Page 26 of Billion-Dollar Baby Shock

‘Ready to go? ’ Dion asked, a couple of hours later.

Tara nodded. After the dinner there had been a lavish and eye-wateringly extravagant auction, with all proceeds going to the different charities. There’d even been a date auctioned with a well-known Hollywood star who had appeared on the podium.

Now, Tara’s feet were screaming at her. But she forced herself to say, ‘You don’t have to stay and network?’

Dion shook his head. ‘All networked out.’

Tara couldn’t help feeling relieved. And then Dion said, ‘There’s somewhere else we have to go.’

She hoped the disappointment she felt didn’t show. ‘Oh? Okay, great.’

Dion chuckled. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not a social event.’

Tara winced. ‘Sorry, was it that obvious? I mean, this was lovely and amazing but—’

‘After the initial sheen wears off and everyone has got whatever they wanted out of whoever they wanted it from, it’s tedious and boring.’

She shook her head. ‘So cynical. Why do you come, then?’

He shrugged. ‘Because it’s good to be seen and there are always networking opportunities.’

Tara mimed yawning and rolled her eyes.

They were outside now and the car pulled up. The driver hopped out and opened the door for Tara. She got in with a little sigh of relief and slipped off her shoes, wriggling her toes.

Dion got in on the other side and gave instructions to the driver in French and saw Tara’s bare feet. She winced again. ‘Sorry, I’m not used to wearing high heels.’

Dion reached down and grasped her feet and pulled them up onto his lap and started massaging them.

Tara’s pulse-rate tripled in seconds and her skin flushed all over.

And then she groaned out loud when his big hands and long fingers expertly massaged the aching balls of her feet.

She could be very grateful now for the pedicure she’d received earlier from the beautician and her team that had appeared with the stylist.

‘Thank you for earlier, by the way.’

‘For what?’

Tara indicated to the dress. ‘This, and the team… I’ve never had any beauty treatments before. My brothers and sisters used to buy me vouchers for a place but the vouchers always ran out before I could use them.’

The car was pulling up outside a department store and Dion asked Tara what her shoe size was. Bemused, she told him and the driver got out of the car and disappeared into the store. He came back out minutes later with a couple of bags and got back into the car.

Nothing else was said, and Tara was finding it hard to focus anyway, while Dion’s hands were on her feet. One hand was creeping up to circle her calf, and behind her knee.

Little fires were racing across her skin now. She couldn’t look away from his dark golden gaze, as that hand crept higher, above her knee, to her thigh. Tacitly, she parted her legs and Dion’s fingers traced patterns on the delicate skin of her inner thigh, almost within touching distance of—

‘ Nous sommes arrivées, Monsieur Dimitriou.’

Tara looked out of the window and frowned. The car had pulled in at the side of the road. Dion’s hand left its provocative place on her inner thigh. Tara could see the shining illuminated glass pyramids in the square outside the Louvre. She’d been here hours ago.

She sat up, vaguely aware of Dion pulling her dress back down and getting out of the car. He came around to her side and opened the door. He was standing in front of her, holding out two pairs of sneakers fresh from boxes. That was what the driver had been doing.

One of the pairs was white and gold. She looked at the driver, who blushed and said, ‘I have daughters. I know how important it is to…how do you say… go together ?’

Tara was beyond touched by Dion’s instruction to the driver and the driver’s gesture. She nodded and pointed at the pair with gold stripes. ‘They’re perfect.’ She felt ridiculously emotional as Dion bent down and put the shoes on her feet, and laced them up, as if she were a child. Or Cinderella.

When the shoes were on he took her hand and pulled her up to standing. Still not sure what was happening, Tara let him lead her towards the massive iconic art museum. Under the moonlight it all felt a little surreal. She held the dress up a little in one hand to protect it from the ground.

As they drew closer, she could see an open door and a woman in a dark suit waiting for them. She greeted Dion with huge deference and welcomed them in as if this were all entirely normal.

As they followed her into the building, which was completely empty and hushed when only hours ago it had been thronged with tourists, Tara squeezed his hand and whispered, ‘What are we doing here?’ She couldn’t wrap her head around what was happening.

Dion merely put a finger to his mouth and they kept walking. They passed by the statue of the Venus de Milo and Tara nearly tripped. Dion steadied her.

Eventually, their guide stopped at an entrance to one of the rooms and stood back. She put out a hand and said, ‘Please, enjoy.’

They walked in and Tara realised that they were in the room of the Mona Lisa . It was all the way at the other end and Dion walked her towards it. Tara wasn’t sure how her feet were even moving.

They stopped at the barrier a couple of feet back from the painting. No crowds. No jostling. No craning to see past tall people. Just them, and arguably the most famous painting of a woman, in the world. With her enigmatic smile. Looking at Tara as if to say, Back again?

Her vision started blurring and she furiously blinked to keep it at bay. When she felt she could speak she looked at Dion, who was staring at the painting. ‘How…? When…?’

He looked down at her. She noticed that he’d undone his bow tie and it hung loose around his neck. Top button undone.

He said, ‘When you were in the bathroom earlier, I made a call.’

Tara shook her head. ‘This must be costing a fortune.’

Dion’s mouth twitched. ‘It’s crude to talk about money.’

She wanted to say, Please tell me you haven’t done this for anyone else, but she didn’t have the nerve. And maybe it was better not to know.

Then he said, ‘In case you’re wondering, I happen to know someone who was involved with renovations here recently. They put in the call for me. I don’t have the Louvre on speed dial for such occasions.’

Relief swamped Tara. She feigned unconcern. ‘It hadn’t even occurred to me.’

She heard a soft, ‘Liar,’ beside her and restrained herself from elbowing Dion in the ribs. Instead she focused on this moment and this painting and soaked it in.

When she finally let out a deep breath and tore her eyes off the painting, she looked to see Dion standing in front of another painting. She went over and nudged into him with her shoulder. He glanced down at her. That emotion bubbled again. She forced it down.

‘Thank you so much… I can’t tell you how special this is. To be here, like this.’

‘You’re welcome.’

Tara was trying really, really hard not to read anything into this extraordinary gesture. As they made their way back out of the huge room, she said, ‘You mentioned that you’d seen the painting years ago.’

‘Yes, I took it upon myself to educate myself and I went around Europe to all of the major tourist sites and museums and galleries. So that I’d be ready to be accepted into a section of society that had never been meant for me.’

Tara was deeply touched at the thought of a studious Dion making up for the lack of his education like that.

Striving to earn his place among his peers.

Learning about all the cultural reference points.

She stopped him by putting a hand on his arm and said a little huskily, ‘You have as much of a right as any of those people we were with earlier to be in their space.’

* * *

Dion looked at Tara and her kind eyes and words were making something completely alien fill his chest. It was expanding and breaking down years-old hardness. Protection. Leaving him exposed. Vulnerable.

In a bid to negate it, defuse it, he stepped up to Tara and put a hand around the back of her neck and tugged her to him, slanting his mouth across hers.

She was smaller in the flat shoes and it made him feel protective.

She’d looked like some kind of a New Age sprite in that dress, standing on tiptoe leaning on the rail to see the picture better.

Tendrils of hair coming loose from the chignon, falling down to her shoulders and around her face.

He’d made the decision to come here on a whim because she’d looked so disappointed and he’d wanted to make her happy.

It hadn’t been an extravagant billionaire’s gesture to woo a woman.

It had been much more prosaic. And dangerous.

Because he’d seen her eyes, suspiciously bright. The way her throat had worked.

He pulled back from kissing her and she took a moment to open her eyes. Swirling blue and green. Oceans of emotion. Dion said, ‘This is all that matters, Tara, and it will burn out.’

Her eyes became guarded. She tensed. Dion hated how he automatically wanted to kiss her again to undo that change.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I know exactly what’s happening here.’

She was pulling away, walking ahead, through the vast empty halls of the Louvre, her back as straight as a dancer’s, her bearing as regal as a queen, and Dion felt as if he’d just ruined something very special, and yet he’d had to do it.

* * *

Tara refused to let Dion’s reminder not to read too much into his gesture bring her down. She wouldn’t let it ruin the most precious and amazing thing anyone had ever done for her.

They were silent on the journey back to the hotel. When they got up to the apartment Dion turned to Tara and started saying, ‘Look, I’m sorry but I—’

She walked up to him and put her hand over his mouth. Then she took it down and said, ‘I know. It’s okay, Dion.’