The Art of French Kissing (7 page)

“But believe me, Emma, he’s going to be so big!” Poppy enthused. “He really has it all!”

“Including a mental problem,” I muttered as we slipped out of the kitchen and through the darkened dining room, which was closed and silent at this late hour. We silently hurried toward the lobby, keeping our faces turned away from the press mob and trying to look casual. But as soon as we rounded the corner and saw the elevator all the way across the room, we groaned in unison.

“We’ll never be able to get to it without the reporters seeing us,” I said.

Poppy nodded and rolled her eyes. She looked around for a moment. “There’s a stairway over there.”

I darted after her. She pulled open the heavy doorway, and we both slipped inside.

“I hope you’re in shape,” she said as we began to climb. “Guillaume is in the penthouse suite on the twelfth floor.”

“The twelfth floor?” I groaned, craning my neck to look up at stairs that seemed to go on forever. “I didn’t think the French built tall buildings.”

“Evidently, they made an exception here,” Poppy said drily. “It’s where Guillaume always stays when he’s writing music.”

Six minutes and a dozen excruciating flights of huffing and puffing later, we emerged to find the maroon double doors at the far end of the hall flanked by two enormously beefy, stern-looking men, one of whom had a Salvador Dalí–style mustache that looked designed for twirling, quite an odd sight on a man who could probably snap me in half if he so desired.

“Thank God,” Poppy said, still panting from our climb. “Edgar and Richard are here!”

“Who?” I asked, gazing skeptically at the two strange-looking giants who stood between us and our errant rock star. This was getting weirder by the moment. But Poppy was already striding down the hall toward the enormous men, smiling and saying something in rapid French to the Dalímustached man. He stared at her for a moment, impassively, then reached out and pulled her into a bear hug. She exchanged a few words with the other beefy guy, who also broke into a grin and reached over to muss her hair.

“Emma,” Poppy said, finally pulling away from him and smiling at me. “This is Edgar.” I reached out hesitantly and shook his massive hand. “And this is Richard,” she added, gesturing to Edgar’s mustacheless twin.

“Nice to meet you.” I shook his hand, too, and then looked to Poppy for an explanation.

“Edgar and Richard are two of KMG’s bodyguards,” Poppy explained, beaming. “I had no idea they were here! This is fantastic!”

Edgar said something to me in rapid French, and I shook my head.

“Je ne parle pas français
,
”
I recited—one of the only French phrases I had memorized, the one that meant “I don’t speak French.” “Sorry.”

“It eez not problem,” Edgar said, shaking his head and speaking in slow broken English. “I taked ze English in ze school. I just tell Poppy that no
journalistes
enter here. Me and Richard, we, how you say, we block ze way.”

“Well, thank you,” I said.

“Merci beaucoup!”
Poppy beamed. She turned to me. “We’re in luck!”

I raised an eyebrow at her. Somehow, even with this latest turn of events,
luck
didn’t seem like the proper word to apply to a situation that involved standing on the twelfth floor of a hotel outside a crazed rock star’s room, while a gang of hungry reporters waited for us downstairs.

“So, Edgar, can you tell us what is happening?” Poppy asked.

“Oui
,
”
he said, nodding solemnly. “After dinner, Guillaume bring four, how you say, er, young ladies to
la chambre
, er, ze room,” he began.

“You were with him?” Poppy asked.

“Oui
,
”
Edgar confirmed. “KMG ask us to stay with him tonight. But he keep losing us.” The man rolled his eyes. “Now,
on est dans un beau pétrin.
”

“What?” I glanced at Poppy for clarification.

“It’s an expression that means ‘We’re in a fine mess now,’ ” Poppy translated softly.

“You can say that again,” I said.

Edgar looked at me strangely and shrugged. “Okay. Eef you wish.
On est dans un beau pétrin.
”

I took a deep breath and reminded myself to be careful using English expressions. “Edgar,” I said. “Can you tell us what happened once they got to the room?”

Edgar nodded. “The music, it go on,” he said, glancing at Richard, who was staring impassively forward. “And we hear ze laughter from ze room. Guillaume, he order ze food in ze room, and
le serveur
who deliver ze food, he notice ze girls.
Les journalistes
, they arrive twenty minutes later, so we think it was
le serveur
who call them.”

“Did any of the paparazzi make it up here?” Poppy asked.

“Oui
,
”
Edgar responded. “But we make them to go away. Now they wait like—how you say—vultures, down ze stairs. They wait to catch Guillaume and his girls to leave.”

“Do you know what they’re doing in there now?” I asked, nodding toward the door. Edgar and Richard exchanged glances.

“Non
,
”
Edgar said slowly. He glanced nervously at Poppy.

“It’s okay, Edgar,” she said. “Emma works with me. She’s going to try to help get Guillaume out of this. You can be honest with her.”

Edgar stared at Poppy for a moment then turned to look at me.

“There are drugs,” he said slowly. “But there are always drugs. Guillaume, he does not do ze drugs. He never do ze drugs. But the girls, they do ze drugs. Guillaume, he is just crazy. He does not need ze drugs to be crazier. As we say in French,
il est marteau.
And I think he make ze love with ze girls.”

“
All
the girls?” I asked, incredulously. I wasn’t sure whether to be disgusted or mildly impressed.

Edgar laughed. “I do not know. Is that not what ze rock stars do?”

I cleared my throat. “So Guillaume
isn’t
on drugs. But the girls might be?”

“Oui.”

“Which ones?” I asked. “Which drugs?”

Edgar glanced nervously at Poppy again.
“La cocaine
,
”
he said finally.

“We’re going in,” I said suddenly. Edgar looked at me in surprise.

“We are?” Poppy asked. I sighed and looked at my watch. It was now two thirty in the morning.

“Yes,” I said, trying to sound confident. Edgar and Richard glanced at each other then at Poppy, who shrugged as if to say,
I guess we’ll just have to follow the whims of the crazy American.
That’s right. They would.

I raised my hand to the door and knocked. Nothing happened. I waited a moment, cleared my throat, and raised my hand to the door again.

“There’s no answer,” Poppy pointed out helpfully a moment later, after I’d stood staring at the doorway for what felt like a small eternity, willing some sort of reaction from inside.

“Yes, I see that,” I said and knocked again. Still no reply, although I could have sworn that the decibel level on the blasting music went up a notch or two.

“Bon, je vais frapper à la porte,”
Edgar said. “Let me try knocking, Emma.” He pronounced my name
Ayma
, but as far as I was concerned he could call me Bob as long as he figured out how to get Poppy and me into Guillaume’s suite.

Edgar pounded on the door so hard that I feared it might actually come crashing off the hinges. Still no answer. So he pounded again, even harder and more violently this time. A moment ticked by, and then inside, the music suddenly screeched to a halt.

“Qu’est-ce qui se passe?”
came a slurred male voice from inside.

Edgar shouted something in rapid French through the door. To me, he whispered, “I told him to open ze door, because there are two more ladies who want to join his party.”

“Good plan,” I said.

A moment later the door opened, and framed in the entry stood the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.

“Meet Guillaume Riche,” Poppy muttered.

I know it’s not polite to stare, but I figured that the dark-haired Adonis in front of me was probably used to it. Six feet tall or so; with his thick, dark, shaggy hair, emerald-green eyes, and perfectly chiseled face, Guillaume was literally breathtaking. As in, I had to take several deep breaths in order to pretend that I was annoyed at him, not attracted to him. He was a thousand times hotter in person than in any photo I’d ever seen. It didn’t help me that he was wearing only low-slung jeans, unbuttoned at the top, and that his shirtless physique was absolutely perfect.

“Ah, Poppy!” he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up as he focused on her. “You have come to join my party!” He turned his gaze to me and studied me intently before grinning again. “And you have brought a friend, I see!” he added.

I continued to stare dumbly at him, marveling at the fact that his English was much cleaner and less accented than I would have suspected. Had he been able to pronounce his
r
’s correctly, and had he not drawn out the ends of the words
Poppy,
party,
and
see
so dramatically, I would almost have been able to believe that he was American instead of French. I hadn’t expected such English proficiency.

“Emma, meet Guillaume Riche,” Poppy said hastily, nodding at him, then at me. “Guillaume, this is Emma.”

“Ah, Emma, you are beautiful!” Guillaume replied with a wink that made me blush. He reached forward and planted a kiss on each of my cheeks, French-style. “Just my type!” He took my hand in his and kissed it.

“I didn’t bring her to add to your harem, Guillaume,” Poppy interrupted. He looked questioningly at her and then back at me. “She’s your new publicist.”

Guillaume looked back at me, still clutching my hand. I forced a smile. He studied me for a moment more, then grinned sheepishly.

“Right!” he exclaimed. “I knew that. I meant she was just my type of publicist. Really, Poppy. You always suspect the worst.”

“Right,” Poppy muttered. “I’m sure that’s entirely unfounded.”

“So, uh, what exactly is going on here, Guillaume?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips and trying to sound tough. But Guillaume just looked amused.

“I’m having some drinks with a few friends, Emma,” he announced brightly, wobbling just a bit as he said the words. “It’s totalleeeee innocent.”

“I’m sure,” Poppy said, glaring at him and then poking her head into the hotel room. I followed her gaze inside, where four girls, who looked like they could be in high school, were flitting around in various stages of undress. One was sniffing and wiping at her nose, which seemed to support Edgar’s assertion about the cocaine. My heart sank. Guillaume followed our eyes and shrugged.

“We were just playing a little bit of strip poker,” he added. He arched an eyebrow. “I’m winning. Good for me!”

“Yes, excellent for you,” Poppy said, glancing past him to glare at a wispy blonde wearing just white panties and a matching cami, who glided through the room toward the bath.

“Don’t they have underage laws here?” I whispered. Poppy nodded.

“Oh, sweet Emma, they are not underage!” Guillaume exclaimed, having apparently overheard. “I wouldn’t be that foolish! I checked all of their IDs before inviting them here!”

I just stared at him, dumbfounded, until Poppy took over.

“Damn it, Guillaume!” she exclaimed. “You know we’re launching your album in less than four weeks! You
know
how much KMG has invested in you. Do you know how many photographers and reporters are in the lobby waiting to destroy your perfect image?”

“So it’s good publicity!” Guillaume exclaimed brightly, wobbling a bit as he said it. He glanced at me, seemed to have trouble focusing, then shook his head and looked away. “All press is good press, right?”

“Wrong,” Poppy said firmly. “You
know
we’re trying to portray you as Mr. Perfect. Clearly, you’re determined to make sure I fail miserably at that task.” She sighed and looked around the room.
“Allez-y!”
she said, making eye contact with each of the girls and clapping commandingly. “Let’s go! Everybody out!”

She spoke a few sentences in French to the girls, who suddenly looked worried and scrambled to put their clothes back on.

“What on earth did you say?” I whispered.

“I told them we had called the police, and they’re on their way,” she said. “Sentences for drug use in France are pretty severe.”

“Poppy!” Guillaume exclaimed, watching dejectedly as the girls scrambled to get dressed. “You are ruining my fun!”

She fixed him with a glare. “One of these days, Guillaume, you are going to get into a mess we can’t get you out of.”

Guillaume shrugged sheepishly. Then he turned to me and winked, as if I were his conspirator.

I swallowed hard and tried to look annoyed instead of smitten.

Chapter Six

T
en minutes later, Poppy and I were riding an elevator in silence toward the ground floor with Guillaume wedged between us. Edgar and Richard had helped sneak the girls down the back stairs and out the service entrance by disguising them in bellboy outfits Edgar had found in a storage closet on the eleventh floor.

“I don’t see why I can’t just sneak out, too,” Guillaume grumbled.

“Because
,
”
Poppy said sensibly, “everyone knows you’re here.”

“So?”

“So
,
”
Poppy said impatiently, “the only way to deal with this is to act like it was one giant mistake on the part of the guy who brought you room service. There was nothing unseemly going on in your room at any time.”

“I don’t follow your logic,” Guillaume muttered.

“Of course you don’t,” she shot back irritably. “You’re completely mad.”

I stared straight ahead, pretending to myself that I wasn’t trapped in an elevator with two people who sounded very much like they were involved in some sort of lovers’ spat.

“I have no idea what to say to the press,” Poppy had confided in me desperately five minutes earlier while we stood outside Guillaume’s door, waiting for him to put his shirt back on and make himself look as presentable and presumably sober as possible. “I’m so bad at this. I can write the press releases and spin all these stupid situations the next day, but I’m terrible at knowing what to say on the spot. That was what Marie was good at!”

“So why don’t we take some time to think about it?” I had suggested.

“Because we need to go down
now
to distract attention from the girls leaving,” she said. “Because if we wait, someone’s bound to spot them, and they’ll tell the real story.”

“What story will
we
be telling?” I asked.

“I haven’t a clue.” Poppy’s face had clouded over, and she’d looked like she was about to cry.

“Okay,” I’d said slowly. I put a hand on her arm. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.”

So while Poppy and Guillaume bickered during the seemingly interminable elevator ride, I tried very hard to stop finding Guillaume attractive and instead formulate a plan.

“Let me handle the talking, okay?” I said, glancing past Guillaume to an exhausted-looking Poppy as the elevator finally touched down on the ground floor. “Poppy, can you just take care of translating whatever I say into French?”

She stared at me with concern. “Emma, are you sure?”

“Yes,” I said firmly, although of course I wasn’t sure at all.

“I mean, because you don’t have to—”

“I know,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

Fortunately, we had time to have this entire conversation, because the elevator was clearly designed to open as slowly as humanly possible. First it landed, then it locked shakily into place, then the door gradually eked open, and finally we had to push ourselves out of what appeared to be a rusty, gold-chipped cage of some sort, which, in turn, was heavy, unwieldy, and badly in need of WD-40.

By the time we had emerged from the gilding, with flashbulbs exploding frantically all around us, I was ready. Well, as ready as I was going to be, anyhow.

The media interest in Guillaume was far more intense than I had expected. It was like nothing I’d experienced back home with Boy Bandz, even when the 407 boys were at the height of their popularity. Poppy had always told me that European journalists were relentless, especially when it came to celebrity coverage, but I hadn’t expected anything to this degree. There were dozens of clamoring reporters and scores of photographers shouting Guillaume’s name.

I am in control
, I told myself. Realizing that in this situation, at least, I could take charge of something made me feel a little more like myself again.

Filled with this false confidence, I strode out of the elevator, with Poppy following me, herding a sheepish Guillaume between us.

“Mesdames et messieurs
,
”
Poppy said quickly as we approached a makeshift podium off to the side of the lobby. She raised her hands until the crowd of journalists had fallen into an expectant hush. A few flashes went off, and Guillaume grinned for the cameras as if oblivious to the fact that anyone here could wish him ill. “
Puis-je avoir vôtre attention, s’il vous plaît?
May I have your attention please?”

The crowd shushed further and waited expectantly. Poppy stared at them for a moment, like a deer caught in headlights—or at least flashbulb lights. Then she cleared her throat and glanced at me. Guillaume elbowed me gently in the ribs; when I looked at him, he grinned charmingly and batted his thick eyelashes at me. I rolled my eyes and tried not to blush.

“May I present my new colleague, Emma Sullivan,” Poppy said. She glanced nervously at me again and then looked back out at the quieted press corps. “Emma will be making a short announcement in English. I will be translating to French. Thank you.
Merci beaucoup.
”

She nodded, raised her eyebrows at me, and took a step back. I cleared my throat, took a step forward, and forced a smile at the twenty or so journalists who were clustered in front of me, looking hungry, tired, and eager.

“Good evening,” I said formally, stepping forward.

“Bonsoir
,
”
Poppy translated behind me. I drew a deep breath and continued.

“It has come to our attention that there have been some rumors this evening about Guillaume Riche’s behavior,” I began. Behind me, Poppy translated, and as she finished speaking, several hands shot up in the air. I held up a hand, indicating that I wasn’t finished.

“Sometimes, people tell stories for personal gain or call the press for reasons of their own making,” I continued. I debated for a moment whether I should feel badly about calling the busboy’s honesty into question, but after all he
had
been the source of this madness. And wasn’t a hotel guest’s private business supposed to remain private? “I cannot guess at the motives of the individual who called you,” I said, pausing so that Poppy could translate after each sentence. “Or perhaps it was just an innocent mistake. But I assure you, there was nothing unseemly going on in Guillaume Riche’s hotel suite this evening.”

Poppy translated in a voice that was growing more confident by the moment, and again, half a dozen hands shot up, reporters clamoring. I glanced at them and, without meaning to, locked eyes with a dark-haired thirtysomething guy with glasses in the front row who was staring at me with a creased forehead.

He was cute. Very cute. He had classic French good looks: green eyes, thick lashes, darkly tanned skin, and a square jaw darkened by stubble. Unfortunately, he was also wearing an expression of deep skepticism, which made him exponentially less attractive at the moment. I could almost hear the words
I don’t believe you
emanating from him. I cleared my throat and glanced away before I accidentally looked guilty.

“This evening, my colleague, Poppy Millar, and I met Guillaume Riche in his hotel suite to go over plans for the highly anticipated launch of his album in Britain and the United States in three weeks,” I continued, with Poppy hurriedly turning my words into French. I glanced again at the journalist with the glasses, who hadn’t looked away, and my resolve faltered a bit. Why was his gaze making me so nervous? “We’ve been at it for hours,” I said, “and I think you’ll be very pleased with the result at our big launch party in London three weeks from now.”

Poppy translated while I paused to give myself a mental pat on the back for sneaking in a promotion for the upcoming launch—twice. So far, so good.

“The three of us have simply been brainstorming for the past several hours, and I assure you, there hasn’t been anyone else in the room,” I concluded. The lie came out easily, but I didn’t see any other way around the issue. This seemed to be the only way Guillaume could escape from this situation.

More hands shot up, and I took a deep breath and pointed to a sleek, dark-haired woman who looked about fifty.

She asked something in French, her voice tense and clipped.

“She wants to know if you deny the reports that there were four women in the room,” Poppy translated softly.

“Yes, it was just the three of us,” I lied.

“And ze reports that all of you, were, er, without your clothing?” the reporter pressed on in thickly accented English.

“Well,” I said slowly, making sure to appear perplexed by the question. “The suite
was
rather warm, and we’d been working for hours. I do admit that Poppy and I took off our jackets and that Guillaume was in a T-shirt.”

“Reports say you were in your underclothes,” the reporter persisted, glaring at me. “And that there was some sort of card game going on.”

Crap
, I thought. I forced a smile.

“Um, well, I actually had a camisole underneath my jacket, so it may have looked like I was in underclothes,” I said, keeping my voice slow and patient. “And as for the cards, yes, you’ve got us there.” I smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “We took a break and played . . . er . . . Go Fish.”

The moment the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to smack myself in the forehead. Go Fish? Why had I said that? Who plays Go Fish?

“Go Fish?” asked the man in the front row, the one with the glasses, the dimples, and the suspicious expression.

“Yes, it’s a card game where—” I began.

“I know what it is,” the man said in English, sounding surprisingly American for someone who seemed to fit in so well with the European press corps. “I’m just surprised. I didn’t realize Guillaume knew how to play. Guillaume, have you learned Go Fish?”

Guillaume started to respond, and Poppy elbowed him in the ribs.

“Please direct all questions to Emma or me,” Poppy said, fixing the reporter with a stern look.

“I’m sorry,” he replied, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “The whole thing just sounds a little suspicious. In fact, it sounds sort of like Guillaume was probably up there with several girls playing drunken strip poker, and things got out of hand.”

I gulped and glared at the reporter, who was staring evenly back at me with a small smile on his face.

“I’m sorry if that’s the impression you’ve gotten,” I said through gritted teeth, refusing to break eye contact for fear it would make me look like I had something to hide. Which, of course, I did. “But I’m afraid tonight was simply a rather boring evening of organization and planning on our part. Nothing to get excited about.”

I looked deliberately away from the reporter and scanned the room. “Are there any more questions?” I called on a few more reporters, whose queries Poppy translated into English for me, and gave several more safe answers. Yes, Guillaume had been fully clothed the whole time, except for when he had spilled a glass of water and needed to change his shirt. No, we didn’t expect this evening to ruin his appeal to younger listeners, because of course nothing had happened. Yes, he was excited to make his English-language debut. No, he wasn’t ashamed to be standing here, because of course nothing had happened.

I glanced nervously at the dimpled guy a few times. As he gazed evenly back, I had the uncomfortable feeling that he could see right through me.

“You were great in there!” Poppy whispered to me twenty minutes later as the crowd of reporters reluctantly dissipated and we hustled a subdued Guillaume into a stretch Hummer that Edgar had summoned during our impromptu press conference. Véronique had called Poppy to tell her that she’d gotten Guillaume a room at the Four Seasons George V Hotel for the night so that he could stay there in seclusion, with Edgar and Richard guarding his room, until the interest in this story had died down.

“I didn’t
feel
great,” I grumbled as the Hummer made its way down the darkened, tree-lined Avenue des Champs-Élysées toward the Arc de Triomphe. “I felt like a liar.”

“You
did
lie,” Guillaume pointed out helpfully. I glared at him.

“I’m aware of that,” I said. “Which I wouldn’t have had to do if you hadn’t been such an idiot.”

There was a moment of silence, and I could see Poppy’s face tense up. I knew I had crossed a line. I immediately regretted it. You simply didn’t talk to the talent that way. I held my breath, waiting for Guillaume to freak out and demand that I be fired.

But instead, he started laughing.

“I like you, Emma!” he said, grinning at me. “You have spunk!”

I could hear Poppy exhale beside me, and even the impassive Richard smiled slightly.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” I muttered, glancing at Guillaume. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re right,” Guillaume said, still smiling at me. “I
am
an idiot, as you say. But, Emma, it’s what keeps things fun!”

“Fun?” I asked.

“After all, if I was some boring guy who didn’t know how to have a good time,” he said with a wink, “you’d be out of a job!”