7. Luc
LUC
“C’est le bordel.” My hand twinges suddenly, so I loosen the vise-like grip on the door handle before realizing the manila folder Jacques handed me moments ago is receiving the same treatment.
“What’s a shit show?” Jacques’s tone is carefully low, though not out of deference to me. It’s not to protect my children’s sensibilities either, given they’re upstairs with one of the maids. “What the hell is going on?”
“That’s what I’m about to find out,” I retort. “And after I’ve dealt with it, you and I are going to discuss how the hell this happened.” Not that there will be much to discuss except perhaps how his ineptitude contributed to his dismissal because he’s definitely fired.
“How what happened?”
I glower as my grip tightens once more on the handle.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you right, but you know this isn’t right.”
“You are telling me?” I explode.
“Whatever the issue is, she’s only been in the house for five minutes. What kind of—”
“Five minutes is four minutes too fucking long.” I glance back his way. “Why are you hovering?”
“I’m coming in.” He nods toward the door. “You need me in there. For protection, if nothing else.”
An unhappy laugh rattles out of me. “It’s a little too late for that.”
His brow furrows.
“I don’t need you.” Or an audience Not given what I have to say to her. “Leave.”
“She is standing in your office in nothing but a bikini. After what happened on Thursday night, doesn’t it strike you as—”
“As what?” I flex my jaw to release the tension.
“It doesn’t look good if you go in there alone.”
“The woman has brought this on herself. And she has a towel—a big towel. It should be me you’re concerned for, not her.”
She’s probably in there doing a happy dance that her plan has come together so well. As for her attire, her minuscule bikini, it’s nothing but a ploy. A delightful ploy, but that’s not my focus right now.
“You’re putting yourself in a precarious position.”
“Not for the first time,” I grate out as I push the door open. Red lips last night. Red bikini today. Red for danger. For warning. The woman is a red flag personified.
“Listen—” I hear from behind me, but whatever sentiment he’s about to voice is lost as I step inside, turn, then shut the door in his face.
I inhale deeply, my lungs expanding and my shoulders rising.
How could I have been so stupid? I shouldn’t have been at Ardeo, and I certainly shouldn’t have kissed her.
Or gone down on her. I swallow as my mouth instantly floods, though I thrust away the Pavlovian response.
What’s done is done, and what’s important now is how to extricate myself from this mess and get this woman the fuck out of my house.
Before I do something really stupid. Again.
“I usually focus on my breath.” The sound of her voice startles me, the evenness of her tone. “Grounding techniques work better than mental redirection. At least, I find so.”
“What?” The fuck.
I turn to find her standing behind my behemoth of a desk.
Framed by the window looking out over the garden, she looks so out of place yet completely at home in a room designed as an ode to power.
Dark fabrics and leather. Midnight-colored walls, the grand Nero marble fireplace.
A Picasso hangs in one alcove next to it, a Basquiat in the another, the adjacent walls ribbed with shelves, filled with priceless texts.
She looks out of place because of her age and her attire—her bikini and all that haphazard hair, the blue-and-white striped towel hastily clasped to her chest. But by her manner, one could easily assume she belongs in this room, instead of me.
Chin held high, the glower she sends my way feels almost as though I’m here to plead my case.
The gall of her.
“Counting to ten is also an excellent mental interlude to manage… strong emotions.”
The woman is fucking brazen.
“I am experiencing very strong emotions.” This I say in rapid-fire French. Her brow furrows, and she doesn’t answer. “You don’t speak French.”
She answers with a shrug.
I repeat myself in English, feeling a measure of relief that she didn’t understand everything I said last night.
“Oh, I’m aware.” She jerks her chin violently in the direction of the door. “And by the way, I heard everything you said to him, to your minion. He’s got the right idea of it. This has HR nightmare written all over it. It has the potential to be one hell of a civil suit in the making.”
“Good.”
Her expression reflects surprise, whether at my answer or my response as my steps eat up the space between us. It’s not a predatory advance, or so I tell myself, but I do get a kick out of her reaction as her eyes flare when I step in front of her.
“I’m glad we’re getting straight down to it,” I purr dangerously, dropping the folder to the corner of my desk as I allow my gaze to fall over her.
Something not quite so confident flashes across her face. “Get down to it?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. And don’t waste my time.
” My skin feels too tight, maybe because she’s in my space.
Or maybe I’d like to be in closer contact still.
The thought causes something inside me to tighten, not entirely unpleasantly.
This is followed by a secondary, less agreeable twinge as I remind myself of the likely reasons she here.
“I wasn’t—” Her cheeks instantly redden, and she tucks the edge of the towel tighter at her chest. “Let’s get a couple of things straight,” she says, her voice firming. “I’m not here for a repeat of last night, and you don’t scare me.”
“That could be an error on your part,” I retort, stepping closer still, forcing her to fall back until her back is pressed against the wall. She angles her chin higher, her eyes an angry flare, but she must be more than a little worried by the way her plan is set to backfire.
To think of the knots I’d twisted myself in last night, regretting the way I’d reacted when she’d touched the place where my wedding ring used to sit. Disloyalty had flared to life inside me.
I’ve had a lot of sex and fucked a lot of women at Ardeo, but up until last night, I’d never endured any kind of emotion while doing so.
The way her expression flickered with judgement, then regret, it felt like she could see right into the heart of me.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was unlocking the door behind her, setting her outside, then slamming the door shut.
Physically. Emotionally.
“How much?” I demand, slipping my finger under the thin strap of her bikini top. A tremor of something runs through her. Fear I tell myself.
“Not to sue you?” She quirks one elegant brow, purposely misunderstanding me. I don’t bother to commend her on her acting skills, angry that she’d draw this out.
“How much to get you out of this house?” I toy with the strap as I tell myself I don’t notice the heat of her skin, or the flush rising up her neck. That I don’t get a kick out of the uptick in her breath.
“Listen.” The temptress licks her lips and lust spears instantly through me. “About last night—”
“I’m not interested.”
She snorts indelicately. “Oh, I got that message loud and clear.”
My brow furrows, but there is no merit in correcting her.
In explaining that I’ve never wanted a woman as I wanted her last night.
How I’d fought that urge, how I told myself she was out of place.
She wouldn’t believe that my intentions were pure when I’d followed her into the basement.
I was trying to protect her, trying to make sure that Nils was nowhere in sight.
Instead of saving Little Red Riding Hood from the wolves, I’d devoured her myself.
I wish we’d had more time, I think as my gaze slides over her, lingering where it shouldn’t. N, no I don’t, because I’d only be in deeper shit right now.
“How much?” I demand once more at the same moment she spits,
“You’re supposed to be French.”
“Didn’t you do your homework?” Thanks to my parentage, I sound both as French as champagne and as English as ale. And never quite at home with either.
“I didn’t have time,” she retorts haughtily.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t google me.” The threat is in my stance as I tower over her, and in the way I’m not quite touching her silky skin. “Stalk me in Paris Match.” God knows there have been enough articles about this family in gossip magazines over the years.
Laughter explodes from her. “No one could ever accuse you of being a wallflower, could they?”
“Unlike you?”
Her whole demeanor stiffens, though she’s quick to push the reaction away.
What the fuck is my problem—why am I always attracted to the wrong type of woman?
“Okay, so I suppose you want to talk about last night?”
“No.” Putting temptation well and truly out of reach, I step back and perch my ass on the edge of my desk. I don’t need to be reminded how I dropped to my knees like a starving man. Already feel foolish enough.
“You’re not going to apologize for pushing me out into the street?”
“No. Unless you want to apologize for your part in the proceedings.” For the sweet noises you made, the ones I drank like fine champagne, and the lust-glazed expression you wore that was just a mask. “And for being in my home under false pretenses.”
The flicker of hurt in her expression can only be due to the glitch in her plan.
“You’ve got some nerve!” she explodes. “It’s not like I want to be here.”
“Spare me your lies. Just tell me how much it’ll cost me to make you go the fuck away.” Because the longer we’re in this room together, the worse the outcome will be.
The list of my grievances is long. I’m disappointed in myself.
I should know better. I’m disgusted that I jerked off in the shower this morning to the memory of a lie.
I’m fucking incensed that my overpaid security team could’ve gotten this so wrong.
And I am infuriated that I now need to explain to my children why their beloved Emmy won’t be returning to them.
I feel myself frown as she glances over her left shoulder, then the right.