Hooked Up: Book 2 (20 page)

She wrinkled her nose and gazed at me, love dancing in her blue eyes, “I’d be happy with a ring made of tin as long as the world knew I belonged to you. And, as for HookedUp going through a rough patch? I make enough money for us both to live on. We won’t starve, don’t worry.”

You see, that’s why I wanted to marry this girl. She didn’t care about money. She was genuine and true. She didn’t show even a flicker of disappointment about not being given a ring.

I led her back to our table and poured us both some more champagne and looked over to the saxophone player and gave him a quiet nod. He began to play
Manhattan Serenade
, and then the waiter brought out a tall, tiered cake, covered in fresh white lilies.

“Cake?” Pearl exclaimed. “And such a grand one? This beautiful evening has me speechless.”

“It’s not just any cake,” I said with a wink. “Here, I’ll cut you a slice.”

“Really, I’m sure it’s delicious but I don’t think I can eat anything more,” she said, patting her stomach. “Can we do a doggie bag?” she half joked.

“What? And let Rex get his chops all over this masterpiece? Just a small slice,” I insisted, cutting a large chunk.

“Really, I couldn’t, I’m so full . . . what on earth is that inside . . . it looks like . . . Alexandre, what the . . . ?”

I pulled out a small red box from inside her slice of cake, licking the icing from my fingers and wiping the box with a napkin. “Open it,” I said. “Go on, it won’t bite.”

Pearl gingerly took the box and bit her bottom lip in concentration, bracing herself—maybe for a ring made of tin? She looked at me, and then at the box again. She opened it and gasped. It was almost the sort of gasp she made when she came—blown away, as if in shock, as if that sort of thing could never happen to her.

“You like it?” I asked with a sideways grin. How could she not? But then again, after what I’d said about HookedUp being in trouble, she might have imagined this ring was from a Cracker Jack box. It was so flashy, so ridiculously sparkly that it could have been fake.

“Alexandre Chevalier,” she said. “Alexandre Chevalier . . . what am I going to do with you?”

“You’re going to marry me,” I said.

I
N THE NEXT couple of months that followed, I got to know a new facet of Pearl’s nature: her stubbornness.

She refused virtually every offer of mine.

“Pearl,” I implored, as we strolled through Central Park with Rex, golden orange leaves falling before our feet, “please be reasonable. See sense. I don’t want to do a bloody pre-nup.” I took her by the hand and stood in front of her. She needed to look into my eyes. She wanted to sign this unromantic contract stating that if we were to ever split up she would take nothing that wasn’t hers before the wedding.

She sighed and said, “Alexandre, I’m just being practical. You’ve worked so hard for your money.”

“I’ve worked hard so I can share it with someone special, have a family, live a real life. I don’t give a shit about the money itself.”

“Ah, you say that, but what about your fancy classic cars, your house in Provence which needs looking after, your apartment, and Rex’s nanny? That stuff doesn’t come for free.”

She was right. I’d gotten so used to having money I didn’t even think about it. “
Our
apartment,” I corrected her. I laced my fingers through her thick mane and drew her close to my face. “Anyway,” I said, with a brooding look in my eye. “I will. Not. Hear. Another. Fucking. Word. About. A. Pre-nup. Is that crystal clear?”

She threw her head back and laughed as Rex jumped up on me, concerned about the raucous I was making. “You see? You’re upsetting Rex when you’re so bossy!”

I walked along, silently brooding. Furious with her stubbornness. I’d have to fuck that out of her later, when we got home from work that evening. Make her acquiesce to my wishes. Worse than the pre-nup nonsense, was the wedding itself. She’d decided to wait until winter—had always, she told me, fantasized about a white wedding. But I knew the real reason. She was testing me. Using our engagement as a trial period to make sure she was doing the right thing. Fair enough, but it did little to ease my anguish . . .
Many a slip twixt cup and lip.
Why, I asked myself, couldn’t we just get on with it? She was stalling, and I didn’t know the real reason behind her breezy, casual façade.

“White wedding,” I mumbled, knowing at least that Sophie had made amends and was paying for a designer wedding gown that was going to cost her a cool seventy grand. “We could get married right here, today. Have a
golden
wedding—all these autumnal colors—wouldn’t that be beautiful? In the boathouse, right here in the park? I could serenade you in one of those little boats like a Venetian gondola man and sing you that Italian aria. And Rex could be our witness.”

Pearl laughed again and nuzzled her head into the side of my neck. Hmm, she smelled so wonderful; the essence of woman, of sweet, sensual delight. The sort of smell that cannot be described however hard you try. She was sensual, all right, but as stubborn and unpredictable as a beautiful wild rose.

She stroked her hand over the bicep of my arm and nipped her bottom lip between her teeth. I could feel my cock flex. Yup, I’d really fuck her good and hard when we got home. I couldn’t wait.

“You know, Alexandre,” she said squeezing my arm, “you must be about the fittest male specimen I have ever laid eyes on.” Then she slapped her hand on her mouth and cried, “No! How can I say that? There is someone, who, I have to admit
does
have a better body than you. Is even more toned than you. Maybe stronger. I know it’s cruel to be honest . . . but . . . ” She winced with a pitiful, sympathetic look on her face.

Slam!
A wave of jealousy surged through me. I squinted my eyes at her and asked coolly, “Who?” I imagined my leg swinging into this character’s chest and knocking him down flat in one, easy, Taekwondo kick—I’d show him who was stronger.

She burst out laughing again. “So easily roused with envy, aren’t you?”

“Who is this buffed-up character?”

“Well,” she began, “he’s black.”

“A black guy?”

“Black and very beautiful. Younger than you. Loves running. Very active. Friendly. Handsome. Adorable. Actually, it was love at first sight. The second I saw him I knew he was special. Stole my heart, really. Definite competition for you, Alexandre. I mean, I know I shouldn’t be saying this to my own fiancé, but it
is
the truth.”

I finally twigged. I pinched her butt, teasingly. “So wicked, aren’t you? So
femme fatale
to get me worked up about my own bloody dog! I knelt down and Rex came bounding up to me, skidding along the wet leaves, careening into me like a block of concrete. “Black and beautiful, friendly, adorable and very . . . ” I slapped my hand against his rock-hard thigh muscles, “
very
compact.”

Pearl knelt down, too. She was dressed for work, wearing her sexy, navy blue suit. She kissed me lightly on my nose and whispered, “I love to provoke you, love it when you get just that
little
bit jealous.”

“What, me? Jealous? Don’t be silly,” I said. “I knew you we’re kidding all along,”—I winked at her—“I’m far too self-assured to let envy get in my way. You’d better get yourself to work, chérie, or you’ll be late. I’ll walk you there.”

We made our way behind the Metropolitan Museum, where we could cut through the park to her new office building.

In an attempt, not only to cement Pearl’s career and make her dream come true to work in feature films, but to also keep her under my wing, I’d bought out the company she worked for, Haslit Films, making it part of a new firm, HookedUp Enterprises. It was separate from HookedUp and had nothing to do with Sophie. I designed the deal so that Pearl and her ex boss Natalie could be equal partners.

But Pearl wouldn’t accept HookedUp Enterprises as a gift. No. That stubbornness again. Stubborn as the hook of a woman’s bra on a first date. Pearl would only accept the position as director, working for a salary, refusing a share—just a percentage of future deals, instead. With me as silent partner. No special favors. She even insisted on having a contract drawn up with lawyers. She was the consummate professional—very irritating for me. I could have made her an extremely wealthy woman. But there was no way in this world I was going to convince her to take the profit and call the company her own.

She wanted to
earn
her riches, herself.

Another thing: she refused to sell her apartment. Just in case.
In case of what,
I wondered? She was renting it to someone on a one-year lease, while living with me, but
would not sell it. It was her nest egg
, she explained. I tried to convince her that she could have thousands of nest eggs. All the bloody eggs she could ever dream of. Enough to make soufflés with. Omelets. But no. She wanted it
her
way. Financial independence from me, obviously.
Just in case.
She felt she had to prove herself.

I supposed it was from all those years of being self-sufficient. Two people had died on her: her brother, John, from an overdose, and her mother from cancer. Her surfer-dude dad had abandoned them when she was just a little girl, and Anthony, her other brother, was a self-centered jerk, or had proven himself to be, thus far.

Pearl was used to fending for herself, and however hard I tried to cajole her, to comfort her into believing that I could look after her, and
would
look after her, she was adamant that she could do it all on her own.

That should have been a warning siren, but I just put it down to her pride and a reluctance to change the status quo.

I had told her that I felt more comfortable with “a mature woman who had lived, who had suffered knocks and bruises,” but I was beginning to pay the price; Pearl didn’t trust me a hundred percent, however much in love she was.

All in good time,
I told myself as I gazed at her beside me, her golden hair shimmering in the morning autumnal sun. I needed to be patient. She had a broken wing that had not completely healed.

At that point, I still didn’t know what, or who, had broken that delicate wing.

I
LAY BETWEEN the glorious Egyptian cotton sheets in Alexandre’s bed, relaxing against the plumped-up pillows. I felt satiated. Complete, both physically and spiritually. Beyond satisfied. More glorious lovemaking had left me feeling like the luckiest, most appreciated woman in the world.

Of all people, I knew what it was like to be stuck in a sexual desert without another human being to fulfill my needs. For almost twenty years I had convinced myself that work could be a substitute. I’d given up. I’d learned to be self-sufficient in every way—yes, in
every
way—and I never, in a million years, believed that at forty years old I would meet anyone special, let alone a man fifteen years my junior. And not only a younger man than me, but ridiculously successful, kind, devastatingly handsome, and last but not least, a veritable god in bed.

And to top it all off; completely in love with me . . .

Alexandre Chevalier.

I still felt as if I had walked into a modern day fairy tale.

It was tough being riddled with insecurities the way I was. Hard to believe that a man so gorgeous could covet you and feel the same intensity of passion that you felt for him. Yet there he was, Alexandre Chevalier, co-founder of the social media sensation, HookedUp—a company that had taken the world by storm and, at the tender age of twenty-five, had made him into one of the wealthiest men in the world. There Alexandre was, wanting to date
me
.

And if that wasn’t enough, he had chosen me, Pearl Robinson, a forty year-old with my girl-next-door looks, to be his
wife
.

Yes, I decided,
I do believe I’m dreaming
.

I looked at my left hand, which I was turning this way and that, and admired my diamond engagement ring; proof that all this was real. It was glinting, catching rays of morning sunlight that was pouring in through the long bedroom window. The ice-blue silk drapes were half open. Alexandre hated to sleep with them closed, as if darkness could swallow him up at dawn.

I’d learned a lot about Alexandre in the two months since we’d been engaged. There was a shadow that lived within, a dark mood that could encompass him at times, and it frightened me. I could never be sure when it would possess him, but it was there, deep inside his soul. He was a damaged man—that much I knew. Yet he seemed to be an expert at hiding the phantoms that lurked within.

So far, I had only seen glimpses.

I too tried to hide any gremlins from my past. Some things were better left unsaid. We were still getting to know each other.

I could hear him now, next door in the en-suite bathroom. The faucet had just been turned off. I pictured him in my mind’s eye; water trickling from his lightly tanned chest, his biceps flexed deliciously as he dries himself, his strong, muscular thighs, the ripples of his stomach and his wet, almost-black hair—wayward and mussed-up—framing the even features of his handsome face.

I thought of our lovemaking, just ten minutes earlier, and a shiver of lust shimmied through my body. I could not get enough of him. He possessed my psyche. I had never needed anybody as I needed him. But I tried to keep myself cool, calm and collected, even though I was on fire inside.
He mustn’t know the apprehension that envelops me—the fear that I could be flung back again into the desert, abandoned with no water—on my own once more
. And when I said “on my own” I didn’t mean literally so. Because you can be with a mate and still feel like an island—as I felt with my ex-husband Saul. I had blamed myself for my frigidity, my inability to reach orgasm through sex which, if I remembered correctly, happened in my early twenties, after I’d split up with my first boyfriend, Brad.

I had thought I was a lost cause until I met Alexandre. He intrinsically understood me (and my body). Maybe that was why I was hooked on him. Sexually. Mentally. But I tried to keep that to myself. Nothing like a needy woman to scare a man away. And one as hot as Alexandre? I had to hold onto my independence, my self-possession.