| Subject: À la Vie! – Chapter 17 |
Author:
Diane
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Date Posted: Friday, October 29, 10:17:57am
In reply to:
Diane
's message, "À la Vie!" on Tuesday, October 19, 01:16:54am
À la Vie! – Chapter 17
Adam turned out to have a mild ear infection, and responded immediately to the antibiotics the doctor prescribed. Elena was worried about Michael. He had been so preoccupied since his return from Los Angeles, and he had barely talked to her at the embassy party last night. It was as if he were looking for someone else. Elena wondered if he had a lover. She supposed he was entitled. She had forced him into this marriage. He hadn’t wanted her before, and just look at her now—a dumpy old cow with the sex appeal of a sack of potatoes. Was it Kate Quinn? No, he evidently didn’t care for brunettes. She saw the way he was looking at that model, Nikita, when she called him away last night. He obviously had a thing for tall blondes, two things that Elena was not. She began to weep in despair. She had to find a way to win him back.
Michael was at his office, buried in his work. The gallery in Lisbon was set to open before Christmas, and he still had a lot of preparations to make. His intercom buzzed, and his secretary let him know that his friend, Helmut Volker, was waiting in the reception area. He instructed her to send him back, and breathed a sigh of relief. A visit from a good friend was just what he needed to take his mind of the whirlwind of recent events.
“Have I come at a bad time?” asked the boyishly handsome blond, sticking his head through Michael’s doorway. He walked into the office and plopped down on the leather couch next to Michael’s desk, making himself quite at home. Of German parentage, Helmut had been another of Michael’s comrades at Culver Military Academy. Narrowly escaping expulsion with his fellow “Musketeers,” he had graduated and gone on to be recruited by Interpol. Naturally, he couldn’t talk about his work with Michael, but they did get together now and then for a round or two of golf.
“No, not at all,” answered Michael, offering Helmut his usual cigar, which the other gratefully accepted. “Just gallery work. It seems never ending.”
“It will never end the way you keep expanding,” the other man retorted. “You’re almost large enough to qualify as your own country!” The two men shared a laugh.
“Helmut,” Michael asked thoughtfully, “what do you know about the l'Éclat model, Nikita?”
“Not as much as I’d like to,” said Helmut, grinning, “and I’ve even gone out with her!”
“You have?” said Michael, incredulous.
“Yeah. We had a great dinner, a great talk, and when I took her home, she offered to shake hands at the door and disappeared inside her flat,” said Helmut, shaking his head and grinning at the memory. “So much for the great Volker charm.”
“She didn’t invite you in?” said Michael, not quite believing his story. Helmut could charm the clothes off a woman faster than anyone Michael knew.
“From what I’ve heard, she’s never invited anyone home. Never granted so much as a peck on the cheek. She’s known as the Ice Princess in the modeling circles.”
Michael mulled this over in his mind, fascinated. Her childhood must have left deep scars indeed. It never once occurred to him that she might be saving herself for someone. Someone like him.
Elena was dining with her parents, having ascertained that Michael would be detained at the office again. This habit of his was starting to be annoying. Oh, well. Just because he was content to have no social life didn’t mean she had to sit home and twiddle her thumbs. She checked her appearance in the mirror again, and liked very much what she saw. Too bad Michael wasn’t here to appreciate her.
Her parents were entertaining a family friend, Jurgen, from the Swiss embassy. Jurgen was tall and broad shouldered, with thick, wavy blond hair and dark blue eyes half hidden behind wire-rimmed glasses. It had been clear at once that he was taken with Elena, and she was very flattered. It was a pity that Michael couldn’t be here to see that other men still found her desirable.
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