The Fourteen Million Dollar Poodle Read online

  Andre, who'd delivered Mimi's limousineful of her special things before Vince's bemused gaze, had hauled in a case of Perrier, and that had struck Vince as the final straw.

  "You have got to be kidding."

  Andre had sniffed. "It is all she drinks, monsieur."

  "You mean she doesn't slurp Dom Perignon with every meal?"

  "Alcohol is not good for dogs, monsieur."

  "Mimi, my friend," Vince had said, as he looked at all the stuff littering his apartment, "things are going to change."

  The first change he made was to go out and get a couple of cans of dog food. He didn't want to shock her little system too much, so he dumped the stuff on one of her fussy hand-painted plates with the gold rims. He even poured her Perrier into one of the fruity little china bowls.

  She drank a little Perrier, lapping it with her tiny pink tongue, but she didn't so much as acknowledge the existence of the plebian dog food.

  Sooner or later, Vince figured, she'd get hungry, and she'd eat.

  In twenty-four hours it still hadn't happened, and now the dog food had a brown crusty overlayer. He wasn't a cruel man at heart, and he didn't think he could handle it if the dog starved to death.

  He also wasn't going to cook up its special foods. That was plain ridiculous.

  And there was the little communication problem he and his new pet were having. He only spoke English. The dog only understood French. Privately, he thought she was putting him on, but she was doing a damn good job of driving him into the nuthouse.

  What Mimi needed, he realized in a blinding flash of brilliance, was a French nanny. More to the point, what Vince needed was Sophie Veneau.

  The Tyler Agency was amazingly easy to find. Vince made an appointment with the agency's president for later that day—explaining that his case was an emergency.

  The woman who owned the agency tried to convince him that they didn't hire out dog nannies; then she tried to convince him that Sophie Veneau was unavailable.

  Vince smiled at her. He'd ended vicious strikes, negotiated settlements between teamsters and multinational trucking companies. One little nanny agency was a piece of cake. Every time the woman objected, he simply upped the price he was willing to pay. Or that Mimi was willing to pay. With fourteen mil, an extravagant nanny salary was chicken feed to Mimi.

  "Please, Mr. Grange," Ms. Tyler said at last, when she was flustered, torn between her rules and Mimi's money, and he knew he had her, "I can't simply take a nanny away from a family. They have a contract."

  "I'm not asking you to, Ms. Tyler," he assured her. "Naturally, I'll pay the wages of their new nanny until the end of the contract."

  "Well," she hesitated.

  "And, of course, I'll pay an extra bonus to the agency to cover your trouble."

  "Ms. Veneau will have to be agreeable."

  "Of course," he said. After seeing the obnoxious elder daughter, he suspected Sophie would swap her for a poodle any day. At least until she saw the menu plan. But, by then, he'd have her.

  He gave the Tyler woman his phone numbers, a couple of character references, and a hefty deposit.

  "Well," she said, "I'm making no promises, but I'll see what I can do."

  He wasn't surprised at all when he answered his phone later that evening to hear the sexy tones of Sophie Veneau on the other end. Mimi yipped a couple of times when the phone rang, but soon settled back into his lap, the only place she'd stay put when he was around.

  Great. His own personal chastity poodle. Unless he could get her sorted out, his sex life was over. And he wasn't giving that up, not even for fourteen million bucks.

  Some things were priceless.

  "Am I speaking to Mr. Grange?"

  "Yes, but it's Vince."

  "Very well. I understand you want me to be the nanny for your dog."

  It hadn't occurred to him that he might be insulting this woman by trying to hire her for Mimi, and now he was smitten by conscience. "I hope I didn't... I mean, would you be interested at all?"

  Her sigh fell soft as a spring breeze on his ear. "Frankly, it would be wonderful to spend the day with a creature who doesn't keep threatening to report me to the Tyler Agency."

  Vince laughed, the tightness in his chest easing now he knew he hadn't insulted the woman. "So, when can you start?"

  "I understand it is an emergency?"

  "Yes. I can't go to work and leave Mimi. She's ..." He looked down at the ball of fluff too tiny to be so much trouble. "She's a little high-strung."

  "Surely you want a dog trainer, Mr.... Vince."

  "No. I want you."

  There was a moment's silence, and he shut his eyes. "That, as you French would say, was a faux pas."

  She laughed. "It was, indeed."

  "I meant that you speak French and Mimi took to you right away. She doesn't need dog obedience, and she's house trained. It's that she's used to being with people all the time. French people."

  "I see. If you don't mind me saying so, she seems an odd choice of dog for you."

  "I don't mind you saying so at all. I didn't choose her; she was willed to me." It occurred to him that he probably shouldn't explain that Mimi would probably head the Forbes list of the country's richest canines.

  "I see."

  "She's a little spoiled. She has to have her food specially prepared. Could you handle that?"

  "I think so. I'm a very good cook."

  Of course she was; she was French.

  "So, will you give it a try?"

  "Yes."

  "Great. Can you start tomorrow?"

  "You must know I can. The family were quite happy to let me leave early since you're going to pay for their next slave until the contract is up."

  He chuckled. "That bad, eh?"

  "Impossible. Give me your address. And what time tomorrow?"

  When he'd done that, he tried to think of something to say that might keep her on the phone a little longer, but she forestalled him.

  "I'd better get ready for tomorrow, then. I will see you and Mimi in the morning."

  "Good night," he said.

  "Tell Mimi bonne-nuit. A demain."

  "Mimi, she said good night. And I'm pretty sure she said, I de man."

  Three

  Sophie had never imagined when she'd trained at the Cordon Bleu in Paris that she'd one day be called upon to prepare Escalopes de Veau Chasseur for a dog.

  Of course, she hadn't imagined back in those days that she'd end up in New York as a nanny, either.

  Bien sur, there was a demand for a woman who could teach the little Brittanys and Murphys, the Adams and Zacharys, a second, or third, or fourth language while she walked them to school, drove them to ballet, Karate, and Junior Achievers. In her last job, she was also supposed to cook elegant gourmet

  meals for the children of the family so they'd grow up with refined palates.

  She shuddered to think of the number of meals she'd prepared and then quietly thrown out. If a child wanted to eat like a child instead of a sophisticated diplomat, she tended to look the other way. Still, her work was lucrative, and for the most part, she enjoyed it.

  However, she was certain a little dog was going to be no trouble at all in comparison to her usual overachieving charges. And at least she wouldn't have to teach Mimi French as they walked the park every day. La petite chienne was French.

  It wasn't her language skills but her culinary ones that Mimi was in need of. Bah, the stuff that man had put in her bowl was degoutant, when Mimi was obviously used to the best of cuisine. The dog clearly needed her, and she was happy to help.

  No. It wasn't Mimi who put a frown between her brows and a sliver of unease beneath her ribs; it was

  the dog owner who did that. Monsieur Vince was going to be a problem.

  Une grande probleme.

  A big, tall, brawny problem with eyes that were like slow, sleepy sex. She shivered just a little when she remembered the way he'd looked at her.

  Well, she coul
dn't turn down a fellow Frenchwoman in a time of need, especially when her sparkly leash was attached to a man who couldn't speak her language or give her decent food to eat.

  She'd been attracted to him from the first moment she saw him struggling over a French/English dictionary looking huffy and helpless. Though, if he were responsible for the blue rinse in Mimi's hair, she might have to reconsider her attraction to the man. Except there was something so sexy about a big, virile hunk with a tiny poodle in his arms. She got the same melting sensation when she saw a macho young guy with a baby. So sweet, with all that power, cradling such a small creature so he appeared both endearingly clumsy and reassuringly protective.

  She'd dressed for her new job with more than usual care, certain that a dog who sported a fresher manicure than Sophie was going to notice.

  She struggled into the skin-tight jeans she'd bought in Italy last year, paired them with the sage green cotton designer shirt she'd bought on sale at a little boutique off the Champs Elysee. Her boots were from a Prada sample sale, her sweater from Bloomingdales. She was an international fashion maven.

  Since she wasn't about to be outshone in the jewelry department by a canine, she stuck with small gold hoops in her ears and left it at that.

  As she sped to her destination on the subway, she knew she hadn't really dressed for Mimi. Mimi, for instance, didn't care that her lingerie (also French, naturally) was absurdly wispy and utterly decadent. Sophie was Gallic enough, and fatalistic enough, to accept that sexual attraction happened. She couldn't help her unmistakable lust for her new employer. She could, however, decide when or if it should be acted on.

  In this case, she hadn't yet made up her mind.

  Still, her pulse skipped a little when she walked into her new employer's building on Forty-fourth and announced herself to the doorman.

  The dog began barking hysterically when Sophie knocked on the door of 17A. The timbre of the barking changed when Vince opened the door and Mimi clattered across the hardwood floor, her manicured nails like two pairs of castanets.

  No sooner had she sniffed Sophie than her barking changed from hysterical fear to hysterical excitement, as she leaped in the air a few times, then rose on her hind legs and turned three perfect circles.

  Sophie laughed and looked at Vince, who stared at the twirling poodle as if it were a new—and possibly deadly— life form.

  Having twirled seven or eight times, her ears flying around her head like fluffy blue-tinged propellers, Mimi abruptly dropped back to all fours, staggering a little as though dizzy and looking expectantly at her audience.

  Sophie broke into laughter and clapped her hands. "Oh, que tu es adorable!" she cried, at which Mimi, delighted to hear her own language, spun faster. Then she pawed the air until Sophie scooped her up and pressed a kiss to her fluffy head, which appeared to Sophie to have been backcombed.

  She held the dog to her breast as she looked up, and up, at Vince towering over her.

  He wore almost the same thing he'd worn yesterday. Jeans, a T-shirt that revealed muscular arms and hinted at an equally muscled torso, and casual leather tie-up shoes. His hair, she noted, was still damp from his shower.

  "I have to leave for work soon, so we'd better go over the ground rules."

  Such a serious owner for such a sweet little dog. "All right."

  She tore her gaze away from the man who was as magnetic as he'd been the day before, more so in the confines of an apartment where he seemed bigger, his presence more potent. She stepped all the way inside and took her first good look at the apartment.

  Compared to her minute efficiency sublet, this seemed enormous. A big, open room combined living and dining, and she suspected he'd knocked out walls to make one big space. Even the kitchen was open. A couple of large windows offered a view of the Hudson River. The walls were white. For decor he had a calendar from some football team, one very nice, large abstract canvas, and a black-and-white framed photograph of Hell's Kitchen in the twenties.

  His furniture was fairly standard American bachelor fare. A big plasma TV dominated the living area, and a comfy chair, obviously Vince's favorite, faced the TV. A few magazines that looked like sports and business sat on the side table, and a second table flanked a gray leather sofa.

  The kitchen was spotlessly clean but a little sterile. Something she'd soon change.

  "This is Mimi's cookbook," he said, walking her into the galley kitchen and pointing to a binder on the kitchen counter. "She only eats stuff out of there."

  "Really?"

  "Yep. I got some things, but I put some cash in an envelope inside the front cover if you need—I don't know, spices or something."

  "Definitely I will need spices. Don't you have any?" Who could survive without spice?

  "Sure I do." He sent her a grin that made her pulse speed. "Salt and pepper." He tilted his head to one side, and his eyes crinkled at the corners in a disturbingly attractive way. "And mustard. Is mustard a spice?"

  "Not in my kitchen." She understood now what he'd meant when he said his case was an emergency.

  She put Mimi, who was wriggling, down, and the dog pranced down the hallway toward one of two closed doors.

  "And this is where I keep a spare key," he said, pulling open a drawer and taking out a key chain with a tiny football on the end, "which you'll need when you go out."

  She nodded, noting Mimi had reached the door and was scratching. Still listening, while Vince explained how to get in and out of the apartment, she crossed and opened the door for Mimi.

  She blinked. Inside was a double bed with a bright pink satin bedspread and a headboard shaped like a tiara. On it, in silver script, was the word Princess. There were rhine-stones dotted here and there.

  "And this is..."

  "Mimi's room," Vince said sharply.

  "Oh, I'm so relieved," she said, then, realizing how she'd sounded, added hastily, "I mean, it's nice for her to have a place of her own to ..." She broke off when Vince opened the other door as though he needed to prove a point. His cheeks sported a slight ruddiness that hadn't been there before.

  "This is my room," he said. One peek told her it was a shrine to testosterone. A big, sturdy-looking bed with a hefty pine headboard and a plain navy cotton spread that gave off the indefinable air of having seen a lot of action. There wasn't much else in the room. A deep armchair with a reading light beside it, a simple chest of drawers with a dish of change on the top. It was, like the kitchen, clean and simple. Nothing fussy or feminine at all. In fact, Vince could have come from central casting as a rough, tough he-man but for the effete Mimi in his life. From where she was standing she could see into both bedrooms, and her sense that these roommates were a very odd couple grew.

  "Mimi seems an odd choice of pet for you."

  Vince puffed his cheeks and let out a sigh. "I think I'm going to have to explain that to you. Mimi's

  very . . . precious."

  "Yes, she is."

  "What I mean is ... I told you I inherited her from my aunt. She pampered that thing and treated it like a baby. Like the baby of royalty, to be precise. I promised I wouldn't let anything happen to the dog."

  "Oh, how kind of you to look after your aunt's cherished pet."

  He shifted, visibly uncomfortable with her praise, which only made her think him more adorable.

  "I got her a couple of days ago, so we're still getting used to each other. She—uh—sleeps in the other bedroom, in her own pink silk bed." She could have sworn that those rugged, already-stubbly-at-eight-in-the-morning cheeks, deepened slightly more in hue. "Theoretically." He glanced down at Mimi. "She gets lonely, and if I don't let her in with me, she starts barking and whining and scratching on the door."

  She suppressed a smile. "I see." And she did see. The mental picture of that big man in his big-man bed with little Mimi curled up beside him did something to her insides. She was going to have to have a stern talk with her hormones; they were acting foolish. She sighed. Again.

&
nbsp; Well, her hormones hadn't led her too far astray. All the way from Paris to New York, certainly, but she liked it here. Even though she'd soon lost her liking for the young man she'd crossed the ocean to be with.

  "So, you'll need to walk her. And you have to keep her on a leash or she won't come back."

  "It's your French," she said, shaking her head. "That's why she won't come when you call. She doesn't understand. We'll have to work on teaching you some French, oui, Mimi?"