The Curvy Waitress and the Billionaire French Count (He Wanted Me Pregnant!) (4 page)

“Anyway,” I said quickly, “Something cheap will do fine.”

“
Tied to the bed and spanked?”
asked Erard. “Did you want me to do that?”

“No!” I said quickly, my face hot. I stared fixedly ahead of me, but I could feel him grinning at me.

“Why won’t you let me spend money on you?” he asked at last, sounding genuinely puzzled.

I shook my head, thinking of my father and his guilt money. No one was going to buy my affections. “I don’t want anything I haven’t earned,” I told him.

I persuaded him to take me to a department store and found a top that managed to hide most of me and some loose trousers that did the same down below. When I came out of the changing room, he frowned at me again.

“What?” I asked.

“Why is it you wear things that hide you away?”

I reddened. “If you wanted someone who can slip into a tube dress you should have picked a different waitress.”

He shook his head. “I think you look fantastic, whatever you wear. But you have such a gorgeous body. Why would you want to disguise it?”

I was glad that he was speaking in French, so that no one else could understand. Couldn’t he see that I needed to be hidden away? But he insisted on grabbing a figure-hugging skirt and a green t-shirt. “Here,” he said. “Just try them. For me.”

I gave him a long look. With anyone else, I would have thrown them back in his face and walked. But he looked so honestly enraptured with the idea of seeing me in them that some of his confidence seeped through to me. I stomped back into the changing room.

The t-shirt surprised me. It didn’t have a scoop neck, like I’d expect a man to choose. It was actually quite modest, and it wasn’t
super-
tight. It definitely showed off the shape of my breasts, though. And the skirt put my ass right on display, like it or not…although in fairness, it did give me back my curves, instead of just making me a box.

I sighed and trudged out of the changing room.

“Amazing,” he said immediately. “Wear it. I’ll pay.”

I started to protest, but he silenced me with a finger to my lips. “Think of it as making up for the tips you lost, not being at work this afternoon.”

I took a look at myself in the mirror. Okay, it didn’t look
too
awful. I sighed again and nodded.

***

The restaurant was on the rooftop of a skyscraper with an amazing view of the city. Down in the maze of streets it was baking hot, a minor hell of traffic fumes and honking horns. Up on the roof, all was serene, the traffic noise drowned out by a string quartet and the gentle hiss of a water feature. A pleasantly cool breeze blew through the tables and waiters scuttled back and forth with jugs of mineral water. It was…heaven.

This is how the other half lives,
I thought as a waiter pulled my chair out for me. I’d stopped in at the bathroom downstairs to put on a little more make-up and, between that and the new outfit, I had just enough confidence to pull off being there. Maybe.

“Tell me about you,” I said when we’d ordered. “I know nothing about you. You’re really a
count?
The only counts I know are Count Chocula, and the Count from Sesame Street.”

“I am.” He gazed at me across the table. He did that a lot. Why did he keep looking at me so much?

It was the first time since I’d met him that I’d had a chance to really study him. In the meeting I’d been beside him, and concentrating on what was being said. Now I could soak up all the little details. The way his cheeks dimpled when he smiled. The little rogue black curl that never behaved, making me want to run my hands through his hair. The way his eyes shone when he looked my way—happy and excited and…
hungry.

“And…you’re rich? I mean, really rich?” I hated asking it, but I had to. I had to understand how the hell this was supposed to work.

“I don’t really think about it,” he said, and I believed him. “I mean, I have enough money that I don’t have to think about it—does that make sense?”

I nodded…and then shook my head. “People like me don’t meet people like you,” I told him. “You’re…up here.” I waved my hand at the restaurant. “I’m down there. Waitresses don’t meet millionaires.”

Erard looked suddenly embarrassed and mumbled something.

“I’m sorry—what?”

He said it again, smiling but still looking faintly ashamed.

The French for millionaire is, funnily enough,
millionaire.
But Erard said something different. “
Milliardaire.”

Billionaire.

I blinked at him, but there was no question that he was serious.

***

On any other day, I would have been focused on the food. I would have been thinking about how the slivers of truffle melted into the braised mushrooms, or how the butter melted on my tongue. But all my attention was on Erard. I kept watching his broad shoulders move under his jacket and the way his thick forearms stretched out his shirt. Even sitting down, he was noticeably taller than me. He made me feel small and…feminine, if that makes any sense. And every few seconds, he’d raise his eyes from his plate and—

“Why do you keep looking at me?” I blurted at last.

He blinked and considered. “Why do you
think?
” he asked.

I flushed and shrugged helplessly.

He shook his head and swore gently under his breath. “You really have no clue, do you? Not an inkling?” He leaned forward. “What happened to you, that it made you so out of touch with…this?” And he stroked my cheek. My neck. My shoulder.

I stiffened and sat back. “Don’t!” I shook my head. “I don’t know what you mean! I’m not—I’m not anyone you should be looking at!” I clutched my arms around myself, suddenly cold. While we’d been eating, the clouds had covered the sun and the sky was turning an angry, dark gray.

He frowned almost angrily. “Holly,” he said firmly, “You’re beautiful.”

It was out before I could protest. It hung there like a mocking, shining jewel, one I didn’t deserve. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. “I’m
not!”
I insisted.

Erard sat back in his seat. “I wish that I could kill him,” he told me solemnly.

“Who?”

“The man who made you feel this way.”

I stared at him, feeling something open up inside me, something that had stayed nailed shut for a long time. I thought of my father, and how I’d felt when he bailed. When he’d left because his wife and, especially, his daughter, hadn’t measured up. I blinked back tears. “It’s not—“ I started. I didn’t even know what I wanted to say. “I can’t just—“

He put one finger to my lips, silencing me. And then he kissed me.

It wasn’t like in the elevator. This was slower and warmer, connecting on a different level. I could feel the energy rippling down through my body, but along with the arousal was something else: a sense of security I hadn’t known I could feel. I trusted him. I knew instinctively that he’d never hurt me, but it was more than that. I knew he’d never let anyone else hurt me.

Erard dropped some bills on the table, took my hand and stood up, pulling me to my feet.

“Where are we going?” I asked in a small voice. I was hovering between running for the door and throwing myself into his arms.

“Somewhere I can convince you of how beautiful you are,” he told me.

***

There’s a sequence of images in my brain: the elevator, the limo, the hotel lobby, another elevator. I know they must have happened, but they went by so fast we might as well have teleported. We barely spoke for the entire journey. We just stared into each other’s eyes, communicating that way.
I’m scared,
I was saying.
I don’t know what’s going on.
And he’d lean forward and brush my cheek with the thumb of one of his huge hands and his eyes would say
Hush. It’s alright.

When we opened the door to his suite, though, when I saw the king-sized bed and it hit me that I was in a hotel room, in the middle of the afternoon, I stopped dead. “I can’t do this,” I said.

“Do what? What do you think we’re going to do?”

I reddened.

“All I’m going to do,” he told me, “is show you how beautiful you are.” And he bent down and kissed me, a kiss that just barely brushed my lips. He held his mouth there, teasing me, bumping our lips together again and again until I started to breathe hard, and then to pant with need.

He moved around behind me and started to kiss my neck. The tremble that went through me, the involuntary little hunch of my shoulders when he made contact, quickly turned into a warm glow.

He leaned close to my ear. “Close your eyes,” he told me.

I closed them. He pushed me gently forward and I walked ahead of him, guided by his hands on my shoulders. He turned me, and then I felt his hands on the hem of my t-shirt.

I swallowed as the fabric lifted, caught on my breasts, then slipped free and came off. My underwear was simple and white, not seduction lingerie at all. But when I felt the heat of his gaze rake up and down my body, it didn’t seem to matter. I could feel how much he was enjoying the sight of me. I couldn’t understand why that would be, but I couldn’t deny it.

I felt his fingers on the clasp of my bra. The straps cinched tighter for a second, then eased and I gasped as it came off. I could feel my breasts bob free, the skin throbbing with the sudden shock of nakedness. My hands clenched by my sides. I had to resist the impulse to open my eyes, snatch my clothes up and cover myself.

His thumbs slid between my hips and the waistband of my panties and pushed them slowly down my ass. “E—Erard—“ I said hesitantly. “Wait. I—“

But his head was suddenly alongside mine, his mouth pressing up against my ear. I could feel his suit brushing my naked back. “Shh,” he told me. And I went quiet.

I felt the panties skim down my thighs and gulped as I imagined him staring right at my naked sex. He let the panties go when they reached my knees and they fell to my feet. He tugged them gently and I stepped out of them, then out of my shoes.

And I was naked. Utterly naked, in a way I’d never been before. Not under the covers, or with the lights off, or even in the heat of sex, but standing stock still in broad daylight with a man’s gaze licking up and down my body. It was that last part, I think, that made it okay. As I stood there in the darkness of my closed lids, the heat of him looking at me pushed back the fear.

Erard pressed his body close behind me, molding himself to me. His hands cupped my shoulders, his warmth soaking in to me. “Now,” he told me. “Open your eyes.”

I opened them.

I’d seen the suite when I walked in and, from how far he’d walked me, I had an inkling of where we were. But it still came as a shock to see it.

We were standing in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom. Right in front of me was the thing I hated most: my reflection. I immediately tried to twist away, but his hands on my shoulders prevented me.

“Look at yourself,” he told me. “Tell me what you see.”

“Don’t,” I said, my voice close to breaking. I tried to turn away again, but he held me fast.

“Then let me tell you what I see,” he said, his voice firm. “I see the curves of a goddess. Ripe and full, just as a woman should be.”

I heard the words, but I didn’t believe them. They bounced off my brain. “Stop,” I said. Since I couldn’t twist away, I looked down at the floor.

He cupped my chin with one hand and gently but firmly lifted my head so that I had to look at myself. “I love your neck,” he told me, planting a kiss on each side. “I love the way it flows and the way it meets your body right
here,”—
he kissed the spot and I jumped—“in that sensitive little place.” The French, especially with
that
voice, made the words flow like poetry.

He slid his hands down to my waist and then kissed my bare shoulder. “I love your shoulders.” He kissed the very top of my spine. “I love your back.” He rested his chin on my shoulder and gazed at me in the mirror. “I love your breasts, Holly. They’re perfect. Full and soft and natural. I love the way they move when you walk. I love the way they hang when you lean forward. When they press together, when I can see their softness with that dark little slit between them, at the top of your uniform? It’s all I can do to stay in my seat and not dive at you and shove my tongue between them.”

I was lost. I was drawing in my breath in little groans, teetering on the edge between arousal and fear. I wanted to believe it. I wanted so badly to believe it, but I couldn’t.

But he wasn’t finished.

“I’ve barely touched them,” he told me. “But I loved the way they felt in the elevator, even through your uniform and your bra. All I’ve been thinking about, all day, is feeling them again. I want to feel them in my hands. I want to feel them against my chest. I want to lick them, just like I told you in the meeting, until you come.”

The warmth was already there, twisting deep inside me, thrashing around. The fear had been cooling it down but, with every word, the cold started to recede and the heat rose.