Luc
Another day and another dinner. It’s strange how they’re fast becoming the highlight of my day.
Here, at least, I can talk to Primrose without giving a thought to how it might seem to others.
Dinner table conversation is expected and therefore far less likely to become fodder for gossip.
It’s here, I learn about the woman in small ways.
And when she’s seated across the table from me, I don’t think about her bikini. Much. And I don’t dwell on how she looks when she reaches her peak, when her mouth softly opens, and her gaze softens and—
“…and his nails were very dirty, but he said he’d been taking samples, so Primrose shook his hand.” Sylvie flicks a salad leaf around her plate, her body moving to and fro as her little feet swing under the table.
“Is that right, mon chou?” I pat her hand and gird my mind against such images. They have no place in my head when I’m with my children.
“But really, Papa. I don’t like the vines because of the pests.” At this, she shoots a sideways glance her brother’s way. “And I don’t mean beetles.”
I look up and catch Primrose watching. “Has this been the theme of the day?”
“Pretty much,” she replies with a shrug.
It doesn’t seem too long ago that Sylvie idolized her brother.
“How has your day been?” I chance the polite enquiry, hoping to change the subject. Hoping to have Primrose look at me again.
“Fine, thank you.” I experience a jolt of pleasure as her eyes meet mine, even if she does look a little confused.
“Have you had the chance to explore the property further?”
“Yes, thank you. A little.”
“Tres bon, oui?” Sylvie puts in.
“Yes. Very beautiful, Sylvie.” She smiles my daughter’s way, and I find myself wanting her to smile for me. Ridiculous. Am I in my forties or am I fourteen?
“And you’re finding your way around satisfactorily?”
“Well, I made it to the dinner table again,” she murmurs without a glance this time.
The corner of my mouth hooks up. That’s more like it. More like our usual exchanges.
“Yes, but do you know, Papa, Primrose has a terrible sense of direction. She almost got lost on the way to see Andiamo again.”
Primrose mutters something I don’t quite hear and Sylvie frowns.
“Under what bus? There are no buses on the estate. I wish there were. I think I would like to ride a bus.”
“I trust you weren’t too alarmed?”
With a frown, the nanny’s attention slides my way. She looks irritated. “I wasn’t lost. Not properly.”
“Because I came back for you again,” Sylvie says, very much matter-of-factly.
“Yes, okay, but—”
“Primrose, have you ever ridden a bus?”
“Yes.” Her expression softens. “You’re not missing much there, sweets.”
“I would like to try for myself. When we travel in the car, Felix just ignores me. On a bus, the people might speak to me. Papa, do you know next time we go, Primrose says she will take crackers and leave a trail.”
“For the bus?”
“For the stables, silly! But the birds will just eat them, and she will still be lost.”
Primrose stifles a frustrated breath and the little devil sitting on my shoulder whispers, She’s such a little perfectionist. I bite back a smile. “Perhaps we can give Primrose some rope.”
“You’re not that lucky,” she murmurs under her breath.
Oh, darling, that wasn’t at all the direction of my thoughts. “To allow her to find her way back.” My tone is even but I slide her a loaded glance. Reaching for the wine, I motion to her empty glass.
“No, thank you.”
“You don’t like wine?” In my presence, she’s refused wine at every meal.
“I like it just fine. I just don’t think it’s a good idea when I’m working.”
Subtle. Subtle like a sledgehammer. You have me here under false pretenses!
“You aren’t performing surgery.”
“I’m not a surgeon.”
“Or undertaking diagnostics,” I add evenly. “A little wine will do you no harm.” And it might help the conversation. Help her relax. I know how I’d help her relax, given the chance. A chance I won’t have.
“Many people drink wine with meals,” Sylvie interjects. “Especially French people. And not just at dinner.”
“This is true. There was even once a time it was served in schools.”
Primrose’s brow furrows. “Really?”
I incline my head. “In my grandparents’ day, it was served in the school cafeteria.”
It’s hard to tell whether she’d amused or abhorred. “Wow. Drunk children must’ve been a delight to teach.”
“It was watered down,” I gently scoff.
“I’m not sure that makes a difference.”
“Don’t frown at me,” I chide. “I wasn’t the one filling their glasses.”
Primrose blinks rapidly as though surprised by my response.
“But, Primrose, you must try,” Sylvie entreats. “Alejandro grew the grapes, and I helped make the rosé.”
“This bottle?”
Sylvie nods. “With my feet!”
“You met Alejandro?”
Primrose opens her mouth, but my daughter beats her to it. “Oui, Papa. We were visiting Lola and Alejandro knows a lot of things about llamas.”
“Does he indeed?” But Primrose is too busy examining her empty plate. She refused dessert, which was surprising. She doesn’t usually. She isn’t the kind of woman who denies herself the things she desires. Food wise, at least.
“Lola spitted, I mean spat,” my daughter says as her gaze slides Primrose’s way.
“Gross,” Felix mutters.
“Alejandro said it was a love spit.”
“How wonderful to know he has time to study llamas.” And my nanny, I think, unhappily. But Primrose keeps her eyes on her plate.
“He said that Paco will try again and again until Lola stops spitting at him. He also asked Primrose to go for a drink, but she must not have been thirsty because she stayed with me.”
I watch as the nanny’s eyelids flutter closed and almost hear her soft sigh.
“Did he now?” In my head, that sounded much less rough.
“And we went to visit the horses, and Primrose got lost.”
With or without Alejandro? I manage to stop myself from asking.
“I wasn’t lost,” she quietly insists.
But was she flirting with the grape man when she’ll barely look at me?
Dieu, I am not jealous!
“And Alejandro asked you out?” My question sounds brittle as I reach for my glass.
“I’m new here. He was being welcoming.” Her fiery gaze flashes my way. More welcoming than me, it seems to say.
“So it would seem,” I mutter.
“Who is Alejandro?” Felix looks up from his plate with a frown.
“He has brown hair and blue eyes,” Sylvie answers. “He’s very tall, like Papa. But not so old.”
My glass halts on the way to my mouth. “Why, thank you, Sylvie.”
My daughter gives a tinkling laugh and even Primrose smiles.
“Not so old,” I repeat when what I want to ask is, whose side are you on, child? But there are no sides here. Just a vain old man lusting after the nanny, apparently.
“And he has a nice smile, doesn’t he, Primrose? Primrose, doesn’t Alejandro have a nice smile?”
“Yes, I suppose he has.”
“I have all my own teeth still,” I grumble, much to her amusement.
“I like his long eye lashes, just like Lola’s.” My daughter flutters her lids. I hope she learned that from the fucking llamas and not from her nanny.
“Alejandro says humans and llamas are the same because they’re both silly when they are in love.”
“Alejandro seems to have a lot of opinions,” I mutter flatly.
“He was just being friendly,” Primrose insists once more.
“Yes, he seems very… sociable.”
“Is that the French way of insinuating he’s a flirt?” she asks with just a touch of pique.
I sigh like a teacher despairing of his pupil. “Primrose, my French has much more imagination than that.”
Her head comes up so sharply, and her cheeks take on a wonderful pink hue.
“If Alejandro has any sense at all. He’ll learn from the llamas.” Finally, I bring my wine to my lips. I sense Primrose’s eyes on my neck as I swallow. And feel the effect of her attention much farther south.
“In what way, Papa?” Felix asks.
I lean back in my chair and hold out my wine as though to study it, determined not allow my eyes to stray. Every glance her way is an act of self-sabotage.
Yet I still find my eyes on her.
“Papa,” my son prompts. “What will he learn.”
“That persistence isn’t always rewarded.”
Primrose curls one elegant brow. An inquiry or a taunt? My own gaze narrows in response.
“Sometimes a younger man is just bothering the wrong female.”
The children exchange a confused look as Primrose fights a smile. And I decide I probably won’t need to fire the grape man.
“Primrose, will you be here for la vendimia?” Sylvie asks as she scoops the last of the dessert from her dish.
“The harvest,” I expand. “We usually visit later in the year. September, sometimes October, depending on the weather and the subsequent harvest.
“It is so much fun! We get to stand on the grapes, and they squish between our toes.”
“Feet wine?” Her lovely eyes sparkle with amusement. “And you expect me to drink it?”
“I made sure they were clean! Please have a glass of the wine I helped make,” she pleads, pressing her hands together.
“Fine.” Primrose finally holds out her glass, her beautiful mouth tipping in one corner. I need to pull my head out of my ass and stop mooning after her. “Seeing as you made it with clean feet, I’ll try a little.”
“Hourra!”
“But just a smidge,” she says as I the bottle meets her glass.
“It is the best wine ever!”
“And you know that how?” she teases, full of good humor.
“I am French. Wine is in my blood! Also, I have tasted it.”
Primrose slides me a look, part doubt and part reprimand.
“It was just a couple of drops,” I add, not sure why I feel the need to explain myself.
“Monsieur Maria—”
“Otherwise known as José,” I add.
“He says if you make the wine, you must taste the wine. It is bad luck to do otherwise.”
“And it was good?” Primrose asks, lifting her glass.
“It was delicious.” Sylvie gives a little shiver or remembrance. “Or I think it will be when I am old enough to ’ppreciate it.”
Primrose laughs as she brings the wine to her nose.
“What can you smell?” I ask, suddenly intrigued.