Luc
I find her in the middle of the dance floor and for one suspended moment, I just watch her from the balcony of a private lounge. Her body sways to the music, her mouth moving silently with the song. How carefree she looks. How young.
I shouldn’t be here. The thought is instant and unwelcome, but the beginning of a deluge. It’s so wrong. How we’ve gotten here, how I manipulated her. I should leave her to her night and her life. She has a whole bright world waiting for her.
But I can’t. Because watching her leave the house felt less like restraint and more like a lack of air. I fucking crave her, a gnawing hunger that sharpens with every hour I’m denied.
Beneath the fracture of lights, her mouth softly opens like an invitation to bliss. She flicks her hand under her hair, and I imagine I can see the strands clinging to her neck, perfumed with her floral scent and fragrant sweat.
She throws her arms around Zoe, and heads pressed close, the pair begin to dance. Hands skims waists, hips rolling shamelessly, laughing too as Primrose throws her head back, carefree and glowing as the men around her circle closer.
My grip tightens on the heavy glass tumbler in my hand.
She looks beautiful. Reckless. And angry. Because of me.
My anger is swift to rise, hot enough to drown out everything else. I’ve never set aside my children for a woman before today. I’ve never wanted another woman as I have her—can’t she see that?
She should have trusted me instead of assuming the worst. She should have waited instead of reacting, then fucking running. Didn’t she read her phone?
I handled her entrance badly, I know. But Amélie’s arrival had me off balance and on the defensive. I didn’t want to give the woman so much as a thread of interest to pull at. Not that it matters. I expect she has a skilful interrogation of the children planned.
Fucking Primrose. How could she believe so little of me? One misunderstanding and she leaves me for a fucking nightclub—a den iniquity—where men surround her like sharks.
My gaze catches on a man dancing closer.
His hands on her hips, he whispers something in her ear.
Something ugly curls inside me. I want to twist the fucker’s hands from his wrists.
I should’ve gone for her myself, not sent Jacques.
And I would have, but for delighting the paparazzi.
It was hard enough to get into the club without being seen.
The fist gripping my heart relaxes its hold when she rebuffs the asshole. I know I have no right to this anger. No right to her. No cause to resent the men attracted to her. She’s not mine to keep. Yet here I am. Twisted up inside, furious that she’s here.
The song changes and the women begin to push through the crowd. I watch the change in their body language as they spot Jacques and follow their exchange. The frowns and the exchange of words.
I didn’t ask him how he knew where Primrose was, but I imagined it had something to do with Zoe.
He’s a fool if he thinks I haven’t noticed how he avoids the kitchen lately.
If I lose my chef because he can’t be mindful of where he sticks his dick, I’m not going to be happy. Double standards, but who gives a shit.
The exchange over, Primrose pulls away. Jacques doesn’t follow, but I have faith in my man. I follow her until I can see her no more, the crowd reduced to flashes of skin and movement between the balcony railings.
I turn back to the room, the music muted here.
A low velvet sofa curves around a table laden with gleaming crystal and ice, the suite promising privacy and discretion to those who can afford it.
Smoked glass and amber lighting, it’s dark and decadent, designed to make a man forget his better judgement.
As though I possessed any at all where Primrose is concerned.
I swipe a hand through my hair as I catch my reflection in the smoked mirrored wall. Black shirt, black pants, fury sitting in the space between his eyes. I look less like a man in a club than a man about to wield one. The woman will drive me to fucking Botox.
I lower myself into a wingback chair and reach for the bottle of cognac to top up my glass.
It’s decent, at least, I think. Setting the bottle back, I cross my ankle over my knee and affecting an air of nonchalance.
Inside, I am not calm. My body is tense, and my head is a swirl of angry, conflicting thoughts as I wait for her.
I don’t wait long.
“Come on, Doc. Don’t make it hard for me.”
I hear Jacque’s voice before I see him. My gut tightens as I put down my glass and stand.
“I thought that was Zoe’s job?” Primrose snipes from the hallway beyond. Despite her unhappy tone and the conversation we’re about to have, relief floods my veins that she’s agreed to see me. Rather that than be carried out over my shoulder.
“She tell you that?” Jacques sounds tired.
“I have eyes,” she retorts sharply. “Fuckknuckle,” she adds with a violent fricative.
“You kiss your… you know what? I don’t need to know who you kiss with that mouth.”
“Then you should’ve left me downstairs.”
“I don’t like it when I can’t do my job.”
“That’s a you problem. And I’m not your job.”
“Come on, Doc, keep those feet moving. Unless you want me to carry you the rest of the way.”
“Try it and find yourself with a knee somewhere very unpleasant.”
The pair round the corner, Lavender’s wrathful expression appearing first. Jacques’s mildly apologetic once follows close behind her.
“All right, Bobby big balls,” she announces, throwing out her hands. “You got me here. Say what you have to say so I can get the fuck away.”
“That will be all.”
“Me or him?” she demands, incandescent in her rage. “And just so you’re aware, I am nowhere done with this mood.”
“Noted.” My eyes glide to my assistant. “Thank you, Jacques.”
With a nod, he dissolves from sight, leaving us alone, the air crackling furiously between us.
Her hair is wild from dancing, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes bright with the kind of ferocity that could easily start a fire.
“Primrose.”
“Lying arsehole.” Her gaze flicks over me, refusing to settle in one place.
Perhaps she’s deciding which part of me to scorch first. “Done with the girlfriend already?” Her question is sharp as she moves deeper into the room, her steps slow and dangerously feminine.
High, high heels and a short, short dress that’s just a twirl away from revealing everything under it.
“Done with Alejandro?” I force my shoulders to relax as my eyes glide up her bare legs. Farther until they reach her face.
“Why? Were you planning on making a cozy foursome?”
“I’m not sure Amélie would appreciate that.”
Her eyes flash, her jealousy an unexpected thrill as she comes to a stop by the side of the laden low table. She bends to pick up my glass, flashing me an ample amount of cleavage in the process. And a lot of leg and ass, courtesy of the smoky glass wall behind her.
I’m appalled her cheap shot has such a visceral effect as my abs tense and my balls tighten.
My head is fit to burst that other men might see her like this.
Touch her like I do. If not now, then when we’re through.
I thrust away the unwelcome thought. I want to trap her in a fucking cage and keep her always.
She lifts my glass of cognac to her red-painted mouth, her eyes glittering dangerously over the rim. “What happened to sharing?” she purrs.
My brow contracts. Did Amélie suggest that…?
“Not that it matters.” One of her shoulders lifts and falls carelessly. “I’m not sure Alejandro would be down.” The final word in her taunt is reminiscent of a blow job. And I thought my head was hurting before. She must want me to kill him.
“Do you know you’ve got a vein pulsing in your temple?” Her tone? Casual as fuck.
“I am unsurprised.”
“I’d get that looked at if I were you. Can’t be too careful at your age.” She sips and tries not to grimace as she swallows.
I bark out a laugh—her words, her expression. Fucking unbelievable, this furiously maddening woman.
“If Amélie is interested in sharing.” I pluck the glass from her hand and turn it in my own. “Rest assured, the invitees would be women.” I press my lips over the red stain of her pout.
“That’s a really shitty excuse.” She scowls at me as though disappointed. “Try harder, Luc. She was practically dry humping you.”
“Yes, for effect.”
She makes a frustrated noise and crosses her arms over her chest. I try not to stare to the almost perfect framing of her breasts. Perfect would be my hands.
“I’d happily give you her number. If only you had your phone,” I add pointedly.
She makes an audible huff and folds her arms. “You’re not my mother.”
“That’s right.” I step into her quickly. Her chin lifts though she takes an automatic step back. Inside me, her retreat makes something dark and primitive tighten with satisfaction. “I’m not your mother, and you’re not a child. So stop behaving like one.”
“Fuck you.”
“Tu me déitruis.”
Her eyes flare. Does she understand the tone if not the words? Does she see how she’s wrecking me?
The space narrows between us, yet I’m not yet calm enough to put my hands on her. “You have taken something innocuous and twisted it, providing yourself an excuse to run.”
“Innocuous!” she yells, no longer on the defense but the attack. “She looked like she was about to get your dick out. And you did nothing to discourage her, nothing to set my mind at ease! You fucking wrecked me!” She punctuates her words with a finger to my chest.
She understood?
“Amélie is my wife’s sister,” I say, wrapping her finger in my own.
“Bullshit.”
“Ask the children. They’re with her now.” I pull my phone from my back pocket and offer it to her. “Call Felix.”
“I’m not calling,” she snaps as though I’m the one being ridiculous. “It’s the middle of the night,” she adds in a mutter.
“She turned up unannounced, and I didn’t want her to know about us.”
“Because you’re ashamed of me,” she snaps.