“Mr. Lenault! You know Francesca, don’t you?” she asked, pink lips curving.
“Of course I do,” he said, leaning down to give Francesca a brief kiss of greeting on the cheek.
“She just told me she’s a runner,” Elise said. “I’m going to start training with her for the Chicago Marathon.”
“You run?” Lucien asked Elise, disguising his surprise.
“Yes. I started a year ago. It’s good discipline,” she emphasized, the defiant spark in her sapphire eyes meant solely for him.
“I hadn’t realized you two had met,” he added mildly, ignoring her stab at him.
“I introduced myself last night after experiencing the ecstasy of her Essaouira chicken and strawberry crepes,” Francesca said, grinning up at him. “She’s brilliant. Ian and I asked for you at Fusion last night, but they said you weren’t in the restaurant. We had very important news to tell you.”
Francesca was always a lovely woman, but he’d never seen her look quite so radiant as she did when she lifted her left hand. Lucien laughed and gave her a heartfelt hug. He reexamined the exquisite triple-diamond platinum ring on her finger after they’d stepped back from the embrace.
“Ian is a very lucky man,” he told her sincerely. He bounced her hand teasingly. “Are you strong enough to handle such a heavy ring?”
“I’m strong enough,” Francesca told him archly, and he knew she’d precisely understood his double entendre.
He smiled, pleased yet again by Ian’s choice. “I believe you are.”
“Thank you. Ian picked it out himself,” Francesca said amusedly, her eyelids narrowing. “And if you know any different, don’t tell me.”
“He most definitely picked it out himself.”
Francesca beamed at his steadfast answer. “We’re throwing a little get-together at the penthouse Sunday night to celebrate. I hope that you’ll come. You too,” she told Elise irrepressibly.
“Oh, that’s so nice of you to ask, thank you. But . . . I don’t think I can,” Elise prevaricated, her hesitant, meek manner completely unbelievable to Lucien.
“Of course you can,” Francesca insisted. “You told me just now that you hardly know anyone in the city. You’ll love my friends Davie and Justin and Caden. . . . Well, Justin and Caden will love you, in fact, but they’re relatively harmless. And Fusion is closed on Sundays and Mondays, so I know you’re not working. Isn’t that right, Lucien? Tell her.” Francesca glanced at him for assistance. He held Elise’s gaze as he spoke.
“Of course you should go, Ms. Martin. It will do you good to make some friends in a new city.”
Elise’s eyes widened in surprise at his agreeable tone. Clearly she’d thought he’d signal for her to decline the invitation, but Francesca’s sincere request had blocked that option.
“Will you be there Monsieur Lenault?” Elise asked, eyes wide and innocent.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Her slight frown told him she’d understood his subtext. Allow Elise to run wild in the Noble penthouse without supervision?
Not likely.
The following day, Elise glanced up when Sharon walked into the kitchen.
“Lucien would like to see you in his office, Elise.”
The knife she held in her hand stilled at the news. It took her a moment to recover, something she hoped Evan and Sharon didn’t notice. It’d been a seemingly innocuous announcement, after all.
“You can take over here, Evan. You have it down perfectly,” she said with a reassuring smile as she set down the knife. She’d been instructing and assisting Evan in the dressing of a capon. “I’m sure I won’t be long,” she added over her shoulder after she’d washed up.
She coached herself to ignore the butterflies she felt as she walked down the long hallway to Lucien’s office. He couldn’t be requesting the meeting because she’d done anything wrong. Her work ethic had been unquestionable. In fact, she was usually the first one there in the morning, eager to begin cooking. Part of that motivation might have been the depressing dreariness of her hotel room—not to mention a desire to pass Baden Johnson’s room before he awoke from his nightly intoxication—but the point was, she’d been here, ready to work. She’d become an expert at avoiding her leering, malodorous neighbor at the Cedar Hotel.
Her stomach fluttered with anticipation as she knocked on the carved wood door, graphic memories of her former meeting with Lucien in his office flooding her consciousness and mounting her anxiety.
“You wanted to see me?” she asked a moment later when Lucien opened the door. Today he was dressed in black jeans, a simple black crew-neck shirt, and an ivory blazer that highlighted his broad shoulders and the smooth, beautiful color of his skin. He was such a sinfully gorgeous man, some rare, magical blend of unknown origins, the mystery of his existence somehow perfectly fitting the magnetic enigma surrounding him. She recalled how once during her fourteenth summer, she’d bluntly asked him about his ethnic heritage. They’d been fishing off the dock, a pastime they’d both gravitated toward that summer, a simple, wholesome activity that stood in such contrast to the complex machinations of their parents’ business and social lives. It was obvious to anyone that Lucien couldn’t be the natural child of his blond, painfully thin mother, and Lucien towered over his paunchy, balding father. Lucien hadn’t taken offense, probably because he’d sensed her childlike sincerity and simple curiosity.