steps to the house and Noel flung open the door with a flourish. It was modern and simple and labour-saving with pale waxed wooden floors and vistas of trees and water from huge windows. There were no decorator touches here. In fact there was almost no furniture. Just an oversize couch and a couple of big chairs that Noel had thought looked comfortable. A Navajo Indian
rug in front of the massive fireplace, a pine table and chairs in the dining-area and a king-size bed covered in a plaid rug in the bedroom. The Detroit penthouse in the sky had been Noel’s statement to the world. But
this
was what he
was
. A man stripped of emotion by his harsh life, a man who had been afraid to love, and instead had poured his passion into music and paintings and the solitary beauty of this wonderful place.

The caretaker from the cabin at the top of the hill had stocked the refrigerator and lit the fires and the house was cosy and welcoming.

The only ornaments Peach could see were a huge pottery jar filled with dried grasses and leaves and, on the rough stone mantel, a small silvery cup. Picking it up she searched for an inscription but it was blank.

“Boxing trophy,” said Noel gruffly. “I won it at the Maddox when I was fourteen.”

“But then why isn’t it inscribed?” Noel’s eyes had that familiar remote look as they met hers.

“I didn’t stick around long enough,” he said. “I ran away that same night.”

Peach drew in her breath sharply, “Ohh … I see. Then it’s more than a boxing trophy, Noel, this cup marks the beginning of your new life. And it should be inscribed—with your name and the orphanage … the date … everything.”

“Maybe,” he said turning away. “Maybe one day I will.”

They went for a walk by the lake, crunching snow underfoot in their heavy winter boots, making icy snowballs and tossing them into the freezing lake and at each other, hurrying home with numb fingers and scarlet cheeks to mugs of hot mulled wine that Noel brewed expertly on his big white stove.