Hotel Vendome

“That was fun,” he admitted sheepishly. He liked the excitement and helping her. He had chatted quite a bit with the police.

“Don’t say that to my father,” she said with a grin. “He hates that stuff. It upsets people. It takes a lot of effort to make it up to them later. He probably won’t charge for any of the rooms tonight. You pretty much have to do that, even though it’s not our fault.” She had finally collapsed on the couch next to him and looked tired as she took her shoes off. She’d been out there in her navy suit and high heels all night, looking very competent and official and older than her years. It was hard for Brad to believe sometimes that she was only twenty-one, but she looked it now with her jacket off, as she loosened her long hair from the bun, and it cascaded past her shoulders. And suddenly the dusting of freckles on her face looked more apparent too. She had gone from woman to kid in two minutes. And as he smiled at her, he leaned over and kissed her, and she melted into his arms.

“You look so sexy when you let your hair down,” he whispered, and suddenly after all they’d done that night, they were both over-come with desire for each other. It had been a busy evening, and instead of tired, both of them were wound up, and it found expression in a suddenly insatiable hunger and passion, more than ever before. Their excitement had been building for two months. And before either of them could stop or wanted to, they were making love on the floor. They had waited a long time for this, by mutual agreement, and now nothing could stop it. They were breathless and spent afterward and laughed as they held each other.

“Ohmygod, what happened?” he said as he looked at her. He had been hit with a tidal wave of longing for her so powerful that nothing could have stopped it. And he felt it mounting in him again.

“I’ve been wanting you so much,” she admitted to him, as they both got up, and then laughing again, he raced her to the bedroom, where they both dove into the bed, still giggling. Being with him was fun. It had none of the intensity and eventual boredom and dishonesty she had experienced with Francois in Paris. This felt so right, and they seemed so well matched. She liked hearing about his experiences at law school. And he was fascinated by the hotel and most of all by her.

They made love twice more that night, and he spent the night with her for the first time. He had to get up early the next morning for a class, and she ordered breakfast for him, and then put on running clothes, and walked him to the subway when he left. She was on her way back when she ran into her father and Natalie coming out of the elevator, dressed to leave the hotel in comfortable clothes. It was seven A.M.

“What are you two doing going out at this hour?” Heloise asked them without thinking, as her father avoided her eyes, and Natalie looked vague.

“I have an early morning meeting,” she said after a strange pause, but she wasn’t dressed for it. She always dressed impeccably for her meetings, and she was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and sandals, which was totally unlike her. And they were obviously in a hurry to leave. Natalie said she’d call her later, Hugues was already outside, and Heloise went upstairs to take a shower. She’d had an incredible night with Brad. He texted her from his class a little while later and told her that he loved her and she was the sexiest woman in the world. It wasn’t the first time he had told her he loved her, but it was the first time they had made love. And it had been unbelievable. All she wanted now was more.

When Natalie got into the taxi, she looked nervously at Hugues. “Do you think she knew something?”

“No,” he said, putting an arm around her to calm her. “I don’t think she’d ever imagine it. And we’re not doing anything wrong.” She had waited a lifetime for this, without even knowing that she had. Hugues had been giving her hormone shots for three months, which were making her seriously jumpy, and they were on their way to the fertility clinic they’d been going to, for the implantation of four fertilized embryos. They had retrieved her eggs and were putting them back, fertilized by Hugues’s sperm, today. The egg retrieval had been a painful process, today was going to be much easier for her. And then they’d have to wait to see what happened, and if the fertilized embryos would stay. They had wanted to try and get pregnant naturally, but at her age, with weak hormone levels, they’d discovered, her doctor had recommended IVF.