She heard Lyne stirring his coffee, followed by a small slurp. “Technically. I woke up on your floor. Fully dressed, I might add.”
“I sensed that there was a man in my room,” she said lightly. She picked up the menu.
A minute ticked by. “Lyne?” she asked. “Was I really telling Pierre that I’d have a bigger yacht than his someday?”
“Insisting upon it,” Lyne assented.
She nodded. No wonder she kept seeing Pierre’s face bunched up like a potato. “Was it . . . unattractive?” she asked cautiously.
“That part wasn’t,” Lyne said. “I think Pierre was surprised. But he wasn’t angry, yet.”
“Oh dear.” Victory sat back in her chair.
“You were basically giving him the Victory Ford Special,” Lyne said, folding his paper.
“I see.” She paused. “And what was it exactly that pissed him off?”
“I can’t be certain,” Lyne said. A waiter brought him a plate of eggs. “It might have been the part when you told him that women were going to rule the fashion world and that he, himself, was likely to become obsolete within the next ten years.”
“That’s not so bad . . .”
“No, it isn’t. And as I said later, you had good reason to defend yourself.”
“Oh yes,” she said, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples. “I’m sure I did.”
“The guy did say that once you got the money, you should stop working and find a man and have children.”
“That was a lousy thing to say.”
“Yeah, well, I tried to explain to him that that wasn’t the kind of thing you should say to a New York woman.”
“He didn’t take it well, did he?”
“Nope,” Lyne said. “He said that he was sick of businesswomen, and that the whole world was bored with women acting like men, and women carrying briefcases, and that what women really wanted was to stay home and be taken care of.” Lyne paused. “These Gallic types are very provincial. No matter what they say.”
“It was awfully nice of you to stick up for me, though,” Victory said.
“You didn’t really need me,” Lyne said. “You did a pretty good job of sticking up for yourself.”
“Was I a tiger?” she asked, dropping three sugar cubes into her cup.
“You ripped him to shreds. By the time you were done with him, there was nothing left of that Frenchman except a flat puddle of champagne.”
“But I didn’t mean it. I really didn’t.”
“He certainly seemed to think you did. He got up and left in a huff.”
“Oh dear,” Victory said. She finished her coffee and poured herself another cup. “Do you think he was . . . irrevocably upset? I mean, he must have known that we were having a passionate, drunken kind of discussion, right? Is he a very sensitive type of man?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, only a very sensitive, babyish kind of man gets up in the middle of a discussion and walks away. It tends to mean only one thing. He’s spoiled, and he doesn’t like what you’re saying to him.”
“That is pretty much what you did say to him, word for word, I believe,” Lyne said dryly.
Victory groaned. She wanted to crawl under the table. Lyne was right. She had said just that.
“I don’t think he was at all pleased. I, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious. Pierre Berteuil is a spoiled baby, and it’s about time someone told him so.”