Fucking Monique.

Curse her damned conniving ways. Curse her for ruining my chances with Adriana.

Evil, cunning, clever Monique.

“Come, chéri,” she says, taking my hand and guiding me through the airport towards the taxi stand. When we get there she stops and turns my way, pressing herself a little too close to my very non-aroused frame. Well, let her press. I’m thinking if she picks up Adriana’s scent she’ll either back off or attack me like a cheetah going after its dinner.

“You took a taxi here?” I ask, looking around in vain for her car.

“Mais oui,” she tells me. “You know I don’t like to drive, Conlon.”

“Jesus, I could’ve taken a sodding taxi on my own. There was no need for you to come.”

“I wanted to,” she says, issuing me a pout that would make a three-year-old bow in admiration as she strokes a finger down the centre of my chest. “Tell me, who was that woman?”

Fuck, she’s playing with the seam of my shirt now. Doing that sexy teasing thing that women do, trying to show me how badly she’d like to take off my clothes. Only it’s not working. My cock is a damp sponge down there, rejecting her every move with its refusal to harden.

“What woman?” I ask, my irritated, tired eyes looking everywhere but at her. I know perfectly well that she’s talking about Adriana, but no way am I going to let her in on my emotional state right now.

“The one you chased after. With no makeup and the big ugly suitcase.”

“Just someone I met on the plane,” I say. “Translation: none of your business.”

Her pout turns into a scowl. She wanted me to tell her that Adriana was unattractive, dull and smelly. I fight back the urge to let the words “I fucked her and it was magnificent” explode from my vocal cords.

I’m saved by the cab driver, who ushers us into his back seat. Once we’re situated, Monique turns away and crosses her arms over her plentiful plastic chest. Of course she does, the petulant child.

She shouldn’t have come. She thought she was doing me a favour, but she’s not. I suppose she also thought I’d crawl into bed with her as a reward for being so kind, but I won’t. I’ve been there before, one time, after a drink too many and too many months of celibacy. I swore that it would never happen again. She tastes like chemicals and I’m convinced that she’s made entirely of Satan’s leftovers.

Monique works for me. Well, works is a term I use loosely. She is on my payroll. A sort of Parisian customer relations expert, she helps me sell my products, and that’s not all she sells. She’s good at her job, which is the only reason I keep her around. I’m fairly sure the only reason she sticks it out is in the hopes that she’ll eventually get me to propose marriage, milk me for millions—or billions—of euros, then take off. She’s not made of the strongest moral fibre.

Her tits look spectacular clothed, but bare, they’re like something out of Frankenstein’s nightmares. Why do women fill themselves with rubber and silicone? For fuck’s sake, I design appendages for people who’ve lost them; limbs that help people like Galen live normal lives. I’ll never in my life comprehend adding foreign materials to a body that doesn’t need them.

Adriana’s breasts, on the other hand, were spectacular. Round, pert, perfect, succulent pink nipples. I could tell just by sucking them that her nerves are a tangle of sensation that leads right down to her clit. She’s a sex goddess, that one.

As I stare out the window at the passing landscape I slam my eyes shut and picture her face, my cock threatening to harden again. Those luscious lips, those eyes of hers, full of curiosity and intellect. She’s a natural beauty in the best sense. Her loveliness comes from somewhere inside her and shines through every pore.

I hurt her, and I feel like utter shit for having done so. She thinks I’m with someone, that I cheated on Monique like a fucking scoundrel. That’s the horrid bit. She thinks I’m sleeping with some overly-perfumed French airhead. Adriana hates me. She must.

And there’s nothing I can do about it.

I don’t know where she’s staying. All I know is that she’ll be in Paris for a few weeks. I wonder how long it would take me to pound on every door in the city, asking for the gorgeous American woman. My fists clench at my sides as I think about it. How close I was to asking her to spend more time with me. How much I was feeling for her, in spite of our limited time together. I was willing to walk out onto a precarious limb for her, to see what might happen to my heart if I actually opened it up a little.

But now I’m in a car with fucking Monique. And unfortunately, I suppose I should get back to real life.

“Any word on the new contract?” I ask, turning to the woman who destroyed my chance to enjoy Adriana’s company over the next few weeks.

“I don’t know,” she snarls. Still pissy, I see. “What do I know about contracts?”

“Right, I shouldn’t expect you to know anything. It’s just your fucking job to sell our product.”

“I didn’t come all the way to the airport to talk about work,” she moans, levelling me with a look of death. “I came for you, monsieur Davies.”

“I didn’t ask you to. In fact, you did me a disservice by coming, Monique. I’m not impressed with your presumption that I would want to see you.”

“Oh, what? I hurt your chances with little blondie?”

“Yes, in fact you did.”

“You fucked her, didn’t you?” she hisses. I see the driver raising an eyebrow in the rear view mirror. Can’t blame the chap; this is intriguing stuff.

“Fucked is an ugly word,” I reply, setting myself up for a cruel retort. “I made love with her.” My lips curl up with the words, and I have to confess to deriving a little sadistic pleasure from our exchange.

Monique is the kind of woman a man fucks. Adriana is a woman to savour.

She makes a sound like an alley cat in heat and looks out the window again, drawing her knees so far away that they’re almost pushing through the door. Arrogant woman thought she owned me.

“It doesn’t matter anyhow,” I say quietly. “She thinks I’m a bastard now, because of you.”

“You are a bastard. You’re selfish.”

“Oh, really?” I lean towards her and speak slowly and softly. “If I were a selfish bastard, I would take you home with me, bend you over my kitchen counter and fuck your brains out, just like you’re hoping I’ll do,” I say. She turns my way, a look of hope raising her brows. “But I’m not selfish, you see,” I continue, “and I won’t fuck you ever again. So next time you’re feeling horny, go pick up some other man at the airport. This manipulative shite isn’t what I pay you for.”

Her jaw drops like a ton of bricks, and she looks as though she’s about to hurl a bevy of French insults my way. But instead, thank God, she clams up again and turns away like a dog who’s been reprimanded after peeing on the carpet.

When we reach my flat I extract my bag from the taxi’s trunk and send her back to my office downtown. All I want is to be alone with my thoughts, a hot shower…

and Adriana.