“Ah, Mrs. Luden. We’re just here to pick up a bathing suit. No need to interrupt whatever you’re doing.”

“Very good, Mr. Lamont.”

She looked hard at me but turned quickly and returned to whatever she was doing.

“Been with the family for years,” Paul muttered, and led me to the circular stairway.

“She didn’t look like she approved of my being here,” I said.

He looked after her. “Maybe not. She’s always been a bit of a prude, but good servants are always also deaf and dumb.” He paused and nodded at the grand tapestries draping the walls, the paintings and large furnishings. A skylight had been cut in one ceiling, and sunlight rained down, spotlighting the statuary in niches and the artifacts on tables and shelves. “Think you could live in this place?”

“So far, yes,” I said. “There’s nothing cold or dreary about it now.”

“Yes, home sweet home,” he said, and reached for my hand so we could continue up the stairway together.

A round bedroom was unique. There were no corners. His television was hanging from the ceiling. He showed me that it could be raised or lowered by pressing a button on the wall by his bed’s headboard. All of the furniture had been constructed with rich mahogany and had been custom-made to fit into a round room. There were oval dressers and a curved desk. The flooring consisted of marble and a white area rug.

The en suite bathroom had the same marble floors and a slightly darker shade of marble tiling for walls. There was a large round Jacuzzi and a circular, very large shower that had five different showerheads, including the rain head. Paul explained that the shower converted into a steam room, again by pressing buttons on the wall. The only noncircular area was his walk-in closet, which was a wide rectangular shape, everything very neatly organized, from dozens of shoes on shelves to a row of sports jackets and suits with a half dozen different tuxedos at the end.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Make you dizzy?”

“A little. I’m surprised you don’t have a circular bed. Isn’t Hugh Hefner famous for having that?”

“I thought about it, but the truth is, it’s rare that I have anyone up here to share my bed.”

“What about your soon-to-be possible fiancée? Not here?”

He lowered his head and raised his eyes.

“We have some other properties, a farmhouse in Mougins and a chalet in Switzerland, to name two.”

“Norbert will be upset. I am impressed,” I said. “He warned me about you.”

He laughed, opened a drawer to find a bathing suit, and then opened the curtains, which were motorized.

“I think you have more switches and buttons in here than an air-traffic controller in the JFK tower.”

“I have a better view than they do. Come.” He beckoned, and I joined him at the window to look down at the seaport of Monte Carlo. Because of the clarity of the day, we could see far toward the horizon. He had a telescope and pulled it over for me to gaze out at some of the vessels and sailboats in the distance and also down at the port.

“Feels like we’re on the top of the world.”

“Just like the slave who stood next to the Roman generals and whispered in their ears, I have to tell myself constantly that I’m only a man,” he joked.

He stood very close to me. Our eyes seemed to lock, and then, as if we had magnets in our lips, we drew closer and kissed. It was a soft kiss, but he paused only to take in a breath and kiss me again, harder, more demanding, his hands sliding up the sides of my body and pausing at my breasts. He kissed me on the neck.

“I regret that I don’t have a round bed, but this one is no slouch,” he whispered, edging me toward it.

I stopped firmly. “Fox and the hen,” I said.

“Neither complained.”

“I think it’s best if we walk before we run,” I told him, inching away.

The look of disappointment and surprise shifted quickly to amusement. “How about we swim before we run?”

“That was the plan,” I told him. There was no doubt or hesitation in my voice.

He laughed, scooped up his suit, and held the door open for me.

Tags: V.C. Andrews The Forbidden Horror
Source: readsnovelonline.net