Chapter 7
Seven
JOSEPHINE
Le Chateau Perdu, our home for the next six months, is a three-hour drive north from Paris.
Zoe, who slept for more than half the flight, is cranky and fidgety when we finally get off the plane. Headphones still in place, she stares around the crowded luggage claim with wide eyes.
Other passengers from our flight are standing around us, looking rumpled and exhausted. I’m sure I haven’t fared much better, but apart from a quick peek in the tiny airplane lavatory mirror hours ago, I haven’t dared to check. Ellis, annoyingly, looks handsome even with his hair sticking up in the back and bags beneath his eyes.
Suspicion that I look like shit aside, the excitement is beginning to set in, because I’m in France! My international travel experience up until now was going to Toronto for Model UN in high school, and Bermuda on a cruise with my parents. Even with the complicated relationship with my employer, it feels as though weight I didn’t realize I was carrying got left behind at home. I’m free, at least for six months, and right now that feels like all the time in the world .
“Can we stop somewhere for pastries?” I ask Ellis as the luggage carousel begins to move, murmurs of relief from everyone around us.
He eyes me curiously. “I would have thought you’d like a proper meal after… well, whatever it was we ate on the flight.”
I laugh. “The menu said pork chops.”
“That was not pork chops.” Ellis makes a noise of derision and waves his hand dismissively. Then, catching sight of his daughter, winces. “Damn—Zoe, please don’t touch the belt, you’ll pinch your fingers.”
Zoe ignores him.
Ellis’s shoulders sag.
“Hey, honey girl.” I bend down beside her, pointing to a fountain installed towards the street entrance. There are a few parents standing around it with their small children, throwing coins in. “Will you go make a wish with me? I’m sure Papa can handle the bags without us.”
This is obviously deemed an acceptable alternative to getting her fingers jammed in a luggage carousel, because Zoe nods excitedly and allows me to take her hand. We walk side by side to the base of the fountain and stare down into the shallow water where thousands of coins from hundreds of countries are glinting up at us.
“So, you can’t tell me what you wish for,” I tell her, reaching into my bag to find a penny, “or it won’t come true.”
Zoe nods, taking this very seriously, and I find another for myself. She watches as I turn my back to the fountain and throw the coin over my shoulder, the noise of it hitting the water lost in the echo of voices and the sound of the waterfall.
I wish to fall in love.
It’s a silly thing, wishing for love on a coin in an airport luggage claim, but I’m ready for it. For years, I’ve been reading romance books and watching sappy movies, deliberately hiding it from my parents. How did wanting to be happy and fall in love become a shameful, lesser desire?
I’m so tired of being lonely, and previous entanglement (and regrettable attraction) with my employer aside, this could be when I finally find that connection I’ve been craving for much longer than I realized.
I watch as Zoe squeezes her eyes shut and mimics my action. It hits the water with a tiny splash, and I tap her shoulder, pointing to where it’s glinting at the bottom. “When I was your age, I used to wish I could climb into the water and fish out all the coins. They’re so pretty, aren’t they?”
“Very pretty.”
I do a double take, heart shooting into my throat as I stare in wonder at the girl beside me. Granted, we haven’t spent a ton of time together yet, but up until now I’ve only heard her say “Papa” and “no” a few times on the plane. Her voice is sweet and clear, as though she’s completely capable of using it, but chooses to save it for special occasions.
My eyes sting. “You have such a beautiful voice, Zoe. Thank you for letting me hear it.”
“I believe this is everything.” We look around to find Ellis approaching, pushing a trolly that’s stacked high with all the bags we brought. He glances at the fountain. “Did you make wishes?”
Zoe takes my hand without me asking. “We did,” I tell him, smiling at the little girl beside me. “We can’t tell you, though. Sorry.”
Ellis chuckles. “I understand. Come on, the car rentals are this way.”
The crowds thankfully grow thinner as we move away from the luggage claim and my eyes catch on everything from license plates to electrical outlets, noting the differences from home. Zoe keeps switching between my hand and her father’s, before finally realizing she can hold on to us both.
It’s such a sweet, innocent moment, but something about it makes my chest ache. Has Ellis been on his own for so long that Zoe doesn’t know how to be supported by two people at once? That leads to another question, one that’s been lingering since we met for the second time in my mom’s office.
What happened to Zoe’s mother?
All my mom mentioned was that he was divorced, has an excellent professional reputation, and she suspected he was struggling as a single father. Not the kind of intel I was hoping for. I wanted to ask more, but experience has taught me that the fewer questions with Mom, the better. The woman is too smart, and will sniff out the tiniest hint of something you’d rather hide.
In this case, there’s a lot I’d rather hide.
It’s none of my business, but I can’t stop myself from wondering. Even if he’s divorced, wouldn’t his ex-wife want to be involved in their daughter’s life? Considering Ellis could take Zoe and swoop off to France at a moment’s notice, there’s no shared custody to worry about.
We reach the car rental business. Zoe and I busy ourselves with taking a copy of every single travel pamphlet from the display, while Ellis sorts out the reservation in rapid French.
Why is that so wildly, undeniably hot?
Maybe it’s because of the way he speaks it. In English, his words are so deliberate and clean, it’s as though he’s spent years polishing them to perfection. The moment he switches to French, there is an ease and confidence that I haven’t heard before. Listening to him chat and laugh with the man behind the counter, it’s like he’s lit up from the inside.
Ellis looks pleased as he crosses back to me and Zoe, holding up a set of keys. “Got us a free upgrade,” he reports with such obvious enthusiasm it makes me giggle. “What?” he questions me, bemused .
I shake my head, trying to hold back my smile. “You’re such a dad . How did I not see it immediately?”
His eyebrows lift in surprise for half a second, and I know it’s because, apart from our tense encounter at Monkey Do a few days ago, this is the first time I’ve made reference to the first time we met. Shrugging it off, he laughs. “Would it upset you to get a nicer car than expected?”
Shaking my head and trying to keep my smile in check, I open the door for him to push the trolly through, and Zoe trudges after him. She’s obviously beginning to lose her enthusiasm for this whole traveling business. “I’d be happy! I just don’t think I would be this happy.”
The rental car parking lot seems endless, but we finally find our small SUV. Zoe has to be bribed with screen time to get into the car seat, but eventually concedes, and then we’re off again. This trip is starting to feel endless, but my heart lifts as we make our way out of the airport complex and into the outskirts of Paris.
“Where in France are you from, exactly?” I ask Ellis once the GPS has guided us out of traffic. He seems to know where he’s going, putting his blinker on to switch lanes even before the phone indicates he should.
His expression is far away. “A small town outside of Dijon. My mother still lives there, but my father passed away when I was a teenager.”
“I’m sorry.”
Not taking his eyes off the road, Ellis takes Zoe’s pink glittery water bottle from the center console between us and twists his arm to pass it back. “He was ill for years. It wasn’t a surprise.”
The GPS doesn’t have us turning for several kilometers, but unexpectedly, he pulls off the main road and into a bustling downtown shopping area. I peer over at him curiously, but before I can ask where we’re going, he parks the car beside a yellow brick building. There’s a blue striped awning, and tall glass windows which frame a display of jewel bright pastries and cakes.
I gasp, whipping around to face Ellis, who is definitely trying not to look too pleased with himself. “ Pastries ?”
“You’re in France, Josephine,” he replies wryly, turning off the car. “ Patisserie .”
I laugh, delighted, and turn to the backseat to find Zoe craning her neck, trying to get a better look at the selection. “Will you convince your Papa to let us buy one of everything?”
In the end, we don’t really buy one of everything, but we get pretty close. When the three of us get back in the car, my arms are laden with two big white boxes of treats, and by the time Ellis has finished buckling Zoe into her booster seat, I have the chocolate creation she was excited about ready to go on a napkin. Not that it will save us. There is going to be crumbs everywhere.
“Which one should I pick?” I debate out loud as we pull back out onto the road. The car smells like sugar and bread, and my stomach—which still hasn’t wholly recovered from the supposed pork chops—growls.
From the back seat, there’s a contented sigh.
“Try the almond,” Ellis advises as he takes a napkin from the cupholder, helping himself to one.
While a tiny part of me wants to pick something else just to exert my independence, it does look particularly good. As I take the first bite, my eyes flutter shut and I sink back into the seat with a rapturous moan. “Oh my god,” I mumble, already checking to see how many more we have. “That’s incredible.”
When I open my eyes again, in the corner of my vision, I see Ellis’s hand drift down, subtly adjusting his pants.
Oh .
Heat pools between my thighs and I cross my legs, staring out the window so he can’t see my burning cheeks. He’s hard. Is it because of me? Is he hard because I moaned over a croissant?
No way. I’m not going there. Even if it was about me, which it isn’t—I’ve been reliably informed that guys sometimes just get random boners—he’s probably just reminded of the last time we sat side by side in a car. Which started with an impromptu date at the grocery store and ended in me riding his cock in the backseat.
Attempting to dismiss the memory of Ellis’s hands roaming over my body or the things he whispered in my ear, I keep my eyes trained on the landscape flashing by outside. It’s not a good distraction. Everything has happened so fast. I never quite had time to process, and now it’s hitting me all at once. I actually did it. I told Mom I wanted to take time off, I had sex with a stranger, I got on a plane to a foreign country where I don’t speak the language, and my only connection will be that same stranger and his six-year-old.
Okay, so there have been bumps in the road, but overall, I’m on a roll.
It’s getting dark out, and it doesn’t take Zoe long to pass out in the back seat, covered in croissant crumbs. I twist around to remove her shoes and tuck the knitted blanket Ellis brought around her shoulders. Her nose wrinkles in her sleep, and I experience the same tug of affection I did when we made wishes at the airport.
This kid is going to own my ass. Calling it right now.
“Thank you,” Ellis says softly when I turn back around.
On the dashboard, the GPS pings, and he turns the car onto a more sparsely populated road. It’s beginning to appear more like the country. The large street signs and chain restaurants have vanished, giving way to fields and clusters of small businesses .
“Is it weird? Coming back, I mean,” I ask after a long stretch of silence, peeking over at him.
The corners of Ellis’s lips lift. “A little. I haven’t lived here since college. The last few years, I’ve found myself beginning to think in English.”
“My condolences.” I shift the partly empty box of pastries— patisserie— to the floor and cross my sore legs on the seat. “I hope I can learn some French while we’re here.”
“You will,” he assures me. “Faster than you’d expect. And I’ll help you, of course.”
If he could stop being so darn likeable, it would really help my resolve to dismiss this attraction.
We fall silent again as the sun falls lower beyond the rolling fields, painting the sky bright orange and pink. My eyelids are beginning to grow heavy, and I keep almost drifting off. While it’s mid-afternoon at home, the long day of traveling has worn me down and I know stopping for coffee would risk waking Zoe.
“Go to sleep, Josephine,” Ellis assures me after a while, his tone amused. “I’m fine. I had coffee on the plane.”
I try futilely to stifle my yawn. “Are you sure?”
“Quite.” His lips twitch. “I guarantee Zoe won’t let either of us sleep in tomorrow. Rest while you can.”
Curling my legs beside me, my head drops onto the window, and I let my eyes close with a sigh of relief.
There are gates. Actual wrought iron, ten foot tall gates, fashioned into the shape of ivy that mimics the actual plant growing up on the stone pillars on either side of the drive.
Ellis and I glance at each other. “Uh, is somebody supposed to meet us?” I ask, because the chain securing them closed does not look decorative .
He leans forward, squinting through the windshield. It’s pitch black outside. Our headlights shine a little way up a long drive, but not far enough to illuminate any kind of structure.
“There’s a groundskeeper, supposedly. My assistant sent him our travel details.” Ellis glances at the clock on the dashboard.
A moment passes and I lean forward to eye the gate, speculating. “I could probably climb that. Maybe there’s a shed or something with bolt cutters.”
“You are not climbing the gate and going nosing around in the dark for bolt cutters,” Ellis huffs out, his tone making it clear this isn’t up for discussion. “If anything, I—” A knock on his window makes both of us yelp, and my heart shoots into my throat.
“Shit,” I hiss, clutching my chest, as Ellis rolls down the window. The man standing there looks about fifty, with a weathered, tan face and hair that’s mostly gone.
“ Bonjour, monsieur ,” the stranger grunts, and those are the last two words I’m able to pick up on before the two men exchange words in French.
In the backseat, there’s a little whine and I turn to see Zoe blinking at me blearily. “We’re here, honey girl,” I say, attempting to keep my voice gentle and bright, because she’s writhing against the seatbelt, done with being constrained. I glance at Ellis, who’s just closing the window, an envelope in his lap. The groundskeeper moves through the headlights, unlocking the gate with a key so big it can be seen from here. “I’m going to let her out of her seat, if we’re just going on the drive.”
Ellis nods his agreement once his glance in the rearview mirror seems to confirm a breakdown is imminent. No sooner have I released Zoe from her seatbelt than she’s clambering up between the seats and into my lap, whimpering .
“If you hold her and rock her, it will help,” Ellis advises me quietly, just as the chains give way and the groundskeeper pushes the great gate open, waving us through with an impatient scowl. “ Merci !” he calls through the crack in the window, and the car inches forward.
“We are going to have so much fun exploring tomorrow,” I tell the little girl in my arms, holding her close and rocking back and forth as Ellis suggested.
It’s too dark to see much, but it’s clear there are no other structures in sight apart from the massive house looming ahead of us at the end of the drive.
When we get close enough to make out more than the general shape, I hear myself gasp.
It looks like something out of a fairy tale. Surrounded by nothing but nature, the Le Chateau Perdu appears to be centuries old. The building is constructed in roughly cut stone, but there’s an elegance to the architecture that takes my breath away. Massive windows line the front of the house, and all of them are dark.
“The groundskeeper says there’s a housekeeper who comes up from the village twice a week. She set up three bedrooms in the east wing,” Ellis tells me as we get out of the car, a symphony of crickets serenading us as we walk up to the heavy wood front door. Zoe is in my arms, her head nestled beneath my chin, and we hang back as Ellis takes a huge, iron key from the envelope the groundskeeper gave him, and fits it into the ancient lock.
The metal grinds, and then the door opens easily. Ellis goes first, turning the lights on, and I gasp when I see what we’re walking into. The entryway beyond it is so big we could have parked inside it. An eclectic mix of art covers the walls, and a grand, flagstone staircase curves around the edge of the room, leading to the upper floors .
“It’s amazing,” I whisper, my heart suddenly soaring because I get to live here ?
Ellis lifts a hand to guide me toward the stairs, but his fingers have barely made contact with my lower back before they’ve fallen back to his side.
He clears his throat, not looking at me. “We’ll explore in the morning. Let’s all try to get some sleep, and then…” His words trail away as he gazes into a darkened doorway leading off the foyer.
Then, without another word, he’s striding off toward it. Zoe and I watch as he plunges into the darkness. A moment later, lights flicker on inside, and another gasp catches in my throat.
It’s the library.
The late Monsieur Perdue was rumored to be an avid collector, but it appears “avid” was an understatement. The room is massive, with twenty-foot walls and an actual balcony that wraps around the top half of the room, accessing a second set of shelves. While it must have once served as a ballroom, now, it’s stuffed with more books than any one person could ever hope to read in their lifetime.
Holy shit.
“Well.” Ellis steps back and closes the door. When he turns back to us, he’s brimming with enthusiasm. “I think six months might be inadequate after all.”
It doesn’t take us long to find the East Wing, or the bedrooms the housekeeper made up. “Goodnight,” I whisper to Ellis as we transfer a very groggy Zoe from my arms to his.
My stomach flutters as his arms brush mine and, to add insult to injury, my heart follows suit as I watch my new employer lay a gentle kiss on his daughter’s hair.
“Goodnight.” Ellis’s eyes meet mine for a fraction of a second before we’ve both turned toward our rooms.
Despite my exhaustion, I feel strangely restless as I close the door quietly behind me, looking around the warm, cozy space. Pale floral wallpaper covers the high walls, and gauzy curtains flutter in the breeze from the open windows, catching on the carved wood bed.
All I have is my small overnight bag, too worn out to reject Ellis’s offer to bring all the other luggage up in the morning. I change into an oversized t-shirt and brush my teeth, gazing at my reflection in the mirror of the surprisingly modern bathroom. It’s still so surreal that I’m here, thousands of miles away from the life I’m supposed to be living.
I didn’t like my life, so I changed it. That’s the kind of thing that other people do, stronger, braver, more resilient people. That’s what I always thought, anyway. If I was able to do this, maybe I can be like that too. Maybe this time next year, I won’t even recognize my life.
My heart full to bursting, I wander back into the bedroom and notice a door facing the same direction as the large windows. Curiosity getting the better of me, I cross to open it and suck in a startled breath.
It’s a balcony, supported by elegantly carved marble columns and by the looks of it, stretches along the entire top floor of the chateau.
I’m in a trance as I step barefoot onto the cold stone ground and move to the edge, my hands finding the marble railing.
Beyond the chateau’s sprawling, walled garden, there’s a moonlit meadow, swaying gently in the summer breeze. A pond occupies the far corner of the property, and a little stream winds through the bordering trees to feed it.
“Wow.” I start, whipping around to find Ellis standing the doorway to the right of mine, looking out at the same view I was just enjoying. “Sorry.” He winces, holding up a hand in apology. “Zoe is asleep in my room. She didn’t want to be on her own tonight. I just wanted some air. ”
“It’s fine,” I whisper, watching as he comes to stand beside me, separated by ten feet of railing.
We stand together in silence for a long time, staring out at the grounds. I let out a long, rocky breath. “Six months really doesn’t feel like enough time.”
Ellis’s now-familiar, throaty chuckle greets my words. “It could be longer. You saw that library.”
I turn, bracing my forearms against the railing, and look at him properly for the first time since he came out here. He’s changed into a white t-shirt and sweatpants, and his feet are bare on the stone floor.
Sensing my gaze, his eyes meet mine and—in a flash—rake over my body. I’m wearing my usual bedtime attire, but how did it never occur to me how thin it is? There’s no way he can’t see my nipples, pebbled from the cool evening breeze, or fail to notice how much of my legs are bare.
Ellis turns back to the meadow, his throat working.
My heart sinks.
“I’ll see you in the morning.” I push off the railing and slip back through the door to my bedroom. The moment it’s closed, I lean against the cool wood, the knob digging into my lower back, and my pulse racing.
That first night, I was surprised I had an older man thing . Now it seems fairly obvious I have an Ellis Delvaux thing , and it’s no use pretending I’m not attracted to him when we were together for all of two minutes, and my panties are damp. Denial isn’t going to help anybody here.
What will help is the unwelcome reminder I just received, that even if Ellis Delvaux is nice, a good dad, and easy to get along with, he’s still a man who has proven the only thing he wants from me is unattached sex.
While that sounds pretty appealing right now, I can’t go there again. Hard nope. We might be in the most beautiful, romantic place in the world, but this isn’t a fairy tale. I thought it might be that first night back home, but I can’t let myself forget that if it weren’t for my mother, I probably never would have seen him again.
Getting thrown together like this doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t call, and I deserve someone who does.
That’s it. End of story.