Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Luc
E lise agreed to meet for dinner that evening.
I’d expected a longer wait, but was relieved to see her suggestion. We didn’t know each other, and if we were really going to convince my grandfather I was in love with her enough to propose, and not simply in reaction to his desire to marry me off to an advantageous match and avoid losing the trust, we’d need time to do it.
Kenny had checked in about ten times this evening as though anything would’ve happened between getting home from work and changing into jeans and a fresh button-up. It wasn’t fancy, but living in a resort mountain town in the West meant few things were.
I arrived early out of habit and with a touch of nerves, and paced along the sidewalk in front of Guac.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Elise said as she came to a stop next to me, not quite looking me in the eyes.
I’d noticed she did this—didn’t give me her full gaze and sometimes seemed like she was looking past me.
“You’re right on time.” I held out a hand to gesture her forward. “Shall we?”
Her hair swished as she turned, and I admired the curves of her body as she went, until I realized I probably shouldn’t be doing so. I didn’t want to stand here objectifying her or making her feel like an accessory. Yes, her jeans fit her perfectly, and she had on a dark top that tucked into her waist then flared out at her hips. No heels tipped her taller—she wore sneakers. Casual and comfortable.
The absence of pretense constantly refreshed me when it came to Elise. I’d had too many instances of women wanting me for my family’s money when I was younger, and for my appearance once I joined the military. In either case, I hated it.
I didn’t want to spend time with someone who wouldn’t let me know them. Perhaps this was the height of hypocrisy considering I’d lied about my last name to my closest friends for years, and yet, they knew me. They knew the fabric of me, and I knew them. That mattered.
Elise didn’t want me for any reason. She seemed to be only lightly interested in humoring this whole set up, for which I was grateful. The irony of wanting to create this ruse with someone who had no real interest in me wasn’t lost on me, but I couldn’t begrudge her anything.
It didn’t keep me from forcing my hands to stay in my pockets instead of guiding her at the small of her back inside the restaurant, nor did it stay the pace of my heartbeat when I caught the soft hint of her perfume.
The reality here was simple. I’d been moved by something in Elise Cordero since the first time I set eyes on her well over a year ago, and in this moment, I saw the potential. A longing began to unfurl.
To know her. To touch her. To be with her. To be hers.
I’d never experienced such a desire, and in response to the inkling, I crushed it soundly. She’d made clear she wanted nothing to do with men—a statement which I’d heard in several variations countless times in the last year, and now to my face. Add to that my own reluctance to invite desolation by way of heartbreak into my life. It simply made no sense.
I didn’t want to become my father, who’d hardly been able to function since my mother passed.
Still, my reaction to Elise was unlike anything I’d ever felt and had locked me up tight, jumbling the words I would’ve spoken to charm her, or the ways I might’ve attempted to impress her when I did encounter her. All of my usual calm and charm evaporated completely within a ten-foot radius of her.
Somehow, breaking the seal of communication between us had forced me out of that odd, futile place and into a more self-possessed existence. Maybe because before she seemed like an impossibility, and now she most certainly was. If she agreed to this, it’d be fake. If she refused, she’d probably dislike me haunting her store three mornings a week. Nothing had to change, though—we’d just go on like we had been, as dreadful as that sounded.
And yet, here we were, sliding into the bright red booth at Guac, knees brushing under the table, and ready to share a meal.
She stared at her menu for a moment, then took a big breath and pressed her hands flat against the plastic surface before leveling me with her dark gaze.
“Let’s order, and then I need you to tell me everything before we get caught up in something else. I want to work out all the details and talk through your concerns and I’ll tell you mine so when I walk out of here packed with chips and guacamole and queso, I am also completely sure of what this looks like moving forward.”
We couldn’t have agreed more. Maybe not the chips and guacamole and queso part, but still. “Yes, please.”
A smile cracked. “Good. But first, I do need to eat a little because I forgot to have lunch.”
Ten minutes later, we had each helped ourselves to chips and salsa and placed our orders. I’d asked for a beer and, as though my ordering something other than water gave her permission, she tacked on a margarita.
She shoveled a few more chips with salsa, then sank back into the booth. “Okay, that took the edge off.”
The waiter delivered our drinks and a large molcajete full of guacamole. I held my beer out to her and she grinned, touching the margarita glass to the neck of my bottle.
“To you, for showing up even though you didn’t want to.”
She laughed and shook her head, but took a sip of her drink, so I did the same.
“Alright. I need a little more than just that we’ll meet the family together. I’m guessing you want to act like a couple, right? Like, we’re showing up already engaged?”
I nodded. “Yes. I told my grandfather I was about to get engaged so it won’t seem out of place that’s done. I’ll get you a ring because he won’t believe it otherwise. He’s insisting on bringing the woman he had in mind for me.” I took another sip of my beer, nerves bubbling up with the next thought. “We’ll need to be convincing.”
She crunched on a chip holding a heap of guacamole and chewed, but bobbed her head up and down like this statement didn’t scare her away.
Dieu merci.
“I figured. But, can I ask why you won’t tell him the truth? I don’t mean to sound like I’m judging you for this because I know families can get weird, I just… I want to understand why you’d push through this with someone who is nearly a stranger, rather than be upfront with him.” Her dark brows pinched together, and the concern in her voice rang clear.
Her question might’ve been something I’d prefer to brush off, but she wanted to understand, and if she was actually going to do this, she deserved to.
Plus, a not-small part of me wanted her to know I wasn’t merely lying for lying’s sake. I wasn’t a habitual deceiver, and this was an unusual situation. I’d talked through some of this with Kenny and Stone, but she deserved the details if she was going to do this.
“My grandfather is an exacting person. He’s hard-working and not cruel, but he does expect people around him to toe the line. He wants obedience and loyalty, and I have not given that to him in years.” I took a breath, then a drink before continuing, unsure of how she’d feel about this next part.
“You know I’m not judging you for any of this, right? I mean, I know people say that— no judgment —and it’s basically impossible. So I can’t say I won’t ever judge you in some way, but I’m not currently making a list of your failures. I’m not looking for choices you’ve made that are wrong and tallying them up. I don’t want you to think that.”
A pang of something brutal sank between my ribs at her tone and the gentleness in her eyes. How did anyone meet her gaze and not instantly stumble?
This was a rare quality—this genuine desire to hear and understand someone without instantly evaluating them. Her impulse to reassure me she wasn’t seeing what I viewed as personal failures in the same way was nothing short of generous, to say the least.
I took another swallow of my beer. “Thank you. In that spirit of not judging too harshly, I’ll tell you that I graduated from lycée at seventeen and staged my first rebellion. My mother had just died and my father disappeared into his grief.”
“I’m so sorry, Luc,” she said, stretching out a hand toward me before retreating.
The show of empathy brushed against me, alluring and innervating.
With a nod to acknowledge her words, I continued, knowing if I stopped for long, I’d struggle all the more to finish. “All my growing up years, my grandfather’s expectations were clear. We would graduate at the top of our classes, then go to school in the UK or one of a few select prestigious schools in the US, and perhaps tack on a master’s degree, and then come home to France and begin working in the family business. Soon after, we would marry someone advantageous from a list of possible people and from there, live out our days representing and furthering the family name.”
“Sounds inflexible.”
“Very. And I had planned to do as asked, but after my mother died, it all seemed so ridiculous. My father, after a brief period of depressive mourning, had launched off, constantly traveling for months at a time and sailing around the world. Doing outrageous things only super wealthy people did to keep him distracted from the reality that my mother was gone and my grandfather had no sympathy for it. He’d always hated her and hated that my father had chosen a poor American waitress when they met.”
My heart ached saying the words aloud, as though giving voice to them made them matter. As though her job or financial status had anything to do with her value as a human being.
The waiter delivered our plates of food—her chimichanga slathered in queso sauce and my fajitas—and we both picked up our forks. She dug in, and I assembled my first fajita as I continued.
“So in the infinite wisdom of a bitter seventeen-year-old, I went a little wild. I partied and burnt money as fast as I could light it on fire in the dumbest ways, and then, once that only slightly ruffled my grandfather, who seemed to see it as a fleeting phase he could wait out, I flew to Japan and spent a year modeling there.”
Elise coughed right as she was swallowing a gulp of her margarita and slapped a hand over her mouth. After a moment, she managed to get it down and dabbed a napkin across her lips.
“Sorry. I—” She cleared her throat and laughed behind her hand.
“My modeling is that hilarious?” I joked.
Her eyes fluttered shut and only then did I notice the trace of a blush rising to her cheeks. I straightened, deeply curious what was going on in her head.
“No. It’s honestly not a surprise at all, other than maybe why you didn’t make it a whole career. I just… there had been rumors you were a model. But you obviously look like that…” She waved her hand in my direction and her eyes darted around my face. “So. Yeah. Now I know they’re legit.”
I shifted in my seat, trying to identify why she wouldn’t look me in the eye now, and suppressed a grin. Call me a fool for enjoying that this woman found me attractive, but with as opaque as she was, at least there was that. I likely wouldn’t have enjoyed anyone else being frazzled by my appearance, but for some reason, knowing Elise wasn’t entirely immune to me gave me… hope.
What an odd thought.
Still, there it was. A tiny ember.
No idea what it was hope for , but I found myself cradling it close just the same.