Primrose
“Maybe later,” I call back, though my words are wasted on a little girl busy twirling in the swimming pool like a water nymph.
Her delight is compounded with a scream as her father’s dark head breaks the surface of the water beside her.
He grabs her immediately by the waist, throwing her effortlessly into the air.
She lands in a tangle of legs and arms and sizable splash for someone so slight.
I smile at the sight of them, at her infectious laugh, and how she swims immediately back to reach him, “Again, Papa. Again!”
His white smile gleams then, across the water, our gazes catch. His expression sharpens and something low inside me knots. Probably my ovaries.
“I’m fine,” I say as I reach for my water bottle.
“I think she’s afraid of getting wet,” Luc replies in a tone that is not safe for work. But Sylvie’s attention has already moved on as she launches herself back into the water, chasing a ball thrown by her brother.
“I’m not afraid,” I hiss. “I just prefer not to.”
His gaze is fiery, yet somehow full of amusement. A private kind of amusement.
Right, that’s it. “As you well know, I can swim perfectly well on my own.”
“I’d pay to see that.”
“Yeah, well, you’d have to.” I didn’t mean to say that. “But maybe I’m already swimming with someone else,” I hurry on. “Have you thought about that?”
One of his eyebrows quirks like a question mark. “Thank you for that invitation.”
“What?”
“I can’t say that would be something I’d necessarily like. Unless, of course, you’d like it.”
“I…” Me with someone else. And Luc watching. My brain breaks a little as Luc launches himself backward with a grin. With strong strokes, he moves across the pool, still watching me.
“Why are you red?” Sylvie pops up at the nearside of the pool, her slender arms over the side.
“Sunburn.”
“But you are in the shade.”
“It’s hot out.”
“Then you should swim.”
Not in my bikini. With him. “Maybe later.”
She screws up her face, and I sigh. It’s been a long few days and my nerves are a little fraught.
At the far side of the pool, Luc plants both hands on the stone edge. With one smooth push, and he lifts himself effortlessly from the water, clearing the edge, arms and back muscles working and flexing galore. Like an Olympic swimmer, or a made-for-TV moment, he twists and perches on the side.
I mentally hold up a sign. 9.9
Almost a perfect score.
I watch as he shakes his head, then slides a hand through his hair, slicking it back in a motion slow enough to make me suspicious. He’s putting on a show. And what a show it is as water beads across his shoulders, glinting in the sun and slipping lazily over skin.
Who does he think he is—Merman? I grab Sylvie’s pink towel and jerkily refold it.
He’s more like a selkie. Seal black hair and skin as smooth as a seal.
A creature of temptation, hauled from mythology, destined to always be handsome as a means to steal women’s hearts.
Wow, I don’t know where all that came from. I know nothing about selkie folklore.
“You look like you are angry.” Sylvie’s voice pulls me out of my head.
“Nope, not angry.”
“Maybe you should get in the pool and cool off.”
“Good try, sneaky.”
“Fine.” With a roll of her eyes, she launches herself backwards, disappearing under the water’s surface.
After I fold Sylvie’s towel, I realize Felix didn’t bring a towel with him. So I stand, then sit down again when I remember the cabana stores the towels in a towel warmer. Most people make do with the sun, but whatever.
I straighten my tennis dress before I sit back down, then slide on my sunglasses. As I reach for my water bottle, I chance a quick look Luc’s way. His mouth curves. Barely. And my pulse gives one hard thump. Between my legs.
Fine, so you caught me looking.
How long is this going to go on? This game he’s been playing since Friday?
I’d left him sitting at the piano the previous night with the understanding I’d think over his offer. I’d practically floated up the staircase, high on the smell of his cologne and lure of his promises. All the sexytimes and none of the feelings we could squeeze into a few weeks.
When I saw him there, on the piano bench, my first instinct was relief. I was flattered, I suppose, that he’d returned. Then seduced as he opened up about his life and his loves. The words felt like tiny treasures he spilled into my hands. I was greedy for them.
And I did think about his proposal. Probably a little too much. And, I confess, I might need to add the vision of a tanned and wet naked torso version of Luc to those thoughts. But I digress. Because ultimately, I’d decided that I couldn’t accept his offer.
His offer of all the sexytimes… for a limited time.
I’d told him the following morning that it didn’t feel like a decision I had to make but more like I needed to follow my moral compass. That two weeks of fucking this thing out of my system, no matter how beautifully he put it, didn’t seem right. Fun, but not right.
He hadn’t seemed slighted or even that surprised when I’d given him the news.
He’d just tipped his head. Barely. Said he understood, and then went back to his newspaper.
I hate to admit this, but his reaction was a total anticlimax.
Not that I was expecting tears and the beating of his chest. But a little disappointment wouldn’t have hurt him.
But, as it turned out, his response was a ruse, and it quickly became clear that Lucien du Beaumont has a problem with his hearing. As in, he seems incapable of hearing the word no.
And so began his targeted campaign, beginning within minutes of me tactfully and carefully explaining why I couldn’t be his Mallorcan fling.
It started with a cup of coffee he made for me.
As if that wasn’t weird enough—as if Zoe hadn’t looked at him as though he’d grown another head—he’d placed it down with a glance that seemed to say, See how I know you?
Then he’d slid me the sugar… because he doesn’t know me at all.
“Papa, Primrose doesn’t take sucre,” Sylvie admonished. My attention skated his ways with a superior look as she’d added. “She is sweet enough.”
A perfectly innocent remark. A repeat of something I’d once joked myself. But her father turned it into something else entirely as he’d swiped his thumb over the full softness of his bottom lip with a look that seemed incendiary.
“Yes, ma puce,” he’d said. “I’ve discovered for myself.”
Milk foam inhaled can be quite painful, it turns out. But at least Zoe was out of earshot. When I’d stopped coughing, I’d scowled at him, my lips twitching with all the words trying to escape when he slid his thumb between his lips as though recalling my taste.
I hated how every molecule of me seemed to lean closer to him.
Later that afternoon, there was the incident with cake. I’m still not sure if he made me sound like an addict or deranged.
“Looks delicious,” he’d said as Zoe set down the delicious-smelling afternoon treat. She’d made coffee for the adults and set out fruit and smoothies for the children.
“Almond, Papa, your favorite,” Sylvie announced. “We all helped make it.”
“Then I’m sure I’ll enjoy it all the more.”
“I cracked the eggs and Felix measured the flour,” she added enthusiastically.
“With the precision of budding scientists,” Zoe reported. “Napkins,” she added with a snap of her fingers. “Excuse me.”
“And what was your part in this?” As his taunting gaze slid my way, I imagined myself kicking his shin under the table.
“I was there in a supervisory capacity,” said prim Prim for the win.
“No, you helped clean,” Sylvie piped up. “You licked the mixing bowl.”
“I—” The heat in my face felt suddenly immense. “Good batter should never go to waste.”
He’d made a low sound that wasn’t hard to interpret.
“I cleaned the spoon,” Sylvie said proudly. “But not so good as Primrose did with the whisk.”
“The whisk?” Her father cupped his chin as though this was the most interesting thing he’d heard all week.
“Yes, and she got her tongue into all the difficult places.”
“How fascinating. She does take her cake eating seriously.” That shouldn’t have sounded provocative.
Three days. He’s waged his campaign for three days, but not once has he touched me. I’m beginning to wonder if that’s the genius part of his plan. Because, if he had, I might’ve taken the high ground and reminded him of my decision.
Or I might’ve caved and folded myself around him like a second skin.
Instead, when he looks at me, or when he takes the chair opposite instead of beside me, when he stands so close that I expect his arm to brush mine, my skin prickles and my mind goes a little haywire. The absence of his touch has become a longing. And he knows it. Arsehole.
Sylvie’s squeal pulls me from my thoughts as her brother tips her from a pink inflatable unicorn.
I leave their father to sort that out as I remember the paperback Zoe loaned me. Digging it from the pool bag, I flick to the first page. I find myself reading the first couple of paragraphs at least three times, and they still don’t sink in. Mainly because I can feel his eyes on me.
“Can I help you?” I snark, looking up.
“In which capacity?”
“Dream on,” I mutter, looking down again. From behind the dark lenses, I watch how he leans back on his palms, his biceps flexing and the ladder of his abs tautening as though for my explicit entertainment.
“The temperature really is beautiful,” he purrs, flicking water upwards from his toes. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to join us?”
“I’m reading,” I retort with just a hint of irritation.
He tips back his head, gaze on the blue, cloudless sky. “You’re very good at resisting the things you want.”
“What I want is to read my book,” I snipe, somehow knocking the book from my lap.
From the other side of the pool, M. LDH is unrepentant, his gaze sliding over me like a lover’s touch. Like his touch. And because that’s not provocative enough, he widens those strong thighs as though in invitation.
Subtlety is not his strong point and composure isn’t exactly mine as I narrow my gaze his way, though the effect is wasted thanks to my sunglasses.
I make a show of holding the book out as I open it, flexing the spine with a little more force than necessary.
Placing it back on my lap, I lower my head.
I keep my eyes glued to the page despite seeing nothing on the page thanks to the image of how his shorts bunch in one particular place.
What that bunching contains and how heavenly it felt to be full of him.
“Is it a good book?”
“Yes.” My answer sounds long-suffering even if my heartbeat is a little wild.
“It’s interesting?”
“Very.”
“You know what’s interesting to me? How you’re reading it upside down.”
“I—” My head jerks up, then down. Dammit, he’s right. My brain begins to flick through a ream of excuses as to why. Nada. I’ve got nothing. “Apologies to everyone and everything I’ve previously called the worst,” I mutter, slapping to book closed. “Because you are at the top of that pile.”
“I think I might’ve heard you say something like that before,” he answers casually. “Do you remember my reply?”
I do remember and frantically glance around, worried he might be about to repeat it, like a call and response.
You’re the worst.
Except when you’re riding my face.
“But you’ve also paid me the best kinds of compliments.” He begins to swirl his feet in the enticing water, the action reminding me of a cat flicking its tail as it prepares to pounce. “When you’re barely verbal and begging for me to—”
“That’s—” A rookie nanny error, it turns out.
I shouldn’t be arguing with him. I should be paying attention to his progeny because, when children are quiet, alarm bells should ring somewhere.
“Sylvie!” I announce as her wet head pops up in front of me.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my spidey senses telling me I should work out where her brother is.
“It is very hot today. Are you sure you will not swim?”
Why did that sound like a threat? I’m momentarily distracted as, at the far side of the pool, Luc stands, grabs his towel, and begins to dry himself off. Lucky towel, I think as the snowy white cotton rubs over his pecs.
“Primrose?” she pipes up again.
My attention slides back. “Why is this family insistent on me getting weaaah!” With a shriek, I jump to my feet as the little darling shoots me with a water gun so huge, she needs both hands to hold it.
“You little—argh!” Felix surfaces next to his sister with an even bigger smile and a larger weapon. “You need to cool down,” he says.
Within seconds, the front of my tennis dress is soaked, and their father is laughing and, no doubt, enjoying the view as he rounds the pool.
“Traitors—both of you!” I complain, flicking the water from my face.
“But it is too warm!” Sylvie squeals, almost collapsing into a fit of giggles.
“You wouldn’t come to the pool, so we made the pool come to you,” her brother adds.
“So kind,” I snipe, dripping water onto the sandstone terrace. I pull the wet cotton from my torso as la famille regard their handiwork. Two members look delighted, and one is gazing at me like I’m naked. Drowned rats must be his thing.
“You,” I say, pointing at their father as he draws closer. “This is your fault.”
All innocence, he asks, “Mine? What was my part in this?”
“You didn’t stop them,” I assert.
“I merely declined to interfere,” he says, far too calmly.
“Same difference,” I mutter, ignoring how his mouth curves. My attention slides to the children. “You know I believe in payback, right?”
Sylvie laughs and Felix? Well, he just looks smug.
I glance at the water guns still in the children’s hands. Then I glance at Luc. And Sylvie, she picks up what I’m putting down.
“Do it,” she whispers, her face lighting up. She slides the gun across the tiles. “
“Do what?” Luc’s smile slips.
“Oh, dear.” I draw the words out into a taunt. “Is someone frightened of getting a little wet?”
“Why would I be? I’ve just gotten out of the pool.” All the same, he takes one cautious step back.
I pump the handle.
“Primrose.” My name sounds like a warning. “Consider your next move very carefully.”
I smile so sweetly. I probably look like an evil Chuckie doll.
“You know, I don’t think I will.” I turn to the children and yell, “Run!” which is a little ridiculous considering they’re waist deep in water.
But it has the desired effect as one shrieks and the other yells, both diving under the water as my watery attack streams after them.
Then I turn to their father. “You look so bloody smug.”
“I can’t help my face,” he says with a tremorous laugh.
I give a quick glance over my shoulder, making sure little ears aren’t nearby. “Your face is so infuriatingly smug,” I say, raising the gun. “I think I would come on your face; just cover it up.”
He looks taken aback, though I see the moment he forms his retort. Not that it matters as I squeeze the trigger and cover his face in the next best thing available to me.