The Nightlife: Paris (The Nightlife Series) Read online

  He shared her pain, as she shared his. Their emotions blended into a wild frenzy, driving him like a madman. He nailed her again and again. She growled and thrashed beneath him. They were perfect for each other. She could handle all his ferocity, all his pummeling passions. He had to exercise the utmost caution with the humans, but not Michelle. She took it all and screamed for more.

  He rammed her, pounded her, pinned her down and fucked her with deep, hard, grinding strokes. She uttered a feline purr, a low growl with little squeaks and squeals as his thrusts hit home. He lost all sense of self. He became Michelle as she became Aaron, together one and the same.

  Her love and affections washed over him, her acceptance. She’d never had it so good. No man could give her what he did. The rapture of their synchronous bites and furious sex brought her heavenly bliss for hours. If it wasn’t for the need to feed she’d never let him out of her bed. He was her conqueror, the one and only man who could. And yet she owned him. And that was just the way she liked it.

  They lasted for a time, burning out their passions for one another, until he collapsed exhausted. She lay under him convulsing and squirming, chanting her love for him repeatedly. “Je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime …”

  He read her sublime happiness. How could he ever ask for more than this woman in his arms, happy? She might have the ability to command his obedience, but he held her heart in his hands.

  * * * *

  Chapter 5

  Aaron stood outside Michelle’s “home” – slack-jawed in awe. He had imagined many possibilities, but the reality of the house staggered him. This isn’t a home. It’s a fucking mansion straight out of ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.’ She had deliberately taken her sweet-ass time feeding at another nightclub, putting this off.

  Michelle, you got some ‘splaining to do.

  Turn of the century, or perhaps older, the three story mansion looked early 1900’s. Smooth white stone and red brick, the kind of construction that stands the test of time. There had to be a caretaker – the place was too well preserved. He marveled at the creamy limestone larger-than-life lions guarding the gate. Newly applied lacquer gleamed on the hardwood double-doored entry.

  He looked sharply at Michelle. Did you do all this for me? Hiding inside her mental vault, he couldn’t read her, a sure sign of her distress. He hated when she shut him out. His irritation grew. What the hell did she have to hide? Hell, she never let him into her mind when it mattered.

  “So what is this monster worth? Two, three, four million? This isn’t a home, it’s a damn hotel.”

  “Oui. It was once a hotel.” She wouldn’t look at him. “The last I knew, it was worth five million euros …”

  “What the fuck?” Five million euros converted to something like eight million dollars. That must have been a few years ago, too.

  She’s played me for a fool. Guilt tore through him. If he hadn’t abused his abilities at the poker table, thinking he needed to pay their way in Vegas, Ana might still be alive. And here was millions in wealth, just sitting here vacant.

  “Aaron, non.” She reached out to take his hand.

  He shied away from her seductive, manipulating touch.

  Her somber, sad eyes assessed him quietly. “Come. I will explain.” She walked past her guardian lions.

  This better be damn good. Shaking his head yet again, he followed.

  He’d wondered if Michelle had money squirreled away. She never seemed concerned about paying the bills. Her only “work” was to play the role of high paid escort. Like the night he met her, she’d been propositioning those two cops. Nothing with Michelle was ever what it seemed.

  She suckered me into her little escort game. New York had plenty of wealthy cougars who’d pay a fee for a few minutes with him. He brought home a nice wad of cash on the few dates he attended. That was pointless. She’s fuckin’ loaded.

  He glared at Michelle’s backside as she punched in a numerical code on a small keypad at the front gate.

  She wouldn’t look at him. “Please be patient with me. All will be explained.”

  “You’re damn right it will.” He followed her up the stairs to the landing.

  Her composure slipped and with it the privacy block on her mind. He caught a glimpse of her emotional climate. Anxiety. Determination. Doubt. Fear. It all blended together with soul-churning, gut-ripping guilt.

  Shit. What did she do?

  She sighed in resignation and reached out to him, all but begging for his acceptance.

  He stared at her hand like something on the bottom of his shoe. She’s playing me. He felt her anxiety bump up a notch as he stood there refusing her.

  Fuck it.

  He took her peace offering and stepped through the front door into her world.

  The interior entry opened into a semicircular shape ringed by massive columns of more smooth white stone contrasting with a dark green-black marble tiled floor. The ceiling reached high into a glass-paned dome, faint twinkles of the starlit sky almost visible through the frosted glass.

  “This looks like a museum, Michelle. I can’t believe you own this place.” He looked through doorways leading off in several directions from the entry, each room a study in early 1900’s high class décor. “This puts the Hilton to shame, we should be staying here.”

  “We cannot stay here. I cannot stay here.”

  A barb of her painful sadness hooked into his mind. She hated this house. What on earth happened here?

  They moved forward into an open courtyard with quaint patio furniture and an unobstructed view of the sky. He looked up at the three-story edifice opposite the courtyard. He pictured how it had looked as a hotel, with couples and families drinking tea on those quaint little cast-iron bistro tables.

  “Why don’t you run it as a hotel? I bet you could charge seven to eight hundred a night in a place like this.”

  She looked at him with those damn entrancing eyes, a well of pain lurking in their depths. “Come.”

  He followed her across the courtyard through frosted glass double doors that opened into a grand room. The ceiling soared, at least two stories high. A fabulous crystal chandelier hung suspended on a heavy iron chain in the center of the room. He craned his neck gawking at the fifteen foot diameter of sparkling quartz and guilt bronze with flame-shaped light bulbs. Michelle retrieved a remote control from the wall and dimmed the lights.

  The grandeur of the hangar-sized room was completed by a fireplace hearth large enough to cremate an entire family standing upright. He stood there for a time looking back and forth from the massive chandelier to the fireplace to the antique hardwood furnishings. He felt like an uncultured swine. I am sooo out of my league.

  He opened his mouth to speak and then shut it. The words wouldn’t come. With a shake of his head, he followed her up a grand staircase, twisting and turning till they reached a long hallway on the third floor. She led him down past several doors and into a study that could rival a small town library. The room stretched off into the distance, flanked by shelves overflowing with volumes bound in calfskin. There had to be collector items on those shelves, books worth hundreds or thousands of dollars.

  “This was my father’s study.” She stared at a spot on the floor. “I can still remember him in this place.”

  Aaron walked around the room in stunned silence, drinking in all the rich hardwood panels, flooring, shelves, and desks. She began tracing the shelves with her fingertips as though seeking something specific, or perhaps remembering events from another lifetime. A massive oak desk held stacks of envelopes addressed to Michelle de Mornac or some variation thereof like Madam Mornac or Michelle Mornac. He picked up an envelope from HSBC Bank, June 2006. Why would she leave this mail, years old, lying around in this empty mansion?

  He pulled out the papers inside, an account statement with a balance of $3,262,422.31 dollars. The correspondence included a brochure for an investment opportunity offered to Michelle. Obviously, it hadn’t interested
her.

  Who the hell is this woman I’m living with? Everything he thought he knew about her was a lie, a cleverly contrived façade. She could have dukes and earls and princes at her command. Why sell herself as an escort? Why tie herself to him? She could do so much better than a naive punk like me. What can I possibly be to her? A boy toy at her beck and call? Nothing else made sense.

  The ramifications crashed down around him. Like a surfer caught in the undertow, his world turned upside down and inside out, all sense of direction lost. He stood in this mansion fit for royalty with a glamorous, millionaire.

  I don’t know this woman at all.

  “Merde!” She grabbed his face and pulled him down to look her in the eyes, sending a strong surge of assurance through their psychic bond. “Non Aaron! Non! You must trust me as you did before. Please let me explain!”

  She stepped up close, intimate, willing him to be calm through her touch.

  “Je t’aime Aaron. Mon amour pour toi est éternel.” She held him to her face, nose to nose, using her gaze to break through. “Toi et moi – ça ne changera pas.” Things will never change between you and me.

  He pulled away from her seductive touch. He didn’t want her overpowering influence to affect his judgment. He no longer trusted her. Lies. All of it. His life with her was nothing but lies.

  “I wish you never saw this. This place is not who I am. Is like a graveyard to me. I can never live here. Is nothing more than property.”

  He snarled, lips peeled back to expose razor sharp fangs. “Stop with the excuses. Tell me the truth for once. What the hell is going on here? Who the hell are you? Why did you trap me into your life?”

  Her eyes slid away from his vicious stare. She grabbed his hand and led him out and down the hallway to an expansive master bedroom. He studied the ten-foot high windows elaborately curtained in heavy linen drapes, and the monster four-poster cherry wood bed that would have dominated a normal sized room. Shit. Kyle’s entire New York apartment would fit in here, and Kyle and I thought we were living grand.

  He felt a momentary pang for his best friend. His former life, pre-Michelle, had been so much simpler. Fresh resentment flared into flames of anger.

  She led him to a plush, red velvet sofa, and drew him down beside her. She wouldn’t let go of his hand. Fear, desolation, grief, and raging anger overflowed her tight mental control. He recoiled. Bam! Her mental shielding slammed back in place. Too late, his mind reeled from the almost physical assault of her tumultuous emotions.

  “I don’t know where to begin.” Her whole body hunched in anxiety.

  “I want it all. The whole story, no more secrets. You owe me the truth. At the very least you can give me the truth.”

  She glanced at him sharply. Her mental vault was closed, but her eyes showed a window to her fear. A ball of guilt resided at the core of her emotional mess. She dreaded his condemnation.

  “I need to know, Michelle.”

  She sighed in resignation. “Oui. It is time.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 6

  “I was born Michelle de Mornac in the Château La Fontaine on January 21st 1915.”

  As she spoke, a pathway opened to her mind. She clasped his hands tightly and held his gaze with her entrancing, emerald stare as she revealed the secret depths of her soul. He caught cloudy images of the Château in her mind’s eye. A great, beautiful manor house surrounded by a picturesque pastoral scene, in the wine country near Bordeaux. Magnificent elm trees created a domed canopy over the dirt road leading up to the Château. Walking with her down the lane to the Château, the experience felt so real, as if he could reach out and touch the leafy branches.

  Time whisked forward, to Michelle as a young girl in the rolling fields of grapevines. His hands became her hands as she plucked the juicy orbs of fruit. His hair became her hair as the breeze trailed a strand across her face that she tucked back behind her ear. He/she smelled the scents of the field and savored the memory.

  “I loved this place. My life began here, but Paris will always be my true home.”

  He/she merged, becoming one and the same. He/she relived flashes of her life, hazy half-remembered moments filled with detail, sensation, and emotion.

  * * * *

  I roamed the hills of the vineyards of Bordeaux for hours as a young girl. I had it so very good, a simple country life. Oh, the glorious freedom back then.

  In the Château, the servants bustled here and there constantly. My home was a vast mansion of rooms and hallways to manage, but our carpets and furnishings were always immaculately clean. My mother, ever vigilant, ran a tight household. Père called her “Napoleana,” and it was true. Never a lazy servant in my mother’s employ. She stayed busy, and I stayed away, roaming the fields, a free spirit.

  Père said I inherited mother’s feisty attitude, but my smile was all his. Père’s powerfully charismatic grin lit up every room he entered. At least it did for me. I loved him dearly. His only child, he lavished attention on me.

  He said more than once, “I gave you my blond curls.” Then he would ruffle my hair, pat his belly and chuckle. “But the lord in his wisdom gifted you with your mother’s grace and figure. And thank heaven for that. Tu es ma petite fille.” You are my little girl.

  I didn’t understand the power of my beauty, or the things men would do to taste that power. I remember the workmen staring at me whenever I passed by. I smiled and nodded as they weaved my name into their sly songs when my father wasn’t around to catch them. Of course, some of them simply saw me as a means to get their hands on the vineyards.

  Père soon noticed. “Stay away from the men, Michelle. You know not what men do to girls with smiles such as yours.” He was very protective, and I suspect he didn’t consider them good enough. He had such hopes for me, for my life.

  The servant girls teased me, “Monsieur de Mornac will have you married to a baron or a marquis!”

  They filled my mind with epic sagas of romantic love, and it wasn’t an impossible dream. The red wines of our vineyard brought our family financial independence. Père, Jacques de Mornac, rapidly gained social status alongside the inherited titles of the few remaining gentry that survived the French revolution. Ours was the industrial revolution, when fortunes and reputations could be forged, birthing a new nobility arising from affluence, rather than breeding.

  Père harbored great plans for my future. “To keep my jewel polished and gleaming, I must take you to Paris. To be a true lady of France, you must be Parisienne. The country life is not enough, Michelle, ma belle.”

  I have often wondered what could have been if Père hadn’t insisted I be educated in Paris. How happy I might have been as a rural wife to a husband raising children in the Château.

  Instead, at the age of fifteen, I left the luscious bounty and simplicity of the vineyards for Paris. I would never return to the country life. I went to live with my mother’s older sister, Tante Agnes Silvane, a mousy woman of good humor. At times she seemed so old, but really only in her fifties. Her husband died on the battlefield in World War One, 1918, and she never remarried.

  Tante Agnes welcomed me with open arms and gave Père precisely what he wanted. She baptized me in the life of a Parisienne – theater, film, cafés and all the premier designer dress shops a girl could want. We did it all from a modest but charming loft apartment with a wonderful view of the River Seine, and Père paid for everything. Such happy days. Agnes became my second mother, my Parisienne mother, teaching me the ways of the metropolitan lifestyle.

  Naturally, I fell in love with the city. The music in the streets, the posh way they spoke to each other, and the fashions! Oh, how I loved the fashions. They were so elegant, bold and sexy, yet still conservative. This was before the war, before all those drab colors and horrid heavy fabrics. I begged Agnes to help me convince Jacques to let me study under the popular dressmakers. I dreamed of designing those exquisite gowns with draping silk folds and plunging necklines, wonderful clothes
that make you feel like the most beautiful woman in the world for one special night.

  Then the following winter, mother died of pneumonia. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t seen her in over a year and now she was gone. Tante and I took the first train south, only a few hours ride. I could have visited home any time, even for a weekend, but I’d been having too much fun in the city to pay attention to my family. A horrible guilt claimed me.

  Agnes comforted me with a shoulder to cry on and words of wisdom. “Your mother’s time has passed. Honor her memory with your life.” Tante helped me through those dark hours. I don’t know what I would have done without her.

  My father held up well under the circumstances. But he wouldn’t allow me to stay at the Château after the funeral. He insisted Agnes and I return the next day to finish my studies. I wanted to stay with Père, but the Château reminded me constantly of my mother. And so I left, secretly happy to return to the bustle of Paris.

  Jacques visited rarely. The thriving vineyard business and the Château required his full attention. He gave free reign to Agnes for direction of my life, and for me to pursue a career in fashion design. I became obsessively immersed in all things fashion, studying diligently under several different dressmakers. I had become fully Parisienne.

  By my mid-twenties, Paris touted me as “the up-and-coming new designer for high fashion.” My career hit full swing by 1940. At twenty-six, men were no more than a pleasant distraction. Agnes didn’t pressure me to marry. She thoroughly enjoyed the all-expense paid arrangements and hoped it would continue indefinitely. Père saw things differently.

  On his rare visits, Père always suggested an eligible suitor who met his criteria for marriage, usually a middle-aged man of wealth with a proper title of nobility somewhere in his lineage. Despite his self-made affluence, Jacques’ sights were set on ensuring his future grandchildren were brought up the proper way, with a man of good stock.