23. Luc
LUC
I close the door with a quiet snick and turn to a reception I wasn’t quite expecting.
“Don’t,” she says, spinning away as I take a step toward her. She moves quickly to the far side of the room, her arms folded tightly across her chest.
This definitely wasn’t the reception I was hoping for.
“What’s going on?” I begin to follow when she slides a glance over her shoulder that stops me in my tracks. I’ve enjoyed her haughty looks, and her cutting put-downs, but this feels different.
Her attention pivots to the garden; the doors open to the sun-bleached terrace. “What do you call French doors?”
“What?”
“What do the French call French doors?”
“Portes-fenêtres,” I answer unthinkingly.
“Isn’t that just window doors? The translation, I mean.”
“Yes. Sort of.” I give my head a brief shake. “Primrose, what is it—what’s wrong?”
“Why would there be anything wrong?”
“Because you’re behaving like there is.” Tension tightens my belly as I recall Zoe whispering ‘Alejandro’ as I left the kitchen. Zoe thinks she’s fucking the viticulturist?
“Nope, nothing wrong here. All is hunky-dory in the land of Primrose.” She pauses. Inhales. “If we discount what happened last night, I suppose.”
Because she is fucking the viticulturist?
I push the ridiculous thought away, as I casually rub my hand across my smooth cheek. The action does not reflect my internal world as I suffer her words, her meaning, like a fist thrust beneath my ribs. “Discount,” I repeat dully.
“Disregard. Forget, if you prefer.”
“I know what it means,” I snap because last night wasn’t an accounting error—an incorrect entry on a fucking P paradise unconvinced.
I move to the door, resting my shoulder against the frame to better study her. “You do like me. More than you want to admit.”
Her disparaging laugh sounds forced.
“And I like you. I like you more than I ever imagined I could.”
“No, you don’t.” Her eyes dart briefly to mine. “You can’t.”
“It’s been a while since anyone told me I can’t.” My smile feels indulgent.
“Well, I’m telling you right now. You can’t.”
“Do you think a man can fake that?”
This draws her attention, her eyes flashing angrily. “I expect you’ve had a lot of practice.”
I’m not sure she appreciates my laughter. “You know what they say, practice makes perfect.”
At this, she snorts, unimpressed.
“I’ve fucked a lot of women.”
Her eyes flash angrily.
“Which, I think, makes me more than qualified to know how special last night was.” I hold her gaze, letting the silence between us stretch. “You felt it. I know you did.”
Her lips part, but then she shakes her head. “It didn’t mean anything. Not to me.”
“It meant enough that you’re standing here right now trying very hard to convince us both of the opposite.” I step closer, and she doesn’t resist as I take her chin between my fingers. “Be honest with yourself,” I chide. “Even if you can’t be honest with me.”
She says nothing for a beat as the scent of orange blossom and rosemary drifts in on a scant breeze.
“I am,” she says eventually.”
“Non. You’re being careful and that’s not the same thing.”
“I missed that lesson last night, being careful.” She pulls away, and the look she slides over her shoulder couldn’t be less complimentary. “Given where we first met.”
Another laugh erupts from me, this one harsher and less amused. “You really are determined to put me in my place, aren’t you?”
“Someone should’ve done it long before now.”
“Rest assured, lots of people have tried.”
Her lovely lips draw together like the strings of a purse.
“But, please, don’t let me stop you. I will, however, just remind you of how you begged.” She gives a sharp intake of breath as I spin her to face me. “It was reckless, we can both acknowledge that,” I add heatedly. “But save your worries. The last woman I fucked without protection is dead.”
If nothing else she looks chastened.
I’m not a fool. I know there can be nothing between us in the real sense. But how she’d gazed at me as she came, part astonishment, part temptation, is a sight I won’t ever forget.
If not life-altering, the experience was life affirming.
“I thought we’d reached an understanding last night,” I begin again, the heat dying from my words.
“Neither of us are looking for a forever.” I pause, not sure I want to go on.
But I owe her honesty, if nothing else. “I thought I had that once. I was wrong. In Paris...” I pause, choosing my words carefully.
“You were looking for an experience. A night where no one knew you. Where no one expected anything from you.”
Her shoulders stiffen. “You don’t know anything about who or what I am.”
“I know you walked into that club for a reason.”
“I told you, she says, swinging to face me now. “It was a mistake.”
“Initially, perhaps. But you watched. We both did.” My gaze lingers on her mouth. The mark on her neck. “We were both there to step outside our lives for a little while.”
“I told you, it was a mistake.”
“I’m not asking you to fall in love with me—”
“Ha!”
“I’m asking you to stop pretending your body didn’t tell you something your head refuses to hear. You’re not broken, Primevère. And you deserve to know the joy of sex.”
“That sounds dangerously convenient, doesn’t it?”
“You’re right.” My admission catches her off guard.
“For us both. A month where we know exactly where the boundaries lie. We’re attracted to each other, and sex between us is…
” My gaze wanders down her body, lingering where I long to touch.
“Outstanding. But we know that what’s between us can only be temporary.
It can’t go anywhere beyond these walls. ”
Her expression flickers through a dozen things.
“I’m not the man for you. I have my children, my business. Responsibilities. And you have a job and a life waiting for you in another country. There’s no way we could or should want to make this work.”
“Just say it—you’re talking about fucking.”
“I’m not biting, darling. Not this time.” I brush my thumb across my mouth, not wanting to smile.
“You’d better not.”
“You’re not the only one marked by last night’s experience,” I say, loosening the buttons at the front of my shirt. A frisson of something dances through me as I pull the linen aside and her eyes fall to her own mark. I run my fingers over the bruise and suffer the sensation like a throb.
“You make it sound so simple.” Her voice is softer, like the fight has slipped from her.
“It’s the opposite of simple. But it is real. So I propose we stop pretending we’re immune to each other. That we enjoy something that’s already happened. Again.” And again and again.
“For practice?” she snipes, folding her arms tight. “Are you proposing to give me lessons?”
“Intimacy isn’t something you practice. It’s something you enjoy. Let me help you discover that.”
“So magnanimous.”
I chuckle—I can’t help it. She’s so fucking stubborn. So beautiful.
“And absolutely nothing in it for you, then.”
And delectably feisty. I’ll enjoy fucking that out of her. “You, Primevère, you’re in it for me.”
Her mouth flattens. “Stop calling me that.”
“Let’s build on last night. Or to use your words, fuck. In our downtime.”
“Because you saw something on Porn Hub one time?” she taunts.
“Really,” I gently chide.
“Maybe Felix picked up the habit from you. What is it you’re into? What’s your flavor, huh? Dominant Dad turns Naive Nanny Nympho?”
I smirk. Her mind is a curious place. “That’s quite the tongue twister.”
“Is that what she said?” With a huff, she swings away. “Is this why you can’t keep a nanny?” she demands as I turn and watch her pace around the room. But she doesn’t leave, and that in itself is telling.
“I am a paragon of virtue around my staff. Ask Emmy if you don’t believe me.”
She scoffs. “That doesn’t mean getting it on with the nanny isn’t what floats through your head during your alone times.”
“Do you think I have a lot of those?”
“I can’t work out if you’re bigging up your sexual prowess or asking me how many times a day I think you interfere with yourself.”
I wipe my hand across my mouth, but my humor won’t be concealed. “Well, now I’m doubly curious what you think.”
“Is it the power dynamic?” She presses her hands together in what I presume is meant to be an angelic pose. “The young, inexperienced girl and the older, dominant man just itching to teach her a few things?”
“That’s the second time you’ve used that word. Dominant.” My voice drops in register, the word delivered from my chest. However, the effect of her assumption falls a little farther south. “Maybe it’s you who’s been trawling porn.”
“So what is it about nannies?” she demands, deliberately obtuse. Spiky and annoyed, chin tilted in challenge because I’m getting to her. “Could it be the clichéd, hackneyed tackiness of it all?”
“Except, you’re not a nanny, Doctor Whittington.
” Hands in my pockets again, I saunter toward her.
“So your hypothesis doesn’t stand. Which leaves us with what?
” I lift my hand slowly to tug aside the collar of her shirt and feel a primitive surge of ownership at the sight of my mark.
“The answer is you. It looks like I have a thing for you.”