Love Me Tonight - Four Erotic Romance Stories for Valentine's Day - Boxed Set (3 page)

Author's Note - Cassia Leo

If you enjoyed this story, read about Luke and Brina’s beginnings in the
Luke series
.

Already read the Luke series? Check out Cassia’s
Chase series
or add her upcoming new adult contemporary romance,
Relentless
, to your to-read list on
Goodreads
. Relentless is scheduled for release March 1, 2013.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cassia Leo loves her coffee, chocolate, and margaritas with salt. When she’s not writing, she spends way too much time watching old reruns of
Friends
and
Sex and the City
. When she’s not watching reruns, she’s usually enjoying the California sunshine or reading—sometimes both.

Follow
Cassia Leo’s blog
to stay up to date on sequels. Stop by and chat with her on
Facebook
and
Twitter
. Thanks for reading!

Laine stood on the Daru staircase in the Denon Wing of the Musée Louvre and stared up the statue Winged Victory. Headless, armless, with one wing a plaster replica, what was left towering above her dated back to 190 BC. As she contemplated her own insignificance in the presence of not only this artifact but everything housed in this palace-cum-museum, Laine was literally knocked off her feet.

“Sorry, sorry! Bollucks what a clutz I am, are you all right?!”

Splayed on the marble landing, surrounded by curious tourists, Laine looked up to see a hand reaching down to her. This hand was attached to an arm, within a suit-jacket sleeve, worn by a handsome but harried-looking man who happened to resemble an angel; the wings of the statue stretched out behind him in exactly the right position behind his back. Then the angel-man kneeled down and the illusion was broken. Which was a good thing because Laine was still sprawled in a most uncivilized position in a place that, it could be argued, represented the bastions of civilization. She blamed her new shoes.

Pulling her knees together, she sat up, shaking the dizziness from her brain. The man, who was at least as beautiful as an angel, retrieved the brochures he had dropped and took her elbow to help her to her feet.

“I was in a rush, not looking where I was going. Are you hurt?”

His startling green eyes bore into hers. Was she hurt? Should she launch into the whole truth of it? That
hurt
was the whole reason for this mad-dash getaway to Paris? That her heart and her ego were shattered beyond recognition?

When she didn’t answer right away, he said, more specifically, “Are you scraped or broken? Should I get a medic?”

His brow furrowed seriously and he glanced surreptitiously at his watch. Right, he was in a hurry. That’s why he had knocked her down in the first place.

She shook her head. No, she wasn’t hurt from the fall. She was hurting, but not from this.

“Do you speak English?” he said with newfound concern. “I just assumed you were American. Aren’t you?”

Laine found her voice. “Yes. Yes, I’m from the states. California. San Francisco to be exact.”

He revealed a gorgeous toothy smile that made his green eyes twinkle.

“I knew it! It was in the way you fell. You didn’t scream. Americans are tough that way.”

Was that supposed to be a compliment? She wasn’t sure what to say so she just smiled her best smile, trying to match his.

“Sorry, was that rude?” he said. “Probably. I don’t normally go around predicting nationalities by knocking people of their feet. I really am terribly sorry.”

Terribly sorry.

“You’re English?” said Laine hesitantly. She was never good with accents. He could have been from Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa. She was always getting those ones mixed up.

“Good guess. I’m visiting from London.”

“Oh.” They stared at each other for a moment or two. He looked as if he were waiting for Laine to say something else, something less enigmatic than ‘oh’. He looked at his watch again.

“I really am late for a meeting. Sorry again.” He headed toward the steps.

“Sure. No problem,” said Laine, turning and lifting her hand to give a small wave, but he already had his back to her, and she felt foolish waving and smiling to someone who had nearly injured her, regardless of his heavenly good looks.

She grabbed onto the strap of her purse to keep her hand busy and was about to go up the stairs—she had to see the Mona Lisa, of course, and that would take some navigating in these silly heels—when the clumsy Englishman said, “Pardon me, Miss San Francisco?”

He was halfway down the stairs and had turned back. He skipped a couple of steps back up, but still remained several steps below her.

Looking up at her with that gorgeous smile he said, “I didn’t get your name. I’m Colin Ellington.” He held out his hand and she would have to take at least one step toward him if she wanted to shake it. She wanted to.

“Laine Dixon. Pleased to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s mine.” He met her gaze again and she tried very hard not to turn away. She lasted only two seconds.

“Laine, would you like to share coffee with me?”

Laine smiled to herself. “You have a meeting. You’re late.”

“After,” he said. “I’ll be about an hour. That’ll give you time to see the Mona Lisa. That’s what you’re here for, right?”

Was she such a predictable American tourist? Then again, seeing the Mona Lisa was high on the agenda for most people visiting the Louvre.

“Not only…” she said.

“Of course not,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. Again. One of my bad habits. Sometimes I speak before I think.” He frowned briefly. “Well?” He glanced at his watch again.

“Did you think before you asked me for coffee?” she joked.

He laughed. “So in an hour then? I’ll meet you outside by the large pyramid?” He backed down a few steps waiting for her answer.

“Sure.” She nodded. “An hour. Large pyramid.”

Colin Ellington from London broke into another dazzling smile and then dashed away.

The Mona Lisa was so much smaller than Laine imagined it would be. Plus it was behind glass
and
roped off. A large crowd milled about, thickening around the curve of rope, taking sound-effect flash-free snapshots with their smart phones.

She wondered how many people here were checking something off their bucket list, like she was. Not that she’d admit that. She could wax on about the genius of da Vinci if she wanted to (he really was a Renaissance genius who probably would have been diagnosed ADHD had he been born in this era) and the importance of art history and the museums established to contain and make that art accessible. She was part of the art education system, after all, as Director of Operations for San Francisco’s de Young Museum. It was her
duty
to visit museums while on holiday. Plus she would be able to write off her admission ticket.

Not that this was a business trip. This was a heartache retreat, and a salt-in-the-wound one at that. Didn’t it make complete sense to go to Paris, city of love, over Valentine’s Day, just after you’d been dumped? She’d given herself a proverbial kick in the butt after she’d authorized the credit card transaction on the Last Minute Deals site. Who could resist a $750 airfare plus seven nights’ stay in a studio apartment in Paris? And one of Richard’s scoffing comments had haunted her ever since they'd first started dating two years earlier: “You work for a museum and you’ve
never seen
the Mona Lisa?”

She’d never been to Florence either, and that had been a bone of derision as well, but there were no cheap tickets to Italy to be found, so Florence had been added to her bucket list. Next summer, she'd promised herself. She would work extra hours to save up enough to have a couple of weeks to linger there, and by then she hoped she wouldn’t be hearing Richard’s condescending voice in her head anymore.

He had broken up with her before Christmas, the worst time for a break up—when gifts are already bought and visits to family already planned. She hated him for his bad timing, but it hadn’t stopped there. By New Year’s she had found out he was seeing someone else—surely someone he’d had his eye on before he broke up with her—and then last week, a friend of hers had leaked that Richard was planning to propose to his rebound on Valentine’s Day. All Laine wanted to do was escape. So she did. Nothing like a credit card and the internet to make fantasies come true.

Laine checked her phone and saw that it was ten minutes less than the hour Colin had stipulated. Should she go to the pyramid? Would he even show up? Her feet were already sore and her head felt cottony from museum air and the heavy energy that surrounded old art. So many stories clung to each piece, and to Laine it often felt like walking through a thick physical fog of things she could sense but not reach out and touch, let alone comprehend. This mysterious effect had initially attracted her to the art world but was also a force she had to contend with and sometimes it won, especially in the big old European institutions. She would love to lie down on one of the benches and have a nap. She’d done that once at the de Young after hours and it had been the most delightful nap of her life. But if she tried that here as a visitor, one of the docents would rouse her and gently escort her to the exit. No napping was one of the rules.

Some fresh air would rouse her energy, and she was curious to see if the handsome Englishman would show up. What did she have to lose? In fact, she might have something to gain. Not long after she and Richard had broken up she had, in a fit of sorts, added something to her bucket list: Have meaningless sex with a stranger. Even after her fit had passed, she hadn’t been inclined to remove this item. Nor had she had the chance to cross it off. In fact, she’d even tucked a single condom in her wallet as a lucky charm, but she’d yet to cash in on its luck.

Laine’s bucket list was comprised of things she wanted to do and also things she didn’t want to
not do
before she passed on from this world. Lying on her death bed, she did not want to regret certain things in life, and only recently did she realize that having meaningless sex with a stranger was one of them, even if it wasn’t one of the more lofty goals such as, sit with someone while they’re dying and help them experience peace and joy.

Life was full of all kinds of experiences and some of them were trite but still worth having. Something else had made it on to Laine’s list after Richard dumped her: Don’t be so serious. This was a cheat item, and she indulged in a few of those. They were the things she couldn’t exactly check off, as they weren’t one-time events but rather ongoing decisions or attitudes. Another was: Act courageously.

As she crossed the main entrance hall of the Louvre she realized these two cheat items supported the meaningless sex one. Her heart skipped as she silently prayed her sexy English gent would show as promised.