Pleasure Games
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“Mettez-vous par terre!” a deep male voice shouted.
She turned toward the voice but nothing about the man behind her made sense. It was like she’d stumbled upon the set of a movie and her already muddled brain was having a hard time computing why a man would be wearing a ski mask in spring and brandishing a crowbar.
To her bewilderment, he strode forward and smashed the display case she’d been leaning on with one massive blow.
What the...?
“Écoutez-moi!” He shouted right in her face.
So weird. Was she dreaming? Because this whole thing had an otherworldly quality to it and it just got worse when the dude reached into his beat-up jacket, pulled out a gun and pointed it at her.
“Par terre!”
Before Jasmine had time to consider what the man was shouting, he grasped the back of her neck and shoved her to the floor.
Oomph!
That hurt.
But now that she was on the ground, the thief ignored her and she lifted her head to find him swiping handfuls of jewelry and dumping the items into a leather satchel. Her ring was among the things he took.
Something inside of her gut, something hot and heavy and furious, was not about to lie benignly on the floor while some petty criminal robbed this delightful shop.
And her.
After all she’d been through? She deserved that fucking ring. Or, rather, she deserved the money from that fucking ring so she could move on from the disaster that was her life.
With energy she had no idea she possessed, Jasmine sprang to her feet, grabbed the outstretched arm of the thug and clung to it like her life depended on it.
“You fucker!” Jasmine growled, twisting his arm in a move she’d learned in a self-defense class, forcing the man to drop the gun. She grabbed the strap of the satchel, pulling it off his shoulder.
“Salope!” The man swung the crowbar catching the side of her head.
The pain in her temple was so sharp and stinging, that warrior-Jasmine drained out of her system as she curled on the ground, gripping the satchel like a beloved teddy bear, feeling like she might vomit from the pain. What happened next would have confused her at the best of times, but her head was still spinning from being clocked and her body was still pumping with adrenaline, lack of sleep and jet leg...
There was a crash.
Followed by a wet thunk and a man cried out in pain.
A body crumpled heavily half on, half off her.
A hand appeared in front of her face, gesturing for her to take it in order to help her to her feet. “Ça va?”
And then Jasmine was standing on noodle-y legs, gazing into the face of a stranger. The man wore a black leather jacket and a black helmet with the visor raised, revealing a face with a scruffy beard, dark brows and...the clearest, bluest, most amazing eyes she’d ever seen.
And then there were four eyes, then six...
“Mademoiselle?” He snapped his fingers in front of her face.
She shook her head, and then wished she hadn’t as stars appeared, dancing in front of her open eyes. She would have fallen if not for the strong hands gripping her arms, holding her up.
However, there were equally strong hands tugging on the strap of the satchel she was still clutching. The thug on the floor grappled for the bag and two things happened simultaneously. The bag slipped from her hands, spilling the contents on the tile floor just as a black leather boot swished past her line of vision, kicking the thief in the face and knocking him out. The rest happened in slow motion. Rings, earrings and necklaces scattered, jumping and skittering across the polished tile floor like live things freed from captivity. Jasmine caught sight of her ring bouncing along the hard floor, ricocheting off the bottom corner of the counter and landing—plunk—inside the passing boot of the stranger.
Without thinking, Jasmine lunged for the man’s leg, reaching into the top of his boot for her ring, but he shook her off, glaring down at her and speaking harshly—probably cursing—in French. Then the man stilled, his head jerked toward the door and the street and Jasmine became aware of the sound of sirens approaching.
“Merde!”
With one powerful shake, the six-eyed man dislodged Jasmine from his leg and strode toward the door.
“Wait!” Jasmine scrambled to her feet and hurried out after the stranger in black. Once on the street, she saw him jogging toward a corner and Jasmine took off after him, calling, “Please, wait! You’ve got my ring!”
However, running in high heels was nearly impossible on the cobblestone street, so Jasmine paused to pull off her sling-back sandals and hurl them away—she’d grab them later. Then she ran the rest of the distance in bare feet. Her head pounded like a drummer was between her ears, playing a solo at a heavy metal concert.
When she got to the corner, her legs wobbled and she could barely see straight.
There.
The man with her ring was straddling a motorcycle, the engine roaring to life as she stumbled toward him, stepping onto the road, holding her hand up to stop him.
Her brain must not have been functioning, because just as the man revved the engine of the motorcycle the world went sideways, and where once there was a street, a man and a motorcycle, there were now only quaint French rooftops, an impossibly blue sky and a bird flying at an odd angle.
Then everything went black.
CHAPTER THREE
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.
Why couldn’t Luca mind his own damn business? Not only had he found himself caught in a robbery, the police were only a block away and now a foreign woman—based on the fact she was shouting in English—had fainted right in front of his bike.
“Non. Non, non, non.” Luca put the bike in neutral, jumped off and bent down beside the crumpled woman. He shook her shoulder. “Reveillez-vous.” Wake up.
The woman moaned, her lids fluttered and then she passed out again. He could see the beginnings of a bruise blossoming along her hairline.
“La vache!” The words scraped the back of his throat. Glancing up and down the street, Luca weighed his options. What if he propped her unconscious body in a doorway...
A quick survey of the street revealed that the two closest doors were covered in paper with signs in the window advertising space for rent.
Not good.
The sirens were loud and close.
Dammit. He couldn’t leave her. And he definitely couldn’t get caught at the scene of a crime. He’d wind up in another media shitstorm.
Luca fit his hands beneath the woman’s arms and lifted her to her feet. She briefly came to, giving him just enough time to instruct her to straddle the bike. However, once she was astride, she slumped forward.
The sound of more sirens approaching from another direction got Luca’s pulse racing. He scooted the woman’s body forward on the seat—God, she wasn’t very big, was she?—and then straddled the seat behind her. He shifted into first and then wrapped his left arm around the woman’s waist to hold her steady while he slowly drove the seven blocks, down side streets and alleys, to his rented flat. The ride only took ten minutes and would have been faster if he could have shifted into a higher gear, but that was impossible to do while holding on to an unconscious woman.
The fact she was still out cold was not a good sign.
She better not die.
What the hell was he doing, bringing an unconscious foreigner back to his flat? He must be out of his mind. Luca could see the headlines smeared across the papers and news channels: Dead Foreigner Found in Luca Legrand’s Secret Residence. Foul Play Suspected.
But what choice did he have?
Luca parked his motorcycle in the underground lot, carefully scooped the woman up into his arms and carried her to the elevator that would take him to the fifth floor.
Once inside the flat, he laid her on his bed, got an ice pack out of the freezer—one he kept for when his leg ached—wrapped it in a towel and placed it on the woman’s temple.
“Ne me quitte pas,” he whispered, brushing hair off her forehead and temple so he could press the cold pack against her wound.
“What does that mean?” she asked softly, her eyes still closed.
Oh, thank God. “I’m asking you not to die. Please.”
A small smile touched her lips and she covered his hand with hers. Her touch was light and cool, and Luca felt a stirring of tenderness toward this complete stranger.
“Okay,” she murmured. “I’ll try.”
Then she passed out again.
Rubbing his temples, he gazed down at the slight woman who took up less than a third of his bed. She was showing all of the signs of a concussion; he’d seen it too many times to count on the racing circuit, and although he couldn’t risk taking her to a hospital or calling an ambulance, he had to get her medical help.
Back in the bedroom, in the drawer of the small bedside table, was his old phone, the one he hadn’t turned on in two weeks. He grabbed it, booted it up and typed a name into his contact list. Then he pressed the call button. As the phone rang, his heart beat fiercely in his chest.
It wasn’t anxiety, nor was it adrenaline. This was something else, like he was teetering on the edge of a precipice, vertigo pulling at him, forcing him to jump, and just as he felt himself fall...he noticed the rocks below.
* * *
Jasmine woke up to the sound of her own groans. She lay there for a few minutes, listening to the pounding cymbals inside her head, each clash punctuated with a sharp pain that lanced the side of her skull and reverberated through her temples down to her jaw.
Random images from the last few days flashed through her brain. Her wedding had been cancelled, she’d boarded a plane to Paris...
Jasmine’s stomach heaved dryly as she recalled nearly getting kicked off the plane. But she hadn’t, had she? She’d made it to Paris, right?
Then what...?
Hmm...? Why was it so hard to remember? Was she hungover? She sat up and her head swam like she was wearing glasses with the wrong prescription. Wait a second, she didn’t wear glasses, did she?
She touched her face. No glasses. Then Jasmine rubbed her eyes, and when her vision cleared, she took in her surroundings. She didn’t recognize a thing.
Where the hell was she?
“Ah, our patient is awake.”
Jasmine turned her head—too quickly—causing her to squeeze her lids shut in pain. When she opened her eyes, she saw a man she’d never seen before. He was tall and thin, wearing a tailored shirt and pants. His face was all angles with sunken eyes and cheeks that made his cheekbones prominent. He had close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and smiled kindly.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Hugo Caron. I am a doctor.” The man spoke English slowly, with a French accent.
“Where am I?”
“You are in a private residence in Paris.”
“In Paris?”
“Yes. You have bumped your head and I believe you have sustained a concussion. I need to perform some tests to see how serious it is.”
When the man stepped to the side of the bed, Jasmine realized there was someone else in the room. Another man who stood in the shadows.
“Who’s that?” she asked, pointing.
The doctor turned, as if he also hadn’t realized there was someone there. “That is...” he began slowly, “the man who found you. You were unconscious on the street. He brought you here and called me.”
“Oh.”
Why was everything so foggy? Why did none of this make sense? What had happened to her once she’d arrived in Paris?
“Oh!” She put her hand to her mouth, a snippet of a memory returning.
Have yourself a sex-venture. It was Ashley’s voice in her head.
Slowly this time, Jazz took in her surroundings. The queen-sized bed with the dark sheets and comforter. A masculine choice. The room, a foil to the suite at the hotel—oh, wait, she remembered the hotel! It was airy and light and decorated with antiques—this room was painted taupe and had modern furnishings.
“I’m going to do some tests and then ask you some questions, okay?”
Jazz nodded but stopped herself when the motion caused instant nausea. “Okay,” she whispered.
The doctor shone a light in each of her eyes and then asked her to follow his finger as he moved it from side to side in front of her face. He checked her ears with a scope, and her hearing by speaking quietly into each one. With gentle fingers, he touched a tender spot on the side of her head.
“Ouch.”
“I’m sorry.” He tilted her head up and to the side to get a better look at whatever injury she’d sustained and he hmmed.
“Okay. Straighten your arm out to the side,” the doctor instructed. “Now I’m going to push down, try to resist. Good.” He changed his grip so that he held the underside of her arm and asked her to push down against his hold and then he did the same on the other side.
Following that, he helped her to stand and asked her to balance on one leg and then the other, and each time he instructed her to touch her finger to her nose while balancing on one foot. There were some more balance and coordination tests before he helped her back onto the bed. He pulled up a chair right beside it and leaned forward.
“I’m going to ask you some questions, okay? You might not know the answers to some but don’t worry. It’s normal to experience some short-term memory loss after a head injury.”
“Okay.” Jasmine touched the side of her head gingerly.
The doctor proceeded to ask her full name, where she lived, what she did for a living. All of those were easy to answer. She may have fibbed that she was still employed.
“How long have you been in Paris?”
“Just a day. I think. What day is it? The twenty-fifth?”
“Yes, June twenty-fifth. Good. Where are you staying in Paris?”
“Um...a hotel. It’s very pretty, very posh.”
“Do you remember the name?”
“Ahh...l’hotel...d’something?” Jasmine bit her lip. “I can’t remember, but it’s near the Eiffel Tower.”
The doctor raised a single brow. “I see. So, what brought you to Paris?”
“It’s my honeymoon.”
The man straightened. “And where is your husband, madame?”
“My husband?” Jasmine put a hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry. No. It’s not my honeymoon.” She shook her head and then wished she hadn’t. “I’m not married. I just always wanted to come to Paris on my honeymoon.” The words came out in a flurry.
“So, are you here with anyone?”
“Um...no. Just me. By myself.” Jasmine was vaguely aware of the doctor getting up and going to speak quietly to the man who had been observing from the corner of the room.
“What happened to me?” Jasmine asked.
The doctor didn’t answer as the conversation between the two men increased in volume. Were they arguing? Over what? Surely not her?
“Excuse me?” She waved. “Hello?”
Still the men did not respond. The doctor was gesturing at her and speaking rapidly in French. The other man made some guttural remarks and then threw his hands in the air.
“Hey,” Jasmine called. “Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“Oui, bien sûr.” The doctor turned toward her. “We were just discussing your situation. You have a mild concussion. It’s nothing to worry about. However, you must be observed for twenty-four hours.” He glanced back at the man in the corner. “I can take you to the hospital—but you have no passport.”
“Oh, yes I do,” Jasmine said. “It’s in my bag.”
“And where is your bag, mademoiselle?”
“It’s—” She bit her lip. Blinked. “Isn’t it here?”
The doctor turned to speak quietly to the other man who answered quickly. “Non. You have nothing here except for what you are wearing.”
“Really?” Where the hell was her bag? It would have everything. Her phone, her hotel key, her ID, Parker’s credit cards!
Dammit!
“So,” Jasmine said slowly, “what will happen to me if I go to the hospital?”
“You will be asked to show identification and because you don’t have any, they will have to contact the embassy and your next of kin.”
Jasmine held up her hand. “No.” The last thing she needed was to have to contact her parents, or worse, Parker, and ask for help after being in Paris only one day. She wasn’t ready to face him yet. Absolutely not an option.
“What are my other choices?”
“That you stay here. My friend has kindly offered to observe you for twenty-four hours.”
The man standing in shadows muttered something beneath his breath. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound like he was thrilled with the idea of observing her. Well, Jasmine was not overly keen on being watched by a complete stranger, either, thank you very much.
“There must be some other option.”
“You don’t know where you’re staying. You are here alone and have no identification or money. Unless you know someone in Paris, you do not have many choices, mademoiselle.”
Slowly—very slowly—Jasmine tilted her head to the side. “What about you? Can’t I stay with you?” She pointed at the doctor.
“Je suis désolé. I’m sorry but it is impossible. My work has me flying to Italy this evening.” The doctor turned toward the other man and gestured him forward. “Luca is a good man.” The doctor coughed as if to cover up a chuckle. “He will take excellent care of you until you remember where you are staying.”
“What if I can’t remember?”
“Your memory should return soon. But if it doesn’t, I’m sure the two of you can figure things out.” The man’s lips twisted as if to repress a grin. “Now,” he glanced at the watch on his wrist. “I really must go before I miss my flight.” He nodded to Jasmine. “Au revoir, mademoiselle.”
The doctor exited the bedroom and the other man—Luca—followed. Jasmine could hear the two of them continuing their heated discussion outside the door, though it became more muted as they moved farther down the hallway.
She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyelids, willing herself to remember what had happened. Something.
Anything.
But for the life of her, the last thing Jasmine remembered was Ashley saying, Buy condoms, lots and lots of condoms.
* * *
“She can’t stay here,” Luca insisted once the bedroom door was closed.
Hugo, who was the team physician for Luca’s racing team, had not only treated Luca after various wipeouts—including the shattered leg that had ended his career—he’d been a close friend ever since Luca joined the team five years ago. While he’d briefly explained his predicament with the family estate, and Hugo understood his need for discretion, Luca had kept most of the details to himself. Including the robbery.
“I’m sure she’ll remember the name of her hotel by the morning. Anyway, you know how important observation is in these first twenty-four hours. This woman has no one to watch her.” Hugo smiled gently. “Except you.”
“Isn’t there another way? I am supposed to be lying low. Not harboring an amnesiac tourist.”
“It’s only for one night.”
Luca groaned in defeat.
Hugo patted his arm. “Everything will be fine.” Just then, Hugo’s phone dinged and he tapped on it. “My cab is here.” He tucked his phone into his pocket and headed for the front door.
“Hugo, wait.” Luca exhaled. He hated the fact that he had to say this. “You can’t breathe a word of this to anyone, do you understand?”
“Of course.” The expression Hugo wore was kind. And most welcome after the way others had treated him since the sex scandal. “Give her acetaminophen for the pain. You know the drill. Rest. No TV.” Hugo reached for the door handle. “Bonne chance, mon ami.”
Luca banged his head—once, twice, three times—against the closed door after Hugo left, and then a noise from down the hall had him spinning around. The woman stood there, eyes wide, her feet bare, thick waves of dark hair shadowing half her face.
“I’m sorry.”
Her soft apology did more to diffuse Luca’s anger than he would have expected. “Why are you sorry?”
“For putting you out.” She gestured to his flat in general. “It’s obvious you don’t want me here.” She walked toward him, taking careful steps. Whether it was because her head hurt or because she was scared of him, Luca couldn’t tell. “It’s just...” She seemed to be weighing her words. “I don’t think I could deal with a hospital waiting room or the embassy right now. I’m still feeling a bit dizzy.”
Hugo was right...whoever this woman was, she needed to be taken care of. “It’s okay,” he said eventually, forcing a smile. “I’ve changed my plans for this evening.” Plans? What plans, Luc?
“Oh.” A little wrinkle formed between her brows.
“Please. You are welcome to stay the night.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She took a tentative step forward and then another until she stood right in front of him. The top of her head came to just below his chin, her face was tilted up so she could meet his gaze. Her lips were pink and full—the kind of lips Anika would have paid a fortune for—but it was her eyes that captivated him. Liquid brown, like melted chocolate, with smudged mascara that rimmed her wide eyes, only making them appear larger.
There was no fucking way he could say no to those eyes.
“My name is Jasmine. Jasmine Sweet.” Her lips trembled with an uncertain smile as she extended her hand. “And you are Luca...?”
“Luca. Luca Deschamps,” he lied.
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