Chapter 27
I’ve assured Jackson that I’ll get the contract back from étienne as soon as is humanly possible, but it’s Saturday afternoon and I still haven’t reached out to him.
Mellie has already brought him up twice—she seems quite taken with him, which is just great.
She wants me to invite him over on Monday to watch the Michèle Mouton documentary.
I keep getting hit with flashbacks of our night under the stars. I was standing in front of a mirror earlier, putting on makeup, and out of nowhere my knees actually buckled.
I’ve been replaying our conversations too. He is taking up way too much of my headspace.
Eventually I break and send him a text: Hey, can I pop by for the contract?
He leaves me on read for fifty-three minutes and it drives me to the edge of insanity.
Party tonight, he responds at last. Come.
I don’t think I could stay away if I tried.
My stomach is in knots as I walk into Garage du Rallye at a quarter past nine. It’s not busy yet. Hozier’s “Too Sweet” is playing from the speakers and there’s a chilled vibe about the place as I scan the room for étienne.
Charles is talking to the guy on the DJ decks, their heads bobbing along to the music. I wave hi and mouth étienne? and Charles points at the floor.
I’ve come here with a single objective: to get that bloody contract. I repeat the word to myself on a loop as I descend the spiral staircase, clutching the handrail the whole way to the bottom. My legs are shaky—I’m so on edge.
The 205 GTi étienne has been working on now sits where the rally car was a month ago.
It looks very cool—the red trim is exactly the same shade as the lipstick I’m wearing.
I’m in all black like the car too: shorts and a short-sleeved blouse.
I was all about embracing color when I revamped my wardrobe earlier in the summer, but tonight I wanted the safety of black.
étienne is standing at the back of the car, his arms folded, having a conversation with a thirtysomething hipster with a blond beard. The guy is talking animatedly and étienne seems engaged, but then he glances my way and freezes.
Contract.
“Salut,” he says when I walk up. He dispenses two very ordinary cheek kisses and I try to swallow my disappointment as he introduces me to “Gio.”
“Ciao,” Gio says, giving me two kisses too.
Contract.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I say, glancing at Gio. “But—”
Before I’ve finished my sentence, étienne has rested his hand on my lower back. The weight of his palm causes me to lose my train of thought, but then he digs his other hand into his pocket and fishes out his keys. “It’s on the coffee table,” he says, handing them over.
I smile with relief. “Thanks.”
He turns back to his friend and I go and let myself into his apartment.
The white envelope addressed to étienne Fournier is exactly where he left it a week ago by the window.
I’m so glad to finally be able to tick this one important thing off my list, but when I pick up the envelope and turn it over, I’m dumbfounded to see that it’s still sealed.
The door to the apartment whooshes open and étienne walks in, shutting it firmly behind him.
I reel on him. “You haven’t even opened it!”
He holds up his palms placatingly, a smile tipping his lips as he strides toward me, grabbing a pen from a shelf on the way.
Without saying a word, he plucks the envelope from my fingers, sits on the sofa, and pulls out the paperwork, scanning the contents.
He signs his name where indicated and repeats the process with the two additional copies.
“Thank you,” I say sincerely as he hands the stack back.
“Now can we have fun?” he asks in a low, meaningful voice. “Or do you have to rush that back to Jackson?”
I involuntarily squeeze my knees together. “I don’t have to rush back.”
His gaze drops to my lips. “Good,” he says. “Let’s get you a drink. And then I’d better check back in with Gio. He was about to make me an offer.”
I feel deflated as he goes into his kitchen and grabs me a cider from the fridge before locking us out of the apartment and pocketing his keys.
I’m expecting him to leave me to my own devices, but when I start to wander off, he catches my hand and draws me to his side, a move that makes me feel giddy. We go together to find Gio.
I soon ease into the company of him and his friends and start to enjoy myself.
I notice étienne’s eyes lingering on my lips when I’m talking, and then I realize that I’m doing the same to him.
Eventually he’s called away to deal with something, but I’m always aware of exactly where he is in the room at any given time.
Lise turns up close to midnight. She must’ve come straight from work.
“Hiya!” she exclaims after I’ve approached with caution to say hello. Her smile seems genuine so I relax.
We chat for a bit about the project and I tell her that I’ll drop by La Terrasse with some of the art nouveau postcards this week so she can photograph them.
They’re part of the story of Eau de Sainte églantine, which begins with étienne’s ancestors and shows how they continued to inspire the brand, even after a wily Parisian called Pierre Osier won a piece of their land in an underhand game of poker.
I’m not sure Albert, Jackson, or Sandrine will allow use of the words wily or underhand in our marketing, but that’s how I’ll present it to them nonetheless.
Lise asks what else I’ve been up to. I almost tell her about how étienne and I went kayaking, but I decide that it’s safer to talk about our trip to Les Saules instead.
“I’ve never been to his house by the river,” Lise says. “What’s it like?”
Even she hasn’t been there? Have any of his friends?
“It’s beautiful. Not as beautiful as it used to be, but—”
“How do you know what it used to be like?”
“That’s how I met étienne. When I was seventeen. I went for a walk and stumbled across it. He saved me from a wolf.”
“A wolf?” She looks alarmed.
I laugh and relay the story. “He’s never told you this?”
She shakes her head, a strange look on her face. “No, he said he knew you briefly when you were younger, but that you were just a tourist, some girl he’d met who was on holiday.”
I mean, I was, but it felt like more than that. His description of me to Lise, if that’s what it was, is jarring.
“I keep thinking about what you said about étienne falling hard and fast for your sister,” I confess. “I can’t imagine him being like that. He seems so guarded.”
“I don’t think he knew how to fall in love any other way, but I guess he’s learned his lesson now. The number of times he sat crying on my couch after Eve returned to Scotland…He was a wreck.”
There’s a pain in my chest at the thought of étienne experiencing that grief for a second time.
“He said she went back to be with your parents, but I wondered if she also wanted to spare him after what happened with his mum.”
“She did.” Her gaze is discerning. “She tried to cut him loose, but he wasn’t having it. They still spoke on the phone, right up until she couldn’t really talk anymore.”
The backs of my eyes sting. “That’s devastating.”
She’s still looking at me. “Sorry, but I’ve got to ask.”
Here we go.
“What do you see in him?”
I sigh.
“I’m talking about Jackson this time,” she says. “You just seem like old mates. There’s way more chemistry between you and étienne.”
I frown and avert my gaze.
She cranes her neck to look at me. “Ha,” she says.
“What?”
“Your face is red. Case in point.”
“And what point is that?” I immediately regret the question.
“You and étienne. There’s something more there. This is not just a ruse to make Jackson jealous. The way étienne prowls around you…”
“Yeah, he’s like a lion sizing up prey,” I say wryly, tending to agree with her on this one.
Although not a lion, actually. étienne’s more like a…leopard. Or a wolf.
She shakes her head, dismissing what I’ve said. “No, if he’s a predator, he’s in a cage, pacing back and forth. Sizing you up, sure, but warily. He doesn’t know how you might hurt him.”
I snort. “Okay, enough analogies.”
She laughs and I grin at her.
I do like her, I decide. She may be straight-talking, but it’s refreshing. I think we could be friends.
“Mellie keeps asking when you’re coming over to watch Queen of Speed with us,” I say to étienne when we find ourselves alone again.
The party has thinned out down here. Most people have gone upstairs—we’re in the showroom closest to his apartment. “Back to Friends” by sombr is playing over the sound system, which feels apt.
“You tell me,” he says.
“Monday night? Sevenish?”
He nods. “Okay.” His gaze drifts downward.
“You’ve been staring at my lips all night,” I say.
His eyes cut right back up to mine.
“It’s like when we were teenagers and you were focusing on trying to understand what I was saying.”
He smiles. “That’s not why I was staring at your lips.”
My stomach swoops. And then I’m giving him an answer to the question he asked me weeks ago.
“I liked you,” I admit.
His eyes narrow.
“Back then, ten years ago,” I tell him. “I really liked you. I wanted you. I kept you from Jackson, from Mellie, from all of them…I kept you a secret because you were mine. Just mine. I didn’t want my two worlds to come together, but not because I was embarrassed or ashamed or—”
He steps closer and puts his finger on my lips. I fall silent as he stares into my eyes.
“Je t’aimais aussi. I liked you also. Je te voulais aussi.” My scalp prickles as he says, in English, “I wanted you too.” And then he leans in close and whispers in my ear, “Je te veux.”
I want you. Present tense. And it needs no translation.
My heartbeat is erratic as his chest brushes mine.
He skims his fingers along the back of my arm and I shiver as they reach my hand, giving it a small squeeze.
I stare pointedly at his apartment and he backs up a step, sweeping his gaze over the showrooms as he gets his keys out of his pocket.
He unlocks his door and I follow him inside, resting my back against it to push it closed, muffling the sounds of the party.
There’s barely an inch between our bodies as he closes the gap between us. His heat is intoxicating. I raise my chin and stare into his eyes—they’re as dark as I’ve ever seen them. We lock gazes for a long moment—and then he dips his head.
The room around me spins as our lips connect.
His hands clutch my waist and mine fly to the hair at the nape of his neck.
He presses me against the wall and I gasp into his mouth as our tongues collide.
And then his hands are cupping the backs of my thighs and he’s lifting me.
As I wrap my legs around his waist, he carries me across the room to his spiral staircase.
He’s stronger than he used to be: his muscles don’t tremble as he walks us up.
But when we reach the top, he doesn’t lay me on his bed gently.
I don’t know why but I expected him to—maybe because I’d imagined how cautious he would have been with Eve.
But he doesn’t treat me as though I’m fragile; he allows both of us to fall onto the mattress, his body folding over me as he roughly kisses my neck.
His fingers work the buttons on my blouse as I lift his T-shirt up—he yanks it over his head impatiently, his firm stomach connecting with mine as he pushes the silky fabric of my shirt apart.
And then he starts talking to me in French and my goose bumps don’t just break out—they explode.
All over my body.
I grapple with the buttons of his jeans like a wild thing. The music is pounding from the party still raging beyond the walls, but I can hear my heart beating in my ears and possibly his too. We can’t get our clothes off fast enough.
He reaches for a condom from his bedside drawer and offers it to me, his wolf eyes flooded with black. I snatch it from him and tear it open with my teeth, which is all the consent he needs. When he’s ready, he pauses and looks into my eyes. I’m panting, breathless, my pulse out of control.
“I want you,” I tell him, slightly desperately.
A flicker of something passes over his expression, a slight hesitation. It’s so minute that I could have missed it, but the sight of it makes me pause.
And then he’s pushing into me and my mind fogs as I become nothing more than heat and sensation, arching my back as I pull him in deeper.
We begin to move together, increasing our pace until our connection is frenetic and unhinged and I’m feeling an urgency that I’ve never experienced before.
I could get addicted to this. It’s thrilling and terrifying in equal measure.
His mouth is on mine when I fall. And two seconds later, he chases right after me.
Afterward we lie side by side, our skin slick with a sheen of sweat, our lips parted as we try to catch our breath. I roll toward him and place my hand on his flat stomach. He covers it with his own hand, but not before I feel his skin contract.
After lying there in silence for a while, he casts me a small smile. “I should probably get back out there.”
I feel a rush of disappointment.
“I guess I should go home,” I reply.
He doesn’t ask me to stay.
We sit up and reach for our clothes.
Was that us “keeping it casual”? I wonder uneasily as I get dressed.
He jogs down the stairs ahead of me, but when he reaches the door, he turns around and takes my face in his hands, pressing the sweetest kiss to my lips.
The tension drains out of my body as he lifts his head again, meeting my eyes.
“That was worth the wait,” he whispers.
My heart cartwheels as he takes my hand and leads me back out into the party.