Who calls themselves Kiki?

"Ouch! It's Kelly Izatt. I'm from New York, please don't-"

The task force pushed her to the side.

Warner stepped around the Kiki girl, looking for whoever was in charge. "I'm Warner Truman, owner of this hotel." He handed his card to the uniformed officer, who was taking control of the situation.

"Man of the hour." The detective greeted him with sarcasm. "Any idea what you have going in here, Mr. Truman?"

"This room is the VIP suite held for Air Euro Airways executives. Hotel du France contracts a standing reservation with their team yearly. I don't understand-"

"Monsieur Truman. We're charging your airline friends with public indecency."

"Add drug possession." Another officer came out with a ziplock bag filled with white powder.

Inside the room, there were a few people handcuffed.

"They're shooting a p.o.r.no." The officer pointed at the camera equipment.

He turned to see the short blonde he'd pa.s.sed standing in the corner. Her eyes had filled with tears. Warner approached. "Are you with Air Euro?"

"Not exactly," Kiki replied with a shaky voice. "I work for Brill, Inc."

"What's that?"

"A media firm."

"What's your airline connection?"

"Monsieur Jerome du Tautou lent us the room. I didn't know it'd get so crazy. I-" She started to sob but managed to say she was truly sorry.

"If she's not on the reservation, we can charge her with trespa.s.sing," encouraged the officer whose badge read "Gaston."

Warner confirmed with a nod and stepped to the side, witnessing the American pressed against the doorway.

"Dejon! Please don't let them do this to us," Kiki shouted to a tall man against the wall. She started to cry so hard a female officer came over to help cuff her. She was then carted off with the actors, camera crew and the tall guy named Dejon.

Midtown, New York, NY Princess Lolly costume fitting? Check. Candy Land Ball was all set.

Lipstick & Lead Rifle Range? Check. Two rounds had been fired.

Dominatrix sling cla.s.s? Double check. Whipped and then beaten.

Feet soaked in eucalyptus? Working on it.

Taddy had followed Kiki's suggestion. She'd spent early Sat.u.r.day afternoon at Exhale Bliss Day Retreat on Fifth Avenue. The Neve Adele account could wait until Sunday. Taddy had selected the perfect bright red shade in a translucent crimson base with a top glitter coat.

"Mr. Kim Lee, let's do my toes in this Baden Cosmetics color called Stilettos Slamming."

In agreement, he took the nail polish bottle from Taddy and went to work on her feet. A favorite of Vive's and Lex's, Mr. Lee had been voted by Harper's Bazaar as the best pedicurist in town.

Flipping through an expired Debauchery magazine copy, she sipped her jasmine tea with an artificial sweetener. The hot beverage soothed her tender throat, which felt raw from smoking the entire Nat Sherman pack last night.

The pedicure chair vibrated under her a.s.s and stimulated her hard nub. She positioned the pleasure zone in the seat just right. Why didn't I do this sooner? She made an effort to escape to Candy Land. Months had pa.s.sed since she'd played Princess Lolly. But who would she fantasize about with Brayden Brooks, Gilad, Dr. Fa.s.senbender, Jose and Dima all crossed out? Big Daddy slipped into her conscious. As much as she wanted to avoid thinking of him-she couldn't help it.

Mr. Lee scrubbed her soles. It felt euphorically good.

I need this. I deserve this. Please. She grabbed the seat's remote, set the vibration speed at five and moaned in a low voice, "Ooooh...Mr. Lee, you want some." Imagining gumdrops, she attempted to get into Candy Land. She couldn't.

Determined to get off, she upped the chair's speed to ten-a.s.s rocking, legs swinging and v.u.l.v.a buzzing. Suddenly, Taddy recalled taking Asian language studies back in college with Blake, who during their freshman year had experienced a major rice queen fetish. Figuring Mr. Lee was Vietnamese she muttered, "Du, du."

"Huh?" Mr. Lee stopped scrubbing her feet.

Taddy rested against the seatback and sang to her own tune in her head. A Waris Sugar song t.i.tled "Pinky Licking".

Mr. Lee resumed his foot-cleansing duties.

Irritated she couldn't make herself pleasure trip, Taddy grabbed the remote, increasing the chair's speed to fifteen. Teeth chattering, b.r.e.a.s.t.s jiggling, her crotch hummed. Now we're talking. Her honey hive about to wet, she figured Mr. Lee must be Chinese, not Vietnamese. She pushed her back muscles into the chair and over her Easton Essentials blouse, she twisted her left nipple with her right hand. She panted, "Mm, mm."

"Please." Mr. Lee smacked her calf muscle with a foot file, perhaps intending to be kinky.

She took his paddle whack as an invitation to go further. She'd learned this technique from Dominatrix Queen-d.i.c.k Dupree hours earlier in the day while taking her BDSM cla.s.s. Upright in the chair, she jolted the speed to twenty, figuring he mustn't be Vietnamese or Chinese. Mr. Lee was from Korea! Resting the fashion magazine against her stomach, as to be inconspicuous, she slipped her right hand down her cashmere sweatpants. She sang the Waris Sugar lyrics to the track out loud.

I'll smack your back.

Now lick my crack.

f.u.c.k my t.w.a.t 'til its whack.

Mr. Lee's eyes widened.

"You want some Taddy-lic-icous-kitty?" She moaned in Korean, "Segseu, segseu." Taddy's fingers played with her c.l.i.t's hood, getting close to going to Candy Land.

"You are freakin' me out, lady. I'm gay-knock it off!" Mr. Lee shouted at her in an accent that wasn't Vietnamese, Chinese or Korean. h.e.l.l, he didn't sound Thai, j.a.panese or Filipino either. He poured cold water on her feet, probably wishing she'd cool her jets.

"Mr. Lee, where are you from?" She tried to stick her toe in his face for ruining her brief pedi-ecstasy. Can't a girl have some fun? Men grope female ma.s.sage therapists all the time. Lighten the flip up, Kimmie.

"Chattanooga, Tennessee. Please do not m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e while I do your feet. I cannot take another moaning h.o.r.n.y white woman this week," he sa.s.sed dryly.

"Sorry, it's this spa chair. It gets me hot and bothered."

Mr. Lee unplugged her seat from the back wall and painted her toes at a rapid speed.

Her cell phone chimed an unfamiliar number. Acquainted with the area code, Cannes, France, she a.s.sumed Kiki was calling. For a second, she imagined Kiki's second day in the French Riviera. Eager to see if she'd reveal some romantic tidbits from the night she'd shared with DJ Dejon, she answered.

"Kiki, darling, are you dancing at Nikki Beach with your lover?"

"Nooo," Kiki whimpered.

"You'd be proud. I'm not at the office. I'm getting-"

"Miss Brill?" Kiki interrupted with an edge in her voice Taddy hadn't heard from her before. "I've been...arrested."

"ARRESTED?" she screamed. Kiki had to be kidding. But her a.s.sistant had never had much of a sense of humor.

"I'm serious! Please bail me out... Can you come get me?"

"Are you hurt? Are you okay?" Her pulse raced, undoing the last two hours of relaxation. Setting the tea mug on the table next to her, she leaned forward-lost.

Mr. Lee continued painting her toes furiously.

For a second, she tried to fill in the blanks with what went on. How? Why?

"I'm not hurt, just shaken up. Officers here grip people's shoulders better than you do." She sounded as if she was trying to laugh, but cried, "A Cannes policeman is telling me to hang up now. I'm at the Gra.s.se Avenue station. Please come."

"I'll be on the next flight-"

Click.

Taddy called Pierre de Verges, a Parisian lawyer she had retained to navigate her company through their global expansion. Pierre offered to contact the authorities and ring her with answers. Drying her feet, she cancelled the remaining treatments, paid the bill, ran home and packed. After leaving a message for Blake's a.s.sistant, Duckie Capri, she was off to France. The Neve Adele account and Candy Land Ball planning was in his hands now.

No flights were available to France. She could only fly standby. Taddy offered an older gentleman two thousand dollars to give up his seat on an overnight flight going to Antibes. It was a resort town nearby. He'd accepted the bribe and took a later flight.

As the Air France jet's door closed and flight attendants made final announcements for pa.s.sengers to turn off their electronic devices, she received the much-antic.i.p.ated call from Pierre. Leaning forward in her middle seat in coach, back by the bathroom, she ducked her head between the three hundred-plus pa.s.sengers and answered the call.

Pierre said Taddy could have a European bail bondsman post funds to release Kiki but Taddy's appearance and signature were required due to her name being the primary holder of the credit card processed to pay the hotel room's incidentals. According to the Commissaire de Police de Cannes, Kiki was hanging out at a casino inside Hotel du France. She'd recognized Manuel Coq de la Grande from a p.o.r.no taken from Taddy's apartment. When she'd introduced herself, Manuel Coq de la Grande had asked if they could use her hotel room to shoot a live-stream p.o.r.n feed while at the Cannes Film Festival.

Kiki, being curious, had granted them access to her room.

It didn't look good for Kiki.

The wheels on the Boeing 767 went up, and they jetted down the runway. Squashed in economy, Taddy gazed out over the other people's heads. She caught Manhattan's skyline out the right window. Seeing the Empire State Building, which always gave her peace, she reflected on what had gone wrong.

She reminded herself how impressionable Kiki was and, as her boss and friend, she'd failed her. Taddy wondered if this was karma biting her in the a.s.s for blackmailing Monsieur Jerome. Her intention was to see Kiki fall in love with DJ Dejon but that had backfired.

Why did women always go to the ends of the earth for love?

With 1.6 million residents on the island of Manhattan and a total of 8.2 million including the boroughs, why would someone as wonderful as Kiki have to go four thousand miles to find love? Or any woman for that matter?

Part Three.

French Riviera, Here Comes Taddy Brill.

"I knew I was in love when I couldn't fall asleep because she was lying next to me."

-Warner Truman, CEO of Truman Enterprises.

Chapter Twelve.

Two Percent of the Women in the World.

May 19.

Commissariat de Police, Cannes, France.

At the Cannes police station, Warner had declined all press interviews. That left the media antic.i.p.ating a statement from him even more. The reporters waited outside.

Inside, he stood holding his cell phone. A text message from Sheldon, who was partying in Ibiza, read, "Yo, bro, ur hotel is creamed on TV. Hook me up w/ Caramel."

a.s.shole. He typed back, "f.u.c.k off, Shel."

Sheldon immediately texted back, "Rock-on w/ ur hard-on dude!"

Thick in scandal, Warner had arrived in Cannes only twenty-four hours ago, and Hotel du France, his elite property, was the news headline. Warner didn't have a problem with p.o.r.n. And this could've stayed under wraps with no one the wiser. What set him off? It had all been captured on the major TV stations around the world. His Hotel du France's sign and logo had been broadcast right behind the adult actors while they sucked, jacked, screwed and came all over the spectators below. The news this morning had coined the property "Hotel du a.n.a.l", with the catchphrase "You'll get a load full at Hotel du France". He'd placed Kip Von Scott on an unpaid leave and had stepped in as acting general manager until his relief arrived from Ma.r.s.eille. He'd have to sell Hotel du France at the end of the season or rebrand the property under a new name. The hotel video, combined with the fact that he hosted Prix du Cinema Pour Adultes, had nailed his grave shut. Any hopes for his luxury hotel to be taken as a five-star property on the French Riviera had just died.

He filed the papers against who'd started the drama, the American. "Here's my signature for the trespa.s.sing charge." Warner stood at the counter, returning the doc.u.ments.

"Monsieur Truman, your signature confirms Hotel du France will file charges against Mademoiselle Izatt." The officer stamped the papers and placed them atop a large claim file. Warner had worked too hard to build his empire to have it ruined over something so cra.s.s.

"Oui, correct." He smiled, confident that he'd made the right decision. Someone needed to be made an example of.

"Take a seat in the waiting area. We'll call you up once the paperwork has been processed." The policeman pointed to an alcove area in the middle to sit.

"Merci." He walked over, poured himself a gla.s.s of water and sat on the bench, closing his eyes to rest. I will never come back to Cannes as long as I live. We're ruined.

A racket at the front from someone struggling to get through the reporters and paparazzi, who'd tried to get Warner's attention when he arrived, caused him to look over.

"I'm here for Kiki."

That voice. Her voice! Red's voice?

"Over there, mademoiselle," an officer responded from the front reception area.