Chapter 11

The next morning, Major Frank Maloue checked out of his hotel room to move in with Yvette. Despite it being midOctober, the sun was out and it was a warm day. Frank was a bit fatigued with his all night sesson with this wonderful young woman. She wore a light white cotton dress down to midcalfs. She wore no panties. If one looked closely, he could see a dark patch showing through at her sex. She also had a white band on her head to hold her long hair in place, white heels and white leather purse. She held his arm possessively as she talked on and on so he wouldn't have a roving eye for another woman.

He wondered what it would be like to stay in Paris after the war and live with her. Perhaps marry her. He wasn't sure about Grace any longer and Gwen was great in bed but not someone he wished to marry. He was paying her most likely more than ninety-eight percent of the women around the world to look after his affairs until this damn war would end.

She promised something new for him this night when they made love. There were absolutely no Victorian inhibitions in Yvette. He had the feeling that she knew more about having sex than he did. She confessed to him that she was twenty-eight. Yvette looked much younger. Already he asked her not to smoke and she complied. She said she smoked as a gesture of picking up a man if she wanted one. She admitted that she did take money from men who wanted to give her some but she didn't want anything from him.

She came from a wealthy family so she wasn't hurting for money but she was also the black sheep of the clan because she refused to marry some of the men her parents demanded for her to do. She took money from some but refused from another. She even gave cash to the men she had taken money from. She always allowed the males she met to treat her to dinner at expensive restaurants.

Although Frank thought that Yvette was a bit on the eccentric side, she had a method to her madness. She actually slept with very few men. She provided company for lonely men for a few hours. The man was given her attention for several hours. Sometimes they attended plays, musicals, and even danced. But very seldom ever took a man home with her. Frank found out that he was an exception.

Gwen felt frazzled. The work load she carried almost buried her nearly every day. She never wrote or wired Frank because she was afraid for him being in the war zone. So she had to make decisions that might have required her to flip a coin. However, she did not flip that coin. She used her intuition and decided upon what seemed to make more sense.

She was in the office at eight in the morning and closed it at five in the afternoon. Everyone took lunch except her. She munched on an apple or a pear but by the time she locked up, she was famished. She now had a man friend she met at Del Monico's.

His name was John Madison but everyone called him Jack. He was the head of a construction company that specialized in building quality homes in the New York City area. His prices ranged from nine thousand to sixty thousand depending upon what the buyer wanted. Jack was a millionaire and widowed. His wife died when he was twenty-five from complications from childbirth. He lost his wife and son that night eleven years before.

He was a clean shaven thirty-six year old man who recently began to look seriously for another wife. His late wife was a brunette and he didn't want to marry another dark haired beauty. Gwen, being a redhead, fit the bill perfectly. She was taller, slimmer, small breasted, and carried that Scottish accent that he found so delightful.

"Dessert?" he asked Gwen as she patted her lush lips with a napkin.

"Goodness no," she giggled, picking her the last bit of red wine to drink. "I'm quite full now," Gwen was so hungry when she met up with Jack that she felt she could eat a horse. A Del Monico steak with potatoes was enough to fill her.

"When you were with your friend a few weeks ago, I thought you were the most beautiful girl in the world," he reached for her hand.

"Were?" Gwen arched her eyebrows.

"Still," he smiled. "I still think that."

"I think I would like to take a walk," she said, feeling refreshed from the splended meal she had just consumed. She slipped out of the booth and told him she had to go to the ladies room. While she was gone, Jack made up his mind to lead her to the altar. True, they had only known each other for a month. Victorian protocol dictated at that time that he would have to wait a few more months to ask for her hand in marriage. He was willing to wait for Christmas when his gift to her would be a large diamond ring to seal their engagement.