Read 1977 - I Hold the Four Aces for Free Online

doll really needed special handling. While he ate yet another steak, he kept watching Helga as she talked to her two companions, and he told himself that Grenville was the right man to cope with this woman.
    His meal finished, Patterson toyed with a double whisky on the rocks until Helga and her two escorts left the grillroom. The time now was 22.15, then he wandered into the lobby in time to see Winborn and Loman escorting Helga to the elevator.
    As Helga was whisked up to her suite, she thought: Once again! Two sleeping pills! Will I ever be free to do what I want?
    Entering her suite, she went to the window and drew aside the heavy drapes. She stared down at the fast-moving traffic. There below her was the excitement of Paris: movement, lights, noise, people. But what can a woman do on her own?
    She jerked the drapes together, then turned and looked around the large, lonely suite.
    A husband!
    That was her solution!
    A husband!
    She stripped off her clothes and walked naked into the bathroom. She opened the cabinet door and found her sleeping pills. She swallowed two, then paused to look at herself in the mirror.
    So this was to be her first night in Paris in the spring!
    Going to her bedroom, she put on a shortie nightdress, then flopped into bed. How many times had she done this? Sleeping pills instead of a lover?
    A husband, she thought, as the pills began to work. Yes, that was the solution: a kind, marvellous lover!
    She drifted away into a drugged sleep.
     
    * * *
     
    There was a press photographer lurking outside the hotel as Helga walked into the mid-morning sunshine. Although she hated this ratty-looking little man, she gave him a flashing smile and a wave of her hand as he took her photograph. She had long learned always to be friendly with the press.
    She walked up avenue Marceau, crossed to rue Quentin and taking her time, savouring the atmosphere of Paris, arrived at Fouquet’s bar and restaurant on avenue Champs-Elysees.
    Yes, she thought, this is really Paris in the spring. The chestnut trees were in blossom, crowds of tourists moved up and down the broad sidewalk, the sun shone and the tables of the many cafes were crowded.
    She sat down at an unoccupied table and a waiter arrived. She decided to have a late lunch, so she asked for a vodka martini. The waiter, impressed by her champagne-coloured fine wool coat with fur cuffs, came back quickly with the drink.
    She sat relaxing, watching the various freaks, the dull-looking tourists, the aged American women in their awful hats and their bejewelled spectacles. It was a panorama that amused her.
    Winborn had suggested they should have lunch together, but Helga, rather than share his company again, had said she had shopping to do. She told herself even a meal on her own would be preferable to listening to Winborn's dull utterances.
    But a meal on her own in Paris in springtime!
    She opened her handbag and took out her cigarette case. As she put the cigarette between her lips, she heard a little click and saw the flame from a diamond-encrusted gold cigarette lighter being offered. She dipped the cigarette into the flame, and then looked up.
    She wasn’t to know that Grenville had been waiting outside her hotel for nearly an hour, that he had followed her up avenue Marceau and had watched her sit at the table, and then had moved unobtrusively to a table next to hers.
    Helga looked into the brown eyes of a man who sent an immediate hot wave of desire through her.
    This was a man! Everything about him was immaculate: his cream-coloured suit, the black-and-blue tie, the gold and platinum bracelet on his powerful, hairy wrist, and the smile, showing white, perfect teeth.
    They looked at each other.
    “Springtime in Paris,” Grenville said in his deep; musical voice. “Everyone raves about it, but when one is alone, it can be a bore.”
    “But surely you are not alone?” Helga asked.
    “May I put the same question to you?”
    She smiled.
    “You can, and I