Chapter Ten
When Melissa arrived at the Jules Verne restaurant on top of the Eiffel Tower. She had already been only slightly calmed by the rest of her first class flight and by the incredible experience of Paris by night flowing past her in yet another limo. As the view of the city became ever more spectacular and romantic with each floor she rose higher in the private elevator to the highest floor her fragile calm gave way to a quiet, irresistible and jittery excitement.
Is this it? She thought. Am I throwing it all away for just this?
She looked stoically out over the legendary vista one more time and tried to bring her problems to mind.
David.
He was the key to all this right now; his word, his ability to influence the ethics committee and his increasingly unhinged demeanor.
The hotel she had freshened up in was an incredible six stars, one above the usual scale, and the evening attire that had been left out for her fitted perfectly. A personal assistant, another pretty young woman who sang Jason's praises, had been on hand just in case anything needed to be altered.
The lift trundled still higher above the lights of Paris and her hearing in just four days time seemed very, very far away.
Enjoy it Melissa. She told herself. It's all over on Tuesday anyway so you might as well live tonight like there's no tomorrow.
When she entered the swanky restaurant the final, stunning view of the city took her breath away and there waiting for her was Jason Demovic; smartly attired in black tie evening wear, he was enough to take her breath away again. She needed to get them back on track, client and therapist, just as he had wanted when they first met, before he had rocked her world with an orgasm from heaven and then whisked her away on this magic carpet ride to Paris.
There was still a chance--get him on board with the new program, don't fuck him, hold him off until Wednesday and be home tomorrow in time to deal with David.
I can do this. She told herself. Stay focused Melissa, come on, this is easy. He wants me as his therapist so what's the big deal.
Vivid images flashed through her mind and intense sensations through her body.
Oh yeah, that. Earth-shaking unilateral oral sex…
He took her hand and smiled.
"You truly look more beautiful than all of Paris to me." He said.
"And that sounds more cheesy than the whole of France to me. What do you mean by tricking me into coming all the way here? You're a hair shy of kidnapping and false imprisonment Mr. Demovic."
He kissed her hand while looking directly into her eyes. Cliched, affected and enough to make her panties moist again.
"I'm sorry." He said. "But I didn't think I could convince you to come here and it was important for me to give this experience to you."
"You're right. You wouldn’t have convinced me, so that's why you had to fool me into it. Is that how you usually get your women?"
"It's usually not so hard, but you're a different case Dr. Price. Besides, no-one put a gun to your head--you could have asked the pilot to turn the plane around any time you wanted to."
"And pay for all that fuel? Risk the wrath of the dreaded Jason Demovic? I wouldn't exactly call that a choice."
"Well honestly speaking, why would you have wanted to around anyway? This is Paris for God's sake--just relax and enjoy it. You deserve this Dr Price. I know what you've been through; sacrificing yourself to take care of your sister all these years and I know that you're just like me; always looking after other people and never looking after yourself. Well tonight, just for one night, that's all going to change."
He motioned for her to sit down. There was one table only conspicuously laid out and with a particularly spectacular view of the city below.
"This is the best spot in the best restaurant with the best view of Paris." He said.
"Where are the other diners?" She took her seat while he held the chair for her.
"I wanted privacy so I reserved every table. I hope that doesn't make me seem like too much of a cliché."
"No. Not at all. Not too much." She said, rolling her eyes and wondering at the size of the ego that would go to these lengths to impress and manipulate. As wonderful as it all was she still felt a visceral determination to resist and not lose control.
Not again.
"There's something we have to discuss Mr. Demovic, before all of this goes too far."
"I'd say were well past the point of 'too far' already Dr. Price, wouldn't you agree?"
The oblique reference to their indiscretion set her on edge. She had screamed out, told him to fuck her like a man. She had relived the memory in exquisite pussy moistening detail over and over on the journey from New York, but now she cringed inside at the thought.
"It went far enough and it stops right there."
Jason allowed one of his infuriatingly sexy smiles to cross his lips.
Sure it does. It said. Just you wait.
"I've changed my mind about therapy. I believe we can work together professionally after all."
He raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"Excuse me? I thought you said your supervisor had advised you not to work with me because of your hearing? Has something changed?"
"Yes. Everything has changed. He has advised me to take you on as a client and to work with you."
Jason drummed his fingers on the table and then looked towards the approaching waiter. When the man arrived Jason ordered two Kir Royale's with pink Champagne. The waiter melted away and he turned back to Melissa.
"Is your supervisor aware that you begged me to fuck you?"
"Stop it Jason. We hardly know each other. There are no emotions at stake here. You wanted to work with me and now you have your chance. We put the last twenty-four hours behind us and then start from the beginning again. I want to know your story, I want to help you, but that means there can be absolutely no repeat of what happened this morning."
"Well what if I don't like those terms?"
Melissa glared at him.
"Take it or leave it. One way or the other there won't be any repeat performances. I'm in deep enough as it is."
"In over your head if you ask me."
"That may well be, but those are my terms. So what's it going to be? Will you work with me professionally or not?"
He nodded his head and smiled.
"Of course I will. That's what I wanted from you anyway but your deranged supervisor had an issue with it. I'm glad he's come to his senses. Now can we finally just relax? You're in Paris Dr. Price and I've reserved a booth at Guy Savoy's for later. Do you think you can still have dinner with me tonight and keep it strictly professional?"
Melissa had heard of the restaurant. She had dreamed of eating there.
"As long as we keep it strictly professional."
"That's wonderful. Now why don’t you try your drink." He raised up the elegant Champagne flute in front of him and nodded for Melissa to raise hers.
"A toast." He said. "To success in our work together. And to Paris."
She raised her glass and fixed his gaze with her own.
"To keeping it strictly professional." She said.
He smiled and took a sip of his drink.
"There's just one more thing." She said. "You made me miss a meeting with my supervisor tonight. He was going to vouch for me in my hearing on Tuesday but now… well, now I'm not so sure. All I know is that we have to keep it strictly, and I mean strictly professional or there will be repercussions that will affect not only me but my family as well, and I can't allow that to happen."
"I've told you before Dr. Price, there's nothing to worry about. I don’t want that to happen either. I need you to have your qualifications and license to practice intact. Without them I'm not sure you can help me."
It was a revealing admission.
"That's very interesting Mr. Demovic. Would you like to elaborate on why that is?"
"Is this a 'strictly professional' question now Dr. Price? Are we on the record here already?"
"Everything is on the record from now on."
There was no way to read his reaction to what he said; Jason had reverted back to inscrutable billionaire mode.
"In that case, and in the interests of our mutual benefit from this relationship, I should tell you that your qualifications are very important to me. I need you to be an expert in your field, whatever we are doing together."
Did a slight smile cross his lips there? Melissa couldn't tell.
"I'm realizing that your words carry a lot of weight for me and it's the whole package; the business suits, the uptight appearance, the glasses, the hair and of course the academic achievements. You are what I need to test myself against and if you become just another attractive woman then I'm sure we would enjoy our time together but I'm not sure that you could cure me. Your effect on me in the last days is unlike anything I've felt from any woman in the last three years since my 'issues' began. If anything changes then you may become valueless to me. I want you just the way you are, just the way I met you in your office last week unless I choose to change something. In which case we can discuss openly what it is that I would like to see changed."
Melissa didn't move as though. This was more than he had told her about himself in all the time they had been together. Unfortunately, it didn’t give them good odds.
"In that case, Mr. Demovic, you had better hope that I can cure you before Tuesday because after that I there's a very strong possibility that I might not have a license to practice anymore."
"I've told you before, don't concern yourself with that. I won't allow that happen, so just relax and start getting to know me on the basis that we have all the time in the world to work together."
"I would like to think that, but despite what you may believe about your power and influence, which I'm sure is very considerable, I don’t think even you have any choice in what the board can do. And besides," she dropped her gaze, avoiding his eyes, "maybe I deserve to be struck off. After all, you don't even know what it is that I did to get myself into this situation."
Jason took another sip of his drink and didn't say a word.
Melissa lifted her eyes again. "Or do you?" This was Jason Demovic after all. "You do know don't you?"
He nodded his head slowly.
Fuck.
"How did you find out? Did you have a PI break into my office? Or maybe into the offices of the professional association? Was it something that low?"
"Let me ask you this Dr. Price; do you think that what you did was wrong?"
Melissa had thought through her actions a million times over since the day it happened and she still couldn't make sense of the what or why of what she had done.
"It was just stupid." She said. "Plain dumb. A clumsy attempt at trying to think outside the box to help a client I thought I knew very well and instead I thought outside of the ethics of professional behavior and crossed a line that should never be crossed between therapist and client."
"Like the line we crossed in your bedroom this morning?"
Melissa's eyes darted away again. He had her pinned down in every direction she turned, like an exotic butterfly on a cork board.
"No. It was nothing like that and as we discussed, that won't happen ever again."
"Never say never Melissa. I'd say we both had the time of our lives today, so once I've achieved my goal in therapy I don’t see why we couldn't strive for the same," he searched for the right word, "the same intensity again."
Her heart was beginning to speed up again. Intensity was the right word alright and technically he was speaking the truth. Therapist and ex-client relationships were not proscribed per-se provided an interval of minimum three years was allowed to pass before anything was initiated.
But was this anything like a relationship? Or was it just intensely hot sex?
"Why is William Kingsley so determined to see you lose your license?" Jason asked.
"You know his name. I suppose that shouldn't surprise me anymore. I don't know what his issue with me really is. I've thought it through a million times over and I come up with a different theory each time." She a long sip of her Kir Royale. It was really excellent.
"Is there alcohol in this?" She asked, remembering her intolerance to liquor.
"Not so as you'd notice."
She took another sip. "So tell me this Jason, why are you so determined to see me lose my license?"
Jason's sexy mouth fell open and he set his drink down.
"Me? See you lose your license? I thought I just explained that to you. You're the first therapist who's even come close to helping me. Why would I want you to stop practicing? Let's get one thing absolutely straight between us here; I need you to have that license. You lose it and you're no good to me anymore. If you're not qualified then none of this will work."
"So it's about authority for you. Is that it?"
"Partly, but that's not all."
"Female authority." Melissa was feeling less and less uptight, willing to take risks again. She glanced at her harmless looking pink beverage and then continued on. "That's it Mr. Demovic, isn’t it? This is all about control. The control that women have over you and the control you have over them."
"I've already explained it Dr. Price. This is becoming a little tiresome--"
"This is why you're making sure the last two female therapists you had are going down for minor infractions of ethical--"
"Minor infractions? That so-called therapist tried to have sex with me and then extort money from my family. That is not minor. And there's only one case, one therapist. Your information, wherever you're getting it from, is completely wrong. It looks like I'm not the only one willing to snoop around and break a few rules to get the information I need. Isn't that right Dr. Price?"
"I didn't do any 'snooping', the information was volunteered to me."
"By who?"
"I'm not at liberty to say."
"That's alright, my people can find that out for me. Just like they found out that all you did to that Kingsley asshole was kiss him on the damn forehead because he was crying to you about never having been kissed by his mother when he was a little boy. Trust me Dr. Price, there's a world of difference between what my therapist pulled and what you tried to do to help that weasel Kingsley. I won't let him destroy you and that is a promise I'm more than happy to make."
"You really just think it's okay to break all the rules, don't you? All you have to do is say the word and you're 'people' go digging into other people's lives, buying and stealing and bribing and whatever else they need to do to get the information you need to bend and control their lives."
Melissa's head was beginning to swim a little.
"I'd say we're pretty much even there Melissa. And besides, you'd be surprised how simple it was for me to get the information I just shared with you and by who I got it from."
Melissa stared at him and the young couple locked into a standoff.
She cursed David again.
Even by sharing information with her he had weakened her position. Blackmail and counter blackmail weren't her style and neither was manipulation. Clearly this wasn't the case with Jason and she would be no match for him on that level, but she did have a quick mind and a high IQ; she could learn fast.
Her mind raced as she held his stern gaze.
He was the best looking man she had ever seen, easily the most successful and in some ways the most intimidating. He knew everything about her private and professional life, most likely from his massive network of contacts and paid investigators, but in her favor it was obvious that he had intense and complicated feelings for her. He had some kind of problem with women in authority and he was about to relinquish control of his privacy to her; his female therapist.
There was a chance. All she had to do was leverage this control, if she could just stay focused. A wave of dizziness passed through her head and she glanced at her drink again. Kir Royale. She had never heard of it before.
"I can be very persuasive when I want to be." Jason broke the standoff. "You should give me a chance to persuade you sometime. You might be very glad you did. Most people are."
Melissa's heart was beginning to pound and looking around she smiled.
The Eiffel Tower, Paris, Jason freaking Demovich. Who fucking cares about that stupid ethics committee.
She glanced at her drink again.
Oh shit.
It was too late. It was clearly an alcoholic drink.
Stay in control. Stay in control. She told herself.
What's so freaking great about control?
She took another long drink from the slim glass.
"Jesus, can't you stop being so uptight one God damn minute and enjoy this gorgeous view in front of you." She looked at Jason and grinned. "And the city doesn't look too bad either."
"Melissa?"
"Jason?"
"I'm… uh flattered."
"Oh crap."
"Crap?"
"Was I speaking out loud just then?"
Jason nodded his head with a sexy smirk on his face. "You sure were. The view from over here is pretty breathtaking too." He said. "And Paris isn't bad either."
He leaned over the table and put his hand to her cheek, his dark eyes looking deeply into hers. God they were intense. Melissa thought of all the business opponents they must have intimidated and all of the beautiful women they must have seduced.
Her head began to seriously swim, doing possibly the back stroke, and she felt utterly captivated, lost, euphoric, swept away in a dream.
Jason leaned in even closer and her heart raced faster still, her breath almost catching in her throat. His lips joined with hers and she forgot about everything else in this world.