46. Luc
LUC
I tell myself that it’s necessary, that Primrose should return to London.
To medicine. To her family and to the life she delayed for her friend, and my children, then complicated by my selfishness.
I tell myself that she’ll recover from a few cruel words easier than she would from loving a man who could never give her what she deserved.
But most of all, I tell myself I’m doing it for her.
Her fingers tightened around mine as we’d entered the villa. A different city, a different setting, but the club, unmistakably Ardeo. Low lighting, velvet shadows, avaricious looks, and music that seems to pulse beneath the skin.
Yet Primrose is different. She no longer looks like Little Red Riding Hood. Her eyes are bright, and her head is held high. She doesn’t shrink into herself, no longer the girl who wandered into the woods, afraid of wolves.
Maybe because she trusts me.
She shouldn’t, not as I lead her deeper inside.
Eyes follow her immediately. Eyes with the exact degree of interest I’d anticipated.
Immediately, I hate them. Almost as much as I hate myself as I tell her the reason she’s here. The lie I’ve concocted, knowing she’ll recoil.
I expect anger. A slap. Her voice raised high enough to turn heads. My worst fear is that she’ll fall quiet. Become tearful. That she’ll gather the remains of her pride before walking away without looking back.
Though I have a preference, I’m prepared for either reaction. I’ve hardened myself—repeated again and again in my head that I do this for her own good. That she’ll survive. That she will, ultimately, thrive.
“Fine.” The soft fricative comes with a carelessness that ripples across her expression. The word is spoken so calmly that I initially take it for the second reaction. Until she gives a haughty lift of her chin. “Who?”
What the fuck?
She turns her gaze to the room behind her and, if I’m not mistaken, slides a coquettish look at the fucker who’s been staring at her ass the whole time we’ve talked. Her attention returns. Eyes a little bright, a flush on her cheeks. “Him.”
Something inside me stops.
“Him?”
She glances back before adding, “He looks fit. He’ll do.”
She was supposed to run. She was supposed to hate me for bringing her here. She was not supposed to call my fucking bluff.
The man—around my height and conventionally good looking—gives a quirk of a brow: a silent communication that seeks permission.
An instinct so violent surges through me that I’m surprised my champagne flute doesn’t shatter.
I reach out and touch her arm, moving her attention back.
Hey, remember me? I want to put myself between the pair.
Shout across the space that he needs to fuck off.
I suddenly long to bring him to the understanding that should he even breathe in her direction, I will beat his bones to paste with his own fibula.
And… it would seem that Primrose is reading exactly that in my expression. Like she knows what this is costing me. Merde. I force my face into indifference and give the smallest inclination of my head. I want to poke out his eyes for daring to even look at her. Instead, I invite him to join us.
“D’accord.” I angle my attention back her way. Her smile doesn’t falter, but something in her eyes seems to dim.
“So. How do we do this?” She takes a mouthful of her champagne. “Last time there were ribbons,” she adds absently. And this time when she turns her head, I see the ghost of a flirty smile.
The man begins to move in our direction. And my stomach turns to stone.
PRIMROSE
I think I must be stunned as the man joins us a moment later because I don’t bounce. Haul ass. Yeet myself out of here.
They shake hands and even exchange first names.
Politeness is apparently a reflex, despite your intent to dismantle someone’s heart.
The man says something pleasant about the villa, the evening, the view—I don’t fucking know.
I hear the words, but I don’t understand them.
I might as well be listening to Charlie Brown’s mum.
Luc answers when he must, each response pared down to its most basic components. Yes. No. Perhaps. And his expression grows darker with every look the man—Tyson? Tristan?—slides my way.
“And you, Rose?”
Shit. What was the question?
What the hell is happening?
How the hell is it happening?
And obviously, I’m not talking mechanics.
“Have you travelled far?”
Yeah, mate. From another planet. At least, that’s what it feels like.
How have I gone from passion and whispered words of love to standing before a stranger feeling like I’m something to be passed across a table?
Conversation resumes without my participation. Luc supplies little, and the man supplies enough for both of them, perfectly at ease (or ignorant of) the hostility rolling from the man opposite.
Maybe this idiot’s ultimate kink is being beaten to death during sex.
Sex. As if.
Luc isn’t going to make me do this.
There is no way I’m going through with this.
He sways closer and Luc notices, a muscle beginning to pulse in his jaw. But he says nothing. Meanwhile, something savage and wounded unfurls inside me.
He brought me here to suffer. He made this offer. He is the one trying to drag us back to the beginning. This isn’t about fucking; it’s about being fucked over. To reduce us to actions and appetites so the rest won’t matter.
Fine. If I have to sit in the wreckage, he’s taking the passenger seat.
I angle myself towards the man and slide him a seductive smile. “Luc will be watching. I hope you don’t mind.” Actually, I hope you do. I hope the thought of being watched by this man makes your dick shrivel up.
He looks from me to Luc, perhaps checking that this is the arrangement. Hey, assholes. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that she who holds the pussy holds the power?
“How did you put it again, babe?” I shoot daggers Luc’s way.
“You wanted me to take risks, the kind that make me feel alive?” I turn back to the stooge.
“He wants me to be openly desired. And, well,” I add, reaching out to slide my hand down Luc’s silken lapel.
“I desire you to watch this gentleman rearrange my insides.”
Goading. Yes.
Touching. I can’t help myself. Maybe I’ll even get to put my hands around his neck.
“If that’s what you want, mon—” He stops himself. Restarts. “Ma belle.” I can be beautiful, but I can’t be his heart. Not when he’s expecting another man to put his penis inside me.
No, he’s not.
He’s expecting me to run.
“As you so lovingly pointed out recently, I do so love an audience.”
He steps backward, not staggers, the light behind him making his face a collection of hard shadows. I can’t make out his expression, and I don’t know whether the rigid set of his shoulders is from anger or disgust. Or if he’s turned on.
Let it be anger. Let it hurt.
Let this man be hung like a horse.
Or not. Because I’m not going through with this.
No way.
He’s not going to let me.
Not after he called me his beloved.
My heart is beating so hard it seems impossible they can’t hear it. I keep my chin raised and my mouth curved into something that might pass for confidence. From a distance. I can do this. Or pretend that I can. Long enough to force Luc to admit that he can’t.
Because he can’t.
No way.
He’ll let this play out for another minute, maybe two. Long enough to prove whatever brutal point he thinks he’s making.
That I was wrong to listen. Wrong to admit my love.
Then the man will reach for me, and Luc will call the whole thing off. He’ll take me upstairs, or outside, or anywhere we can tear each other apart in private.
But he will stop it because he loves me.
I heard him say it.
And even if he wants me to hate him, there are limits to what he can bear.
The man brushes the hair from my shoulder, the backs of his fingers too close to my nipple, making it stiffen through the thin fabric.
Luc’s gaze drops to it. Every part of him goes still.
I wait. One beat. Two. Three.
He lifts his eyes to mine, and I put every ounce of pain he has caused me into my stare.
Go on, then.
Stop this.
Instead, he puts down his glass.
“Shall we go somewhere a little more private?”
I want to throat punch the man standing beside me.
“Sure,” I say, dragging my gaze from Luc’s because if I look at him any longer, he’ll win.