Free Love Captive by Jacqueline Hope Page A

arrogantly self-righteous and unscrupulous man hiding behind a well-mannered facade—she could so easily have fallen in love with him. Even more, she would have found it impossible
not
to fall in love with him.
    By the time they disembarked from the launch, in the shadows of the great Notre-Dame de Paris, it was twenty-five after nine.
    "A fashionably late hour for dinner, and to tell the truth I'm starved," Carlos said with a smile, and Anne immediately agreed that she was hungry too.
    "For lunch we sampled the casual. Tonight we shall indulge in the elegant," Carlos announced, black eyes twinkling.
    Anne feared that the light blue blouse and simple tailored suit she wore wouldn't do for an elegant restaurant and suggested they return to her
pension
first.
    "Nonsense," Carlos replied. "You look just fine. Certainly you are every bit as elegantly dressed as I am. The restaurant I have in mind is one I often go to and everyone knows me. They'll greet us with open arms and give us excellent service, believe me."
    The Chez Denis, on the Avenue Gustave Flaubert, surprised Anne with its unpretentious exterior and completely unspectacular interior. When Carlos caught the look of surprise on her face, he leaned over to whisper into her ear, "Don't be fooled by the appearance, Anne. The cuisine is delicious, the service first rate, and the prices astronomically high, but worth it. You'll see."
    At a few minutes after eleven Anne sipped the last of her after-dinner cordial and happily admitted to Carlos that she was full to bursting with the best dinner she had ever had.
    "Anne, I hate to rush you," Carlos murmured politely in response, smiling, "but there is something else I wish to show you and I'm afraid it's getting late. If we rush we will just make it."
    After a terrifyingly quick ride in a cab, the quickest way to where they were going, Carlos said, they drew up in front of a magnificent building which Carlos informed Anne was the Opera, the largest theatrical building in the world. When Carlos sought admittance, he was told that it was far too late, the evening's performance was all but over.
    "Ah, but we just wish to go within to see the building itself," Carlos explained, and after a few banknotes had changed hands, he and Anne were admitted.
    As they stood in the main foyer, Anne felt overwhelmed by the grand staircase they faced.
    "Magnificent, is it not?" Carlos whispered into her ear, and Anne nodded in awed agreement.
    Before long, they caught a cab back to where Carlos had earlier parked his little rented car, and Anne felt sure that their delightful day of sightseeing was now over. Carlos would surely return her to her undistinguished little room in the
pension
, where tomorrow she would receive Michael's call. But Carlos, flashing her a conspiratorial smile, assured her that he had other plans.
    "The night is still young,
ma chère
." Reaching for Anne's hand, he gave it a squeeze. Anne felt her heart instantly race at both the endearment and the way Carlos's hand momentarily clasped hers. If only he weren't who he was, the rich, noble, dreadful man she knew him to be!
    At one o'clock in the morning, they began a fast whirl through the Left Bank nightclubs. "We met in a nightclub in Morocco," Carlos reminded Anne with a grin. "Now we will see what this most enchanting of cities has to offer for entertainment. After all, no tourist can claim he has seen the real Paris until he has been to
les boites
. Are you game?"
    Anne hesitated momentarily, but felt herself being carried away by Carlos's wide challenging grin and the excited gleam of his deep black eyes. "Well, yes, I guess so, if you like."
    "Good enough."
    They crowded into dark little nightclubs where cigar and cigarette smoke hung so thickly in the air it was hard to breathe, pushed their way onto tiny floors so packed with people it was all but impossible to dance; the best they could do was move their feet and sway their bodies in rhythm to the loud,