Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 1) Read online

  “Of course. I’ll have someone haul it back to the rental agency.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Then I’ll be downstairs in a few minutes.”

  “Take all the time you need.” He pulled the door shut. I turned around and marched directly to the shower, shedding clothes as I went.

  I tried to convince myself that I was scattered from jet lag and the idea of seeing Marc’s father’s library, but the charade lasted thirty seconds. Who was I kidding? If Eleanor were waiting for me downstairs, I wouldn’t be frantically blow-drying my hair and trying on three different outfits, almost bursting into tears when none of them looked right. I’d suspected it before, but now I knew for sure: I wasn’t tall enough. My hips were too wide and my breasts too small. My short hair only emphasized the length of my neck, a snow-white expanse of skin interrupted by a single brown mole. Jeans squeezing my thighs, I stared into the full-length mirror and let out a short, silent scream.

  I finally settled on a flowered dress with fitted three-quarter sleeves and a deep neckline that did nothing to obscure my lack of cleavage. My legs could have used three more inches, a problem I solved with wedges that were much too high. Everything else went back into my luggage in one jumbled pile with my ballet flats on top.

  I struggled down the stairs to the lobby with my suitcase, a scrap of pink nightgown protruding from the seal near the handle. Marc stood at the reception desk, talking in French to Lisette. When he heard the rhythmic bumping of my luggage, he looked up, his eyes traveling from my feet to my legs, waist, shoulders, and face. I flushed so deeply I felt lightheaded and had to grab the railing. Food. I needed food.

  “Mademoiselle,” Lisette said, rushing across the room. “We have a porter to help you.”

  Marc came up the stairs and took the suitcase, lifting it as if it were made of Styrofoam. “This everything?” he asked.

  “I hope so.”

  “I’ve called for a tow. They’ll take the car back to the airport in Nice. I hope you got supplemental insurance.”

  “I did.”

  “Good. You’ll be using it.” After I checked out, he gave Lisette a quick kiss on both cheeks. “Remember the name Sophie Quinn,” he said to her as he grabbed my suitcase. “She’s a very talented writer.”

  I followed him out to the street. “How do you know what kind of writer I am?” I asked.

  “You’re easy to Google,” he said, pulling my suitcase up the brick sidewalk. “You’ve written some outstanding articles in the last few years. The one comparing sushi bars in different cities was very good.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I ate a lot of tuna on that trip.”

  “By the way, while I was searching I saw pictures of you and a burly blonde man on a beach.”

  Oh, God. My heart withered. I knew the pictures, taken by a friend of Trevor’s and displayed on Instagram. I was holding a beer and wearing a bikini made from wire-thin strings and a couple of shrunken triangles. My hair was still to my shoulders then and lank with saltwater, and behind me four guys in board shorts were doing devil horns with their hands, their tongues sticking out. Trevor, the worst of them all, had a Cuban cigar in his mouth, his hand on my ass, and a phi kappa sigma tattoo splayed across his upper arm. I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling something close to complete despair.

  “That was a long time ago,” I said, though it was the previous summer.

  “Not that my opinion matters,” Marc said, “but I prefer your hair this way.”

  It was the first time a man had complimented me in months. “Short? Really?” I couldn’t have sounded more insecure if I’d tried.

  “You have an attractive neck,” he said matter-of-factly. “Why hide it?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  We drove to lunch in Marc’s car, a long black BMW that dwarfed every Citroën and Renault on the road. The restaurant was tucked along a shady lane across from a field dotted with rolled hay bales. The air was as warm as New York in early September.

  The host led us to the only open table, which sat on a flagstone terrace under a plane tree. Marc pulled out my chair before sitting down. “The menu’s in French only,” he said, shaking out his napkin. “Let me know if you need a translation.”

  While he texted his sister, I flipped through the pages, overwhelmed by the number of choices. My phrase book was buried in my luggage and I’d have been too embarrassed to look at it anyway.

  “We can keep it simple with two Provencal omelets,” he said, slipping his phone into his blazer pocket. “Tomatoes, herbs, olives – they’re very good here. I’ll order a carafe of wine, too.”

  “Perfect,” I said, and clapped the menu shut. It felt like a luxury to have Marc order for me, to take my suitcase and call for a tow. For the moment, I had no decisions to make and nothing to plan. I could just sit here and try not to notice the way the sun picked up a hint of slate-blue in his eyes.

  “Your oldest article was from two years ago,” he said after the waiter brought a large bottle of water. “Did you start writing recently?”

  “Relatively. I was in law school before that.”

  “What happened to law school? It didn’t agree with you?”

  “Or I didn’t agree with it,” I said, toying with the edge of the bright yellow tablecloth. “I’m not sure which.”

  Marc’s grin lit up his face. “Why did you decide to go in the first place?”

  “My father was a lawyer with a small-time practice in Boston, and he always wanted me to work in the same field. I thought that meant I wanted it, too. It took me a year of grad school to realize it was a mistake.”

  Marc nodded. “I think most mistakes are experiences we need for some reason. Is there a person alive who hasn’t wanted to please their parents?”

  His gaze was so open, I couldn’t help but tell the truth. “My mother died in a car accident when I was a teenager. After that, I felt like I had to do everything I could to make my father happy.”

  Marc sat back slowly, unblinking, a shadow crossing his face. “What a thing to go through at that age,” he said, his voice quiet. “I can’t imagine. It must have changed everything for you.”

  Maybe one day, I’d be able to talk about my parents without feeling my heart shatter all over again. “It did. I’d never even considered what I might want to do. I was pre-law in college, interned in New York for a year, and then went to law school. I thought I had it all figured out.”

  “I’m sure your father was extremely proud of you.”

  “Well…” This was the part I hated, the part that sounded almost too tragic to believe. I knew I didn’t have to tell Marc, but his eyes almost pulled it out of me. “He never got to see me go,” I said in the emotionless tone I’d perfected over the last four years. “He died of a heart attack just before classes started.”

  Marc’s brow furrowed and his shoulders slumped. “My God,” he said, shaking his head. “Both of your parents? That’s more than somebody should ever have to deal with.”

  “I got through it,” I said, smiling to try to show him I was okay. “That’s all anybody can do.”

  I could tell from his expression that he wasn’t fooled. “But losing them in a few years, when you were so young – I don’t have words for that. You must have grown up so quickly.”

  Or shut down so much I hardly know what I feel anymore. “I guess I did. I didn’t have a choice.”

  Taking a deep breath, I tried to recover my bearings. I should have been pushing Marc to reveal his family history, but instead I was blurting things I had no business telling him. Was I that lonely? Why was confiding in him so dangerously easy?

  “Anyway,” I said, shifting in my chair. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to ruin lunch.”

  “You haven’t,” he said. “Not at all. I think it’s incredible how you’ve recovered.”

  I shrugged. “Your mother passed away recently. You know what it’s like. You accept it and go on.”

  “It was different for me,” he said. “I
wasn’t a teenager. It didn’t lead my life in another direction.”

  The waiter came to the table with wine and bread, and we both fell silent. Once we were alone again, I glanced up to find Marc’s eyes still on my face. Maybe he looked at everyone that way, but his gaze had a powerful and very unwelcome effect on me.

  “Tell me what you did once you left law school,” he said.

  I took a long sip of wine. I never drank with lunch – or in this case, breakfast – but today seemed like a great time to indulge. “I wasn’t sure what to do,” I said. “All I knew was that life is short and I wasn’t happy doing the same thing every day. I started writing a blog about my cheap summer share in the worst part of the Hamptons, and a few months later I got a call from my editor offering me an assignment. I wasn’t sure I was journalism material because I’ve always been introverted, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “I think that’s what makes you so disarming,” Marc said, crossing one leg over the other. “You’re demure on the surface but there’s something sort of…stubborn underneath. I bet people tell you more than they mean to. I certainly did.”

  “Anything you’d like to take back?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I have a feeling it’s too late.”

  I pretended to frown. “Didn’t your sister tell you? Anything you say on the record stays on the record.”

  “Damn,” he said, giving me that stomach-dropping smile. “I knew there was a catch.”

  I was an expert in steering the conversation to less awkward topics, which I did by asking Marc what he thought of New York. He loved the city and had visited many times, giving us restaurants, galleries, and neighborhoods to talk about during lunch. After fruit tarts and espresso, I stopped inside at the ladies’ room while Marc went to the parking lot. When I walked out of the restaurant a few minutes later, I saw two figures standing next to Marc’s car. Marc and Eleanor.

  They were arguing. Not loudly, but I could hear the intensity of their voices from where I stood. Marc’s arms were folded and he stared at the ground as if being lectured. A moment later, he looked up and interrupted his sister.

  “I have every right…stop carrying on this charade.”

  “…worth it to ruin someone’s life?” she asked. She held a cardboard box with a missing top. It appeared to be filled with clothes or blankets.

  “…just to hide it? Is that what you’re saying?”

  She shook her head and sighed. “…useless to try to tell you…caused enough chaos in this family, but for some reason you think…”

  “…stunning lack of honesty that goes back years,” he said. “As if we don’t all know what’s gone on.”

  “This is why I didn’t want you to go through Mum’s things, your need to overblow everything,” she said as I got closer. “The past is the past, Marc. Let it go.”

  At the sound of my shoes on the gravel they went quiet, erasing all emotion from their faces and smiling in unison. For the first time I could see a family resemblance in the way their mouths lifted, their eyes widening to imitate sincerity.

  “Hello, Eleanor,” I said. “Nice to see you again.”

  “How are you, Sophie? I’m just giving Marc some linens to drop at my father’s house. Did you have a nice lunch?” I almost shuddered to see how quickly she’d slipped on a mask of effortless calm.

  “It was very good,” I said. “We didn’t get a chance to look at the manuscripts Marc brought, but that’s probably better. I’d hate to spill wine on them.”

  “Quite right,” she said with a light laugh. “I’m glad my brother will have a witness to his driving. If he goes over 120 kilometers an hour, he’s agreed to immediately hand the keys over to you.”

  “You have nothing to worry about,” Marc said to me. “I speed only when I’m alone, and not by very much. It’s one of the few sins I permit myself.”

  “Four speeding fines in the last year in England alone,” she told me cheerfully. “I honestly wonder if he’s trying to make a point.”

  “The point is,” he said, “that I like to live dangerously now and then. But I promise to drive like I’m a hundred years old all the way to Paris. If I can stay awake.”

  Eleanor handed him the box, pecking him on the cheek as if nothing had happened. “I’d better get back or we’ll miss our train,” she said. “I’ll see you in the city, won’t I? The boys will want to visit before we go to London.”

  “We’ll have dinner.”

  “Good. They’ll be excited.”

  She said goodbye to us and went off across the parking lot. Marc smiled at me, showing no lingering sign of strain or anger. “Ready?” he said, opening my door.

  We drove out of Villette past golden fields, eventually joining the highway that led to his father’s house. I wanted to ask if his argument with Eleanor had anything to do with me, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear him deny any conflict at all.

  For the first hour we talked about American politics and California versus New York, and then I asked Marc how he got his start as an investor. I’d wanted to know more since last night, and a long car trip seemed like the perfect opportunity to get him talking.

  “It’s not a very sexy story,” he said. “I was a junior at Stanford, working nights on campus to make money, and on a whim I gave all of my savings to a friend with a technology idea.”

  “Just like that?”

  “It seems crazy in retrospect. I offered him everything I had – just a few thousand bucks – in exchange for ten percent of the company,” Marc said. “I never expected to see that money again.”

  “Did you?” I asked.

  “Off the record?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Two years later his company sold for quite a bit of money.”

  “Quite a bit? Sounds pretty sexy to me.”

  He smiled but didn’t elaborate. “It was a lightning strike. Pure luck. It gave me the passion to keep investing and the means to do it. Since then I’ve made some good decisions and some bad ones, but that’s part of the business. I like supporting people who are doing important things. It’s not all about the money for me, or my partners.”

  I’d assumed he was successful, but his manner was confident and understated, nothing like the flashy Wall Streeters I’d seen too many of in New York. How many technology investors made a woman dinner in faded jeans and bare feet, and then did the dishes by candlelight?

  “That’s a hell of a story,” I said. “I can’t write about any of it?”

  “You can mention what I do,” he said. “That’s all.”

  I dropped my head back. “You’re a journalist’s worst nightmare, you know that?”

  He laughed, a warm, honeyed sound that made my insides dip. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I just won’t let you print it.”

  “Like I said. My worst nightmare.”

  I tried not to watch him shifting gears, the blue veins crisscrossing the back of his hand and the muscles clenching in his wrist. Jet lag and six weeks of celibacy had almost destroyed my inhibitions. Oh, who was I kidding, it wasn’t just six weeks without sex, it was years without good sex. My entire life. Lately I’d been wondering if I would die without experiencing it.

  Desire flooded through me as Marc accelerated, pushing into fifth gear and letting his hand rest on the gear shift. Yes, he was a business contact, but he was also the man who’d grabbed my hips the night before in a dark hallway. If I’d pulled his hands under my skirt, what would he have done? Eyelids heavy, I imagined him reaching over and touching my bare knee, sliding a finger along my thigh, slipping it under the elastic leg band of my panties. I took a deep breath and struggled to think of something else. I couldn’t do this. It was outrageous to even entertain the idea.

  “Feeling sleepy?” he asked, glancing over.

  I inhaled sharply at the deep, sensual pitch of his voice. “A little.”

  “I won’t be offended
if you take a nap. You might want to rest up before dinner with my father.”

  “Thank you. Maybe I will.” I closed my eyes, lulled by his words and the hot sun beating through my window. Just crossing my legs sent waves of longing rushing through my abdomen. I’d never been aroused like this, not even when Trevor tried to “relax” me in bed with shoulder-pinching massages and his probing tongue in my ear. I just wasn’t a very sexual person. That was what Trevor had always said in his pouty, irritated way while I lay unsatisfied beside him, wondering if I’d ever have an orgasm I hadn’t brought on myself.

  When I opened my eyes, the sun was much lower in the sky. The terrain was flatter, with orderly rows of grape vines stretching away from the road. Whenever I fell asleep on planes or trains I woke disoriented and irritable, but now I was instantly alert, my pulse hammering in my neck.

  “Awake?” Marc asked.

  “Sort of,” I said. “The time change is tough.” I grabbed a bottle of water out of my handbag and took a sip.

  “We’re about half an hour away,” he said.

  “Okay, great.” I scrolled through emails on my phone, trying to appear interested in anything but him.

  “Listen,” he said. “That discussion with Eleanor wasn’t about your visit, for what it’s worth.”

  “I didn’t really hear anything,” I said.

  “You must have heard something, and that’s why I bring it up. I love my sister but we clash sometimes. My family is complicated in many ways.”

  I wanted to know more but didn’t dare push him after the reaction he’d had last night at his mother’s house. Besides, I’d learned that the best way to keep someone talking was not to appear too interested. “There’s only one person in your family I’m concerned with, and he’s been dead a long time.”

  Marc laughed. “I’m glad to hear it. Anyway, I apologize. It was only a sibling quarrel but we should have kept it private.”

  We turned onto a stick-straight dirt road overhung by tall trees and bordered on one side by a crumbling stone wall. “How long has your father lived in this area?” I asked.