26. Plateau de Fromage
PLATEAU DE FROMAGE
*arrange mildest to sharpest. Also include a blue cheese, which may be an acquired taste.
I sat on the edge of Sofia’s bed, wrapped in one of Frankie’s thick terry cloth robes, my hair damp from the shower. My suitcase lay open beside me, clothes scattered across the coverlet, but I couldn’t bring myself to get dressed.
Everything in there felt like a lie.
The tailored clothes.
The cute haircut.
The pretty makeup.
I liked them. I did.
But if I were telling the absolute truth, I had bought all those things, gone out of my way to “bloom” because I had hoped that someone—okay, Daniel —would finally see me.
And now I’d discovered that someone had seen me all along. For seven, almost eight years, since I’d been little more than a mouse in a nun’s habit with smudged glasses and barely a word for anyone new, Lucas Lyons had seen me.
And he’d liked what he saw.
He liked what he saw now too.
He liked me, it seemed, in any form I took.
Lucas had disappeared into the guest room with a mumbled “good night” and a look riddled with something like pain. I could hear the distant sound of running water—he was showering too, washing away the chlorine and our conversation on the roof.
What do you want, Marie?
His question kept echoing through my mind. I’d told him about the restaurant, about my tentative dreams for the future. But I hadn’t told him the one truth that had been replaying in my mind for days now, growing louder with every stolen glance, every accidental touch.
I wanted him.
Not Daniel. Not the fantasy I’d carried for ten years like a security blanket.
I wanted Lucas Lyons—complicated, controlled, impossibly gentle but very real Lucas, who looked at me like I was someone to protect and corrupt and treasure all at once.
The water in the other room shut off, and I heard the sounds of him moving across the hall. Getting dressed, probably. Rebuilding those walls that had come down with my family and in the warm water under the night sky.
I stood, clutching my towel to my body, and then moved to stand in front of the mirror hanging next to Sofia’s closet.
Maybe I didn’t need anyone to see me.
Maybe I needed to see myself.
I dropped the towel.
I flinched and wanted to look away out of habit. All the years of sucking in my stomach and hunching my shoulders, of covering my thighs and breasts with oversized clothes. Hiding all that was well and truly mine.
The mirror didn’t lie, nor did it allow for hiding. For once, I made myself look.
My breasts were heavy and full, the kind of curves that made me shrink in locker rooms or avoid low-cut attire.
My stomach wasn’t flat, but soft and slightly rounded.
My thighs touched. My hips flared. My body was a patchwork of stretch marks, pale freckles, and heat-flushed skin.
I was short, but no wraith. Asymmetrical and imperfect. But I was here. Warm. Alive.
And beautiful, maybe.
Not because anyone else said so. But because, for the first time, I wasn’t trying to disappear. I wasn’t hiding.
And then, without warning, he was there. Not in the room, but in the corners of my mind.
Lucas.
I saw his hands skimming over my skin. I felt his body, tall and strong, as he pressed into me. I heard his voice, low and ragged, calling me sweet , soft , unbearably perfect .
He’d wanted me. Seen me.
And now, I wanted to see him too.
Before I knew it, I had opened the door and crossed the hall completely naked. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he’d hear it through the door, but I knocked anyway.
I wanted this.
No questions asked.
No uncertainty.
I wanted him .
The door opened, Lucas rubbing his eyes sleepily, a towel draped low around his hips. Bits of water still clung to his skin, and his hair was still wet.
“Marie? Everything all—oh, fuck .”
Those storm cloud eyes locked on mine and every muscle in his gorgeous, lean body flexed.
“Marie.” His gaze flickered down, then back up again, as if the sight of my naked body burned him. “Marie, what are you doing?”
“I…” For a half-second, familiar insecurity darted through me. But then I straightened, remembered that while I was indeed the shy maid from the kitchen, I was also the bold woman in the mirror. The one who appreciated who she was. And I wanted the one who appreciated her too.
“I want you,” I declared as clearly as I could. “Lucas, I?—”
“We can’t.” He cast his eyes up, tortured. “Jesus. I’m sixteen fucking years older than you, and you work for me, and there are too many?—”
“And none of that matters,” I interrupted. “Or I thought it didn’t. Does any of it matter now to you?”
His entire body vibrated. “No.”
“You asked me what I want, Lucas.” I stepped closer. Nervous, still, but sure of this. Still sure of him . “You keep asking me what I want.”
With one finger, I drew a line down his chest, through the divot between his pectorals, past his abs, all the way to his navel.
“I don’t know what happens when we go back to New York. But right now, I know what I want without a shred of doubt. And that’s you. You see me, Lucas Lyons, don’t you?”
His eyes were scrunched tight now. “I—yes. Yes, I fucking do.”
“Well, I see you too.”
I stood on my toes, allowing the curves of my body to graze his chiseled form. The tips of my breasts to tease his torso, thighs to touch the hardened muscles of his legs.
“Lucas.” My lips whispered over his jaw. “You wanted me to beg. Well, here I am.” I licked his lower lip. Took it between my teeth and nibbled. “Please.”
Some coil of restraint snapped. With a low growl, he surged forward and banded one arm around my waist, the other hand threading into my hair as his mouth crashed down on mine.
One second, I was consumed there in the hall; the next, I was dragged into the room before he kicked the door shut behind us.
“You beautiful fucking thing, you,” he panted. “You’re going to ruin me. You’re going to be the goddamn death of me.”
The kiss was all teeth and tongue and desperation, like he couldn’t get close enough, fast enough. He groaned like a dying animal as his hands traveled down to my hips, taking full palmfuls of flesh and kneading hard.
The room itself was simple but elegant, with white linens and the warm glow from a single bedside lamp. I barely noticed any of it as Lucas picked me up and carried me to the bed.
“This is wrong,” he grunted as my legs hit the mattress and his erection pressed against me through the towel. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
My legs wrapped around his waist of their own accord, urging him closer as the vulnerability in his voice made my heart ache. This powerful man, who commanded boardrooms and built empires, was afraid.
I wound my arms around his neck and pulled him down for another torrid mouthful, conscious that there was only one piece of fabric between us. “I am begging , Lucas.”
For that, I received another pained groan and was swept up into another mind-melting kiss. His hands tangled in my wet hair, and I could taste the remnants of salt and soap on his skin.
These kisses differed from our first in the conservatory. Or the others in Japan, or even this morning in his bed. Those had been tinged with confusion and the shock of unexpected attraction. Perhaps even a bit of guilt.
This moment, however, was intentional. I was making this choice with a clear head and conscience.
But Lucas wasn’t quite there yet.
“Wait.” His breath was shredded as he set me apart from him. “Wait. I can’t—I know I said in Japan and this morning that it doesn’t have to mean anything, but, Marie, it does mean something. It means something to me , goddammit.”
My heart squeezed. I could see the war playing out across his features—want battling fear.
I sat up on the bed. “I—and you think it doesn’t matter to me?”
“Fuck,” he murmured as his gaze took me in, making no attempt to hide his open appreciation of my breasts, thighs, and the thatch of black curls between my legs that he’d obviously known was there but had never seen completely. Not like this.
With obvious effort, he tore his gaze back up to meet mine.
“What about Daniel?” he demanded. “Are you still in love with my brother?”
The name and the direct question made me flinch.
Yes, what about Daniel? Just a few weeks ago, I still thought he was my soulmate. The love of my life. Someone I was destined to grow old with.
And yet, what had those dreams been, if not another form of make-believe, a fantasy I’d carried for ten years like a talisman?
That fantasy had been eroding since we’d sat next to each other on the plane.
The phone calls. The text messages. The partying. The drinking.
How he barely remembered what I did for his family.
The fact that, contrary to what I’d always believed, Daniel had never really seen me at all. And maybe that I hadn’t seen him either for what he was.
That was what Paris had done for me, I realized. And this trip too. As my world broadened, I had learned that fantasies were nothing but ideas that could never happen. Dreams, however, could.
And there was one standing in front of me, tall and true.
“I don’t think I was ever in love with Daniel.” Each word seemed to lighten something in my chest. “I loved the idea of him. The fantasy. But I didn’t know him, not really. How can you love someone you don’t actually know?”
I could feel the tension in Lucas’s body, the way he was holding himself back. His erection was apparent, and he was shaking with the need to touch me.
Still, he waited. There was more that he needed to hear.
I looked up at him, held as captive by his slate gaze as I had been by his body or hands. Loving it. Desiring it even more.
“But I do know you.” I leaned back on my elbows so he could take in all of me, laid bare before him.
Three weeks ago, I never could have imagined doing this. I would have covered myself up. Hopped under the sheets.
But under that unyielding stare, I felt perfect in my own skin.