The sun’s setting rays shone through Nicole’s eyelids and she stirred. As she woke she opened her eyes to see what looked like the statue of an angel standing over her in front of the window. The sun’s gold aura cast over the angel’s face receded with the sun and she saw then her ‘angel’ was Joseph.
She rose from the bed and wrapped her lavender robe around her before going and sitting in Joseph’s lap where he sat by the window and watching the sun set together as they kissed against a brilliant background of the stained glass sky.
She sighed lazily and laid her head against the breadth of Joseph’s shoulder and rubbed her stomach slowly in lazy circles. “All right the baby demands food” she said to him pointedly. “Well then by all means lets feed the ferocious beast” he teased back. “Bite me” she snapped saucily from the bathroom where she was dressing.
“Gladly” he parried as he caught her ear with his teeth and worked his way down, tongue flicking in and out until he felt her arousal. She surprised him by returning with a hot breathy kiss of her own using her own tongue to return the favour. And for a brief, blissful moment, each forgot the responsibilities and duties of their life, of adulthood, of marriage and impending parenthood and just went at each other like teenagers.
Nicole reappeared wearing a purple knit turtleneck that clung deliciously to her high round bump and luscious cleavage and a pair of jeans with the black leather boots he remembered so fondly as the reason for their first encounter.
“Voulez vous couches avec moi?” he said proffering his arm as they walked out onto the street. “How do you think I got this way” she retorted glancing down laughingly. As the pair walked down the streets of Paris overlooking the Seine and nearby Eiffel Tower Joseph reluctantly admitted the company crisis was peaking instead of dying down as he had hoped. He had the Canadian newspapers delivered to the suite, careful not to let Nicole see the distressing slanderous headline, but at this point he didn’t know of the situation would even die down before her due date when thy had to return to Canada.
At that moment they passed a little newsstand where the owner had displayed a glossy stack of international magazines. Before Joseph could redirect her attention elsewhere she caught sight of one of the sleazier tabloid shots Joseph hadn’t received yet. ‘Sleazy CEO gives Toronto the slip: heads abroad with mistress expecting his secret love-child’.
“Merde!” Nicole swore so loudly that the nearby ducks fled and scattered, quacking angrily at the disruption of their evening meal. “My God Joe have you seen these?” she demanded of him colour rising in her face. Joseph pushed it aside surprising Nicole with the vitriol of his anger. But it wasn’t the rag’s allegations of him – it was the image of Nicole plastered across the cover page of one of the more widespread internationally distributed magazines that he was now gripping with whitened hands.
Nicole peered around his shoulder and gasped, it was so intrusive so personal. Her lips tightened in outrage and disbelief.
This is despicable he snarled, they have been following you. Nicole took one hand off her stomach and flicked the page grimacing as she saw pictures of herself leap from the pages. Her professional press release picture was in there, leaving the deli with groceries, going into her apartment, exiting the doctors…
She gasped suddenly, “Jaclynn” the word tore from her lips with wicked ferocity. There was a full page spread of Jaclynn in a midriff baring red top perched on HER desk as she gave an exclusive interview.
“I swear she must of like drugged him or something or like taken his sperm cuz I have never seen with a man like that, I ain’t ever seen Ms. Warren with any man period!”. “Eurgh!” ,she thought “there’s that MS. Thing again”.
She read on “it’s not like she’s some Ivanka Trump or Angelina Jolie or something right? I guess she wanted a baby so she wouldn’t die old and alone so she hooked up with him and got herself pregnant. I don’t think anyone really likes her, I even heard her best friend saying she wished she would just go home and get out of the office and how she didn’t want to see her again”.
Nicole moaned softly, how had that little intern whore have gotten everything so mixed up? She must have overheard or been listening in to her and Sherri’s private conversation when Sherri had forced Nicole to go home and get some rest after she had thrown up twice and told her she didn’t want to see her again until she got better.
She had worked SO hard to build up her reputation and business and now some two bit gum-snapping slut was tearing it down with that gum popping mouth of hers that she was sure the reporter had received as much pleasure from as he had what she had displayed in that low cut top.
There was a very small blurb at the bottom of the page about Sherri whom they had labelled as a crazy hysterical bitch after she had kicked Jaclyn and the cameras out of Nicole’s office and then refused to give a statement other than saying that MISS Warren (thank God for Sher)had taken a temporary medical leave of absence until the baby was born and that there was no scandal involving her and Joseph Redford and that the company was in as fine a shape as ever and was still committed to providing the best literary editing and translations services to their clients as they had done for the last 6 years.
The man Nicole has always known to be in control now stood in front of her and in one swift motion of fury, had ripped the thick magazine in half and thrown it into the nearby Seine.
The small man who owned the newspaper stand looked as though he wanted to object but was too afraid of crossing the furious bearlike figure of the man in front of him. His eyes flashed and darkened as he threw a handful of crumpled euros on the wooden counter of the stand and took Nicole’s hand and strode away.
Until, that was, he realized that she was getting out of breath and couldn’t walk that fast with her added burden. Cursing himself under his breath, he led the huffing and puffing Nicole over to an outside table at a bistro. She leaned back in the chair and tried to catch her breath. She ran her hands over her belly and took a sip of water from the glass Joseph had snapped his fingers for a waiter to bring.
She nodded as she took another gulp. “I’m okay Joe. Let’s just sit for a minute and let the baby calm down a bit. Phew! now Joe…”
The audacities seemed to blur on the paper and a deep ache rolled vice like across her lower belly. Nicole gripped the table with one hand and tried to massage away the cramp with the other. She gave out a low groan and doubled over in her seat, nostrils flaring in and out as she tried to control her breathing.
Joseph pushed the table away with one hand and whipped out a lancet from his wallet and drew it across her wrist to check her insulin while dialing his blackberry and speaking into it in rapid agitated French. A look of relief washed over his face as he looked from the lancet to the mouthpiece of his phone.
“Nicole, darling, can you hear me? Darling it’s alright just steady your breathing for me, good, now try and put your head between your legs until the room stops spinning. Nicole was now sufficiently recovered to look sarcastically up at him at the suggestion of her being able to bend over with her stomach getting in the way.
“It’s okay” she said, still breathless, her eyes still closed as she sat up again slowly using Joseph as a support to lean on. She opened her eyes to smile reassuringly at Joe and to glance at the tiny monitor being crushed in Joseph’s hand “See, my blood pressure just got a little high that’s all. Maybe you were right to take me away from work and the city for a while, any higher and I would have been in hospital” she assured him, but looking at the monitor still clenched tightly in his hand she added “but I do need something to eat”.
Joseph gave their order to a hovering waiter who scurried back to the kitchen. To calm her rushing nerves Nicole accepted s half glass of red wine sipping it slowly and enjoying the full heady fragranct aroma wash away the sound of the pounding blood rushing in her ears.
Not wanting the pain that signalled her precious baby’s distress to return Nicole waited until her entrée of seared scallops in a cream sauce and bouillabaisse to raise the next question.
“In all honesty I don’t know Nic” Joseph replied before she had a chance to open her mouth. “I have both of our lawyers working on it, dealing with our respective PR people and press. My company has to go through with a full criminal trial before they can charge Dominic and fire him for the money laundering scheme and slander claims – and of course the government is involved. But with God’s help all charges against me will be dropped and the world will see we had no part in this. Cara mia I’m so sorry to have dragged you into this”.
He watched protectively as his swollen wife eased herself out of the chair, still keeping one hand clasped to the lower curve of her stomach. The cool night air of Paris flitted across the cobblestones and caused Nicole to shiver, goosebumps spreading over any bare patches of skin.
Joseph insisted she sit down on a nearby bench as he called a car to take them back the 5 short blocks to their apartment. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her after wrapping her in his coat. She nestled into the prickly warmth of the wool fibres, breathing in the familiar musky scent that lingered. The baby moved restlessly inside her, “I know sweet baby, I know, I know mon Coeur…”
Nicole watched as a sleek black car pulled under the glow of the streetlamps. Ever the gentleman, Joseph came back to get her, and held the door open as she tried to slide elegantly into the leather interior.
This did not go over as she planned, and instead ended up putting both hands on the seat and trying to lower herself awkwardly backward into the car and fell back as the amused but slightly horrified face of Joseph and her arms finally gave out as she burst into laughter so that only her denim clad legs and the topmost curve of her belly showed from above the step of the car. Joseph shook his head and climbed in after her and the car zoomed away.
PLEASE keep up the comments guys!! And remember to vote, vote, vote!!! xoxo, TLH