Chapter 25
Bewitched
“She is driving me insane,” Bastien huffed when he entered the apartment the next morning, shutting the door behind him with such force that Juliana, who was coming out of the kitchen, a heaping plate of noodles in hand, startled.
A wet squelch echoed across the apartment. It was followed by a furious gasp.
Bastien halted in front of her.
“You, heathen!” In the middle of the room, Juliana was standing in a blue chemise, a sad mess of noodles and stir-fry vegetables splattered on the floor. Glaring at him, she threw her head back with a whine. “I had been looking forward to that dish all week.”
Bastien grimaced. “Sorry, Jules. Although you’d be happy to know that I brought fresh bread,” he offered tentatively, hopping over the noodles and placing a paper bag up on the counter.
It merely earned a death-stare from her.
“I don’t want your bread.” Juliana sighed. She tucked her bobbed hair behind her ears and leaned against the counter. “You might as well tell me who has gotten you so vexed while you clean the floor before it stains.”
“You’re not serious.”
She pointed a threatening finger at him. Bastien swallowed.
“Fine—but you better not get used to me being your maid.”
“I definitely will, Bas,” she droned and slipped her fingers into the bread bag nonchalantly. “I only get one day a week to enjoy whatever I want, then I’m stuck munching on lettuce like a rabbit. You in a maid’s outfit will make up for it. I might even ask Celine to sew you one.”
A low, nettled groan rumbled in his chest. “Do not mention her name.”
It wasn’t enough that he heard a sufficient amount of it daily to last him for years to come. Now he had to hear it even when she wasn’t in the room.
Celine, Celine, Celine, Celine, Celine, Celine, Celine, Celine, Celine, Celine, Celine, Celine.
“Aha,” Juliana replied in a way that suggested she knew something Bastien didn’t. “Let me guess, she’s been poking you again.”
Bastien could feel her eyes on him as he came out of the pantry, mop and bucket in hand. He recognised an inspection when it was taking place, and he knew that right now, he was being inspected.
“That’s one way to put it.”
Rolling his sleeves up to his elbows, he plunged the mop into the bucket, splashing water all over the floor.
“I see.” Juliana was still following his movements, eyes narrowing at every word coming from his lips.
He had learned long ago that nothing good ever came from her inspections.
For him, at least. Jules got her two hours of fun exacting mental torture upon him until he confessed everything.
“I thought you were going to postpone your evil plan to break them up,” she went on.
“I was. I am.”
“And the reason is still the same? That if Jacques finds out, I’ll be stuck with your ass on my chaise forever?”
Dangerous territory.
“The reason…might have changed.” Hoping to avoid her scrutiny, Bastien started scrubbing more vigorously. “I like her. We are friends.”
“Friends,” Juliana repeated. Suddenly, she pushed off the counter and grabbed him by his cheeks. Bastien teetered forward, holding fast on the mop for balance. A wrinkle of consternation appeared on his brow.
“What are you doing?” His words struggled past her iron-like grip on his face.
Juliana angled her head. Her green eyes had narrowed into mere slits; her nose scrunched like a hound dog upon a rabbit. The probing gave results. Her gaze fell to his lips.
“Friends who kiss.”
“How did you—”
“There’s lipstick all over your face,” she said. “But no glitter. You always have showgirl glitter on you after meeting with what’s her name—Elana.” She hummed. “I fear you’ve jumped five steps ahead with your plan.”
“You ought to be a detective,” Bastien said wryly, prying his face away from her fingers and wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “Those skills are being wasted on me.”
“Do not change the subject. Come on, spill it. You owe me a good story for doing that to my lunch.” She pointed to the bucket where a few, sad pieces of noodles floated in the water.
Bastien shook his head. Juliana was the biggest busybody to exist in all of Paris, after Ana?s. He wondered what would happen if the two of them ever decided to run an underground gossip club together.
“We just…kissed, alright? It wasn’t part of my plan. It meant nothing the first time, it meant nothing this time. End of story.”
Juliana’s grin only intensified. Her eyes had gone wide with amusement. “This time?” she echoed. “Friends, my foot.” She prodded a finger into his ribs. “Talk. How did it happen?”
Bastien sighed. “You really are starved for entertainment, aren’t you?” She gave him a shrug. “Well, don’t get your hopes up. It was a two time thing and it is sure to have no repeats. She was just trying to get back at me for what I did at the masquerade, that’s all.”
To his surprise, his friend burst into a fit of laughter.
“What’s so funny now?”
“She kissed you? And you’re here, moaning about it? Insisting it was nothing?” With a flounce, Juliana threw her lithe body onto one of the chaises and continued cackling, kicking her stockinged feet in the air. “Oh, this Celine deserves an award.”
“By all means,” Bastien drawled indignant. “Take your time mocking me.”
Juliana started fanning herself in response, until the giggles died down. “I never thought this would happen to you. Tu vis enfin un amour non réciproque. It’s karma, you know.”
Bastien smacked the mop down in protest. “This is not a one-sided love. And karma isn’t real.”
“Right.”
“Why would it be? I have never been in love and I do not plan on being blinded by it any time soon.”
“Maybe,” she sprawled on her stomach and propped her chin on the crook of her palm. “But others have, with you in fact, and all you have done is juggle their hearts for a month or two, and then you have let them fall to the floor and crack like eggs.”
“First of all, I never commit to anyone for more than three weeks,” he corrected. “And second, that’s not my fault,” Bastien added flippantly. “Women have always loved their men dark and brooding, and as far as I’m aware, I check both boxes.”
Juliana rolled her eyes. “It’s that arrogance you are being punished for now.”
“Hey—”
“Complain all you want, but this is the plain truth: someone is finally juggling with your heart and you can’t stand it. A one-sided love.”
Indignant, Bastien dipped the mop into the bucket again and watched the water turn murky.
“Even if she was juggling with my heart—which she isn’t—it wouldn’t be a one-sided love.
It’s not that she doesn’t want me back, it’s just that she is taken.
So it’s an impossible love. Or a forbidden love. Or—”
Juliana’s menacing chuckle cut him off.
“I should have accepted that job as a secret agent. Then I would have had a recorder to save all the nonsense that just came out of your mouth. My God, she has your heart-strings all tied up.”
“Celine LeBeau is doing no such things with my heart!” he protested. “She is just…she…oh, forget it!”
Giving the floor one final swipe, Bastien unlatched the window and dumped the water into the draining pipe right underneath the sill.
He returned the cleaning supplies inside the pantry.
Then strode back to the kitchen, where he turned the faucet on, letting the cold water run over his hands, waiting for it to wash away all thoughts of Celine.
Although there were things about her that nothing could ever erase, things that lingered like a phantom, day and night.
Such as the notes of her perfume sticking to his clothes, or the feel of her skin when he held her hand to help her out of the car; the sensation her fingers brushing his as he’d hand over a ribbon, or when his teeth had greedily bit her lips because kissing hadn’t been enough.
Bastien closed his eyes and listened to the water trickle down the drain.
He hadn’t a clue what had possessed him to kiss her again.
If Madame LeBeau had caught them, she would’ve no doubt chased Bastien out with a broom.
But he hadn’t cared in that moment; not about the broom, or her mother, or Jacques; not about anything, other than how soft Celine’s lips were.
How sweet her little gasps sounded to his ears.
Surely, even Celine must have felt that the kiss had been different this time.
Bastien shuddered, turned off the tap, and strolled back into the living room.
“You don’t really think that I—that this is—that she—” He dropped on one of the chaises, resolved to find anything that would provide a distraction for a while.
He picked up the shuffling of Juliana’s feet as she returned to the kitchen and started preparing lunch anew.
A bag rustled. A knife cut through bread.
The bottom of a plate grazed the counter.
“That you might be in love with her?” she called over the subtle domestic noises. “Yes. I think exactly that.”
“You must be wrong,” Bastien refused. “We’re talking about me here.”
“You have totally been struck by Cupid, mon ami,” she teased. “You never get this riled up denying things.”
He couldn’t see her from where he was sitting, but he could practically hear it in her voice that Juliana was smiling to herself.
“And you are fiercely arguing right now because you love her.”
Bastien lowered his head into his hands.