Page 242 of Theirs to Desire (Club M: Boxed Set)

PROLOGUE

MEL

One year ago

S ome weeks, my job is a breeze. Everything runs like clockwork, and nobody fucks anything up. I can stay in New York, where I can water my neglected plants, eat my vegetables before they get moldy, and get caught up on my overflowing inbox.

This is not one of those weeks.

This week is an epic Grade-A disaster.

I work at Fontaine & Yarrow. My official title is Operations Consultant. My unofficial title is Corporate Ass Kicker. F&Y owns fifty hideously expensive boutique hotels around the world, and when someone does something incredibly stupid, it’s my job to fly out and fix it.

This week, it’s Paris. Pierre Gilbert, the manager of the Fontaine Paris, screwed up, and a wannabe tabloid reporter invaded the very discreet celebrity wedding the hotel was hosting.

Jordan Greene, a famous pop star, was marrying Gabriel Silva, who plays for Juventus and is the captain of the Brazilian soccer team.

Many celebrities tip off the paparazzi themselves, but this wasn’t one of those occasions.

Jordan had been pretty clear about privacy when she chose the Fontaine Paris as her wedding venue.

“I don’t want my wedding photos on the front page of the Daily Mirror,” she’d told Weston Fontaine (Boss #1). “Can you guarantee me that?”

West said yes.

And then Pierre Gilbert, that walking, talking catastrophe of a human being, had gone on a date.

He’d boasted to the woman he was with that he was a huge deal in the hospitality industry.

Ignoring the NDA he signed when he joined F&Y, he bragged about the secret celebrity wedding taking place at the hotel he managed.

By the way, not that I’m keeping score or something, but I told West to fire Pierre more than a year ago.

Pierre’s date—Elodie Dupuis—hadn’t sold us out to the press. But she had told her roommate, Marie, about the Greene-Silva wedding, and Marie told her brother Simon. Simon wanted to work for TMZ, and he decided this was his way in.

So he invaded the wedding.

It was a disaster, of course.

I flew to Paris immediately. ( Does Pierre even care about my dying houseplants? No, he does not.) Usually, it’s just me handling the mess, but this time, I couldn’t contain the shitshow on my own. Both West Fontaine and Robert Yarrow flew out with me.

I handled Simon by paying him an absolutely ridiculous amount of money for the pictures. West and Robert had the more complicated task of soothing Jordan's feelings. They did this by comping the very expensive wedding and by picking up the tab for the honeymoon.

I spent two hundred and fifty thousand dollars buying the photos. The wedding tab was probably a million dollars, if not more. Pierre’s indiscretion cost F&Y a lot of money.

Have I mentioned I told West and Rob to fire Pierre long before this latest disaster? Oh right, I did. I told them that a year ago. And I said it again six months ago. But they hadn't.

‘I told you so’ is probably not a good thing to say to one's bosses. So I’ve retreated to a bar a few doors away from the hotel I’m staying at.

(Not the Fontaine. I’m spying on the competition by staying at the Sayara.) Paris is normally a city I enjoy, but it’s wet, cold, and miserable today.

I’ve found a table by the fireplace, and I plan to stay here all evening long, drinking red wine and nursing my wounds.

A shadow looms over my booth, and a man sets a bottle of wine in front of me. “Go ahead,” West says. “Say it.”

Weston Fontaine. At thirty-six years old, he’s been the CEO of Fontaine & Yarrow for the last eight years.

When he took over, the company had been teetering on the edge of failure.

West looked at the mess he inherited, acted swiftly and decisively, and brought Robert Yarrow on board.

Together, they sold half the hotels, renovated the others, and doubled the room prices.

When the hotel bookings exploded, they doubled the rates again.

Nowadays, F&Y is considered the best boutique hotel chain in the world.

West is rich. Because life is unfair, he’s also gorgeous.

Wavy chestnut brown hair, chocolate brown eyes.

Warm olive skin reveals his Mediterranean ancestry.

He wore a suit earlier today—undoubtedly a custom-made Armani that costs more than my annual salary—but now he’s changed.

He’s wearing jeans and a dark gray sweater, and a blue woolen scarf is wound around his neck.

He should look idiotic but instead looks European and sophisticated.

“How did you know where I was?”

West slips into the booth across from me. He fills the empty glass and pushes it toward me. “I didn't,” he says. “But it's cold out, and it’s drizzling, and you, Mel, are like a cat. You don't like the rain. I figured you wouldn't go far.”

Gah. I didn’t know I was that predictable.

He pulls out his phone. “I'm texting Rob,” he says. “He’s looking for you, too. I turned right out of your hotel, and he went left.”

I pick up the glass of wine and take a sip. I know nothing about wine, but this is significantly better than my first glass. Of course it is. Weston Fontaine probably knows everything there is about wine. For all I know, he might even own a couple of wineries in the South of France.

“What are you doing here, West?”

My boss opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, Robert Yarrow, Boss #2 and Chief Financial Officer of Fontaine & Yarrow, enters the bar.

He takes off his leather gloves and tucks them in the pockets of his charcoal gray tailored coat.

Then he shrugs out of the cashmere garment, looks around for a hanger, finds one, slings the coat on the hook, and makes his way to us.

Technically, I work for West. But Rob owns half of the company, and so, for all intents and purposes, he’s my boss as well.

“God, it’s miserable outside,” Rob grumbles. Drops of water cling to his dark hair. He looks at the table I’ve claimed right next to the fireplace and sighs appreciatively, his ocean blue eyes losing their customary hard edge. “Thank fuck. Well done, Mel.”

Praise from Rob is a rare thing. Warmth blooms inside me, but I push it away. I’m still annoyed with them. “You’re English. Aren’t you supposed to be used to the rain?”

He settles himself next to West and stretches his legs out. “There’s a reason I don’t live in London anymore, Amelia.”

A woman walks past us. She's wearing black pants and a white silk blouse, her hair swept back in a loose chignon. She’s got the effortless air of elegance that the French do so well.

She moves past our table, eyeing Rob and West for a second too long, and then she gives me an approving smile.

Nicely done, her expression seems to say.

Ha. As if.

I take another sip of the excellent wine and survey my bosses with mild exasperation.

My plan for the evening was to drink my wine and think hard thoughts about people—West and Rob—who should have listened to my advice but didn’t.

Them being here is getting in the way of that.

“West was just about to tell me what he’s doing here. ”

“I came to apologize,” West replies. He meets my gaze directly.

In the dim light of the bar, his eyes look almost hypnotic.

“And to say you were right. You told us to fire Pierre. More than once, if I remember correctly. We should have listened to you before the situation blew up in our faces. The drink is a peace offering.”

I think back to his opening words. “You said, ‘Go ahead. Say it.’ Say what?”

“I told you so. I assume you’ve been biting your tongue the whole day.”

Startled as all hell, I laugh out loud. I didn't think I would get fired for the Pierre Gilbert disaster because whatever else Weston Fontaine and Robert Yarrow are, they’re not unfair. Regardless, this had been a very expensive debacle, and I thought that, at the very least, they’d be cranky.

But here they are. Not cranky. And remarkably even-tempered, all things considered.

“I thought you might be annoyed,” I tell them.

“With Pierre, yes,” Rob replies. “With you, no.” He gives me a crooked smile. “You are very good at your job, Mel. When you told us to get rid of him, we should have listened.”

I’ve worked in the corporate office of F&Y for five years and worked directly for West for two. In that time, I’ve learned something. Robert Yarrow has a great poker face, but he has one tell. He only calls me Mel when he’s in a good mood.

Go ahead, West had invited. Say it. I grin at the man across from me. The one and a half glasses of red wine I’ve drunk loosen my tongue. “Since you insist,” I tell him. “I told you to fire Pierre.”

“That’s it?” West lifts one eyebrow. “I thought you’d have more to say.” His lips twitch. “You’re so rarely shy about expressing your opinion, Mel. Why start now?”

Flipping him off is probably a bad idea. “I had a whole indignant speech prepared,” I tell him airily. “But this is a very nice glass of wine, so I’ll let it go.”

Rob laughs and starts to get up. “We shouldn't keep you,” he says. Rob’s lived in New York for eight years and has mostly lost his English accent. It’s only when he’s tired that traces of it come out. “We’re interrupting your evening.”

It’s been a long day, and I’m jet-lagged and exhausted. My body has no idea what time zone I’m in. I’m in a bar in Paris, I don’t have a grievance to nurse anymore, and because of that, I find I don’t want to drink alone.

“You could stay,” I suggest.

Robert tilts his head to one side. “It’s very good wine,” I hasten to add. “But I can’t possibly drink the entire bottle by myself.”

West started to get up as well. He considers my words for a moment and then smiles. “It is very good wine,” he agrees. “It would be a shame to waste it. Rob, you staying, or do you have a date?”