67. Isabel
Ileaned back against the kitchen door, a hot, quivering mess.
It was like all my spidey senses had gone on red alert.
Roman was here. In Chatoise.
How dare he come here and throw a wrench into my life.
I wanted to yank this door open—well, unbolt it first—and then march over to Roman and demand he tell me what he was doing here. And also to kiss him. I wanted to feel that exquisite mouth of his on mine. I wanted to taste him, feel him and be devoured by him.
Stop it! What was wrong with me?
And here I thought I was doing so well these last three months at Abbey Chatoise. I’d almost managed not to think of Roman every minute of the day. He had, however, taken up permanent residency in my dreams, which were apparently out of my control.
It hadto be the pregnancy hormones because no way in hell should I be considering anything carnal with this man. And oh my God, he could never know about the baby. Never. I didn’t want to imagine his displeasure if he did.
But I loved him,I loved him, I loved him. Seeing him for only twenty seconds, even in very dim light, destroyed three months of trying really hard to forget him. Granted, not that I ever came close to forgetting him, but the thing to take away here is that I tried. Really really hard.
One thing I knew,I needed to find out what Roman was doing here. If he was here to convince me to go back to Belmont Manor like nothing ever happened, did I have a big surprise for him. And perhaps I should just tell him now, so he didn’t waste time here in Chatoise while he had that stupid empire to run back home.
The only way to not think about any of this was to work, work, work. And I had tons of bread to bake. Or I could just have Sisters Reine and Sabine take over while I went to confront Roman. Yes, that’s what I needed to do. Tell this man he had to leave Chatoise. Today.
It suddenly made sense that the old shoemaker, Monsieur Gabbart, left town like the Devil was on his tail. Encouraged by way of a Belmont bribe, no doubt.
I carefully peeked through the bamboo blinds into Monsieur Gabbart’s place. The curtains were drawn but the light was on, and that was good enough for me. I ripped off my apron, smoothed back my hair and gritted my teeth. Then off to battle I went, storming from the abbey’s kitchen and making the short trip to Monsieur Gabbart’s place and knocking sharply on the door.
“The door is unlocked, Steven,”Roman said from inside.
So Steven was responsible for this. After everything, he was fine with Roman jetting into town to take back what he thought was his. Wasn’t it Steven who brought me to Abbey Chatoise to get as far away from Roman Belmont as possible?
And now here Roman was, only a closed door between us and an unlocked one at that. I winced. Me stepping inside Roman’s place was probably not the best-case scenario. I was thinking more of having the discussion on his doorstep so there was no confusion as to what I was doing here. Because who the hell knew what these pregnancy hormones would make me do.
And suddenly the whole thing was beginning to seem a little ill-advised, and just as I was about to turn around and head back to the abbey, Roman opened his door. “I said it’s unlocked—oh,” he said.
Suddenly he was right there,those blue eyes blazing into mine, his talking vein throbbing like he had a world crisis to solve. And it seemed like he’d just taken a shower because his hair was wet and he was only wearing his bespoke sweat pants.
Dear God. He was a feast for my starving soul. Of course, my body’s reaction was instant, very inappropriate and wholly unwelcome. And when my eyes dipped down to his groin, I could see he was experiencing the same predicament. I celebrated on the inside that at least my disgrace wasn’t as in-your-face. I mean that was if you ignored the fact that I was breathing so hard you couldn’t keep a candle lit.
“Uhngg,” I muffled, followed by an involuntary whimper, and all I could do was hope he didn’t hear any of it. But it seemed he did because Roman spontaneously emitted his own low growl in response.
Oh great, we were now communicating via whimpers and growls, like two goddamn Neanderthals on a blind date.
I backed up a step. “Negverghmignd,” I garbled, and fled. Back to the abbey’s kitchen. To bake bread. Lots of bread. Bread for the whole world and nearby planets too. And then I was going to scrub every floor in the place and maybe I’d clean all the windows for kicks.
There was definitely a cold shower in my future, and if ever I needed to have a long and very serious talk with myself, the time was now. I mean what just happened? Didn’t motherhood instinctively make you immune to the devastating charms of the scoundrel who fathered your child?
I went back to kneading the dough and lining the pieces up on the table. Trying to sort through this tangled mess of thoughts crowding my mind. He’d opened that door half-dressed and freshly showered. I could only imagine what Roman had done in that shower. But what I really wanted to know was why he’d come to Chatoise, and also how I was going to demand he leave when all I wanted was for him to stay.
This was ridiculous. Didn’t he have a wedding to plan and an heir to produce? And why didn’t Meg tell me he was coming here? No way did she not know. When we texted tonight she was going to get an earful from me, that was for sure.
Breathe in, breathe out. Which, judging by the way my morning had gone so far, would not be as easy as one might think. Imagine what was lying in wait for me the rest of the day.
Due to my pathetic effort to solve the problem and chase Roman out of town, mixed emotions now played a starring role in my rapid fall from grace. Mixed emotions as in I had no fricken clue what to do with all these feelings scrambling for control inside of me.
I was going to be a mother. I needed to get a grip. If you had to go by the laws of nature, mating had concluded and yes, I had no plans to bite off his head but honestly, it was tempting. As tempting as it was to rip off his clothes and declare myself his, if only for one night.
This truly, without a shadow of a doubt, couldn’t get any more catastrophic. And one thing was clear, Roman Belmont needed to leave Chatoise.