French Kissing Read online

  “You, my friend, have hidden talents,”

  Holden whispered

  The tone of his voice was warm and promising, like hot fudge sauce as it hits ice cream, making it melt.

  “You have no idea.”

  And suddenly Kimi was aware that she was naked beneath a hotel robe, her skin still damp from the bath.

  She could ignore his comment, laugh it off, but she had a feeling she’d only postpone the inevitable. She looked up slowly, let her gaze connect with his. She was beyond delighted with him. It seemed they’d started out on the wrong foot and now they were learning to work together, maybe trust each other. It wasn’t such a big step to indulging in a little extracurricular fling.

  “What hidden talents?” she asked softly.

  Holden reached out, and with one finger followed the path of a damp ringlet from behind her ear, following its path down her neck and to the curve of her breast.

  How far would he go? she wondered.

  How far would she let him?

  Blaze™

  Dear Reader,

  I love fashion. I love shopping for clothes, getting to know the latest trends, putting an outfit together—and oh, do I love shoes. I also love France. I love the food, the wine, the chateaux along the Loire, the fields of lavender in Provence and, of course, Paris.

  So when my editor asked me if I’d like to do a book for LUST IN TRANSLATION, I immediately said, “Put me down for Paris! Can I write about couture week?” Luckily she said oui! It’s tough to complain about your job when it involves reading fashion magazines, attending fashion shows and, naturally, shopping. I hope you enjoy reading French Kissing half as much as I enjoyed writing it. Visit me anytime at www.nancywarren.net

  Happy reading,

  Nancy Warren

  NANCY WARREN

  French Kissing

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  USA TODAY bestselling author Nancy Warren lives in the Pacific Northwest, where her hobbies include walking her border collie in the rain, antiques and yoga. She’s the author of more than thirty novels and novellas for Harlequin Books and has won numerous awards. Visit her at www.nancywarren.net.

  Books by Nancy Warren

  HARLEQUIN BLAZE

  19—LIVE A LITTLE!

  47—WHISPER

  57—BREATHLESS

  85—BY THE BOOK

  114—STROKE OF MIDNIGHT

  “Tantalizing”

  209—PRIVATE RELATIONS

  275—INDULGE

  HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

  1390—THE TROUBLE WITH TWINS

  HARLEQUIN NASCAR

  SPEED DATING

  TURN TWO

  With heartfelt thanks to Carol Crenna

  for answering all my behind-the-scenes fashion

  questions, and to Sharon McKenzie for all the

  years of friendship.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  1

  “I LOVE PARIS in the spri-ing-time” was playing in Kimberley Renton’s mind as she headed to her first big event of couture week in her favorite city in the world.

  Her over-the-top heels clicked like fingers snapping to the beat of the song as she walked along the Rue de Rivoli. Her designer skirt in black-and-white taffeta pirouetted around her. The matching black jacket frowned down at such exuberance while the crisp white card in her hand gave her entrée to one of the best parties in the fashion world.

  As fashion editor for Uptown, one of the most respected women’s magazines in the States, Kimi was in Paris for couture week to see the greatest clothing designs in the world unveiled for the very first time. She had a front-row seat to every fashionista’s fantasy.

  She watched as celebrities arrived at the discreet address of Simone, enjoying her reign as the top French designer. The tabloids, TV and gossip mags would, of course, showcase the stars and starlets who helped give couture week its sex appeal, but she knew that for this one week, she and her kind were more important to the top designers than that pop singer and her movie-producer boyfriend, now stopping for a photo at the top of the red-carpeted stairs, or the recently reconciled A-list stars emerging from their shiny black limo.

  Still, it was fun, in an Academy Awards-night kind of way to watch the hoopla surrounding the celebrities. There were plenty of photojournalists and cameras to document the arrivals. A hundred or so fans and gawkers hung around at the bottom of the steps taking in the show.

  As the black limo glided away, a white limousine pulled up. As the door opened, a muffled scream came from the crowd. Nicola Pietra emerged from the limo and paused, so accustomed to being photographed that she had her trademark sexy but rather sad smile on her face even before the folds of her gown had settled. A waiflike young woman with cascading dark curls and dark, slightly slanting eyes, she was an Italian screen goddess with a gorgeous face and body and searing sexuality.

  Her accent was slight enough to be pretty and she seemed to cultivate the inevitable comparisons with Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. Kimi, half-Italian herself, had enjoyed following Nicola’s rise to fame, first in Italian art films and then in bit parts in American movies, to her current status as bona fide movie star. The actress’s jewels flashed in the glare of the cameras as she waited for Mark Apple, America’s Number One Box Office Stud to join her, and then the pair gave the photographers and fans a few moments to snap and gaze their fill.

  With efficient bodyguards keeping autograph seekers at bay, they walked slowly up the steps arm in arm. Their approaching wedding was causing a frenzy not seen since TomKat had obsessed the world. Like TomKat, Bennifer, Brangelina and Posh and Becks, this couple also had its cutsie moniker.

  Nicola Pietra and Mark Apple had only too easily become ApplePie. And not a slice would be left after the media were done with the pair, Kimi thought, watching the flashing bulbs, and listening to the questions and good wishes shouted in many languages. It was one of the worst-kept secrets in Hollywood that the pair was in Paris for fittings for the wedding dress for their highly anticipated nuptials.

  Even in Paris, a city famous for its disdain of celebrity, there was a crowd out to cheer at the couple. Rumor had it that Mark Apple, whose string of hits seemed to have gone to his pretty head, had tried to rent Buckingham Palace for the wedding. When told he couldn’t rent the queen’s home, he’d attempted to buy the luxurious palace. He’d been quoted as saying that since he had three times the net worth of the Windsors, he was still willing to negotiate a deal.

  Based on the couple’s idea of a wedding venue, Kimi could only imagine what the gown was going to be like, and wait—along with the rest of the world—for its official unveiling this week.

  Prior to the wedding the gown was to be modeled here at the couture show. That was the condition that Simone had negotiated before agreeing to design the exclusive dress. Simone, as full of whims as the bridal couple, was arguably the greatest designer of the new millennium. Her designs were outrageous, unforgettable, and the cost of a g
own was never revealed. It was another of her conditions. She followed the maxim that if you have to ask the price you can’t afford it to the ultimate degree.

  At last, Mark, in Armani, and Pietra in a stunning Valentino gown of crimson silk with a feathered train, entered the hallowed halls of fashion and, almost immediately, the crowd thinned. In a mixture of French, Italian and English, Kimi heard the verdicts. The English comments were mostly about the couple’s looks. He was so much shorter than he looked in the movies, she was too thin.

  The French comments concerned the couture. Armani, how obvious. With her chicken-bone frame, the red was de trop. But the Italians were more forgiving. Such a body. Have you ever seen such gorgeous hair?

  Now that the celebrities had made their entrances, Kimi thought it was safe to follow. As she walked the final few steps to the stairs, she allowed herself one last moment alone with her favorite city.

  A glance up Rue de Rivoli showed a tree-lined boulevard so fashionable it couldn’t exist anywhere else. Lights twinkled and well-dressed pedestrians enjoyed the crisp evening air. If she tilted her head she could see the Louvre as elegant as a lady holding court. The Seine drifted by, never in a hurry, keeping time, it seemed, with the lovers strolling along its banks.

  One of these nights she’d sneak off and enjoy Paris as a tourist, but tonight, she reminded herself, turning back to the fashion house, she had to work.

  As she turned and took a step in the opposite direction she nearly collided with possibly the only unfashionable man in the whole street. She caught a glimpse of a tall, rangy build, hair that was thick and shaggy, a tweed coat that had to have belonged to this guy’s dad—if not his grandpa—worn over jeans that no designer would ever grace with his or her name.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, stepping back from a surprisingly solid belly she’d bumped.

  “You speak English?”

  “Oh. Oui. Yes.” In the shock of the moment she’d forgotten to speak French and from the pleading note in the stranger’s tone, he didn’t understand the language anyway. “Can I help you with something?”

  He pulled out from an inner pocket a white cardboard rectangle very similar to the one she held in her hand. “I’m looking for number 45.”

  She blinked. “Why?”

  Now it was his turn to show surprise. “There’s some party I have to go to. A fashion party.”

  “A fashion party.” Calling Simone’s salon a fashion party was like calling the Mona Lisa a little picture.

  He was looking down at her—and she was a tall woman, so it was an unusual experience—with eyes that twinkled a bit behind intellectual-looking round, steel framed glasses. He was American and if he wasn’t out of his element enough being an American in Paris, he’d shown up to fashion week looking like the American male’s greatest insult to fashion. And the American male excelled at that activity.

  “Yeah. It’s for some fashion designer. You look pretty dressed up. I thought you might know about it.”

  “I do. I’m attending the party myself. It’s right there,” she said, pointing the way.

  He let out a breath. “Thanks. I showed the cabdriver the invitation and he let me out and drove off before showing me which house I wanted.”

  “I don’t want to be rude, but what are you doing here?”

  “I’m a photographer for the Minneapolis Daily Tribune.”

  “I see.” She studied him a little more openly. “What happened to Harold Vine?”

  “Who?”

  How could he be a photographer at the Daily Tribune and not know the man who’d been shooting fashion for the paper for five years? “He’s the usual fashion photographer for the Trib.”

  “Oh, right. Harold. I don’t know. I guess he’s sick or something. They called me in at the last minute. I’m freelance.”

  On further inspection, his outfit didn’t improve. He was wearing a shirt that she dreaded would turn out to be flannel, and his boots looked as though they’d tramped the Himalayas. “You’ve never done this before, have you?”

  “Sure I have,” he said, sounding kind of huffy. “I’ve taken thousands of photographs. Some very difficult to capture, I might add.”

  “I meant you’ve never covered couture week, have you?”

  “Not in Paris, no,” he said, still sounding defensive.

  “I think I would have remembered you.” In fact, she definitely would have remembered him, not only for his total lack of fashion sense, but also for the steamy expression he got when he looked at her, which had her guessing that he would be in the minority of straight guys here this week.

  While she’d been giving him the once over, he’d been doing the same. “Do you live here in Paris?”

  She shook her head. “I’d love to, but no. I live in Manhattan.”

  “Huh. You sound American, but you look European.”

  “The clothes are French. I’m half-Italian, but born and brought up in New York.”

  “Lucky New York.” And she thought, he might dress like a color-blind tramp, but there was something smooth and sexy about him.

  “Shall we?” He pointed to the red-carpeted stairway.

  “You don’t have to change or anything first?” she asked, pointing to the small backpack slung over his shoulders.

  “That’s my camera equipment.”

  “Right.” She shrugged. He wasn’t her photographer and if nothing else, he’d add some interest to the evening.

  They walked up the red-carpeted steps together and she heard her companion murmur, “Fancy.” If he thought red-carpeted stone steps were fancy she couldn’t wait to see his reaction to some of the sights he was going to encounter inside.

  She presented her invitation and was waved through with a polite, “Bonsoir, mademoiselle.” Her companion showed his card and began following her inside.

  “Un moment, monsieur. S’il vous plaît.”

  “Huh?”

  “He wants you to stop.”

  He let out a sigh of annoyance. “What are these, the fashion police?”

  She smiled. “That’s exactly what they are. And if you don’t do what they say you’ll be thrown out on your American ass.”

  She listened to the stream of quick French, picking up enough of it to say, “It’s your backpack. You can’t take it in.”

  He hauled the pack off his shoulder and unzipped it. “Go ahead and search it. It’s camera equipment. I’m a photographer.”

  “They’re French. Not deaf,” she reminded him.

  The head security guy shook his head and addressed his comments to her. “Pas de sacs dans le salon.” He held out an imperious hand.

  “You can’t take the bag in with you.”

  The photographer tightened his hold.

  Inside, she could see the party was in full swing and she needed to get her butt in there and mingle. Besides, this little drama was getting tedious.

  “Hope you work it out,” she said, and with a wave, stepped into the sea of couture.

  The elegant rooms were crowded, and waiters in formal wear cruised through carrying silver trays packed with flutes of champagne.

  Here we go, Kimi thought, sucking in her stomach in one of the few places in the world where a woman five feet eight inches tall and weighing one hundred and thirty pounds could feel fat.

  Everyone here, celebrities, models, designers and fashion lovers was beautiful and thin, or rich enough to fake it. The clothing alone was worth millions and the value of the jewels displayed on famous necks, ears, wrists and fingers was beyond her calculation.

  She took a breath and caught the mingled scents of expensive perfumes. She loved the glitter and shine, the over-the-top glamour.

  Voices spoke in French, Italian, English, Farsi, Japanese and a dozen more languages. She was comfortable in French and Italian, especially here where the conversation remained superficial and about fashion, so she took a glass of champagne that a waiter offered her and stepped forward.

  She began
working the crowd, greeting the journalists she knew, the designers’ assistants who were invaluable to her and some of the models.

  Simone, their hostess, was holding court from a chair that appeared just a little too much like a throne for Kimi’s taste. Simone was gaunt and her eyes shadowed. She was wearing one of her own gowns, in black, of course. She never wore color.

  She spoke in rapid French, her hands never still. The crowd around her hung on every word. Even Nicola Pietra and Mark Apple were, for once, relegated to the background of the scene. This act was all Simone’s.

  Realizing she’d never get near the designer, Kimi glanced around the room wondering who else she should talk to, and her eye was drawn to the photographer she’d met outside. He’d made it inside, though his backpack had not.

  He stuck out in this crowd like a—like a what? She observed him for a moment and it seemed that he was also observing. There was a vigilance about him. He held a glass of champagne as though that would help him blend in, when it only made him more an outsider. Champagne was clearly not this guy’s drink.

  His gaze seemed to be absorbing the brightly colored, chattering beautiful people—and then it hit her, the end of her analogy. He looked like a lone wolf who’d slipped into an exotic-bird aviary. There was something predatory and slightly dangerous about him. His fur might be ragged and dull, but she thought, if the mood struck him, he could cut a swath through this crowd, leaving nothing but a few feathers in his wake.

  No one was talking to him, and if ever a man was out of his element it was him. She wondered if she should take pity on him and introduce him to a few people when she saw he was being approached by Brewster Peacock.