Danielle Steel - Hotel Vendome

“Do you want me to come and help?” he offered, and she liked that idea.

“Sure, if you want to.” He arrived half an hour later, having come down from Columbia by subway. He was amazed at the huge crowd of hotel guests standing in the street. It looked very orderly, although some of them were visibly upset. And they all wanted to know how soon they could go back to their rooms. Bruce and his security men were walking among them, reassuring people, while room service waiters served tea, coffee, and bottled water. Many of the guests had evening plans and were standing there in bathrobes. And SWAT teams were sweeping the hotel for bombs, floor by floor.

Vans brought food out for all the guests, and Brad helped Heloise and the room service waiters hand out sandwiches and cookies. He was extremely pleasant to everyone, and very helpful, calming people down when he could. No one appeared to be angry, but many were justifiably concerned. And Hugues was extremely grateful that it had happened in good weather and not in the dead of winter, which had happened once before. All hotels were vulnerable to that kind of threat these days.

And three hours later, the police declared the hotel safe and let everyone back in. Much to everyone’s relief and annoyance, it had been a false alarm. And once they were all back inside and had gone up to their rooms, Brad went up to Heloise’s apartment with her. They were among the last to leave the street. Brad had been impressed by how well she handled herself, how poised she was, and how cool in a crisis. She was definitely in the right business. And she had thought the same thing about him. He had been calm and helpful throughout and handled the guests well.

“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.

She was so anxious, all she wanted to do was cry, which she did the moment she got to the clinic. As soon as they led her into the room, she burst into tears, not because she was frightened but because she wanted so much for this to work. At her age, statistically they had a six to ten percent chance of success, which wasn’t high. But it was worth a try. They had discussed it for several months after Hugues proposed, and he had agreed since it meant so much to her. She had never wanted babies before, but now that she was in love with him, and married, it was all she could think about. He would have been perfectly happy not to have children with her, but he felt an obligation to her, since she had never had any of her own. He had Heloise, and that was enough for him. And it was a little odd now thinking about starting over again, with a baby or even several of them if she had a multiple birth. He was fifty-four, she was almost forty-two, and they were implanting four embryos that morning. They had decided that four embryos were the right number. More than that would have been dangerous for her and the eventual babies. She didn’t want a litter, and she would have been satisfied with one baby, as long as it was Hugues’s. They had agreed to say nothing to Heloise, not to upset her again. It had taken her six months to adjust to their marriage, and they didn’t want to rock the boat again so soon, and particularly if their efforts never worked. They were going to tell her only if it did.

Natalie had been praying for this and had even lit candles at church.