Chapter 17
“What are you doing?” I stare between Luc and the open car door.
“Waiting for you to hop in.” He narrows his eyes on me.
“Why?”
“Because I’m taking you to the doctor to get checked over, you might need stitches.” I touch the spot on the back of my head and wince as pain shoots through my skull. Reluctantly, I trudge toward the car. It’s probably better to get it all checked out. I have a small fear of doctors—and hospitals and clinics as a whole. I guess that can be attributed to watching my dad slowly die in hospital.
“There we go.” Luc buckles the seat belt over my lap, letting his touch linger on my hip before closing the door and rounding the car to his side.
“You really don’t have to take me to the doctor, you know.” My legs nervously jump up and down as he pulls out of the chateau driveway and onto the road.
His gaze flicks to me before returning to the road. “Yes, I really do. You fainted and you most likely need stitches or glue or something, I don’t know. I’m not a doctor.”
“They’re probably just going to tell me I’m clumsy and need to get some pain medication. Hey, how about we just stop by the pharmacy and save ourselves the trouble.”
“We can stop by the pharmacy after the doctor checks you over.”
I slump down in my seat. No amount of convincing is going to change Luc’s mind.
The car ride to the doctor’s clinic is ridiculously short. Luc parks the car on the street out the front and opens my door.
“You know, I’m actually feeling fine,” I tell him, staring between his waiting hand and him. But he just sees right through my stalling attempt, not budging until I place my hand in his as he helps me out of the car. I hate going to the doctors.
Just as he pushes the clinic doors open, I freeze, his warm body slamming into me, hugging me to his chest. “All right, I can’t do this. I’m deathly afraid of doctors,” I squeak, my body going rigid as my heart pounds in my chest and sweat gathers near the nape of my neck. My breaths come out in short, sharp pants, and I fear I’m about to faint again.
Luc rubs slow circles on my shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay.” He closes the door in front of me. “How about I go in there and get the doctor to come check you out while you sit in my car? Would that be better for you?”
I nod. Luc keeps an arm around my middle and takes a few steps away from the doctor’s clinic doors, closer to his car. I take a few deep breaths as my body slowly calms down the farther away we get. Luc opens the car door and sits me down, bending slightly at the knee so we’re eye to eye. He waits a couple of minutes with me. “I’m going to go get the doctor, are you okay to be here on your own?”
“Yeah,” I whisper shakily as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. Luc watches me for another beat before he stands.
“I’ll be just a second. If you need me, call.”
I nod and take another deep breath, watching as he quickly enters the doctor’s clinic. Perhaps Luc isn’t such a bad guy after all.
“You sure you’re happy to sleep there, Impératice?”
“Extremely.” I force my muscles to form a smile on my lips. I run my fingers over my tattoo, my episode at the doctor’s office now a distant memory. Luc stayed true to his word and had the doctor visit me while I sat safely tucked away in his car. He also never once pushed me to explain my Iatrophobia, just held my hand, comforting me while we waited. After some dissolvable glue on the cut on the back of my head and painkillers, the doctor declared me concussion-free—thank God. Luc and I came back to the chateau where André and Henry immediately began fussing over me. They wouldn’t hear of me doing anything but sitting and relaxing while the three of them continued cleaning the place up.
But now it’s night, and it’s my turn on the couch…unless of course I want to share the bed with Luc. The couch will be just fine, thank you.
“You comfy there, Impératice?” Luc calls, rubbing in the fact that there is a loose spring poking into my back and my feet are frozen icicles, because the heater seems to be focusing on the bedroom.
“Peachy.” I grit my teeth to stop them from chattering.
“You sound cold, you sure you don’t want to join me?”
“Absolutely not,” I grumble, pulling the beanie lower on my head, covering the tops of my ears. I mentally calculate if I’m up to date on my tetanus shot. I roll over and lift my legs to my chest, preserving as much heat as possible. I screw my eyes shut and pray for sleep, the sound of rustling sheets really not helping me achieve that. Luc huffs. I mentally flip him off.
Someone clears their throat right above me. “Ahhh!” I scream, kicking my legs and waving my arms. Somehow an axe murder has managed to sneak into the g?te without either of us realizing.
“Aurora.” The way Luc chuckles my name has me pausing.
Out of the corner of my eye, I peek up at him to find him staring down at me with his hands on his hips. “What?”
“I can hear you grumbling under your breath, it’s really making it hard to sleep.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I will try to make my uncomfort a little quieter.” I turn my back on him, pulling the blanket up to my chin.
Seriously, this guy is a turd.
Luc waits a few beats of silence. “How long are you going to keep this up?”
I keep my back turned to him. “Until it’s my night in the bed.”
Suddenly a pair of arms sneak under my knees and shoulders, and I’m lifted against a muscled chest.
“Luc,” I cry, digging my nails into his forearms as his legs quickly close the distance between the two rooms. “Put me down. I’m too heavy.”
“I hate to break it to you, Aurora, but contrary to popular belief, I don’t go to the gym to look at myself in the mirror. But this view is much prettier than what I’m used to,” he says just as he lets me go, and I bounce twice on the small bed before coming to rest against the wall. “There.” He returns my glare with a smile. “Much better.”
“I can’t believe you just did that.” I cross my arms under my chest, pushing my breast firmly against my shirt. Luc notices it, too, because he can’t take his eyes off them.
“Believe it.” His throat bobs as he pulls the covers back and slides in. “And lose the hat, you look unhinged.”
That is the last thing he says before he falls asleep, leaving me staring at him, the apples of my cheeks pulling tight.
Unhinged? He hasn’t even seen it yet. I yank the beanie off my head and try to make myself as comfortable as possible—as if sleep is going to come to me tonight.
Chateau renovations are quickly becoming my least favorite thing to do. All those TV shows where people spend time picking out paint colors and making fun little décolletage projects—lie. I didn’t realize how heavy manual labor actually is—especially when you’re doing it every day.
“Lift, Aurora,” André instructs, holding up his half of the window frame.
“Fuuuuuuucccckkkk, I am lifting, André,” I pant, each word even more challenging than the last. At this rate, I’m about to pop a blood vessel. My cheeks turn red as every muscle in my body tenses with all the effort I’m exerting.
“Let go.” Luc pushes me aside, grabbing the window frame right where André needed me to lift, instantly clicking it out of the bracket like the last ten minutes of me struggling were for nothing. Luc looks at me over his shoulder, a smirk playing across his lips. “And that’s how it’s done.”
“Maybe if André instructed me better.” I slice André a glare as he carries the window frame like it weighs less than a water bottle to the two ladders with pieces of thick plywood between them acting as their makeshift workbench. It’s really André’s fault.
“Aurora, André has been telling you to lift for ten minutes. You should be thanking me for saving you, otherwise, we would still be trying to lift the same window out after the sun goes down,” Luc butts in.
“I was talking to André.” I give Luc a bored look. If this is how the next few months are going to look, lord help my soul, because I think Luc is out to destroy it. “And besides, André can answer for himself, can’t he?” I smile at André, batting my eyelashes, but instantly regret it when a dust particle gets swept in and I have to hold my eye shut to stop it from stinging.
“Are you talking in Morse code or something?” Luc looks at me, his eyebrows pulled down in question, and heat floods my cheeks.
“Depends, can you understand it?”
“It’s a shitty version of ‘Luc is hot,’” he replies, causing André to snort in laughter. I quickly shove my elbow into his stomach, an “Oof” leaving his lips. Asshole.
Luc leaves me and André to the remainder of the windows. The moment he walks out of the room, I turn to André. “Whose side are you on?”
André rubs his stomach. “Yours obviously.”
Funny way of showing it.
“Have you ever stripped paint before?” Luc asks, his voice muffled behind the face mask, trying to be the impartial saint he is.
I look at André like he has spouted a second head, trying to comprehend how Luc could think I would know anything about stripping paint. “No,” I utter.
“This sandpaper will help to scratch off the paint.” André picks up a wooden brick with bright yellow paper nailed into one side, showing me how the rough edge will work. “You need to go against the grain and it will strip the paint off.” André does it the first time, showing me and Luc how it’s done, before handing the sandpaper over to me. Gently, I mimic André’s movements and look up at him for confirmation. At his nod, I keep going, trying to find my rhythm, while Luc picks up another sanding block and takes up the other side.
“Don’t people use machines for this?” I ask after a few shoulder-burning minutes.
André shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah.”
I groan. “Why aren’t we using machines, my arms are burning.”
“You don’t get a feel of the wood with an electric sander.”
“I don’t want to ‘feel the wood,’” I air quote, “I want to feel my arms.” But André ignores my pleas for an electric sander. From the corner of my eye, I watch Luc continue to build momentum, and the flecks of paint slowly drift to the sheet-covered floor below. His biceps bulge with each movement. Apparently, his shoulders aren’t feeling the pain. Why do I have to be a bicep girl?
I pant, “Done.” I wipe the sweat on my brow on my sleeve, having finally removed all the paint.
“Next part is called corking. You see the, err…” André clicks his fingers looking for the translation in English. “Sealy,” he finally says.
“Ah, you mean to seal the window.”
“Yes,” André replies, handing Luc a much smaller chisel and hammer from the tool belt secured around his waist.
“Aurora.” Luc grabs the keys from the back pocket of his work pants. “Go pick us up some sealant, I forgot to bring it.”
I stare at the keys, opening and closing my mouth like a fish. “I, ah…” I clear my throat. “I don’t know how to drive,” I admit, feeling slightly embarrassed over that fact.
“What do you mean you don’t know how to drive?” André stands abruptly, shattering the already broken windowpane in his hands.
“I’m from New York,” I shrug my shoulders, “I’ve never needed to drive.”
The chisel falls from Luc’s grasp as he flicks his gaze to André then back at me, then walks to the front door. I stare at André with raised brows, biting the corner of my lip. André just shrugs and gets back to work chiseling the broken windowpanes out.
“Well?” Luc huffs from where he is holding the front door open.
“What?” I reply, staring at him like he’s lost his damned mind.
“Someone’s gotta teach you to drive. May as well be me.” He disappears through the door. My feet stay rooted in place; my brain slow with the uptake.