The Paris Affair (5 page)
She watched, dazed, as he reached his left arm around her, his sleeve brushing her waist, and fit her door key into the lock. He leaned his head down as he reached around her, until they stood almost cheek to cheek. Claire closed her eyes as she felt his warm breath tickling her neck, her ear.
It had been a long time since any man had seduced her so subtly. It had been a long time since any man had seduced her at all. After Frank, she had promised herself to avoid work-related relationships, and she had no time to meet men anywhere else. But from what she knew of Helmut, he didn’t do relationships. Heartbreaker. Cold-hearted snake. Hot-blooded man. One who might leave her bed and not dog her steps for years. That didn’t sound bad.
With a click, he turned the knob and pushed the massive wood door open.
“I will see you tomorrow,” he whispered, the baritone of his voice sending shivers down her spine.
Claire’s eyes flew open as he stepped away and cool air replaced the radiating heat of his body. She slumped against her open doorway and watched dumbly as he retreated back down the stairs.
Helmut slid into the hard plastic seat of the mostly empty red-line train. With a squeal, the subway car pulled out of the station, beginning the twenty-some minute trip to his condo. A cab would go faster, but he was in no rush.
He had needed the brisk walk from Claire’s apartment to cool his heated blood. In the harsh light of the train, he had to stop dwelling on the night’s events or he would embarrass himself.
She had wanted him to kiss her. He didn’t miss the turned up lips or her expectant intake of breath. He could be there now, inside that artist’s loft of an apartment, her long legs wrapped around him. Maybe she would ride him, long blond hair brushing his face, surrounding him with the scent of sweet coconut and tropical orchids.
Helmut eased off his sports jacket and draped it casually across his lap, disguising a rock hard erection.
He could turn around and head back now, maybe pick up a bottle of champagne at the corner liquor store. His bet would be won. Tomorrow at the office could be awkward, but most of the executive team would be leaving next Tuesday for the Paris Air Show. By the time Claire returned from France, there would be nothing but frosty politeness between them. That’s how these things usually went.
Claire wasn’t one of his usual flings. She had twice the intelligence and three times the wit of any of the women he’d dated over the past decade. She kept him on his toes with her sharp questions about his department, about their competitors, the marketplace.
She had held her own this morning in a short interview with
Aviation Weekly
. He and two of the VP’s had been in the room, ready to jump to her aid if the interviewer had asked a question over her head. He should have known James’ daughter wouldn’t need anyone’s help to do her job. She had serious potential as a CEO.
She had serious potential for a hot interlude.
He knew already it would take more than one night for him to get enough of her. Maybe he could take her for a weekend getaway somewhere. Somewhere romantic. Somewhere like Paris. Helmut chuckled to himself, drawing a few curious glances from the other passengers.
Claire and a handful of the other executives had a week of product demonstrations, press interviews, and meetings with potential customers lined up at the huge trade show. He himself had an invitation to speak on a panel, and offers for coffees, lunches, and two separate golf outings with some of his counterparts from other companies. There would be plenty of time to spend at Claire’s side as her advisor by day, and to romance her by evening. He would have Betty make the arrangements in the morning.
And if all went well, he would be extending his stay by a couple of sweet, hot days.
Steph set a mug of coffee in front of Claire.
Claire flashed her assistant a smile and wrapped her fingers around the cup, warming her fingers on the hot porcelain for a moment before lifting it to her lips for a delicate sip. If the liquid weren’t just shy of boiling, she would be gulping it.
She had not slept well last night after Helmut left her at her door. Logically, she knew she was exhausted, but her blood had refused to cool.
She should have invited him in.
Her condo was cold. And lonely. She normally took comfort in the clean, uncluttered loft space. Twelve foot ceilings, full-height windows with a killer view of downtown, polished concrete floors and sleek granite countertops. Home had never looked so hard and unfeeling.
Since she and Frank had split, she’d had only one relationship. If you could call three dates and one night of mediocre sex a relationship. Frank was a lying, manipulative asshole, but his arms had been warm and the sex good. When he wasn’t secretly screwing one of the interns. It had taken a few of his affairs—and the accompanying bedroom dry spells—before Claire caught on to his philandering.
In the months after the split, she would dream about faceless lovers, who brought her to the edge of climax and left her hanging. In one recurring dream, the man would transform into a giant bird and fly away, leaving her trapped on the edge of a cliff, quivering with need and terrified of falling to her death. By day, Frank’s self-serving attitude cooled off any lingering thoughts of a reconciliation.
Last night when she closed her eyes, it was Helmut’s stubble-roughened square-cut jaw that hovered just out of reach.
This morning, Helmut sat at the far end of the conference table, looking cool and collected as he watched the video conferencing screen, without a hint of a dark shadow beneath his eyes. And he was infuriatingly friendly this morning. Friendly like a coworker, not friendly like a man who wanted to see her naked. Why couldn’t the man have the decency to look a little tortured, or at least interested?
He looked up and caught her gaze, and Claire saw the tiniest gleam in his eyes. A thrill shot through her. But then he just nodded politely and looked back at the video screen where the VP of their European division was giving his report.
“Your investment strategy sounds risky,” Gene, her Chief Operating Officer, said. “Do we really want to put all of our eggs in with the European Union?”
Claire snapped her focus back to the debate at the table, over a proposed expansion plan.
“Non, non, Gene,” the VP said in her heavily accented English. “This is the future. If we get our, how do you say, leg caught in the door now, then we shall benefit greatly from the expanding of the European Union.”
Claire glanced around the table. “What does everyone else think?”
“I think Marie is right. Now is the time. We should go for it.” Helmut’s voice washed down Claire’s spine, and she swallowed a sigh of pleasure at the sound.
“Smack dab in the middle of our new military venture?” Gene asked. “We’d be spreading our resources too thin. I say we wait until the defense division has proven itself before we jump into any more new territory.”
“Are you always a risk-taker, Helmut?” Claire asked.
Helmut cracked a lopsided grin and shrugged. A round of chuckles from the board answered the question for him.
“Because Gene is correct that we already have our fingers in quite a few pies,” she continued.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Their gazes locked across the table, and Claire recognized a challenge in his eyes that had nothing to do with Europe.
“I agree the potential gains are tempting. But are you willing to risk your job?”
“That’s the beauty of it. It’s not my job I’m risking, Claire. It’s yours.”
Claire raised one eyebrow. “That’s where you’re wrong, Helmut. You risk all of our jobs,” she said softly and turned back toward the teleconference camera.
“Marie, I agree that the idea might be worthwhile, but I want to see more detail. Since speed is of the essence, you can give me a full report in person next Wednesday in Paris.”
“
Oui, madame
,” Marie said. “In Paris.”
“There is a problem with Paris.” Betty peered over the rims of her reading glasses at Helmut.
He grinned. “I can survive a week in a city without a baseball team.”
“My, you’re in a good humor this morning.” Her tone was crisp, but Helmut caught the quirk of the older lady’s lips. “It isn’t your entertainment that concerns me.”
Helmut picked up one of the small twisted nail puzzles she kept on her desk and began turning it over in his fingers. “What is it?”
“Did you see the memo this morning about the corporate credit cards?”
“I skimmed it.” Someone in human resources had lost their laptop, which held a personnel database with employee names, addresses, and corporate card numbers. It was an identity thief’s wet dream. “HR needs to start encrypting all their data. That’s been standard operating procedure for Finance for years now.”
“Yes, I’m sure they’re working on it. In the meantime, your personal information was in that database, and the credit company has already suspended all of those cards, just in case. They’re issuing us new ones, but the numbers won’t be available until Monday at the earliest.”
Helmut had a feeling he knew where this discussion was heading. “We can’t cancel the whole industry-wide Air Show next week for a batch of stolen cards.”
“Of course not. I have your plane tickets on hold with the travel agent for another hour. It’s the last first-class ticket out of Chicago leaving anytime before next Friday. Shall I use your personal card for the reservation?”
Helmut twisted the nails and pulled. The pair remained annoyingly attached. “No problem. What about the hotel?”
“Same.”
He set the puzzle back in its place. “Fine. What’s the rest of my day look like?”
“The finance all-hands meeting starts in twenty minutes. You have a lunch appointment with Goldman Sachs, a conference call this afternoon, quarterly statements to review, and your racquetball league at four-thirty.” Betty raised one eyebrow. “Would you like me to show you the trick to those nail puzzles?”
“Nah,” Helmut said. “I’ll figure them out one of these days.”
“If you say so.”
Claire wrapped a thin towel around her torso, her panties, and the jogging bra she’d worn for her afternoon run on the treadmill. She cracked the door of the private changing room and glanced down the short hall. All clear.
The gym, situated in the basement of the thirty-story office building that housed Sheffield & Fox’s corporate headquarters, had been built as an executive-only workout facility back in the sixties. Back when “executive” meant “all-male.”
The facility was top-notch. Except for the locker rooms. Obviously limited for space, the gym had a handful of private dressing rooms, only two with showers, all non-gendered. And there was only a single steam room. She preferred to steam in the nude, but wasn’t quite up to crossing the hall with just a towel on. Not with other employees around. Next time she’d pack a swimsuit.
Her shower shoes flopped on the linoleum as she scampered across the hall to the shiny stainless steel door. Claire heaved it open and shimmied inside, closing it quickly behind her. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the hot steam. With a sigh of pleasure, she sank down on the nearest bench, and relaxed backward against the wall.
“Who’s there?”
Claire jumped at the voice. In one corner, Helmut’s head swirled into view through the mist. Dark hair clung to his head, curling and damp. She could just make out his neck and the hint of more dark curls at the top of his obviously bare chest.
“You scared me,” she said lamely, quickly hopping to her feet, clasping her towel tightly above her breasts. “I didn’t see anyone in here.”
“Sorry. I was starting to doze. Don’t go on my account.”
Claire hesitated.
“If you want privacy, I can leave,” he offered. The mist cleared temporarily and she caught a glimpse of navy blue workout shorts below tanned and rippling abs.
Claire gave herself a mental shake. They were both adults. Mostly-dressed adults. She sat stiffly and focused on arranging the folds of her towel to cover as much of her bare hips as she could.
“I didn’t see you in the gym. Did you just come for a steam?” she asked to fill the awkward silence.
“I was in the racquetball courts. You?” His voice was clearing, sounding more awake.
“Treadmill,” she answered.
The silence stretched out between them again. Claire sat back and tried to close her eyes. Her traitorous mind called up a picture of his bare chest. Irritably, she tucked one leg up under her, and swung the other foot, flip-flop dangling from one toe.
“It’s usually pretty quiet in here on a Friday after work,” Helmut said.
“I imagine everyone has somewhere more exciting to go than to the gym.” The heat was beginning to take effect. She could feel some of the tension melting out of her shoulders.
“I like the quiet.”
“Me, too. I get some of my best thinking done when I’m running.” Claire shifted again, wondering if that was a hint that he wanted her to leave. Too late now if he did. Her legs felt like lead, and she had no intention of rising for at least ten more minutes.
Claire’s calves were tight, and she wanted to massage them, but there was no way to do it without dropping the towel. She settled for stretching first one leg out in front of her, and twirling her foot around, alternately stretching and flexing the tight muscles. She untucked her other foot from under her knee. Her flip-flop flew off and skidded across the floor, bumping into Helmut’s big toe.