Hotelles by Emma Mars Page A

but I still wasn’t sure I wanted to follow him in.
    â€œCome ooooon,” he insisted, grabbing my arm and sighing dramatically. “Don’t be such a ninny!”
    I had no other choice but to follow him through the packed quarters. It was a mishmash of people, from journalists in black uniform, to disheveled artists with tattoos or piercings, to half-naked creatures in designer dresses.
    I was wondering who on earth would need an escort here, where everyone seemed so well connected and too-cool-for-school, when my bald man in horn-rimmed glasses handed me some champagne and stuck out his hand.
    â€œAlban Sauvage.”
    â€œOh . . . !” I exclaimed. “So this is your place?”
    â€œYeah, mortgaged to the hilt and costing me arm and leg, but yes, it’s my place.”
    Did he need a beard or something? A mom to impress? Investors to persuade? Or worse: Was I a kind of conceptual happening, something dreamed up by one of the sickos in attendance? The call girl in the land of contemporary art.
    I didn’t know what to say.
    â€œYou . . . ?”
    â€œNo, not me. Follow me, I’ll introduce you.”
    When I saw my client, I thought it must be a joke: he was wearing an elegantly belted suit that showed off his waist, while his open jacket revealed a matching vest. The man was in his forties and carried a silver-knobbed cane in his right hand. His face was fitted with a pair of sunglasses. Alban abandoned me without introducing us, whispering an excuse:
    â€œI must go. I have some Chinese to fleece. Kiss, kiss, darlings!”
    I couldn’t move. I was like a statue. The man removed his smoked-glass spectacles and looked me up and down without saying anything. But did he need to? Once he’d removed his slightly grotesque glasses, there was something magnetic about the way he gazed at me. And though the color of his eyes was nothing special—hazel that sometimes looked gold, depending on the light—there was a rare intensity in their expression. If looks could kill, I mused, before quickly banishing the thought from my head. It wasn’t easy. He was giving me a deadly look. I felt like I was his prisoner. He was searching me. He was trying to get inside me. Before saying one single word, he’d already taken up residence in my being.
    â€œGood evening, Elle.”
    He was good-looking: his face was long and egg shaped, with high cheekbones and a straight profile. His demeanor was stately, though his neck a little stiff. And his hands were like those of a surgeon or a pianist  . . .
    Without contest, he was in the top three of my most attractive clients. He wasn’t like those living statues that stand at the entry of some clothing stores. Nothing like that kind of vapid girl-magnet. He had the aura of someone who had come out of a novel and onto the silver screen. Like a god who had at last come down to the level of humans.
    I did not have to look around to feel the room’s attention on him. Women especially were converging around us like flies to honey. He wasn’t doing anything special—he wasn’t doing anything at all, just standing there, immobile. And yet he crushed the male competition through his regal attitude alone. He was perfectly present while being completely detached. He appeared to be floating above the vile masses.
    â€œGood evening,” I stammered.
    With some effort, he took a step toward me, adjusting all his weight onto the precious cane. He wasn’t faking his infirmity, and instead of breaking the charm, it only added to it. He was a man of more than one posture, apparently. It was obvious he had a story, and a painful one at that. The mystery only made him more appealing.
    â€œFor once, Rebecca does not disappoint.”
    His compliment, his way of making it clear he was a regular, annoyed me. It was vulgar. Usually our clients at Belles de Nuit tried to lighten the situation by pretending