Considering their meet cute was more a sexy cute with emphasis on the sex, in the supply closet of a Parisian icon, the memories of the last few days spent with Jameson makes Sawyer giddy as a teenager whose crush looked their way with a half smile as they walked past each other in the school hallway. It was perfect, he delayed his flight, and they spent the time going over their wedding plans- they’d split their roles for the nuptials; he is planning the rehearsal dinner, and she, the wedding- talking about the future, and getting to know each other better. Six months in and they’d not really taken the time to get to know each other the way they did this weekend, and it changes everything. In the privacy of her walk-in wardrobe Sawyer can admit this much to herself. Their future might not be lasting but she’ll live for the day and take the feeling that comes with it. It felt like a long way from where they were a few weeks ago, a longer way from the supply closet in the Moulin Rouge certainly.
It was not Sawyer’s first time having sex in a supply closet, she and Marcel had something of an overactive sex life, and she wasn’t shy about her sexual proclivities, nor was she a prude, but Jameson was in a league of his own. That he had a condom ready in his wallet was telling of what he’d come out expecting, but she didn’t give it much thought, he was a stranger she had no intentions of seeing again so the hit it and quit it was perfect. She needed Marcel out of her system, out of her mind and out of her life for good. He was all up in her business, blowing up her phone and being an absolute wanker about everything. She did not want any drama she simply wanted a clean break from him, but he won’t go away because he knows what he did and how this would affect his family if it were to be made public. Sawyer was not threatening to release the video, she simply wanted him to leave her alone but Marcel has never known when to leave well alone. As her phone vibrated with his twentieth call that night in the supply closet, on a shelf nearby, the sensation between her legs thanks to her beautiful stranger vibrated her entire body and then some. They went back to his hotel, and she left the next morning with a slight bend to her walk and a blissful sensation between her legs. She returned to London with her friends, whose husbands and children had allowed them escape with her for shenanigans, hoping to handle the issue of Marcel once and for all, except the bastard had a trump card and it came up aces…
Monday morning:
Sawyer had just settled into the back seat of the car, preparing to be chauffeured to work, when her phone ping’d with a message from Marcel. She ignored it at first, but he followed up with another message warning her not to ignore this message. She obliged and the second she saw the message, her stomach dropped out of her body.
It was a video of her and the beautiful stranger in the supply closet of the Moulin Rouge.
‘FUCK!’
‘Miss, is everything okay?’ Mr Raymond, the chauffeur asked, shocked that the typically pleasant woman he’d been chauffeuring around for nearly five years now, as part of her family’s security team, had been so uncouth.
‘Take me back home please.’ Sawyer’s hands quivered with fear watching the scene unfold on her phone.
Mr Raymond flipped the car around and in less than ten minutes they were back at their starting location.
Marcel followed up with another image; a chess piece.
That evening her friends stopped by when Sawyer sent up flares by not turning up to work or their sacrosanct lunch, and when she showed them his message all hell about broke lose. Baxter wanted to kill him with her bare hands, Shaz was already on her phone seeking hit men, Drea was pulling together alibis and Alana was searching for her meemaw’s poison recipe and coming up with scenarios to take Marcel out without the trace leading back to them. Between the five of them they came up with a solid plan even if it was unrealistic.
That weekend they dragged Sawyer out to dinner, having exhausted all options on what to do to the prick holding them all to ransom because in this friendship group, one problem was all their problem and since they booked the tickets to Paris and practically dragged her there, it was way more personal. Dinner was meant to ease Sawyer’s nerves, help her forget Marcel and his shenanigans and those blissful moments in the supply closet but life has a funny way of sticking it to you when you’re already down for the count. Especially when you do not expect it.
Dinner at Nonna’s was lovely as it always is, being their favourite Italian in the city, and it helped ease her worries somewhat because can you really ease the worries of a psycho ex threatening to leak videos of your most intimate moment with a stranger to the entire world? Marcel was still hounding her and threatening to go nuclear with his ammunition whilst knowing she also had the video of him and his mistress, it was a stand-off between the two of them and he was arrogant enough to think she would fold. And in truth, Sawyer knew she would fold because she has more to lose; her family does. Their name would be tarred with an unsavoury brush, and they did not deserve to have such nonsense thrust on them. It wouldn’t affect Marcel as badly as it would affect her, her family lived life under the radar, her parents are good people, held in the highest regard in their circle. Her siblings are also well respected and never brought shame on the family so she was not about to be the one to do that to them.
The Duchamps, lovely as they are, are of the moment and the hype; if anything, with the warped sensibilities of the world, it would only bolster their profile and the brand’s bottom line, not that they need it. Besides, they had a few scandals under their belt; Marcel’s mother was once married to his uncle though she’d always been in love with his father and was only allowed to marry him after a physical fight between the brothers because older brother knew about his wife’s true feelings. He was a serial cheat, but she stayed with him until baby brother confronted him about it and beat the shit out of him. Marcel’s sister eloped with the wife of her best friend’s brother. There was the aunt who allowed her husband a lover or two because she had a few of them herself and grandpa threatened to sell off the family business for parts if they did not allow him to have a wife and a mistress who lived in the same house until grandma moved out and he had to get rid of the mistress to win her back. She has never been seen or heard from again, rumour has it grandma took a hit out on her, others say Marcel’s father pushed her down the stairs, it remains a Duchamp family unsolved mystery. Mind you, all of this played out in public. So, yes, a few scandals to their name and this would be just one more notch on the bedpost, except in the last decade they’d managed to tame the wild of their family tree and bring the brand into repute with the high fashion cognoscenti thanks to the astuteness of Marcel’s mother who’d worked tireless to make the brand name respected, and revered in like with the likes of Hermes.
Marcel’s problem was that Sawyer was daring to walk away from him, worse, she was making him grovel and yet was not giving him an audience to plead his case and he cannot abide that.
Sawyer stepped out of the restaurant for some air, suffocating from the whirl in her head, playing out a myriad of scenarios, when she saw her beautiful stranger again. She noticed someone follow her out of the restaurant but paid it no mind until she felt them tail her and stopped some way behind her, watching her. She whirled in fight mode and stopped the second she saw him. The recognition was instant and her body went pliant.
‘You. What are you doing here?’
‘I could ask you the same thing. You didn’t even give me your number.’ Jameson approached her cautiously. The woman whose face he could not forget, whose lips he was unable to stop fantasising about, whose body was imprinted on his fingers.
‘I live in the country, and you don’t. Are you following me?’
‘No. I’m actually here on a date.’
Sawyer did not like the feeling that word evoked. ‘You have a girlfriend?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘You’re on a date.’
‘Friends eat too.’
She seized him up suspiciously.
‘How are you?’
‘Really? How original.’
‘Okay, I guess you’re mad at me.’
‘I’m not mad at you.’
‘You sound like it.’ Jameson walked the ten steps to close the distance between them. A summer breeze blew gently, and her scent encapsulated him; Byredo Blanche and her, that unique heady mix of hers he would never forget. She’d buried herself beyond skin deep in quick time and he was having a hard time letting go of those moments. He wanted to see her again. ‘You look well.’
‘So do you.’
A beat. Two. Sawyer stepped in his space and kissed him.
And they were off to the races! A duel of tongues and lips and memories rekindled. They broke apart momentarily when Jameson hailed the black taxi coming towards them with its lights on. They jumped in, he gave the driver an address and they took off where they left off.
Back at his hotel some ten minutes later, the night took them on a rollercoaster ride of its own making. They reenacted the night in the supply closet and his hotel suite in Paris, but slowly, leisurely, as if they had all the time in the world, as if they wanted to hold on to it for a lifetime. It was the best night of Sawyer’s life, the best sex, and Jameson was as she remembered. Maybe even better which was so unfair.
The morning after…
‘Bloody hell Sawyer. You have got to get your shit together.’ Sawyer muttered to herself quietly getting out of bed.
‘Don’t go.’ Jameson tightened his arm around her, and held her close to him. He thought it was a fluke; that she was that good, he could not get her taste out of his mouth, the feel of him sheathed within her, the ease into which he slipped the first time round. It was even more so this time. She had him, balls to the wall and it felt good.
Sawyer turned to look at him, bedroom eyes and all, and she bit her bottom lip, her desires made themselves known.
‘I have to get home my friends would be worried about me.’
‘Tell them you’re safe with me.’
‘Am I?’
‘Always.’
Since she walked out of the restaurant with her phone, she fetched it from the bureaux, turned it on and was greeted with a barrage of text messages.
‘Apparently someone saw us jump in a taxi last night and told my friends that I’d run off with some guy and now they are sending kings guards on a search party.’ She dropped them a quick message and turned her phone off.
‘You never answered my question yesterday.’
‘Which one?’
‘How are you?’
‘I could be better.’
‘Talk to me.’ Jameson said.
‘I don’t want to talk. Not right now.’
Sawyer planted a kiss on his lips, his insanely divine lips that she’s been happy to know she was right about; it did do sinful things to her on both occasions. She wanted to forget the world outside, and forget the chaos in her head.
‘Talk now?’ they were at breakfast in this impromptu arse backward date of theirs, Sawyer made use of the shower and was dressed in a plush robe whilst her clothes were being drycleaned by the hotel. ‘I’m a good listener.’ In addition to the lust he saw in her eyes, Jameson also saw the turmoil there, he recognised it because he too was living in turmoil of his own.
‘My ex-fiancé is blackmailing me with a video of us having sex at the Moulin Rouge.’
‘What the fuck!?’ of all the things he’d expected to hear, it was never this. ‘What the actual fuck? Are you for real? And did you say your ex-fiancé? How recent?’
‘I didn’t cheat on him with you if that’s what you’re getting at.’
‘Okay.’
‘You don’t know me to make such assumptions.’
‘No, I don’t and I’m sorry if it came out that way. I should have known.’
Sawyer rolled her eyes, ‘no you wouldn’t have known, but also tone down the judgement, it’s still so fresh.’
‘I’m sorry that was uncalled for. Start from the beginning.’
Sawyer told him of the troubles and the stalemate of her situation with Marcel. They were so over, Lord knows they are never getting back together as the word of the song implies, but there has got to be a way out of this mess.
‘We’ll get married.’ Jameson blurted out.
‘What?’
‘We’ll get married and then I’ll sue him for harassment and stalking my fiancée and me whilst in a private room despite it being a public place, there are laws against that you know.’
Sawyer looked at him, really looked at him this time, not through the hazy lens of sex or their initial meet at the Moulin Rouge. Was he being serious? ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’m not.’
Good God he was being serious. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Okay.’ Jameson gave her that sweet smile of his, one that spoke of an embarrassment at being so transparent about his feelings when he hadn’t meant to. What the hell is it with this woman!?
‘You don’t even know me.’ Was she mad? Was she actually contemplating his idea? Oh God! She actually is. She is actually mad. She is actually considering the ludicrous idea to get married to a stranger, because he is still one. What the hell is the matter with her?
Jameson corked his head to the side.
‘Know me in the real sense. Mind out of the gutter.’
‘I don’t have to but what I know so far, I like. We’ll call it a May December thing, and by December we’ll be divorced. In the meantime, my attorneys will draft an agreement for us to sign. They will also act as your attorneys, which will keep your family out of it. I’m assuming you would prefer that, as would I. I don’t want to tip our hand with your ex just yet, but they will act from a third party to get the message to you ex that should that video be made public he wouldn’t like the consequences. By the time I am done with him, the Duchamp name will be so badly tarnished, they won’t even poke their heads out of the window in the event of a fire.’
‘You’re totally serious.’
‘I am.’ Jameson didn’t even have a moment’s doubt about this because there was something about Sawyer that made him lighter, helped him breathe easier, the easiest he’d been since Brandy, and he wants to hold on to that.
‘But why?’
‘Because I want to.’ He took a sip of his coffee, ‘look I know you can tell that I am dealing with something, something I’m not comfortable sharing right now, but this would also be helping me out too.’
‘Can I think about it?’
‘Sure.’
‘Do you have another person lined up if I said no?’
‘What! No!’ He looked horrified at the thought.
‘Sorry I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘I understand. The only thing we’ve done together is take off our clothes and go at it-’
‘You can simply say sex. You know that right?’
‘I was trying not to be gauche.’
‘Sex isn’t gauche.’ Sawyer took a sip of her coffee. ‘I’m not a prude, I love sex.’
‘And you’re good, no, great at it.’ Jameson gives a little laugh.
‘Tell me about yourself.’
‘I’m one of five boys,’ he starts, ‘one of five really close-knit brothers, even though we have different dads,’ he paused considering Sawyer, the woman who was so openly receptive to being with him, ‘you know my mum’s story right? She has five different boys from five different men.’
‘I do. My publishers have worked with her on a number of books. I don’t care about any of that I want to know about you from you.’
‘My brothers and I share a close relationship. We are also very close to our dads and we love out stepdad Stelios, and our mother incredibly. Our family may be unconventional but it’s us. I’m the youngest, not the baby.’ He emphasised.
‘Aww your brothers teased you one time too many about being the baby. Do they call you baby brother to upset you too?’ Sawyer teased, it was not lost on her that their rapport had quickly become so familiar and she liked it. A lot.
‘Littlest they call me sometimes but only from a distance. I graduated cum laude from Harvard my degree was in economics, did my masters at Oxford and then went travelling the world. I started my travel company, shortly after I returned to New York where I turned down a prestigious offer from a firm on Wall Street and I haven’t looked back since.’
‘Girlfriends?’
‘A few. Some casual, some serious. One very serious.’
Sawyer saw the sad look flitter in his eyes, there was a story there, but he wasn’t ready to share, and she won’t press him.
‘My mother let me live out my wildest dreams, so I guess being the youngest comes with its perks. She wasn’t strict, but she was firmer with my brothers than she was with me.’
‘You’re close with your mum.’
‘I am. We all are. She’s the coolest person. She is as legendary as they make her out to be but kinder than the world knows.’ He sipped his coffee.
‘Friends?’
‘A few. I’m still best friends with the friends I went to high school and college with and we get together a few times when life allows. Good people.’ Jameson paused, then continued, ‘I suppose when I look at my life, I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by good people and I’m thankful for that.’
‘That’s good Jameson.’
He loved the way she said his name.
‘Your turn.’
Sawyer told him all about her loving family, her friends, her childhood, her relationships and of course Marcel. In her telling him all of the stuff about her she realised they are both yoked, surrounded by good people and living out their passions.
‘Will I ever see you again?’ Jameson asked as he walked her to the door of his hotel suite having spent the morning getting to know each other. Sawyer was fully dressed in her own clothes.
‘You will.’ She replied coyly before pulling him close for a kiss. ‘You will absolutely will Jameson Summers.’
She was sat in her black taxi back to her apartment, two minutes from the hotel when she asked the cabbie to take her back to the hotel.
‘Sorry. Sorry. this was a mistake please take me back.’ Bloody hell is she mad?
‘You alright love?’ the cabbie turned to look at his passenger briefly, worried for her.
‘I am. I’m sorry just please take me back I forgot something.’
Since he was two minutes away from the hotel, they were back there in no time and Sawyer paid him the full fare before hightailing it back to the hotel, up the lift to the penthouse suite. Without stopping to think, she knocked on Jameson’s door waiting impatiently for it to be answered.
‘Hey are you-’
‘If we do this, we have to do it right. You cannot see anyone else for the duration, this is not going to be marriage of convenience however convenient it may be for the both of us.’
Jameson laughed quietly, seeing her undone and absolutely besides herself at what she was about to do.
‘Promise.’
‘I promise. Pinkie promise.’ He held out his pinkie to hers and solemn as a vow, she took it, and he pulled her to him sealing them with a kiss.
When they broke apart, Sawyer looked him over a beat and nodded. ‘Okay.’ The most impactful word she’d ever uttered left her mouth before her brain caught up to what she agreed to.
True to his word, his lawyers drew up the contract, it was signed by both parties, and they were headed to the chapel soon. Their families were informed about the engagement, but the reasons remained between the couple. Wedding plans are afoot, and everyone is keeping calm and carrying on because this was all very normal.