DAGGER
Maelle’s lips were softer than I’d imagined, but her kiss was no less passionate than what I’d expected. I knew from the day I met her that fire coursed through her veins. Two nights ago, she’d proven me right.
The intensity she brought to her work was in this too.
She didn’t hesitate for even a second. As soon as I pushed past her lips, our tongues moved in long, languid strokes.
When she angled her head to deepen it, I nearly groaned aloud.
If we weren’t still seated in our chairs, I would’ve pressed my erection between her legs so she could feel how much I wanted her.
She broke the connection first, but my eyes remained riveted to hers anyway.
My hand still gripped her nape, and I wasn’t ready to let go.
Maelle’s pupils were dilated, and her nipples, hard as pebbles, were visible through her shirt.
The final sign, the exaggerated rise and fall of her chest, was proof positive that she was as turned on as I was.
When her cousin cleared his throat, it was as if the spell we’d both been under fell away, jarring us into the present where we were seated at dinner with him and her parents.
“Now, that was a proper kiss,” he said, chuckling.
I didn’t want to tear my gaze from hers, but seeing her cheeks turn the most delicious shade of pink, I forced myself to face the others at the table.
The moment I did, reality dumped over me like a bucket of ice water. What in the bloody hell were we doing? Our first kiss, one that felt as though our lives depended on it, was witnessed by Maelle’s mother, father, and cousin. No doubt Marthe saw it too.
The tip of Maelle’s tongue ran over her bottom lip, and all I could think about was pushing away from the table, gathering her in my arms, and fucking her up against the nearest wall. Could I do that without being the man she’d always figured me for?
A shag and a laugh on the way out was how I’d handled my entire adult life, and she’d spent a year telling me she’d never take a man like that seriously.
If I made that kind of move on her, I’d be the same arsehole I’d always been.
Conversations took place around me, but I couldn’t focus on a single word anyone was saying.
At one point, my eyes met Chantal’s, and in hers, I saw confusion.
Was it apparent to everyone that her daughter and I had just kissed each other for the first time in the most inappropriate setting imaginable?
Maelle wasn’t faring any better beside me. She answered her mother twice with single words and only ate half of what was on her plate. When she pushed away from the table, and I jumped out of my chair to help with hers, she looked up at me with hooded eyes.
Was I reading her right? From any other woman, that expression would have meant an invitation to her bed. I couldn’t let myself believe that with Maelle, and I certainly couldn’t act on it.
Neither of us said a word on the way upstairs.
We weren’t yet to her door when she stopped in the corridor. Before I worked out what she intended, she pushed me against the wall, rose onto her toes, grabbed my neck, and leaned up to touch my lips with hers.
God in heaven, I hated what I had to do, but there was no choice. We couldn’t have another night like the one before last until we talked about what it meant.
“No, Maelle,” I said, gripping her upper arms and moving her away from me.
“Are you honestly telling me you don’t want this?”
“I want it too much. That’s the problem.”
She jerked her arm away and went into the bedroom. The door stayed open behind her, so I followed.
“Maelle?”
When she didn’t answer, I came around the end of the bed, and she turned away from me.
“We should talk,” I said.
“There is nothing to discuss.”
“I disagree—”
“That’s your right.”
“Maelle, if you’d let me—”
“I understand your games, Dagger. I’ve had a year to learn how they’re played. You flirt and you tease until a woman believes she has taken your breath away. The moment she reaches for you, you retreat, so she has to chase you. That will never happen with me.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I understand perfectly.”
“You don’t,” I responded in a voice louder than I’d intended. “For the first time in my life, I’m not playing any games.” Whether she wanted to hear it or not, it was necessary to say.
She scoffed, took a chemise from the drawer, skirted around me, and walked out of the room.
As I sat on the side of the bed, waiting for her to return, I contemplated my next move. The trouble was there was no good option. If I acted on my desire for her, she’d hate me for it. Rejecting her did the same thing.
I removed my shoes, stretched out on the bed, and waited. Finally, after more than an hour, I went to check on her. The loo was empty, the corridor was dark, and there was no sign of Maelle anywhere.
Rather than return to the bed, I looked out the window.
The courtyard was dim, only illuminated by the light of the moon.
I was about to turn around when a figure crossing it caught my attention.
From the size and gait, I could tell it was a man but not who specifically.
A light went on at the building’s entrance, then moments later, in an office window near the far right end.
I waited to see if it would go off or the man would come out, but after several minutes, I stepped away.
In itself, someone working at twenty-three hundred wasn’t odd—I’d spent enough sleepless nights doing the same.
Still, I filed it away before crawling under the covers.
An hour later, Maelle returned. She’d obviously thought she’d waited long enough that I’d be asleep. But even if she’d stayed away until dawn, I wouldn’t have been.
I’d been lying on my side of the bed, wide awake, when the door opened and she slipped in without a word. My eyes were already accustomed to the dark room, so I watched her ease herself under the covers and face the window. That meant her back was to both me and the door.
There was trust in that even though she didn’t realize it. An intelligence operative with her level of experience wouldn’t fall asleep facing any way but out.
I wanted to tease her for it. Not only that, but I wanted her to tell me stories like she had last night. The sound of her voice would’ve been enough.
I rolled out of bed when the sun peeked over the horizon, hit the loo, and stood under the hottest water the chateau’s pipes could deliver. By the time I’d toweled off and worked out what I wanted to say to Maelle, it didn’t matter. The bedroom was empty. I dressed and went looking for her.
I found her in the dining room, having breakfast with Rémy. She didn’t look up when I came in. I filled a plate at the sideboard, took the chair across from her, and muttered a good morning to the pair of them.
Rémy answered with a grin that told me exactly how much sleep he assumed the happy couple had lost. He was right about our lack of rest; only the reason was wrong.
He finished eating first and pushed away from the table. “I have a meeting I can’t be late for. Enjoy your morning, you two.”
The silence he left behind lasted until his car started outside. Maelle spoke first. “There will be no talk about what happened last night or two nights ago.”
“We need to—”
“None.”
I’d lain next to her for most of the night, choking on all the things I wanted to say. What I’d done when I pushed her away was, for once in my life, the right thing, and my reward was the silent treatment. She wasn’t the only one who could go cold.
“Fine by me,” I muttered.
She finished her breakfast, folded her napkin beside her plate, and stood. “I’m going for a walk.”
She hadn’t invited me, but I followed anyway, through the kitchen and past Marthe, who watched us go with an expression I decided not to examine.
When Maelle heard the gravel crunch behind her, she huffed and picked up her pace. I didn’t care. We couldn’t spend this op avoiding each other. We were at Valais to do a job: to find out whether her father was involved with Géraud.
She didn’t stop until the buildings were well behind us and there was nothing on either side of the path but bare December vines.
“We should make a plan,” she said.
“Agreed. The first thing we need—”
“Is to learn what Papa was doing in Switzerland.”
“I can speak with him, unless you’d rather,” I offered.
“I am not interested in talking to either of you, so that arrangement is perfect.”
I ignored the jab. “And you?”
“I want a look at the business records. Bank accounts, invoices, sales, shipments, to see if I can find anything on the financial side to link him to Géraud.”
“There’s something from last night you should know,” I said. “Around twenty-three hundred, a man crossed the courtyard to the winery buildings and let himself in. A light came on at the entrance, then in an office window at the far end.”
“Could you see who it was?”
“Negative.”
“This is one more reason to get into that office.”
“Will you be able to get in undetected?”
“Before you came down this morning, Rémy asked me to go into Dijon with him. I told him I needed the day with my mother, then suggested the three of us have dinner when he returns. He said he would be gone until then.”
“Good. I’ll keep your father busy while you see what you can find.”
She nodded once and walked away without saying anything more. I hurried after her.
“This isn’t fair,” I said.
“Few things in life are, Dagger.”
“You kissed me first at the dinner table, and you tried to kiss me again on our way to your bedroom. I stopped us because it was the right thing to do, and now, you’re not speaking to me over it.”
“You needn’t worry. It will never happen again.”
If that was meant to reassure me, it didn’t work. It did the opposite.
Maelle walked ahead of me when we returned to the house. Neither of us spoke. At the courtyard, she peeled off toward the kitchen without a goodbye, and I went to find her father.
The door to his study was ajar, so I knocked.