Chapter Nine

Ah, so you met Sébastien?” Poppy said, eyeing me in amusement the next morning.

I was confused at Poppy’s reaction. She’d been in bed by the time I arrived home, and I’d been eager to get up the next morning to tell her about my unexpected date the day before. Perhaps, I thought, she’d been right about the potential of these French guys after all.

“What?” I asked. “You know him? That’s impossible.” How could she know a person I’d randomly encountered in a city of millions?

“Let me guess,” she said drily. “He was tall with glasses. Sitting alone. Reading a novel. Told you he goes to a different café each week?”

I stared. Was she clairvoyant? “Yes,” I said. “But how . . . ?”

“I met him my second week in Paris,” she said, the left corner of her mouth curling upward into a smile she was clearly trying to fight. “I’d been taking a walk near Notre Dame, and it started to rain, so I ducked into Café Margot. He was there, reading a Gérard de Nerval book. The moment he realized I was British, he came right over.”

“What?” My mouth felt dry.

“I didn’t realize until I was telling my American friend Lauren about it that it’s apparently his routine,” Poppy said. “He did the exact same thing to her. Wined her, dined her, took her on a tour of Montmartre, got her drunk at that great fondue place up there. Is that what happened to you?”

“Yes,” I said, flabbergasted.

“Right. Me, too. And then he walks you home and asks if he can come in?” Poppy finished the story for me.

I gaped at her and nodded silently.

“Well, at least you were smart enough to say no,” she said. “I wasn’t as smart. He wound up spending the night.”

“You’re kidding,” I said flatly.

“Not at all.” Poppy grinned. “Nothing happened. But imagine how foolish I felt when I told Lauren the story and found out the same thing had happened to her.”

“Probably just about as foolish as I feel right now,” I muttered.

“Don’t feel that way,” Poppy said brightly. “That’s the game they play. They know exactly how to woo you. But as soon as they get what they want, they’re on to the next conquest. It just proves my point. You have to jump ship before you get too attached.”

I was feeling a little ill. “Are all French guys like this?” I asked in horror.

Poppy laughed. “No. I believe Sébastien is a rare case. But he’s a great example of why you can’t believe a word they say. Never. Men just want to tell you lies, whether they’re French or American or British. It’s universal. At least according to Janice Clark-Meyers, the author of Different Language, Same Men.”

I looked at her for a moment. “You sound awfully bitter,” I said carefully. “Darren must have really hurt you.”

Poppy looked away. “No. I’m just a realist.”

Poppy went out Sunday evening to meet some guy for drinks, and I spent the time finally unpacking my two massive suitcases, hanging clothes in my tiny wardrobe chest and putting away T-shirts, lingerie, and nightgowns in the little drawers under my bed.

I was lost in trying to decide whether to put my shoes under my bed or buy an over-the-door shoe rack somewhere when the phone rang, startling me.

“Emma, I’ve missed you,” said Brett’s familiar voice on the other end when I picked up. I froze, stunned. It had been nearly five weeks since I’d last seen him, and already his voice sounded unfamiliar to me. “Your sister gave me your number,” he added. “It hasn’t been the same here without you.”

I breathed into the phone. I didn’t know what to say. Had he, by some sixth sense, realized that for the first time last night, I’d fallen asleep without thinking about him? I’d just been getting used to a life without him.

“Emma? Are you there?”

“Brett,” I said finally, trying to keep the wobble out of my voice. “Why are you calling?”

“Because I miss you,” he said, sounding wounded. “Don’t you miss me?”

“No,” I said. There was silence on the other end, and I felt guilty—not just for hurting his feelings but because it was a lie. I did miss him. But that was pathetic, wasn’t it?

“I shouldn’t have said the things I did,” he said after a moment. “I was stupid, and I’m so sorry. It was all a mistake.”

I was silent. I didn’t know what to say.

“What about Amanda?” I asked finally.

There was silence and then heavy breathing on the other end of the line.

“You know about that?” he asked in a small voice.

I didn’t bother answering. “You’re such an asshole,” I said instead.

“Oh, Emma, I’m so, so sorry,” he said quickly, his words tumbling out on top of each other. “Emma. Please. Can you hear me? I’m sorry. More sorry than you know. It was just a mistake. A huge mistake. I was trying to get over you.”

“That’s an interesting technique,” I muttered. “If it doesn’t work out with your fiancée, screw her best friend?”

Brett sighed and continued. “Emma. Please. I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am. But I love you. I still want to marry you. I just got cold feet, that’s all.”

It was exactly what I’d wanted to hear five weeks ago. But now his words just made me feel empty and confused.

“Emma, will you come home?” Brett asked. “Please? Give me another chance?”

I walked into the living room and sat down on the sofa, facing the window. Outside, mere yards away, the Eiffel Tower loomed like a reminder of all I had yet to discover in this city.

“No,” I said finally, trying to sound far more confident than I felt. “I think this is where I belong now.”

I hung up before he had a chance to protest.

“Well, it was what he deserved,” Poppy said at work the next morning as she leaned over me to grab a permanent marker from the other side of the conference table. We had arrived early to work on the layout for the cover of the press folder for Guillaume’s London launch. We couldn’t agree on the perfect photo to use; I wanted to use one where Guillaume was holding his guitar and smiling, while Poppy wanted to find one where he had on his signature sexy sulk.

“Are you sure?” I asked as I took a sip of coffee and studied the display of photos we had laid out in front of us. “I mean, maybe it just took him a little while to realize what a huge mistake he’d made. Maybe he did just get cold feet.”

“You were with the guy for three years,” Poppy recapped. She picked up two of the photos and put them in our discard pile. “You’ve been engaged for almost a year. And then suddenly he dumps you and tells you to move out? I don’t care whether he’s changed his mind or not. Is that really the kind of guy you’d want to be with?”

“I guess not,” I muttered. We worked in silence for a few minutes.

I tried hard to concentrate on the task at hand. Guillaume’s single was due to hit airwaves around the world that night, so it was a big day for us. Focus on Guillaume, I told myself. Not on Brett.

“So,” I said lightly, trying to change the subject. “I guess Gabriel was wrong about Guillaume getting into trouble at Buddha Bar last night.”

“I told you he was full of it,” Poppy said.

“You were right,” I said. “How stupid of me to have believed him.”

“Not stupid,” Poppy said. “Just naive. You can’t trust these reporters, though.”

“I’m sure they’re saying the same thing about us,” I said.

Poppy grinned. “Yes, and they’re absolutely right.”

We finally agreed on a photo of Guillaume in a Cuban-looking military jacket with sliced-up sleeves that showed off his incredible arm muscles. In the picture, he was holding his custom-made red Les Paul guitar, which he had nicknamed Lucie, after his little sister, and he was giving the camera one of his signature smoldering looks that was practically enough to make any red-blooded woman melt on the spot.

“Okay, I’ve got to run to that lunch meeting in London,” Poppy said after we’d called the printer and added the photo to the layout we’d already given them for the press pack, which they’d have printed and ready for us by the end of the week. “Will you be okay on your own for the afternoon? You have plenty to keep you busy, right?”

Poppy had a one fifteen meeting in London with the president of the British Music Press Association that she’d spent the past few days preparing for. She’d catch the eleven thirteen Eurostar out of Gare du Nord in time to make it to a restaurant just outside the train station in London for lunch. She’d leave just after three to make it home in time for dinner. It was amazing how quickly you could hop between the two national capitals.

“Of course,” I said brightly. I’d been here a week now, and thanks to eight years of working in the industry, I certainly knew how to handle myself around a PR office. On top of that, I was getting excited about Guillaume’s London launch. It would be one of the biggest projects I’d ever been involved in, and I was proud of the work Poppy and I had already done. I had dozens of calls to make to American music journalists that afternoon, and I needed to verify some things with the London hotel where we’d be holding the event in less than three weeks.

“Okay, sweetie,” Poppy said, getting up to grab her handbag, which was a perfect-looking Kelly knockoff. “Wish me luck. I’ll have my mobile on if you need me.”

Thirty minutes later, I had made five media calls, all of which went well. I was particularly happy with the chat I’d had with a London-based writer from Rolling Stone, who had promised she’d be at the junket.

“Guillaume Riche looks just yummy!” she had exclaimed. “And the advance copy of the ‘City of Light’ single you sent me sounds amazing. You really have a star on your hands!”

The call had left me with a warm glow, which is exactly what I was basking in when my phone rang again. Assuming it was one of the British journalists I’d left a message for calling me back, I cheerfully answered the phone, “Emma Sullivan, Millar PR!”

A deep voice on the other end of the line blurted out several sentences in French.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, interrupting the flood of words. Even if I couldn’t understand the language, I knew he was upset. “Je ne parle pas français.”

I was getting awfully tired of saying that.

“Who eez thees?” the voice asked in thickly accented English. “Where eez Poppy?”

“Poppy is away at a meeting,” I said. “This is her new colleague, Emma. I’m also working on Guillaume Riche’s English-language launch. Is there something I can help you with?”

There was dead silence on the other end.

“Yes,” the man said finally. “Emma, you must hurry. This eez Guillaume’s manager, Raf. I’m een Dijon, so you are going to have to help me.”

“Help you with what?”

“Guillaume just called me,” Raf said rapidly. “Emma, he somehow fell asleep een a storage room near ze lifts on ze second floor of ze Eiffel Tower last night.”

I gasped. “What?”

“I’m afraid eet eez true,” Raf said. “The morning cleaning crew discovered heem, and as you can imagine, he eez een a lot of trouble.”

I groaned. “Could it get any worse?” I asked rhetorically. Only it turned out the question wasn’t so rhetorical after all.

Raf paused for another moment.

“Well, yes, eet could,” he said with a sigh. “There eez one more thing I may have forgotten to mention. The young lady he was with clearly thought eet would be amusing to steal heez clothes while he slept. So eet seems he was een ze lift with just heez briefs when ze crew found him.”

“What?”

“Mais oui.”

“Where is he now?” I asked, starting to panic.

“He’s een ze Eiffel Tower security office being interrogated,” Raf said, his voice sounding weary. “But there eez a lot of press outside—ze same journalists who have been bothering heem for a week, mostly. You are going to need to get down there and do some damage control.”

Raf read me Guillaume’s mobile number and told me that the tower’s security manager had already okayed a press rep being allowed in to speak to him. I was to call him as soon as I got to the tower, and I’d be escorted up.

“Emma, there eez one piece of good news een all of thees,” Raf added at the end. “The security guards have not called ze police. They know who Guillaume is and prefer to handle this privately. So there may be some opportunity there for you to sort things out.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

I hung up and pounded my head on the desk for a moment. This couldn’t be happening.

I dialed Poppy’s mobile number, but there was no answer. I tried again. Still nothing. I left her a panicked message explaining the situation. Then I dialed Véronique’s number. I was sure that she—or one of the company’s in-house PR reps—would know how to handle things.

“Well, you obviously need to take care of this,” she said calmly when I was done recapping my conversation with Raf. Why was it that the French never seemed to panic?

“Me?” I tried to stop myself from freaking out. “But I can’t reach Poppy!”

“Unless I’m mistaken,” Véronique said, her voice cold, “you are being paid as part of Guillaume’s PR team. So if you and Poppy want to keep your jobs, I suggest you hurry down to the Eiffel Tower to solve this little problem before word gets out. Or should I hire another PR firm that is more reliable?”

I sat there in shock for a moment before mumbling a reply, slamming down the phone, and hurrying out of the office.

“Oh, dear, Emma, I am so sorry I can’t be there,” Poppy whispered into the phone when she called me back fifteen minutes later. I was en route to the Eiffel Tower, and I’d broken out in a cold sweat in the back of the cab. “I’m already on the train. We’ve left the station.”

“I understand,” I said through gritted teeth. “But what am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know,” Poppy whispered back. “Lie?”

“Yeah.” I shook my head. “I’m going to get lots of practice with that here, aren’t I?”

“Look, I’ll call you as soon as I’m done,” Poppy said. “I’m so sorry to make you handle this on your own.”

I asked the cabbie to swing by the Celio store on the Rue de Rivoli on the way. He waited while I dashed inside to buy Guillaume a shirt, cargo pants, and flip-flops. I guessed on his size, assuming that even if the clothes weren’t exactly right, he’d appreciate wearing something other than his underwear when he was escorted outside.

Ten minutes later, the cab drew to a halt in front of the Eiffel Tower.

“You will love it!” the driver said, turning around to me with a smile. Obviously he’d mistaken me for a carefree tourist. “It eez ze best tourist sight in Paris. You must go up to ze top.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, counting out his fare with trembling hands. I could feel sweat beading at my brow.

“Oh, no, do not be nervous!” he exclaimed. “I see you are transpiring.” I guessed he meant perspiring. “But do not worry,” he went on encouragingly. “There are guardrails. It eez completely safe.”

“Merci beaucoup,” I mumbled, pressing a handful of bills into his hand. “Keep the change.”

“Just take ze deep breaths and you will be fine, mademoiselle!” the cabdriver shouted behind me as I slammed the door and began my dash across the courtyard to the entrance. “It eez nothing to panic about!”

Unfortunately, before I reached the tower, I had to pass a horde of journalists clustered near the base of its west pillar. Gabriel was the only one who spotted me as I tried to sneak by.

“Emma!” he shouted out. The other reporters, snapped to attention by his voice, spun to face me, too. Suddenly I was in the center of a storm of questions that were being hurled toward me far faster than I could respond to them.

“Is it true that Guillaume Riche is in custody inside the Eiffel Tower?”

“Was he drunk?”

“Has he been taken to jail?”

“Will this delay his album launch?”

“Does KMG have an official statement?”

“No,” I muttered, trying to make my way past them.

“What about the allegation that he was trapped in the tower overnight?” Gabriel’s oddly American-sounding voice rose above the others. “Are you denying it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There was hardly room to move as I elbowed through the crowd. I quickly explained who I was to one of the guards, who thankfully spoke enough English to understand. He radioed someone, and in a moment he reluctantly ushered me through and pointed me toward the south pillar.

“What about the allegation that he’s naked?” Gabriel yelled after me as I began to stride away, trying to stop myself from panicking.

“Not true.” I stopped and glared at Gabriel. Who did he think he was anyhow?

“Then what are you doing here if there’s nothing going on?” Gabriel asked smugly. His deep green eyes sparkled triumphantly behind his thin-rimmed glasses. He grinned at me, and I was disappointed to realize that his dimples were just as charming, even when he was annoying the heck out of me. Which was unfortunate, because I really wanted to dislike Gabriel Francoeur.

“Er . . . we’re doing a promotional thing for his new album, Riche, which will have its launch party two weeks from Saturday,” I said, thinking quickly. I glanced at Gabriel and then at the other journalists. “I’m sorry you all appear to have been misinformed again. But I hope you’re looking forward to the album release as much as I am.”

With that, I began striding toward the entrance.

“If there’s nothing wrong,” I could hear Gabriel shouting behind me, “then bring Guillaume out to talk to us when you’re done inside!”

I ignored him and tried to swallow the lump in my throat. I clutched the Celio bag tighter. How could I bring him out past the media horde if he was in custody? I was in serious trouble here. I had no idea how I would talk the security guards out of having Guillaume arrested.

After a quick consultation with a security manager outside the tower, I was escorted sixty yards up to the first level by elevator. I hardly had time to marvel at the fact that, for the first time in years, I was once again inside one of my favorite buildings in the world. I barely noticed the intricate, crisscrossing geometric ironwork of the tower as we were whisked quickly up toward what I suspected would be a much crazier scene than the Hôtel Jeremie last week.

My escort led me down a series of hallways on the first floor and into a small office behind the Eiffel Tower’s post office, where I was introduced to two of the security guards who had Guillaume in custody.

“Where is he?” I asked wearily. Smirking, one of the guards gestured toward a closed door in the back.

“Bonne chance, mademoiselle,” he said. Good luck, miss.

The guard opened the door for me, and for a moment I just stood there, staring.

Inside the small, mostly bare room, Guillaume was sitting in a plastic chair, naked but for a pair of faded Hanes briefs, which were red with a thick white band around the waist. He had one leg crossed casually over the other and was reading a tattered copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And as if things couldn’t get any stranger, he was wearing a black top hat. A black cane with a white tip was propped against the chair.

“Allons-y,” the officer urged. Let’s go. I gulped and stepped inside. The officer slammed the door behind me with a definitive bang, and Guillaume looked up. He stared at me for a moment as if trying to place me, then blinked a few times and grinned.

“Ah, bonjour, Emma!” he said brightly, as if I had just dropped in on him in his penthouse as opposed to a security cell in the Eiffel Tower. He snapped his book shut and set it down. “You are looking lovely this morning.”

I tried to control my impulse to blush—and also my impulse to stare at his mostly naked body. “Guillaume, what on earth are you doing?”

“It’s not my fault, Emma,” he said with a casual shrug. He tipped his top hat to me and stood up lazily. I blinked a few times and looked away. After all, it was irrelevant that his was the nicest body I’d ever laid eyes on, right?

“I’m sure you’re totally innocent, once again,” I said drily. I thrust the Celio bag at him. “Please get dressed, Guillaume,” I said, still trying not to look too closely.

He looked at me for a moment then took the bag from me. He peered inside and his face lit up. “Emma!” he exclaimed. “You brought me clothes! How nice! And I didn’t get you anything! How rude of me!”

I glanced back at him. He was smiling happily, as if there were nothing in the world wrong with the present situation.

“Yeah, I’m a real angel,” I muttered. I looked him up and down. “What exactly were you doing, anyhow?”

Guillaume regarded me blankly. “I was doing a dance number, Emma,” he said.

“A dance number?”

He nodded. “Want to see?”

“Not particularly,” I said.

Guillaume smiled and shook his head. “Oh, Emma, where is your sense of adventure?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Where are your clothes?”

He ignored me. “I was just seeing what it was like to be Fred Astaire. You’re American. You should appreciate that, right?”

With that, he stood, dropped the bagful of clothing on the ground, and picked up the cane.

“Guillaume—”

He held up a hand. “Do not interrupt the artistic process, Emma.”

He closed his eyes, breathed in and out, and whispered, “Zen.” Then, wearing just his red briefs and top hat, he began to do a little barefoot tap dance.

“Have you seen the well-to-do,” Guillaume began to sing loudly in a booming voice, waving his cane grandly around.

I stared in horrified awe as he pranced back and forth in the little cell, swinging his cane, tipping his hat, kicking his legs up and dancing around me until he concluded with, “Puttin’ on the Ritz!”

There was a moment of silence after Guillaume finished the song, on his knees, the top hat in one hand and the cane in the other. He looked at me hopefully, and I sensed that I was supposed to applaud.

Instead, I shook my head slowly. “You are seriously insane,” I said.

Guillaume pouted, dropping his hat and cane dejectedly to the floor. “Aw, Emma, I’m just having a little fun.”

I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “Okay, Guillaume, wonderful,” I said. “Seriously, would you put some clothes on and let me deal with this? Otherwise you’re going to be performing your next dance routine at the local jail.”

“I was going to suggest you join me,” Guillaume sulked. “You’d be great dancing with me to ‘Cheek to Cheek.’ It’s my favorite Astaire number, you know.”

“Maybe some other time,” I said. “Now please? Get dressed!”

Guillaume looked a bit disappointed, but he picked up the Celio bag, pulled out the shirt, and shrugged. “Whatever you say, Emma,” he said sadly as he began to pull the shirt over his head. I lingered a second longer than I needed to (hey, it’s not every day you get to see the world’s most handsome man in his underwear, okay?), then made my way back out to the main office, where I asked who was in charge. The Eiffel Tower security chief offered me a seat and called over the two other guards who were standing in the room.

“I’m so sorry about this,” I said after introducing myself and apologizing for my lack of French proficiency. “What happened?”

In broken English, the security manager described how a guard who’d just started his morning shift had found the nearly naked Guillaume fast asleep in a room near the tower’s south pillar. They couldn’t imagine how he had snuck in, as security at the tower had been tight since 2001. It had taken the guard several minutes to wake the snoring Guillaume; he had then alerted his superior and escorted the singer to the security office. That’s when Guillaume began doing his little tap-dance routine.

“He continued to say he was Fred Astaire,” said one of the guards, scratching his head. “And he began to sing a song about tomatoes, tomahtoes, potatoes, and potahtoes.”

“That is when I realized that it wasn’t just some bum,” the security manager interrupted, leaning forward conspiratorially. “It was Guillaume Riche! One of the most famous celebrities in France!”

I sighed. “Yes. That’s why an incident like this could really be a problem for his image, you understand.”

The manager exchanged glances with his two deputies.

“I thought so,” he said with a nod, looking back at me. He lowered his voice. “That’s why we’re prepared to . . . negotiate.”

I looked at him blankly. “Negotiate?”

His eyes darted from side to side then settled on me. “Oui,” he said. “We can do a little, how you say, exchange? And we can forget that this happened. We have not called the police yet.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, not quite understanding what he meant by an exchange. “But the police obviously know there’s something going on, right? I mean, there are dozens of reporters outside.”

“Oui,” the security chief said. “But we are willing to say that this was all a misunderstanding. We can say that Guillaume Riche had our permission to be here.”

“You would do that?” I asked.

“Oui,” he said. “If we can reach an agreement.” He rubbed his hands together and winked at me.

“And if he promises to put his pants on,” one of the guards muttered.

“And not to dance anymore,” said the other. All three men nodded vigorously.

Suddenly I understood.

“Are you talking about a bribe?” I asked incredulously.

The three men exchanged looks.

“A bribe?” the security chief asked. “What does this mean? I do not know this word.”

Okay, so obviously he was going to play dumb. I took a deep breath and nodded. “Let me see what I can do,” I said. “I need to talk to Guillaume, okay? I’m sure we can work this out.”

“Oui, mademoiselle,” the manager said, still looking confused.

I asked them to hold on for a moment. I knocked on Guillaume’s door. “Are you dressed?”

“Do you want me naked?” he shouted back. I rolled my eyes and opened the door. Thankfully, he had managed to find his way into the T-shirt and pants. He had one of the flip-flops on his feet; he was holding the other one in his hands, examining it as if it were the key to the universe. “It’s amazing how they put these things together,” he said, gazing at the flip-flop in awe. Inexplicably, he was also still wearing the top hat.

I shook my head. There was seriously something wrong with the guy. “Guillaume, I think the security guards are asking for a bribe to let you out of this,” I said. I felt a little ill; I couldn’t believe that I was about to resort to bribery to extract my insane client from a potentially disastrous situation. I wondered vaguely what the penalties were in France for such an offense. I sighed. “Do you have any money on you?”

I realized as soon as the words were out of my mouth what a ridiculous question it was. Of course he didn’t. He didn’t have any clothes on until I’d brought him the Celio garb. Where would he keep his money?

But clearly I had underestimated Guillaume Riche.

“Of course,” he responded with a shrug. “I always keep some cash in my underwear.”

“You . . . you do?” I had no idea whether he was kidding.

“Of course,” Guillaume said. He reached down the front of his pants, felt around for a moment, and pulled out a thick fold of bills. “Do you want to borrow some?” he asked pleasantly, holding up the bills. I stared. “To buy a souvenir or something?”

“Um, no, not a souvenir.”

Guillaume shrugged and tossed the fold to me. I caught it reluctantly, trying not to think about the fact that it had spent the night down his briefs. I tried to remember that desperate times called for desperate measures, and if being responsible for a naked, top-hatted rock star trapped in a major monument wasn’t a desperate time, I didn’t know what was.

“I don’t know how much is there.” He shrugged. “Take what you want. I don’t care.”

While he returned his attention to his apparently intriguing flip-flop, I looked down at the bills in my hands. My eyes widened when I realized that the bill on top was a hundred. I quickly counted the rest.

“Guillaume, you keep twenty-eight hundred euros in your underwear?” I asked after a moment, looking up at him in confusion.

He shrugged. “So what?” he asked. “You never know what you might need a little cash for.”

He smiled at me like nothing was wrong.

I shook my head. “Um, okay.” I didn’t know what to make of this guy.

“Night and day, you are the one!” Guillaume suddenly broke into song again and began to dance around.

“Guillaume!” I said sharply.

He abruptly stopped. “What, you do not like Fred Astaire? That was ‘Night and Day,’ one of his greatest hits.”

“No, Fred Astaire is fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “I just need to handle this situation. So can you stop dancing for a moment and talk to me?”

Guillaume shrugged. “Okay.”

“Great.” I took a deep breath. “I can have this money?” I asked, holding up the bills.

“That’s fine.” He nodded and smiled at me. “Whatever you want, Emma. You should buy a souvenir, too. To remember this day.”

“I think I’ll pass on that,” I said drily.

I knocked on the door to the security office and slipped inside, holding the roll of bills in my hand. The eyes of all three guards widened as I held it up.

“Okay, I have twenty-eight hundred euros here,” I said.

“Mademoiselle, where did you get that?” asked one of the guards.

“You don’t want to know,” I said.

“Mademoiselle,” the security chief said slowly. “I think you misunderstand. You are trying to make a pot-de-vin?”

“What?” I asked. I rapidly translated the words in my head. “A pot of wine?”

“No, no,” he said, looking troubled. “It is an expression. It means to, eh, to try to get somebody to do something by giving them the money?”

“A bribe?” I asked. We seemed to be talking in circles.

“I do not know that word,” the guard said. “But in France, mademoiselle, it is illegal to trade money for a favor.”

“Oh,” I said, reddening. “I thought that’s what you were asking for.”

“No, no, mademoiselle!” the security manager said, shaking his head violently. I glanced at the other two, who were staring at the money rather more lustily than their boss. “I meant that perhaps we could trade a favor for a favor, so to speak.”

“A favor?” I asked hesitantly. I jammed the wad of bills into my pocket, feeling like an idiot.

“Oui.” The chief glanced at the other guards and then back at me. “Could it be arranged to have Guillaume Riche play a private concert for my daughter and her friends? I would be the best father in the Île-de-France.”

“And my daughter, too,” said one of the guards. “She would also like to go to the private concert.”

“I do not have a daughter,” the youngest guard said. “But my girlfriend, she would like to see Guillaume Riche.”

I stared at the three of them for a moment.

“You just want Guillaume to perform a private concert?” I asked.

“At my house,” the security chief said boldly. “My wife will even cook him dinner.”

I sighed and closed my eyes. “I think that can be arranged.”

Twenty minutes later, after extracting a promise from a reluctant Guillaume that he would put on a private show for the security guards’ loved ones, I was on my way downstairs in an elevator, my Celio-clad rock star in tow.

“Here,” I said, thrusting a piece of paper at him. I’d spent five minutes jotting out some notes while he signed autographs for the starstruck security staff. “This is what you’re going to say to the media.”

“I have to make a statement?” he whined. “C’mon, Emma! I just want to go home and go to bed.”

“You should have thought of that before you wound up naked in the Eiffel Tower,” I said.

“I wasn’t naked,” he pointed out with a grin. “I had my briefs on. And,” he added pointedly, “a top hat.”

“You are the strangest person I’ve ever met,” I muttered. “Anyhow, unless you want me to go out there and tell the truth, you’re going to have to read this.”

“You’re very tough, Emma,” he said sullenly. “You know that?”

I sighed. “Can we lose the top hat, too, Guillaume?”

He shook his head sadly, removed the hat from his head, and handed it over, along with the cane.

I led Guillaume outside to the wall of reporters. The moment they spotted us, they started shouting. I tried to avoid locking eyes with Gabriel, who was in the front of the crowd, staring at us in disbelief.

“Guillaume and I have a statement to make, and then we won’t be taking any questions,” I said firmly. The crowd quieted down a bit. “This has all been a mistake. Guillaume will be filming scenes for his ‘City of Light’ music video here, and he was simply scouting out locations. There was a miscommunication, which is why I wasn’t here with him. ‘City of Light,’ ” I added, throwing in a promotional plug, “is the first single off Guillaume’s debut album. I have no doubt you’ll be blown away. It’s the story of a man meeting the woman of his dreams in Paris, which is why this location makes so much sense for the video shoot. Of course the song will hit radio stations across the world this evening, for the first time.

“Now,” I concluded, “Guillaume has a few words to say to you.”

Guillaume looked at me for a moment, then shook his head, looked down at the piece of paper I had given him, and began to speak.

“I regret that I was locked accidentally into the Eiffel Tower last night while scouting locations for the ‘City of Lights’ video,” he read slowly and stiffly. It was obvious his words were scripted. I cringed and snuck a look at the media. Some of the reporters looked skeptical (especially Mr. Skepticism himself in the front row), but all appeared to be listening and jotting down notes. “I feel terrible that all of you have come here to report on what isn’t really a story. It was an unfortunate incident, and I’m sure you’ll understand when you see the video next month. Thank you for your concern.”

“Thank you very much,” I added quickly. “Please direct all questions to my office.”

The reporters started shouting out questions, but I ignored them and hustled Guillaume toward the dark-windowed limo idling at the curb. I’d called Poppy before coming down and asked her to order one for us. It was the least she could do from her cushy seat on the Eurostar.

“Nice job, Emma!” Guillaume said admiringly once the car pulled away from the curb and the Eiffel Tower began to disappear behind us. He had put his top hat back on his head and was fiddling with his cane.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Guillaume, what were you doing in the Eiffel Tower without your clothes anyhow?”

He looked puzzled. “You know, I haven’t the faintest idea,” he said slowly. “One minute I was drinking manzana with a girl I met at Buddha Bar. The next thing I knew, I was waking up without my clothes with some security guard staring at me. Rather embarrassing, you know.”

“You were at Buddha Bar?” I asked, startled. I thought back to Gabriel’s warning.

“Oui,” Guillaume said. “Although it’s all a blur, really.”

“You are unbelievable,” I muttered.

“Thank you!” Guillaume said brightly.

I shot him a look. “That wasn’t a compliment,” I said.

He grinned and tipped his hat to me. “I know.”